A Little Too Big 4
The sudden appearance of the Knight-type Golem made it feel like the game's genre had shifted, but in my view this game was still firmly a dark fantasy. Before I piled up ten years of experience, so many people had died right in front of me that explaining it all would leave my mouth sore.
Got hit hard. No fork in the path, so they got caught right away?
That meant the 30th floor Han Se-ah had entered was no exception either.
As I walked along tapping my shield, the remains of adventurers who had fallen to the giant boss that appeared for the scenario quest lay scattered messily through the corridor. Calling them remains was almost embarrassing—they were little more than fragments.
It seemed it wasn't a blind snake but some kind of worm; crushed armor shards, a bow reduced to about a handspan in length, and torn scraps of cloth, all soaked in blood and flesh, were strewn across the floor. This wasn't simply crushing things underfoot and moving on—there were clear signs it had ground people up and eaten them.
Reaching the 30th floor meant a party of at least four, yet gathering every scrap might have amounted to maybe 0.3 people. Their adventurer badges would have been completely disassembled along with their bodies, so it was a scene where I couldn't even stick my nose in and report anything to the Adventurer's Guild.
If it's a worm, should I treat it as a cave monster? ...Maybe it's a Mecha-Worm.
I couldn't collect the corpses—no, the remains—so there was no room for meddling. Still, the scent of blood hadn't faded, which meant the boss monster had just passed through this passage. Taking complicated turns would make it impossible to get back to the clearing where Mecha-Kayden was waiting, so I simply pressed straight ahead.
As I tapped my shield and went as straight as possible to avoid unnecessary trouble, urgent voices reached my ears.
"H-Hey! What the hell are you doing?!"
"Stop!"
In the large passage a boss monster might roam, from a small side path branching off to the side—more like a burrow than a proper path—two adventurers crouched low, almost crawling, called out to me in a panic.
They must have been hiding from the boss's charge and heard the sound of my shield. Only two of them meant the earlier armor fragments and bow remains might well have belonged to their companions.
I looked down at them casually, as if asking what the problem was, and the man and woman stared up at me in bewilderment. They had clearly suffered while fleeing; even inside the cave their faces were filthy with dust and dirt.
The man with bushy hair and a neatly trimmed short, dense beard looked like a warrior from the blisters on his hands and his armor, but he was empty-handed—he must have discarded his weapon to run. The woman with shoulder-length hair in a complete mess looked like a thief, her waist cluttered with lockpicks and similar odds and ends.
"D-Didn't you see that thing? There's something weird roaming the 30th floor right now!"
"Seeing you walking alone, you must be confident in your skills, but don't be reckless—stop. Our party's tank was facing a cave spider and got torn apart in an instant without even reacting!"
They were trying to persuade me while keeping their voices as low as possible, clearly thinking that raising them might bring the thing back. Quite admirable, really. It had probably been a four-person party of two warriors specializing in defense and attack, a guide archer, and a trap-searching thief.
They were trying to stop me out of concern for their own safety, but in this medieval fantasy land where the word "human rights" didn't even exist, people this kind-hearted ranked near the top. Even terrified and half out of their minds, they were worrying about someone else first.
"Did that thing just pass this way?"
"Y-Yeah! So we have to get out of here quick. If you have any spare lanterns, can you sell us one? Or guide us to the passage leading to the 29th floor. Of course, we'll pay a sufficient reward."
Apparently this party, out of overconfidence, had only the guide archer carrying a lantern. That was exactly why I had bothered telling Han Se-ah about one lantern per person—here was the perfect negative example showing up right on cue.
Their faces were full of worry that I might keep banging my shield like a madman or simply leave them behind and dash off. At their desperate looks I nodded and handed them one of the lanterns from my waist.
Normally I would have escorted them all the way to the gate and farmed some reputation, but right now hunting the main scenario boss monster took priority over reputation.
"Hey, will you be okay? That thing is huge enough to completely fill this passage."
"Don't worry. That's average size for large monsters."
"Seeing you alone, you must be an upper-grade adventurer. ...We plan to pay the reward through the guild; may I have your name?"
"Roland, upper-grade adventurer Roland. I'm used to large-type monsters, so don't worry too much. I plan to hunt that thing myself, so get out of the tower safely."
"Th-Thank you..."
Unlike the warrior who kept spouting worried words in fear, the female thief assessed the situation and politely accepted the lantern. She wasn't an archer, but she was still a scout class, so she should be able to flee while avoiding monsters. Once they reached the 20th floor they could take a gate outside, so their odds of survival were far higher than in the old days without gates.
The thief who took the lantern scanned the surroundings, then walked toward the passage still hunched over. The warrior also discarded even his armor and followed as quietly as possible—good judgment. Since there would be no fighting, ditch all the gear and run for it.
Watching their backs like those of terrified herbivores, the stream of Han Se-ah I had left open in a corner of my vision suddenly displayed an updated quest window.
An unidentified large monster began smashing everything with a roar.
Adventurers who fell to the monster that doesn't distinguish between monsters and adventurers.
According to them, it comes seeking the sounds of battle...?
"Oh, looks like Roland met someone. The quest window just updated. Does that mean it'll update again when we meet the boss monster?"
"Ah right, let's check what Roland's doing right now."
Apparently taking the viewers' advice, Han Se-ah turned her body as if looking down the passage and manipulated the hologram. At the same time her stream window switched from the party in the clearing to me. Of course the adventurers who had triggered the quest update had long since vanished into the darkness of the cave.
What appeared on her stream was nothing but my back as I walked over corpse fragments, tapping my shield with the torch-type magic tool.
No matter how many gacha characters and beautiful women Heroes Chronicle had, it was still a game with blood-and-guts combat that was banned for minors. The viewers watching the stream had died a few times themselves, so all sorts of war stories started pouring out.
Of course it wasn't some fantasy novel where senses were 100% linked and a death game broke out, but even without full sensation, watching your own avatar get cut by a sword wasn't exactly a pleasant experience.
Some people got their belly skin torn open by goblins, others got turned into ground meat by orcs, while Han Se-ah had started from that 18+ stuff and never died once all the way to the 30th floor, where she was now joyriding a robot by herself. The chat naturally started roasting her that way.
"Hey, why am I suddenly getting flamed here?!"
These guys are vicious, seriously vicious.
Watching that, I kept walking. But this boss monster bastard—was its own movement so loud that it couldn't hear my shield?
It was so big it had already gone pretty far, damn it.
Aaaaaaaaaah—
I am a complete idiot.
Thinking that to myself, I poured mana into my voice and roared so hard the cave rang. I could have just made a huge racket from the start and lured it—why the hell had I been following behind the boss monster?
No matter how much I banged my shield, it was always going to be quieter than dozens of goblins chittering together. A torch-type magic tool wasn't a drumstick; it wasn't made for making noise.
The boss monster's mechanism was a problem too. If it charged at even the slightest sound, it would ambush the player before they ever found the golem. Then the player would never discover the gimmick and just game-over dozens of times.
Yaaaaaah— Come heeeeere—
So I hurried after its tail, banging my shield the whole way, only for the long boss monster to ignore me completely and charge toward the cave spiders. Don't tell me luring this thing requires some other gimmick instead of just making noise?
According to them, it comes seeking sounds...?
The source of the roar was a giant worm with skin like rock shell.
Adventurers say this thing lives in the desert, so why is it in a cave...?
At least the encounter had registered; even though I hadn't actually heard much from the surviving adventurers, Han Se-ah's quest window on the stream updated again. Whether it updated or not, that long, massive worm completely ignored me and fled far away.
The result was this ridiculous sight of me.
Running through the passage like a madman, screaming at the top of my lungs just to seduce a worm. If I could have, I would have charged in right away, grabbed its tail and dragged it, or just beaten it to death. But reality made that impossible.
You bastard, why are you so faaaaaast—
With my body reinforced by mana I could run faster than a horse. A quick search on the hologram internet window said the average horse speed was 88 km/h, so I could keep going tirelessly at roughly 90–100 km/h.
And that damn boss monster was just a tiny bit faster than me.
That was why adventurers got run over and killed by the boss before they could even react. My enraged roars echoed through the cave. I kept it up until the thing finished grinding every nearby monster and finally reacted to me.
...But if that bastard is a little faster than me, while I'm luring it if I get caught—