Chapter 26: Don't Even Talk to Marauders
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 26: Don't Even Talk to Marauders
I began the death count for the straggling mage from the party that had originally tried to plunder us.
“One!”
I made my voice as loud and my expression as firm as possible.
I’m going to attack you after I count to three.
“Two!”
So if you don’t want to die, get lost before I’m done!
“…”
But she just sat there, whimpering, unable to move.
Yernil looked a little surprised, as if she hadn’t expected me to be this harsh.
But it couldn’t be helped.
The Labyrinth was rife with all sorts of schemes, scams, and betrayals.
“Three—!”
“I-I’ll give you money!” the mage shouted.
“I’ll pay you if I get out of here alive. Everything I’ve saved up. I swear. Please…”
The mage tried to negotiate.
But I wasn’t having it.
“We don’t make deals with marauders.”
In the game, I’d been backstabbed countless times after negotiating with marauders.
“The count is over.”
I aimed my wand at her.
“Lightning—”
“I’ll go! I-I’m going! I’m leaving!”
The mage shot to her feet in terror, raising both hands.
“I’m going. Please don’t shoot…”
Then, sniffling, she turned back toward the pitch-black darkness from which she had come.
“…”
Was her story about being plundered true or false?
I had no idea. But even if it was likely true, there was no reason for us to take on that risk.
Even if we had to face a 2nd-floor party, we’d have a fighting chance if we used Cumulonimbus and the Hourglass well.
But the variable of having an untrustworthy marauder mixed in with our allies was unbearable.
“Wait.”
I stopped the mage as she was about to leave.
Come to think of it, I’d gotten too worked up. I couldn’t just let her go when there was still information to be gained.
“What were the people in the party that plundered you like?”
Assuming they actually existed, it would be best to analyze their strength beforehand.
I needed to run a simulation in my head. To see whether or not they could be a threat to us.
“A-a Halfling with a crossbow… a Barbarian with a two-handed axe, and a Lizard wizard…”
“Three of them?”
“No. Four. I didn’t get a good look at the last one. They were short. Probably a Dwarf or a Halfling.”
“Good.”
I took a small healing potion from my bag and tossed it to her.
“Payment for the information. Now go.”
“Ah…”
“If we happen to run into those 2nd-floor marauders, I’ll avenge your party.”
“…”
Perhaps our brief exchange had given her some hope, because an expression of immense disappointment, despair, and tears washed over the mage’s face.
Damn it.
This felt awful.
What if this were the modern world?
What if I were walking down the street with my friends, and an injured woman ran up to us, crying that a psychopathic killer was chasing her?
I’d help, in most cases.
I wouldn’t risk my life fighting the killer, but any decent adult would offer at least minimal protection and help.
Call the police, hide her in a building, something like that.
But unfortunately, the Labyrinth has no police. It’s a place where everyone fends for themselves. Your life is your own responsibility. We don’t have the luxury of taking responsibility for you…
“Caleb!”
Yernil suddenly raised her bow.
“Someone’s coming from over there!”
“What?”
“They’re running!” she shouted.
“Ah… ah…”
The mage, who had been turning back, spun around again, her face pale with terror.
“Stop!”
Aimus yelled, aiming his iron staff at her, but she ignored him.
The mage was on the verge of a breakdown.
“Th-they’re coming! They’re here! Aaaah! Get out of the way! Please, move!”
She grappled with Aimus, who was blocking her path, trying desperately to push through.
“How many?!” I yelled to Yernil.
“Four!”
If this was a trap, there should have been three of them, excluding the mage.
If there were four…
Swoosh!
Clang!
Something flew toward us at incredible speed. Aimus masterfully batted it away with his iron staff. It was a crossbow bolt.
The mage’s party didn’t have a crossbow.
It was real.
The 2nd-floor marauder party was here!
“Aaaah!”
While Aimus was busy deflecting the bolt, the mage, lost in panic, broke free and scrambled to my side.
“…”
A split-second misjudgment is fatal.
I shouldn’t have let her get in, even if it meant a fight with the 2nd-floor party.
Fuck.
I’m an idiot, a moron, a fool.
Regardless of how the fight with the 2nd-floor party went, I should have hit this mage with a Lightning Shock first.
“How was my acting?”
The bitch of a mage pressed her wand to my neck.
“Jester’s Spell Scrambler—”
She chanted with a cloying sweetness.
“Caleb!”
Aimus spun around and roared.
“Watch the front! The front!” I roared back.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 60 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■■■]
I flipped the Hourglass.
*
This situation was driving me crazy, but I had to calm down and break it down.
The enemies that appeared weren’t a 2nd-floor party. We had fallen into a trap set by this vixen of a mage.
So, what gave her the confidence to charge us, squishy mage that she was?
What was her strategy?
First.
They must have changed their plan because of Aimus. Because his iron staff was a threat.
Regardless of his skill, that vicious weapon had incredible spatial control in the narrow passages of the Labyrinth’s first floor.
In game terms, what if Aimus established an area of control and focused on blocking their entry?
Even if they launched a surprise attack and started a brawl, Yernil and I would eventually find an angle to deal some damage.
So, the desperate plan they came up with was this:
‘Get past Aimus.’
They needed a Trojan horse to get past our gatekeeper and neutralize the mage and the archer.
So, who among the four would come in?
The human warrior in heavy armor? The canine beastfolk rogue? The stout dwarf built like Birtanen?
We wouldn’t have let any of them in. To avoid suspicion, they sent the mage, the one with the weakest close-combat ability.
‘I don’t know why her head was split open and bleeding profusely, though.’
On top of that, the mage had a spell-scrambling magic.
It was a Tier 2 mental magic that, for a certain period, caused any combat spells cast by the target to manifest as random utility spells.
With me neutralized, our party’s damage output would be more than halved.
They probably planned to hit the panicking Yernil with something like paralysis.
Once the two of us were useless, they would intercept Aimus.
Aimus wouldn’t be able to save us. A crossbow bolt would be flying at him from the front, and the human warrior would be charging him.
And that would be it.
We’d all die, Back Attack would enter eternal rest, and the party would be wiped out!
‘That must have been the plan, right?’
This method only worked because Back Attack was an undead.
Right now, Back Attack could use his rogue experience to navigate and avoid traps, but he couldn’t use any skills.
In the game, he could do things like ‘Bite’ and ‘Hit’, but in reality, the only thing I’d ever seen him bite was Yernil’s hair.
In other words, we had no one to guard our rear.
It was a gamble for the mage to charge in herself, but since she was charging a mage and an archer, it was a toss-up.
That’s why this mage had bravely penetrated deep into our formation, and I, like a moron, had allowed it.
Damn it.
I should have reflexively hit her with a Lightning Shock the moment she got past Aimus.
If I had to make an excuse, it was that I was confused by the four enemies and the crossbow bolt.
I really thought the 2nd-floor marauder party existed, and I was even considering a temporary alliance with the mage to save my spell cooldowns.
But I was wrong.
The reason Yernil mistook the number was probably because the dwarf in the mage’s party of four was a puppeteer.
Meaning, the ‘four’ that Yernil spotted included a combat doll.
That doll must have been what fired the crossbow bolt.
“Haaah.”
A sigh escaped me.
Being put in unnecessary danger always feels awful. Even more so when it’s because of my own misjudgment.
When Yernil first stepped on the trap, when the bald party chased us, and now this time.
Couldn’t I have recognized these moments of crisis earlier and dealt with them more intelligently?
Should I have acted like a psychopath and just blasted this mage with lightning the moment she approached?
Am I the kind of person who can do that?
“…”
I don’t know.
But it was an undeniable fact that I had been tactically deficient this time. If I make a mistake, our whole party dies. I need to reflect on this and move on.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 8 seconds]
Right after I kill all of these bastards first.
“There are eight seconds left now, you fucker.”
The moment the count ends, you’re dead.
*
The first night after I brought Yernil from the Adventurer’s Guild to the dormitory.
Yernil, who came to me saying she was scared of Back Attack and wanted to sleep together, was asked to help me with an experiment.
The experiment was to study game mechanics using magic scrolls I’d bought from the black market.
‘Cooldowns tick down while the Hourglass is active.’
This was an incredibly important property.
Thanks to it, I’d become a super-fast casting genius.
And one more thing.
‘You can still feel pain while the Hourglass is active.’
That was when Back Attack had stabbed me in the gut, and I was lying on the ground.
Even while I was doing various things with the Hourglass flipped, my stomach had hurt like hell.
How was that possible?
Being unable to move meant that the excitement of motor nerves was restricted by the Hourglass, right?
Then how could I still feel pain?
Were sensory nerves still active?
Come to think of it, speaking also requires the vocal cord muscles to move, and that wasn’t restricted either.
As expected of the backstabbing Hourglass, it was inconsistent.
In any case, feeling pain during my turn was bad news, but in exchange…
‘Does the duration of status effects also pass?’
Just like cooldowns.
It was possible.
For example, let’s say ‘Poison’ lasts for 20 seconds.
The damage and pain that comes every second would, neurologically speaking, be the process of toxins destroying nerve tissue and creating blood clots, right?
Then wouldn’t that neurological phenomenon continue to progress even with the Hourglass flipped? Just like the pain in my gut from Back Attack’s stabbing had progressed.
This was something I absolutely had to research.
So, despite my tight finances, I scraped together a large sum of money to buy scrolls from the black market and experimented with Yernil.
The result was, in a word, yes.
The duration of status effects also passes when the Hourglass is flipped.
If that’s the case…
[Status Effect Duration Reduction Scroll]
What if I used an item like this?
In-game, it was an item that reduced the duration of a current status effect to 1 turn.
It was an amazing effect, but the penalty was just as amazing, so it was treated as trash-tier among users. And here, in reality, it was even more of a piece of trash.
Why?
The penalty was the same, but the effect was changed from reducing the duration to ‘1 turn’ to reducing it to ‘60 seconds’.
In a real-time battle, 60 seconds is enough time to leisurely walk to the afterlife, get reincarnated, and celebrate your first birthday.
That’s why the black market dealer warned me this scroll wasn’t for combat, but I could endure those 60 seconds with my Hourglass.
“That’s why I brought it with me.”
The moment the mage’s spell-scrambling magic hit me, I tore the scroll and flipped the Hourglass, all while yelling at Aimus to watch his front.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 3 seconds]
And now, there were three seconds left.
This is what’s left of your life.
Two seconds.
One second.
Using the slight delay between tearing the scroll and flipping the Hourglass, I got off just one chantless spell.
“Lightning Shock.”
*
Cra-crack!
A bolt of lightning erupted from my wand, flashing through the passage.
In its light, I could see the other three members of the marauder team, who had been charging toward Aimus, flinch in surprise.
“Guh…”
The electrocuted mage’s legs gave out and she collapsed. I aimed my wand at her again.
“Wh… what the…”
Her expression was one of complete and utter disbelief.
Right. It wouldn’t make sense to you.
It doesn’t make sense to me either. That I almost fell for your shallow tricks and acting.
And thank you. For making me a little more heartless.
The way I did things in the game was right after all. Next time, I won’t even bother talking to marauder bastards. Happy now?
“S-save…”
The real thing is definitely a bit different.
That look of terror. Her earlier performance was award-worthy, but the emotion in her eyes now was on another level.
“Dust Explosion.”
*
KABOOM!
I thought it might have been overkill, but it was the only spell I had ready.
One of the mage’s arms was blown off, sent flying by the explosion.
Screams poured from her body as it caught fire and burned fiercely.
And…
‘She’s frozen in shock.’
Yernil, that is.
And the three marauders as well.
They had run right up to Aimus, but the shock was so great that they had stopped dead in their tracks.
They must have thought their plan was a success, only to see their mage being blown up in real-time right before their eyes.
“W-wasn’t she hit with Spell Scrambler…”
I could understand their confusion.
[Temporary Hourglass Acquired!]
The mage was dead.
Now, I aimed my wand at the enemies in front.
And flipped the Hourglass.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 60 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■]
*
I ordered Yernil to shoot the Dwarf Puppeteer. As she did, I chanted Lightning Shock to electrocute the combat doll blocking her shot.
With my other wand, I cast Dust Explosion again.
The target was the human warrior clad in iron armor.
“Aaaaaargh!”
It became a rather grotesque scene as fire ignited inside his steel armor. And the Dwarf Puppeteer…
“Gack… Huk…”
An arrow had pierced his throat.
Even in a state of shock, Yernil followed my orders during the Hourglass turn.
The puppeteer wasn’t dead instantly, but it looked like his windpipe was blocked. And the last one, the beastfolk rogue?
Crack!
The monk smashed his skull with the iron staff.
There was still something I needed to check.
“Don’t move.”
I grabbed the dwarf and pulled out the arrow lodged in his neck. I poured a little healing potion onto the bleeding wound.
“Huk… Keoheok.”
“I have something to ask you.”
I gripped his collar tightly and pressed him.
There was still a gap in my reasoning.
“Why did your mage use Spell Scrambler on me earlier?”
If the goal was to kill me, an attack spell would have made more sense.
But Spell Scrambler was strange. It was as if the goal was to incapacitate me…
“T-to capture… you alive…”
So incapacitation really was the goal?
It’s not like they were going to sell us somewhere, and marauders don’t shy away from killing. Then why?
“Th-the 2nd-floor party… th-they’re real… We clashed with them once…”
So that’s why the mage’s head was busted open and bleeding?
“T-to use you as vanguards when we attack them…”
So, the mage, instead of pouring a healing potion on her split head, suggested, “Let’s use this to lure that undead party!”… and their plan was to strip us of all our gear to sell, then use us as meat shields to take down the 2nd-floor party too?
How thrifty. A regular penny-pincher.
“I-I-I’ll be the vanguard…”
The Dwarf Puppeteer offered to switch positions.
“Spare me…”
He was offering to be the meat shield now.
“Please…”
*
I killed him.
With Lightning Shock, myself.
The bald party and these guys. If you include Back Attack, that’s a total of nine people so far.
The number of people I’ve killed, directly or indirectly.
Among them, the dwarf I just killed was a little different.
I killed him after the battle was over.
I killed a man who was begging for his life.
Was this right?
I don’t know.
I feel uneasy. About that last kill, and about the battle itself.
The conditions for the Hourglass to activate automatically are strict. A goblin’s knife 20 centimeters from my neck, Yernil about to lift her foot after stepping on a trap, Back Attack about to leap and tear out a carotid artery with a sneak attack.
Maybe that’s why the Hourglass didn’t activate for things like Lie Detection Magic.
The same went for the Spell Scrambler.
What if the mage had shot a Fireball at me instead?
The Hourglass would have activated.
But could I have blocked or dodged it? A fireball launched at point-blank range?
I couldn’t have put out a Fireball with a spell like Humidify, could I?
I wonder.
If the situation actually arose, would I manage to do something?
I don’t know.
Somehow, I feel like I lost the tactical battle and only survived by a fluke of the Hourglass. That feeling is even more unsettling than the final kill.
To look on the bright side, you could say my preparedness in researching the Hourglass and bringing the scroll paid off.
‘That’s not enough.’
If I’ve let my guard down after tasting civilization outside the Labyrinth for two weeks, I need to slap myself awake.
The Labyrinth is not to be underestimated. I know that better than anyone. Even a skilled party can die a sudden, violent death at any time.
I need to get my head straight.
And one more thing.
From now on, I won’t even talk to marauders.
“I’m a bit tired. Let’s take a short break before we go.”
The side effects of the Status Effect Duration Reduction Scroll must be kicking in. I was getting drowsy.