The Monster in the Deep Forest (8)

"Your minions have won the battle. It was their first real war, after all. Red blood soaks the earth, and shattered heaps of butchered flesh lie scattered everywhere."

"Yeah, I know. You don't need to provide live commentary on every little thing."

I could see everything my units were doing, wherever they were. It was all happening on a tiny screen, but the brutality came through just fine. No matter where I looked, there was only ruin.

[Devour][Essence Infusion]

I didn't want to keep looking at whatever those things were for long. So I chose the options as quickly as I could, letting the Grand Lord and the minions fill their bellies and use Essence Infusion to create additional minions.

But since most of them were ordinary villagers, even after they were completely devoured, they didn't yield anything meaningful beyond simple nutrients.

"So just filling up on nutrients doesn't grant experience?"

"Think about it logically. Experience doesn't increase just because you do something easy that you're already good at. Experience is the process of taking on difficult tasks you can't easily handle and mastering them."

Agares agreed with me. That meant my avatar, which had already grown this far, had moved beyond the stage where killing a few ordinary people would still grant experience.

"Look here. Your loyal warrior has finished capturing every last one of the fugitives."

Just then, the screen automatically switched. Lena was there, and above her head floated an exclamation mark.

I tapped the exclamation mark. It was a quest Lena had found.

The leader of Donald's mercenary band, Donald, threatened that his other comrades already knew his whereabouts and that, once they learned the truth, they would swarm in and wipe us out. Hunt down the punitive expedition instead.

I read the contents of the accepted quest and snorted. The fact that a quest had appeared at all meant the information wasn't a lie.

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

But on the screen, the man was shouting frantically at Lena, who stood over the corpses of his comrades, looking down at him as he lay on the ground. Above his head floated an emoji of a face frozen in terror.

"There's no option to keep him alive and infuse him with essence?"

But alongside the anger emoji floating over Lena's head, the choices that appeared once again were pushing her own will hard in my face.

Come to think of it, among my subordinates, she was still the only one whose will was strong enough to intrude on the choices themselves. The Grand Lord was my avatar, moving exactly as I intended, so in situations like this it couldn't surface in that way.

In the end, with no real alternative, I picked number one and gave Lena the choice she wanted so badly.

"Your warrior Lena cleanly severed the neck of that insolent fool who overreached himself and picked a fight. At least this incident has been wrapped up rather neatly."

With Agares's words, the screen showed Donald's head and body lying apart from each other. Whether satisfied or grateful for my decision, Lena lifted her face to the sky and offered her thanks.

"Time's up. It was a short stretch, but quite a lot happened."

"Can't exactly call it trivial, that's for sure."

That was when the Grand Lord exhausted all its action points and entered a fatigued state.

We hadn't fought all that much, but after handling the cleanup—devouring corpses, infusing essence, and everything else—the action points had drained fast.

Especially Essence Infusion. That chewed through a tremendous amount of activity.

So the only thing to do was rest.

Actually, there were still some with energy left, including Lena, but I had them rest as well, just to keep everyone on the same rhythm.

Trusting the Grand Lord to keep working automatically while we rested, I returned to the main screen like this.

"You're leaving already with news of victory in hand. Going back to live your life, are you?"

"No. I'm going to sleep, you bastard."

Agares appeared on the main screen, the ears of his rabbit mask twitching as he laughed, but my eyelids had started to grow heavy all at once, and I shook my head.

This was the price for staying up all night yesterday, unable to stop myself from grinding the game. Maybe I was getting older, but lately it had become ridiculously hard to resist sleep once it came calling.

"Ugh..."

I twitched for no reason at all and threw myself onto the bed. This was what it meant to lie down and fall asleep. Exhaustion crashed over me in one wave, and the moment I hit the mattress, I sank straight into sleep.

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"..."

I was in a vast darkness. For a moment, I couldn't quite gather my wits and simply stared blankly at the space around me. There wasn't a single speck of light, so of course I couldn't see anything.

What is this?

I couldn't feel anything, either. No matter how I flailed my arms or kicked my legs, I honestly couldn't even tell whether I still had arms or legs.

It's a dream. A lucid dream?

Instinctively, I searched my memory and recalled that I'd just lain down on the bed. So this had to be a dream. More than that, it was one of those rare dreams where I was aware I was dreaming.

...So what?

The problem was that it didn't mean much.

It was my dream, so it ought to go however I wanted, and I tried everything I could think of to make the dream move, but nothing changed.

Light.

That was when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I sensed the faintest shift. Instinctively, I moved toward it.

Fortunately, the change was continuous and immediate. The closer I got to the light, the more things began to appear around me.

They were tiny points of light, like stars pinned across the night sky. If I wasn't careful and deliberate, they would flare and vanish over and over again.

But the largest and brightest light—the one I was heading toward—didn't disappear. It kept shining like a sun.

This is a crazy dream.

As I drew closer and closer to that light, I let out a bitter laugh. Maybe it was because I'd been through so much lately, but even my dreams weren't ordinary anymore.

And when I finally reached the source, straining against the brilliance.

Lena.

Recognizing what that light really was, I froze in place.

A crazy dream. That was what I thought, and it honestly seemed right.

Right in front of me, floating unconscious in midair, was none other than the girl who had until now existed only inside my phone.

The dazzling light that illuminated this whole region and became my beacon had been coming from her body all along.

How the hell is this happening?

I let out an involuntary sound, but no voice came out. Frowning, I looked around Lena's body.

Lena, who had evolved from a minion into a warrior, was usually covered from head to toe in Ascalas's signature black carapace, but the girl standing before me now looked completely ordinary.

Having finished my inspection in that split second, I reached out without thinking. And the moment my unseen—but unmistakably real—hand touched hers.

"Mmng..."

Lena stirred and slowly opened her eyes. I panicked, realizing I'd woken her, and fumbled awkwardly, but there was no way to stop her from waking up fully.

In the end, our eyes met.

She, too, seemed to need a few seconds to grasp the situation, standing there dazed.

"Ahh..."

Slowly settling onto the ground, she widened those already large eyes even further and trembled as she looked at me, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

I was frustrated enough to go mad. Even if this was a dream, I wanted to speak, to make my will clear somehow, but no words would come out.

"I... I..."

"??? "

But what Lena did next only made me even more flustered. She shrank back, at a loss for what to do, and then suddenly dropped to the floor and bowed her head to me.

"Eep."

Startled, I hurriedly grabbed her trembling hand and pulled her back to her feet. She flinched as she looked up at me.

The awe, fear, and confusion living in those huge red eyes displeased me.

Even if this were a dream, she was still the one who fought for me and lived for me—my benefactor. It made no sense for my own benefactor to be afraid of me.

"Ah..."

Wondering how on earth I was supposed to convey that, I eventually decided to choose the most certain method of all. I would move my body.

With her head gently stroked and our eyes level, I slowly pulled her into an embrace. I didn't know whether it would work, but at the very least, her trembling clearly subsided.

"Gah!"

And then, all at once, I jerked awake, my eyes flying open as I gasped on the bed.

Familiar touch, familiar scent. This was my house. I'd woken from the dream.

"Hello?"

I answered the call from whoever had interrupted my mysterious dream. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was 1:00 p.m., only three hours after I'd fallen asleep.

"This is Kim Seok-ju from ERT Gaming. I'm not sure if you know me, but I'm the manager."

"I don't work for ERT anymore. We ended the contract early by mutual agreement."

"I see. Even better, then."

"Huh?"

"I'm working with the Fluke Refill Team right now, and I was wondering whether you'd be interested in a next team."

For the first time in my life, a stranger I had never spoken to before dangled before me the name of a first-tier team I knew all too well—and offered me a fatal temptation.