Please Vote for Your Knight! Chapter 21

“Wow, this is……”

“Completely……”

The team members couldn’t bring themselves to finish their sentences.

‘Why can’t you just say we’re screwed?!’

Kusto wanted to howl.

It was the sign he had chosen himself.
He was the one who had chosen the bait that would lure in two-point rabbits.

He couldn’t even raise his head.

From beside him came Kilman’s snickering as he laughed at Kusto after choosing the boar-attracting bait, but Kusto didn’t even have the energy to get angry.

“Then, from this moment on, the hunt begins! You have one hour! Everyone, please enter the barrier!”

The twenty teams entered the barrier in groups of five.

The fake birds equipped with video spheres flew inside as well, and the barrier closed again.

 

***

 

“Wow! Amazing!”

Pavel jumped up when he spotted a monster caught in a trap.

“It’s another rabbit!”

“Of course it’s a rabbit. You used bait that attracts rabbits.”

Denny said flatly.

Beside him was a pile of corpses belonging to pitch-black rabbit monsters with three ears.

Dimitri’s expression darkened as well.

“What are you worried about? We can just catch a huge number of rabbits!”

Maurice said, trying to lighten the gloomy atmosphere.

“Haha, that’s a good idea.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?”

Everyone answered without a hint of enthusiasm.

Eventually, even the optimistic Maurice became dejected and lowered his head.

Kusto hadn’t been able to raise his head for quite some time.

He was ashamed, but he was also thinking of a way to turn this situation around.

He had said that he had only hunted pirates, but he had hunted wild animals before as well.

‘Though it wasn’t organized hunting according to rules like this.’

Since it was difficult to catch large beasts with bare hands, they needed the right bait and traps.

And that bait……

Kusto suddenly jumped to his feet.

“Let’s use the rabbits.”

“Huh?”

Dimitri looked at Kusto as if he had no idea what he was talking about.

“We can use the rabbits we caught as bait and set traps. Wouldn’t real food be more tempting to the monsters than the scent of bait?”

“That’s a good idea.”

Dimitri immediately agreed.

Deni nodded as well.

“If I use my net, I can make the traps much more effective.”

Just then, Maurice lowered his voice and whispered,

“It looks like Participant David’s team has caught quite a few deer monsters.”

The deer monsters had five antlers tangled together chaotically, along with long, sharp teeth.

Unlike ordinary deer, they were even carnivorous and extremely vicious.

That was why David’s team was also luring them into traps rather than confronting them head-on.

“They must be heading there after smelling the bait.”

Dimitri said.

At those words, something flashed through Kusto’s mind.

“Then let’s set our traps around Participant David’s camp. The deer following the scent will fall into our traps.”

They spread traps all around David’s team’s camp using the corpses of rabbit monsters.

If the carnivorous deer or boar monsters smelled the scent of blood and approached, they would get caught in the traps.

“It’s better to make them come to us than to run around looking for them. Whew, can we rest now?”

Maurice plopped down on the ground as if exhausted.

Dimitri’s brows narrowed.

“What are you talking about? We should keep catching rabbits and increase our score.”

“What, are we collecting rabbit monsters or something? One big catch is enough to win.”

“There’s no guarantee we’ll catch one.”

“I think we’ll succeed. It was Participant Kusto’s idea, after all.”

Maurice gave a carefree grin before flopping down completely on the ground.

“Get up. Get up!”

Unable to stand by and watch, Pavel grabbed his arm and tried to pull him up.

But Pavel couldn’t handle his weight and could only grunt and strain.

“Shushu, help me!”

Pavel pleaded, calling Denny Vinosh by the bizarre nickname. But Denny pretended not to hear him.

“Go ahead and try to get him up. If you can.”

Maurice snickered as though he found the whole thing amusing.

Pavel bit his lip.

Then he pulled the greatsword from his back.

“U-Uaaagh!”

Maurice jumped to his feet in surprise.

“Are you crazy?”

“I just took it out to inspect it.”

Pavel smiled innocently.

As Kusto stood speechless at the terrifying sight, Denny whispered to him.

“That bastard is the scariest one here. Keep that in mind.”

‘So that’s why you put up with being called the absolutely atrocious nickname “Shushu”?’

It somehow made sense, so Kusto couldn’t say anything.

“Then Participant Maurice and Participant Pavel will hide and keep watch over the traps, while the rest of us split up and try to catch even the smaller monsters.”

Dimitri, the leader, summed up the situation.

Kusto went off on his own and began searching through the forest.

‘Oh! A fox!’

Kusto spotted a fox monster and chased after it. But an arrow flew from right in front of him and struck the fox.

“Wow! Got it! Hound! Go fetch it!”

A voice from another team could be heard in the distance.

Soon, the sound of rustling footsteps drew closer.

“Annoying bastards. I’ll definitely make them pay for treating me like a hound…….”

At that moment, Kilman, who had been cursing, locked eyes with Kusto.

“You…….”

Kilman, who had been wearing a vicious expression, suddenly looked around.

It seemed he was searching for a video sphere.

Kusto could see a bird hidden between the branches, but apparently it was invisible from where Kilman was standing.

Mistaking that for the absence of anything filming them, Kilman drew his greatsword and approached.

“You bastard. I became a ‘hound’ because of you.”

“What are you doing? Don’t tell me you’re still holding a grudge because you lost to me in the duel?”

“What? Holding a grudge? You won by cheating!”

Kilman shouted as though he had forgotten his own history of cheating at every opportunity.

Kusto looked around.

The path was narrow, surrounded by large trees and dense bushes. The tall trees cast wide shadows, making the area even darker.

‘Fighting here would be a pain.’

And more importantly, there was a video sphere filming this scene.

Kusto stared at Kilman as he charged toward him with his sword, then immediately turned around and started running.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re running?!”

Kilman’s furious shout rang out behind him.

His grudge seemed to run deeper than Kusto had expected.

‘Getting caught would be a hassle.’

He wasn’t confident that he would lose to Kilman, but he didn’t want to deal with the trouble either.

Kusto was running while thinking that when someone suddenly grabbed him by the back of the neck and yanked him backward.

“?!”

The mysterious person covered Kusto’s mouth and stayed hidden until Kilman had disappeared into the distance.

Only after Kilman was out of sight did he speak.

“What are you doing? That was dangerous.”

It was David.

Kusto quickly brushed away David’s hand covering his mouth.

“I would’ve been fine without your help.”

“But…….”

Just then—

“Aaaaargh!”

Kilman’s scream rang out.

As David’s eyes widened, Kusto gave him a sly grin.

When the two went toward the sound, they found Kilman trapped in a deep pit.

It was a trap Kusto and his teammates had made.

“Hey! Get me out…… Duke David?! Please get me out! That bastard……!”

David silently looked down at Kilman, who was reaching out his hand, then spoke.

“Kilman, it seems you’ve been taken prisoner.”

“What? Me, a prisoner? What do you mean by that……?”

“You were captured by the opposing team in a team battle.”

David ignored the flustered Kilman and looked at Kusto.

“If Kilman’s team wants him back, they have to pay a ransom.”

“W-Where does it say there’s a rule like that?!”

“If you’ve received knight training, you should know that’s a basic rule.”

David replied calmly.

At that, Kilman was unable to say anything.

‘Was there really a rule like that?’

Kusto tilted his head.

He had never received knight training, so there was no way he would know.

In any case, if that was true, then Kilman was a boar that had practically fallen into his lap.

“Get me out! Get me out!”

Leaving the howling Kilman behind, David stepped away.

Kusto glanced at David’s expression before following him.

“Did you want to say something?”

Kusto leaned his back against a tree and asked.

Standing straight, David gazed steadily at him with blue eyes.

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Why didn’t you join my team?”