The Old Dagger (1)
How long had they been pushing through the frozen branches, deeper into the woods? The screams that had once echoed from the depths had long since fallen silent.
The forest was steeped in stillness. No insects hummed. No birds beat their wings. Only ice and snow remained in this frozen wood.
Is this the landscape the heretics want?
The captain swatted a branch aside with a snarl of irritation. He felt as though he would only be satisfied once he had flayed every last one of those wretched heretics down to the bone.
"Captain, there's a village up ahead."
A sharp-eyed holy knight pointed it out. Sure enough, a settlement that looked to belong to slash-and-burn farmers lay before them.
It was a small village, and not a single human presence could be felt within it.
"Stay sharp, all of you. Watch for ambushes from the heretics, and keep your eyes on the front."
The captain adjusted his grip on his sword and led them slowly into the village.
Ice blanketed everything. No sign of life. Just as the thought crossed his mind that the heretics must have gotten to them all—
Friga spat a low curse.
"...Shit. Captain. Up ahead."
"That is..."
Friga's chin jerked toward something in the distance.
The captain swallowed without meaning to. Even a man who had seen every kind of horror imaginable had never laid eyes on a scene this cruel.
How was one supposed to describe it? A mud ball some child had played with and then frozen solid? A hunk of meat a beast had chewed and spat out?
A sphere of human bodies, crumpled and packed together, sat in the open square. Arms jutted out at odd angles, thrashing weakly at empty air. Faces, frozen blue, were pressed flush against one another to form the sphere's surface.
Whether they were still alive—or whether it would have been better if they were already dead—they made sounds that were almost, but not quite, moans of agony.
"These bastards..."
Friga bit down hard on her lip and clenched her axe until her knuckles went white. Why? For what? Her eyes turned to the captain, full of the question that hung over this madness.
Sadly, the captain already knew the answer.
"...There is no reason."
"What?"
"No reason at all. For fun. For their entertainment."
"What the hell—no. What are you talking about?"
"They gain nothing from this act. Nothing. They did this purely for amusement. As a game."
The captain's bloodshot eyes fixed on the sphere as his fists trembled. Before human dignity even entered the picture—these vermin did not regard people as fellow living beings. That was what heretics were.
A breed of evil that deserved to be erased from this land.
"It is late, but... I would at least like to grant them rest."
"Yeah. Got it."
It was already too late to save them. At the captain's words, Friga slowly raised her axe.
The keen edge of the blade flashed through the air—
and cleaved the sphere of human flesh cleanly in two. The split mass crumbled from the edges outward, scattering on the wind.
Tiny ice crystals glittered as they spun through the air.
The most repulsive glitter in the world drifted over the holy knights' heads. The captain watched every moment of it in silence.
"Disgusting heretic scum."
"They should all have their skins peeled off and die slowly..."
"O Five Gods and the Sixth—grant them rest."
The holy knights' killing intent boiled up, thick and ugly. If the heretics' goal had been provocation, they had succeeded brilliantly.
"All of you, stay calm. Anger is fine. But do not let anger devour you. Remember—you must think and act with cold reason."
The captain spoke low to the overexcited knights. But Friga, standing right beside him, could see it clearly.
The hand gripping his sword was trembling, just slightly. Guilt over the villagers he had failed to save? Or rage at the heretics?
Friga could not tell. She only tightened her grip on the axe a little harder.
"Captain, let's move. There might still be some of them left."
"...Yes. Let us go at once."
Leaving the glittering scatter behind them, the captain and the holy knights pressed deeper into the village.
How long did they search? In a settlement that was barely more than a hamlet, not a single living thing remained.
...Not even a trace of the heretics themselves.
The captain's brow furrowed.
"Nothing at all?"
"Yes, sir! Not so much as a single insect in the whole village!"
"That cannot be... They lit smoke just to bait us. And there is no trace of them?"
The captain's thoughts deepened. The forest. The smoke. The provocation... and them.
It felt like a puzzle with a missing piece. As if... something had been overlooked.
Friga, kicking idly at stones as she stared at the ground, spoke up.
"What a waste of time. Creepy as hell. If there's nothing here, let's just head back. Kenis is gonna be waiting."
In that instant, a fierce intuition—or perhaps pure instinct—cut through the captain's mind.
"...Kenis! That is it, my lady! We must return at once!"
"Whoa—damn, you scared me. What is it?"
"A trap! It is a trap! They lured us away! Damn it—Kenis was the target from the start!"
"We got baited?"
Friga's eyes narrowed. The heretics had set a trap?
"Shit. They got us good. Then we don't have time to stand around here—"
BOOOOM!
Friga's words were swallowed by a tremendous blast. Or was it an explosion?
Beyond the forest, a colossal pillar of ice erupted skyward. Thick columns of ice, like roots growing from empty air, spread in every direction.
The direction of the carriage.
"Fuck—Kenis!"
"My lady! The rest of you, hurry! We make for the carriage!"
Friga kicked off the ground and vanished between the trees, the captain and the holy knights hard on her heels.
In the village emptied of all presence, only tiny ice crystals drifted softly on the wind.
"Ugh—I wanna delete this trash game!"
It had already been several days since the cursed Kenis had been unable to join the Beast Subjugation. No hints on how to break the curse, no packages for sale.
Was there even an official café? He had searched and found nothing. Friga soloing the Beast Subjugation still brought in gold, but...
"Still a shame, though."
At this rate, it was no different from having a single hero-rank adventurer. He needed... something. Some kind of solution.
With one hand he expertly mixed ketchup into bean sprouts; with the other he rummaged through the shop.
This was the picture of a seasoned Korean gamer.
"Hah... yeah. That's good."
The tangy kick of the ketchup and the crisp crunch of the bean sprouts were excellent. He shoveled ketchup-bean-sprout salad into his mouth and scrolled the screen.
"Can't find a fix no matter where I look. Should I just pull more dwarves?"
Ten laborers wandering around the temple. After catching them slacking off at the tavern last time, he had lost all desire to build them anything new.
"Yeah, more dwarves it is."
He spent the leftover gold on a few more laborers. He had mindlessly punched mineshafts last time, and the efficiency was so abysmal that opening all the way to the sixth floor felt pointless—they barely mined anything.
"Is there no laborer upgrade?"
In a game like this, laborer upgrades were practically mandatory, right? He poked around at various things until he tapped one of the laborers and a message window appeared.
Laborer 1 can be promoted!
"Ah, so you promote them by tapping the laborer directly?"
Being the first one he had hired, Laborer 1 got first crack at a promotion too. No reason not to. He promoted him on the spot.
"gra¥ias t£b$"
Laborer 1 stopped mid-work and was suddenly engulfed in a pillar of light. The effect looked exactly like a Digimon evolving.
"Oh, did something change?"
Visually... hard to say. Were the arms and legs a bit thicker? The beard maybe a little longer...?
They were short little guys to begin with, so it was tough to tell.
"Something must have changed. It was a promotion, after all."
He lost interest in the laborers and switched over to the Beast Subjugation screen. Time to run a few rounds and log off.
Ever since he had taken down that insane newbie-mower wearing a Stage 1 boss costume—the Frost Dragon—the background had shifted to a forest, so he had at least made it to Stage 2.
"If the Stage 1 boss was that hard, the Stage 2 boss is gonna be even worse, right?"
A boss raid icon glittered in the corner of the screen. Still burned from the Frost Dragon, he had no appetite for challenging the Stage 2 boss.
"...Would be nice if there was armor or something."
With only good weapons, one basic attack left them wheezing. He vaguely remembered seeing something like an armor package somewhere in the shop.
He should look for it later.
That aside, he needed to raise his specs for a while. Given the Stage 1 boss difficulty, a careless run at Stage 2 could get every last adventurer killed.
"Can I hire hero-rank adventurers from the inn?"
Probably, if he looked hard enough. How else was he supposed to power up? Surely they weren't selling those as packages too... right?
He was mulling over odds and ends, figuring the Beast Subjugation would wrap up without incident, when—
A warning window suddenly flooded the entire screen.
Warning! Warning! Warning!
A screen flashing red and ominous warning text. A thoroughly bad feeling crawled up his spine.
"What—what is this..."
Did Beast Subjugation have random encounters? It was probably nothing, right? He tried hard to ignore the rising dread.
Then a message window appeared and crushed that hope flat.
Whether he wanted it or not, the Stage 2 boss raid had begun.
"This insane trash game, I swear!"