Spirit Valley (3)

"The next Blue Moon is about a fortnight away, so I believe it would be best for you to stay here in the village."

Bong Sam led me to an empty house at the village's edge.

"Pretty clean for a place that's supposedly vacant."

"...The truth is, it belonged to someone until recently."

It seemed a young man who had been the village's hunter had lived here until only a few months ago.

He'd gone out beyond the village to hunt and never came back.

"However dangerous it may be outside, we cannot simply stay within these walls forever. For children to run and grow, this village is far too narrow a world."

"......"

"And yet, to see young lives sacrificed to those wraiths... that, too, is an unspeakable horror."

Bong Sam looked at me with grave eyes. In those aged pupils, I could see a whole tide of emotion gathered behind them.

"Thank you once more. You are a man of great fortune, benefactor. Truly... truly......"

Throughout his thanks, a corner of my chest kept pricking at me.

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

After all, I'd only taken down the boss monster for my own benefit.

"Hup, there."

After finally managing to shoo Bong Sam off, I stepped inside the house.

It wasn't spacious, but more than enough room for one person to lie down.

"Well then, I'll be ending today's stream here."

"What is wrong with you people."

The average clear time for a B-Rank gate was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠around two weeks.

And that was with a properly balanced team. For someone attempting it solo, taking several months wouldn't even be strange.

'Not that I plan to drag it out that long.'

At the very least, it wouldn't be cleared in a single day.

For one thing, the boss monster didn't wake up until the full moon anyway.

"Don't worry. Until we clear it, I'll stream at least once a day."

Doing my best to ignore the blazing chat, I signed off.

"Good work today, everyone."

Watching the chat window, which had been flooding upward, vanish all at once left me feeling oddly hollow.

'Anyway, that's that.'

My thoughts drifted back to the conversation I'd just had with Bong Sam.

One of the epithets of the immortal who had created all those jiangshi.

'The Specter Monarch.'

I never expected to hear the word "Monarch" in a place like this.

Monarch, again.

"It can't be a coincidence."

Suddenly, Grempel's dying words surfaced in my mind.

Do not trust... the Monarchs.

What in the world was a Monarch, anyway?

'In all this time, I've only ever laid eyes on one Monarch with my own eyes.'

The out-of-spec monster that dragged the entire world to its ruin.

The Iron Blood Monarch.

"...This doesn't bode well."

The Iron Blood Monarch. The Specter Monarch.

Both carried the name of Monarch.

'Does that mean "Iron Blood Monarch" isn't his true name, either?'

If the Iron Blood Monarch, too, was a being originating from another world, and had for some reason become a Monarch—

then that meant there had been a version of him before he became one.

'Flip it around, and—'

Monarchs might exist in other worlds as well.

"......"

Of course, that was still nothing more than a hypothesis.

The whereabouts of the immortal called the Specter Monarch were unknown, and above all—

'I have far too little information.'

This gate's boss monster.

The host corpse-immortal with the Corpse Spike driven into it might hold some clue.

Something about the Specter Monarch.

Or beyond that, something that would let me reason out what a Monarch even was.

Fortunately, I knew this gate relatively well.

Because—

'The person who cleared this gate before my regression was Baek Seo-ha.'

More precisely, she'd entered alongside other temporary teammates.

She used to talk about this gate at the drop of a hat.

There was nothing especially high-ranked about it, and no boss of raid-scale size either, but—

'She still regrets it. What happened in that gate.'

This place was her first gate.

And also the place that left one of the deepest, most indelible regrets of Baek Seo-ha's life.

'Back then, I was green, with barely any gate experience.'

'So I just got swept along by whatever my teammates said.'

Baek Seo-ha, who stood endlessly firm in front of me, would always wear a frail expression whenever this place came up.

'If only I'd done a little better... if I'd at least taken a little more care examining the clues we were given.'

The ending of this gate as she witnessed it—

was more horrifying than anything I could imagine.

'The villagers didn't have to be slaughtered.'

"...What are you doing?"

The next morning.

Just as I was about to step outside, I found myself locking eyes with a boy crouched in front of my door.

Kang Hwi rubbed his sleepy eyes and greeted me.

"D-did you sleep well, Outsider?"

"I did."

Why are you here?

And how long have you been sitting there?

I almost asked, then just let it go.

"Are you heading out of the village?"

"I am."

There was still plenty of time before the Blue Moon rose.

Until then, I planned to wipe out every corpse-immortal around the village—consider it payment for room and board.

And pick up some good stream content while I was at it.

'And maybe grab a hidden item or two.'

I walked straight past Kang Hwi without a second thought.

Immediately, he came scrambling after me, chattering away.

"I-I'm coming with you!"

"Don't need you."

"Whatever it may look like, I have trained with the sword! I won't slow you down!"

"Wouldn't it be cleaner with you absent? Then there's no chance of anyone slowing me down at all?"

Kang Hwi rattled off one reason after another to follow me out of the village.

I deliberately shot him down coldly and kept up my pace.

"W-wait! That's it! The formation! You don't know the entry formation to get into the village, do you?"

"Oh?"

When I slowed my stride, Kang Hwi's voice sharpened with sudden cleverness, as if he'd seized his one chance.

"Rather than trouble yourself memorizing something so needlessly complicated, it would be far easier for you to have me lead the way, just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as I did yesterday!"

"...That's a fair point."

Come to think of it, getting into this village had required a pretty elaborate set of steps.

Memorizing it would indeed be a chore.

"I will never make you regret this. Please, take me with you, Outsider."

"Why do you want it that badly?"

I looked down at him deliberately and asked.

"Isn't the outside of the village crawling with those monsters? You'd be safe staying inside."

"...What would that make me but a frog in a well?"

"If you're clearly going to die of thirst outside the well, staying inside might be the wiser choice."

"That may be so. But I refuse to be a defeated man who surrenders to despair with his doom staring him in the face."

After all, if the barrier formation fell, everyone inside the village would die.

Corpse-immortals had an instinctive hunger for the living.

"I want to be of use to you, Outsider. Even a little."

"Fine."

As if accepting against my better judgment, I let my shoulders sag and tossed the words out.

"Follow me. If you fall behind, that's on you."

"Understood!"

The moment I gave permission, Kang Hwi closed the distance at once.

"Big brother!"

Just before we left the village, Kang Yul came running toward us, leaving a group of children playing in the dirt.

"Where are you going?"

"Mm. I'm stepping outside the village with the Outsider for a little while."

Kang Hwi patted his little sister's small head.

"With big brother Outsider?"

Her large eyes turned toward me.

There, I found a crystallization of purity with barely a speck of the world's malice to be found anywhere in it.

"Please take good care of our big brother!"

She bowed her head deeply.

"K-Kang Yul...!"

"Yeah, got it."

"Ehehe."

After exchanging brief farewells, we made our way out of the village.

The mountainside still exuded that same unnerving, spine-chilling atmosphere.

"Let's go, then."

"Yes, sir."

I set off without delay.

Before long, two corpse-immortals in Taoist robes blocked our path.

"Kyaaaaak!"

Both wore crimson garments, with flame-shaped emblems stamped across their chests.

"Th-those are disciples of the Flame Immortal! They use a martial art that spews fire from every hole in their bodies!"

Kang Hwi hurriedly drew the sword at his waist.

His bragging about learning the sword apparently wasn't empty—his stance was fairly well formed.

'Still.'

Only barely past the beginner stage, though.

"Kraaah!"

A corpse-immortal lunged at us, flames kindling around its mouth.

'Sorry, but I can't stand anything hot.'

I didn't have the Flame Resistance trait yet.

Not that I'd have tanked that hit even if I did.

Whish!

My spear swept out in a clean, ringing arc.

Intercepting Thrust.

One after another, I crushed its skull, then its neck.

The dead body crumpled, its strength gone in an instant.

After piling the corpse to one side, I glanced over sideways.

"Kkh!"

"Kyaaak!"

Kang Hwi was locked in a dizzying exchange with a single corpse-immortal.

"They became wraiths, yet an immortal is still an immortal...!"

The arm blocking the creature's strikes trembled violently.

Then, spotting an opening, he drove his blade hard into the thing's chest with a battle cry.

"Huaaaap!"

The judgment itself, I'd say, wasn't bad.

If it had been an ordinary monster, the moment its heart was destroyed, it would have died.

"Kraah! Kyaaak!"

"Wh-what the—!"

The corpse-immortal kept thrashing, my comrade's blade still buried in it.

"Why is it still moving?!"

"You have to crush their heads."

I extended my spear and skewered the remaining one through the skull.

"Gghh... kkaah......"

"These things are corpses, first and foremost. Unless you destroy the head where the spell is engraved, no wound anywhere else is fatal."

Ever seen a corpse with a beating heart?

If you have, then whatever you saw probably wasn't a corpse.

What on earth did you look at, exactly?

"When you fight an enemy, never let your guard down until it's over. It could play dead and go for your throat."

"I... understand. Thank you."

And so we continued hunting down the corpse-immortals in the surrounding area.

'Individually, they're not all that threatening.'

Whatever martial arts they practiced as living immortals, they were now monsters—dead, robbed of their minds.

Neither the power of their techniques nor their intelligence could compare to their former selves.

A corpse can't build internal energy anymore, either, so they only grew weaker with time, never stronger.

The trouble was dealing with them in groups.

Perhaps because they reenacted the behaviors of their living days—

"...Combined assault!"

They'd strike from multiple directions at once, or one would hide and then lunge.

Patterns that made you wipe cold sweat off your chest kept showing up, and not for nothing.

'Now I understand why Baek Seo-ha's team, back before my regression, made the choice they did.'

After smashing the heads of every last corpse-immortal in green robes,

"We're here."

I reached the place I'd been aiming for.

"Haa... hah... where... where are we...?"

Kang Hwi, who had just barely succeeded in killing a corpse-immortal, asked the question with no time left to celebrate.

"I had no idea a cave like this existed......"

A cave sealed with golden cords at every turn, its entrance plastered thick with talismans.

'On day three, the team searched the area around the village.'

'And in the process, they found this cave.'

The supply source for the items obtainable in this gate.

The Ghost-Blood Pit.

You could call it a mini-dungeon within the gate.

"Coming with?"

"I am."

Kang Hwi nodded without a shred of hesitation.

Then there was no reason to stop him.

"Fine by me."

But before going in—one moment.

I hadn't started today's stream yet, after all.

"Good to see you all, everyone."

When I greeted the empty air, Kang Hwi stared at me with a baffled look.

"Outsider...?"

Facing a chat still thick with confusion,

I announced the day's schedule like a formal notice.

"Starting now—day two of the B-Rank gate assault."

I sliced through the golden cords strung across the cave entrance with my spear, the corner of my mouth curling up.

"Instance dungeon clear, beginning."