An Astonishing Result

An astonishing result.

Stay calm. Survey the surroundings with cold precision and sort out the situation.

First, I checked the levels of the slave traders who had attacked us.

Most of them clustered around three. Ordinary soldier tier. Unless these were the desert's great warriors, there was a hole I could crawl through and survive.

"Gah!"

"Th-there are too many Hydragons!"

The real problem was those things. Three Level 5 monsters carrying a Raid Boss designation.

My level is one.

I was Level 1. Every single one of them outranked me.

No matter how I looked at it, this was a quest without a shred of conscience. Survive a battlefield like this at Level 1?

And Boss Monsters carried additional effect judgments beyond their raw level.

Hydragons have poor eyesight. They can't move their body and heads at the same time either.

But in this world, if you knew the strategy cold, even a Level 1 could kill a Level 5 Boss Monster.

Hydragons had been designed from the start to be taken down by a party of twelve Level 1s.

The real gulf — the difference in class — only started to hit at Level 7.

Which meant everything before that could be overcome somehow.

I can do this.

Even at Level 1, it was too early to despair.

The most important fact was this: I was a veteran of veterans of this game.

Twelve people's worth of work, solo. I'd just get it done.

Clang!

Sword met scimitar.

A soldier had closed the distance without my noticing, murderous intent rolling off him right in front of my face.

This is real.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Not a game.

Swinging a blade, moving a body — none of it resolved with a single click.

This was a battlefield where flesh met flesh, where things were cut and torn. You only survived by moving your own body.

It looked hopeless. But hope was there.

I can see the sword paths.

Was it the influence of Weapon Master?

I could see the sword paths. The exact place I needed to swing was reading crystal clear.

The moment I gripped a weapon, the knowledge settled into me on its own. My hands knew it as if I had swung tens of thousands — hundreds of thousands — of times.

Everything I needed to do painted itself inside my head.

And before the image finished forming, my body was already moving.

Crunch!

I knocked the blade aside at an angle, drove a fist into the soldier's jaw, and shattered it. As he reeled off-balance, I took his head.

No hesitation. No fear.

The sword paths — every fighting path — were already projected across my eyes!

The Snake Princess watched the heart of the battlefield with a strange look in her eyes.

Erasing this place was her mission — the absolute command of the Desert Queen.

It hadn't been a difficult task.

She was the second strongest after the Queen herself, and her side held the overwhelming numbers besides.

Then one of the slaves had suddenly gone wild and started butchering her soldiers.

More shocking still: he had killed one of the Hydragons as well.

He was tearing through the battlefield alone.

"…What is that man?"

"Hah! Hah! Haaaah!"

My heart felt ready to burst.

Every time I forced out a scorching breath, it felt like a knife scraping the roof of my mouth.

I could no longer tell whether the drops falling from above were blood or sweat.

But one thing was certain: I was still alive.

Shiiing!

The blade that had clashed hundreds of times finally snapped.

The net closing around me tightened even further.

Among them, the spear-wielding soldiers were especially troublesome.

"His sword's broken! Kill him!"

"Now!"

The one mercy was that these men were not a regular army. They didn't form ranks the military way and move as one.

Right on cue, a spearman drunk on the lust for victory broke formation and came at me.

"Urgh!"

I rolled across the ground until I was right under him and swept his feet. The spearman toppled and lost his grip on the spear.

I snatched it before it hit the dirt — and in that instant of opening, the other soldiers swung their blades.

I spun the spearhead, caught the tip of an incoming sword, and used the rebound to knock it aside. The soldier's upper body lost its balance.

"Ghk!"

I punched a hole through his throat with the spear tip. Instant kill. With a wet shlick, I yanked the shaft free, spun the spear, and checked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the movements closing in. The surrounding soldiers went slack-jawed at the acrobatics — as if I were a spear master who had trained with nothing else his entire life.

If Iron-Blooded Lord's Heart let me survey the field with cold clarity and refuse to tire easily, then another of my Hidden Traits — Weapon Master — let me handle every weapon like a seasoned expert with no prior training.

It even produced a synergy effect with Dexterous Hands.

The Hidden Trait Dexterous Hands was tied to skill proficiency. Where Weapon Master let you handle every weapon and start at proficiency Level 5, Dexterous Hands helped you climb to higher proficiency with ease.

Skill proficiency also capped at Level 10. Proficiency Level 6 meant the kind of polished skill a named knight spent a lifetime honing.

I had achieved it the moment I picked up a weapon.

Some Hidden Traits linked and synergized like this. Of course, only a tiny handful of people knew that. Hidden Traits weren't particularly well known even among players.

Swords, spears, sabers, bows, scimitars, maces — if it was a weapon, I used it without discrimination.

"You monster bastard!"

"Even that freak is worn out!"

"Kill him!"

With every kind of "praise," the net drew tighter still.

Five hundred attackers. I had killed one Hydragon, but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠alone it was still too much.

At a mere Level 1, I had already killed thirty soldiers and a Hydragon on top of that. I had done everything I could — rationing stamina by minimizing unnecessary movement and making use of every weapon available.

Any other player who saw this would have been horrified. Even the veterans would have clicked their tongues and asked if something like that was even possible.

Even so, I was reaching my limit.

My limit — but.

A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.

I had been waiting for this.

Round two starts now.

I rolled my shoulders. The ragged breathing settled back into something steady. The soldiers closing in suddenly felt slow. If this was what awakening felt like, it would feel something like this.

"Halt."

Wooooong—

That was when it came.

A woman's voice rode across the battlefield and struck my eardrums like a hammer.

At that voice, the soldiers locked up rigid and stopped dead.

She's finally here.

The soldiers parted like the miracle of Moses.

A woman sat atop a Hydragon, watching the front with unhurried composure.

Unlike the desert warriors here, her skin was tanned yet unusually pale. I let out a low sound as she approached with a catlike, elegant gait.

I had expected her appearance.

"Y-Your Highness need not trouble yourself to—"

When a centurion found the courage to speak toward the Snake Princess, she sneered.

"That man is not tired. He was only pretending to be."

"…Th-that can't be. His breathing, his sweat—"

"Look carefully. Does his breath look labored to you?"

"…"

The centurion's eyes snapped to me.

Seeing me already composed again, he scowled — the face and look of a man thinking, What kind of monster is this?

"So he was feigning exhaustion… to lure us into dropping our guard?"

"Yes."

It hadn't been my intention, but the stamina recovery from leveling up had apparently read that way to the Snake Princess.

I met her with an unchanging expression.

"As expected. Those who face me and remain unmoved are rare."

A flash of killing intent brushed past, but thanks to Iron-Blooded Lord's Heart, I neither startled nor flinched.

A being who could measure an opponent by presence alone. I looked above her head.

Level 8. A level that would earn the title of "strongest" anywhere you put it!

The dividing line for the strong of Pangenia was Level 7. From Level 7 onward, the real gap appeared, and the difference in level became nearly impossible to overturn.

And Level 8 was something only the leaders of famous organizations could reach. In a great city of a million people, you might find one or two.

Was there a powerhouse of this caliber in Faisalmer?

There was one. The Queen of Faisalmer. But beyond her, I knew of no other named NPC who had reached Level 8.

This was a starting city — nothing more than a starting point.

And yet, for some reason, the woman before me felt strangely familiar.

Familiar, or perhaps an old, deep connection — the sense that we had been closely tied in the past.

At last she drew near and spoke.

"What is your name?"

My name?

I dropped in without even making a nickname.

Come to think of it, I hadn't set a nickname yet. Was this the branching point for naming myself?

And the quest still hasn't ended.

There was no notification that the main quest had concluded. Survival. The task of surviving was still in progress.

Probably because of the Snake Princess. Even if everyone gathered here combined their strength, they still wouldn't match her alone. A threat that could kill me for certain stood right in front of me — there was no way the survival quest would end.

In that case…

This "name" mattered as well.

"Randolph."

"…The Great Wolf? Are you desert-born?"

Randolph was the name of the Great Wolf. When I spoke a word no one outside the desert regions would know, the Snake Princess's eyes lifted in mild surprise.

But that was all.

"Why would a desert-born be mixed in with the Central Continent expedition rabble?"

Open, naked contempt.

The people of the desert painted the humans of the Central Continent as demons.

If they were captured, they were used as slaves until they were killed. Nothing more.

I would be the same. Once her interest ran out, she would kill me.

But something didn't add up.

She knows they're an expedition force. She knows — and still wiped them out.

There had never been a case of total annihilation before even putting them to use as slaves.

She had even killed every desert-tribe captive she had brought along.

Destroying the evidence. She's trying to hide the fact that the expedition reached the desert.

The 8 Heroes and the expedition… it almost certainly referred to the Great Expedition into the Demon Realm that I had launched while wearing eight pieces of Unique-grade equipment.

But I had failed that expedition. Despite every preparation, I never crossed the Demon King's threshold. The reasons were many — the Demon King being far too strong among them.

She's afraid of the Central Continent.

I reached my conclusion.

The Desert Queen feared any connection between the expedition and the desert.

She knew that if she were entangled when the expedition's failure was discussed, a blood wind would blow. Nearly every great city on the continent had contributed soldiers — but the desert city ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of Faisalmer had been the exception.

This place was the perfect target for a witch hunt.

So she was eliminating everything that could be linked to it by even a tenth of a gram.

Having roughly read the situation, I opened my mouth.

"I was observing the movements of the Central Continent."

"…A Central Continent spy? Who sent you?"

"I went of my own accord."

"Of your own accord? Speak sense. More than that — I have never seen a warrior like you in this desert. Your skin is different, and you carry no tribal mark of any kind. If you think you can swindle me with something you overheard somewhere…"

"The stars spoke to me."

Thud.

The Snake Princess's entire body froze as if by a lie.

Then she asked, with strange eyes fixed on me:

"…The stars?"

Confusion. Shock. And desperate longing.

Looks like I hit it after all.

From her reaction, I was certain why the Snake Princess felt familiar.

She was exactly the existence I knew.

And the reason she reacted this way was simple.

The stars were her weak point.

At the same time, they were the only path by which I could live.

Certain of it, I began to "perform."

"I am a Star Awakener. I am bound to no tribe. I never once claimed to be desert-born with my own mouth — I don't know why you assumed otherwise."

"…!!!"

Star Awakener. One who reads the stars and is guided by them.

They were forerunners, true wanderers of which the world held only a few. Those who moved and prayed following the stars, chasing the stars, for the sake of the stars.

And to the Snake Princess, it was a name she absolutely needed.

"Snake Princess Isabella. Isabella von Dercian."

"My… my full name — how do you—?"

"A Star Awakener can hear the voice of the stars."

Meaning the stars had told me.

Of course, no such thing had happened.

Star Awakener was a class players could not obtain. Only chosen NPCs could hold it, and players were required to seek them out when they surpassed Level 10 and needed to claim a star.

Isabella von Dercian was a similar case.

She wanted to leave this desert more than anyone.

She was the one bound by the Queen's curse. She was the one who was not desert-tribe born. But to escape, she needed a star — the blessing of a star.

How did I know all of this?

Why the hell has a character I made become the Snake Princess?

I had wondered, and the wonder had caught me.

The worst starting point.

I had no idea why a character I had thrown together half for practice was now standing in front of me.

Her limits had been clear, and in this desert there had been no path left to grow, so I had abandoned her.

More precisely: because of the Queen's curse, there was no way forward without the Star's Blessing. And finding a Star Awakener in the desert was impossible, so I had given up.

That abandoned character was now the Snake Princess before my eyes — how could I not be thrown off?

That was the moment.

…A notification that I had survived.

The quest that had refused to complete even after I killed dozens of soldiers and took a Hydragon's head finally announced its end.

And that was not all.

…

After checking the contents, I could not help but be stunned.

"…Insane."

The rewards were so absurd that the word simply fell out of my mouth on its own.