Chapter 45
The wind was cold.
I sat on a bench in the guild's training grounds and looked up at the northern sky.
It was still early compared to when Elena usually returned, but I bounced my leg with a turning point just ahead.
'It really won't be long now.'
But I didn't know the exact timing.
The events I had experienced in the game remained more vivid in my memory than I had expected, but the timing of every incident had been different.
Whether that difference was a game mechanic permitted for the player's immersion or genuinely variable—no one knew unless they were a god.
I looked up at the northern sky and frowned against the sunlight.
When I lowered my gaze, I saw adventurers coming out of the training grounds.
Adventurers in training ran around the grounds, and some swung their swords.
A senior adventurer enjoying a leisurely break held a shield toward a rookie and sparred with them.
They didn't know anything right now.
About what was coming soon.
Even if I told them now, they wouldn't be able to respond properly. They would assume I was plotting something, distrust me, and hesitate.
If they were individuals, I could threaten them into obeying somehow.
But against an organization like a clan, my threats were no more than the barking of a wild stray dog.
Threatening to kill them too, asking whether they wanted to die like the former guildmaster, wouldn't work.
That had worked only because the former guildmaster had kept Eck close without any suspicion. It had been an idiotic act bordering on self-destruction.
Just like Darko, he had trusted his backing too much and mistaken it for his own ability, seeing me as a domesticated pet dog.
Eck's infamy ultimately held sway only within the range where his force could be brought to bear.
That was the limit of infamy.
'That's why I chose another method instead of relying on infamy.'
Now it was time to test the results.
The Monster Wave.
According to the original story, the city would repel the Monster Wave.
But it would suffer considerable damage in the process.
Part of the walls would collapse, and a large portion of the city's forces would die or suffer injuries that left them unable to fight again.
The entire city would be thrown into chaos by the monster horde that arrived without warning.
After initially repelling the Monster Wave, the city would form a dungeon expedition team, and Elena would sneak into the massive organized expedition as a porter.
And then, her awakening.
She had been an insignificant I-rank, but she would gain the power to kill Eck, who was not merely comparable to an A-rank but an upper-tier A-rank.
And the Elena of now was overwhelmingly stronger than she had been in the original story.
If she obtained that power, an S-rank would practically be guaranteed once she learned how to wield it.
"...."
I placed a hand on my chest.
There was a parchment inside my clothes.
An appointment letter naming me leader of the dungeon survey team.
A parchment bearing the signature of the lord's daughter.
I had considered using it to persuade the clans in advance, but I hadn't.
'Even if the Monster Wave really does arrive, it would only leave needless resentment behind.'
No matter what intention I had when starting something, unless the other person's image of me changed, my intentions would be distorted and their distrust would only deepen.
Eck's infamy made everything I did seem sinister.
I had once seen the world only in a positive light because I didn't know the truth, but Eck's memories and experiences had stripped away my rose-colored glasses and shown me the cruel, cold reality.
This was only the first Monster Wave.
I couldn't shoulder that kind of risk right now.
I brought the appointment letter as the strongest means of persuasion I had, prepared in case something happened today. If I thrust it before any clan, they would move immediately, and there would be no lingering resentment over a sudden crisis.
'Rebecca has probably already warned the clans in advance...'
Even if the Monster Wave arrived immediately, there would be no disaster like the one in the original story.
We could face what came next with the walls and our forces intact.
That was when it happened.
A commotion broke out on the main street.
Someone shouted.
"Monsters! A horde of monsters is coming!!!"
It was Mira.
Holding a bow with its string snapped, her entire body covered in dirt, she ran down the main street after passing through the palisade.
She screamed until her throat seemed ready to tear between ragged breaths.
"The Monster Wave!! Monsters are coming from the northhh!!"
The adventurers in the training grounds turned their attention toward her, momentarily unsure what she was shouting about.
The adventurers who recognized Mira noticed that Elena was not beside her, making the situation feel even more dire.
Adventurers belonging to the clans began running toward their clan buildings.
Mira spotted me.
She rushed over and fell to her knees in front of me.
"Mr. Eck! Mo, mo-mo...!"
"Calm down."
I grabbed Mira by the shoulders.
Between her ragged breaths, she poured out her words.
"T-the Monster Wave! The Monster Wave! Monsters are coming!"
It had finally arrived.
I had been waiting for the Monster Wave to come.
Just as I gripped the appointment letter inside my clothes and prepared to run to the guild, I looked toward the direction from which Mira had come.
No one was running after Mira.
"Where's Elena?"
"...!"
Mira flinched and her shoulders trembled.
"E-Elena is... behind me... She's bringing the others back."
"Then she'll arrive before it's too late."
I had diligently trained Hans and Duke for a moment like this.
They might be slow on their feet, but they wouldn't be late because of low stamina.
Mira's eyes shook.
"B-but Daril's party got involved. They showed up at exactly that moment."
"Daril?"
"D-don't worry. The last time I saw her, she was saving Daril's party members, but Elena will come back safely if anyone can—!"
"Mira, listen carefully."
I cut Mira off.
I pulled the appointment letter from inside my clothes and pressed it into Mira's hands.
"Take this to the guild. Give it directly to Rebecca. She'll know what it is."
"What is this...?"
"Run with everything you've got, right now. Run as though one person will die for every moment you're late. Run until you have nothing left. Go."
Mira gripped the appointment letter and ran with all her strength, breathing hard.
"Elena."
Was that your fate?
I had expected it.
Of course you wouldn't.
Having directly controlled Elena in the game and looked into her thoughts, I understood her better than anyone else in this world.
With her personality, there was no way she would let Daril's party members die, too.
Even in a world that was lenient toward women, people died during a Monster Wave.
No one who saw hundreds or thousands of monsters rushing toward them would think they could survive simply because they were women.
Even if they survived, there was no way they could go on living normally after being gang-raped by monsters.
There was no way Elena didn't know that.
After all, it was a monster that had killed her father.
The thought of being killed was stronger than the thought of being raped.
Even so, she would save them.
The archetypal frustrating protagonist.
The protagonist's sacrifice.
While playing, I had often gotten annoyed and wondered why she made such choices and helped people like that.
But now that I had someone like that under me, I respected her choice as a human being—and for some reason, I even felt proud of her.
The Eck inside me grumbled, just as I had when I was a player.
Give her a break on that much.
Elena's character was what saved the world, after all.
But there was another, greater reason I wasn't angry.
'In the end, it comes down to whether you have the power to save them or not.'
But Elena.
With your current stats, you can't handle all of them.
"It's my job to make up for what you're lacking."
I walked down the main street.
In the opposite direction from the fleeing people.
Toward the Northern Mountains beyond.
I gripped the magic sword.
'Elena.'
Before your good intentions become poison, I'll save you.
I kicked off the ground and sprinted forward.
***
The plains of the Northern Mountains.
The plant monster held back the monster horde, but those of intermediate rank or higher broke through its restraints.
Elena deflected the axe of an approaching orc warrior and cut through its nape.
She grabbed the scruff of a wolf that bared its teeth from a blind spot and slammed it into the ground.
She leaped away, cutting her way through them.
She grabbed the shoulder of a fallen member of Daril's party nearby and forcibly pulled them upright.
"Th-thank you..."
"Run!"
"Yes!"
Clang!
She knocked aside an axe flying toward her with her sword.
At the same time, her sword broke, and the portion beyond its midpoint flew into the grass.
A giant wolf appeared from the shade of the forest and looked at Elena, savoring how it would bite, lick, and chew her with its eyes as it greedily smacked its lips.
At that moment, an Iron-Armored Boar charged in like a ball of fire and slammed its head into the spot where Elena had been standing.
Crack!
As the tree fell, she glanced at the members of Daril's party who escaped the encirclement amid the confusion but hadn't gotten far.
Like a wave sweeping through the forest,
As she kept her gaze fixed on the monsters and reached toward Daril's party members, someone who had been helping their own party threw her a sword.
Elena caught it in midair and cut down a wolf that leaped at her from a low stance.
An Iron-Armored Boar charged in right after it.
She leaped over it to evade the attack,
Then she stepped on the Iron-Armored Boar's massive body and continued retreating little by little.
That was when.
Swoosh!
A toad lying in ambush in the grass revealed its presence and shot out its long tongue.
A perfect ambush.
The sticky tip of its tongue touched her side, and her body clung to it as it began pulling her in.
A blade cut through the middle of the tongue.
A jet of blood burst from the severed tongue, and the toad sprang from the grass with a scream.
"Hah... Hah..."
Elena's eyes glowed blue.
The monsters did not attack one another, as though they had reached an agreement, and looked only at the human woman named Elena.
"Who do you think is going to lose?"
Elena planted both feet on the ground and settled into a firm stance.
But the tip of the sword she held aloft had grown shorter, its end blunt as though it had melted.
'That toad bastard...!'
Elena pointed the stubby sword at the monsters, but it didn't intimidate them at all.
A silent agreement passed among the monsters over who would go first.
Elena used that moment to kick off the ground and escape the encirclement.
The one pursuing her was the Iron-Armored Boar.
It charged after her, excited by her escape.
The ferocious charge could not be avoided with footwork alone.
She threw herself sideways to evade it, but the Iron-Armored Boar turned its head.
She swung her sword, but its tip only scraped across the iron armor, leaving her flank exposed.
"Hyaa...!"
Elena tumbled across the ground.
Hot pain filled her side.
An orc warrior pressed down on her fallen head with a rough hand.
Even with physical strength, and even after reinforcing it with mana, she still couldn't overpower the orc warrior's might.
The orc seized her armor, and the connections between the armor plates were forcibly broken one after another.
The armor covering her lower body.
Air heated by the monster's hot body brushed against the bare skin of her buttocks.
A horrible future took shape in her mind.
The sight of Daril being violated by the troll. From this moment on, Elena would suffer the same thing. Goosebumps rose all over her body, and cold sweat formed along her spine.
"U-Uncle..."
There was no way Uncle could come.
The plan had gone wrong.
The original plan had been to return to the city as soon as they witnessed the dungeon's appearance and defend it from there.
Even if Uncle came to help, he would need to prepare thoroughly before throwing himself into the Monster Wave, and running all the way here would leave him exhausted.
He would have to preserve his stamina while running and preparing his equipment, so even if Mira had arrived in the city long ago, it would be a long while before Uncle could come.
As she coldly analyzed the situation, the hopelessness of it only became more certain.
"Guaaah?!?!!"
The orc warrior collapsed, clutching its groin.
The one struck by Elena's steel boot foamed at the mouth.
"I'm not going down like this! Who do you think is going to let themselves be defeated without even resisting to the end?!"
Elena's eyes shone fiercely.
She seized the orc warrior's axe.
It was too large even for her small hands to wield comfortably, but she swung it down, driving it into the ground beyond the fallen orc warrior's skull.
Her bare white thighs trembled.
But the spirit she exuded made the monsters hesitate for a moment.
The monsters surrounding Elena were clearly taking their cue from the giant wolf.
That giant wolf was the leader of the pack and the strongest monster.
When the giant wolf jerked its head, the orc warriors approached Elena.
The orc warriors narrowed the distance, snorting heavily.
Other monsters surrounded her from behind, while orc warriors blocked her path ahead.
In her hands was an axe she wasn't accustomed to wielding.
Elena gritted her teeth and squeezed her mana to its limit.
"You've held out well."
At that moment, the head of an Iron-Armored Boar fell in front of the orcs.
It was the head of the Iron-Armored Boar that had charged after Daril's party members. As the toad that had been licking its lips was split in half,
Someone walked into the center of the encirclement.
A man overflowing with savage mana.
It was Uncle.
Uncle stood beside Elena, holding the magic sword in one hand.
"U-Uncle!"
"We'll talk later."
The orc warriors charged with howls, and Uncle's magic sword cut them down in a single stroke.
The magic sword slipped through gaps as it avoided the axes and closed in.
At each slash, blue energy drawn from the orcs' bodies was sucked into the magic sword, burning even more brightly along the patterns on its blade.
After cutting down three more monsters, Uncle grabbed Elena's arm and pulled her to her feet.
"Take the remaining ones and run."
"What?"
"I'll clear a path. Don't look back. Run with all your strength."
Uncle faced the giant wolf head-on.
The monsters facing the human who had interrupted their hunt burned with hellfire-like ferocity, as though they were looking at an enemy they had sworn to destroy.
The mere act of facing him was suffocating, as though fighting Elena had been nothing more than child's play.
"I'm buying you time to escape. So take every last one of them with you. You went to all this trouble to save them, so it would be a waste if even one died."
"I won't."
Elena planted her feet and raised her sword.
"I'm staying, too. I can't leave you here alone, Uncle!"
"Elena, don't get in the way. Go. Do you think I don't know how badly hurt you are?"
He had cut down dozens of monsters.
He had been struck in the process, too.
He had held out by drinking potions, but now he had none left.
Recreating the movements from when he entered the battle was already pushing his physical limits.
His cool head analyzed his condition.
"B-but!"
"Go. Or are you planning to kill me?"
"...!"
"If I tell you to go, then go. Where does some pushover get off talking back to an adult?"
He shoved Elena away without looking back.
Elena's lips trembled.
"Sob...!"
After being shoved away, Elena's eyes reddened as she glared at Uncle through clenched teeth.
"You can't die! If you die, I won't let even you off, Uncle!"
With Uncle's final wave, Elena began running toward the city.
The power dwelling in Uncle's magic sword swept away the monsters blocking Elena's path, allowing her to escape through a gap in the encirclement.
The monsters' gazes turned back toward the fleeing Elena.
Eck shook his magic sword clean.
"Thaaanks for waiting for me."
After Elena disappeared, the monsters' killing intent became even more overt.
Their precious breeding host had disappeared, so now they could kill him without restraint.
The giant wolf singled out part of the pack and jerked its head toward Elena. A large number of wolves broke away and began pursuing her.
Eck raised his left index finger.
He slipped a ring onto that finger.
As the ring's power drank his mana, it released an unpleasant wave—a disgusting ripple that clung viscously and directly to the monsters' minds.
The ring he had farmed while raiding a thieves' clan in the back alleys drew the monsters' aggro.
Every gaze and every bit of attention that had turned toward Elena now shifted to Eck.
"Come at me, you perverted beast bastards."