Chapter 157: Back to Basics
Chapter 157: Back to Basics
Yoojung’s lips were pressed firmly together, but surprisingly, her expression showed no particular change. No, a change was just beginning to surface. And when it did, I was startled.
“…Lick.”
Yoojung stuck out her pink tongue and lightly licked the bloodstains around her lips. Then, with a soft smack of her lips, her throat bobbed as she swallowed. Seeing the dangerous ecstasy fill her eyes as she tasted the blood, I felt a chill run down my entire body.
“Lee Yoojung!”
“Huh? Oh, ah. Sorry, Oppa.”
At my urgent shout, Yoojung’s face returned to normal. But I didn’t miss the subtle tremor in her right hand. I couldn’t tell if she was trembling with the murderous glee of having tasted blood or if it was Skurepf vibrating. But seeing it made my heart feel heavy.
I wanted to snatch Skurepf away from her immediately, but there was a more pressing matter. I quietly raised my sword and aimed it at the remaining one. From Ahn Hyun’s direction, I could hear ceaseless explosions, flashing lights, and harsh screams. The priority was to quickly finish off the last one and join the main group to provide support.
Yoojung swept her long hair back and moved behind me. Flakes of dried blood showered down, and gore seeped into her hair, but she seemed completely unfazed. I read the Blood Golem’s information with my Third Eye and discovered that its magic core was embedded in its right chest.
“The magic core is in its right chest, where a human heart would be. You just need to stab it from the opposite direction. I’ll keep it tied down, so find your own timing to move in.”
“Roger that♪”
Yoojung’s reply was cute, but it didn’t feel cute at all. The initial symptoms she’d just shown were uncomfortably similar to how I had been when I lost Yoohyun-hyung and Han Soyoung. I decided I absolutely had to have a talk with Skurepf after we finished exploring the Cave of Screams.
Blood Golems have no sense of kinship. At least, that’s what I knew. However, the new one that had just risen from the swamp seemed furious. It was throwing quite a tantrum, swinging its bone club around and occasionally smashing the ground.
“Kraaaaaaang!”
I thought I heard Yoojung’s voice from behind me, urging, “Oppa. Hurry.” But it was drowned out by the monster’s timely roar. I tilted my head for a moment before charging forward.
Whoosh.
Hearing the sound of the club cleaving the air, I kicked off the ground and jumped high. As my body rose into the air, I felt a cool breeze rush past beneath my feet. I tucked my legs in slightly. For a split second, I made contact with the passing club, borrowing its force to launch myself forward once more.
I had told her to find her own timing, but I intended to give her an opening right away. As the monster’s head rushed toward me, I didn’t hesitate and immediately swung my sword.
Pow!
The back of its head exploded, sending out a powerful fountain of blood. Just in case, I was about to shout, “Now!” but I shut my mouth when I saw Yoojung already in position behind it. It seemed she had been waiting for the opportunity all along. The moment its head burst, she leaped up with that strange, sensual cry of hers and began to stab indiscriminately with her daggers.
The white light of her katana and the blood-red Skurepf crossed paths. The daggers plunged into the golem’s back and, with far too much ease, pierced straight through its chest. At that moment, the Blood Golem’s head, which had been regenerating, dissolved into a pool of blood and scattered. With its magic core shattered, it had lost its ability to restore itself.
“……”
Reading it with my Third Eye, I could see the magic core had been cleanly sliced in half. Of all the times Yoojung had supported me in battle, this was the most satisfyingly swift.
Soon, the Blood Golem’s body began to tremble, showing signs of an impending explosion. This time, I didn’t tell her to get away. I just watched her quietly, intending to see how she would react.
Yoojung was dangling from the golem’s back, her daggers still embedded in it. But before she could even pull them out, the Blood Golem’s body exploded with a loud bang.
Splat! Splat-splat! Splash—!
And in that final moment, I saw it clearly. As the Blood Golem’s body burst and another shower of blood rained down, Yoojung calmly closed her eyes. Like a woman standing under a showerhead, letting the water pour over her, she seemed to melt into the fountain of blood without any hesitation.
*
In conclusion, we were able to deal with the other three monsters without taking much damage. Thanks to the lingering effects of Vivian’s magic even after the Feedback Control kicked in, they were easy opponents. Ahn Hyun even managed to luckily take one down himself. (Though it looked like Ko Yeonju had secretly helped him, I didn’t ask.)
“Hyung. Good wor—huh?!”
Ahn Hyun, who had just finished the battle and was speaking to me with a flushed face, let out a small scream when he saw Yoojung standing behind me. Of course, Ahn Hyun also had blood splattered here and there on his body, but it was tolerable since he hadn’t deliberately bathed in it like she had. Yoojung’s appearance, however, was a true spectacle.
“Hm? What?”
“N-Nothing.”
Blood dripped from Yoojung’s long hair. She was completely soaked in it, as if she had just taken a blood shower. When she asked with an innocent face, Ahn Hyun immediately turned his head, avoiding the question. It was the same for Ahn Sol.
“Sol. Unni needs something to wipe off with.”
“Y-Yes? Yes, Unni. J-Just a moment.”
“Okay♬”
Yoojung snatched the cloth from Ahn Sol’s hand as she hurriedly offered it and began to cheerfully wipe her face and body. Ahn Hyun sent me a questioning look, as if asking what in the world had happened, but I simply answered with a sigh. Jeez, why did these kids have to be such a handful? In any case, from the outside, the battle itself had been a success, so I had to console myself with the fact that I’d bought them clothes with self-restoration and purification functions.
After some time had passed and Yoojung had returned from her madwoman state, the party quickly regrouped. When we gathered again, a brief debate broke out over what to do with the Blood Golem corpses. Yoojung had suggested dissecting them to retrieve the magic cores. However, it was a non-starter.
“Well, Blood Golems are considered a type of undead, you know. The magic cores inside them would surely be overflowing with demonic energy. Is there really a need to take them? Especially if we have to go through the trouble of dissecting them ourselves?”
“Before that, what are you going to do with magic cores that are already split in two? You’re the one who broke two of them.”
At my and Ko Yeonju’s persuasion, she let out a disappointed sigh. If this had been before the battle, I would have been proud of her for starting to offer opinions for the caravan’s sake. But once you start seeing someone with unease, you can’t help but continue to see them that way. The same girl who used to spit because she found them disgusting now seemed to want to get up close and dissect one on purpose.
With the debate settled, we decided to resume our march. Passing through the area slick with the remains of the Blood Golems, we entered a long, open passage ahead. The dark interior of the cave welcomed us once more. The three mages again chanted the Light spell, pushing back the pitch-black darkness, if only a little.
“Hey, Hyung. What Yoojung said got me thinking.”
Ahn Hyun sidled up next to me and spoke. When I turned my head, his face was full of caution. I nodded for him to continue, and he slowly went on.
“The Cave of Screams is mostly filled with undead, right? But if we can’t get anything from them for the same reason as before, doesn’t that mean there are almost no rewards to be found in this dungeon?”
“Hmm. That’s not true. In fact, there might be more to gain in a cave like this.”
When I shook my head and answered firmly, Ahn Hyun tilted his head. Since we were walking through a quiet passage, his voice echoed softly. The others behind us must have heard him, as a gentle voice soon followed.
“Think back to the cave entrance. The Wraith statues and the magic square in the clearing. Do you still think the Cave of Screams formed naturally?”
“That’s right. Even if we concede that the cave itself might be natural, considering the undead inside and the mechanisms we’ve passed, we can’t deny that it’s been touched by human hands. It seems to have been used as some kind of secret facility. If so, we might find rooms with traces of Residents the deeper we go.”
Whose daughters were they to be so smart? They were really sharp. Of course, I didn’t say this out loud. But the two of them had said everything I wanted to say. As Hayeon’s supplementary explanation finished, Ahn Hyun nodded vigorously, finally understanding.
I roughly estimated the distance we had traveled so far. If the entire cave was a 10, the clearing with the magic circle was at 2. We had probably traveled another 2 since then. We had taken an unscheduled rest in the clearing, but the place I had originally set as our first rest stop was at a distance of 5. And there…
“Hehe.”
“Ack. Hyung, what’s with the sudden laugh? You scared me.”
“Ah. It’s nothing.”
At that thought, I let out a laugh without realizing it. This was something I had only recently remembered. At distance point 5, the item I was after was a Chaos Mimic. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call Chaos Mimics the greatest treasure chests in the Hall Plain. Of course, it tended to be case-by-case, but I was excited to see what they would spit out if I forced their tightly shut lids open and shook them out. You could call it the thrill you feel before drawing a lottery ticket. In my first run, I didn’t have the ability to catch one and could only watch as it escaped through Chaos, but now I could finally resolve that regret.
In reality, cases of catching a Chaos Mimic are extremely rare. Not only is it incredibly difficult to find one, but catching it and opening the chest is even harder. If things go wrong, they escape through a passage connected to the inside of the chest, and if you try to force it, you might get sucked into that Chaos yourself. But I had Eternal Flame. I had promised not to overuse it, but a Chaos Mimic was a monster so valuable it was more than worth using Eternal Flame to catch.
Moreover, according to my memory, there were a total of three Chaos Mimics sleeping in that room. To be honest, I hadn’t considered this when I chose my privilege or when I decided to head for Mule first. I simply hadn’t remembered it back then.
But now that I had the ability to catch them, I would never let them get away meaninglessly like before. Passing up a guaranteed treasure chest right in front of you just because it’s a little dangerous is something only a fool would do.
*
That didn’t mean I rushed our march. It was true that I was looking forward to it, but I was exploring the cave thoroughly from the perspective of a Year 0 User. I was also considering backup plans in the one-in-a-million chance that the path was wrong or the room wasn’t there.
While traveling the remaining distance of 1, we had to fight another group of undead. This time, however, they were Bone Knights and Bone Soldiers, so we were able to fight with relative ease.
After defeating them all, we found ourselves at another fork in the road. There were two paths. One turned sharply to the left, while the other traced a gentle curve to the right. To get to point 5, we had to follow the curved path to the right. After sensing the area for a moment, I called out to Ahn Sol, who was in the middle of chanting a spell.
“Yes, Orabeoni. Did you call for me?”
Ahn Sol had been healing Ahn Hyun, who had been cut by a Bone Knight’s sword, but she came running the moment I called.
So she can speak so demurely now after saying what she said back then. I cleared my throat once or twice, then lifted her up and set her down in front of the fork. She looked surprised by the sudden action, her eyes wide, but she soon understood my intention and quietly closed them.
A moment passed, and when Ahn Sol opened her eyes, she had an ambiguous expression. She reached out to grab my collar, so I took a slight step back and spoke.
“Do you really have to grab my collar?”
“Hmph. Don’t avoid me. Why are you avoiding me? If I think only from my own perspective, I don’t want to take either path. But if I hold on to you, Orabeoni, I can think from Orabeoni’s perspective too…”
“Hmm?”
I couldn’t just ignore what she just said, so I obediently let her grab my collar. When I thought about it, she wasn’t wrong. Ahn Sol was timid, so if she had been thinking only of herself, some of her luck-based actions up until now wouldn’t have made sense. In other words, she had been acting with me in mind all this time. I set aside my proud feelings for the moment and decided to remember her words, as they seemed to be a valuable clue for researching the Luck stat in the future.
And Ahn Sol, holding my collar, now pointed confidently down the right-hand path as if she was certain.