One Step Forward (3)
Hans, you little bastard… no way…?
Is he walking the path of a pedophile? I gave him the Rune of Courage, sure, but that wasn’t the kind of courage I meant for him to show.
The way I looked at Hans grew a little colder. A deep relationship with a kid who’s middle-school age at best…?
“Ugh. The character I raised on candy is walking the pedo path.”
Most of this was my fault for raising him wrong. From now on, Hans, if I ever run into you in World Exploration mode, you’re booked for a lightning massage.
— “Hah… hahh…”
Before I knew it the screen had switched to a cave, and the sound of Hans’s tense, heavy breathing filled my ears.
Hearing a grown man’s breathing was a little unpleasant, but the cave’s atmosphere was so bone-chilling I forgot about it almost at once.
The quiet drip of water. The soft, echoing scrape of footsteps. That was all.
The mood alone was enough to pass for a scene from a horror movie—creepy, skin-crawling, the kind of place where something could leap out at any second.
“Huh?”
The screen flashed red like a danger warning, then spat out that message. I read it without thinking and my brain simply stopped. What did it just say?
Fail to kill the boss and everyone dies?
“What the hell is this insane nonsense?! The stage description earlier never said anything like that! Who the hell kills everyone just because you fail a boss fight?!”
I shouted at the screen before I could stop myself, but the milk was already spilled.
There was no taking it back.
My desperate denial meant nothing. Hans was already face-to-face with the boss alone.
Nurgle’s entire body was made of insects. The constant rustling, the chittering, the wet chirping of countless bugs filled the air.
Goosebumps rose all over me before I could stop them. Bugs were already disgusting enough—now the boss itself was made of them?
Hans stood alone before that enormous, hideous boss.
For a second the bad memories of Stage 1 flashed through my mind—Kenis charging the Frost Dragon raid alone, slamming her head against the wall with zero information. Back then Friga had luckily appeared as a hero-rank adventurer and they’d barely scraped a win. I couldn’t count on that kind of miracle again.
In the end, the only thing I could do was…
“Please, Hans, please!”
I prayed with every ounce of strength I had, while my hand stayed ready to open the shop at any moment.
If things went south, I would buy a skill right away.
Hans falls into the status ailment Extreme Terror! Hans’s movements become extremely sluggish!
Hans falls into the status ailment Cowering! Hans’s field of vision becomes extremely narrow!
Hans falls into the status ailment Severe Madness! Hans’s attacks miss at a considerably high rate!
“Oh, for fuck’s—”
The moment I clasped my hands to pray, the debuff messages poured out one after another.
Terror. Madness. Cowering. On the screen Hans was clearly losing his mind under the weight of them all.
Even fighting at full strength it would have been a coin flip. With a string of debuffs hanging off him, there was no way he could win.
“Ha… I’m going insane for real.”
I was just about to open the shop and buy a status-cleanse skill when—
Rune of Courage activates!
Hans overcomes the status ailment Extreme Terror!
Rune of Courage activates!
Hans overcomes the status ailment Cowering!
Rune of Courage activates!
Hans overcomes the status ailment Severe Madness!
Hans does not retreat against a stronger foe! Attack Power and Agility rise considerably!
Hans does not fall easily even when near death!
“Huh…?”
The Rune of Courage I had given Hans blazed with light.
Relying on a torch, he advanced slowly through darkness so thick he could not see an inch ahead. Somewhere water dripped softly. His own careful footsteps sounded far too loud.
Hans moved while holding even his breath. No one knew what waited inside this cave.
It could be a demon worshipper who had sold his soul. It could be some wicked fiend. In the worst case, an actual demon.
Anything would not have been strange.
Hans took one step, then another—very, very slowly.
The torch flame danced in the empty air; shadows on the cave walls writhed in time with it. To Hans those shadows looked like beasts waiting to devour him.
“Hah— hahh—”
He realized his whole body had locked up from tension and forced himself to breathe slowly.
Then—
— Whoosh!
A strong wind blasted from deeper in the cave and snuffed the torch out.
Absolute darkness swallowed him. His body went ice-cold, as if frozen solid; he could not move a finger.
With sight gone, every other sense began to vanish.
Was he still holding the sword? Were his eyes open? Was he even standing? Everything slipped away.
Sensation. Hans himself.
He felt the darkness eating him.
Insects seemed to rasp and gnaw at his flesh. Blasphemous whispers burrowed into his ears.
His fingertips froze so hard they felt ready to shatter; inside his body a fire seemed to burn.
“Ugh… uwaaah!! Aaaaagh!!”
Hans flailed both arms wildly. Or he thought he did.
He could not even be sure the sword was still in his grip, but if he did not thrash he felt he would go mad.
A voice that seemed to reach through his ear canals and knead his brain itself.
It whispered sweetly and screamed blasphemously at the same time—an uncanny, impossible tone.
Hans felt something hot run from his eyes. Tears?
He could sense the thing standing before him.
A being that could crush humans like insects stood right in front of Hans.
“Hhh… hhh—!! Aaaaagh!!”
Ah, that voice!
That blasphemous, horribly profane voice kneaded and twisted Hans’s brain.
He had to run.
Where?
He had to survive.
How?
Hans’s instincts screamed mad alarms.
Run. Turn around right now and sprint. Fall to your knees and beg for mercy.
“Heh… heh-heh—”
Drool ran freely from the corner of his mouth. A vacant, giggling laugh slipped out of him. Tears poured without end, as if the tear ducts themselves had broken.
Instinct and reason both kept shouting: the thing in front of you is on a completely different level. Run.
Run?
Pretending not to see and running away was easy. Close your eyes, cover your ears, and just run.
But then…
What about Daisy?
What about his comrades still fighting in the village?
— Thump.
The boundary between his body and the outside world was still blurry, yet somewhere a strong heartbeat began to sound.
— Thump.
It grew stronger. Little by little, louder.
Through his whole body.
Following that pulse, sensation slowly returned.
Chest, arms, legs, face.
The darkness covering his eyes gradually faded. Or had the darkness itself withdrawn? For some reason the whole world looked red. When he wiped his eyes with a hand, bright crimson blood came away.
Only after wiping the blood that kept streaming from his eyes for a long time could he finally look straight ahead.
“Hah… hahh— a demon… it’s a demon.”
Hans steadied his ragged breathing and stared at the hideous, blasphemous thing.
Even a brief glance made his eyes sting and fresh tears of blood threaten to fall again.
A pitch-black liquid like the abyss itself bubbled and seethed; from that liquid every kind of insect swarmed upward, writhing and climbing.
The rasping bugs crawled endlessly, twisting, coiling, and matting together. At last a face that crudely imitated a human’s took shape—made entirely of insects.
The rustle of insect wings colliding, the sharp click of mandibles, the wet chirping—all of it blended into a grotesque harmony that mimicked a human voice.
Hans tried not to look directly at the thing. He struggled not to listen to its cunning, wicked words.
— Thump.
Something pulsed in Hans’s right hand and spread through his entire body.
What he saw when he looked down was his longsword.
As always, the golden blade shone, and the divine letters engraved upon it—the Rune of Courage—blazed with light as bright as the sun.
— Thump.
And the letters pulsed. The longsword grew steadily hotter, pouring heat into his hand.
The blade he gripped beat like a heart, urging Hans onward.
Urging him toward what?
Hans remembered Adam’s words.
The veteran blacksmith had spoken to him about a swordsman’s mindset.
What, exactly, had he taken up the sword for?
To protect.
Hans remembered Kenis’s words.
What is courage? The hero and peerless warrior had spoken to him about courage.
What is courage?
Draw a deep breath.
He filled his chest as full as it would go.
Forward.
He put strength into trembling legs and looked straight ahead.
Then one step forward.
In the moment of greatest fear, when every instinct screamed to flee, he took one step forward. And another.
Again forward—one step.
What mattered was—
Forward. Again, forward.
Hans’s feet did not stop.
Slow though they were, they never retreated.