Chapter 151: According to the Plan (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 151: According to the Plan (2)
“Kaaah!”
Richard was still in a state of subjugation.
He thrashed about, howling like a beast.
His arms were pinned by a combat doll, his body entangled in the ‘Binding Vines’ spell.
“Richard…”
Back Attack suddenly bit his lip hard.
“You son of a bitch!”
He roared and charged forward.
“If you were going to abandon me, you should have at least retaken the main camp properly!”
He grabbed Richard by the collar.
“In the end, Yagnar’s army was wiped out!”
The traumatic delirium and despair of that day still lingered in his very nerves.
Wiping his hot cheeks, Back Attack slammed his head into Richard’s chest.
Tears streamed down his face.
“If you were going to leave me… you should have protected Yagnar! You should have protected Mookup and Sharas…”
Their relationship, a tangled mess of love and hate, had spiraled into madness.
He remembered how shocked he’d been when they met again in Sohen.
Back Attack had screamed and confronted him, just like now, but Richard had simply ignored him.
That’s what a soldier is.
Don’t act like a child.
That’s what Richard had said.
He had even blamed Back Attack.
Your cursed fate has led Yagnar’s army to its death. That’s the kind of man you are.
Don’t you dare become a Labyrinth adventurer.
You’ll just end up devouring your comrades again.
“And then, when I was doing well in Brother Aimus’s party, you recruited me!”
Back Attack’s fists hammered against Richard’s chest.
“You cowardly bastard! You… you… you deserve to die…”
Back Attack’s legs trembled with rage.
“But still, I… I saved you. I rescued you…”
Back Attack wiped his tears.
It was time to go back to Caleb.
“Back Attack.”
Clorence wore an expression of utter shock.
“You… you don’t know?”
“Know what…?”
“If you’re talking about the battle for Cruaden in the west…”
The other side of a tragedy is sometimes more cruel and shocking than one can imagine.
“Richard charged the south gate to save you.”
*
It was the greatest dishonor and the most shameful memory in the life of an orc warrior who had been a soldier his entire life.
“I will not be returning to the fortress.”
Richard broke away from the main force.
“It’s shameful enough that we threw a kid into enemy territory first, but now you want to abandon him?”
He pulled out of the operation.
“Because that kid hasn’t become a ‘man’ yet. It’s right to save a child, Yagnar.”
Mookup also pulled out of the operation.
“He’s a kid who doesn’t know any of the fun things in life. It would be too pitiful for him to die like that, right? I’ll be back with the main force in no time.”
Sharas also pulled out of the operation.
Yagnar’s main army turned back to defend the capital, Wyrkar, while the core officers and a detachment of about 100 soldiers broke away.
Their actions looked like a suicide mission.
Just before the southern gate of Cruaden closed.
“Find Back Attack!”
The hundred orc warriors charged in recklessly.
“He must still be around here!”
But Back Attack wasn’t at the south gate entrance.
“Go inside!”
“He might have been captured!”
“Let’s rescue the brat and get back!”
It was true they had arrived later than scheduled. Back Attack might have already been captured and was being tortured.
For a mere hundred soldiers to charge into an enemy force of tens of thousands was, by any measure, insane. But.
“There is no retreat.”
Richard’s detachment pushed forward even more fiercely. All the way to the garrison barracks. To the prisoner cells, the interrogation rooms, and even the front of the command headquarters.
But even as their forces were nearly depleted, they couldn’t find Back Attack.
“Hey, Richard. Maybe…”
Mookup, one arm missing, said with a smile.
In truth, they were all thinking the same thing.
Back Attack rarely ever acted according to plan.
He might have abandoned his post again.
He might have run away again.
“That damn kid…”
When eighty percent of the detachment had fallen.
“It’s not easy to make him follow the plan…”
“Isn’t the teacher at fault?” Mookup chuckled.
“If Back Attack escaped, he’ll need a guardian…”
Sharas cast a spell on Richard, allowing him to escape.
“War Sorcery Detachment.”
It was a spell she had been saving to use on Back Attack.
*
He had thought it was strange.
Why had Yagnar’s army, one of the most powerful among the western lords, been annihilated at Wyrkar without even putting up a proper fight?
The reason was that they had lost their core officers.
He had thought it was truly strange.
Even though he had set fire to the supply depot and the city was in chaos, how had a single human male managed to escape that place alone?
In truth, the defenders of Cruaden had been in disarray because of the hundred soldiers who had stormed the south gate.
They were too preoccupied to care whether some guy named Back Attack was escaping to the north.
He had thought Richard was a strange and eccentric orc.
‘If he hates me so much, why did he invite me to his party?’
Richard was a typical westerner. He believed in supernatural superstitions, including ghosts and evil spirits, and he believed in curses.
He believed the curse said to possess Back Attack was real.
He believed that Back Attack, who continued his Labyrinth adventures no matter how much he was warned against it, would one day devour all his comrades.
He believed that there was no party that would accept the brat who always broke from the plan due to his childhood trauma.
If that was the case…
“Aimus? Instead of being in a monk’s party like that, come over to ours.”
It was the sense of responsibility of a warrior who had been an officer in Yagnar’s army.
“I’ll strongly recommend you, so you’d be better off joining our party.”
In fact, Back Attack had heard something similar even after his resurrection.
When was it?
Was it right after he survived the 3rd Floor monster wave?
Richard, whom he ran into at a back-alley bar, frowned and said.
“Caleb? I hear rumors these days that he’s a smart wizard. Stop causing trouble for him and get out.”
“Don’t give me that fucking bullshit!”
Back Attack grabbed him by the collar and shouted.
“You’re all talk, always blabbering on about the plan. But in reality, you can’t do anything. You couldn’t follow the plan when you attacked Cruaden. You couldn’t protect Yagnar, Mookup, or Sharas. You couldn’t defend Wyrkar! And what’s more…”
He drove nails into the orc warrior’s honor.
“You couldn’t even die with them!”
“…”
“I wouldn’t join your party if I died and came back to life.”
“I’m telling you not to be a burden to others. You’re cursed. The fall of Yagnar’s army might have been your fault.”
“Ha!”
Back Attack scoffed.
“So, did Andersen and Sonya say it was okay for a cursed guy like me to join?”
“Those two are dead.”
“What?”
“You rushed into the Labyrinth alone again, three days before our scheduled entry. We went in without a trap detector. The two of them stepped on a trap and died. It happened after we let you into the party.”
“…”
“Leave Caleb’s party. Let’s move as a duo, just you and me.”
Richard’s proposal was calm and serious.
“I’m not kidding. That wizard, they’re calling him the Wizard of Disaster or something these days. You’re already causing him trouble.”
“…”
Back Attack gritted his teeth.
“Do you know why I acted alone three days before we were supposed to enter the Labyrinth?”
“I heard you were trying to save your previous party.”
“That’s right.”
Back Attack stared into Richard’s eyes and said.
“Fuck the plan. I’ll dive into hell or the Deep Layer to save the people I care about. I don’t care if the plan gets ruined. I’ll act on my own whenever I have to.”
“…”
“Because I have very few people like that.”
*
He had received protective magic, so there was no chance of being exposed to the spore status effect again.
But Clorence’s story made his head spin as if he were in a state of delirium.
“W-wait a minute.”
Back Attack stopped him.
“That’s enough. I’m a little busy right now…”
“I know you’re busy. But we might all die in this battle, so I wanted to clear up the misunderstanding.”
“I get it, so stop!”
Back Attack yelled and raised his dagger with a trembling hand.
“Shit…”
He glanced at Richard, who was struggling in the grasp of the combat doll.
There was no consciousness in his eyes.
“You idiot…”
Back Attack bit his lip hard.
‘Mirror Image Substitution!’
He activated the skill.
Too much time had already been wasted.
Some distance from Bearhim’s corpse, on a mossy hill, Back Attack’s clone was hiding.
He had to get back quickly.
He had to support Caleb, Aimus, and Yernil.
‘Stupid, idiotic fool.’
Richard was always right.
Back Attack felt like he was starting to understand something.
‘I’m cursed.’
He was right.
‘The officers I was closest to led the detachment and were the first to die.’
And after that, Yagnar’s main army died.
Sonya and Andersen died too.
And now Richard was incapacitated.
Next were Aimus and Yernil.
And then it would be Caleb’s turn.
Why were they dying?
Because Back Attack deviated from the plan.
Because he was impulsive.
And he had the gall to stand in front of Richard and say, ‘Fuck the plan’?
It was shameful.
He’d dive anywhere if someone he cared about was in danger?
‘What the hell am I…'
With a devastated heart, Back Attack substituted.
‘Just how much of an idiot…'
The scene that unfolded before his eyes was slightly different from what he had expected.
*
He was the Wizard of Foul Weather.
First, he cast ‘Hailstorm’ as bait to draw the Void’s attention.
Then, just as he was about to flip the hourglass, he cast ‘Blizzard’.
After flipping the hourglass, he used six Action Points to cast the Tier 5 spell Blizzard two more times.
Then, he flipped the temporary hourglass again.
‘Summon Typhoon.’
He was the Wizard of Natural Disasters.
A torrential downpour from the sky.
From between the dark clouds, crazed bolts of lightning struck one after another.
And a blizzard.
This wasn’t the chunks of ice from a hailstorm.
The particles were smaller and finer, but far more deadly.
A tremendous amount of snow was pouring down.
Some people in Sohen used to call him the Wizard of Disaster.
What would they have called him if they saw this?
The blizzard itself created a tornado, and winds of 60 meters per second whipped the falling snow back up into the sky.
It was impossible to tell where the snow was coming from—whether it was rising from the ground or falling from the sky.
“What is this…”
He could barely see a thing.
A massive snowstorm met a typhoon, raging in every direction.
It was difficult to even stay on one’s feet.
Everything before him was pure white.
A whiteout.
In that place of lost visibility, there was one person who was having the time of her life, a master of sound mapping.
Bang! Bang!
Gunshots echoed from all directions.
In the middle of the blizzard, the monster was locked in a desperate struggle with an elf archer of a much lower level.
CRASH!
The tentacles lashing out in all directions couldn’t hit her.
The chill of the blizzard had slowed the Glutton, and the elf archer, doped up on Aether Mushrooms, was faster than it. And in the worst-case scenario.
‘Warden Relocation!’
She could escape.
The indiscriminate attacks couldn’t hit the wizard either.
Because…
CLANG!
The party’s vanguard had opened a steel parasol, dedicating himself to protecting the wizard.
The monster couldn’t focus its attacks on a specific location either.
Because it could barely see.
The monster hastily recalled the Void Ink it had spread across the field, but it took time for the ink sac to refill.
“A battle like this…”
Normally, the standard combat formation would have Back Attack in the rear, protecting Yernil or Caleb.
With him gone, it wouldn’t have been strange if one of them was already dead.
But the snowstorm and blizzard concealed the wizard and the archer, and the vanguard only had to mark one target. In fact, they were the ones launching a fierce assault, pushing the monster back.
“Back Attack.”
Caleb, who had run over with Aimus, spoke.
“How much has Clorence recovered?”
“…H-his feet are more than halfway out.”
For a moment, despite Caleb being his own party leader, Back Attack felt a sliver of fear.
“Excellent. He’ll be here soon, then. Richard should be subdued over there. By any chance, did you see Kudrum on your way?”
“He said he’s coming this way.”
“And the spare doll?”
“It’s been repaired.”
“Then the time we bought was meaningful.”
“…”
“If you had been with us, Back Attack, we could have killed the Glutton. It’s a strong enemy, so we should have finished it when we had the chance.”
“I’m… sorry…”
Back Attack hung his head low.
“For acting on my own…”
“It’s alright.”
Even before Back Attack had failed to kill Richard, Caleb had already pictured this entire situation in his mind.
“I thought that might happen.”
Even his impulsiveness, his tendency to act alone.
It was all within the genius wizard’s scope of operations.