Ending Maker Chapter 81
Ending Maker Chapter 81
Chapter 27 - The Kaplan Effect #2
A rare monster, as the name implied, was a rare monster with a low spawn rate.
'And among those, named monsters.'
Even among already-rare monsters, named monsters were rarer still: special monsters classified under individual epithets.
Moreover, named monsters were not simply rare.
There were exceptions, but most named monsters were far stronger than ordinary monsters or possessed special abilities.
'In short, they were difficult and troublesome to deal with.'
But among the users of the Hero Legend series, there were very few who disliked encountering named monsters.
Even without going as far as rotten fossils like Yuder or Cordelia, ordinary users welcomed encounters with named monsters.
Why was that?
Why did they crave encounters with named monsters that were difficult to deal with?
To be clear, it was not because Hero Legend players were perverts who enjoyed pain and suffering.
"What, it wasn't like that?"
"It wasn't? No, wait. Don't tell me?"
"What do you mean, don't tell me? Obviously I'm the exception. I enjoy the thrill of high-difficulty games. You and the other rotten fossils are the perverts who enjoy suffering."
At Cordelia's shameless assertion, Yuder nodded, then pretended to write in the air and said,
"Cordelia is a pervert who enjoys pain and suffering... Noted."
"The fuck?"
Yuder, who had begun getting smacked on the back by Cordelia, looked at the white grizzly they had just taken down and continued his thoughts.
'High risk, high return.'
They were difficult to deal with, but as if in exchange, the rewards were generous.
They gave far more experience than ordinary mobs, and the quantity and quality of their item drops were beyond comparison as well.
'But this place is reality, not a game.'
In a game, killing a white grizzly would have produced various items, but this place was reality.
There was no way a giant white grizzly would be carrying around items that humans far smaller than itself might use.
'But even so...'
"Profit! You just got tougher! Strength!"
"Hey! It hurts! I said it hurts! Who casts magic and then hits?!"
"Right here! Right here!"
"Ah! Ah! It really hurts! I said it really hurts! I think you hit bone!"
"Nice! Bonus damage!"
Yuder, who had barely calmed down Cordelia as she clenched her fist and rejoiced, looked back at the white grizzly again.
'Because equipment isn't the only thing worth salvaging.'
The magic stone embedded only in the forehead of the named white grizzly, the bear gallbladder it naturally had as a bear, the claws harder than steel.
There were plenty of things to take along.
"Whoa! Look at this! There's an item too!"
"Huh?"
Cordelia, who had scampered over to the white grizzly sprawled out flat on its back, suddenly pulled out a small dagger from within its thick fur.
"What the, why is that coming out of there?"
"Who knows, maybe it used it as a toothpick. Oh, this is better than I thought. It's a dagger with a freezing curse. If you get stabbed by this, you get frostbite."
It was a fact that was easy to forget, but Cordelia was unmistakably a mage.
Having instantly identified the magic on the dagger, she began rummaging through the fur a bit more with a satisfied face.
"Aw, there's nothing else."
"No, the fact that even that one thing came out is already strange."
Maybe this was also the Kaplan effect.
In any case, the white grizzly had already been caught, and since they could not remain in this spot, they had to personally extract the magic stone, gallbladder, and so on.
"Umm..."
During the Bicorn hunt, the knights had done it for them, but not this time.
When Cordelia frowned and looked troubled, Yuder grinned and stepped forward.
"Don't worry. Leave it to me and go back to look after Kaplan."
"Is that okay?"
"It's okay."
"Wow, that's the coolest you've ever been."
"Don't fall for me."
"Yeah, I won't."
Cordelia, who nodded immediately, passed by the blinking Yuder and headed toward Kaplan, and Yuder smiled wryly and took out his dagger.
Had even a minute passed?
Cordelia, who had approached Kaplan where he lay collapsed some distance behind, shouted.
"Yuder! I think Kaplan's unconscious!"
"Again?"
"He's pretty faint-hearted. He's a bit different from the Kaplan we know, isn't he?"
"Well... it's still early days. Maybe after going through a lot of these incidents, he became the brave, peerless man of misfortune we know?"
"Hmm, maybe."
Cordelia, convinced, examined Kaplan's condition a bit more and then looked back at Yuder.
As expected of Yuder, who was skilled at this sort of thing, he had already gathered everything they needed.
"Yuder, should we wake Kaplan up again?"
"No, let's just leave him unconscious. That'll probably be more comfortable."
"True, we still have a long way to go, and it wouldn't be good for Kaplan if he kept fainting."
"Right, there's no need for him to stay awake."
"Yeah, yeah, true."
The two agreed, attached Arrows of Winged Wind to the wooden board they had prepared the day before, then even cast a Fly spell on it to create Flying Wooden Board Mk2.
"Now then, let's keep going."
"Become a fisher of monsters."
Yuder and Cordelia, who smiled warmly at each other, set off the wooden board carrying Kaplan.
The distance between the two and the wooden board was a little over thirty meters.
"Whoa, they're already coming."
"The aggro is seriously insane."
It had only been barely thirty minutes since they caught the white grizzly.
The two, who let out delighted shouts, stepped forward.
This time too, of course, it was a big catch.
* * *
Indiana Kaplan was both an archaeology doctor and an adventurer.
Currently serving as a professor at the Imperial Capital Academy, a university renowned even within the Argon Empire, he had already been an extraordinary figure since his graduate school days before becoming a professor.
The discovery of the tomb of the ancient dwarf king Ironclad.
The excavation of the stele of the ancient kingdom of Luplan.
The excavation of the Crystal Orb of Tatania, which proved the existence of Tatania, the land of witches that had been considered mere legend.
The imperial court recognized his achievements and abilities. After he made one discovery of the century after another—discoveries most people would struggle to make even once in a lifetime—it granted him a knighthood and a tenured professorship at the Imperial Capital Academy. Thus, Indiana Kaplan became the youngest professor in the history of the Argon Empire.
But where there was light, there was also darkness.
Judging only by his accomplishments, he should have been a star of the archaeology world and a treasure of the Imperial Capital Academy, but he was always ostracized and hated.
'Jealousy.'
If only it had been just that, at least his heart would have been at ease.
He could have endured it, thinking of it as the envy of losers toward someone who had achieved dazzling success.
'Kaplan came back unharmed all alone again this time?'
'He's practically a god of disaster. Why does something go wrong every single time he goes on an excavation?'
'Could it be on purpose?'
'On purpose? You mean Kaplan deliberately causes accidents?'
'Maybe.'
'Why?'
'Because he wants to hog all the credit?'
It was an absurd false accusation.
It was nothing more than a conspiracy theory without a shred of evidence.
Killing or injuring the researchers who accompanied him, then disguising it all as accidents just so he could hog the credit—how could that possibly make sense?
'Maybe that's exactly it.'
'How do accidents break out like that every single time?'
'And he's always perfectly fine in the middle of it all.'
It was just as people said.
Through countless accidents, Kaplan was always unharmed.
He was injured often, but he was never truly seriously hurt or killed.
'It's okay, they're all just false rumors. How could things that happened by chance be the doctor's fault? You've been injured many times too, haven't you?'
Those were the words of Bartol, who had volunteered for the assistant position that everyone avoided.
How much of a lifeline had those words been to him?
But even Bartol did not last long.
'...I'll quit.'
An accident occurred during his very first excavation with Bartol, just as one always did. Bartol fortunately survived, but he was injured badly enough to spend five months in a hospital bed.
Bartol did not say anything resentful toward Kaplan.
But he also no longer said, as before, that it was not Kaplan's fault, that it was not his doing.
It was from then on.
Kaplan began to travel alone.
Whether going out on investigations or doing excavation work, he no longer accompanied others.
Always, everywhere.
Simply alone.
"Hah!"
Kaplan, whose eyes flew open, bolted upright and gasped for breath.
Amid the confusion, images suddenly filled his head.
A giant monster.
A white grizzly.
The thing that had roared ferociously as if it would devour him at any moment.
He was alive.
He had not died.
It seemed he had somehow managed to escape from the monster this time as well.
"Haa... ha... thank goodness..."
That was as far as it went.
Kaplan, who had been catching his breath, suddenly lifted his head.
It was because his thoughts had reached the companions he had gained after so long.
'What about Sir Yuder?! What about Lady Cordelia?!'
They were certainly strong people. They were the ones who had saved him from the white giant bear. They were people who had been unharmed even after falling from a thousand-fathom cliff.
So he had accepted their request to travel together.
It had truly been the first time in a long while that he had gone out on an investigation with others.
'Please... please!'
"Sir Kaplan?"
A voice reached him.
Clear, pure, and beautiful, as if it had come from the heavens.
Kaplan, who reflexively turned his head, swallowed his breath.
The girl looking at him with the breaking sunlight behind her was so beautiful that he spoke without realizing it.
"An angel?"
"Not an angel, it's Cordelia. You remember me, right? Are you coming to your senses?"
Kaplan nodded, and only then was he able to fully wake up.
"The white, the white grizzly bear?"
"Yuder and I took it down. So don't worry. It's safe here."
Cordelia said with a bright smile.
As if such a thing were no big deal at all.
'Well, they had already landed seven big catches.'
Yuder and Cordelia had already received information from the Wild Fairy Queen about the monsters that appeared in Bladebeak Canyon.
Among them, there was no monster the two of them could not catch.
"Ahh... ah... thank you. Thank you so much. You were put in danger because of me..."
"Oh, what do you mean. We actually benefited thanks to you, Sir Kaplan. Thank you so much for coming with us."
Cordelia was sincere.
Because Cordelia, not just Yuder, did have a conscience.
She inwardly felt uneasy about having used him as bait to lure named monsters.
But to Kaplan, who did not know the circumstances, it sounded like a completely different story.
'Ahh... could she truly be an angel...'
That they had benefited thanks to him.
That she was grateful he had come with them.
How long had it been since he had heard such words?
No, it was more than that. Now that he thought about it, it was the first time he had heard such words since becoming a professor.
'How, how could a person have such a kind heart?'
Even though they had been put in danger because of Kaplan himself, she instead worried about him—such thoughtfulness.
To Kaplan, who had already come to think of himself as a man who carried disaster with him like everyone else did, Cordelia's warm words were like salvation itself.
"An angel... Lady Cordelia is surely an angel. Sniff."
Kaplan began to shed tears of emotion. It was because all the sorrow he had held back burst out at once.
"S-Sir Kaplan?"
"Sniff... thank you."
When Kaplan suddenly grabbed Cordelia's hands and sobbed, Cordelia broke out in a cold sweat and panicked.
'What's wrong with him?'
Could he have noticed he was being used as bait and be launching a counterattack?
While Cordelia's delusion circuits were spinning bizarrely due to panic, Yuder was looking around the surroundings.
'The entrance to Magic City Endymion.'
Yuder, who had entered the interior of a building that looked like a gate, recalled the monsters they had encountered on the way here one by one.
'There wasn't a single one connected to demons.'
The Wild Fairy Queen's information had been accurate.
Among the monsters dwelling in Bladebeak Canyon, there was none directly connected to demons.
'Lacto.'
A lowest-grade demon, contrasted with the guardian of the tomb.
Its appearance had been a relatively recent event.
Even by human standards, not the standards of the Wild Fairies whose sense of time was distorted.
Then where had it appeared from?
Who had summoned it?
Could there be a connection between Lena's death and the demon summoning?
'The place where Lacto appeared was Endymion's underground.'
Yuder began to look around to see if there was a way down to the underground. But it was right then.
"Yuder!"
"Cordelia?"
"I found it! Sir Kaplan found a way down to the underground!"
When he followed the voice outside, Cordelia was hopping up and down some distance away, and Sir Kaplan was smiling refreshingly.
'As expected of Kaplan.'
A man who picked up relics even when he tripped and fell on the road.
If Kaplan had found it, it was surely no ordinary underground passage.
"It's this way. I happened to discover it while tying my shoelaces."
"As expected of Sir Kaplan."
Yuder, who smiled brightly, looked at the staircase descending underground located beside the altar.
It seemed Cordelia had opened with magic what had been firmly sealed.
"It's a place that doesn't appear on the map we received from the Wild Fairies."
"It's worth investigating."
Yuder, who immediately answered Cordelia's whisper, looked back at Kaplan again.
"Sir Kaplan, we're thinking of going down right away. Would that be all right with you?"
"Yes, it's fine."
"Then let's depart at once."
"Yes!"
Yuder was the same as Cordelia.
Far from speaking resentfully toward Kaplan himself, he even kept urging him to continue together.
What kind-hearted young man and woman they were.
"I will take the lead."
"Yes, please be careful."
Yuder let the eager Kaplan take the lead, then shot Cordelia a look.
'What's with him? He seems super high-tension.'
'I don't know either.'
Cordelia, who shook her head, even shrugged her shoulders, and Yuder tilted his head.
'Is it because it's early days?'
The Kaplan who appeared in Hero Legend 2 was a truly iron-willed man.
He always looked as though he were smiling, but it was only an expression, never a genuine smile.
A smile for building walls, not for communication.
A man of iron walls who did not let others in beyond a certain line.
But the current Kaplan was quite different.
His attitude toward Yuder himself and Cordelia was affectionate beyond measure.
'I guess it's because it's early days.'
After all, Kaplan appeared from the mid-game onward.
"Let's hurry up and go too."
"Oh, yeah."
Yuder, who had reasonably convinced himself, moved his feet following Cordelia's urging.
About ten minutes passed like that.
The staircase that had seemed as if it would continue endlessly finally came to an end.
The place they reached after descending nearly several hundred meters or more was a giant underground temple.
"Wow..."
Cordelia brightened the magic orb they were using as a torch and let out an admiring exclamation.
It was because the darkness was too thick to grasp all of the surroundings, but even the things that immediately caught her eye were amazing.
The ceiling height was a little over thirty meters.
Large pillars stood here and there, and upon the pillars, splendid carvings were embossed.
They were probably carvings of the ancient elf gods said to have been worshipped in the Magic Kingdom of Magellan.
"Magic City Endymion..."
Kaplan let out admiration and approached a pillar.
And it was right at that moment.
Yuder and Cordelia turned around almost simultaneously.
Yuder sensed a presence.
Cordelia felt her fine hairs stand on end.
A gaze hidden in the darkness, watching this way.
It was not a person.
Nor was it a monster of the surface.
Red eyes flashed.
It took a soundless step in the darkness.
A demon.
No, a Hell monster.
Yuder held his breath.
He inferred the monster's height and form from the size and height of its glowing eyes.
Its height was a little over four meters.
Judging by the size of its glowing eyes, it was humanoid.
A soundless step.
No, it had not been a step in the first place.
A snake.
A snake-like lower body.
"Najarus."
A Hell monster with a human upper body and a snake lower body.
It was a higher species than Lacto. Moreover, they could not use a trick like the “Lacto on the bridge” to catch it this time.
"It's fine, we can handle a Najarus."
Both Yuder himself and Cordelia had become much stronger.
If the two of them were together, fighting it head-on was possible.
"As long as it's not a rare. No, as long as it's not a named."
Just as the snake had one head, ordinary Najaruses had only one human upper body.
But among them, there were Najaruses with two upper bodies.
Cordelia nodded at Yuder's words, but only for a moment.
"As long as it isn't a rare monster?"
"Yeah, as long as it's not a rare..."
That was as far as it went.
Yuder, who had recalled the same thing as Cordelia, instantly turned his head to look toward the pillar, and the Najarus in the darkness waited no longer.
"Human! Tear you to pieces!"
"Human! Devour you!"
Two voices rang out at the same time.
A rare.
And not an ordinary rare at that.
A horn proving it was a named had sprouted in the middle of its forehead.
"Kaplan."
The Kaplan effect.
As if answering Yuder's mutter, the named Najarus Karakula raised its voice.
It charged toward Yuder and Cordelia.