Princess 'King' Maker 4
Whether the viewers had thoroughly scolded her or she'd deliberately baited them into rage-donating, I couldn't quite tell—but time marched on either way, and we set foot on the 41st Floor once more.
Even with a political side quest involving a prince and princess tangled up in the mix, harpies were still harpies. They kept their distance from us, which meant the trek through the mountain range—from the 41st Floor to the 42nd, then on toward the 43rd—was nothing but peaceful.
Our only enemies were the treacherous mountain trails and the thin air of the highlands that made every breath a struggle.
"Haa… Just walking, and somehow it's this exhausting."
"Could this be another curse of the Demon King?"
"Maybe. It might be."
Having all reached the Upper-grade realm where we could project mana outside our bodies, none of us collapsed outright—but struggling to breathe was still enough to irritate anyone. A tiny nose twitched as someone sucked in air with all their might.
Grace, who'd grown up running through mountain villages, and Katie, who'd tempered her body with the sword, neither of them would know a thing about altitude sickness. Irene was struggling just the same, periodically scattering a gentle wash of Holy Power to soothe the party—but Holy Power couldn't manufacture oxygen.
Harpies circled overhead with no intention of coming down, breathing remained strangely difficult, and all the while the terrain forced us up and down the mountain along narrow, steep trails.
"……Can't we just flatten these peaks with a Roland Death Beam already? Seriously?"
It was a structure practically designed to frustrate the player.
If not for the occasional shadow leopard or one-horned mountain goat that lunged at us, you wouldn't have known whether this was an RPG or a hiking simulator. The party grew quieter as everyone focused on steadying their breathing and adapting to the altitude, while Han Se-ah kept chatting with her viewers even as she panted for air.
Still, true to form, BB Games seemed dead serious about tormenting players—had they designed this with that kind of precision on purpose?
"…Haa, Roland? The harpies are getting closer somehow."
"Just curiosity, like last time?"
"It's a little different. The way they're circling in formation has changed—like they received some kind of order."
At her words, the small heads that had been gradually drifting lower all looked up at once. Just as Grace said, the harpy flock had drawn somewhat nearer.
Even without the red-feathered beauty who issued commands joining them, the old-woman harpies with eagle bodies were closing the distance little by little. And the flight paths that had been lazily looping overhead now moved in tight groups of three and five, shuttling back and forth like a fighter squadron.
Anyone could see they were forming up for a diving assault.
"Why'd they suddenly get so aggressive?"
"…Maybe there's a nest nearby?"
"A nest?!"
It was Grace who answered Han Se-ah's muttered question—loud enough for both her viewers and the party to hear. As a mountain-village hunter who'd taken birds as well as small game, Grace floated the idea of a nest, and Han Se-ah's eyes lit up.
"Their behavior's a bit different, but when creatures like that suddenly get restless, doesn't it usually mean we've gotten close enough to their nest that they can't just watch anymore?"
"True. Monsters are said to retain animal instincts. Let's check."
"Check? How?"
If even harpies—old women from the neck up and eagles everywhere else—still carried an eagle's instincts, they'd have no choice but to attack uninvited guests heading for their nest. The hesitation, then, was the clash between the beauty harpy's scouting orders and the instinct to defend their home?
The method Han Se-ah chose to confirm it was rather blunt.
"I've planted a mana stake right here. Using this as a baseline, let's pick a path in the direction where the harpies get more agitated."
"Simple, but solid."
The mountain paths weren't a single trail, so Grace gauged the route by riding the ridgelines and studying the crests beyond. That meant it was entirely possible we'd already passed a harpy nest while searching for a passage.
In the end, it boiled down to watching the harpies' reactions and lighting up every suspicious corner of the minimap.
We climbed a peak along the trail, came back down, followed a valley along the ridge to the next summit, and watched how the harpies responded. Up the mountain, down it, along its flanks—after all that wandering, we found a place.
"Looks suspicious as hell, right?"
"Something's definitely packed in there."
"Was it hidden by the clouds from a distance, or do they have some kind of magical ability?"
There stood a peak so tall you had to crane your neck even from the highlands.
Wrapped in clouds around its midsection, the towering summit looked about as high as the neighborhood mountain I'd often seen back when I lived in Seoul. Not some Everest-level height that made you abandon all hope—roughly a thousand meters, give or take. A pretty tall mountain, in other words.
Stacking an extra thousand meters on top of already high terrain was still absurd, but the gate started from the top of a different peak anyway, so…
A black flock of harpies slipped into the clouds coiled around that towering summit. Moments later, more harpies poured out of the clouds a little to the side. Anyone could tell they were rotating out for patrol shifts from a nest.
"Over there, around the mountain's waist—one-horned mountain goats are clustered like a flock of sheep in a pasture. Looks like the harpies are raising them."
"So it really is a harpy nest."
"Let's go check it out. We can't just walk past."
"Roland's right. We have to confirm it."
Grace's eyesight was better than mine, and she'd even spotted the herded one-horned mountain goats—there was no way we were leaving that alone. We crossed a few more peaks and headed toward their nest.
Did that high peak have some kind of magical property? The strange tightness in my chest with every breath eased, and my breathing gradually grew more comfortable. Drinking in air so clean and pure you could call it wind-rich, I listened to the distant bleating of one-horned mountain goats.
Kueeeek—
Aside from the slightly weird goat cries, it felt like some Alpine tourist destination. Not that I'd ever been—only seen it on variety shows. …It would've been nicer without the harpies diving from overhead with their talons out.
"Knew it—they're coming!"
Even so, they couldn't just watch us approach the nest. One by one, the harpies began closing in. Black shadows blotted out the sunlight, and a fierce wind whipped our vision into chaos with the sound of thrashing wings. Through the dust-blurred air, razor-sharp talons flashed into view.
Mindless old-woman harpies or not, they were still monsters of the 43rd Floor. The way they muddled our sight with their wings and tried to drive their talons into a prey's nape was razor-sharp in its cunning.
"Hanna, arrows!"
"Explosive tips and fire tips!"
Whiiish— CRACK-!!
Of course, if a tanker's name was worth anything, a little dust in the eyes wasn't going to leave an opening to exploit.
I raised my shield to catch the talons and, in the same motion, swung my mace overhead. Not much force behind it, but more than enough to pulp a single eagle body.
Swept up by a mace swung without even looking, one harpy scattered black feathers, never even managed a screech, and slammed into the ground—turning into a Mana Stone.
At the same time, I saw Han Se-ah pull a fistful of bright-red arrowheads from her inventory and hand them to Grace. Now that the harpies were coming on their own without any need to hide, that was the right call.
"Everyone, watch your heads!"
Twang—
A light snap of the bowstring, and searing flames roared to life overhead. She'd skipped learning the magic she was supposed to and poured everything into alchemy instead—and the fire from those alchemical arrowheads was more potent than expected.
…Has she just decided to commit to being a pure support?
Kyaaaat—
Kyaak—!
While I was thinking that, two harpies thrashing in panic at the flames blooming in midair had their legs cleanly severed by a flash of pale-blue aura. With about five of their flock dead in that short span, the rest frantically climbed for altitude.
One more arrow streaked after a retreating tail and dropped another with a heavy KWOOM—!, and only then could I count how many there were.
Seven black old-woman harpies still circling overhead. One I'd smashed to pulp, two caught in the flames, two with their legs sliced off, one with an explosive tip buried in its rear. Roughly thirteen of them had been flying as a group.
Unfortunately, we'd only recovered three Mana Stones.
"…Fighting like this is going to put us in the red."
"Huh? Why?"
"Each arrowhead costs five silver!"
"W-what? Why so expensive?!"
Fewer than twenty arrows to a quiver—empty one and you were out a full gold. Earnings had gone up since becoming Upper-grade adventurers, but that price still made you flinch. Fire them off like ordinary arrows and you'd rack up gold-level losses every single outing.
Still, the power was undeniable. The harpies, terrified of getting caught in the soaring flames and explosions, pulled back again and resumed circling overhead.
"…Grace, can you guide us to that mountain's waist as fast as possible?"
"Yeah, of course. There aren't many forks anyway."
The problem was that those soaring flames had spooked the harpies above us—but they'd also drawn the attention of every harpy herding goats or patrolling in the distance. I had zero desire to fight dozens of harpies on a narrow mountain trail.
"Then run!"
"Uh, uhh? I'll head for that cave over there first!"
They still had enough survival instinct to eye each other warily as they moved, but once all those black dots in the distance joined up, they'd almost certainly rush us on sheer numbers.
Flying monsters, from small to large—this was exactly why they were such a pain…!
And so, under Grace's guidance, we began racing down the mountain path.