Side Quest Dungeon Exploration Failed - Part 10
After finding the relic, I hurried back to where I'd been. Keeping low, I carefully surveyed the situation.
In the distance I could make out the two of them — and Yu Seolhyeon wasn't moving. She was down. Is she... still alive?
Don't tell me she's dead.
I swallowed hard. The worst-case scenario rose to the surface of my mind, and the thought that I might already be too late wouldn't leave me alone.
"Ugh, uuugh. Persistent... so damn persistent...!"
"..."
"What, you finally went down? Tch. How annoying."
"..."
Oh. She's alive? Seems that way — Kate wouldn't be yelling like that if she weren't. Looks like she took a hard hit to the head and blacked out for a bit. Whew. Small mercies.
"I'll burn you to a crisp. For real."
Kate's expression turned murderous as she began gathering a massive amount of mana into a single point. Judging by the way she was concentrating that enormous volume of power into her mouth, she was about to use Flame Breath.
She was going to spew fire and incinerate Yu Seolhyeon's unconscious body. Shit. This is bad. What do I do?
Draw her attention with an arrow? Right — I'm out of arrows. Then another item... no, I've already used almost everything. Damn it.
"Hah."
I clenched the relic I'd farmed and drew a slow breath in, then out, steeling myself. Don't get cold feet now. You already made up your mind.
"...Alright. Let's do this."
I muttered it under my breath to shake off the fear, then sprinted to where Yu Seolhyeon had fallen. I planted myself in front of her and gave her a quick once-over.
"Whew... thank god."
The wounds were pretty bad, but they weren't fatal.
"Unconscious, not dead..."
I'd managed to dodge the worst-case scenario, at least. If something had happened to Yu Seolhyeon, it would've been on me.
"...Why'd you come back jush to die? Heh, heh."
Kate, her mouth nearly full of gathered mana, sneered at me. Fair enough. I'd run away looking pathetic, and now I'd come back. From her perspective, it was pretty funny.
But her letting her guard down like that actually worked in my favor. The more overconfident she was, the better this relic would work.
"...Pfft. I'll kill you too!"
Here it comes.
Kate unleashed the fire without warning. As the roaring flames surged toward me, I bit down on my lower lip. The heat felt like it would sear the skin right off my body — but I couldn't dodge. If I ran now, I'd accomplish nothing. I had to face it head-on.
Please. Come on.
Praying inwardly, I activated the relic and swept my sword down in a vertical arc. I'd only tested it roughly before, so I couldn't be a hundred percent sure — but I believed in this relic's power. Right now, believing was all I had.
...It worked!
The flames that had been raging like a volcano lost their force and dissolved into something like smoke, fading away. It looked for all the world like I'd simply slashed the fire apart with my sword, which was a little disorienting — but having contracted with the relic known as the Tears of the Moon, I understood what had actually happened.
The flames hadn't vanished. They'd been absorbed.
So that's how the absorption works.
The awe lasted only a moment. I winced and staggered, because the instant I activated the relic, a huge chunk of my stamina evaporated. I'd known using it would drain my stamina, but I hadn't expected it to be this bad. The drain was far worse than when I'd absorbed mana as a test.
Apparently the more powerful the mana you absorbed, the more stamina it cost. I let out a long, quiet breath.
Still. I can hold out at this level.
I forced my face into something calm and looked at Kate. In a situation this desperate, showing fatigue would do me zero favors. I had to act like I was completely fine.
"I'll kill you. I'm going to kill you."
Oh, this bitch.
Kate was gathering mana again. A considerable amount of it rippled and danced toward a single point. Leave it to a boss monster to have a mana pool that ridiculous. What now? Just rush in and start swinging?
No. I'm not a swordsman. A close-quarters fight with Kate wouldn't last long, and I might even get counterattacked. So what, then?
...I have to use the mana release, don't I?
I swallowed hard and tightened my grip on the sword hilt. Absorbing Kate's mana alone had already cost me a serious amount of stamina. I was worried about how much more the release would take. But Kate was just standing there charging up, which meant my accuracy would be high. Trying it once wouldn't be a bad idea. And a mana release through the relic was the best attack I had right now.
I clenched my teeth and raised the sword. The mana I'd just absorbed from Kate slowly concentrated into the blade, and I could feel an enormous power gathering at my fingertips. Comparing it to my own mana would've been an insult — it was that overwhelming.
This should be enough.
Before Kate could make the first move, I activated the relic and swung, releasing the mana. A razor-sharp blade of concentrated power streaked toward her in a blaze of light. Thanks to the relic, I could launch it just like Sword Qi Projection. There was a reason they called these things relics.
She fired off a burst of flame in surprise, but it wouldn't do her any good. According to the relic's settings, absorbing mana and then discharging it all at once increased the output by a factor of 1.5.
"Ghk— uh, aaaagh?!"
The sword qi struck Kate dead-on. She collapsed in a spray of blood, thrashing with her arm and tentacles severed. It was a pretty gruesome sight. I grimaced.
"S-Sword... Sword Qi Projection...? A nobody like you... how did you... that technique...!"
The damage was even worse than I'd expected. If I compared it to the game, it was like stacking the relic's 1.5x effect, a 1.9x slashing weakness against physical attributes, and a 2.0x critical hit all at once.
Kate lay there twitching pathetically, but I couldn't follow up. The stamina drain was just too severe.
Hah... hah... from just that?
I'd only used the mana release once, and already my heart was pounding and my arms and legs were shaking. It felt like I'd been on a forced march in full combat gear for hours. A nameless exhaustion had taken over my entire body. Everything felt heavy. My eyelids weighed as much as rebar. My body moved like cotton that had been dunked in water and wrung out.
I wanted nothing more than to gasp and gulp down sweet air like a drowning man — but Kate wasn't completely down yet. I couldn't let her know I was exhausted. If she realized I was spent, she might start thrashing around or putting up a fight for no good reason.
So I clenched my teeth in secret, locked my expression down tight, and took a slow step forward, pretending I was perfectly fine.
Why are my legs like this? Did they just give out?
I nearly staggered. If I let my tension slip even a little, I was going to crumple. But I somehow calmed my trembling, aspen-like legs and slowly closed the distance to where Kate lay.
I'd been training my stamina for a long time, and this was what I got after using a relic a couple of times? The thought crossed my mind that I shouldn't just be farming relics — I needed to get my hands on some good elixirs, too.
"...Uh, ah, nngh."
Before I knew it, I was standing over Kate. I quietly raised my sword.
"What, am I... cough, cough... dying like this?"
Kate looked up at me weakly, her face a wreck, coughing up blood in successive bursts. For a brief moment I gazed down at her in silence, seized by a feeling I couldn't name.
Her lower half was a snake, but her upper body was human. Until a moment ago I'd been too busy fighting to have any room for sentiment. That wasn't the case now. She could talk like a person. She looked human. And yes — I hesitated, just a little.
But...
"Ugh, nnngh."
I bit down lightly and drove the sword in. The sharp blade sank into her heart.
Kate let out a short moan, shuddered once, and the light left her eyes. She was dead.
"..."
I looked down at Kate's now-cold corpse and thought. Leaving her alive without making sure she was dead was far too dangerous. Kate wasn't human — she was half monster. There was no telling what kind of variable she might create.
For someone as weak as me, the option of not killing her simply didn't exist. Even if I didn't do it, other people would show up and finish the job anyway.
Maybe I just didn't want to kill her with my own hands.
Yeah. That was probably all it was.
I sighed inwardly. I'd already decided to become a hero. That meant I was destined to kill villains eventually. In a fight against someone evil, letting your guard down meant dying. I wasn't strong enough to afford leaving an enemy alive. A weakling showing mercy to someone stronger was absurd on its face.
I yanked the sword free and collapsed onto the ground.
"Ah. Thought I was gonna die."
My arms and legs were shaking. Was it the tension leaving my body, or was it because I'd killed Kate? I couldn't say for sure. But one thing was clear: I felt terrible. I was exhausted, mentally and physically.
But I was too old to sit here whining like a kid. I'd even done my military service in my previous life, for crying out loud. Time to shake off this nasty feeling and move on.
Right — Yu Seolhyeon. Where is she?
I was a little worried about her lying there. She wasn't dead, but her injuries were pretty serious. She needed first aid. I hurried over to her.
"Yu Seolhyeon, you okay? Hey."
"..."
I gave her shoulder the lightest of shakes, careful not to touch her wounds, trying to wake her. No response. It was going to take some time for her to come around.
I quickly scanned the area, pulled the necessary medicine from the bag that had been torn during the fight with Kate, and stopped Yu Seolhyeon's bleeding. Her wounds were far worse than mine. I wanted to give her a healing potion, but I'd used them all during the fight. First aid was the best I could do right now.
"Whew. That about cover it?"
Salve, bandages — I'd done everything I could.
"Now all that's left is... waiting for the rest of the team?"
Why the hell were these people taking so long? At this point, were they staying away on purpose?
"...Hm?"
My eyes fell on the sword. Come to think of it, we'd made a deal that I'd get one item farmed from the dungeon. One. Just one...
There are some pretty decent items in here, even if they're not as good as the Tears of the Moon.
After all this hell, walking away with just one relic felt a little... lacking. Yu Seolhyeon was the type to keep her promises — which, put another way, meant she was also the type who wouldn't bother keeping anything she hadn't promised. In other words, even if I asked for a little extra compensation, there was a high chance she simply wouldn't go for it.
I snuck a glance at the unconscious Yu Seolhyeon. She'd been out for the entire fight. She had no way of knowing how I'd taken Kate down.
I cleared my throat inwardly, then quietly drew the longsword I'd brought as a sidearm from its scabbard and tossed it far away. Then I slid the masterwork blade with the Tears of the Moon mounted in it into the empty sheath. It slid right in. Oh. Perfect fit.
Looking at it like this, it just looks like the sword I brought.
The appearance was ordinary enough. The size was about the same, too. Aside from the gem set in the guard, it was indistinguishable. Nobody would be able to tell it was a relic.
She wouldn't go checking every item one by one just in case I'd pocketed something, right? And even if she did, there was no way to tell whether it was a relic or not.
In that case...
I'll just say this sword is the ordinary one I brought with me. And I'll take a different item as the one Yu Seolhyeon promised me.
Honestly, it's a little... no, it's a very cheap move. But in this game, farming as many items as possible early on is the right call. Midterms, ranking matches, training camp — a bunch of events were coming up soon. Getting as many items as I could would only help with what was ahead.
I can just tell Yu Seolhyeon about dungeon locations I know from the game and bump up her cut a little.
And if you really think about it, I saved her life twice. I'm basically her lifesaver. This much should be fine, right?
...I ran through the self-justification in my head.
Ah. Then how do I explain running away to Yu Seolhyeon?
That was a problem. Originally I'd planned to show her the relic as my excuse — to tell her I'd left to go find the artifact that could take Kate down. But now that I'd decided to keep the relic a secret, that story was off the table.
I'll just say I hid and waited for Kate to let her guard down, then ambushed her.
There's a huge gash on Kate's body, but I can say I used a magic scroll or something. The excuse was pretty flimsy, but with a little seasoning it might sound plausible enough.
Alright. I'll come up with a decent cover story before the others get here.
And so I set about preparing various excuses while I waited for the rest of the team to arrive.
On the way home after rescuing all the trapped heroes.
Yu Seolhyeon and the other heroes who'd been imprisoned had recovered somewhat thanks to the healing potions the rest of the team had given them. Still, the vehicles were redirected to the Gaonnuri Clan for thorough treatment and examination. And yet.
Lee Jinhyuk keeps glancing at me, doesn't he?
Yu Seolhyeon could only tilt her head at the sight of Lee Jinhyuk sneaking sidelong looks at her, like a thief whose own feet had given him away.
Ah. Wait.
Something seemed to click. Yu Seolhyeon swallowed a small sound.
Is he worried I saw him during the fight with the snake woman?
Well, he'd given her all sorts of strange excuses — that he'd gotten lucky with an ambush, and so on. But the truth was, he'd been hiding in secret until the moment Yu Seolhyeon had collapsed, half-conscious. Which was, in itself, proof that he was extremely reluctant to reveal his strength in front of others.
From Lee Jinhyuk's perspective at the time, Yu Seolhyeon hadn't been moving, so he'd assumed she was out cold. But he might also have considered the possibility that she was still faintly conscious. And if he was more skilled than she'd given him credit for, he might have been able to tell whether she was conscious from something as subtle as her presence.
Whatever Lee Jinhyuk was hiding, there was nothing to gain from prying into something he clearly didn't want to show. So Yu Seolhyeon decided to play dumb.
"It's fine."
"Huh?"
"You don't need to worry so much. I'll pretend I don't know."
"Uh... okay?"
Forcing someone to talk about what they're hiding is a surefire way to ruin a good relationship.
Isn't that right, Lee Jinhyuk?
"Hmm."
Lee Jinhyuk, on the other hand, just blinked in confusion. What was Yu Seolhyeon talking about all of a sudden? What didn't he need to worry about? What was she going to pretend she didn't know?
Wait. Did she figure it out? That I lied and took a different item?
"..."
Lee Jinhyuk fell silent. His conscience was poking him for no good reason, and he suddenly wanted to get home as fast as possible.