Replay of the First Fox Pack Encounter
Tarte crossed the battlefield where the recent fight had taken place with focused energy, pointing with her hand toward the grassy patch where the fox pack had first erupted from the undergrowth.
"When I first ran into that fox pack, six of them suddenly burst out from the bushes over there all at once."
"I know foxes are sly creatures, but it’s a relief that they didn’t use their ambush advantage and instead all came rushing out together. I’d say that’s a blessing in itself."
"I spotted the large leader fox emerging from the middle of this path and immediately warned the group. It looked like a big one, so I figured it was dangerous."
"Two small foxes then came charging straight at me. Is my aggro set so high because I’m a rear support class?"
"Anyway, the leader fox stayed back observing the situation while the two small ones rushed straight toward Muraebae and Daepokpal behind me. The last one went after Geomseong. While I was dealing with the two foxes, Geomseong got bitten on the arm. And when I went to help him, the leader fox that had been standing still suddenly moved, forcing me to run and expend a lot of stamina before it could pounce on me."
The fight had been a fierce, life-or-death bloodbath.
Yet when you laid it all out like this, it turned out to be nothing more than a series of simple actions.
Life could be taken so easily, and one could be killed so easily.
While pushing aside the clumsy thoughts, Tarte continued.
"Muraebae kicked the leader fox away with a powerful strike. That was good. But..."
Tarte began to suspect her teammates again.
"Why didn’t you use your dagger? Why use your legs when you had a bladed weapon?"
Are you still scared of stabbing something?
Even if it’s not a person?
Even if it’s just a virtual creature that only exists in the Tower?
Even if it’s an enemy attacking us?
The party leader, the stoic Muraebae, gave an unexpected answer to that question.
"I thought if I stabbed with the dagger, the defense would be too low. I had to kick it away with my foot so that Tarte could block it."
Upon hearing that reply, Tarte’s eyes widened as she stared at Muraebae.
It couldn’t be a made-up excuse, right?
Muraebae’s expression was an unreadable blank, making it hard to tell if the answer was true or false.
"That’s a one-hundred-point, no, a one-hundred-twenty-point answer. So you really thought that?"
At least one point that had annoyed Tarte during the battle had been resolved.
Tarte continued her battle recap.
"While that was happening, Daepokpal joined in, using his staff to finish off the remaining foxes. With only two left, we three coordinated to take down the leader fox, and finally we finished the last one in front of Geomseong. That was the flow of this battle."
Right after the fight ended, Tarte wanted to recount the flow of the battle while the memories were still fresh.
"Muraebae, why did you hide the fact that the foxes dropped items?"
"There wasn’t a chance to say it."
Muraebae’s words sounded reasonable at first glance.
But Tarte spotted a flaw in that testimony.
"In the first battle, none of you dropped bandages, right?"
"We did."
"Then why didn’t you mention that you had bandages when I was tearing my clothes to treat Geomseong’s wound?"
"You asked me to lend you a dagger, not bandages."
"...Huh?"
Yet there was no rebuttal.
Indeed, Tarte had demanded a dagger on the spot, then used her own torn clothes as bandages instead.
She had never asked Muraebae if he had bandages.
Only...
"You should have told me you got the bandages first!"
"If I say I have bandages after tearing my clothes, it might make you feel bad."
Feeling as though she had become the laughingstock of the viewers, Tarte stopped her questioning.
"Let’s move on from Muraebae. So, Geomseong."
Tarte’s accusations began raining down toward Hyeolpung Geomseong, the core member of the party who had 0 kills in two battles and twelve enemy takedowns.
"Even though Daepokpal, the magic-less mage support, and I, the rear support specialist, took down plenty of foxes, how do you feel about having 0 kills yourself?"
"You still can’t kill anything? Even if it’s just a virtual creature in the Tower?"
The fox corpses didn’t last long.
Just like in many games, they vanished after a short time.
It was as if the world itself was proving to them that this wasn’t the real world, that such a large object could simply evaporate, neither pure liquid nor solid, but a mixture of solid, liquid, and gas.
"Hey, Tarte. There seems to be some misunderstanding here."
Hyeolpung Geomseong looked straight at Tarte and spoke.
"I didn’t kill them. I just couldn’t kill them. In other words, I didn’t kill them because I wanted to kill them, but because I couldn’t kill them."
What?
Tarte’s face showed question marks.
"I was very surprised just now. Tarte, you seem to have analyzed the combat situation in such detail? Knowing exactly how many enemies appeared where, how many moved in what direction. You can give orders to teammates during the fight, remember it all, and then brief and recap it like this."
The viewers were all surprised.
The party members present felt it even more intensely.
Yet Tarte, who actually heard the story, answered in this way.
"Is that really that hard?"
It was only natural that she didn’t understand.
Because it wasn’t a skill obtained through effort.
She had been able to do it from the very beginning.
Therefore, Tarte couldn’t imagine someone who couldn’t do it.
Isn’t it obvious that any human could do everything?
"For now, I can’t. And I don’t think the two people here can either."
Some people even boasted that they could do it themselves, but most gave the impression that they wouldn’t acknowledge it.
Only then did Tarte begin to suspect that anyone could do this.
"In a fight where your own life is on the line, if you don’t concentrate that much, maybe you’re thinking about something else?"
"It’s not that I’m thinking about something else. Rather, because I have to survive at all costs, I can only see the enemy in front of me."
The gap in vision between Geomseong and Tarte remained unbridged.
Precisely, Geomseong thought Tarte was amazing, but he couldn’t follow her abilities.
Tarte thought Geomseong was strange and couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working.
"Extending that story, it wasn’t because I felt sorry for the foxes or was reluctant to kill living things. I simply couldn’t hit them because they were fast, agile, and small."
"It wasn’t that I didn’t kill them. I just couldn’t kill them."
Geomseong explained.
"Wait, wait, that’s really strange. I’m a high-intelligence, high-mana rear support character, yet the warrior with high strength and agility can’t catch a fox."
"Really?"
"Yes. I only told the truth without exaggeration."
"Oh dear."
Tarte pressed her hand to her forehead.
She had thought the problem with this warrior was only a matter of mindset.
She had expected that simply changing the attitude would instantly turn him into a powerhouse.
That expectation had been betrayed.
This human simply couldn’t fight.