I Want to Get Out of Here — Forest of Skeletons (2)
I snapped back to consciousness at the sound of a frantic voice calling my name.
『Siwoo! Lee Siwoo!!』
“Ugh… yeah?”
『You with me? How do you feel?』
The moment I came to, what greeted me was the same hollow cavern and countless mountains of bones.
“Momo…? Wasn’t I just in that hallway?”
『What are you talking about? You opened your eyes and suddenly bolted outside.』
“I did?”
What the hell? Sleepwalking? But I don’t have a history of sleepwalking, and I wasn’t even asleep to begin with.
『Yeah! I kept calling you and you wouldn’t answer, then you just took off. I was terrified!』
“Ah… sorry. I honestly have no idea what happened either…”
I was sure I’d been concentrating hard and seen someone who looked like me… no, someone who looked different from me.
『More importantly, do you remember it?』
“Remember what?”
『What else? The Emergency Dodge Maneuver, obviously! I went through hell to make you learn that!’
“Oh… hang on a second…”
I focused again. ‘It won’t just hijack my body again, right?’
Thankfully it didn’t. Instead, a single image floated up in my mind.
Emergency Dodge Maneuver : OFF
“What the heck is this?”
『You can see it? Looks like it’s displaying properly! That’s the primordial blessing application ver.8.3.7.5 I created using every ounce of my knowledge. It analyzes situations in real time, interprets them, corrects them, organizes them, and then executes the code and program through a dedicated window!』
“Uh… so I just tap this thing, right?”
I focused on the image again and switched OFF to ON.
“It changes just by thinking about it…”
Emergency Dodge Maneuver : ON
“Hmm… but nothing feels different.”
『Really? Then… oh! Go pick up one of those rocks over there.』
I did as Momo said and grabbed a stone of decent size.
“What’s this for?”
『Now look up at the ceiling.』
I tilted my head back and stared into the darkness where the ceiling should have been.
“Okay, I’m looking.”
『Aaaand… throw it!』
Momo ignored my grumbling and spoke in the bright, excited voice of a kid playing with a brand-new toy.
“Throw it!”
I hurled the rock straight up. It soared above my head.
“Wait, but if I—”
Maybe I wasn’t strong enough, or maybe the rock was heavier than it looked. Either way, the stone that had only risen a little way came plummeting back down toward my skull at terrifying speed.
“Uwaaaaaagh!!!!!”
I’d heard that when people get really scared their bodies freeze up. Turns out it’s true. The rock was heading straight for my head and I couldn’t move a muscle. At this rate the tiny pebble I’d thrown myself was going to crack my skull open, but—
Woooong—
“Huhhh?”
My body suddenly jerked backward. I lost my balance and landed hard on my butt.
“What… just happened…?”
The falling rock crashed between my legs and shattered into pieces. Right before it could smash my head, some unknown force had yanked my body back and made me fall on my ass. Thanks to that, my skull remained intact.
『See? That’s the Emergency Dodge Maneuver! The ultimate technique that can dodge any attack!』
“My body… it moved on its own…”
『Yeah, that’s how it works. It moves automatically.』
“Ughhh… I definitely get why you said it was dangerous now. If my body keeps reacting like this, I could actually die by accident.”
『Well… like I said before, the chance of that is extremely low, so you can relax!』
Even though Momo sounded incredibly confident, I couldn’t shake my anxiety.
“So… can we head out now?”
『Sure. You’ve learned the Emergency Dodge Maneuver, so you probably won’t die right away.』
“Great. Which way?”
Of course I had no idea where to go, so I had to ask Momo.
『First, go back to the center where you fell.』
“Roger that!”
I immediately retraced my steps and returned to the spot where I’d first dropped in.
『There are so many skeletons… Just what the hell happened here while I was gone…?』
The mountain of bones looked exactly the same. Well, I hadn’t been gone that long.
『Head west. There’s an exit that way.』
“West? Where’s west?”
I climbed on top of a pile of bones and looked around in every direction, but I couldn’t get any sense of orientation.
『The direction we came from is south, so just go left.』
“Left, huh… that feels ominous for some reason.”
『Stop saying weird stuff and hurry up.』
“Fine, fine. Don’t rush me.”
Following Momo’s instructions, I climbed down from the bone pile and started walking left. The farther I went, the darker and more sinister the already gloomy path seemed to become. Maybe it was just my imagination.
“Ugh… I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”
『Stop whining. If you don’t get out of here soon, you’ll starve to death.』
After walking for a little while, I spotted an entrance roughly the same size as the hallway that led to Momo’s room.
“Is this it? If I go through here, can I get out?”
『As far as I know, just keep going straight.』
Unlike Momo’s corridor that had been blocked by a door, this passage had no door at all—either it had never existed or it had been destroyed long ago. The hallway stretched on endlessly, which only made my fear worse. It felt like I was walking straight into the gaping maw of some colossal creature. I advanced slowly down the corridor.
“Oh! I see the end!”
After what felt like forever, we finally reached the end of the passage. The other side was also wide open, so we could easily see what lay beyond.
“What the… it’s another plaza…”
Beyond the corridor was a space roughly the same size as the first plaza I’d fallen into.
“This place is also full of skeletons…”
Here too, piles of bones were scattered everywhere across the open area.
『Siwoo, wait.』
“Yeah?”
Just as I was about to step out of the corridor and into the huge plaza, Momo stopped me.
『There’s… something up ahead.』
“What?”
I tensed up at Momo’s words and stared carefully into the distance. There…
“That’s…”
Clatter!
A walking skeleton was wandering around.
“It’s one of those things again…”
I sighed and tried to quietly sidestep so it wouldn’t notice me.
『Hold on.』
“What? Why?”
Momo stopped me as I tried to run.
『Look closely. That skeleton is holding a sword.』
“Oh… yeah, it is. Doesn’t that make it even more dangerous?”
『You. Go fight it.』
“…Excuse me?”
Suddenly Momo was trying to turn the area into an arena between me and the skeleton.
“W-what are you saying?! That’s not just any skeleton, it’s a skeleton with a sword! There’s no way I can beat that!”
『Huh? You have the Emergency Dodge Maneuver. You won’t die, so it’s fine.』
“B-but still…”
『Once you leave this place you’ll have to fight things way worse than that, you know?』
“Th-that’s… true, but…”
Damn it. I couldn’t argue with solid logic.
『Come on, hurry up.』
“Haa…”
Since I couldn’t refute Momo’s point, I hid behind a pile of bones and began observing the creature.
『Are you just going to keep watching forever?』
“Hey, wait! They say know yourself and know your enemy and you’ll win every battle!”
『It’s not win every battle, it’s never be defeated, you idiot…』
“Whatever, same thing!”
I ignored Momo’s jab and continued observing. The skeleton didn’t seem to have any intelligence, just like the one I’d seen before. It was simply wandering around with a sword in one hand.
‘No intelligence… and its movements don’t look that fast either…’
The sword in its hand was a rusty iron blade covered in corrosion. Whether old or new, it was incredibly dangerous to me.
‘Actually, the fact that it’s old might make it even more dangerous… I probably won’t be able to find any antibiotics or anything here…’
Even though the Emergency Dodge Maneuver would keep me from getting hit, I still had to assume that even one solid blow would be fatal.
But the biggest problem was that I had no means of attack. The skeleton I’d seen earlier had been small and white-boned. This one was bigger, and its bones somehow gave off a faint black sheen that radiated a menacing aura.
『Just so you know, that thing was probably a knight when it was alive.』
“A knight? When it was alive? Does that matter?”
『Of course it does. Undead monsters like that are heavily influenced by what they were in life.』
“Then…”
『Well, since it has no intelligence it’s probably weaker than it was when alive, but it’s definitely not an easy opponent.』
“Ugh…”
I decided to scrap the idea of looking for an opening and attacking like before. If it really had been a knight in life, it would easily dodge such a clumsy strike. I needed a completely different method to corner it.
But just like earlier, the moment I got a little closer it would definitely sense me, brandish its sword, and come charging.
‘Is there anything I can use…?’
I started looking around the skeleton’s vicinity.
‘Huh? If I use that…’
And just like that, I came up with a plan. It was a little risky, but…
‘This is the only way…!’
It was the best option I had.
“Momo—”
『I forgot to mention this earlier, but I absolutely will not help you.』
“That’s not what I was going to ask…”
I made a single request to Momo.
『…What?』
“You can do at least that much, right? It’s not really helping me.”
『No… are you serious?』
“Yes!”
Momo seemed extremely flustered by my request and kept asking me to repeat myself.
『Haa… I guess there’s no choice…』
A little while later, after I finished my preparations, I slowly walked toward the skeleton.
Clatter.
It must have detected my footsteps, because the skeleton turned with a rattle to look at me. I spread my legs slightly and raised one hand to my face.
“Hear me! The Destroyer of the World has descended upon this place!”
Clatter?
I continued my dramatic speech while glaring at it through the gaps in my spread fingers.
“Accept your miserable fate!”
I reached up, grabbed Momo—who had been fixed at an angle on my head—and held her out.
“Here I come! I shall destroy your world!”
I hurled Momo toward the skeleton, who was tilting its head at my bizarre behavior, throwing her like a boomerang.
『H-here I go! D-Destroy… B-Beat!!!!!』
But Momo only flew about halfway between me and the skeleton before clattering to the ground.
“Hmm… that wasn’t how my plan was supposed to go…?”
I scratched my head as I looked at Momo lying in the middle of the floor.
Clatter?
The skeleton also seemed confused about what I was doing and paused for a moment, but—
Clatter!
It quickly remembered its purpose and began charging at me.
“Shit!”
I faced the oncoming skeleton and charged right back at it.
Clatter!!!
When we got close enough, the skeleton swung its rusty iron sword diagonally. I ducked low and kept rushing forward.
“Ugh!”
Woooong—
I felt my center of gravity shift violently, and my body rolled sideways, dodging the attack.
‘It really does dodge perfectly…’
Once again feeling the power of the Emergency Dodge Maneuver, I quickly ran over to Momo and picked her up.
“Momo! Are you okay?”
『Yeah…』
For some reason Momo gave me a look that seemed almost pitying.
I fixed her firmly back on my head and stood up.
Clatter-clack—
The skeleton seemed shocked that I had completely avoided its attack. This time it planted its feet firmly, clearly intending not to let me dodge again, and glared at me.
“…I think it’s mad.”
『Well, if it was a skilled swordsman in life, it might be pretty shocked that a rookie like you dodged its strike.』
“It’s dead though?”
『It’s a high-ranking undead. Some of its living habits and instincts remain.』
“Huh? Really? I had no idea…”
While I was talking with Momo, the skeleton’s aura grew even more menacing.
“Uh… then…”
CLATTER!!!!!
It began attacking with terrifying momentum.
“I’m screwed.”
Woooong—
Once again, my body was violently yanked to the side.