Tears of the Warrior
The forest surrounding the village had been divided into three distinct domains.
Each one belonged to the Deer God, the Wolf God, and the Bear God.
Of these, the Deer God had already fallen to corruption, losing its reason and tearing apart its own forest as if it were its home, slaughtering every living thing in sight without mercy.
From this question naturally arose.
What could have caused the Deer God to fall?
"The wolves are fighting each other."
"That I can see with my own eyes."
Ninejibdaepokpal teased Tarte after hearing her report.
It was unmistakably a battle on a scale that even a blind man could spot.
Before one could even step foot into the Wolf God's domain, the howling of wolves began to echo.
It was like a human beacon, a signal sent far and wide.
Just as humans lit fires on watchtowers to alert distant outsiders of invasion, the wolves transmitted warnings through sound to their kin.
Tarte's party assumed the intruder was them, of course.
But the truth they witnessed was entirely different.
In the Wolf God's domain, wolves driven mad by the influence of the power that had corrupted the Deer God were clashing with wolves that still retained their sanity.
'This scale is no joke.'
It was a full-scale war between wolves.
The forest obscured their view, but what they could see was enough: dozens of wolves locked in combat, with hundreds more howling in the distance.
Was this forest wide and rich in prey enough to sustain so many wolves? The biological accuracy left a nagging unease.
Perhaps not just this forest, but all the wolves scattered across distant lands had been rounded up as well.
Just as wars in the human world dragged in every young man hiding in the countryside.
Join the sane wolves.
The sane wolves side, fighting against the corrupted ones.
What if they backstab us? From the wolves' perspective, we might look like enemies too.
The wolves are smart, so it'll be fine.
Of course, the safest choice was to ignore the fight entirely.
There was no safer option than doing nothing.
But.
Tarte's party needed to purify the Deer God, and to do that they required the Wolf God's sacred relic.
To obtain it, they had to overcome the Wolf God's trial.
They needed to grow stronger than they were now.
If they had to fight, they had to fight.
They had been thrown into an unknown tower, not a safe home.
To survive, they had to brave danger from time to time.
Charge into the heart of the battlefield and crush the corrupted wolves!
Tarte raised her sword high, commanding the charge.
The sight called to mind a commander from the age of cold weapons.
Only three comrades had received the order.
The scene was watched by far too many people.
The party mage Ninejibdaepokpal launched the signal for entry with a blast of his Magic Missile.
The mana arrow-bomb pierced the corrupted wolves and exploded.
Muraebae, the Rogue, used her swift legs to engage other wolves, targeting the injured ones whose condition had worsened.
In understated terms, it was the finishing blow; in dramatic terms, the Grim Reaper claiming souls.
Don't get too far away! Scatter and you'll lose each other!
Just as a mother worries about losing her child in a crowd, Tarte kept her eyes on her teammates while fighting.
Her wide field of vision and quick reflexes made it possible.
Haaap!
She had to face the wolves with nothing but her sword.
Her small, soft body was not suited for combat.
Like the tricks the Blade Mastery displayed, she could never shoulder-rush a wolf aside.
The difference in weight, in muscle, in every way she was inferior.
But weapons were made for that very purpose.
A small, toothless human could defeat foxes, wolves, lions, and tigers.
A short man could beat a tall one, a light one a heavy one, an old one a young one.
The wolves' thick hides and hard muscles yielded to the sharpness of metal.
She twisted the sword lodged in the wolf's muscle and pulled it free, readying herself once more.
There were too many enemies.
Wooool!
Tarte's expectation was correct.
Her wish had come true.
The intelligent wolves could tell friend from foe and, for the moment, accepted this uneasy alliance.
Hounded to the brink, they had no choice but to trust the mysterious outsiders, humans who were not kin.
A temporary alliance had formed.
The wolves and humans worked together to punish the corrupted wolves.
'Experience-copy bug!'
No need to defeat one wolf completely.
They could bring down far more wolves far faster through coordinated strikes.
In other words, Tarte's party was slaughtering dozens of wolves in a short time.
The battle that had looked like it would swallow them whole ended in a flash.
Originally a near-even match, the fight between sane wolves and corrupted wolves, roughly fifty-fifty.
Then the sudden arrival of outsiders tipped one side to victory.
'That was one hell of a battle. Skills and levels all went up.'
Ninejibdaepokpal, who had been gulping down mana potions stolen from the village like water and firing off spells, had gained the most.
Both Magic Missile and the Magic Mastery skill reached a higher rank, and his character level rose by two.
Unfortunately, he had not learned any new skill.
He was certainly stronger now.
'I leveled up too. I got two new skills.'
'What skills?'
'Blade Mastery and Throwing Mastery.'
'Throwing?'
'I threw a lot of rocks.'
Muraebae finished off the wounded with a final, repeated gulp of one mana potion after another.
As a combatant, he had carved out a unique niche that others could not replace.
Tarte thought.
Throwing Mastery. Good sense.
Throwing stones had been an excellent long-range combat method since ancient times.
'I also leveled up and gained skills. Blade Mastery reached E-rank.'
And Tarte, as expected, had also leveled up and ranked up Blade Mastery.
'If they keep growing like this, we should be able to clear the Wolf God's trial?'
Thinking this, Tarte noticed that only one person had stayed silent.
Hyeolpung Geomseong.
A young, successful businessman in reality, yet in the tower he remained largely inactive for the party.
'Had he not leveled up? Did he get zero kills?'
No matter how observant Tarte was, she had not been able to take in the entire battle against such a massive horde.
Yet she had kept her wide field of vision and still had not seen Geomseong kill a single wolf.
She recalled the conversation she had once shared with him.
Geomseong had said that failing to kill any enemy was not a matter of heart but of ability.
But here, doubt crept in again.
Was it truly a matter of will, or of ability?
Tarte knew that people did not always tell the truth.
'What should I say?'
Animals in the tower were monsters, humans were NPCs.
But the animals looked and acted like real animals, and the humans like real people.
Even their actions.
There was no awkward AI feel.
At first she had believed time would fix it, but now growth imbalance had spread through the party.
Especially the tank's leveling was a critical issue.
'Geomseong-nim, did you not kill even one this time as well?'
'Ah, I'm just slow and dull. I guess the aging curve hit me like everyone says?'
'Could it not be a matter of heart even if Blade Mastery does not realize it? Perhaps unconsciously?'
'No.'
Geomseong denied it again.
Tarte found it hard to believe.
With so many wolves already downed, how could he have failed to land even one finishing blow?
Muraebae had swept up every last bounty like a farmer harvesting wheat.
Yet why had he not even caught one?
'Wielding a sword to steal a monster's life or failing to protect teammates because you did not. Which is more terrifying? We could be the ones dying, not the monsters.'
Tarte had spoken of the hypothetical.
The death of allies.
They had to do what they had to do.
It was too obvious a fact to argue.
Plop.
One tear fell from Geomseong's eye.
Tarte was stunned.
With that build, those muscles, to cry just because he was pushed?
'It was not a matter of heart, but ability.'
'So it was. My apologies.'
How aggrieved did one have to be for a warrior who had once faced a bear to shed tears.
Tarte could not understand, but she accepted it.
'Then what about the level imbalance? Even with quest experience, the limit is clear.'
As party leader, it was a genuinely headache-inducing situation.
But Tarte soon adapted to the circumstances.
'I'll just do two people's worth.'
Allies have temporarily allied with the sane wolves to purge the corrupted ones.