What Else Was Out There
"Was there anything else in the other places?"
"It's all the same. Monsters show up, and the scenery just keeps repeating."
"Was there any monster you yourself found unusual?"
"They were all unusual."
"That's my point. There must have been one that stood out even more."
"There was one."
"What was it?"
"A golem."
"A golem?"
"Yes. A golem."
"The kind mages and alchemists make?"
"That's right."
"Why would a golem be in this forest?"
"Exactly. That's why I brought it up. A golem isn't a monster that occurs naturally."
Yujun nodded.
"It is strange, I'll give you that."
"And for a golem, it was far too strong. Stronger than anything a player at the level we know could have made."
Whoever had built a golem of that caliber would have to be a mage or an alchemist of a far higher order. Did a mage like that even exist?
Yujun spread his senses wide. He caught the auras of monsters, three or four of them higher predators.
My stats really have gone up. The range of my senses jumped.
It was beyond any comparison with before, and what it told him was simple: Sourtul Forest was absurdly vast. He had only come along to help Manuela find the materials she needed, and the errand had turned into an endlessly long journey. He didn't regret it. His level had climbed that much for the trouble, and he could have searched forever without finding a hunting ground this good. In a sense, Manuela had handed him the right hunting ground at exactly the right time.
"Manuela."
"What?"
"Make me a dungeon sometime, too."
"...Out of nowhere?"
"Yeah. I'm helping you out a lot this time, aren't I?"
If Manuela had come here alone, she would have been in danger long before now. Or dead. She knew it as well as he did, and she nodded.
"Fine."
"Oh, for real?"
"That much is obvious. Of course I'll do it."
"Wow... I'm actually touched."
A smile tugged at the corner of Yujun's mouth. He never would have imagined chatting this easily with a witch—a pureblood witch, no less, and one who had been all but his enemy. You really never knew how things would turn out.
They were walking along in that peace when three or four presences caught in his senses.
"Players."
"...What?"
He had murmured it, and Jo Su-a asked him to say it again.
"There are players. Nearby."
"Nearby? I don't feel anything at all..."
Her expression hardened as the words left her. If he was right, then her senses were falling behind his. She still felt nothing, which meant the gap was considerable.
Is he really only level 400?
Whether she believed it or not, Yujun was already focused on the presences he had caught.
"They're players, but something's off. There's a strange aura. I'd call it wicked."
"A wicked aura? That's a thing?"
"It's similar to dark demonic energy. Similar, but thicker. Stickier."
"Ah."
At his words, the Hon's expressions changed.
"Don't tell me it's them."
"So they really have set up in Sourtul Forest."
"What do we do? The moment they notice us, they'll swarm."
"What are you talking about?"
Yujun asked it after hearing the Hon out.
"Ah. That wicked aura you mentioned. It's what the Demon God Worshippers give off."
"Demon God Worshippers? I've run into them before. I didn't feel an aura like this then."
The Intermediate Tutorial. There, he had faced more than tens of thousands of Demon God Worshippers, though he had been borrowing the Primordial Player's stats at the time.
"Back then, maybe. The Demon God Worshippers these days are different. They're far stronger than before, and their aura is unpleasant enough to turn your stomach. Meet them once and you'll understand at once."
"Ah."
The Demon God Worshippers he had met had been on a virtual battlefield. In other words, Demon God Worshippers from hundreds of years ago. There was no guarantee they were the same now.
"Why is running into Demon God Worshippers such a big deal?"
"Once they mark you, they hunt you until you're dead. They're relentlessly persistent."
"And they're numerous?"
"Beyond measuring."
"...That bad?"
"Yes."
"Do Demon God Worshippers usually show up often in Sourtul Forest?"
"There's a rumor among us Hon. That Demon God Worshippers come and go through this forest often."
"Why?"
"That, we don't know either."
One thing was certain. The Demon God Worshippers were enemies. They meant to revive the Demon God and destroy not only the Continent, but Earth as well.
Yujun drew his sword. Until now he had left the fighting to Jo Su-a, but he couldn't afford to face Demon God Worshippers halfheartedly. Now that he knew they were here, he intended to take this seriously.
That was when Jo Su-a spoke.
"Demon God Worshippers? What are those?"
"Bad people. They don't do our lives any good, so if you meet them, you kill them."
"...They're still players, though, aren't they?"
"If we leave them be, Earth is finished."
"What? You're joking."
"Does it look like I am?"
Yujun pressed his mouth shut and put on a grave expression. The sudden shift was too much, and Jo Su-a burst out laughing.
"......"
"Sorry. It wasn't because your face was funny."
"You really didn't need to add that. Anyway. Demon God Worshippers are not people we can afford to leave alive. Not if we're thinking about what comes after."
"All right."
Jo Su-a had killed players before. More than a few of them. She hadn't killed them because she wanted to, but the fact remained that she had, so she didn't hesitate.
The Demon God Worshippers drew steadily closer. Yujun stood still and waited. At last, four of them stepped out before his party.
"They're actually players?"
"People still come all the way out here."
"Look at them. Players really have no fear."
"Two humans, one witch, and... an undead and two Hon? Odd combination."
The Demon God Worshippers who had appeared were dark elves. Yujun let out a long sigh.
Do I have some kind of fate with dark elves?
He had already gotten tangled up with them once, badly. He had been much weaker then than he was now, but even so he had fought dark elves with his life on the line. And of all things, the Demon God Worshippers who showed up had to be dark elves.
"Demon God Worshippers are outcasts even among their own races. You shouldn't think of them as ordinary dark elves."
Rayl said it, and Yujun nodded as he raised his sword.
"He knows us."
"A Hon would."
"Stubborn bastards. Some of them are still around?"
"We killed some not long ago. Big bodies. The meat juices were no joke. Heheh..."
At those words, the two Hon flared with rage.
"How dare you!"
"I'll kill you!"
They started to charge, and Yujun threw up an arm to stop them.
"I'll handle it."
"...They insulted us."
"And you still want to throw yourselves at them when you know you'll die for nothing?"
"......"
"......"
The Hon had no answer. It was plain that they weren't even a match for the Demon God Worshippers standing there.
Yujun poured mana into his sword. Vmmm. Vmmmm. The exquisite blade shuddered hard. Merely feeding it mana kicked up a gale around him, and the ground shook violently. Part of it was the sheer volume of mana, but the rest was the sword's own monstrous attack power.
The Demon God Worshippers' faces changed.
"He's no ordinary man."
"That sword. It's dangerous."
"Send for support, just in case."
"Got it."
They judged Yujun dangerous at a glance. Their eye for strength was sharp, but more than that, the presence rolling off him was overwhelming.
The Demon God Worshippers summoned spirits. Four dark spirits—rarely seen—appeared, and every one of them was of the highest grade. Manuela's mouth fell open.
"...No. Four highest-grade dark spirits? At once?"
She knew exactly how impossible that was. Dark spirits were harder to summon than spirits of any other element, and harder still to befriend. Their temperaments were foul enough that they defied their contractors' orders at the slightest provocation, which was why they were rare, and why no one tried to handle them lightly. In exchange, the power they held defied imagination. They couldn't even be compared to ordinary highest-grade spirits, and there were four of them. Manuela's shock was not for nothing.
"Yujun. Those things..."
"I know."
Yujun had a rough sense of what a dark spirit could do. He remembered getting thoroughly wrecked by one in War of the Gods. He had died to a dark spirit while holding rank one, and the shock had been all the greater for it.
To think I'd see that dark spirit again here.
A faint smile crossed his face. Maybe this was better. A dark spirit he had seen once and never been able to meet again—the time had come to avenge that defeat.
Yujun was the first to kick off the ground. A dark spirit was perfect in attack, defense, and support alike, and in pure combat it was fair to say they had reached the level of a Spirit King. The dark spirits fired bolts of densely concentrated violet energy. From four directions the beams lanced out like lasers, and Yujun slipped through them with a light shift of his body. In an instant he was in front of one of the Demon God Worshippers, and his sword came down.
Shhk! Kwaaang!
A dark spirit had already thrown up dozens of layers of Black Shield—thicker than an ordinary shield, and opaque enough to hide whatever stood behind it. Yujun's sword punched through, and then he sprang back. Violet energy raked the spot where he had been standing.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwaang! Kwa-kwaang!
Yujun's brow furrowed. The dark spirits were quicker than he had expected, and their responses fit the moment perfectly. They poured out attacks without a pause, enough that he had to wonder where the mana kept coming from.
Everyone but Jo Su-a fell back. She could add to their strength right now, and she knew it herself.
"Take just one of the dark spirits."
"Got it."
At his word she nodded and burst forward. With the dark spirits' attention split, Yujun moved much more freely. A dark spirit retreated in a hurry. He had sheared off the tip of its head, but spirits were immune to physical attacks.
I have to deal with the Demon God Worshippers first.
Cut through the dark spirits, reach the Worshippers, and take their heads. For now, that was the best move. But the Demon God Worshippers were not standing around watching after summoning their spirits. True to dark elves, they supported the spirits with bows and daggers.
A sharp arrowhead grazed Jo Su-a's left arm. Poison must have coated the tip; her movements turned sluggish. She pulled an antidote from her inventory, drank it, and was moving again. If she stopped, the violet energy the dark spirits were firing would hit her. There was no other outcome.
Unlike her struggle, there was still room in Yujun's movements. He succeeded in severing one Demon God Worshipper's arm. Dodging the dark spirits' concentrated barrage had kept him from finishing the kill, but he had confirmed that his attacks could land. In that span, one of the Worshippers restored the wounded arm.
Yujun wasn't anxious. He still hadn't fought at full strength.
Maybe I should spend some unallocated points.