Chapter 53: Our Oppa (Hyung) Has Changed
Chapter 53: Our Oppa (Hyung) Has Changed
As I reached the Vagabond, who was gaping in disbelief, the female mage looked up at me, her eyes filled with terror. I lowered my head and met her gaze with an indifferent one of my own. She was a classic feline beauty, with eyes that tilted up slightly at the corners. Looking at her trembling form, I was suddenly struck by a strange sense of déjà vu.
During my first run, I had operated mainly in the underworld. Despite everything I did, relatively few people knew me, but those who did once called me the 〈Vagabond Hunter〉.
Later, the boundary between established Users and Vagabonds would become blurred, but originally the word Vagabond evoked murder, robbery, rape, and other crimes. As Vagabond activity worsened, established Users secretly formed a clan of their own—an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It was a gathering of Users who hunted Vagabonds, and its members became known as Vagabond Hunters.
The clan, true to its purpose, didn't care what you did, as long as the target was a Vagabond. Enslavement, human experimentation, murder, rape—anything was permitted. They were given the authority to commit any despicable act, as long as it was against a Vagabond. They were so vicious that even some established Users who knew the situation began to shun the hunters in the clan.
I had only been a part of it for a short time, but memories of what I'd done as a member of that clan resurfaced. I let my sword, sticky with the blood of the Vagabonds I had just killed, hang by my side. Still, for a mage, she had shown decent skill and sense, which piqued my curiosity about her information.
『 Player Status 』
Name: Lee Bomi (Year 0 User)
『 Abilities 』
[Strength 36] [Durability 28] [Agility 42] [Stamina 34] [Magic Power 62] [Luck 40]
Just as I expected, she had been a User for less than a year, and she had probably been a Vagabond for even less time. Her stats were respectable for a mage. Hyun, Sol, and Yoojung were simply so exceptional that Lee Bomi’s numbers looked ordinary; by the standards of her year, they were above average. Had I met her during the Rite of Passage, I might have considered recruiting her. Now, however, she was part of a Vagabond group that had attempted to kill us.
“Haaa…”
Sensing my cold killing intent, Lee Bomi let out a weak scream. Even so, her fingers twitched as if her bonds were loosening, so I pressed my foot down on them firmly and slowly raised my sword. A drop of blood fell from the blade and splattered onto her cheek. Only then, as if finally realizing death was upon her, did she speak in a desperate voice.
“P-Please, spare me!”
I ignored her and turned my gaze to the kids, who were watching blankly.
“See? You can do it if you just try. Anyway, that was a pretty decent battle. You've clearly gained some experience fighting other Users, because you performed much better than before. Of course, they were careless, but… it was still a good effort.”
“I'll do anything you say! Please! We're both from Korea, aren't we? Huh? I didn't want to do this. Please, I'm begging you…!”
The kids' expressions were very conflicted. They seemed happy to be praised, but they also looked troubled as they watched the woman screaming desperately beneath my foot. I continued to ignore Lee Bomi completely and went on.
“But it's not enough to just be good at familiar fights. Of course, this is something that will be solved with more experience, but you must never panic. Just do what you need to do, like you did just now. And like I said before, never hold back against Vagabonds. They're nothing but trouble if you leave them alive… Ah. Hold on. She's being really loud.”
“I'll give you everything I have! If you want, you can have my body, no, I'll even be your slave—Gack!”
Her incessant babbling was getting on my nerves, so I casually plunged my sword into her throat. As I thrust the sword into Lee Bomi's slender neck, she let out a single scream, then coughed up a gush of blood and died.
“Ah…”
“Hk…!”
I casually drew the sword from her throat and flicked off the blood, then heard the kids’ shocked voices. Ah, damn. A habit from my time as a Vagabond Hunter during my first run had surfaced. I had killed her reflexively, without thought, exactly as I used to do in the Hall Plain, but it might clash with the image I had shown the kids until now.
When I glanced over, the kids were staring at the woman’s hanging head. I saw their throats bob as they swallowed.
*
Night was already falling. The faint sunlight had vanished completely, and a pitch-black darkness was slowly encroaching on our surroundings. Gauging the distance we'd traveled, we were still just past the halfway point. This wasn't a journey that could be completed in a day or two, so I decided not to rush.
The kids were definitely growing stronger with each battle. They were far from perfect, but they no longer made the same mistakes they had at the very beginning. We had fought a total of six battles in the Black Forest today alone. If it hadn't been for that last fight, the day would have gone by rather smoothly.
“Cure!”
“Ugh…”
I looked at Ahn Hyun groaning on the forest floor. Sol knelt over him, sweating heavily as she cast Cure. Hyun’s entire body was covered in wolf bites after nearly sixteen Black Forest Wolves attacked. Almost half of them—eight—had swarmed him, so there was little I could criticize. He had apparently endured desperately because he knew that, if his position broke, Sol would immediately be endangered.
Wolves were not normally difficult opponents, but the Black Forest’s influence had given these creatures aggression and agility on a completely different level. Even while they tore at him, Ahn Hyun fought hard with his spear under my support and battlefield coordination, eventually bringing down most of the eight that attacked him. He still collapsed covered in blood once the battle ended.
I quickly took out a healing potion, applied half to his wounds, and poured the rest down his throat. Because Hyun had been injured, Sol was casting Cure far more than necessary while tears streamed down her face. Wounds of this extent were commonplace in the Hall Plain. I had treated him properly with a potion, and with a Priestess present, there was no danger of Ahn Hyun losing his life.
In any case, once the healing was done, Ahn Hyun let out a low groan and sat up. Yoojung, who had been watching with a worried expression, finally let out a sigh of relief.
“Whew… You idiot. I'm glad you're okay.”
“Pick one, a compliment or an insult.”
“I was worried, okay?”
“Hyung. Did the sun set in the east today by any chance?”
Yoojung mulled over Ahn Hyun's words for a moment before realizing he was teasing her. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. Watching the two of them bicker as soon as he was up, I just shook my head.
“How's your body?”
“…I think I've recovered. My joints are stiff and I feel weak, but it won't be a problem to move.”
“Then we can't continue fighting today. We should probably prepare to camp here. The sun's gone down anyway. In any case, you did well. You held out.”
“Not at all. If it weren't for your support, Hyung, I would have collapsed much sooner.”
It seemed he'd somehow noticed I was helping him even while he was frantically swinging his spear. No matter how many wolves appeared, they posed little threat to me. Still, there was a reason I'd let Ahn Hyun get ‘moderately’ mauled.
Recovering fully after an injury sustained in battle could increase Durability. I also suspected that the experience might help awaken one of Ahn Hyun’s Latent Abilities, Unyielding. He might regard it only as suffering now, but it would surely reward him later.
Night had fallen, and we'd fought six battles, so I figured that was enough for one day. The moment I said we were making camp, Yoojung got busy, leaving Ahn Hyun to rest. I took the bag Sol was wearing and rummaged through it, pulling out a magic stone.
Yoojung, who was in the middle of clearing leaves and brush from the ground, tilted her head when she saw the magic stone I took out and spoke up.
“Oppa. So we're sleeping inside this forest tonight?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Well, isn't that a little dangerous? Monsters could attack at night. I'm a little worried that a night watch alone won't be enough.”
“Hmm. I bought a magic stone for camping, so we should be fine for the most part.”
Seeing the kids talk to me so casually, I was relieved that they didn't seem to show any particular aversion to me stabbing Lee Bomi in the neck. Of course, they could just be pretending. But if they had started going on about how I killed someone so casually and how scary it was, it would have been quite annoying. However, thanks to the thorough education they received about Vagabonds at the User Academy, the uncomfortable atmosphere we experienced during the Rite of Passage didn't reappear.
At the mention of a magic stone, Yoojung's expression turned strange. She looked back and forth between her weapon and the ones Hyun and Sol were holding, then at the backpacks, the empty potion bottles, and finally at the magic stone, before speaking with a confused look on her face.
“O-Oppa.”
“What is it now? If it's not urgent, help me prepare the campsite.”
“No, it's not that. It's not urgent, but… where on earth did you get all this?”
“Get what?”
When I asked back with a nonchalant expression, Yoojung began pointing to each item one by one.
“The weapons. The inn fees. The backpacks. The magic stone. The potions. And everything else. The money we gave you plus your weekly pay should only amount to a little over 10 Gold, right? I heard that magic stones alone are incredibly expensive…”
“The kind of magic stone used for camping isn't that expensive. It emits an energy that repels monsters. And it's not high-quality, so we'll still need to stand watch.”
“Still. No matter how I think about it, I can't accept that you bought all this with just 10 Gold. Did you get money from somewhere?”
As Yoojung finished speaking, Ahn Hyun and Ahn Sol nodded in agreement. I wanted to brush it off, but I could see from their curious faces that they were determined to get an answer. Holding four magic stones, I pretended to level the ground for the campsite and spoke in an indifferent voice.
“The User Academy.”
“The Academy? Did they give out extra money for being a top trainee or something?”
“No. I received it when I got the clan offers.”
“Huh? But you rejected all of them, Oppa. They still gave it to you?”
“Hyung. Don't tell me you took the money and ran?”
As Yoojung and Hyun questioned me one after another, I sighed again. I saw the kids flinch again at my sigh. It seemed my initial outburst of anger was still on their minds. I had only let out a single sigh, but Yoojung looked as if she regretted asking, and Ahn Hyun scratched his head, worried he'd misspoken.
I smacked my lips once before continuing.
“They gave it to me as a sign of goodwill. You know, asking me to come find them if I ever changed my mind. There was no reason to refuse a simple gift.”
“Oho…”
Oho, my ass. It was a lie I'd made up on the spot, but it wasn't a completely unreasonable excuse, so the kids seemed to accept it. My conscience wasn't entirely clear every time I lied like this. But it wasn't as if I could tell them about my past, so I could only answer with a calm expression.
“I figured it was better to just accept it than to stand on ceremony. That said, we're not exactly rolling in it. They didn't give me that much. If we don't get a good return on our investment from this expedition, we might not even be able to afford food, let alone an inn.”
“Heeh. I wouldn't like that. So that's why you told us to check the Vagabonds' belongings earlier. I wasn't a big fan of that.”
Black Scorpions and Black Forest Wolves had nothing worth selling. Some monsters were profitable and others were not. One reason vagrancy flourished was that killing another User could produce far more money at once than hunting monsters. Conversely, established Users could also make a considerable profit by killing and looting Vagabonds.
Honestly, if the kids hadn't been there, I would have stripped every Vagabond, male or female, down to their underwear and taken everything. But since I had my own secret funds and the kids were watching, I only took what was readily visible. I had struggled so desperately to survive in my first run that I still couldn't shake the habits that emerged from my subconscious.
“Don't be so naive. Do you think Gold coins grow on trees? Anyway, let's rest for today. We'll have a forced march again tomorrow. Let's clear a spot and set up camp.”
After telling Ahn Hyun, who was trying to jump up at my words, to lie back down, I reached for my backpack. Lifting the backpack, it felt a little heavier than when we started, thanks to looting the Vagabonds clean.
I reached inside, pulled out a sleeping bag, and gazed at Yoojung and Sol as they prepared dinner. Exhaustion was plain on both their faces, but they didn't seem to be in shock. There were still many areas for improvement, and I would need to keep watching them, but for now, I felt I could rest easy.