One Swing, Ten Dead
"......"
"......"
It was not magic, and it was not a skill. He had moved his sword once, and that was all. To Rozi's eyes that was the whole of it—and with that single motion, the lives of ten Predators were cut short. A chill prickled up his spine. Overwhelming martial force swallowed the once-arrogant Rozi in fear and a shudder he could not master.
Is that even possible? He isn't a god. How does one lone player carry might like that?
This was far past anything he could dismiss as a fine blade.
Rozi had stopped dead in the middle of his sprint, and because of it the Demon God Worshippers saw the sight as well.
"......"
"......What in the world."
It felt as though their breath had been seized in their throats. No words would come.
"Hurry! Run, hurry!"
Not yet. It still wasn't too late. The witch they had marked had to die. Rozi ran as if his life depended on it, because it did. Whether she noticed him no longer mattered. If he could only finish her before Shin Yujun arrived—!
The wish was never granted. Yujun cast Flash and cut across his path.
The thread of hope ought to have snapped there. Rozi did not let go of it. He used two Demon God Worshippers as bait—or rather, the two offered themselves. Without a heartbeat of hesitation, they charged Yujun.
A sword flashed like lightning. Both heads left their shoulders.
Their sacrifice was not in vain. They had bought time. Only a little, but a little was something.
Rozi reached the very space before the witch, and only then did a smile touch his mouth. It lasted the length of a dream.
Crunch.
Space Domination, unfolded before he even registered it, bound his body fast.
"Aaaagh!"
His magic resistance had climbed high, and still the pressure was monstrous. Rozi screamed. Bone throughout his body twisted and snapped. Flesh pulped, and blood spilled down in sheets. He screamed without pause. However well trained he was, this was not pain that willpower could endure.
"You're not even a cockroach. Why are you lasting this long?"
Yujun muttered it, displeasure plain on his face.
High magic resistance, perhaps. Even under Space Domination, Rozi refused to die.
His level climbed an awful lot, though.
It was not only the Demon God Worshippers and Predators who had been here. In the aftermath of the Meteor spell, Predators all through the forest kept dying, and because of it experience climbed in real time.
What a windfall.
Dropping the meteor into the heart of Sourtul Forest had been the right decision. What it yielded was far too much: fine equipment off the Demon God Worshippers, and experience in bulk. This hunt was a success.
Yujun walked up to Rozi, who was still, stubbornly, alive.
"Hey. Let me ask you one thing."
"Graaagh! Aaaagh!"
He looked too far gone in pain to answer, so Yujun eased the pressure of Space Domination for a moment.
"Huk—! Hah! Hah!"
Rozi, dragged back from the edge of death, hauled in ragged breaths.
"How do you get out of Sourtul Forest?"
Rozi opened his mouth to answer and vomited blood of a dark crimson.
"You think I'd tell you that? You will never leave this forest. Suffer a while. Kehehe..."
"Couldn't you just dig a tunnel?"
"......"
Rozi's eyes flew wide, then settled. It was over in an instant, but Yujun caught the flicker and smiled.
"So that's it."
"......Knowing that doesn't get you anywhere. From where I stand, you don't know a thing."
"Right. So fill me in."
"No."
The ogre was prickly past all reason. He plainly had no intention of talking.
"You under a prohibition too?"
"As if. That sort of thing only gets hung on the low-ranks."
At Yujun's question Rozi let out a scornful breath and denied it.
"Oh. So your rank is high enough that you can say whatever you like?"
"That's right."
Trussed up as he was, he still spoke as if proud of it. For a moment Rozi seemed to have forgotten whose hands his life sat in.
No. Has he already given up?
He might have decided there was no surviving this. That would explain the do-what-you-want attitude.
"Tell me what you know. Who knows? I might let you live."
"A line that wouldn't work on a child. I already know how merciless and cruel your nature is. They say that after you drive players into a corner, you coax what you want out of them with words and then kill them. I even heard you lured children—unripe little ones—and killed them too. I am different. I will never give you the information you want, so do as you please."
Rozi spat it with a face twisted in spite.
When did I ever go that far...? The rumors have gotten badly warped.
It was genuinely unfair. He had never laid a hand on a child.
Just how thoroughly are they turning me into trash.
Yujun scratched his head. Still, for a villain, the will was solid. Then there was a method. The man had said there was no prohibition, so dominating his brain would do. Ask Manuela for help, and the matter would be simple.
But the situation was not finished. A great many Predators remained, and they were driving his summons and companions into danger.
A low hum rose, then a deeper one. Yujun called on Ancient Magic and set about clearing the Predators. The forest detonated—boom, crash.
"Kyaaaaagh!"
"Graah!"
"It... hurts!"
Unlike the Demon God Worshippers, the Predators were not in a state of drastically raised magic resistance. They were helpless before his spells. Searing flame melted bodies whole; extreme freezing magic locked others solid in ice. The number remaining soon fell below twenty.
The rest, the summons will handle.
Only then did Yujun stop his magic and turn his head toward Rozi.
Rozi glared at him with a face like a vengeful ghost.
"What are you looking at."
"You will regret making enemies of us."
"That's why I've been killing so diligently. Trying my best not to regret it."
"Your tongue is first-rate. Does your skill at wagging it climb every time you grow stronger?"
"You're weak, and only your mouth is alive."
"......"
There was nothing to be gained by squeezing answers out of Rozi right now. He had a better idea. From his inventory he drew a single orb.
◈ Option: You may seal one opponent inside the orb. The sealed opponent can never escape until the owner of the Absolute Sealing Orb dies, or until the seal is released.
◈ One player is currently sealed.
The Absolute Sealing Orb. Yujun did not hesitate. He released the Heresy Inquisitor's seal.
A familiar face emerged after a long absence. The Heresy Inquisitor was far more haggard than before—eyes sunken, fatigue sunk deep into his features.
"Heresy Inquisitor."
"H-huk! A monster!"
"A monster?"
"I-I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please, spare me. I truly don't want to go back in there!"
"I heard you. Let me ask one thing."
"Yes! Yes!"
"You know him?"
Yujun pointed at Rozi with one finger. The two belonged to the same Demon God Worshippers. They might know each other.
"Huh? That looks like Rozi."
"Heresy Inquisitor...? Are you not the Heresy Inquisitor?"
Sure enough, they recognized one another. And come to think of it—did the Heresy Inquisitor not even have a name? A pang of pity rose, uninvited.
"Rozi. Why are you here?"
"I should be the one asking you..."
Neither of them seemed to understand. Then both looked at Yujun and nodded, as if that explained everything.
"Rozi. You threw yourself at this man without so much as fear."
"Heresy Inquisitor... you as well?"
"I did."
They sighed as one.
"How did it come to this."
"That's my line."
"Me? Orders came down from above. That's all."
"A pity, then."
Yujun stepped in between them.
"Heresy Inquisitor. This is Sourtul Forest. Do you know it?"
"How could I not. I know it."
"The way out?"
"...I don't know."
"Want to go back in here?"
Yujun held up the Absolute Sealing Orb. The color drained from the Heresy Inquisitor's face.
"Anything but that. Please."
"Then talk."
"Could you not simply kill me?"
"Heresy Inquisitor! What are you saying! Has your pride as a worshipper of the Demon God vanished? How can you speak so feebly?"
"Pride, my ass! I have to live first! No—I have to die first! So kill me already. It's my last request."
Rozi's rebuke did nothing. The Heresy Inquisitor clung to Yujun's leg and begged. Yujun had not even bound him, and still the man showed not the slightest intent to attack. A few hard lessons had taught him that a surprise blow would be useless.
He really doesn't know.
Then he was useless. Yujun took the head from the Heresy Inquisitor's shoulders with the sword that held Chaos. The motion was clean, without a wasted line.
Damage cannot be inflicted.
Your standing is too low.
The message rose all the same. The Heresy Inquisitor died of that stroke regardless. It was the power of Chaos.
"......!"
Rozi's eyes flew wide. He knew how high the Heresy Inquisitor's standing was. And yet Shin Yujun, who looked far beneath him in rank, had killed the man in a single blow. It was a sight his common sense could not accept.
"How did you do it?"
"Curious?"
"I am."
"Not telling."
"......"
"You didn't talk either."
"Childish beyond words."
"Tsk. Mouthing off again? In you go, too."
Yujun sealed Rozi inside the Absolute Sealing Orb.
"Wait. Just a mom—"
He never finished the sentence. The orb took him, and in the end Rozi was shut away somewhere worse even than the Sky Prison. A wretched fate, if ever there was one.
With Rozi sealed, Yujun put down the remaining Predators one by one with the sword. The blade bit, and bit again.
"Graaaagh!"
"M-monster..."
The last Predator left only that, and fell in spectacular ruin.
You're the monster. Who are you calling a monster.
And with that, the battle was over.
The fire in Sourtul Forest still had not been put out. By now the System ought to have stepped in, but there was no sign of it. If anything, the blaze was worsening. Acrid smoke billowed thick into the sky, and the air had heated until breathing itself was unpleasant.
"Not a living cultural treasure—no. A living natural disaster, Master. There is simply no other word for it."
Paranet said it with open admiration on his face.
"You mean me?"
"Yes!"
"That's a compliment, right?"
"But of course!"
"No one looks hurt."
"I myself am perfectly fine!"
"Wasn't talking to you."
"Pardon? That is far too cruel."
"Even if you're hurt—no, even if you die, it doesn't matter. You're a summon."
"Th-that is true, and yet... I do wish you might treasure me as well."
"I'll deliberate with great care and review the matter as favorably as I can."
"Oh, my thank—no. Isn't that a roundabout way of refusing?"
"......"
Yujun shut his mouth tight.
What. Since when did this guy get so smart.
"Ah, that's right. Master. There is something I must report."
"What."
"I, too, have surpassed level 500."
"...Huh? You have?"
Faster than he had expected. No—that wasn't right. Paranet's experience rose together with his own. However much Yujun's level climbed, Paranet's climbed with it: not identically, but close. In a sense, it was only natural.
What's my level?
For the first time in a long while, Yujun opened his status window and checked.
550? Already?
He had only looked at his stats and his level, and it had climbed this far? He had laid waste to half of Sourtul Forest, yes, but unless the Predators had taken the meteor dead-on, they should not have died on the spot.
Right. I killed the Demon God Worshippers and the Heresy Inquisitor, too.
On top of that, two experience-boosting effects were stacked on him at once. Unallocated points had piled up to 512 as well.
In truth, unless a situation was truly desperate or dangerous, unallocated points were best saved. No one could know when, or in what circumstance, a particular stat would become indispensable. Stockpiling them, on the other hand, meant carrying a measure of risk. Die without ever spending them, and there were few things more hollow.
Normally I'd save them... but it's past five hundred. Maybe I should distribute them.