Chapter 13
[The Challenge Quest begins.]
"Huh? What's going on?"
The Saintess let out a flustered cry.
I stood with my back against the wall of the restaurant hall, watching the area ahead.
Beyond the flickering, feeble light, countless monsters were staring straight at us.
"Miss Hana. Keep a close watch over that side. Don't ever look away. The moment they leave your field of vision, they'll rush over at incredible speed and plunge a knife into your abdomen."
"Huh?"
"They can only move when they leave our field of vision. As long as we're watching them, they can't move even a single step."
"Wh-what are those things?"
Shadow monsters.
They were special monsters that appeared only in [Challenge Quests], and they boasted incredible stats.
They possessed the monstrous strength and speed to turn a person into a lump of meat in an instant.
To fight them head-on, your Agility would have to be at least 200.
'With our current stats, that's absolutely impossible.'
Their one restriction, at least, was that they couldn't move while being watched.
'This is getting troublesome.'
This was originally a quest meant for four or more people.
I had made the mistake of assuming this was the first shelter.
Since they had showered me with privileges for being a resident, I'd blithely accepted it, thinking, 'How difficult a quest could they possibly give me?' That had been my mistake.
"Is this a trial too?"
"No."
It was different from a trial. This was a shelter, a place to prepare for the trials ahead.
Thus, [Challenge Quest] could be called a sort of 'training system' where players trained for trials and received rewards.
'Though if you die, that's the end of it.'
Put kindly, it was practical training; put cynically, it was a noose.
A horrific trap that lured greedy people with plausible rewards and devoured them.
There were many such traps in the selection process.
Of course, for those vaunted S-ranks, they weren't traps but thrilling opportunities to win rewards; that didn't apply to me right now.
'A quest where shadow monsters appear is at least C-rank difficulty.'
What made [Challenge Quests] even more troublesome was that they didn't provide a separate objective. You had to figure out for yourself how to clear them.
'Luckily, I know about this quest….'
Kreeeek.
At that moment, accompanied by a bizarre sound, the black shadows rushed over and closed the distance to right in front of us in an instant.
"Eek!"
"Miss Song Hana, don't ever take your eyes off them! Don't even blink!"
It seemed Song Hana had blinked once, because in that brief moment, the monsters on her side all closed to within five meters of her.
If we'd been even a little slower, we'd have ended up as chopped meat.
"Wh-what do I do? How long do I have to keep my eyes open?"
"Just hold on a little longer."
Damn it. If we'd been able to move into a corner of the building, it would have been a little easier.
Somehow, I had my back against the wall in the center of the hall, but we were in a troublesome situation where we had to watch the front and both sides.
In short, the moment even one of us blinked, a truly gruesome ending would arrive.
But what made this Challenge Quest even more troublesome was how to finish it.
'One of these shadow monsters is the real one.'
Kill it, and the quest would end immediately.
Normally, you could clear it by having at least four people stand back-to-back, watch the enemies rushing in from all sides, and take them down one by one.
It was a quest you could clear easily just by overwhelming it with numbers.
'But there are only two of us, so we can't even approach them.'
The moment we moved away from the wall, the blind spots would increase.
But if we threw the axe at them one by one, we'd blink and be killed before we could find the real one.
Sure enough, my eyes were already beginning to itch.
Song Hana shouted too.
"I-I can't keep this up…."
A crisis at the brink of death.
Then, all at once, an idea flashed through my mind.
"Miss Hana. You see the monster that's farthest away among the ones in your field of vision?"
"Y-yes."
"Would you try hitting it with a heal?"
"H-healing? On a monster?"
"Yes."
Our diligent Saintess used her ability immediately without so much as a single objection to my request.
At that moment, pure white light burst from outside our field of vision, brilliantly illuminating the dark restaurant.
As a result, all the shadow monsters hiding in the darkness and impossible to see clearly came into view at once.
"Keep going until I tell you to stop. And don't ever close your eyes."
"Y-yes."
Flash. Flash. The view brightened and darkened repeatedly. The shadow monsters appeared and disappeared over and over.
'Where is it?'
I watched the monsters in the hall. The main body was definitely hiding among them.
Flash.
'Where in the world is it?'
My eyes rapidly swept over the shapes of the monsters. Then, at some point, they stopped dead.
'Found it.'
I pulled the axe from my thigh and hurled it with all my strength. It flew straight and lodged precisely between one shadow's brows.
Fwoosh.
"Huh? The shadows are disappearing."
The shadow monsters all began to vanish, as if being sucked into the floor.
As the weakened restaurant lights brightened, the gloomy atmosphere disappeared, and the elegant hall regained its former splendor, radiating warmth.
"Phew."
"Is it over?"
"Yes, fortunately."
"How?"
It was simple. Once I activated the [All-Seeing Eye] and looked, the fake and the real one were clearly distinguishable.
<Information Window>
Name : Gloomy Wraith (Main Body)
Strength : 120
Agility : 180
Vitality : 1
Intelligence : 0
I had asked the Saintess to use healing to illuminate the darkness so I could identify exactly which monster that information window belonged to.
'Even thinking about it again, this is absurd. I never expected to complete this Challenge Quest so easily.'
No, I couldn't exactly call it easy.
I plopped down beside the Saintess, who had slumped onto the floor after her tension was released.
Cleverly, our Saintess had cast healing on herself to loosen her stiff muscles when her legs had become too rigid to move.
She was a very clever Saintess, despite being timid.
"Huh?"
Then the Saintess looked back at me and suddenly opened her eyes wide.
"M-Minjun, you're bleeding from your waist! Your thigh too!"
"Yes, I am."
It had happened in an instant.
When I'd swung my arm wide to throw the axe, my vision had been blocked for a very brief moment, and during that opening, one of them had rushed over and stabbed me in the waist and thigh with a knife.
It had truly been the briefest of openings.
'…With a hole in my gut aching dully, I finally feel like I've entered the selection process.'
"I-I'll heal you right away!"
As I was receiving healing from the Saintess, someone approached and stopped right in front of us.
"Remarkable."
A middle-aged waiter with a magnificent beard looked down at us with an expression of mild surprise.
"I've never seen anyone clear my test so quickly. And with only two people, not a single wrong answer, and such a clean result."
[You have completed the Challenge Quest.]
[Evaluation: S]
The waiter bent at the waist and handed us something.
"Here is your reward."
It was an envelope resembling an invitation to a banquet.
<Item>
Name : Summoner's Letter Envelope
Grade : Transcendent
Description : Immediately brings the designated target to your location when used. Single-use.
'I never expected to receive this here.'
It was an extremely precious item.
Something you couldn't buy even with money.
There was no doubt it was a top-tier item, if only because its grade was Transcendent.
There were even two of them. I gave one to Song Hana.
"What is this?"
"The moment you use it, it can bring one person to wherever you are."
It could even cross dimensions.
An overpowered item that could bring someone from another location, trial, or shelter.
No wonder its grade was Transcendent.
"Huh? Wh-why are you giving me something this valuable?"
"Use it if you ever get separated or find yourself in danger during a trial. If you call for me in a crisis, I'll come help you anytime."
"Ah."
The Saintess clutched the letter tightly, her cheeks turning rosy.
"Th-thank you."
"Don't mention it."
It was an insurance policy, just in case. Rather than having me keep both, it might be better for the Saintess to hold one herself.
You never knew what unexpected situation might arise.
"Th-then are you going to clear it one more time?"
"Huh?"
"When I watch people playing games, they clear them and then clear them again…."
As she fiddled with the Snowfield accessories, she seemed to be asking whether we were going to grind this one too.
"No. You can only do this once here. That's why I made sure you got one, Miss Hana. If I had it my way, I'd give you both, but…."
"Ah…."
The Saintess's face grew a little redder.
"Th-thank you for looking out for me."
Watching her rub her thighs together with her legs pressed tightly closed and look at me with a flushed, eager expression, I figured I'd have to shower her with affection when we returned to the lodging later.
"Shall we head back now?"
"Yes."
That was when we had finished eating and stepped outside the restaurant.
"Hey, you there, buddy."
Some thirty men approached us from the opposite side of the street as if they had been waiting for us.
After seeing their faces, I clicked my tongue softly.
***
Every one of them looked burly or sinister, like gangsters.
One of them was even flaunting his tattooed upper body.
'…I thought they'd given up and gone back, but had they been waiting around nearby?'
They really had nothing better to do. They'd waited on the street all day and night just to rob the two of us.
'No, wait. Come to think of it, most of the other players moved on to the next region.'
The tutorial had disappeared, and we were the only newbies to have come to the shelter. So perhaps their behavior was only natural after all.
The man who appeared to be the group's leader sneered.
"You've got a good head on your shoulders, buddy. You even ran off to the most expensive-looking restaurant to protect your big-breasted girlfriend."
"……."
"But did you think that if you killed time pretending to eat and then came out, we'd just give up and move on?"
The leader snickered, and his underlings burst out laughing with him.
They looked at us greedily, as if we were appetizing prey right in front of them.
"Don't be too scared. We're not that bad either. Give us just 10 points per person, and we'll let you pass."
The development was so predictable that it didn't even feel surprising.
"Or if you don't want to give us money, you can lend us your girlfriend for a little while. We'll have our way with her and return her when we leave."
"Boss, you should mention that we'll split the money we make using his girlfriend's body with him."
"Heh-heh. I forgot to mention that."
I laughed too as they traded obscene jokes.
No matter where you went, there were always idiots who acted up without knowing their place.
I pushed the Saintess behind me, stepped forward, and spoke.
"What if I say no?"
"Oh, look at this bastard putting on a tough front in front of a woman. Guess we need to bring him back to reality."
With that, the leader jerked his chin, and one of the group stepped forward.
The Saintess screamed when she saw the knife in his hand.
"D-dangerous!"
"It's not dangerous."
"Pfft. Not dangerous? Let's see if you keep saying that after you get a hole in your gut!"
As he charged at me, I warned him.
"Hey, watch your jaw."
"Huh?"
Whack.
"?!"
An axe shot up from below and struck the man's jaw.
"Gueek."
The man let out a bizarre scream, toppled backward, and lay there twitching.
"Huh? Huh?"
"What the hell? What just happened?"
"His speed…?"
The group was thrown into confusion.
'Of course they're bewildered.'
My Agility was now more than twice that of an adult man. These fledgling players had never had a chance against me.
'Tsk. In the past, I would've split his head in half before anything else.'
I was behaving relatively decorously because I was in the middle of building up goodwill with the Saintess.
I had deliberately struck him with the blunt side so I wouldn't make her resent me by killing someone.
And I'd held back a great deal of my strength at that. So I hoped they'd retreat on their own….
"You fucking bastard! How dare you attack our guy?!"
Life rarely went the way I wanted.
"Boys! Beat the shit out of him!"
"Revenge! Revenge!"
"How dare you mess with the Seocho gang?"
Some thirty men approached, their eyes gleaming menacingly. The onlookers gathering nearby murmured among themselves.
"This is bad. Of all people, you had to pick a fight with them."
"They're the most powerful organization in this area. What do we do?"
So what if they were the most powerful organization?
A player who hadn't even reached Level 1 and hadn't gained a single bonus stat was, metaphorically speaking, nothing more than a newly hatched chick chirping away.
"You arrogant bastard, die!"
I swung the axe. Whack. The gang member charging me was struck by the axe and sprawled across the ground.
"What are you doing?! Trample him!"
"Charge in next!"
Whack. Whack. Whack.
The men fell flat one after another as they charged me.
Good grief, controlling my strength was difficult.
If I swung even a little faster, they seemed liable to die, but if I swung gently, they charged as if competing to be the first to hit me.
Whack. Whack-whack-whack.
Did they realize that I was struggling to control my strength?
"You bastard! I'll tear you to pieces!"
Even so, they didn't give up. Whenever an opening appeared, they immediately charged in and swung their blades.
'Tsk, this is why I should've smashed their heads in at the start.'
That way, they'd feel fear and run away.
Conversely, responding this halfheartedly only enraged them. Sure enough, as if proving that I'd mishandled the initial response, the enemy's assault grew fiercer and fiercer.
'Should I tell the Saintess to go back into the restaurant even now and then wipe them all out? No. Even if we fought outside, she could see everything clearly through the windows.'
Even though the dimensions inside and outside the building were different, the shelter had gone to the trouble of faithfully implementing pointless details like that.
'But if we move on to the next region now, we still haven't bought the things we need.'
Hmm. What should I do?
It was then, while I was seriously considering the matter and lazily swinging the bloodstained axe.
Suddenly, a familiar voice reached my ears.
"Black Dick!"
"Huh?"
"You fucking bastard! You finally showed up!"
I turned my head, and an all-too-familiar face was running toward us.
An S-rank money-grubber who would later be known as the Witch of Crimson Flame.