Chapter 5: Tutorial (5)
I thought to myself, Something had gone wrong.
It’s not an instant kill, right?
I glanced at Gerard with just my eyes.
“Guh!”
Thankfully, he coughed up a handful of blood but was still alive.
He was poisoned, and his clothes were stained dark red, but he was breathing.
It’s fine. If I use a potion and get him treated in time, he can be saved. I had one…
As I organized my thoughts, I froze.
I had one.
And I used it.
Damn it!
Boom!
I narrowly dodged the pincers, holding Gerard.
But we were too close, and another attack came immediately.
Clang!
“Artier!”
Jeina blocked the pincers with her two-handed axe.
“Take the captain and go!”
“Where?”
“I don’t know!”
“…”
Was she saying she just rushed in without a plan?
But thinking about it, Jeina was never one for strategy. She probably acted on instinct to save us without calculating.
“Urk!”
Her face contorted from the unbearable impact, and blood dripped from her mouth.
“Jeina!”
“…Don’t worry. I’m not dead yet.”
Thanks to Jeina acting as a human shield, Gerard and I escaped the Hell Charger’s range.
“Is Gerard okay?”
“He’s alive. The problem is…”
I looked back and my expression hardened. The Hell Assassin was charging toward me, shrugging off dozens of soldiers.
“What a persistent bastard!”
Jeina grabbed her axe, shouting in frustration.
“I heard from Dina. You drove that thing off, right? Let’s finish it!”
Her words made me pause.
The Hell Charger wouldn’t attack unless approached.
And taking down the Assassin, which I’d already pushed back before leveling up, shouldn’t be too hard.
But I shook my head.
“No.”
“What? Why?”
“We could kill it, but it’d take too long. It’ll outlast us, and we’ll be wiped out first.”
The soldiers were dwindling fast. Faster than I’d expected.
Even if we killed the Assassin, we couldn’t move forward without killing the Hell Charger.
“Tch! I wanted revenge.”
Jeina spat and stepped in front of me.
“Artier, that thing back there’s at its limit, right?”
“Probably.”
The Hell Charger was in bad shape.
Its pincers were still crushing people, but its staggering was a last-ditch effort.
“Then I’ll hold it off as long as I can. You take down that big one!”
“What? No, it’s too dangerous!”
“I know!”
Challenging an opponent she’d already lost to.
“You monster! Come play with your big sis!”
Boom!
The outcome was obvious, but she charged at the Assassin anyway.
“Damn it.”
I couldn’t lose more allies.
There was only one answer: kill the Hell Charger as fast as possible.
I turned and approached the Hell Charger again. As soon as I entered its range, its tail and pincers flew at me.
Two at once?
It knew. The most dangerous person here was me.
If it eliminated me, no one among the soldiers could block its attacks.
Clang!
But I’d deflected even the faster Hell Assassin’s attacks.
“Get out of the way!”
I struck the tail with my spear and dodged the pincers by leaping off the ground.
I need to finish this fast.
Delay meant death.
A mistake meant death.
Not even minutes.
A single wrong move could kill Gerard or Jeina.
I focused all my attention on the tip of my spear.
No more mistakes.
Shunk!
Closing the distance instantly, I thrust my spear into its eye with all my strength.
“Krrrrr!”
For the first time, the creature screamed.
Its steadfast body began thrashing wildly.
It’s still not dead?
I’d stirred its brain with the spear, yet it kept moving. Its vitality was astonishing.
The spear’s attack power is too low. Is there a stronger attack?
Then, a strategy came to mind.
“Jeina!”
“I’m kinda busy!”
“Bring that thing over here!”
“What?”
“Don’t block it, just let it come!”
Bring the Assassin when I hadn’t even killed the Hell Charger?
It was hard to understand.
“I don’t get it, but fine!”
But Jeina followed my orders immediately.
Timing her approach, I slipped between the Hell Charger’s legs.
“Dangerous!”
I ignored the soldier’s shout.
Boom! Boom!
I was now under a rampaging giant scorpion.
As I dove in, sharp legs and a massive body came at me, threatening to crush me.
Left below, right above, then right.
But none touched me.
It wasn’t as hard as I’d thought. My eyes saw countless openings.
“Kieeeeek!”
“The monster’s coming!”
The Hell Assassin was charging at me with terrifying speed.
Skree!
But the creature, after rushing in, was stopped by an unexpected obstacle.
The Hell Charger.
“Kieek!”
The Assassin screeched in confusion, and the Hell Charger’s body froze.
The Assassin tried to slip between its legs, but the Hell Charger’s pincers, which should’ve been still, swung and struck it.
Crunch!
“Kieeeeek!”
“That’s right. Your job is to block anything that passes. Why would a Hellmorph be any different?”
The dying Hell Charger’s senses were long gone. It couldn’t distinguish between soldiers and its kin.
Smiling, I pulled something buried in the ground.
“Kyaaa!”
The Assassin’s eyes flared with rage.
Had anger clouded its judgment?
It made a foolish choice.
“That bastard! Going that far?”
The Assassin began dodging the Hell Charger’s attacks, approaching me just as I had.
Jeina, catching her breath, muttered with a grimace.
Crunch!
“Kyaaaa!”
But the Assassin was twice my size.
It screamed as the Hell Charger’s legs grazed it.
Yet it kept advancing toward me, step by step.
“Be careful! It’s almost there!”
“It’s fine. That’s what I was aiming for.”
“What?”
“Kieek!”
When the Assassin reached me, I held a massive lance and shield.
“That’s…?”
Thud!
The Assassin’s attack glanced off the large shield.
“You came to kill me, huh?”
My confident voice made the Assassin realize something was wrong.
“Then let’s do this.”
I began pressuring the Assassin with the lance and shield.
Clang!
The shield blocked most frontal attacks, and the lance struck quickly at exposed openings.
But a lance needed heavy, forceful thrusts to deal real damage. My attacks weren’t significantly harming the Assassin.
This is why lances aren’t my thing.
Still, I kept at it.
I was deliberately going easy on the Assassin, almost taunting it.
“Kyaaa!”
Realizing this, the Assassin was furious, but I didn’t let it catch me easily.
Then, an opportunity arose. My lance got caught in the Hell Charger’s pincers.
The Assassin lunged at me, four legs swinging.
“Artier!”
Jeina’s shout echoed.
But instead of answering, I gave a meaningful smile.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
“Kieek!”
The wide-open gap closed instantly.
Dropping the lance, I gripped the shield with both hands and twisted it with all my strength.
“This is what I was waiting for!”
The Assassin’s narrow, piercing attacks were strong but easy to redirect.
Its legs slid along the shield’s curved surface, changing course.
Shunk!
The attack ended up aimed at the Hell Charger’s massive body.
“Krrrr!”
The Hell Charger screamed in pain and swung its pincers at the Assassin’s position.
With four legs embedded, the Assassin couldn’t dodge. With a horrific sound, its head was torn from its body.
“What?!”
“What was that?”
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, they say.
Absurdly, the Hell Charger and Assassin attacked each other, trembled, glared at me, and collapsed simultaneously.
“Did… did they die?”
Someone asked, but no one could answer.
Who would believe two massive Hellmorphs were taken down by a single mercenary?
“Jeina, bring Gerard!”
“Got it!”
“To the port!”
I discarded the broken shield and ran, and the remaining soldiers roared.
“The path is clear!”
“Run!”
“We can survive!”
The remaining Hellmorphs kept attacking, refusing to let us go, but the soldiers, reignited with hope, didn’t stop.
More soldiers and refugees fell in the desperate push, but they broke through the encirclement and reached the port.
“Get on now!”
Everyone scrambled onto the empty ships.
Moments later, two ships quickly left the shore.
***
“How’s Gerard?”
“We used a potion from the ship… but he’s mumbling nonsense.”
On the windy deck, I sat nearby, resting.
“I see.”
I muttered softly and looked around.
Two hundred soldiers and fifty refugees had survived.
“Is Jeina okay?”
“Our little cutie, it’s nice you’re thinking of others, but don’t you have something to say first?”
“Huh?”
Smack!
“Ow!”
Before I could react, her flick grazed my forehead.
“Talk about your own condition first.”
“I’m fine.”
“Your face looks terrible.”
She reached out and grabbed my shoulder.
Her strength shook my body.
“What’s wrong? Is something bothering you?”
“…I feel like I didn’t save enough people.”
“What, are you some kind of god?”
Jeina laughed and asked.
“You took down two giant monsters at once. What more do you want?”
“That was luck.”
“Luck, my ass. I saw it clearly. You deliberately pissed it off to bait a strong attack.”
I scratched the back of my neck, embarrassed.
“You saw that from so far away?”
“I don’t know where you, a high-tier mercenary, lost your memory, but you’ve done more than enough. Right?”
“Well… yeah.”
I closed my eyes for a moment.
She’s right. Regretting choices is the most meaningless thing in this game.
Unless you reset the game, you could never go back on a choice.
In this world, gaining something meant losing something else.
“…Yeah.”
Her words somehow eased my worries.
“But where are we going?”
“There’s only one territory we can reach from here.”
“Oh? Where?”
I pointed toward the rising sun.
“The coastal city in the northwest, Dorman.”
Yes.
The tutorial was finally over.
The story of <cross destiny=""> was just beginning.</cross>
[Quest Completed!]
Reward: 4 Silver Coins
[You chose neither option. Instead, you succeeded in the seemingly impossible task of defeating the Hell Charger, aiming to save as many people as possible. The world begins to take notice of your great achievement.]
Reward: Karma Points +3