Zombie vs. Plant (5)
“Kyaaaaaaaahya!!!!!”
“Yakacham!!!!!”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
Leb immediately smashed the zombie in the face, but Yakacham’s neck had already been bitten.
“H…e…r…o…ya…”
“Yakacham! No!”
More than half of Yakacham’s neck had been torn away. Blood and flesh poured from the wound. I frantically gathered the fallen leaves scattered around us and pressed them against her neck.
“Yakacham! Stay with me!”
I pushed the leaves down hard, trying to stop the bleeding, but the blood kept gushing out without slowing.
“Hero, it’s already too late…”
Leb said as he crushed the fallen zombie’s head and grabbed my arm.
“Let go!!! I said let go!!!”
Leb wrapped both arms around my shoulders and pulled me away from Yakacham.
“Get off me!!!!!”
“Calm down!”
I kept struggling while Leb tried his hardest to restrain my rampage.
“Hero-nimya!!!”
“Yakacham!!!”
At that moment, the village chief and the other druids came running from afar. They too gasped in horror at the sight of the collapsed Yakacham. Seeing me screaming and Leb trying to hold me back, they seemed to understand the situation.
“Aah…”
The village chief collapsed on the spot, and one of the druids following him quickly supported him.
“…You should rest too.”
With those final words, I felt Leb strike the back of my head. My consciousness cut off instantly.
Kim Chulsoo had successfully repelled his twelfth bandit group and was now at the guild office looking for his next quest.
“Hmm… which request should I take…”
“How about clearing out a goblin pack?”
“Difficulty. Appropriate. Recommendation. Bugbear subjugation.”
“In this young lady’s opinion… escorting a merchant caravan would be most suitable.”
“Th…at… magic……”
Every time Kim Chulsoo said a single word, a flood of opinions poured in from all around him. In order, they came from the Saintess, the Elf, Ah-chung, and Nera.
“Haha… maybe I should finish the current request first…?”
“Yes, that’s a good decision.”
“Rational. Thinking.”
“It certainly doesn’t make sense to accept another quest without completing the first one.”
“Y-yes… I also… think that’s… good……”
Kim Chulsoo’s party headed to the guild reception desk and presented proof of the bandit subjugation.
“Kyaaak! Th-this is…?”
“Ah, it’s the boss’s head.”
Kim Chulsoo casually pulled the bandit leader’s head out of his sack and placed it on the counter.
“Ah… please take it away for now!”
The receptionist covered her eyes in horror.
“Uh… they said I needed proof, so…”
“I get it, so just put it away quickly!”
“Yes…”
Kim Chulsoo put the head back into the sack.
“Ugh… I told you not to take that thing out!”
“R-right, sorry…”
Kim Chulsoo answered awkwardly and lightly summoned a hologram.
Commencing cleanup.
A mysterious rod emerged from the hologram and began cleaning up all the blood on the counter. Afterward, Kim Chulsoo’s companions gathered around and stared at the guild receptionist with icy glares.
“Good grief… the receptionist at the guild in the First Village has such a weak stomach… tsk tsk.”
“Weakness. Stomach. Inappropriate. Adventurer.”
“For a guild receptionist, she seems somewhat lacking…”
“Totally… a damn kid……”
Whether she noticed the freezing stares or not, the receptionist kept her eyes glued to her paperwork.
“Here… is your quest reward and… your 5th-grade adventurer tag…”
After rummaging through documents for a while, the receptionist held out a pouch of money and a wooden tag with the number 5 on it.
“Congratulations… on your promotion…”
She still seemed shaken, stuttering as she barely managed to hand over the items.
“Thank you.”
Kim Chulsoo smiled brightly as if he didn’t mind her attitude at all and accepted the sack and wooden tag.
“Have a good day…”
“Ah, and this too.”
“Bugbear…”
Kim Chulsoo handed over the bugbear subjugation request form that had somehow ended up in his hands.
“Yes… request registered…”
“Then we’ll be going now.”
“You just need to bring back the bugbear’s claws…”
“Got it!”
Worried the same thing might happen again, the receptionist hurriedly told him the required items before he left. She did her best to ignore the cold stares from Kim Chulsoo’s companions that continued until the very end.
“Ugh…”
I opened my eyes inside the village hall.
“Where am I…”
My last memory was of Yakacham collapsed, covered in blood, my own screaming voice, and then…
“Leb? Are you there?”
Leb is helping the healer tend to the injured.
“Momo…”
But it was Momo who answered me.
“Are there… a lot of injured?”
No, the fewest in history. Record low.
“What about… the dead?”
…One.
Momo’s answer made me even more depressed.
“Ha… haha… hahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!”
…
A moment later, the door opened as if in response to my shout, and Leb walked in.
“You’re awake?”
“Leb…”
“Rest more. You pushed your body too hard…”
“What about Yakacham…”
“…”
Leb’s silence was the most perfect answer possible.
“Rest and come out in the evening. There’s going to be a funeral.”
“…”
“I’m going.”
When I didn’t respond, Leb watched me for a moment before leaving the village hall.
“Sigh…”
I rubbed my dry face and lowered my head.
“…”
How about a walk…?
Yeah. At least it would be better than just sitting here…
I stood up and left the village hall.
The druid village that greeted my eyes was in a complete festival mood. Of course it was. They had stopped that giant zombie—which had killed so many before—without suffering many injuries…
But……
Without thinking about anything, I kept walking until I found myself at the cliff where Yakacham had confessed her love.
“…”
The dandelions Yakacham had bloomed were still there on the cliff.
“Hero-ya…”
“…Chief?”
I turned around at the sound of footsteps behind me and saw the village chief standing there.
“How did you… get here-ya…?”
“I came here with Yakacham before…”
“I see-ya…”
The village chief came to stand beside me and gazed out at the forest from the top of the cliff. As we stood side by side looking at the vast stretch of woods, the chief finally spoke.
“Yakacham-ya… to think she received the blessing of nature-ya…”
“The blessing of nature…?”
“The ability to make plants bloom-ya… that is the blessing of nature-ya…”
“…So it was something special.”
“My mother had the same gift-ya.”
“…”
Those words somehow made me feel even more depressed.
“Is it… hereditary?”
“It is not something passed down through blood-ya.”
The village chief shook his head.
“It is the choice of the Goddess, the Mother of Nature-ya.”
“Ah…”
“If she knew my mother had the same gift, would she have been happy-ya…?”
“…”
The village chief looked down at the dandelions blooming beneath our feet.
“Hero-nimya.”
The chief took something out from his robes and handed it to me.
“This is…?”
“It is the Essence of the Druids-ya.”
“Essence…?”
I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I could tell it was incredibly precious.
“Why are you giving this to me…”
“It is my thanks for saving the village-ya.”
“No, I can’t accept this…”
I… I didn’t deserve to receive something like this.
“No, take it-ya. Only then… only then will my heart be at ease-ya…”
“…”
I couldn’t understand the village chief’s feelings. Experience… wisdom… in every way, I was far beneath him.
“They say the Hero has used every kind of magic-ya…”
The First Hero…
“So… it will probably help you too-ya…”
“Ah…”
The village chief forced the bottle into my hand. It was a small vial about the size of a vitamin drink, filled with a green liquid.
“Drink it right away-ya. Throw the bottle away-ya…”
After saying that, the chief turned around.
“And-ya… before evening falls-ya, I hope you will leave this village-ya.”
“…”
“I will take your silence as agreement-ya.”
The village chief returned to the village, and I immediately drank the Druid’s Essence.
“…Gatorade?”
It tasted exactly like Gatorade. I tossed the wooden bottle off the cliff and headed back to the village hall.
“There’s… nothing to pack, is there…?”
I hadn’t brought anything in the first place. I kept Zildre’s sword on me at all times, and Momo was fixed to my head, so there was nothing to take.
“The herbs… should be fine, right…”
At this point, quests didn’t matter anymore.
“…I should go find Leb.”
I left the village hall.
“Leb? Are you there?”
“Looks like you’ve recovered some energy.”
Leb was helping the healer druid tend to the injured.
“How are your wounds? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. They just reopened what was already healing…”
“…Let’s leave right away.”
“…!”
Leb looked extremely surprised by my words.
“The funeral—”
“The chief told us to leave immediately.”
“Hmm…”
Leb seemed to accept it and turned toward the healer druid.
“Old man! We have to go now.”
“Sigh-ya… that kid really-ya…”
The healer druid clicked his tongue and let out a sigh. Since the healer’s house wasn’t very big, he had heard our entire conversation. So the “kid” he mentioned was probably…
“Poor thing-ya… he must have lost his mind-ya…”
The healer druid kept clicking his tongue while staring out the window.
“Old man! Thanks for everything.”
When Leb said his goodbyes, the healer druid pulled something out and stopped us.
“This is…?”
“Take it-ya. Weren’t you two out gathering herbs-ya?”
What the healer druid handed over was a basket of herbs. There looked to be dozens of them at a glance.
“And-ya, this too-ya.”
The healer druid placed one final herb on top that looked noticeably different from the others.
“It’s a one-time-use medicinal herb-ya.”
“One-time-use medicinal herb…?”
“Yes-ya. No matter the disease or wound, it will completely cure it in a single use-ya.”
“Giving us something like that…”
“It’s my sincerity-ya.”
I’ve never heard of anything like that…? Is it a herb only druids know about?
After saying that, the healer druid turned away as if he would accept no refusal and went back to tending the injured.
“…Old man, thank you.”
And so we left the druid village.
“By the way… how are we getting back to the city?”
“It’s still daytime… if we walk around a bit, we should be able to find the way…”
“I guess so…”
Like it had all been a single night’s dream, we returned to the city.
“You seem to get along really well with old people.”
“…I’m used to the elderly.”
“Really…?”
Chatting lightly, we arrived back in the city and headed straight for the guild office.
“Wait out front! I’ll go finish the quest and be right back!”
“Got it.”
I entered the guild office and spoke to the receptionist lady.
“I’ve completed the quest!”
“Ah… you’re that person from the East Continent…!”
The receptionist who recognized me tilted her head.
“But wasn’t it an herb-gathering request…?”
“That’s right! Here you go!”
I held out the basket of herbs the healer druid had given me.
“Th-this is…”
“Haha, I ended up gathering way too many…”
Since I couldn’t mention the druid village, that was the excuse I came up with.
“Um… this is far too much… after completing the request, it would be best to sell the rest at an herb shop or general store…”
“Ah, really?”
“Yes…”
“Thank you!”
“Uh… here is your quest completion payment…”
The receptionist handed me five copper coins.
“Whoa! Finally!”
“Haha, this is the first time I’ve seen someone so happy over just that much…”
“Well then, I’m off! I’ll take another quest next time!”
“Yes…”
The moment I left the adventurers’ guild, I went with Leb to the herb shop.
“So basically…”
“Yes!”
“This is…”
“Yes!”
“A one-time-use medicinal herb…”
“Yes!”
“…”
“Yes?”
“Get the hell out of here, you damn bastards!!!!! What kind of nonsense are you trying to feed me!!!!!”
“But it’s the truth!!!”