Chapter 10
Passing through the red portal, he felt a sensation of floating brush against his body.
Thud.
He landed on the floor and looked around.
The same unchanging darkness.
A narrow cave.
It was just like the first level.
“Hup!”
A red light flashed, and Kaal landed on the ground. He was still holding his sword. The rest of the party appeared immediately afterward.
Kaal grinned broadly.
“Let’s go. We still have a long way to go.”
Their formation had changed slightly. Jeong Yushin was now at the front, with Kaal directly behind him.
“We got lucky this time. We were transported to the central area.”
Din said brightly as he examined the map.
“Let’s finish this quickly. We haven’t even been able to wash properly or sleep properly. Phew.”
Marie grumbled.
“Just a little farther. Everyone, hang in there.”
Kaal comforted Marie.
“Heh heh heh.”
“Kikiki.”
Creepy sounds came from ahead. He could not see clearly.
“Enemies!”
Whether he wanted to or not, they were traveling together now, so he decided to do his best.
Jeong Yushin immediately raised his shield and shouted.
Whoooosh!!
It was not an arrow.
A javelin.
He could not dodge. If he did, the person behind him would be injured.
He braced his feet and gripped the shield handle with all his strength.
Bang!
The powerful impact made him stagger and stumble backward.
Fortunately, the shield was unharmed. However, the impact made him drop the torch he was holding in one hand.
At that moment, Kaal sprang forward. He was holding the torch Jeong Yushin had dropped in one hand.
“Marie!”
[Light]
The cave brightened.
Three hobgoblins were running away with their backs turned.
“As expected, they run when they’re outnumbered!”
Kaal shouted as he quickly closed the distance and slashed a hobgoblin across the back.
“Kieeeek!!”
The goblin fell with a mournful cry.
“After them!”
Kaal ran after the goblins.
“Kaal!”
Anne shouted urgently, but Kaal seemed unable to hear her because he was focused on pursuing the goblins.
There was no time to recover his numb palm. Jeong Yushin hurried after Kaal.
He saw Kaal leave the range of the Light spell. The passage turned right, and Kaal’s figure vanished completely, leaving only the flickering glow of his torch.
And then.
“Aaaaaaaargh!!”
Kaal’s scream filled the cave.
“Fuck.”
He sprinted with all his strength and entered the passage that turned right.
Kaal was fighting five hobgoblins nearby, swinging his sword like a madman. He was limping on one foot.
‘A trap!’
Kaal swung his sword like an enraged beast, but the goblins merely gave bizarre laughs and tentatively thrust their daggers and spears at him instead of charging.
They intended to drain the strength from the wounded beast.
The textbook way to hunt a beast.
The fallen torch.
Kaal’s shadow wavered here and there on the cave wall. The goblins’ shadows swayed along with it, as if dancing.
Jeong Yushin kicked off the ground and charged forward.
But it was already too late.
Thrust.
A hobgoblin’s spear stabbed Kaal in the abdomen.
“Guh!”
Kaal sucked in a ragged breath. It was not a deep wound, but it was enough to make his body stiffen for a moment.
Another goblin charged in and swung a wooden club.
Smack!
Blood sprayed from Kaal’s head. He staggered as though he were about to collapse.
Whack!
Smack!
With every blow of the club, Kaal’s head caved in and crumpled.
The spirited boy was no longer there.
All that remained was prey with the middle of its face caved in and both eyes bulging as though they might be torn out, its body trembling as it awaited death.
It happened in an instant.
So quickly that Jeong Yushin could not do anything.
Even so, he ran forward.
He drove his sword into the neck of the goblin trying to finish Kaal off.
“Ghek!”
The goblin collapsed, clutching its throat with a single strangled cry.
Two goblins latched onto Jeong Yushin’s shield.
They were so heavy that he could not move the shield.
He was caught off guard by the unfamiliar strategy and lost his focus.
“Fuck.”
Only then did he see it.
A goblin that had leaped over the shield was swinging a club at his head.
Clang!
The club was stopped by his iron helmet.
The impact made his vision shake.
The sword he instinctively thrust forward had pierced the club-wielding goblin’s abdomen.
Did it go in too deep?
The sword would not come out.
He let go of the shield. The two goblins went tumbling to the ground.
A spear stabbed toward him.
He had neither his shield nor his sword.
“Phew.”
He took a deep breath and seized the spear at the right moment.
“Kieek?”
He yanked the spear sharply, dragging the goblin along with it. Then he drove his fist into the goblin’s jaw.
Smack!
A clean straight punch.
The goblin fainted without even managing to scream. He snatched away the spear and stepped on the unconscious goblin’s throat.
Crunch.
The iron-reinforced sole of his boot crushed the goblin’s neck bone.
He threw the spear. One of the goblins rolling on the ground was killed.
Only one remained.
Just then.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
Marie’s scream came from behind him.
“Marie! No! Din, come back!!”
Anne’s urgent cry followed.
What the hell was happening?
“Kikikik.”
The last goblin in front of Jeong Yushin was laughing ominously.
Whoosh!
Swoosh!
Arrows flew out of the darkness. He moved to dodge them, but they struck his shoulder and thigh.
“Son of a bitch!”
The burning pain made his body jerk and seize up.
There were several more. The goblins had gathered after hearing the noise.
Behind him were Marie’s screams and Anne’s shouts.
In front of him, the goblins who had come as reinforcements were laughing.
A crisis had struck in an instant.
His mind reeled, but his body moved desperately for survival.
He grabbed the collar of a charging goblin and used it to block the incoming arrows.
Thud!
Thwack!
The arrows lodged in the goblin’s body.
He could not block them all.
One struck his arm, but he had protected his vital points.
He would not die. The hot sensation sent the blood surging madly through his head.
He threw the arrow-riddled goblin aside.
Limping, he ran over, picked up his shield, and yanked the sword out of the goblin’s abdomen.
Fall back.
He had to check what had happened to the rear guard.
He blocked the incoming arrows with his shield and ran back out through the passage that had turned.
The carnage just before the Light went out.
Marie, her clothes torn in several places, was being dragged far into the darkness by a goblin gripping her hair.
Din was nowhere to be seen.
Anne had been pinned beneath the goblins and was struggling and screaming.
“Stop! I said stop!!”
The goblins giggled and reveled in the female’s desperate screams as though they were enjoying themselves.
That was why.
They failed to notice Jeong Yushin cautiously approaching.
His sword pierced through the back of a goblin’s neck and burst out the other side.
“Ghek?!”
One of the three hobgoblins straddling Anne collapsed.
“Kiek!”
The goblins panicked.
He retrieved his sword, cut another goblin’s throat, and struck the neck of the last one with his shield.
Crack.
The goblin fell with its neck twisted at an unnatural angle.
“Hic! Ah, ngh.”
The last one had fallen, but Anne was panicking and continued to flail about.
The Light vanished, and darkness filled the cave.
It was an urgent situation. He did not know when the goblins might come pouring in. The passage where Kaal had been was especially worrisome.
Jeong Yushin lit the last remaining torch. Its light barely illuminated the cave.
“Anne, get a grip.”
He grabbed her shoulder and shook her several times, but she did not come to her senses.
Only after he slapped her hard did the light return to Anne’s eyes. He was not sure whether she was in her right mind, though.
“Marie! We have to save Marie! And what about Kaal?! Din?!”
“Kaal’s head was crushed, and I don’t know about Din. Marie was being dragged away by her hair.”
“We have to save them!”
Anne tried to stand, but she clutched her abdomen and sank back down. Dark red blood was flowing from the multiple stab wounds inflicted by a poisoned dagger.
Jeong Yushin took two bottles of antidote from his bag. He had learned in class that goblins used poison. He had prepared them just in case, and now, fortunately or unfortunately, the time had come to use them.
“Not right now.”
He handed her the antidote as he spoke. They had to leave immediately. They had already stayed too long, and there was no telling when the goblins would reappear.
They had to get somewhere safe first. He needed to pull out the arrows and take the antidote. The wounds where the arrows had struck were turning black.
“Don’t bullshit me! We have to save them! Please! Help me.”
Anne fell forward and bowed until her forehead nearly touched the ground.
He understood.
They had said they were from the same village, so they must have spent many years together.
Their friendship must have run deeper than the years they had shared.
As Kaal had said, they had overcome every difficulty by joining forces, so she must have believed they could explore the labyrinth together as well.
They had made a bold choice based on that faith, but their luck was not as good as before.
He understood.
“All right. Let’s go somewhere safe and treat you first. We’ll look for them after that.”
It was a lie.
He had no intention of looking for them.
Anne was bait.
If the hobgoblins attacked in numbers too great for him to handle, Anne would serve as excellent bait and buy him time to escape.
“W-we have to go now.”
“You’ll be the first to die. Even if we could find them, you’re in no condition to fight. Are you seriously planning to leave everything to me?”
Anne bit her lip.
“I understand.”
Jeong Yushin supported Anne and began walking.
Strangely, the goblins did not pursue them.
If he were a goblin, would he really not pursue prey that had been hit by three arrows?
Had they been frightened?
In case they pursued them, he gathered the remaining torches, lit them, and threw them down paths that split into two or three branches.
It was a stopgap measure that exploited the hobgoblins’ tendency to attack when they saw light.
And then.
I feel like I’m going to die.
There was a limit to how far he could go while bearing the weight of a woman who could barely walk with arrows still lodged in her body.
He did not even know where he was going.
Din had the map.
“Gehhek.”
Anne vomited black blood.
‘I can’t go any farther.’
They had not found a shelter, or even a place resembling one. Still, they had gotten a fair distance from the ambush site, and there was no sign of pursuit.
He propped Anne against one side of the cave and gave her the antidote.
When he pulled up her clothes and examined her abdomen, he saw that it was riddled with puncture wounds. He poured some wine over them to disinfect them and applied the antidote.
Jeong Yushin took a small glass vial from his bag.
A low-grade healing potion.
A red liquid sloshed inside a glass vial the size of a Yakult bottle.
One bottle cost three silver coins.
‘Should I just leave her?’
For a moment, his resolve wavered.
‘I’ll pour in just a little. Only enough for her to walk. I need to buy enough time to escape.’
He dripped it one drop at a time onto the wounds in her abdomen.
Smoke rose from her flesh, and the wounds healed slightly.
Finally, he wrapped them in bandages.
“Ugh!”
Anne groaned and twisted her body.
Now it was his turn.
He took a sip of wine.
With trembling hands, he grabbed the arrow shaft and snapped it.
Now he only had to remove the arrowhead buried in his flesh.
There was no need to worry about excessive bleeding.
He had a healing potion.
He dug around with his dagger.
“Grrrgh!! You fucking bitch!”
Unable to bear the tremendous pain, Jeong Yushin glared at Anne.
The burning pain fueled his anger.
Guan Yu had supposedly played Go just fine while undergoing surgery after being hit by an arrow, but Jeong Yushin felt like he needed to swear to endure this.
“Fuck! I knew it from the moment those pathetic fucking country bumpkins started acting smug just because they got lucky. Do you know how Kaal died? He got stabbed in the gut, then his head was crushed by a club. Fuck, he died with his face flattened and his eyes bulging out. I told you we shouldn’t go. Why did you keep dragging us into this hell even when I told you not to?!”
He pulled the arrowhead from his arm. Blood spurted out like a fountain. He poured the antidote and healing potion over the wound.
‘When was the last time I got a tetanus shot? Was it at basic training?’
Clinging to his hazy consciousness, he spat out every curse he could think of as he removed the remaining arrowheads.
After finishing the first aid, he looked at Anne.
Tears were flowing from her unfocused eyes.
Jeong Yushin stood up.
“You can walk by yourself, right?”
“Yes.”
Anne clutched her abdomen and stood up.
“Let’s go.”
Jeong Yushin turned and walked without waiting for her answer.
He heard the sound of unsteady footsteps behind him.
‘I will get out alive. Out of this goddamn labyrinth.’
He clenched his teeth and raised the torch.