Wrath of the Lich
“Don’t get too scared. Just relax and let’s go.”
“Like that’s easy.”
She took the lead while I followed behind. Considering the gap in our abilities, it was the safer choice, but the skeletons didn’t seem to care. All we found were the miserably shattered remains, settled dust, and the leftover scraps of a civilization that might once have achieved something great.
The end of the ruins was drawing near. For us, or for the ruins themselves.
I looked up at the gaping hole in the center of the ceiling. Crushed or crumbling structures filled my vision. Maybe it was because the magic lamps were dim, but everything took on a deep teal hue. It looked exactly like the color palette you’d see in a horror movie with overly stylized CGI.
Cheon Mari poked her head over the railing beside me, following my gaze upward. A small exclamation slipped out beside me.
“This looks like it’d be worth preserving as the most badass moment of the deceased’s life. Too bad there’s no camera.”
“We haven’t even hit a real crisis yet and you’re already talking about the deceased’s life? What kind of nonsense is that?”
Tsk tsk, don’t jinx us. We haven’t even escaped yet and she’s already planting weird death flags.
“Well, even if things are about to go to shit, maybe there’s no regret? Oh, right, Sian. If I die here, can you leave some words on my grave?”
“……What words?”
“Looks like I raised the wrong character. Rerolling. Good luck.”
“You crazy bitch.”
She was a regressor hunter with countless experiences under her belt, so why couldn’t she be more reliable? The atmosphere was supposed to be incredibly serious, yet she was acting way too lighthearted. It almost felt like even if we died here, we wouldn’t really be dead. Like we’d just become lingering ghosts and film Legendary Hometown for all eternity.
I kept walking while listening to Cheon Mari’s nonsense. Eventually, we reached the deepest part of the floor.
Around us were piles of filthy debris and─
Clatter. Clack.
Skeletons were twitching on the ground. The ones that had been hit by falling rubble and scattered awkwardly were struggling to move. Their efforts never quite became actual movement, but the sight of corpses flailing around wasn’t exactly good for the heart or mind.
The silver lining was that we’d seen so many skeletons by now that it barely registered.
We kicked the rolling skeleton heads across the floor as we continued forward, searching for the hidden room.
“Mm, found it.”
In truth, we hadn’t wandered at all. The way she located it instantly was suspicious enough to raise Cheon Mari’s eyebrows. Very seriously.
If anyone other than me had been here, they would’ve already suspected that Cheon Mari was actually a demon. She fought suspiciously well, was suspiciously familiar with situations like this, performed emergency treatment suspiciously competently, knew the layout suspiciously well, and even if none of that were true, the fact that she came here based purely on rumors to find a hidden item was suspicious in itself.
Maybe she knew the ruins’ structure and was just hurrying because we needed to get out alive. Or maybe she was treating me like a clueless middle school first-year and acting accordingly. What was certain was that if she kept showing this level of suspicious behavior, it was getting harder for me to keep pretending I didn’t notice.
If days like this kept happening, real problems might actually arise.
“Sian, don’t you think the hidden room is through here?”
“Uh… yeah, looks like it.”
Still, survival came first, so I played along. Cheon Mari stepped into the long corridor leading to the hidden room.
“Look. Everywhere else shows signs of cleaning, but this place hasn’t been touched at all.”
“Must be a really old section.”
“All the bones look ancient too, on the verge of crumbling. Some of them even look like they’ve been gnawed on and shattered.”
She tossed one of the fallen magic lamps from outside deeper into the passage. A massive pile of bones was revealed, heaped even higher than before.
“How nice it would be if those bones belonged to Germans.”
She muttered it quietly, then crouched low and began moving forward. I followed behind her, drawing my dagger.
“What the…?”
We had been heading deeper down the straight corridor when, at last, corpses with intact flesh still attached to them appeared. I hurried over and checked again. There was no pulse in their mangled bodies, and each chest bore a hunter’s name tag. I checked the others, but they were all the same.
Cheon Mari carefully drew her sword.
“I’ll keep watch. If there’s anything useful on the bodies, take it.”
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much worth taking. The contents of bottles and cans had spilled out long ago. The armor wouldn’t fit us anyway, and there were practically no weapons. After thoroughly searching their bodies, the only things we found were three scrolls.
“Delayed detonation, five minutes, compound explosion scroll? Isn’t this the kind of thing they only use when demolishing buildings?”
Still, it wasn’t completely useless. After all, if it could explode, it could also blow something up.
“The scrolls I brought might not have been powerful enough… but this is lucky.”
Cheon Mari looked genuinely relieved, as if she hadn’t known the scrolls were here. Since even a regressor couldn’t know every little detail, it couldn’t be helped.
“……Still, I have a bad feeling.”
Those words meant a fight was coming. This was not something to feel relieved about.
She handed me two of the scrolls she was carrying along with some tape.
“One is an earthquake scroll. The other is an explosion scroll. Once we’re inside, the first thing you do is tear the earthquake scroll in the center of the room.”
“Center of the room. Earthquake scroll.”
“The room’s structure will be one of two types. Either supported by pillars, or just by the walls alone.”
“A room this deep underground with no pillars at all would be pretty unstable, wouldn’t it?”
“Probably. That’s why if it’s wall-supported, just tossing the earthquake and explosion scrolls anywhere should cause a collapse. But if there are pillars….”
“We’ll have to destroy all the pillars with the explosion scrolls.”
“Right. There might be more pillars than scrolls, but destroying just enough of them should bring the whole room down.”
The explosion scrolls I was holding totaled four. One was a slightly different type, but all four had a five-minute delayed activation. What Cheon Mari was suggesting was that we activate all the scrolls at once, stick them on different pillars, and then run for the gate.
“I understand.”
“And to be honest, I don’t know what’s at the end of this path. There might be a boss.”
The final obstacle preventing us from leaving this place alive. Even if it sounded vague, it was real.
“Hunting it will be impossible. That’s why things ended up like this even after quite a few hunters were deployed.”
“Then─”
“I’ll buy time no matter what. While I do, you set up the scrolls.”
Impossible to hunt. I’d thought an experienced regressor would be able to hunt it. But she was saying she could only buy time? The monsters pouring out were mostly low-rank, so wouldn’t the boss be low-rank too? Was it really at a level she couldn’t handle?
When I made a shocked face, she grinned.
“Still, if it really comes down to it, I’ll make sure at least you can get out alive, so don’t worry too much.”
Her expression and her words didn’t match at all. Cheon Mari started walking forward again.
“…….”
A question suddenly occurred to me. Why was she being so good to me today? There was nothing in it for her to keep making these earnest promises. Even though she was a regressor, walking the path she had already suffered through once must be painful. The best option for her would be to let me die and escape alone to be rescued. Moreover, her actions in the game marked her as a cruel person with not a single friend and a complete villain. She was the hidden boss; there was no reason for her to do this.
I stared at her as she walked ahead, unable to understand. But no matter how long I looked, the only thing that changed was the path growing more miserably ruined.
Finally, at the end of the path, we discovered the exit gate and four pillars. A red-boned skeleton shaman rose before them.
“Wrath Lich.”
A boss you could encounter after leaving the very early game. In the later stages it would be reduced to a mere mob, but for players who had just left the early game, it was like a massive wall.
Cheon Mari tossed her bag aside and walked fearlessly toward it with light steps. Her black blade gleamed. The lich’s eyes glowed. They stood right in front of each other, on the verge of true confrontation.
Swoosh!
The black curve shot forward as if to shatter its head. It was as fast as the wind, and the tendons standing out on her wrist showed how powerful it was.
Clang─!
But the strike wasn’t nearly as powerful as its appearance suggested. The blade had reached the head. Unfortunately, the lich only tilted its skull slightly. Then, as Cheon Mari made her sword tremble, blue particles scattered from the tip like dying embers.
A barrier. And not just one that blocked non-magical attacks like bullets, but one capable of nullifying even attacks infused with magic like this one.
“Damn it…!”
It was a bad matchup. A monster with this many barriers needed to be dealt with using magic specialized in barrier removal. But Cheon Mari had no magic; she kept retreating. In contrast, the lich slowly advanced toward her.
It looked like she was being pushed back, but that wasn’t entirely true. The lich was gradually moving away from the center of the room.
It was my chance.
The moment the lich moved far enough away, I sprinted forward. Before its chilling gaze could lock onto me, I reached the center of the room. I immediately pulled out the scroll from my pocket as planned.
◈ Tear here!
◈ Tearing anywhere else may damage the magic circle inside!
I tore open the top of the earthquake scroll.