Chapter 16
Inside a cabin so dark I can't see an inch ahead.
[GeorgeTasty donated 50,000 won]
Hey, are you asleep?
“Noona's not asleep.”
- LOL
- Too bad
- No baiting
- Guys, be serious for a second.
- So, is he coming tonight or not?
As I expected, there's a high chance the rapist will watch for a day or two before making his move.
But you never know.
I don't know whether the real culprit will get horny and attack tonight or not.
I can't risk my womb by gambling like this, so I can't sleep.
- I'm just gonna sleep.
- Yeah, he won't come tonight.
- Don't bait us with donations.
Just as I was casually fooling around with the viewers.
Thud. Thud...
Someone's footsteps slowly draw near.
“Shh...”
- Gasp
- He really came, fuck
- Emergency!!!
I quickly close the chat window and pretend to sleep.
I wait for him to enter, breathing quietly and evenly, as though peacefully asleep.
After a little while,
- Creeeeak...
The old wooden door opens with a scraping sound.
- Clack..!
Then it closes.
‘Now.’
I won't let that filthy rapist touch even the hem of my clothes.
I dart forward through the darkness, quick and quiet as a cat, and strike the rapist in the abdomen.
- Thud!
“Kuh!”
Taking advantage of the moment he bends forward from the surprise attack, I lock in a rear naked choke and cut off his airway.
“Kuhk...! Mmph!”
A desperate struggle for survival.
He tries to pry my hands loose, claw at me, and stamp his feet, but the arm locked tightly around his neck refuses to budge.
And a little while later,
The mysterious man's body goes limp, and he loses consciousness.
“Phew, what a pushover.”
I lay the man on the bed, light a small candle, and check his face.
His identity is none other than...
“Paul?”
Paul, the red-haired mayor's son.
“Wait, this...”
With an uneasy feeling, I take off his pants.
“Ah, fuck...”
There's no scar on his lower abdomen.
I'm screwed...
*
- Should we just kill this bastard too?
- LOL
- Fuck, I knew this would happen.
- It's fine, let's dispose of the body first.
“No, we can't kill him...”
I'm fucked.
I'm so angry I want to stab Paul in the neck while he's lying sprawled on my bed, sleeping peacefully and oblivious to the world. But if I kill him, I fail the true ending.
“Why did this bastard come here?”
Could this be one of those gimmicks where it turns out there are two culprits?
“No, no, the victim testimonies were identical. Besides, this guy...”
I pull his pants down farther and check one more time.
“It's small?”
- Gasp
- ㅠㅠ
- Paul's still a baby.
- Tiny dick...
- What
- LOL
- Ahem!
- Hey, hey, hey
- Fuck, seeing it like that makes me feel sorry for him.
- Is he here because he couldn't get a woman because of that?
“Ahem... Is that so? Anyway, what should we do with this guy?”
The safest explanation would be to say I subdued him in self-defense after he attacked me in my sleep...
‘Then the real culprit won't come.’
I went to such lengths to advertise myself as a defenseless woman ripe for the taking, so wouldn't all that go to waste?
Then...
“Where did this bastard live again?”
I have no choice.
Surely he won't wake up in the morning and go around spreading the story, ‘I broke in to rape that female adventurer~ She hit me once and choked me unconscious~.’
- LOL
- That bastard's gonna wake up tomorrow completely bewildered.
- He probably won't even be able to show his face from embarrassment.
- He won't be able to say anything, lol.
In the end, I carry him to his room, sneak inside, and quietly lay him down.
- Thud!
As punishment for making me go to all this trouble, I smack him once in the thigh before leaving. He'll probably feel a little muscle soreness tomorrow.
“Phew...”
After staying awake, carrying a heavy load, and making the trip back and forth, I'm quite tired.
More than anything, I'm terribly hollow and deflated because the culprit I'd been happy to catch turned out not to be the real one.
“Sigh, I'm just going to sleep. If anyone comes, you know to sound the donation alert, right? I'm counting on you guys.”
- Count on us!
- Nope, we're gonna watch you get ravaged~
- LOL, you really trust us?
- You trust us?
*
[Ding~]
[DoheeTunaSoDamnTasty donated 100,000 won]
Do-hee, wake up! Emergencyyyyyy~~~!!!!!
- Too bad
- Ah, damn
- Guys, that's the right move, right?
- Where's the sleep-rape scene?
- No!! My porn!!!!
- Idiots, if it ends here, the porn ends too.
- Too bad
‘What the hell.’
The instant I hear the donation alert, I spring upright.
“Huh?”
“Hmm!”
Someone is half-straddling my body.
I quickly assess the situation, then raise my knee and strike him in the groin.
-Thok
But he draws his legs together and barely evades it.
A fist comes flying through the darkness.
I turn my head to dodge it, then pull my legs in as far as they will go and kick his upper body.
- Crash!!
He flies back, lightly collides with the wooden wall, and lands firmly on his feet.
“Who are you!”
He's no amateur. The only person in this village capable of moving like this is...
- Clang!
The sound of a sword being drawn.
I likewise grab the spear standing beside the bed and point it at him.
A quiet tension fills the air.
The cabin is shrouded in darkness thick enough that I can barely make out his shape.
The only light is a single, very faint ray of moonlight filtering down from the ceiling.
We silently glare at each other, then charge at one another without a word.
- Whoosh!!
A blurred shape, footsteps, breathing.
I gauge his position from all those cues and thrust my spear with force.
The spear tip glitters in the moonlight.
But he turns his sword sideways, parrying the spear aside as though shoving it away, and charges.
Then he puts the momentum of his charge into his sword and swings.
Swish—
I swiftly pull the spear back and retreat, while his sword cuts through the spot where I had been.
I nearly get my upper body sliced in half.
‘This lunatic... Is he trying to kill me?’
"[Haste]"
This is an enemy I absolutely can't beat by fighting carelessly. It's only one point of Agility, but it's better than nothing.
I avoid reckless attacks and keep him at bay by targeting his legs with the distance between us.
He tries to charge whenever he sees an opening, but each time he suffers only a light wound from my swiftly recovered spear and retreats.
“Tsk, you... Were you hiding your skill?”
A deep, middle-aged voice. He can't easily approach me, and focuses on dodging so he won't be pierced by the spear.
“What about you? Weren't you hiding that filthy lust of yours?”
- Clang!
He barely knocks the spear away and retreats.
A dark space.
I give him no time to determine where the spear is.
In the unseen darkness, feints and real attacks rain down in a dazzling flurry.
I feint toward his legs and strike at his head. It only grazes his shoulder, but wounds continue to accumulate on his body.
“Damn... This can't be.”
He tries to charge in recklessly, but when the back of his hand is pierced by my spear, he hurriedly retreats again.
“How... How can this be...”
Sparks fly from the spear crossed with his sword. My spear is pushed back by his strength, but just as he approaches, the spear reappears from somewhere and scratches his calf.
“Tsk... This is impossible... Me, to a mere woman.”
Not a difference in strength, but a difference in skill and experience.
“Repent in hell.”
I deliver the final blow toward his neck.
Just then, his eyes shine blue in the darkness.
“You brought this on yourself.”
As he speaks, tremendous energy gathers in his body.
- Kraaash!!!
‘That's... aura?’
The mana that gathered in an instant explodes, collapsing the shabby cabin and sending my body flying outside.
“Kuhk!”
Through the scattering dust and log fragments, he opens piercing blue eyes, infuses his sword with blue mana, and charges along the shortest route in an instant.
I use my spear to knock away a flying piece of wood, blocking his vision, then roll quickly to the side to evade.
- Whoooosh!!!
At the spot where I had been, the air tears with a shriek, and he once again takes a careful combat stance.
“Ha! I expected it, but this difficulty is fucking ridiculous!”
I knew it from the moment he blocked the punch I threw at the mayor's house.
His face, finally clearly visible in the soft moonlight.
“Captain Maikel of the guard! Why did you attack me!!!”
People are already beginning to gather at the thunderous sound of the cabin exploding.
But in front of me, Maikel shows no sign of backing down. Rather, blue mana is gradually gathering throughout his body. I can feel his determined resolve to focus solely on battle.
“Ha!”
I like it.
This situation is fucking awful, but I'm actually happy.
How long has it been?
How long since I last fought a battle where life and death were on the line?
How long since I last had a duel that made my blood boil!!!
The instant I see his thigh muscles compress, the ground shatters beneath him and he arrives right in front of me.
- Swish!!
I dodge the sword stabbing toward my chest through the gap between my breasts by a paper's breadth, and thrust my spear, but—
As if it had touched rapidly spinning gears, the spear tip is knocked upward.
I retreat far backward to evade his second horizontal slash.
“Sorry, but die here. Undercover investigator Pichina Evenstein.”
‘Fuck.’
He knew everything?
The air changes. Deep blue mana gathers densely along the guard captain's blade.
A spatial slash using sword aura.
A crescent-shaped blade of energy that slices through space approaches vertically.
The air trembles, and the ground splits.
“Hngh!!”
I take a deep breath and hurriedly dodge to the side, but as if he'd been waiting for it, his blue sword imbued with aura instantly descends as though to cleave my body in two.
Entangled.
The tip of my spear and his sword become entangled in midair.
Naturally, the sword infused with aura cuts down through the spear overwhelmingly, but in that tiny opening—
I guide it aside.
In the opening when the sword's trajectory is thrown off and its speed slows—
I abandon the spear, slip out of the sword's path, and drive inside his guard.
“What?”
Perhaps he expected me to block until the end; his body is pitched completely forward.
I gather every bit of strength from my lower body. I put it all into one punch and land it squarely on his chin.
- Smack!!
Even as he staggers, he tries to swing his sword horizontally, but I duck completely under it and sweep his legs out from under him.
“Guh?”
Then I pick up the spear embedded in the ground and stab him in the chest.
- Craaack!!!
His heart bursts, spraying red blood around us.
“Cough... How?”
His eyes waver. More than the fact that he's dying, the look on his face shows that he can't understand the exchange that just killed him.
“Talent.”
-Thud…
Maikel's wavering eyes go still, as if asking what that could possibly mean.
Sorry, but I have nothing else to say.
No, actually, there are more than twenty things I want to give him pointers on about that fight, but I don't have time.
‘Phew... What do I do now?’
Everyone is watching in stunned silence after the sudden commotion. A bunch of lunatics smashed a house and flew around fighting in the middle of the night, so they all look bewildered.
I make the first move before they can question me.
‘There's no need to reveal that I'm an investigator.’
“Phew, everyone!! I caught the insane sex offender who broke into my room!!”
“Oh?”
“Ah...?”
“The guard captain was a sex offender...?”
I can't give them time to regain their senses.
What I'm saying is certainly true, but I have no evidence to present right now, and these insane villagers might try to kill me even if they know the truth.
Of course I wouldn't lose, but then all the effort I'd put in would go to waste.
First, I take out the sack I'd prepared in advance from the wrecked cabin and put Maikel inside.
Before putting him in, I sneak a look below and find the scar, along with something else the size of a forearm. Sure enough, he was the culprit.
“Um... What's going on?”
“The guard captain!! What are you doing?!”
Those who were normally close to him seem to come to their senses and try to block me.
‘Damn it, this fucking mission.’
The shitty part about the Floor 3 trial.
To arrest the culprit and achieve the true ending, I have to safely get even the corpse all the way to the city before it counts as complete. That's why strategies like assassination or sniping aren't easy either.
‘Fuck it~ I don't know.’
As I run with the sack containing his corpse, the villagers begin chasing me with weapons in hand.
“Get her!!!”
“She's a murderer! Get her!!!!”
“No, this bastard is a sex offender!!”
Before I know it, I reach the village entrance.
“Ah...”
Can my luck really be this bad?
Rude, the hulking herbalist, is standing squarely in front of the gate.
‘Damn, I don't have time...’
But then,
“Go, quickly!”
‘Hmm???’
He subtly steps aside and even opens the gate for me.
‘What...’
I don't know what his story is. But now I'm indebted to him.
I dip my head slightly, leave, and the gate closes again.
I hear a commotion from inside, and before long the gate opens again, but by then the distance between me and them is already considerable.
“Waaaah!! Fuck, guys, we did it!!”
Of course, it's too early to relax.
I quickly untie the horse I'd left near the village, mount up, and ride away.
Before long, the distance between me and the pursuing villagers steadily widens, until they disappear from sight.
I really did it...
“Hahahahaha!!! This is it!! This is what I'm talking about!!”
The joy of victory surging up for the first time in a long while.
“Guys, isn't this the world's first SS-rank clear of Floor 3!!!”
That's right.
A guard captain who suddenly appeared and could even use aura.
A difficulty level that even knew my identity in advance.
It would naturally be S-rank even if I simply fought him, but if I safely clear the true-ending conditions, the rank rises further.
As far as I know, no one has ever received SS-rank here.
With anticipation, I open the chat window.
"How was I?"
- Kyaa
- She fights insanely well—what the hell?
- Wow... I just came.
- I admit it this time.
- How the fuck did you win?
- Kyaaah~
- I heard the rumors and came to see her breasts.
- Is this really the world's first?
- Apparently it's the first in Korea, at least.
- Fuck, that's insane.
- Oh....
- Is this Lee Do-hee?
“Hahahahahahahah!!”
This is why I stream. Hell yeah!
- Hng~
“???”
My vision suddenly flips.
I feel weightless, and I'm flying through the air after falling from the horse.
“Huh?”
‘Why?’
- Crash-bang-bang!!
The horse hits the ground at full gallop and rolls violently.
“Kraaagh... Cough!!”
It feels like I've been in a traffic accident. I can't breathe properly.
‘What the hell is going on?’
It looks like the horse tripped over something—but why now?
‘Ah...’
I soon see the cause.
- Kieeeet!
- Kishaahaat!!
Goblins. Countless goblins are charging madly from the forest onto the road, wildly excited.
And only then do I remember what the villagers said.
[We don't usually accept adventurers, but goblins sometimes show up nearby, so we can't just turn a blind eye.]
[There have been more monsters around here lately.]
[Take on a monster-extermination request around here sometime. The goblins have been running rampant lately, so the women can't go outside...]
[It's dangerous outside the village, so you need to accompany us even to the well.]
And the village's excessively sturdy-looking wooden fence as well...
Every clue had been warning me to watch out for goblins.
“Haha... Right, so you don't hand out an SS-rank reward that easily, huh?”
I knew things had been going far too smoothly.
“Come at me all at once. I'll kill you all!”
Tonight might be a bit of a long one.