Why Did That Hit?
Ham Eun-young, who hadn’t spoken a single word until now, whispered my name in a tiny voice and crept closer. “Ahem—”
As soon as Ham Eun-young approached me, Lee Yeonhee let out a small cough that drew an invisible curtain between us. Baek A-rin and Ham Eun-young, who still had almost no rapport with us, immediately stopped closing the distance.
Good thing they’re not completely clueless.
Just as that thought crossed my mind, I sensed the sticky presence of the bastards who had been tailing us from behind. Their footsteps sounded noticeably heavier than before. It looked like they’d been through a much tougher fight than we had.
Twitch.
“They’re coming. It’s those guys from earlier.”
Not long after I picked up their presence, it seemed Baek A-rin’s ears had caught them too. Rabbit beastmen really do have incredible hearing. They say if one focuses, they can even hear a coin drop on the ground hundreds of meters away. Their speed is off the charts, their bodies are nimble, their hearing is sharp, and their field of vision is far wider than a human’s.
That’s the real cheat.
Low stamina is their only weakness, but the advantages are so overwhelming that I remembered rabbit beastman awakeners being rated higher than most other beastman types.
“Ah! Are those people okay?”
“Hmm… they look a bit slower than before. Wait—huh? Some of them are missing? Must’ve gotten wrecked by the wolves.”
“Oho, really?”
“Jua, don’t underestimate them just because of that. D-rank dungeons have way more territorial ghosts than E-rank ones.”
“Got it!”
These were the so-called “dungeon locals”—full-time hunters who only operated in one dungeon they could clear comfortably. From D-rank onward, the pay got decent, so there were far more of them than in E-rank. And since they were veterans in their own right, they weren’t to be taken lightly. That was the advice.
“—Whoosh!”
“As expected of a rabbit! You already took them all out, huh?! Bwahahaha—!”
“Let us have a turn with you later!! We can go all night!”
“You tired? Wanna rest together? Heh heh—”
Ugh, these trash. Their mouths are still working just fine.
Our entire party consisted of unaffiliated hunters who hadn’t joined any guild. Guys like them sniffed out that kind of information faster than dogs. Since there’d be no real consequences for messing with us, they were acting even more obnoxious.
“Isn’t this getting dangerous? Normally they mess around a bit at the start and then leave. They’re getting closer now. Do they actually have an agenda?”
“Ugh, this is so annoying. A few of them look familiar. We’ve definitely crossed paths more than once or twice.”
“This is getting serious… Maybe they think we’re exhausted? There are only four of us, after all.”
“If they saw four people survive that mess, you’d think their brains would realize we’re way stronger. Are they seriously that dense?”
“They’re not going to attack us right away, right?”
“Hard to say. But something feels off. Their aura is different from before.”
Baek A-rin fell silent for a moment, then spoke with firm resolve.
“Let’s just finish this. I can’t stand them anymore.”
“Should we? We don’t have much time if we want to go all the way. What a pain… Maybe we should at least grab some runes…”
“Um… then…”
“Hm? Oh, Yeonhee, don’t misunderstand. We’re not saying we’ll kill them or anything. Just that if they keep following us, they won’t like what happens. That’s the kind of conversation we’re thinking about.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be just words.
Bae Jua reassured the worried-looking Lee Yeonhee, then stared at the forest on the left side of the path we were taking. She seemed to be planning to lure them into the woods and do something there. The grey mold would be annoying, but with Hae-ryeong and Ham Eun-young on our side, we could easily seize control once we drew them in.
“Eun-young, can you get ready?”
“……Yes……”
“Yeonhee, should Ilwol use Fireball to lightly provoke them? If they see fireballs exploding nearby, it should rile them up and make them easier to lure.”
“Huh? Oh, yes!”
Even though I was standing right next to her, Bae Jua had deliberately spoken to Yeonhee. It was her way of making sure Yeonhee didn’t feel left out.
Yeonhee looked at me silently and made a small circle with her fingers. I immediately prepared a Fireball and the two skeleton bombs I’d made earlier.
I aimed at the densest cluster in the center of the group walking about thirty to forty meters behind us.
Using Stealth, I slipped into hiding in front of the bulky summon number one and sprinted in the opposite direction. I quickly closed in on the rear of their group.
Don’t kill them, just provoke… That’s actually the harder order. This really shows they’re still kids.
I created a Fireball like usual and hurled it at the guy who’d been running his mouth the most, about ten meters away. The bastard who’d been muttering perverted crap about Baek A-rin’s backside so loudly my scalp had prickled.
This is what you get for touching our rabbit!
I shouted it proudly in my mind, but since every throw I’d made recently had been comically off-target, I was certain this one would miss too.
But then—
Fireball
Boom—BOOM!
Fwoooosh—!!
“Kwaaaaaaaaagh!!”
The Fireball struck the man square in the face with uncanny precision. Not only that, the status ailment Burn triggered, engulfing his face in flames. That much damage was bound to hurt quite a bit.
Uh… this wasn’t supposed to hit…
The plan had been to provoke them, lure them into the forest, surround them with the summons, scare them a little, and send them on their way. Yet somehow it had landed perfectly.
Why?
Is it just probability? I can’t make sense of it. I’ll have to ask Jua when I get the chance.
“What the hell was that?!”
“It has to be those bitches!! There’s no one else around!”
“You’re dead, you fucking cunts. We were gonna play nice, but you threw the first punch?”
“We just wanted to talk, damn it!”
“Finder’s keepers. Hehe—”
Our party was clearly visible in the distance, yet they seemed utterly convinced that we were the ones who had attacked them. Some even looked pleased, as if this justified whatever they did next. Armed with the flawless logic that they hadn’t done anything wrong but we had pulled the trigger, they began forming up and charging toward us.
It was possible that if I hadn’t attacked first, nothing would have happened until the dungeon raid ended… But what was done was done. Nothing to do but deal with it.
Let’s throw the rest and run.
I hurled the two bombs I’d prepared at the two ugliest-looking bastards.
Kwaaaang—!!
Boooom!!
“Uwaaaaaagh—!!”
Leaving the hunters’ startled screams behind, I activated Reckless Charge repeatedly and sprinted forward at full speed.
As I ran, I wondered: Had they done anything bad enough to deserve death?
Not really… Still, they need to be taught a lesson.
We’d try talking first. If that failed, then there was no choice.
The problem is on our side.
Behind me, more than ten hunters were charging. Baek A-rin and Bae Jua watched them with eyes blazing. I’d thought they would let it slide, but it seemed they’d built up quite a bit of stress.
It didn’t look like anyone on our side was interested in solving this with words anymore.
“Everyone step back! These bastards are finished!”
Baek A-rin, whose nasal tone was basically a passive skill, radiated a ferocious aura that completely clashed with her cute voice as she pushed us back.
She must have something to show us.
As far as I knew, Ilseom Guild’s swordsmanship specialized in one-strike kills, particularly in one-on-one duels. But now we were facing multiple opponents. I was curious to see how she would handle it.
The distance between us and the enemies had shrunk to ten meters. Baek A-rin, her fluffy white ears standing straight up, dashed forward with quick steps.
Tap tap—!
The moment she stomped hard, blue sparks burst from her heels one after another.
Ilseom - Lightning Step
After just a few steps, her movement speed exploded. Soon she was moving so fast it was hard to follow her with the naked eye.
She’s already using Lightning Step? I remember that old man saying the technique was incredibly difficult to learn.
Thanks to my short connection with them in my previous life, I knew a few of Ilseom Guild’s signature techniques. This movement art used their unique footwork to move like lightning. Everywhere she passed, the hunters’ screams of shock rang out.
About thirty seconds later—
“Haa— hek— hek—”
Her stamina had completely bottomed out. She didn’t even have the strength to stand properly and was leaning on a shortsword that couldn’t have been longer than sixty centimeters, using it like a cane.
Yet in that brief time, fear had already taken root on the faces of more than ten hunters. They couldn’t even see what was attacking them—only the refreshing breeze that followed in her wake. From their expressions, it was obvious none of them had ever faced a monster like Baek A-rin before.
At least for those thirty seconds, even I would have had no choice but to focus entirely on defense to endure it.
Impressive, but isn’t the duration way too short? The backlash seems pretty severe too…
“Uweeegh— ugh—”
If this was the weakness Bae Jua had been trying to hide from us, it was definitely something to think about. Everyone knew rabbit beastmen had low stamina, but A-rin’s seemed especially bad.
The vitality runes raised a stat that was basically life force, but what she needed right now was instantaneous power. There were no known runes that directly boosted stamina. The artifacts that could supplement it were still in my memory, but they only appeared in C-rank dungeons and above. Even if we found one, I had no reason to give it to her.
In the end, she would have to train consistently or improve her ability to convert mana into energy. But with the rabbit beastman trait, there were probably limits. Most physically specialized beastmen had poor mana affinity anyway.
Still, thanks to Baek A-rin showing movement on par with a C-rank hunter for those thirty seconds, more than ten hunters had suffered various injuries. Several were now combat ineffective. They had already fought the wolves earlier, which surely played a part, but the mental shock was probably far greater than the physical damage.
And the guy I’d hit with the Fireball was having the worst day of all. At the very end, Baek A-rin had squeezed out her last bit of strength and sliced off part of the area around his nose.
“Krrghhh!! You fucking bitch!!”
Naturally, he was furious. Blood gushed from his nose like a fountain, yet his eyes burned crimson as he charged at Bae Jua, swinging his mace.
Rumble—!!
“Ugh! What the hell is this rock?!”
A stone wall over two meters tall suddenly rose in front of him, blocking his path. Bae Jua, who had created it, turned around and spoke.
“We should help too. I thought maybe he’d improved since last time, but it looks like he’s still the same quick-shot as ever.”
I had already passed her and reached the staggering Baek A-rin, who looked like she was about to collapse. When she suddenly saw my face, she let out a short scream.
Her lovely rabbit ears drooped all the way down, and her whole body trembled like a phone on vibrate. Then, as if resigning herself to something, she draped her arm over my shoulder and leaned her weight on me.