Chapter 11
Several hours had passed since we got lost and wandered around.
Since Din, who had been serving as our guide, had run away, it was only natural.
He had the map, too.
The torchlight was gradually weakening.
Three torches remained.
We groped our way forward through the ant-hill-like cave system, relying on the faint torchlight.
It felt more like looking for a place to die than trying to escape.
Especially.
Whenever I heard goblins laughing from another passage, I felt death draw one step closer.
But this time, the sound was different.
“Heeheeheehee.”
Should I say it sounded clearer and more childish?
It felt human.
“Din?”
Anne said. Her voice trembled as though she couldn't believe it.
“Ska! It’s Din!”
“Calm down.”
Anne was overly excited.
Putting aside how he'd survived in this darkness, the voice wasn't normal.
Could it be a hobgoblin trap?
They might have set crude, nail-like spikes on the floor, or fired arrows and spears at us.
We couldn't just leave him behind. Anne wouldn't allow it.
If it was a trap, he could leave Anne behind and run.
If it wasn't, there'd be more bait.
He made up his mind and slowly approached the source of the sound.
He threw a torch toward where the voice was coming from.
It was almost burned out and useless.
A man was crouched in a corner of the passage, facing the wall.
“Din?”
Anne ran over and grabbed Din's shoulder.
There was no trap.
There was no booby trap aimed at their feet, nor any arrows flying out of the darkness.
“Din? Din, snap out of it!”
“Heeheehee.”
Anne turned Din's body to face her.
His pupils were unfocused.
Thick drool ran from the corner of his mouth.
Anyone could tell.
He was insane.
He had fallen into the madness bestowed by the ‘darkness,’ the absolute law ruling the surface layer of the Great Labyrinth.
No one could avoid it.
If you stayed too long in a place without light, it was all over.
“Hooheehee!!”
“Din!”
Anne shook Din's shoulders and slapped his cheeks, but Din merely giggled.
‘This isn’t the time.’
Jeong Yushin approached Din and searched through his clothes.
A crumpled map came out.
He unfolded the map.
He couldn't pinpoint their current location perfectly like a professional guide, but by using the little knowledge he had picked up in Explorer Training, he could guess their rough position.
“This is insane.”
A curse escaped his lips.
Their current location was far outside the central area, in the outskirts.
It was an area crawling with hobgoblins.
The outer area of the map was covered with goblin faces Din had drawn. He had drawn them absurdly cute, which made anger flare up inside Yushin.
“Fuck, why did he draw goblin pictures on the map? Is his head full of flowers?”
“Din has loved drawing since he was young. He was timid, but his powers of observation were exceptional.”
Anne’s voice was filled with affection and sorrow.
“Let’s go.”
Now they had a map.
Maybe they could survive after all.
He felt a thread of hope.
“What about Marie?”
Anne asked cautiously.
Jeong Yushin’s body stopped dead.
It seemed Anne had found a different hope to cling to.
“We’re in more danger than Marie right now. And the torches are nearly gone. Do you really want to wander around here until you go mad like Din? Even if we hurry now, it’s questionable whether we can escape at all.”
“Marie is useful. She can use healing magic, and she must have plenty of supplies.”
“Supplies?”
“I saw the hobgoblins take her bag when they attacked her.”
So that was why one person's backpack had been missing from the ambush site.
Even so.
“Are you sure Marie and the supplies are together? Honestly, that’s just wishful thinking. Let’s not get carried away.”
“There are candles in Marie’s bag.”
“Candles? Candlelight?”
“They were given by the temple that serves the Earth Mother. They’re given to apprentice priests in case all the torches run out. They’re not ordinary candles; they’re special holy relics. Mr. Ska, can you really be sure we can get from here to the central area, then from the central area to the transfer area leading to the next level with only three torches?”
Anne’s words were persuasive.
Except for one thing.
“How are we going to find her?”
....
“How are we supposed to find her on this enormous level? Answer me. If you say some bullshit like we might find her if we’re lucky or that we might find a trace while searching, I’ll tear your mouth apart.”
At Yushin’s question, Anne fell silent.
Yushin thought.
‘Should we stop here?’
He had deceived himself with the excuse that he would use her as bait.
It was his conscience playing tricks on him.
But even this had limits.
With this level of pushover behavior, even Confucius, Buddha, and the Pope would step aside, tap-dance, and surrender their places among the saints to him.
Just as he was about to say that they should part ways here,
Anne opened her mouth.
“I understand. We’ll look for Marie later. Thinking about it, it does sound a little delusional. I’m sorry.”
She was frighteningly perceptive.
He felt uneasy.
“Yeah. Let’s get out first. Our best bet is to leave and ask the Explorer Guild for help.”
He took a rope from his backpack and tied it around Din’s waist.
Since he couldn’t hold Din’s hand and pull him along, he intended to drag him by the rope.
When Yushin pulled on the rope, Din followed, drooling profusely.
“I’ll do it.”
“No, I will. You need to shoot your bow.”
Anne volunteered, but he refused. The reason he had kept Din behind him was obvious.
A fact both Anne and he knew.
Distrust.
He could almost feel Anne’s audacious thoughts against his skin.
‘Anne, you’ve got a demon in you.’
In his mind, the one-eyed Maitreya Buddha was tap-dancing.
‘Namu Amitabha. Asura balbalta. Please, just don’t make a coughing sound.’
The instant he heard a bowstring being drawn, he resolved to use Din as a shield and draw his sword to sever Anne’s neck.
As if she had read his thoughts, the treacherous Anne walked cautiously from a little distance away.
They pressed on for several hours in a bizarre tension.
It was the result of a forced march without proper food, let alone sleep.
They managed to find a shelter in the outskirts.
Light was leaking from the shelter’s entrance.
Someone seemed to be staying there.
Creeeak.
They heard the careful sound of a bowstring being drawn.
At the same time, Jeong Yushin’s longsword slid rapidly from its scabbard.
His eyes met Anne’s.
“Goblins.”
“How do you know?”
“An archer needs good eyes and ears. If we get a little closer, we’ll be able to hear them.”
Anne was right.
As they approached, the goblins’ laughter came from the shelter’s entrance.
Were they having some kind of joyful feast?
There was a slap of flesh against flesh and a fishy smell.
Splat, splat.
“Kikikeke!”
“Kekekeke.”
He peeked out with only his eyes.
It was a scene every bit as horrific as expected.
Five or six goblins had gathered and were ravaging three women.
He couldn’t tell whether the women were alive or dead.
The goblins were violently sowing their seeds, while the women, their eyes hollow, were being handled like corpses however the goblins pleased.
Marie was among the women being assaulted.
Her clothes had been almost completely torn into rags, but the necklace symbolizing the Spirit Church stood out. She also had brown bobbed hair and a slender build.
It was Marie.
A bitter taste filled his mouth.
Eight hobgoblins.
‘Should we just pretend we don’t know and walk past?’
No matter how much of a surprise attack it was, how were two people supposed to fight eight?
Their own condition wasn’t normal either. Since they hadn’t been able to use potions generously, the places where they had been hit by arrows still throbbed.
Anne was even worse. Blood was slowly leaking from the bandages around her abdomen.
Anne tapped Yushin on the back.
That cautious touch seemed to carry a sliver of hope, and he sighed inwardly.
They switched places.
As soon as Anne furtively peeked inside, she gasped and covered her mouth with both hands.
Seeing that, Yushin knew instinctively.
The decision to fight had been made.
Still, one question occurred to him.
He couldn’t understand why the hobgoblins had lit torches.
Did they want to keep their victims’ minds intact?
He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. He could kill them all.
Jeong Yushin grabbed Anne’s shoulder.
He met eyes filled with sorrow and anger.
He explained the plan in the sign language he had learned in class.
[You handle the four farther away with your bow. I’ll take the four nearby.]
A question appeared in Anne’s eyes.
‘Fuck.’
He had forgotten because she had acted so smart. She hadn’t attended Explorer Training.
‘Still, if she’s an archer, she must come from a hunter family. Wouldn’t she know at least some sign language?’
He swallowed the question.
He brought his mouth to Anne’s ear and whispered.
“You kill the four farther away. I’ll kill the rest.”
“Yes.”
The torch they had been carrying was already extinguished, and his sword was drawn.
Din’s mouth had been tightly bound with rope, so their preparations for the ambush were perfect.
Anne and Yushin faced each other.
They nodded and charged in.
He ran crouched low so as not to block Anne’s field of view.
“Kieek?”
The nearest goblin raised its head.
Shaa!
A flash of steel, and the goblin’s head flew through the air.
‘One.’
At the same time, an arrow flew and lodged in the chest of a goblin in the distance.
Amid the commotion, several goblins panicked and stood up.
He swung the edge of his shield and struck a goblin’s neck, breaking it.
Crack.
The goblin fell sideways with its tongue hanging out.
He crushed one goblin’s skull with his pommel and kicked the last one in the stomach.
Thwack!
A wet bursting sound rang out, and the goblin went flying.
Meanwhile, the arrow Anne had fired sank deep into the last goblin’s chest.
“Kreeek!”
Thud.
Clutching its chest, the goblin let out a death cry and collapsed.
Jeong Yushin approached the goblin with the crushed abdomen.
It was vomiting blood, but it wasn’t dead yet.
He crushed its neck bone beneath his combat boot.
Crunch.
While looking around for any goblins that were still alive, Anne ran to Marie and embraced her limp body.
“Marie! Marie!”
Marie’s condition was terrible.
Her entire body was covered in semen, and one eye—apparently struck by a blunt weapon—had been crushed, with fragments of eyeball and blood hardened together.
As emergency treatment, he poured disinfecting wine over the eye to wash away the fragments and hardened blood, then wrapped it in a clean bandage.
“What about the potions?”
“I used them all.”
At Anne’s suspicious expression, he waved the empty potion bottle in front of her eyes.
By now, she was downright frightening.
He was convinced that, at the slightest opportunity, she would put an arrow straight through the back of his head.
Anne wiped the semen from Marie’s body and held her in her arms.
Anne spoke to Marie several times, but...
“Uh... eh... eh...”
Marie seemed completely broken mentally, emitting strange sounds intermittently like a broken doll.
‘Heeheehee and ueeeh.’
One friend was insane, and the other was broken.
They were alive, but the lives ahead of them looked arduous.
Of course, that arduous life only mattered if they survived here.
He searched the hobgoblin corpses and the backpacks scattered around them, replenishing their supplies. Fortunately, he found Marie’s backpack as well.
As Anne had said, there were candles and a candlestick.
‘It’s huge.’
It was only a little smaller than a torch.
“Now, if we can just save Kaal..”
At Anne’s mutter, goosebumps prickled all over Yushin’s body.
“Kaal is dead. Just like this.”
He held up the goblin whose head had been smashed flat by a pommel.
“His head was flattened, his eyeballs bulged out like a crab’s, and he died. I told you.”
“...”
“You find that hard to believe?”
The catastrophe drew one step closer.