Dark Fantasy’s Extra Chapter 59

Hilde walked toward the Beast whose leg she had cut off, gripping her axe that was dripping with blood.

A violent swirl churned in her eyes.

The fallen Beast dragged itself backward.

“Screech!”

When the Beast screamed again, the massive gatekeepers behind Hilde began to approach.

The moment she turned her head toward them, the Beast with the severed leg scurried away like a cockroach with incredible speed.

“Tch.”

Hilde clicked her tongue.

The situation wasn’t too bad even if she retreated now.

She had found the location of the enemy’s base, and the Beast that had threatened her life had fled with a severed leg.

Just going back and waiting for Eugene would be an incredible achievement.

But she didn’t want to go back.

The destructive impulse raging in her chest and a strange excitement she had never felt before urged her toward the battlefield.

Though the gatekeepers’ movements were very slow, their massive bodies made it feel like walls were approaching.

“Ha… hahah.”

Hilde laughed.

It was her first time laughing like this.

Yet it didn’t feel awkward.

The gatekeeper’s bulging stomach writhed.

That sight reminded her of another monster.

It reminded her of the Drowned Ones, cursed corpses that the Deep Sea Folk raised through strange sorcery and made explode when bloated.

One of the gatekeepers’ cheeks swelled up before spewing something toward Hilde.

A disgusting pink mass flew toward her in an arc.

Her sharpened eyes could clearly see what it was.

It looked like something that mixed a fetus with a rat.

Hilde reflexively drew her pistol and shot it down precisely.

It was exactly like the wooden board shooting practice Eugene had her do.

The living pink mass writhed as it fell to the ground.

Normally such a sight would have made her nauseous, but now she felt nothing.

Rather, she felt fulfilled and confident that she had accurately used what she had practiced in a real situation.

As expected, that person never taught her anything unnecessary.

When the remaining two gatekeepers simultaneously launched the same things, she shot them down just as easily.

‘Keep track of how many bullets you have left.’

Eugene’s words flashed through her mind.

Hilde immediately reloaded her pistol.

Though she still had bullets left, any empty space increased the danger.

Her pistol reloading movements gave off the air of a familiar veteran.

And indeed, she was precisely copying the movements of the veteran who was always by her side.

After quickly finishing the reload, Hilde holstered her pistol again and ran toward the gatekeepers with her axe raised.

It was clear where she should attack.

If these things were like Drowned Ones with something dangerous stored in their innards, it would be right to aim for their legs like her Senior had done.

If she aimed for the exposed stomach, all those disgusting masses might pour out at once or explode from inside.

When Hilde got close, the gatekeeper swung its arm.

It was similar to the giant’s attack in the juniper forest, but now she could dodge with more precise movements.

She stayed low to the ground while running to avoid the gatekeeper’s attack.

Not only that, but she raised her axe blade upward and deeply cut the swinging arm.

The axe traveled from the gatekeeper’s fingers to elbow, cutting through flesh and bone.

Having instantly reached right beneath the gatekeeper, Hilde dodged even its clumsy kick and severed its relatively thin ankle in one strike.

As the gatekeeper lost balance and fell, Hilde immediately ran toward another gatekeeper.

She shot down another mass spewed by the one in the back, then fired another shot at the knee of the one in front before smoothly holstering her gun again.

The gatekeeper that took a bullet to the knee faltered.

Though not enough damage to fall, its reactions slowed for a moment.

In that small opening, Hilde reinforced her waist, legs, shoulders and elbows with magical power before swinging her axe widely.

With one strike she completely severed its thigh and the gatekeeper collapsed.

When she sensed something flying from the direction of the first enemy she had knocked down, Hilde immediately ran toward the last enemy while dodging it.

Then after cutting down the legs of the final gatekeeper as well, she let out her held breath.

“Hah, hah…”

The moment a small sense of relief came from neutralizing all enemies, suddenly her left leg and axe-wielding hand stung terribly.

Hilde dropped to her left knee and let go of her axe.

“Ugh!”

She recalled Eugene’s warning that muscles would be shocked if magical power was used carelessly to reinforce the body.

As expected, she was still inexperienced.

She wanted to learn more from him.

The sound of rustling bushes was heard.

When Hilde looked that way, the cloaked Beast that had first fled with a severed leg burst out again.

“Oh… no…”

Hilde stood up again and gripped her axe.

Cold sweat ran down from the tremendous pain in her muscles, but her eyes still blazed with fighting spirit.

However, the moment Hilde raised her axe, the cloaked Beast fell forward.

She could see a dagger stabbed in the back of the fallen Beast’s head.

Then following a gunshot, the sound of something massive collapsing was heard from behind.

“Don’t stand there dazed. Watch your back.”

*    *    *

Hilde immediately turned around.

A pink mass of flesh was flying toward her.

She reflexively shot it down with her pistol.

I shot the silver stake lodged in the remaining gatekeeper’s head with my rifle.

When the stake twisted greatly from the gunshot and fell, the Beast collapsed as well.

In Blue Paper Moon they were called gatekeeper giant rats, and the silver fragments and stakes embedded in their bodies were their weakness.

Especially if you accurately shot the one in their head, they would die instantly.

Conversely, if you aimed for their exposed stomachs, an overwhelming number of mob enemies would pour out from their innards, making them even more troublesome to deal with.

“Senior, I…!”

Hilde tried to say something, but I reflexively raised my hand to strike her cheek.

However, seeing Hilde flinch made me stop with my hand raised.

“Why… why didn’t you wait?”

I barely managed to ask while lowering my clenched fist.

If it had been an ordinary colleague, I would have slapped them without hesitation.

I clearly told her to wait at the bottom of the mountain.

Then after luring away the villagers and barely shaking them off using the footstep silencing magic, I came straight to the ‘Mountain that Eats Young Sacrifices’.

But Hilde was nowhere to be found.

All sorts of worries and anxieties boiled up.

Then I saw this place’s mid-boss, the ‘First Sacrifice’ in its cloak, coming down from the mountain.

It was strange.

That thing was supposed to ambush the player while lying in wait near the entrance where the boss was.

Moreover, I saw that one of its feet had been cut off.

Only then did I understand the situation and ran up the mountain with all my strength to get here.

“I told you to wait…!”

Hilde hung her head without saying anything.

“Did you dislike following orders?”

Unless it was a sufficiently urgent situation, the chain of command must absolutely be followed.

When fighting together as part of a group, discipline is absolutely necessary.

Just one person’s rash action can easily make a group crumble and lose lives – I had seen it happen many times.

“Or do you no longer need me?”

When my thoughts reached that point, my heart grew cold instead.

I had been thinking about it for a long time.

Someday Hilde would outgrow me as a framework, and that time wasn’t far off.

Seeing how she had almost cleared the entrance alone already showed her abilities had surpassed the average for lower-ranked hunters.

Perhaps I had been constraining her without properly gauging her growth.

So if Hilde had felt frustrated and gone to fight alone…

“Then, we’ll go back and report to Sir Crowty and formally dissolve the team…”

“No!”

Hilde shouted.

“I just… that…”

“That what?”

“That was… a mistake.”

Hilde explained what had happened at the bottom of the mountain.

She said she spotted a child going up the mountain, and only meant to see where they were going before returning, but was ambushed and ended up fighting.

I got goosebumps.

It was exactly the same situation as when I first came to this mountain while playing Blue Paper Moon in my past life.

Back then I also received a quest to save someone’s son, and some boy appeared climbing this mountain.

And while chasing him, I was ambushed by the mid-boss.

Thinking coldly, the right thing to do here would be to scold Hilde for leaving her post.

But this strange coincidence of her making the exact same mistake as me…

No, perhaps it’s difficult to dismiss this as mere coincidence.

It’s a maliciously structured trap that would be easy for anyone playing Blue Paper Moon for the first time to fall for.

“Hmm…”

I crossed my arms and sank into thought.

Whatever the case, I had clearly told her to wait.

Hilde also seemed to know what she had done wrong.

That’s why she was trembling so much.

But the atmosphere had become too lukewarm to openly get angry.

“Right. It was a mistake. A very fatal mistake.”

“Hic…”

Hilde started sobbing.

“I’m sorry for disappointing you…”

“I’m not that disappointed.”

“What…?”

“Whatever the case, you haven’t been a hunter for long. Everyone makes mistakes. What’s important is what comes after.”

“What comes after?”

“Reflecting and learning from it. You still have a long way to go. You can’t crumble just from making a few mistakes.”

I glanced at what Hilde had hunted.

She had resisted the mid-boss’s mental attack before inflicting a fatal wound and making it flee, then consecutively defeated three Beasts somewhere between low-tier and mid-tier simultaneously.

It was hard to imagine someone who had been a hunter for barely two months accomplishing this.

I wish I could have seen it in detail.

When I was at her stage, I hadn’t even properly mastered magical power yet, let alone gone hunting.

Though I severely scolded her mistake of disobeying orders, I was extremely impressed that she could already accomplish this much alone.

Although I didn’t openly praise her, that was part of why my anger subsided so quickly.

Seeming to sense that my anger had completely dissipated, Hilde wiped her tears and smiled in relief.

“…Laughing after crying.”

“What?”

“No, nevermind.”

And seeing Hilde fall into the Beast’s trap exactly like I had in my past life made me recall old memories.

But there was no time to indulge in such sentiments now.

The gunshots that rang out on the mountain at night must have reached the village below.

Perhaps the furious villagers were already on their way here.

“We don’t have time. Let’s focus and head inside now.”

“Yes!”

We entered the innermost part of the Mountain that Eats Young Sacrifices, where the so-called guardian deity was hiding.