Chapter 17
“What? Is all the boring talk finally over?”
Est, who had been lying against a stone monument in the ruins since midway through, said that. As she stood, she kicked at the floor several times.
“All right, then let's get to work. We need to clear those things away.”
‘Those things’ referred to the goblins' corpses. Ah, damn it. I'd completely forgotten about them while doing other things.
“Let's salvage anything worth money from them and dump the bodies outside. You're not thinking of leaving corpses in the cave, are you? They'll stink up the place and attract bugs and monsters.”
“Eeeeeek…. Smells… sewers… bugs… I hate ittttt….”
The unhygienic keywords turned Francesca's PTSD ON. My own trauma switch clicked too.
Ah! They're coming! They're coming! In a swarm! Crawling along the walls!
That rustling sound! That foul-smelling sewer! Exoskeletons glinting with blasphemous compound eyes and diseased legs! Eeeeeek!! Almighty Akarat, protect me with eternal light!
“Ah, but if we have any conscience, let's let him rest.”
Est said that while pointing at me, who was freaking out inside.
“Honestly, if it weren't for him, none of us would have made it out in one piece. Since we were basically passengers during the fight, the cleanup is something we should handle ourselves.”
“That's a very commendable attitude!”
At this unexpected proposal, I threw my arms wide in welcome!
It was an excellent suggestion. I hadn't even thought of resting, since I was the one doing all the hard carrying. Fuck, it was all because a slave mentality had become ingrained in me.
“Though we're short-handed, it can't be helped.”
“R-rest, please… We'll clean it up ourselves….”
I could sympathize with Francesca, who was suffering from PTSD. Even so, I immediately lay down nice and easy on the mat. The secret to life was to enjoy an easy break while you could.
But this damn otherworld still didn't seem to like an intruder like me.
─Tap. Drip-drip.
It happened just as I lay down on the mat.
A few drops of water fell onto my face.
Drip-drip. Patter-patter-patter!
Whoooooosh─!
Water poured down through the gaping ceiling! The deluge came down without even giving me time to do anything, leaving me completely stunned.
…Wow, shit, we're fucked?”
Whether on Earth or in this otherworld, the damn streams of water were equally disgusting.
A sudden shower had broken out.
***
Of everything I'd experienced since coming to this otherworld, the most shocking was that nature was a fucking goddamn dangerous place.
All that talk about nature's vital energy was fucking horseshit.
The temperature difference between night and day was perfect for killing a person. Thinking of pajeon and a glass of makgeolli on a rainy day had been such a ridiculously pampered thought!
Not freezing to death when rain fell on your bare body was a luxury that had only appeared after humanity built civilization.
Whoooooosh─.
“It's raining.”
Francesca said that while hugging her knees. Est glared at the drizzling raindrops while chewing jerky.
“In all my life, now I'm getting rained on inside a cave. Every time this happens, I feel like quitting adventuring.”
“At least we're not camping outside. Thankfully, the rainwater isn't flowing in here.”
I said that. The rain falling from the ceiling flowed out through the cave entrance, thanks to the difference in elevation. Paragon cleared his throat while gauging our reactions.
“I hope you will not hate rain so much. Since ancient times, rain has been called heaven's blessing. A dozen or so years ago, there was even a drought so severe that people dried up and died. This is an experience too.”
“I'll put you beneath that blessing-filled hole while you sleep, so keep that in mind.”
“At times, even excessive blessings can be burdensome.”
The rain suddenly started pouring while we were clearing away the corpses. To be precise, I hadn't cleared any away, but I still suffered the indirect consequences of the out-of-nowhere shower.
“The firewood… It won't dry, will it?”
Francesca looked crestfallen as she gazed at the thoroughly soaked firewood. We hurriedly split into teams—and I got up and helped too—and gathered firewood, but the rain-soaked logs showed no sign of catching fire.
“It's a good thing we at least have lanterns.”
“Those idiots didn't bring any, though.”
“Sorry.”
“I didn't think of it.”
We held Est's and Francesca's lanterns, two to a lantern, and warmed ourselves. They were cheap lanterns with candles inside thin leather cases. They were incredibly flammable, and their light was weak.
“Thank you for lending us the lanterns. It's warm.”
“At least the lanterns let us repay a little of our life debt.”
Francesca said that, looking a little pleased. I chuckled too.
“We should thank the goblins for this.”
With these and the blankets, we managed not to freeze to death. They were nowhere near as hot as heat packs, but placing our palms against them made them surprisingly warm.
The downside was that Paragon was doing the same thing on the other side, which put me in a decidedly bad mood. I didn't want to be pressed up against some guy.
“Mr. Paragon. Can't you use <Fireball(fire ball)>?”
“I cannot.”
“I knew it.”
“If you knew I couldn't, why did you ask?”
Because I'm cold, you prick.
Even though it was still autumn, the perceived temperature plummeted in an instant. I had no interest whatsoever in the rain pouring onto the ruins. It wasn't enough to kill us, but it drained our stamina fast.
Just then, Est, who was wrapped in a blanket like me, snapped her fingers as if she'd thought of a brilliant idea.
“That's it! Why don't we hug each other for a while? We've got exactly two men and two women! We can pair up man-with-man and woman-with-woman!”
“The fact that there are two men and two women sounds pretty hopeful.”
“I don't feel like being next to a fake monk spouting bullshit. Ah, you two can go ahead.”
“That's what she says. What about you?”
“I will.”
Est asked Francesca. Francesca had pulled her hood over her head, guarding against even the slightest loss of warmth, and answered as though she'd been waiting for it.
“Great. I'll go warm myself up and be right back.”
Est stood up with her short spear and moved to a place where the rain wouldn't splash, then began swinging her spear. She intended to raise her body temperature by moving around.
“Hmm. I suppose I can imitate that.”
Paragon, who had been blowing on his hands, also stood up with his stone staff.
“Will you not join us? As a priest of the God of Abundance, I suspect this rain will continue for some time.”
“I wish you'd told me that before the rain started.”
“My apologies. I only know how to use healing magic. If I'd had any other abilities, I wouldn't have become an adventurer.”
“That's tragic.”
Healing magic was the specialty of priests of the God of Abundance. But that did not mean priests of other gods could not use it.
To a priest, healing magic was like English proficiency on a résumé. It was a skill one had to know to pursue advanced studies.
Knowing only healing magic was enough to make a living. But if it was the entirety of one's résumé, it was difficult to do anything serious with it. Most priests knew healing magic, after all.
Presumably, priests who were poor or otherwise struggling turned to adventuring.
‘…He got permission from the church before coming out here, right?’
I hoped he wasn't an anti-communist (反共) cult priest who had grown dissatisfied with his church rations and defected to the free market.
“Anyway, Mr. Nord, are you just going to sit there? If you stay still in this cold, you'll really freeze to death. Unless you wrap yourself in thick animal fur, that is.”
“《Pray to the Sky God(yáǵeswō deiwōm dyeus)》.”
“Oh, fuck.”
Very much thank you. I'd completely forgotten about it.
Taking Paragon's advice, I activated ‘Beast Regression.’ The primitive sorcery that brought the power of a beast down into a human body took effect instantly. As green mana wrapped around my body, the cold was almost completely shut out.
“This is ridiculously versatile. I guess even primitive people were pretty capable.”
“This is really pissing me off. When I return to the church, I will be sure to learn <Keeping Warm(keeping warm)>.”
“Wow, I'm so jealous.”
“Damn it.”
Grumbling, Paragon went to warm himself up.
I took care not to use up too much mana. I tried adjusting the thickness of the mana catheter running through my body. I succeeded easily, with a sensation like my blood vessels shrinking.
“Heh, got it on the first try. As expected, I'm a genius.”
After muttering smugly, I watched Est exercise. She was demonstrating a typical spear technique, swinging the weapon.
“Your movements are different from when you fought the goblins, aren't they?”
“Huh? Of course they are. Why would I use only the spear when I have a shield? My weapon is a short spear, so without a shield it's worse than a sword.”
Were a short spear and shield a matched set of equipment? I thought of old man Gentric, who had put on an impressive performance in the sewer.
“Are a short spear and shield a good combination? The adventurer I saw last time also used a short spear and shield.”
Est happened to have finished exercising and returned, so I asked her. After wiping away her sweat, Est gave a snort of laughter.
“Calling it a good combination is a bit grand. It's a weapon well suited to adventurer-warriors who aren't confident in their skills. Short spears and wooden shields are easy to handle and cheap.”
“It's a wooden shield. Doesn't it break easily?”
“This is sturdier than you'd think. Unless it's a monster around Silver class or above, it won't break easily. Oh, Francesca. You don't smell anymore, right?”
“Yes. You didn't need to worry about it.”
Est finished wiping off her sweat and hugged Francesca. Because of their difference in height, it looked like she was hugging a doll.
“Wooden shields are usually made so that it's okay for a weapon to get stuck in them. Since weapons don't come out easily, you can attack while the other person is flailing around.”
Francesca, snugly nestled in Est's arms, said that.
“Oh. So wooden shields are actually fine even if they get pierced?”
“What are you talking about? Of course it isn't fine. The repair bill is huge. If it gets smashed, you have to buy a new one, you know? This is definitely a scam.”
As a dirt-poor adventurer who worried constantly about money, Est said that resentfully.
But listening to her, a short spear did seem like a fairly convenient weapon.
In the real world, a spear is the king of all weapons (萬兵之王). And yet adventurers did not particularly favor it. The main reason was that it was difficult to swing in tight spaces.
The cave we were in was a perfect example.
The area deeper inside, where the ruins were, was spacious, but the passage leading to the entrance was extremely narrow. In a place that narrow, there was no room to swing a spear.
If you tried to use spear techniques in a place blocked by walls on all sides, you'd just keep bumping into things and reduce yourself to a clumsy percussion performance.
“A short spear is specialized for thrusting. If you're not going to swing it, why obsess over length? In fact, an unskilled person can have a real problem if the enemy grabs the shaft.”
“You are absolutely right.”
A spear's main power comes from swinging. There's a reason Guan Yu's endgame weapon is the Blue Dragon Glaive (靑龍偃月刀). The crescent glaive and the fangtian halberd are the ultimate evolved forms of the spear.
In that sense, you could say a short spear is a weapon that sacrifices damage output for attack speed and lowers its equipment restrictions.
“Block with the shield, stab with the short spear. Pretty easy, right? The fact that a backwater merchant's third daughter like me can make a living as an adventurer is entirely thanks to this short spear and shield.”
“I'm jealous that you can use them without thinking. Trying to think through everything in the middle of combat is incredibly difficult.”
Swordsmanship requires carefully measuring your attack radius and paying attention to your footwork. Counterattacks and defense are important too.
That's why a newbie with terrible controls like me narrows his field of vision while trying to think during combat, gets hit from behind, and dies.
‘This time too, my sword got stuck in a goblin's body, so I got hit.’
This wasn't something a helmet could really fix, either. There were plenty of monsters in this world that could smash helmets, and if you fell during a fight and dropped your weapon, you'd die even in full plate armor.
The problem was having a narrow field of vision, and narrowing it even further was putting the cart before the horse.
In that regard, a short spear and shield were fucking incredible equipment.
They were like a filthy TCG deck. A completely brain-dead, broken deck that could win by looking only at its hand and relying on lucky draws, no matter what was on the opponent's field. Fuck, it was so cool!
“I've been thinking about changing weapons lately too. And I haven't even been using a sword for very long.”
When I said that, Est chuckled as if she found it amusing.
“I use a short spear myself, but I wouldn't really recommend it. They say weapons that don't require any special tricks make it hard to improve your skills.”
“Is that so? Safety is the most important thing to me.”
“Even safety first depends on how you go about it. You're not some woman like me, scraping by one day at a time, and you're damn strong too. You're not planning to live as an Iron-class adventurer forever, are you?”
“Your assessment of my abilities is excessive praise, but I more or less understand your point.”
Combat power in this otherworld was the product of physical ability and combat technique.
And the short-spear-and-shield, make-them-come-to-you setup was not well suited to increasing combat technique. Even after a hundred fights, the main strategy was still to hold up the shield, kite the opponent, and finish them off with weak little chip shots.
Even in TCGs, kids using broken decks rage-quit once they reached a higher level in ranked matches. In the world of veterans, there was an undeniable wall that could not be crossed by mindlessly piloting a broken deck.
“You make a good point. There is a similar saying among the maxims I know.”
Paragon said that as he returned, barely sweating.
“A priest who relies on the convenience of magic cannot achieve greatness. For he is not one who performs miracles, but one who hopes for miracles… so it goes.”
That guy still seemed better off than someone who could not even rely on miracles. I thought that while looking at the fake monk who could not even light a campfire.
Even if we excluded Fireball because it was a mage's magic, we wouldn't have had to go through all this if he had known even one spell that could kindle a flame.