The Field Boss (3)
Baek Seon-woo vanished into the portal. He’d fired off some kind of telepathic warning at me before leaving, but I wasn’t scared in the slightest. No exaggeration. Every trace of him would disappear the moment I regressed, so fearing him would have been strange. If I kept regressing, I would eventually surpass that bastard. I’d look forward to that day. Of course, dying itself hurt like absolute hell, so I wanted to avoid it as much as possible.
“Shall we head back?”
The moment I made up my mind, the portal lost its power and faded away. It was designed to disappear after a set amount of time once the field boss was defeated. We retreated from where the field boss had stood and retraced the path we’d taken to get here. Along the way we hunted enhanced ghouls and earned more coins.
Thanks to Baek Seon-woo clearing out early, Kang Hana had become the strongest player on floor 0 at this point. No one could beat her anymore. That didn’t mean she could run wild on the first floor, though. The existing players who had been summoned to the Tower of Struggle earlier had already finished every bit of individual growth they could manage. A rookie who had just arrived stood no chance. Except against regressors, of course.
Originally this batch had been made up of unusually weak players, which was why Baek Seon-woo and Kang Hana could reign supreme. Even that horny bastard Baek Seon-woo couldn’t throw his weight around on the first floor anymore. There simply weren’t any players weak enough for him to bully.
Of course, there were some truly impressive players who actually enjoyed that kind of thing. In those cases he might win—but only in bed. Those filthy shotacon bitches.
Grrrrrr—!
The ghouls gradually disappeared as deadmen began swarming in droves. The area had shifted.
“Spin! Whirlwind!”
Whump whump whump whump!
I held my shield and spun like a top, smashing through the deadmen. Any that touched the shield turned to powder and vanished. The deadmen were no longer our opponents.
“Phew! That feels refreshing.”
“What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you acting like a little kid?”
While we waited for the combat settlement, Yoo Dahui stared at me like I was a bug. Her expression was full of mischief, but it still stung.
Swish—!
An arrow flew in at that moment. Yoo Dahui reacted instantly and blocked it.
“Who’s there! Come out right now!”
An arrow jutted from the shield. I knew how to block them too. Yoo Dahui, you’ve grown, haven’t you?
‘Or maybe it’s thanks to her blessing.’
The Blessing was the power of words the ‘gods’ had scattered throughout the Tower of Struggle. A classic example was the ‘Pain Nullification Blessing.’ Every time Yoo Dahui went through Return by Death, she gained a new ‘blessing’ with a certain probability when the round began. Which blessing she received depended on how she had died in the previous round. The odds were all over the place—I figured the author simply handed them out whenever he felt like it.
In short, Yoo Dahui grew a little stronger every time she fought and died.
‘Still, she’s firmly in the palm of my hand.’
From the direction the arrow had come, two female archers stepped into view. When Yoo Dahui saw them her eyes narrowed sharply.
“You two…!”
“They’re humans.”
“I hope these ones are actually fun to hunt.”
Tanned skin, healthy, attractive figures, and familiar faces—dark elves. No matter how many rounds passed, these two were still hunting players. They picked on those weaker than themselves, cornered them, and enjoyed the sport.
“This looks promising. Look, she blocked our arrow.”
“Right? How did she even react in time? Can that bitch use mana?”
The dark elves eyed Yoo Dahui with open curiosity. But the interest lasted only a second. They quickly nocked fresh arrows and took aim. The sharp arrowheads glinted coldly.
“Let’s start by drawing some blood.”
Twang—!
The dark elf released her bowstring. The arrow flew straight at Yoo Dahui.
Clang—!
Yoo Dahui blocked the incoming arrow with ease. The corner of her mouth curved upward with faint satisfaction. She seemed to think she had grown stronger. To me it just looked adorable.
“Oh, she blocked it?”
The dark elves, now provoked, drew their bows again.
“If you shoot one more time, I won’t stay quiet.”
“What are you going to do about it if we don’t!”
Despite Kang Hana’s warning the dark elves didn’t stop. They boldly fired again.
“…I’ll arrest you.”
“W-what the…! The arrow isn’t even sticking…?”
The arrow flying toward Kang Hana fell limply to the dirt. She hadn’t even moved to dodge.
“You’re players too, right? Why are you shooting at fellow players?”
“This is hunting…”
“We have no connection to each other, though?”
Kang Hana muttered as though she genuinely couldn’t understand.
“That kind of thinking… is exactly how villains think. I can’t just overlook this.”
“What! You think that’s going to scare us?”
The dark elves kept nocking arrows without pause. Both of them began shooting in rapid succession. Honestly I could have endured it without hiding, but I had to pretend to be weak.
“Aack…!”
Still, for the sake of realism I took one hit. With the arrow dangling from my body I ducked behind a tree.
“Hana noona! Hide for now!”
“N-noona…? Jinwoo, your pronunciation is weird…”
Those dark elves were no match for Kang Hana, but I still shouted for her to take cover.
“He called me noona… noona…”
Kang Hana blushed furiously and slapped her own cheeks. I knew she was trying to snap herself out of it, but how hard was she hitting herself for both cheeks to puff up like that?
“Eyes! Aim for the eyes…!”
Even when struck, the arrows wouldn’t penetrate. The dark elves couldn’t break through Kang Hana’s Body Reinforcement. They tried targeting her eyes late, but hitting a moving target’s eyes was never easy. Their arrows flew wildly off course. Kang Hana dodged every shot with the smallest possible movements. They were both human, yet the gap between them was overwhelming.
“Where did she go!”
“Find her! No—run!”
The dark elves who had come to hunt now found themselves the prey. Calling it a hunt was generous; to Kang Hana they weren’t even worth considering as game. It was an adult fighting children—perhaps even worse.
Kang Hana leaped and instantly closed the distance behind them. In the blink of an eye she was atop the tree. The dark elves had no time to flee.
“U-ugh…!”
Kang Hana gave them light flicks to the forehead. The moment her fingers touched them, both dark elves passed out. It looked like playful taps, but the strikes were practically lethal weapons.
Kang Hana carried the unconscious dark elves down from the tree.
“Whoa…”
Yoo Dahui rushed over to her. Then, throwing etiquette to the wind, she asked bluntly.
“Hana unnie, what are your strength and agility levels?”
“Me? I have… strength at 16, agility at 12.”
“…Pfft, hahaha.”
Yoo Dahui let out a disbelieving laugh. Here we were struggling at level 2 or 3 while someone else had already punched through the sky and was heading into outer space. When would I ever hit level 10?
“What should we do with these two?”
“We kill them,” Yoo Dahui said. “If we spare them for no reason and they come at us again… we could get hurt. Jinwoo actually did get hurt.”
“Ah.”
“Does it hurt a lot? I’m sorry. I should have blocked it for you.”
Yoo Dahui came to my side with clear guilt written across her face. She seemed to feel some sense of responsibility. The burden of being a regressor, perhaps.
“It’s fine. Not bad at all.”
“Not bad, my ass…”
Having someone worry about me wasn’t bad either.
“Mm… yeah. Dahui’s right. Even with villains, if you show mercy once they come back later and cause more damage. Innocent citizens end up suffering more.”
“Exactly. We have to deal with them the moment we catch them.”
The conversation settled on that course. We would finish the dark elves cleanly and head back.
“Then.”
Kang Hana ended the dark elves’ lives without hesitation. Even though she was a hero there wasn’t the slightest pause. She was so cold I wondered if she was really the timid, introverted person I knew. She was the number one hero who showed villains and evildoers zero mercy. She seemed well-trained for it.
If she ever found out what I had done while wearing that mask…
Gulp.
I didn’t even want to imagine it. I would probably die horribly.
Calculating combat results…
200 Coins Acquired!
I hadn’t done anything to help kill the dark elves, so the reward was predictably stingy.
“Let’s go back, noona. We’ve already figured out what kind of monster the field boss was. No need to wander around anymore.”
“R-right! Let’s head back, Jinwoo.”
I had shown everything I wanted to show. There was no point wasting any more time. Yoo Dahui had refused Baek Seon-woo’s offer, saying she still had things to do, so she hadn’t gone up to the first floor. I didn’t know why, but Kang Hana had refused as well. As for me, since Yoo Dahui said she would stay on floor 0, I stayed obediently. Baek Seon-woo hadn’t even asked me.
Ding.
We returned to the inn Rest Area. The sun was still high outside, but I had zero desire to go out hunting again. I had already earned plenty of coins.
“Welcome back.”
The innkeeper sat at the counter with a dazed expression. As usual, there were no other guests.
“I’m hungry…”
Yoo Dahui glanced at me sideways and muttered. Her lips poked out like a duck’s bill—a habit she showed in the novel whenever she wanted something.
“We can just eat.”
“Yeah… that’s true. If you’re hungry, you should eat.”
Was it something else? Had I guessed wrong? Yoo Dahui’s expression was far from normal. It was downright murderous.
“Want to leave our weapons behind and go for a walk?”
“Sure, that sounds great!”
She accepted with a bright face like she had just met a long-lost friend.
“…Can I come too?”
At Kang Hana’s clueless interruption, Yoo Dahui’s face grew far more terrifying than before, but—
“Yes. You can. Of course you can. Why wouldn’t you be able to? Ah. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.”
“Wow, thanks. I wanted to get something to eat but was scared to go alone. I’m glad. I’ll go change my clothes!”