Payback
Once the raid was over, we fell back for a while to rest and regroup.
An overwhelming victory. The party had pulled themselves together. Na Seoyun, wearing an expression that said of course we'd won, looked over at me.
"How was I, oppa?"
I didn't bother hiding my satisfied smile.
"You did great. Even with fire magic banned, you kept it clean. And you didn't slack on your swordsmanship, either."
"If I can't handle a sword, I can't stand up front with you."
Na Seoyun grinned, all bashful. The composed face she'd worn right after the fight crumbled the instant I praised her.
"Hyung, me too! Me too!"
"Yeah. You did really well. You backed Eun-ju up nicely."
I ruffled both of their heads.
"The scout parties don't even scare me anymore. Have you decided what we're going to do?"
Joo Ha-yeon looked thoroughly sure of herself. I nodded.
"Escape shouldn't be impossible now. If anything, I'd say we have room to spare. The Golden Gnolls have been cut in half, and their morale is in the dirt. On top of that..."
I turned my gaze toward the borderlands.
"Their relationship with the Black Gnolls is probably the worst it's ever been. The second they turn around to come after us, the Black Gnolls will hit them from behind."
Five months of concentrating everything on this front had carved the Golden Gnoll tribe down to a shadow of itself — and the Black Gnolls had been whittled down right along with them. The Black Gnolls could still claw their way to the center of the five tribes the moment a Gnoll Hero was born, even with their numbers reduced. The Golden Gnolls, though, were now the weakest of the lot by any honest measure.
I hadn't been able to check the border they shared with the Brown Gnolls, but I was certain they'd lost a considerable stretch of territory there as well. They'd been pouring troops this way without pause, after all.
I smiled faintly.
"So let's provoke them. We go out in the open — as boldly as we can. We hit them first, every time we see them. We'll be advertising our position on purpose."
"..."
Joo Ha-yeon normally hated this kind of plan. This time, she just nodded in silence.
We'd wiped out a force a thousand strong in a single ambush, and we'd done it comfortably. Twice that number wouldn't have scared us now. The party had reached the point where they could look after themselves even if a swarm of gnolls came pouring in. If the numbers got ugly or the fight started to drag, we could simply run. And the moment a sizable chunk of Golden Gnoll troops peeled off to chase us, the Black Gnolls weren't going to sit still — I could already picture the spectacle that would follow.
We were going to punch straight through the ones who had isolated us and walk back out with our heads high. They were monsters, yes, but I knew the party would find it deeply, viscerally satisfying. They needed a taste of that accomplishment. It would become another kind of fuel for them later on.
And as a bonus, we'd screw the gnolls over and carve their strength down even further. That was nothing but profit for us. If we half-destroyed the Golden Gnoll tribe on the way out and bled the Black Gnolls of an enormous number of troops while we were at it, fame would come pouring in all at once. Proving it would take a little time, but I couldn't think of an easier way to earn it.
The party nodded along. Confidence had taken root, the situation favored us, and not a single one of them objected.
When dawn broke, we strode through Golden Gnoll territory with a swagger we hadn't shown before. Passing scout parties spotted us with no trouble at all. A few came at us like moths to a flame. Most took one look and ran.
I let them go. If they came back with a horde in tow, the Black Gnolls would tear into them for us. There was only so many they could actually send.
Sure enough, the next wave that showed up numbered close to two thousand.
"Whoa. That's a lot."
Ha Yoo-jin sounded completely unbothered. After yesterday's fight, he'd already decided this was a number we could handle. Making that calculation on the spot — eight years old or not, the kid was no joke.
"They've got a terrible eye for strength. After what we did to them yesterday, they're coming at us with barely twice the numbers..."
Joo Ha-yeon looked just as confident. Two thousand wasn't a small force, honestly. We'd just gotten absurdly strong.
The gnolls spotted us, threw their heads back in a roaring chorus of barks, and charged. Two thousand-man commanders led the van. I didn't bother giving the party any real instructions. I said one thing.
"Just do it like yesterday."
"Yes, yes."
Joo Ha-yeon answered playfully, like she had all the leisure in the world. She even tossed me a light wink. I couldn't exactly scold her for letting her guard down, though — the holy power gathering in her staff was nothing to sneeze at.
The right amount of tension. No complacency. And just enough ease on top of it, without tipping into carelessness. There was still that small weakness — that she'd waver if I weren't here — but I had no intention of leaving them anyway, so even that gap worked in my favor.
I smiled, satisfied, and ran to meet the gnolls head-on.
The battle was ours. An obvious conclusion. We routed them at our leisure, then sat down and rested right there in the open, making no attempt to hide it.
Scout parties watched us from a distance. We didn't give them a second glance. That didn't mean we got sloppy — Ha Yoo-jin and Na-yeon kept working the perimeter with stealth and spirits. It wouldn't have been pleasant if the gnolls actually steeled themselves to get slaughtered and came at us in earnest.
I was confident we could run even if five or six thousand came crashing down on us at once. If they truly threw every last soldier they had at us, though, things could get a little dangerous. Even with their power diminished, the gnolls holding the border still numbered twenty to thirty thousand.
"Oppa, what are you going to do when we get back?"
"I don't know. I just want to rest, for starters. I miss a bed. What about you?"
"I... I kind of want to wash up..."
Na Seoyun said it a little shyly. Fair enough. She'd been making water with magic on that end of things, but there had never been enough of it for a proper bath. A quick splash on the face when we had a spare moment had been about as luxurious as it got.
Even Na Seoyun, who could use water magic now, couldn't produce it in bulk. Mana had its limits. Making enough water for everyone to actually bathe would have meant days of nothing but water spells, and then days of rest after that. The efficiency was terrible — especially in an environment that had all but finished turning into a desert.
It must have been miserable for the women in the party. The others all nodded at Na Seoyun's words.
"I want to wash up too..."
Kids usually weren't fond of baths, but Ha Yoo-jin had gone long enough without one that even he was starting to feel grimy. I couldn't blame him. I gave a wry smile.
The party was probably itching to hurry, but I took my time cutting through Golden Gnoll territory. We stopped every evening without fail and never forced the pace. We moved like we wanted the gnolls trailing us from a distance to get a good, long look.
That was when their plan changed.
Harsh barking rolled in from the dark.
"Party Leader."
"Yeah. Ugh. Here they come again. About... three hundred?"
The gnolls yowled at us from far off. They'd shifted tactics, apparently — trying to grind down our stamina. They barked through the night and hit us in fits and starts. Even when they did attack after dark, it was never a thousand-strong wave like before. Three hundred or fewer. Suicide squads, more or less, whose only real job was to bleed our endurance.
Are they going to charge tonight?
I looked over the sleeping party. This had been happening a lot lately. The more high-strung among them would snap awake at once, but I'd tell them it was nothing and to go back to sleep. You had to be able to rest when rest was what the situation called for.
At first the party had been awkward and irritated by the gnolls' new habit. After about two days, they'd reached the point where they could sleep through any amount of barking. Anything above a certain volume still woke them, of course — but being able to rest on demand, matching the situation, was a skill they needed. I was almost grateful to the gnolls for the practice.
Three hundred suicide gnolls were something Nam Eun-ju and I could handle between the two of us without breaking a sweat. I could have done it alone. With her there as well, it barely registered. Lately, the ones who finally steeled themselves and charged after all that barking were usually cleaned up by whoever had the watch.
No attack came before Nam Eun-ju and I finished our shift. They just kept barking. By morning, I heard they hadn't committed to an assault at all.
Even so, the drain on our stamina added up in small increments, so whenever it started to pile on I simply stopped and rested in broad daylight. Our pace slowed to a crawl. In nearly a week we'd covered barely half the distance. That was how unhurried we were — and behavior like that was as good as openly humiliating the Golden Gnolls.
They had two choices left. Come at us ready to be wiped out as a people, or give us up.
They'll probably give up, honestly.
They'd be furious, I was sure. But I still thought they'd let us go. And yet, if they didn't...
"So they really gave up, then?"
Joo Ha-yeon came up beside me, her voice careful. Before I quite realized it, we'd reached a place not far from human territory. We were in Area 27. Once Area 26 arrived, we'd be standing at what was effectively the edge of gnoll land. Watching the area numbers tick down like this, the main force had to be a long, long way off.
"Most likely. Even so, they don't have a reason to risk their lives chasing—"
You have entered Area 28.
"...?"
"...Why?"
A sudden shift in the area. It could only mean one thing.
The gnolls were coming after us. And not a small number of them.
I knew it.
"It seems they think we have the Gnoll Hero's heart."
She was right. They clearly had no idea that a Hero candidate had already been born among the Black Gnolls. The succession hadn't happened on their side, so they must have decided we'd taken the Hero's heart — the thing that could make succession possible — and were running off with it.
Fair enough. A Gnoll Hero took at least ten years to be born, and we'd damaged the soul on top of that, so it might take even longer. The Black Gnolls would hide that fact to the bitter end. If they didn't, gnolls of every other color would come raiding to steal the seat for themselves. In that case... yes. They really couldn't afford to let us go.
And not long after, the message window appeared again.
You have entered Area 29.
"We should prepare for battle."
First we needed to see the scale. Above a certain threshold, we ran. But if it looked manageable? This would be our last chance to raise hell before we left.
We took the high ground. It was roughly where the border between Area 26 and Area 27 would normally have been — elevated, with a reasonably clean line of retreat. A dust cloud in the far distance announced the gnolls' approach.
"That's a lot of them."
"Over ten thousand, easy."
"Don't tell me they actually abandoned the border?"
I sharpened my vision with mana. Through the distant dust, golden-hided gnolls came pounding toward us, making a noise like the earth itself was tearing. What the hell was going on? Had they really abandoned it? Did they genuinely believe we'd grabbed the Gnoll Hero's heart and run?
And then, farther out, a dust cloud that should have been settling rose all over again.
"...You've got to be kidding me."
A massive Golden Gnoll migration — and the Black Gnolls were tearing after them. Any Golden Gnoll that fell behind was being trampled under and killed.
"What on earth is going on?"
Joo Ha-yeon looked every bit as stunned as I felt.
"We run."
That was not something we could fight. We didn't need to fight it. If we just left it alone, we wouldn't have to lift a finger. There was no reason for us to spend our strength at all.
But if we ran like this...
Right. We'd reach what should have been Area 26 soon enough. There was a village not far from there. Doing this would be no different from charging straight into that village with tens of thousands of gnolls in tow. It would be the same as pulling a mob train and team-killing your own side. Pull a stunt like that and we wouldn't earn fame — we'd earn a spectacular infamy.
My face hardened.
"We're changing direction."
I led the party and started running — not toward the village, but the other way.