Simultaneous with the bald man’s command, his subordinates quickly prepared the carriage. The bald man climbed into the carriage with an air of self-importance, maintaining his overbearing attitude. The unsightly spectacle was so amusing that I secretly followed him. As soon as they reached the boundary zone between the duchy and the outside world, they hit a snag.
“What are you doing! Why can’t you go out quickly?”
“S-Something is blocking us, so we can’t go out…”
“I can’t see anything, so what do you mean something is blocking us?”
“It’s not visible, but there’s definitely something there, sir!”
The coachman stopped the carriage, sweating profusely.
“If you are lying, know that you will be the first to be beheaded for the crime of deceiving a noble!”
The bald man stormed out of the carriage menacingly.
He was a split second away from touching the invisible wall. Perhaps because his ample stomach was further ahead than his advancing feet, his belly fat hit the wall first.
Thump—.
“Aaagh!”
Naturally, just as Basileon had experienced, the bald man was repelled by the wall and writhed in pain. He rolled on the ground holding his stomach for a long time.
“Ugh…”
Composing himself, the bald man scrambled to his feet and charged toward the wall, huffing and puffing. He even started throwing punches at the blameless wall! Naturally, as soon as his fist hit the wall, it bounced off again. The baldy eventually tore at his hair as if he had lost his will to fight.
“This damn…”
“You said you were going to bring an army. Why aren’t you leaving?”
“You, you knew but pretended not to know, right? So you made me a laughingstock!”
“…What are you talking about? The one who made you a laughingstock is yourself.”
I didn’t say it to provoke him on purpose.
“Son of a….”
The bald man’s eyes rolled back, and he charged at the wall once more like a rampaging boar.
“Wh-What are you doing.”
Thump—.
“Stop it!”
Boom—.
How many times did he charge like that. Fine cracks began to appear on the invisible wall.
‘No way.’
! An abnormal attempt to leave the ‘Ravenwood Duchy Border’ zone has been detected.
As the status window popped up before my eyes, the cracks on the wall disappeared without a trace.
“Good. Just a little more.”
The bald man didn’t know of the existence of the status window. He just saw the fine cracks that briefly appeared on the wall and mistakenly thought it was doable. That’s why he was repeating that crazy act dozens of times over.
“Ah, stop it, you crazy b*stard!”
I thought about using Temporary Humanization to stop him. But that wasn’t a skill I could use just because I wanted to.
‘…It definitely said I could use it in a dangerous situation. Does that mean the condition isn’t met?’
I tried using other skills to strike him with nearby objects, but he didn’t budge. Even for me, who had repeated the game countless times, this was the first time seeing such a sight. It was a common occurrence for many survivors to be released from prison, but this unexpected situation was completely out of the blue.
‘Definitely, the situation is flowing differently as I help the survivors’.
Thump—! Thump—!
The situation of fine cracks appearing on the invisible wall and disappearing again repeated.
! An abnormal attempt to leave the ‘Ravenwood Duchy Border’ zone has been detected.
! As a penalty for the abnormal attempt, the ‘Breakthrough: Forest of Midnight Darkness’ mission has been generated.
‘…What?’
Required Personnel: 3 Survivors and Aaron Winchester
Penalty upon Failure: Death of 2 random people
‘Wait, you crazy game? What did you say?’
I had a bad premonition from the moment the wall, which shouldn’t have broken in the first place, started cracking.
“…Baldy, you—your name wouldn’t happen to be Aaron Winchester, would it?”
“How dare something worse than a lowly creature call whose name! Shut up!”
It seemed that baldy was indeed Aaron Winchester. Right. Since he’s the one who caused the wall to crack, it’s only natural. Encountering an unexpected situation gave me a huge headache.
“Haha. Haha… This is driving me crazy.”
* * *
The survivors gathered before my eyes right now were the baldy Aaron, Evan, Lilith, and Havel. I couldn’t take the survivors who had just been released from prison to the Dark Forest. Lilith and Evan, who had regained all their memories and possessed thorough information about the Dark Forest. And Havel, whose fear level rarely rises, were the most suitable. Out of the four, Mary, who was mentally exhausted, was left out.
Of course, at first, no one except Evan listened to my words. However, due to the penalty, their bodies started to experience anomalies as time passed. It was a bizarre symptom where their fingertips slowly started to rot and turn black. Since only the survivors I tried to bring along showed these abnormal symptoms, I felt sorry for nothing. So everyone had no choice but to follow me. Even the baldy.
“…Are you really on our side?”
Because of this incident, Lilith started to suspect me. Breaking through the Dark Forest. From the survivors’ perspective, it was a sudden and dangerous task, so it was natural for backlash to occur.
“…I can’t explain everything, but at least I don’t want you guys to die. If I did, I wouldn’t have tried to save the survivors in the first place.”
“Releasing the survivors from prison is something we’ve experienced many times. But this has never happened before.”
Lilith glared at me suspiciously.
“The fact that something we’ve never experienced before has happened is proof that the flow is changing. This change could actually be an opportunity to break the curse, Lilith.” “…Just wait and see if something happens.”
Lilith still looked displeased, but perhaps because the persuasion worked to some extent, she didn’t interrogate me any further.
The team formed like this creaked right from the start. Evan and Havel didn’t even glance at each other, and Lilith was lost in thought the whole time, not paying attention to the two of them. And Aaron Winchester…
“To think I have to spend time with such trivial things.”
He absolutely couldn’t accept this situation.
“Then just die with your whole body rotting away.”
When I said that, Aaron looked down at his hand, which was gradually turning black.
“Ugh…”
The penalty for failing to break through the Dark Forest was too obvious. With his fingertips turning black, he couldn’t possibly ignore it.
“If my body doesn’t return to normal, you’ll be the first to die!”
“…Sure. I’ll just die twice.”
I turned around and checked Havel’s condition. Havel seemed to have no thoughts at all. I had just successfully lured him here using the food he had hidden before departure as bait. Perhaps because of that, Havel actually looked satisfied. Havel Akron was the eldest son of a Marquis family, and was scheduled to inherit the title soon. That’s what the character setting in the game was, as far as I knew. But the baldy was ‘Count’ Winchester. Seeing him call them trivial things, could it be that he doesn’t know Havel is the eldest son of the Marquis Akron family?
“What are you doing not guiding us quickly? I am a busy person. I don’t have time to hang out with such vulgar fellows!”
I looked at the baldy pathetically.
‘You’re the one who got scared and fell behind for no reason…’
I was going to ignore him because I didn’t have the energy to respond, but Lilith turned around.
“Hey, try to grasp the situation a little.”
“How dare you look me straight in the eye without knowing your place?”
Perhaps unable to hold back anymore, Lilith grabbed Aaron by the collar. I thought there would definitely be a difference in strength based on gender, but for some reason, Aaron was dragged along by Lilith helplessly.
“I was going to let it slide since you were just released after being locked up for a long time, but this is too much.”
“L-Let go of this!”
Aaron struggled and barely managed to swat Lilith’s hand away, stepping back.
“How dare you lay your dirty hands…!”
“It’s even more disgusting that you’re still clinging to your authority in a situation like this. Get this straight. Status means nothing here. Count Winchester, if you want to live, fix that habit of yours first.”
“Damn….”
Aaron muttered discontentedly, seemingly displeased with Lilith’s advice.
“Such a thing… How dare…”
Lilith pulled out a dagger. With her characteristic agile movements, she placed the blade of the dagger against Aaron’s neck. It was a movement so fast that the eyes couldn’t follow.
“If you want to die beforehand before entering the Dark Forest, say so. I’ll take care of it so quickly you won’t even have time to feel pain.”
“…Ugh!”
Fortunately, Lilith’s threat worked, and we were able to go quietly for a while. Everyone started walking while maintaining silence. Then a faint voice was heard from afar.
“…dy!”
I looked around at the familiar sound coming from somewhere.
‘Is it an auditory hallucination…’
And I was able to discover who called me.
“Lady!”
Krius was flying over from behind. With my Death Scythe clutched in his hand.
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