Visitors from Another World
Leaving Jeong Hayun's voice—thick with disappointment—behind me, I edged closer to them, wary of how alien they looked.
They must have sensed me too. They glanced about, and a moment later their eyes found mine.
"...Ene... my."
"Must... kill..."
That was all the warning I got. The one whose arm had warped into a beast's charged me, swinging that enormous limb.
They didn't seem entirely in their right minds. Dust and wounds caked them head to toe; everything about them said they had fled from somewhere. The pity lasted only a moment. I brought my sword down in a great overhead arc.
If the technique needed a name, Vertical Slash would do. Not a glamorous one, but nothing better came to mind, so what choice did I have? On the floors above, Vertical Slash was strong enough to butcher most monsters clean in half. Only natural—I didn't call something a technique unless I put real strength behind the cut. Whether it was actually listed as a skill, I couldn't say. Either way, my Vertical Slash was one of my mainstays, and it was that strong.
And yet—
Clang—!
The blow glanced off their mutated beast-hide. A thin, screaming ring climbed the steel until my hands shook with it. The one I'd struck only faltered in its charge. I couldn't see a real wound.
How hard is that thing? That beast arm.
I clicked my tongue, leapt back, and only just cleared the limb as it came around in a wide swing.
Whump!
Where the beast arm struck, a small but unmistakable crater opened in the earth.
...Do things like this really show up on the sixth floor? Strictly speaking, the quest covered the sixth floor through the tenth, but even so, the gap between them and the monsters above was absurd.
"...You okay?"
"For now."
Fortunately Jeong Hayun, right beside me, seemed to have dodged as well. She came over without a scratch. They weren't all that fast, I decided. What was dangerous was the weight of a single blow; the charge itself wasn't particularly quick.
"Hah... hah... Hayun, you okay?"
"Yeah. Not hurt."
"Siwoo, you aren't injured anywhere either, are you?"
"Doesn't seem like it."
Yoon Se-ah must have come running at the commotion. She let out a thin breath and looked Jeong Hayun and me over in turn.
An NPC worrying about me. I'm touched. More to the point, if Yoon Se-ah was here, Seo Arin ought to have been too. Why was it so quiet?
The thought had barely formed when hands suddenly seized both my cheeks.
"..."
"...Seo Arin?"
Her usual bounce was nowhere to be found. She inspected me with a face even blanker than Jeong Hayun's.
...Stared at like that, she's a little scary.
Scary or not, once she had checked every inch of me, Seo Arin finally seemed to relax, and a bright smile broke across her face.
"Mm-hmm! Totally fine!"
"I told you I was fine."
"I was just making sure, just in case!"
"Then you should've been checking Jeong Hayun, not me..."
"Hayun's got Se-ah looking after her!"
"...That so."
If that was her answer, then that was her answer. No point digging.
The beast-arm bastards mattered more.
"...I... am not... a killing machine."
"...Kill... the enemy... protect... allies..."
Something was wrong with them. They swayed where they stood, muttering.
"I don't know exactly what happened, but those are the outsiders the Adventurer's Guild was talking about, right?"
"Seems like it."
"Aww... they're nothing like I imagined! I'm so disappointed!"
She really was disappointed. Her lips pushed out in a pout.
"And it's not even fluffy fur—it's like they made metal into fur. Total minus!"
"...So why are they covered in wounds like that?"
"Dunno. They were already like that when Siwoo and I found them."
Each of them said their piece and dropped into a fighting stance. Fair enough. If we wanted information, we'd have to subdue them one way or another—but in that state...
"...Tear... the enemy. Tear... the prey."
"Hun... gry. Find... prey."
The ones who had been staggering suddenly fixed us with gleaming eyes.
So they're coming again.
"Those arms. Hard."
"Like Jeong Hayun said, hits don't stick on those arms. The force behind them is brutal, too. Dodge as much as you can while you fight."
"Got it!"
"I'll support you as best I can."
Our first real battle since I had joined Seo Arin's party.
There was a war. One nation fought to invade. The other fought to defend.
We were the invaders. The royal house wanted more land, and more subjects. Broader territory, a greater populace—more tax rising to the throne. And then the royals could indulge in still greater luxury.
A war begun for that. A war in which our will had never mattered.
A war without so much as a pretext, and in the end it invited other nations to intervene. Little by little, the front began to give way.
When the royal house learned of it, they made an extreme choice.
And so the comrades around me began to change, one after another.
One of my squad appeared bearing the legs of a great beast. My junior appeared with wings where his arms had been. My senior appeared with an arm furred in metal. My peer...
That was how we came to possess the power of beasts.
The fight dragged on. Yoon Se-ah and Seo Arin were not the only ones drawn by the noise. The beast-bodied figures who had been prowling nearby gathered as well, one and two at a time.
Subduing them was no longer an option. Seo Arin and her party were players; die, and they could simply come back. I had no next chance. If I died, that was the end.
Aside from the parts turned beast, their bodies were ordinary human flesh. A sword would cut them. So I cut.
I slipped the beast arm aimed at my head and sheared through the shoulder. The one that shot in on beast legs, I met by setting my blade in its path ahead of time and cutting it down. The one in the sky I brought down after leaping up with Seo Arin's help.
"Siwoo...! Look out!"
At Yoon Se-ah's cry I looked around. Another had leapt just as high, sharp claws raking toward me.
I couldn't dodge. The instant I knew it, a dagger flew at the thing.
"Yeah. I helped."
Jeong Hayun shot me a thumbs-up. I gave her one back.
"Hunt...! Tear...!"
"You're the one being hunted."
I twisted and drove my sword into the one in front of me. It wasn't a killing blow, but the force of the fall rammed it in deeper. In the same motion I turned and dropped onto the beast going for Seo Arin's back.
"Thanks, Siwoo!"
"Yeah, yeah."
I tossed the answer offhand at Seo Arin as she winked her thanks, then scanned the ground. Most of the beasts that had swarmed us were down. The ones Seo Arin's side had handled were only wounded past the point of fighting. Most of the ones I had faced were dead.
I didn't dwell on it. Sometimes, to stay alive, you have to kill the one in front of you.
I was moving to finish the last beast left when—
Boom—!
Someone dropped out of the sky with the crash.
"...Forgive me, but would you please stop there."
A deep voice came out of the dust. It sounded like a beast doing an impression of a person.
Just in case, I tightened my grip on the sword. At last the cloud thinned, and a figure stepped clear.
"Our people have behaved disgracefully."
Unlike every one I had seen until now, this one had the head of a beast. Arms and legs showed nothing particularly beastly.
"That one's not fluffy either..."
"Aww... only the head is fluffy..."
Jeong Hayun and Seo Arin, from behind me.
Is that really the part you two care about?
"These ones have their circumstances as well. If someone must be punished, I will take it. Won't you send them back?"
"Sorry, but we came here on a commission ourselves. We need information on you."
"If that is what you require, I will accompany you. So please."
He bowed his head as he asked.
...This isn't mine to decide.
"Seo Arin. You decide."
"Huh? Decide what?"
"Whether we grant his request or not."
"Well, obviously we ki—"
"W-wait...! I'll— I'll go talk with Arin for a moment."
Yoon Se-ah hastily clamped a hand over Seo Arin's mouth before she could finish.
She'd been about to say kill them. From a player's point of view, that shouldn't have mattered. So why was Yoon Se-ah shutting her up like that?
Well... I didn't really get it. She must have had a reason.
"But, listen."
"Please. Speak."
"The fight got pretty fierce, so a few of them... well..."
I glanced sidelong at the ones who were already dead.
The beast-head in front of me followed my eyes. He looked at the dead with a sorrowful gaze, then turned back to me.
"...I know. Accidents of this kind can happen in battle. ...If death has brought them peace, then perhaps that is for the best."
I didn't quite catch the last of it, but the beast-head seemed to have decided he would say nothing more about his comrades' deaths.
An uncomfortable silence stretched on.
"...Decided! We'll do it your way, Beast-Head!"
"You have my gratitude for your mercy."
"Haa..."
Seo Arin came back with Yoon Se-ah and delivered the verdict, smiling bright as anything. Yoon Se-ah, meanwhile, looked every bit as worn out as she had in the middle of the fight—whatever had tired her that much.
...Did the two of them fight?