My Villains Episode 037
10. 4th basement level (2)
Dark underground waterway.
The sound of water droplets hitting the stone floor.
In the gloomy atmosphere unique to the sewer system, tense breathing echoed quietly.
Archer Arnal, who felt frustrated at the silence that lasted for a while, whispered a little.
“Why did you suddenly stop?”
“Shh!”
Arnal agreed with Grania’s warning and shut his mouth.
I heard that Arnal learned archery from his grandfather, a renowned hunter. But if you’re a hunter, isn’t patience more important than archery? Why is he so impatient?
I raised the tension to the fullest as I put aside the miscellaneous thoughts that passed through my head.
My ears, with all my nerves, began to pick up the slightest sound.
“Chick Chick!”
The cry of a giant rodent. A sign of moving in a group that accompanies it.
I was sure the raid was coming.
“It’s Ratman – here he comes!”
“Ratman? How many?”
“Looks like a lot! very!”
“Oh damn. also?”
Grania, who was guarding the rear, stepped out to my right side while grumbling. As she raised her shield, El Ren fired her crossbow without hesitation.
Shine bright!
Flames erupted just six or seven steps away from where I was standing.
Ugh, what kind of heat is there at the subject of a small Molotov cocktail
? You are too close!”
“Oh sorry.”
Such an insincere apology.
…Do you still have the things of the morning in your heart?
I want to shout, ‘No matter how angry you are, you have to do your job properly, bitch!’, but I hold back because other people have eyes.
Anyway, thanks to the flame Ellen created, Grania and I were able to completely block one side with the underground water.
follow up
At that moment, small shapes poured out from the corner ahead.
When the bull’s-eye lantern on the floor reflected dirty brown hair, Arnal let go of the string without hesitation.
“Shoot!”
The rat man who ran from the front with a dying horse was pierced by an arrow and fell, and was mercilessly trampled by the feet of his fellow countrymen and disappeared in an instant.
“Keep shooting!”
I shouted and poked Fulsion through the small gap between the gloves. The blood that flowed from the tip of the sword wrapped around the entire blade as if it were originally there.
The procession of ratmen pouring from the corner continued even while the Pulsion was stained with a glamorous bloody color.
To put it simply, Rat Man is a rat that stands on two legs, and is a small monster that does not reach my waist. However, it was only natural that even such a rat man would become extremely dangerous if they attacked in groups like that.
Besides, they run the spear, albeit crudely. Considering the number of ratmen, it would be a matter of seconds to become a needlepointer even if you couldn’t avoid one out of ten.
I can’t. Too many too many!
“Order Mr. Luke!”
“Everybody hold the sign!”
Following that, I quickly grabbed the small straw ball attached to the inside of the shield.
At the same time, Mr. Luke shouted in a deafening voice.
“Krik-iz bezdny yaaal—!”
Whoo!
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” A long voice sounded, and at first glance a black haze burst along the underground waterway.
“Chi-Ik!”
“Chick Chick!”
A vague magic power clung to the faces of the Ratmen.
Most of them rolled on the floor in a frenzy, some of them ran back the way they came, and the severe ones were unable to do anything with their heads on the floor and shivered.
Due to the effect of the black magic spell ‘Scream of the Abyss’, unknown fear from another dimension swept over them.
Of course, my colleagues, including me, were not exposed to magical powers thanks to having the mark given by Mr. Luke.
I was worried because Mr. Luke cast the spell a little too quickly, but luckily no one seems to have failed to hold the mark. Hmm, it’s only been two days, but my hands and feet seem to fit.
I thought so and cried out briefly.
“Kill Grania!”
Along with him, Grania and I jumped among the rat men who were terrified as if they had been waiting.
Dealing with the large rats crawling on the floor or showing their backs was no simple matter.
Fu-wook!
“Jjik!”
He diligently moved his body to pierce the Ratmen’s throats, but stuck out his tongue. It was because of the powerful effect of ‘Scream of the Abyss’.
The fear caused by ‘Scream of the Abyss’ does not work on inanimate objects or targets with strong mental power. However, for those who only believe in numbers and attack, like Rat Man, it is truly rat poison.
The Ratmen, who had shaken their faces madly for a moment of admiration, began to regain their senses after dissipating their mana.
“Cheek!”
“Chic jji jjjjjik!”
As the Ratmen began to prepare to fight again, Grania carefully retreated while maintaining a stable stance. I also swung the pulse for a long time and quickly stepped back.
Standing by the flames, Grania and I blocked the battle lines again, and Arnal’s arrows and Ellen’s wind fists flew nonstop at the Rat Men.
While the Ratmen were falling and scattering, a fierce wave was momentarily felt.
“Ventus Ictum!”
Along with a tingling voice, the unusually powerful wind fist made a loud gong sound and shattered a ratman’s skull.
Wow!
This kid is overdoing it again.
“hey! Save mana;”
“…is this much okay?”
“Ellen!”
After obtaining magic, Ellen had to be careful because there were cases where she unknowingly got drunk and threw spells.
Its magical power score is quite high
, but that’s because if you have to shoot 20 or so wind fists and fire arrows, mana will run out after only six or seven shots.
Is it because I raised my voice? Wind fists of weakened power began pouring down.
Huung.
One of the ratmen who rushed at me rolled on the floor with a heavy wind noise.
After fainting for a while, he stood up after a while, but in the meantime, all the rat men who were fighting with him were turned into corpses.
Swish! I slashed the neck of the belated attacker at once and looked around. Most of the more than forty ratmen were dead, and the remnants of about six or seven were already running away.
Grania, who was standing next to her, asked as she brushed off the clumps of flesh clinging to the blade.
“Are you going to follow me?”
“Hmm well.”
I listened to the footsteps of the fleeing guys.
The rat man in the game was quite a nuisance.
This is because if you miss one or two while hunting a group, they will drag their companions somewhere.
The group that just attacked must have been led by the rat man who had missed them a couple of hours ago.
“Couldn’t you bring another group with you?”
It was Mr. Luke who answered my murmur.
“Probably not.”
“Why do you think so?”
“It’s very rare for even rat men to form a large colony of over 50 rats. Especially in the sewers, there isn’t much to eat, so maybe this will be the end.”
“okay.”
I feel sorry for you. If you cut off their tails and take them to the guards, they’ll give you a penny bounty for each one.
I licked my lips and put the pulpion into the scabbard. It was because the footsteps of the Ratmen could no longer be heard.
“Then, let’s fix things roughly from here.”
The party quickly became busy at the unreasonable words of my declaration.
Looking back on my experience playing The Dark World, party hunting wasn’t necessarily better than soloing.
This is because as the number of heroes participating in a server increases, the overall stats such as attack power, defense power, and physical strength of enemies increase significantly.
In addition, in the Dark World system, the degree to which the enemies became stronger in proportion to the number of heroes was very steep.
So, if the party’s combination was not strong enough, it was often better to hunt separately.
To put it simply, efficient party hunting was possible only when the combination of the two heroes exerted more than 2.5 people’s power thanks to the synergy.
However, the reality was different from the game. This is because no matter how many parties there are, the strength of the enemies is constant.
Actually, that sounds natural. Just because the number of people increases doesn’t mean the rat man suddenly gets bigger or comes out with a better spear?
For that reason, the party whose number increased to 5 was able to break through to the 4th floor of the sewer in an instant.
From me, a warrior, to Arnal spell users, Ellen and Luke, a Granian archer.
It wasn’t just the increase in number, but the combination was good, so there was no such thing as a crisis.
If there were a swordsman specializing in ‘ninjutsu’ and a paladin specializing in ‘prayer’, it would have been a classic party composition… Of course, it’s stable
enough even now.
Is it because Grania, who handles shields well, and I, who has the physical power of a superhuman, are blocking the avant-garde? It’s rare that dangerous situations happen.
In addition, this point, which was created by a large number, was not simply limited to combat.
The type and amount of supplies that can be carried has increased dramatically, and it has become possible to be sufficiently vigilant in various directions while moving.
And, like now, even when rectifying the battlefield, the division of labor can be done properly, so the efficiency of work processing has increased.
While pouring water on the fire I started to block the access of the ratmen, I found Mr. Luke approaching the waterway and stopped him.
“Mr. Luke. I’ll take your corpses.”
“Um, are you okay? The water is dirty.”
“it’s okay. I’ll cut you off with a knife.”
Mr. Luke nodded his head and moved towards Grania.
Grania cut off the tails of the Ratmen and gathered them together, and Arnal, who had finished collecting the arrows, was helping her.
I found Ellen standing at a distance while carrying four or five rat man corpses that I had retrieved from the waterway.
The guy wasn’t very helpful in this, so he was tasked with guarding all sides while clearing the battlefield.
It was for that reason that the flaming arrow floated above his palm.
..But seeing him still alone makes me grumpy.
” hey.”
When I lowered my voice to the fullest, Ellen was taken aback and furrowed her brow.
“What? why?”
“…after. no. Let’s talk a little later.”
Ellen’s eyes shook violently, as if the cold tone had worked so well.
Leaving him behind and dragging the tailless ratmen along, Mr. Luke, who was standing in front of the pile of corpses, smiled bitterly.
“You, too, have a slightly mean side.”
“A bad corner?”
“The unknown makes people suffer. look at me Aren’t Miss Ellen’s agony transmitted all the way here?”
Upon hearing those words, I looked back and saw that Ellen was rolling her eyes here and there with a restless expression.
…did it work? proud
I tried to swallow the laughter that was about to burst out and put on a serious expression.
“It was on purpose. You need to think about your actions and learn to reflect.”
“What action do you mean?”
I furrowed my brows as I piled up the pile of sachet.
“It doesn’t matter if you tickle normally, but you shouldn’t do that during battle. I’m also worried that I might have an accident someday.”
“Are you angry?”
“Well, it’s not even angry…”
When I blurted out, Mr. Luke said, sweeping three or four crude wooden spears with his feet.
“Still, be kind to me. The reason her temper seems ferocious is because Miss Ellen has been hurt a lot in her life. Shouldn’t someone heal that wound?”
“yes? Haha, have you already figured out that? In two days?” Mr. Luke nodded his head at the question mixed with laughter and answered with a very serious expression.
“then. You can tell just by looking at it.”
“Well, Ellen isn’t a difficult character to figure out—but you shouldn’t worry too much about it. You’re the kind of guy who does it when he needs to and gets toxic when he needs to.”
“Of course, I’m not worried about abilities or anything like that. How dare a villager like me underestimate the magician of La Palais Palace. It’s just… I’m just crying because I’m sorry to see her acting like a kitten watching her owner’s eyes. It is different from what you see.”
…a kitten that pays attention to its owner. Even if you look at it wrong, it seems that you have looked at it for a long time.
While thinking so, Mr. Luke looked back at Ellen. Inside his pale walls, something whitish was covered before he knew it.
he murmured in a voice filled with wonder.
“I don’t know what to call you. A shiny gemstone? The sprout of a giant tree? No, would fresh flower buds be more suitable? Looking at the stains, I don’t think life has been very smooth, but even so, the light
hasn’t faded.”
“If someone takes good care of it, even a small stain will be brushed off quickly. Then you will get a purer and stronger soul than anyone else.”
“You said that again.”
see the soul
If I had heard this on Earth, some pseudo-science would have said something nonsense, but since it was Mr. Luke, I couldn’t just ignore it.
That’s right, isn’t Mr. Luke – unofficially – a necromancer who manipulates the dead?
“It amazes me every time I see it. Miss Ellen must have some special bloodline.”
Come to think of it, there was a quest to regain the power of the ancestors through a scenario unique to Elemental Wizards.
Considering that he robbed the dragon’s nest during the quest, Ellen’s ancestor must have been a great person.
But you only say that when you see Ellen. What do I have? Phoenix is also a hero in its own right.
“But Mr. Luke. Do you feel anything different ?”
“…huh? What do you mean?” Mr. Luke, who was wearing a dazed expression, finally turned his head to me.
“My soul.”
“Oh, your soul?”
…What. Why do you look like you woke up from a dream? I feel bad for nothing.
“Well, I don’t know anything special.”
“…Is that so?”
“Yes. It’s just- you must have had a pretty tough life too. I can see several stains firmly adhered to it.” it’s a stain I’m not saying it’s bad, but it’s kind of embarrassing.
But whose soul did Luke see? Phoenix? Or Kim Seung-soo?
I do not know. I want to ask if the soul of this world is right, but- then I can’t do it, right?
Understanding my mysterious expression as disappointment, Mr. Luke quickly added his words.
“Oh, of course, Phoenix-kun must also have been born with a noble lineage. Hey, you have the most outstanding body among the blood mages I’ve ever seen. Perhaps it is the lineage of Zahak, a hero in mythology.”
To say I’m not a puppy and a pedigree compliment. I don’t mean to say it with a different intention, but it feels a bit strange.
Mr. Luke, who was lifting the rat man without a tail, suddenly burst into laughter.
“haha. Having said that, it’s amazing.”
“yes? What do you mean?”
“You and Miss Ellen. A soul that will never exist again and a body that resembles a hero. Isn’t it a strange relationship that such two meet and become colleagues?”
As he said that, Mr. Luke looked back and forth between me and Ellen.
Then he smiled and smiled, but a proud expression spread across his face as if he were appreciating an excellent work of art.
…I don’t think this grandfather is normal either.
