Before the Fruits of Choice (3)

We went first to the Adventurer’s Guild and the temple.

That we stopped at them one after another was not, surprisingly, remarkable. Until now we had simply never been able to act separately, so I hadn’t known—but this game very much possessed a system for individual party-member actions.

Thanks to that, the group split amicably: me with Dev, the Inquisitor with the Archmage. That my side took the Adventurer’s Guild for inquiries was only natural.

“Whoa… so this isn’t an adventurer’s guild—it’s a hospital?”

Dev spouted that the moment we stepped inside. And I couldn’t entirely deny it; the situation was that bad.

Where the guild hall had once been a noisy bustle, only the groans of the wounded filled the air now.

“Nothing but corpses in here.”

“……!”

At that cutting remark someone flinched. They never rose, though. Their wounds were probably what kept them down.

“Ah—Demon Knight!?”

Then a fairly familiar voice called out.

It was the clerk, Iseren.

“Y-you’d gone to another city…?”

“The parasites nesting in this city. Got any information on them?”

“……!”

She had approached with a mix of fluster and open relief at the sight of me. The moment my words landed, her expression snapped straight.

The seriousness of someone facing official business settled into her eyes.

“…The request that matches your description is an emergency matter. No reward has been set. Formal contracts can’t be drawn up either, so there’s ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no guarantee of proper compensation afterward. Moreover, we cannot vouch for an adventurer’s safety. Even so—will you still cooperate?”

Oh. When she put it like that, it actually sounded cool. An unnecessary question for me, but still.

“I don’t care about rewards.”

I rested a hand on my sword hilt ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and growled it out savagely.

“I came only to cut them down.”

“……!”

Maybe because the goal matched even if the delivery was rough. The clerk’s face worked for a second; then she nodded.

“I’ll bring the information at once!”

A thoroughly satisfying answer.

“…Hey.”

While we waited for the clerk, someone else spoke up. An unfamiliar face. From the gear, probably an adventurer.

“You’ll die like that.”

This world really had no shortage of busybodies. Not that I disliked it. How many people actually found the courage to give advice to a total stranger?

“Struggle all you want—you’re all going to die!”

But dragging morale down? And poking at pride while they were at it?

“Confess your weakness at home. Don’t dirty my ears with it.”

How the quest would unfold was still unknown, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but one way or another they had made it breakable. Which meant a player could solve it. Even if you failed the solution, surviving would still be possible.

Either way, that NPC’s words didn’t apply to me.

“The sewers are packed with demons! There’s no way anyone can survive this!”

“Ha.”

I frowned at the man clutching his chest and wailing. Dense fear had latched onto my ankles as well, and irritation rose for no good reason—something close to how I felt about holy power.

“So? What of it?”

“—What?”

Still, this was an ugly emotion. I shook it off with a single crooked smile.

Instead I gripped my right arm and muttered, as if delivering a line—or speaking to myself.

“I don’t care about my life. Not if I can kill demons.”

If I was going to over-immerse anyway, hatred for demons was better. Disliking people only earned you more stress.

“Sir…”

“H-here it is!”

I lowered my pale eyes into cold focus and held out a hand. The clerk thrust the documents at me on reflex, then rounded her eyes.

“You don’t need me to read it for you?”

“Unnecessary.”

This world’s literacy-rate setting again.

I flipped through the pages with whatever speed-reading technique I could muster. My class rarely dealt with paperwork, and none of it was laid out in neat tables, so grasping the contents was rough going.

Beside me Dev craned his neck for a look.

“The damage… is severe.”

Huh. So he could read too.

“Yes. There are those who left the city, of course… but the nightly damage from demons pouring out of the sewers is considerable as well.”

I filed Dev and the clerk’s exchange away while hunting for the write-up on how the incident had progressed.

Early on, no one even realized demons were coming up; many were abducted. Once understood, blockade procedures. Temple priests and a handful of adventurers formed a party to assess the situation, then contact was lost. A second survey team was dispatched; only one person returned alive. According to the testimony, demon contractors were hiding among the demons and attacking…

And now they were running nightly defense.

“The territorial army, the adventurers, and the temple have joined forces to hold out and survive… but as the city becomes isolated, supplies are dwindling. On top of that, casualties from the fighting keep climbing, and the fighters we have left are now…”

I wondered how it had gotten this bad without anyone noticing, but I had no desire to dig for the full story.

What urgently needed solving here was the sewers and the city’s isolation. My body was only one, so I would have to pick one of the two…

Was this a branch point? Choose wrong and the city falls? Hssss.

“Demon Knight, as expected…”

My deliberation didn’t last long, though.

It had to be the sewers. My concept itself wouldn’t allow me to walk away from demons, and the Inquisitor—the hero—would want to stay here too.

Besides, travel times in this game were absurdly long.

Even if we broke the siege and requested aid from another city, troops would take at least a week to arrive. Plenty of time for the city to be finished. We needed to punch through the heart of the incident, fast.

“Internal sewer intelligence.”

“Pardon?”

“Anything compiling the demons that appeared in the sewers, the routes, that sort of thing?”

More than that—there were way too many documents! And why no tables, charts, titles, or emphasis points? Everything was written out in tiny, endless detail, so finding anything was a pain. Just give me the summary.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

“Ah—y-yes, there is. At the end here… ah, for the sewers we have a separate map…”

At my demand the clerk scrambled; another clerk who had been watching slipped quickly into the back and returned with a single sheet. A fairly large one.

“This is a map of the sewers themselves… but according to the survivor, many of the paths have been blocked or twisted. A lot of entrances were sealed off for defense as well, so it’s even worse.”

In other words, explore and remember it myself.

“Tell me the remaining entrances.”

“Here, here, and here… ah, you probably know this one. The mission you took last time started from there.”

A stroke of luck that a familiar entrance was still open. I gauged its location while checking my inventory situation at the same time.

If I’d known, I would have stocked more bandages. Everything had been one-shot kills so far, so I hadn’t bothered buying any. I hadn’t even imagined a sudden mega-dungeon like this.

The silver lining was that I hadn’t used many of the starter items. If I gave up on checking every path and ran it like a speedrun, I could probably manage.

The instant I made that resolve, the quest updated. A quest confirming my judgment had been right.

“I’ll take this.”

Even if the paths had changed, a map was better than none. I folded it and tucked it into my coat. I already had a pen—had forgotten to return it, actually—so no need to take one.

“Y-you’re not seriously going alone, are you? It’s far too dangerous by yourself!”

The moment I turned to leave, clerk Iseren cried out in horror.

“Sir Knight, you’re not going in right now, are you?”

Dev, who had casually taken the documents from me and was flipping through them, was the same. Both of them had such loud voices my ears stung a little.

“You’ve been running three days and nights without rest—you should sleep for a few hours at least…”

“What?! Then it’s even worse! You won’t even be able to rest properly inside the sewers! And supplies—”

Did I really need to?

Over the past three days of managing fatigue, I’d realized something. When the fatigue number was high my head got a bit foggy, so I’d missed it, but…

This game. There was no penalty for going past fatigue 100.

I just felt sleepy and tired. No stat drops or the usual disadvantages attached.

In that case—time attack took priority. I wasn’t about to watch the city fall while I rested.

Luckily, I was someone used to moving in this condition. Occupational hazard: chipping away at your life while you worked was everyday life.

Granted, I hadn’t been the one doing the moving… but close enough, right?

“Stay out of my business.”

“What do you mean, stay out of it! Then at least let’s meet up with the priest and the mage!”

No!

No—strictly speaking I didn’t mind, but you were the ones who made joining up impossible!! If I waited here they’d just go “There’s no way he’d wait for us!” and start swinging the mace!!

I ground my teeth thinking of that beloved-and-hated Kimchi Dumpling.

It wasn’t like I wanted to do this… okay, I did! But you were the ones who completely blocked party movement! So it’s your fault anyway!

“You’re really going alone?!”

Dev hurried after me.

A guy about my size trotting along behind—if I had a little brother, maybe it would feel like this. Watching him fight with Kimchi Dumpling, he was definitely younger than me.

Though the Inquisitor wasn’t little-sister material either.

If you thought about it, she was closer to a niece or a younger cousin. Especially the part where those big round eyes kept getting me into trouble, yet I still couldn’t bring myself to hate her.

“You get lost too.”

“Huh?”

“I have no intention of dragging a weakling around. You’re in the way.”

Either way, I cleanly abandoned any idea of relationship improvement and snapped it out.

I’d even considered the possibility this might be real because I didn’t want to die—but so what? If it was real, I was screwed in a different way!

In that case I’d rather trample the shame and immerse in the concept. Ah—though I didn’t want to roleplay the demon in my arm. That was excess setting even I couldn’t handle.

“B-but—”

“Your job is watching the horses, isn’t it?”

More importantly, Dev still wasn’t a formal companion or companion NPC. No related message had ever appeared, so that had to be it.

In practice he’d come as horse-watcher, not as someone who said he’d go with us. Though for a horse-watcher he’d let the Inquisitor and Archmage take the horses to the temple.

For the record, we hadn’t donated the horses. Leaving them at the temple was simply the safest option.

“…….”

Anyway, he had no reason to come with me. That was plain fact.

“…Right. My job was watching the horses.”

He seemed to realize it himself; the jaw visible under the hood worked quietly. The slight parting of his lips looked like daze.

“But sir…”

Nope, not listening, not listening.

I put speed into my steps. Fortunately Dev neither spoke further nor followed.

Soon the sewer entrance I remembered came into view under the riverbank.

“Reinforcements?”

As befitting a defense site, quite a few people were camped in front of the sewer. Everyone wore bloodstained bandages; the holding action must have been brutal.

“Who are you?”

I flashed my adventurer’s badge, then put it away the moment they checked my identity.

“Wait—where do you think you’re going? If you’re reinforcements, follow orders!”

Barricades ringed the riverbank, but a narrow path had been left open—probably for corpse disposal. I strode straight through it.

“Hey!”

When someone tried to stop me, I got an unintentional look at the veins standing out on them.

Blackened veins. A side effect of demon energy erosion. Or a side effect, period.

“You’re not seriously going in there?! Are you insane?!”

I let the words slide past and looked elsewhere. Besides this NPC, quite a few others showed black veins and bloodshot eyes.

Hard to ignore. If they turned into demons it would only be my headache. And besides…

“Take it.”

“Are you deaf—what?”

Well, I happened to have medicine. Medicine I would never use myself.

“This is—antidote! I heard there wasn’t much left…!”

And if I could clear the path by dumping bad inventory, even better!

While everyone’s eyes snagged on the demon-energy antidote, I went down the riverbank. People startled too late; I was already down.

That was when red eyes began to gleam in the sewer dark. Black feet stepped over the entrance whose grate had been torn away.

“……! Demons!”

“Hey—get back up here right now!”

Perfect timing. I crushed demon corpses underfoot and drew my zweihander.

“You’ll die like that!!”

Let’s see who shows up.

Skeletons, goblins, and two new faces I’d never seen today.

I settled into stance as they crawled out of the sewer.

“Damn it, forget the madman! Get into position—!”

“Victory to my blade, glory to the heavens above…!”

This time I skipped raising the sword to the sky. Instead I widened my stance, gripped the zweihander hard in both hands, and swept it horizontally.

Crack!

The skull of the corpse under my feet shattered, and black energy shot from the blade in the shape of a crescent moon.

Slash!

Tilted a little off true horizontal. Every demon body in front of me split cleanly in two.

That was the work of the flying sword-aura—Chamgyeok.

That was the skill description. For the record, I still hadn’t actually invested a point in the skill. That I could use an unlearned skill anyway was simply because the Stinger bug I’d half-dismissed as imagination had been real.

Ah—the activation trigger was just wishing for black energy to wrap the blade. I’d wondered if I needed some workaround of pretending to use Breaker while doing a different motion, but even that turned out unnecessary.

I still had no idea what principle made it work. But a player wasn’t the one who fixed bugs—they were the one who exploited them.

Saved me points, anyway.

“W-what in the world…”

Setting that aside, everyone present made stupid noises over the enemies that had collapsed in a single breath. Excellent.

For now I could leave without being grabbed.

I quickly checked whether the monsters were dead. None were alive. Meaning nothing on this side would get in my way either.

Click.

I sheathed the zweihander, rested a hand on the longsword just in case, and advanced one step at a time.

I didn’t run, of course. I was in a hurry, true, but there was no reason to run like a criminal. No style in that.

Grrrk!

But one Three-Eyed Hound I’d thought dead snapped its eyes open and launched itself from the corpse pile. Body split in half yet the head still moving—that was a real demon for you.

Slash!

Ugh, good thing I saw it. Without even glancing its way I drew the longsword. The blade swam through the air like water and split the thing’s skull in two.

With that, nothing left to interfere with me.

I stepped cleanly into the sewers. A grotesque passage, black strands clinging thickly everywhere, welcomed me.