Chapter 12 - Raids Are Too Hard
The plan was simple.
Lure the kids to the swamp.
Kill the Murlocs.
Once they had caught up in level to a decent degree, show them Rankol's corpse and spin a tale.
The one entrusted with the most crucial role in this plan was Mosilian. If the harmless-looking Mosilian led the way, the overly kind kids would surely follow along just fine this time as well.
"Are you Rankol? From now on, I will be your opponent!"
Hyung-seok immediately drew his sword. Unlike Hong-seop's small and sharp sword, his was a large and brutish greatsword.
"A-a person, a person! Sniff! Thank goodness! I can finally be saved!"
Ugh, this useless brat. Mosilian had no talent for acting. It would have looked more natural if she were just reading a textbook aloud in class.
"Don't come any closer! What the hell are you!"
If Hong-seop had been at the front, he might have been fooled by even that performance. But this time, the vanguard was Hyung-seok. He wasn't the type to welcome a never-before-seen being without suspicion.
"D-don't cut me. I'm not Rankol!"
At the reaction, which differed from the plan, Mosilian looked at me earnestly. Hmm, I don't know this person. Mosilian, Mozillian, whatever. I don't know her at all.
"You're… so mean..."
"Wait a minute, Hyung-seok. I don't think that child is Rankol. She's smaller than us and doesn't look like a cat."
"Of course not! I can't stand cats!"
Her grudge against Rankol was so deep that her emotions in that moment, at least, were real.
"I was captured by Rankol. That creature not only captured me, but my family… Please, I'm begging you. Please help me!"
Mozillian… no, Mosilian's acting improved as time went on. It seemed she could instantly get into character when she talked about her family.
"Oh dear..."
"How could such a thing happen."
Normally, people wouldn't risk their lives for someone else's family matters. Even if it was an enemy I was supposed to be fighting.
But here, there was the insider of insiders. The king of meddlers.
"Where did Rankol go?"
Once again, Hong-seop couldn't turn a blind eye to Mosilian's pitiful story. Looking at it this way, Hong-seop might not live a long life. He falls for every trick thrown at him.
"What makes you trust her and follow? What if it's a trap?"
"She said her family is in danger. If it's a trap, we'll fight our way out then."
'Is he insane?'
To some, those might be the words of a hero, but to others, they were far too naive. Unless a bullet was lodged in my frontal lobe, there was no way I would agree to such a thing.
"What if we can't? What if we get into danger because of it? Isn't that too reckless?"
Fortunately, Hyung-seok didn't have a bullet in his frontal lobe either.
"We can do it. We have the goddess's blessing, and we've fought well until now, haven't we?"
"Just because we've fought well so far doesn't guarantee we will in the future, you crazy bastard!"
"Even so, we have to do it. We came this far after our dead lives were saved. I'm going to save this world. I'm serious."
Hong-seop seemed to have lived a life without experiencing any major failures. Looking at how he thinks anything is possible, it was certain.
Mosilian was still looking only at me. I made a stabbing motion at my eye. If she kept looking, I was going to kill her. For real.
"You bastard!"
While I was lost in thought for a moment, the emotions between the two had intensified. Unable to hold back any longer, Hyung-seok grabbed Hong-seop by the collar.
"Are you crazy? You expect us to risk our lives for your stupid hero complex?"
"Rankol is an enemy we have to defeat anyway. All that's changed is the location."
"It's not just that the location has changed. Isn't it strange that this kid is here in the first place? Besides her, there's nothing but bones here."
A sharp one. Hyung-seok was no ordinary kid either. If it weren't for Hong-seop, he would have taken the protagonist's spot in any group. Yes, if only Hong-seop wasn't here.
"Let go of him."
The big problem was that Hyung-seok was confronting Hong-seop. Joo-hye aimed an arrow at Hyung-seok's temple. It was the first time the weapons given to fight monsters were aimed at each other.
"F*ck. Do you know what you just did?"
"I'm stopping a fight. Am I wrong?"
Without another word, the atmosphere instantly heated up. Hyung-seok also drew his sword, and the other kids followed suit, gripping their weapons. It was a hair-trigger situation. But public opinion was still on Hong-seop's side.
"Hah, what is wrong with him?"
"I know. He must hate seeing Hong-seop do well."
"He probably thinks he'll be somebody if Hong-seop is gone. He's the absolute worst."
"F*ck, all of you shut up! Do you understand this situation? That kid over there, isn't he obviously suspicious!"
"So what if he's suspicious? He's not Rankol anyway."
"Hong-seop said he'd take responsibility if anything happens. What's the problem?"
"A jealous man is an ugly thing."
There was a saying that if three people say they saw a tiger, then there was a tiger.
In reality, Hyung-seok's judgment was correct, but since the majority sided with Hong-seop, it was Hyung-seok who was cornered.
Now, there were only a few choices Hyung-seok could make.
Either bow his head and submit to Hong-seop, or continue as he was.
"Hah, I really can't take it anymore. I'm going completely separate."
Until now, they had at least moved forward together towards the same goal, just in different parties. But that was the end of it too. Hyung-seok and his Delinquent Faction left us for good.
A chaotic atmosphere followed, but most seemed to welcome Hyung-seok's absence. Everyone except me.
'Tsk, so it ends up like this after all.'
Whatever Hyung-seok's personality was, his skills were helpful. But for him to leave the party. Perhaps it was a good thing Rankol was gone.
"This way! Rankol went this way."
Even though Hyung-seok had left, Mosilian faithfully carried out the plan.
"Isn't this the swamp we passed through?"
Only then did the kids feel a sense of unease, but with Hyung-seok gone, there was no one in the group to stop Hong-seop. More importantly, a device to resolve that unease had already been prepared.
"It's true that it's a dangerous swamp. Besides Rankol, there are monsters called Murlocs living here. But, but… I can't just wait around. To save my family."
Mosilian becomes sincere whenever she talks about her family. She was the first to enter the swamp. The smallest and youngest Mosilian.
There was no way our protagonist, Hong-seop, would just stand by and watch.
"Let's go. I'll take the lead."
The other kids followed Hong-seop. The fact that things were going so smoothly was, in a way, thanks to the goddess. The path we had traveled so far was filled with passive but good-natured people.
No one had deceived the goddess's heroes, and they had offered up weapons and armor without asking for anything in return.
In other words, we had always been in an environment where we listened to someone's words and hunted monsters, so we followed without much suspicion this time either.
"Be careful. Who knows what might happen. This is a place we deliberately went around to pass."
The only person who still maintained a sense of crisis and could communicate with Hong-seop was Choi Joo-hye.
Joo-hye didn't forget to be vigilant this time either. However, at the end of that vigilance, there was still trust. Joo-hye must have never experienced failure either.
For me, who had been on the verge of death at the hands of Rankol just a short while ago, it was an emotion I couldn't understand.
"Mrrgl? Mrrgl mrrgl?"
"Awoorororo!"
"Awooro!"
'Hmm, these guys. Why do they look so pitiful?'
The Murlocs were curled up, sleeping fitfully by the swamp. Looking around, it wasn't hard to figure out why. Their log cabins had been completely burned down, leaving them homeless.
'Ah, my fault.'
I had passed through the swamp before, but I didn't know because no one was there at the time. Hmm, I feel kind of bad. I have no choice. I'll just have to help them so they don't have to sleep curled up anymore. By killing them, of course.
Isn't that too cruel? That's just how the ecosystem is. Eat so you don't get eaten. Take what you need. I didn't insert emotion into that cycle.
The battle soon began. Hong-seop fought at the very front, and the other kids held their positions well. Having been through a few battles, they had become more useful than before.
More than anything, the existence of the armor gave them strength. Armor that solidly supported their whole bodies. A strange sense of security that they wouldn't die in a single hit had made the kids more aggressive warriors.
I knew that feeling well. When I thought about the Mithril armor that didn't even crack when Rankol hit it, a confidence I never had before overflowed within me.
The Murlocs collapsed, bleeding. At this rate, I could gain experience without even needing to join the battle.
"Should I make my move around now?"
I slipped out of the group again.
"Hero, Hero! Where are you going? Aren't you going to protect those weak humans?"
Mosilian, who had disappeared into the swamp, had suddenly appeared in front of me.
"Protect them? What protection? I need to look after myself."
"Pardon? What more do you have to do..."
"There's something."
I had raised my level a lot. It was much higher than the other kids, and my skills were diverse. With a talent for utilizing them, I was tremendously far ahead.
But was that enough? Absolutely not. I had experienced Rankol. A being that was still alive even with its throat cut and a hole in its chest. There was no law saying I wouldn't have to fight an opponent like that in the future.
'If we had all hunted Rankol together, a few would have died.'
But I had to travel alone. I needed to know how to fight even when exposed from the front, and I needed to be able to use my skills smoothly.
In other words, I had a mountain of things to do.
First things first. I found a place where only one Murloc was left. Then, I hit it with a pebble to reveal my location.
"Even so, can't you at least notice me on the first try?"
I had to hit it with a pebble three times before the Murloc finally noticed my existence. If this wasn't for training, I would have just stabbed it to death in that time.
'So what now?'
The Murloc didn't seem to recognize me as an enemy yet. It was tilting its head at the being it could see but not feel.
Conversely, I couldn't do much either. The feeling I had facing the Murloc was one of helplessness. I had always stabbed them from behind, so I never knew, but monsters seen from the front were more grotesque and hideous than when seen from behind.
"Ugh, what is that thing? I'm afraid it'll show up in my dreams."
"Murlocs are pretty bad. They look like half-melted fish… I like fish, but I can't seem to warm up to Murlocs."
Curses are the kind of thing that get through even if the language isn't understood. The Murloc suddenly got violently angry. As blue blood boiled in its green body, it turned the color of censored vomit.
"Ugh, jeez. Bring it on, you moron-fish."
I took out my dagger. Unlike before, I was facing the Murloc head-on. My stance was a copy of Hong-seop's.
But I wasn't Hong-seop, and a dagger was different from a longsword. I was just an idiot, cutting through the air with a short sword.
"Hero, what are you doing?"
"Can't you tell by looking? I'm learning how to fight from the front. Doesn't your tribe have any dagger techniques? If you do, give them to me."
"We don't have anything like that, but you don't need to do that, Hero. There's a saying passed down in my tribe. A fool who has handled one weapon a hundred times is better than a genius who has used a hundred weapons once. You already have something you're good at."
"But that alone isn't enough against a creature like Rankol."
"That's not it. Your ambush was perfect. Even that Rankol didn't notice it. You remember, right? The first ambush!"
With a single attack, I had torn Rankol's neck and put a hole in its chest. If that attack had been just a little deeper, I would have never heard Rankol's voice.
"That's true."
I changed my way of thinking. My ambush worked even on Rankol. What I lacked was information about Rankol. And, even without information, the attack power to finish it in one blow.
Assassination is, by its nature, a one-shot-one-kill affair. It was true that if you miss that single chance, it's hard to predict the next.
'Then what I need to do now is...'
To make even a single attack perfect. And I had the skills for that.
"Aworl?"
The Murloc, as if realizing its fate, cried pitifully.