Spoils

"Sis, are you feeling a little better now?"

Startled, the Saintess burrowed into my arms. Perhaps Shin Seoyeon taking the lead had helped; even though I had thrown an ax from the side as well, she wasn't afraid of me at all.

"Ah."

Shin Seoyeon looked dismayed when she saw the Saintess nestled in my arms.

Sorry, but it was already too late for regrets. The image of me as a murderer had been completely cemented. This was a perfect example of the bear doing the tricks while someone else pocketed the money.

"Ms. Hana, are you feeling a little better?"

"…Yes."

"May we move on?"

Nod.

After resting for a while and regaining some composure, the Saintess got to her feet.

Even the pathetic me, who had once been called an ATM, bullied for money, and unable to talk back, had adapted, and so had the Saintess in my first run. It would only take some time before she adapted as well.

"Then we'll continue moving."

***

Clack. Clack.

We walked across the stone floor and entered the temple. I'd heard that this place was like a labyrinth, and it really was.

Countless forks appeared, and we had to choose one and move on.

'She must have been pretty shaken.'

Thanks to the Saintess clinging tightly to me and refusing to let go, our pace had slowed considerably.

Hmm. Shin Seoyeon, who had been watching that with displeasure for a while, latched onto my right side just as tightly as the Saintess.

"What are you doing, Shin Seoyeon?"

"I'm cold because I'm wearing short sleeves."

"It's uncomfortable. Could you at least walk without clinging to me?"

"But where are we going right now?"

…Who am I even talking to right now?

I pointed at the traces scattered intermittently across the floor.

"We're following the bloodstains."

"Bloodstains?"

They were the marks left by the human hunter who had fled earlier.

"What the hell, you didn't kill that guy earlier? Can't you handle things properly, Black Dick?"

"……"

"What? Why are you looking at me like I'm pathetic?"

Honestly, if I'd been in the same situation as before, I would have launched a fireball without a second thought, before the enemy even had a chance to react.

Who had time for dialogue? If you attacked right away, you could take care of all of them in one shot.

Then there would have been no need for this annoying pursuit, either.

"What? Say something. Don't just insult me with your expression."

But what was the point of arguing over something that had already happened?

Now that things had turned out this way, I might as well make practical use of the situation.

Instead of answering, I kept walking.

"Black Dick, are you listening to me?"

Soon, after turning a corner, the human hunter who had fled was lying dead on the floor.

In front of him was a small stone chamber. When we entered, we saw countless pieces of loot piled up along one side.

"Wow."

Shin Seoyeon, who could have rivaled a dragon in her love of shiny things, exclaimed in awe and ran over to start picking up the jewels.

A variety of equipment was gathered right beside them, weapons in one pile and armor in another. Judging by the bastards' habits, they had clearly attacked and robbed other players to obtain it.

"Did you know this would happen and deliberately let him live?"

Shin Seoyeon had already gathered all the jewels and looked back at me with sparkling eyes.

"It wasn't intentional. Animals instinctively return to their homes when their time to die comes. In that guy's case, this was his home."

As I spoke, I inspected the equipment. Twenty-one weapons and eleven sets of armor.

'They really robbed a lot of people.'

<Item>

Name : Priest's Robe

Grade : Advanced

Description : Increases Mana recovery by 10%.

Every piece of armor was a priest's robe.

They were all the same color and had the same design. There were fewer of them than the weapons, which had a lower drop rate, so I was puzzled for a moment. But then I saw scraps of cloth scattered around, torn here and there, and understood.

'I guess they used them as toilet paper.'

That sort of thing happened occasionally in trial areas. Still, the idea of using such expensive items as toilet paper only made me let out a hollow laugh.

"Damn, but these bastards are seriously insane. Minjun, come over here."

"?"

The subdued tone made me get up immediately and head toward Shin Seoyeon.

In the dark shadows untouched by the light, I saw a familiar-looking shape.

What was that? I had barely begun to wonder when a foul stench rushed into my nose, and I immediately covered the Saintess's eyes.

"Huh?"

"Don't look."

It was a corpse.

A total of eleven corpses had been lined up like objects, with all their limbs removed.

They were all naked, with torn wounds around their anuses and bodily fluids dried around every hole. It wasn't hard to guess what they had been used for.

'So this was the collection.'

It was a sight I would see often from now on, but it had been a very long time since I'd seen something done by humans.

Usually, monsters had such a firm grip on this line of work that humans never had a chance to enter the business.

The Saintess took my hand.

"I want to see too."

"It's better if you don't."

"I can't keep avoiding things forever. I don't want to be a burden."

Her voice carried a certain resolve, so I moved my hand aside. But, as expected, the result was the same as before.

"Ugh."

I rubbed the Saintess's back again. Shin Seoyeon stared silently at the corpses, then fired a burst of flames and burned them.

"Tsk, those bastards died too easily. I should have made them suffer much more."

As the corpses crackled and burned, the Saintess tightly held my hand. Her eyes held a jumble of emotions.

"Why are we in a place like this? Will we really be able to survive until the end…?"

The Earth had perished overnight, and we had been thrown into this place so we could migrate to a world no one had ever visited.

It was a time when there was a lot to think about.

Perhaps some of the people who vanished during the first trial had been unable to accept this horrible reality and chosen to give up their lives themselves.

I stroked the Saintess's back.

"Don't worry. I'll protect you so nothing like this happens to you, Ms. Hana."

Only then did the eyes that had been shaking violently and wandering helplessly regain some focus. The emotion of trust began to take up more space in the Saintess's eyes than despair.

"Thank you, Mr. Minjun."

"Don't mention it."

I could practically watch her Affinity score shooting up.

A gaze that said she could trust me, even if she couldn't trust anyone else. It was deeply satisfying.

"What about me, Black Dick? Aren't you going to protect me?"

"You?"

"Yeah."

I was so dumbfounded that I protested.

"Protect yourself. You're stronger than I am, so why are you asking me to protect you?"

"Hey, that's… I know I'm stronger, but couldn't you at least say something nice?"

"Why bother?"

"……"

Shin Seoyeon scrunched up her face, huffed angrily, and started walking.

"Where are you going?"

"The bathroom!"

"S-Seoyeon, I'll go with you too."

The two of them disappeared into a corner of the stone chamber. Left alone, I watched the corpses blazing away, then suddenly noticed something and thrust out my hand.

'As expected, one had appeared.'

[Vitality Fragment]

A dead player's corpse had a certain chance of producing a stat fragment. The odds were extremely low, but apart from leveling up, it was one of the few ways to increase one's stats.

'Despite the fact that people need to join forces to clear the trials easily, this selfish item will cause many humans to die in the future.'

Humans really were strange creatures.

Why was the desire to trample over others and climb on top of them stronger than the desire to join forces and survive together?

After seeing the two of them pull up their panties, I secretly took it and absorbed it.

[Vitality has increased by 1.]

"So where do we go now?"

"Deeper inside. And get ready to fight."

"Huh? Fight?"

Humans were intelligent animals. No matter how completely they surrendered to their desires and behaved worse than dogs, they instinctively knew how to use their brains.

I raised my head and looked at the most useful legacy those human degenerates had left behind.

On the wall above the crackling, burning collection, a map had been drawn.

It showed the locations of the stairs leading to the depths and the routes to reach them. I copied the map, which was beginning to blacken with soot, onto paper I'd bought at the general store.

'So this is the shortest route to the depths.'

We left the stone chamber immediately. We had no intention of staying in this [Lair of Evil Spirits] until we died, so there was no reason to linger at the dungeon entrance.

'Bardo's remains can only be found after descending to the depths.'

The temple consisted of three floors in total, and different undead emerged on each floor.

Naturally, the farther down we went, the more troublesome the creatures we encountered would be to deal with.

'Of course, most people would be killed before they even made it down to the middle floor.'

Clatter. Clatter.

I was moving straight ahead when I suddenly stopped in place. Something was writhing in the darkness ahead.

'I'm perfectly prepared. We brought plenty of food and necessities, and most importantly, I have a weapon capable of killing the enemy.'

Clatter. Clatter.

「More blood… I need more…. More…. More….」

"What are those things?"

Along with the eerie air, figures that should have died long ago slowly revealed themselves.

"…Skeletons?"

They were skeletons. But they weren't the ordinary skeletons we imagined when we heard that word.

Unrotted eyeballs still glistened wetly in the skeletons' eye sockets, while dark-red veins twisted along their whites.

「Light… why have you abandoned us…?」

Their clattering jaws muttered. The horrible sound, impossible to tell whether it was speech or a scream, flowed into our minds rather than our eardrums.

Squelch.

Their torsos were even more horrifying.

Dark-red blood and scraps of flesh still clung wetly to their bones, making a damp sound with every step they took.

「Pray… but God will not listen….」

Every time they stepped forward, drops of blood fell onto the broken stone floor, then vanished like wisps of smoke.

Dozens of gleaming eyes searched every corner before stopping abruptly on us.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

Then all nineteen skeletons raised their weapons in unison and charged toward us.

「You will become like us!」

「Give me that body!」

Damn, I hadn't expected these things to look this grotesque. They were even more horrifying than I'd imagined. As expected, the Saintess screamed as if she were about to faint.

"Eek! W-what are those things?!"

I was certain that all thoughts of murder would disappear from the Saintess's mind today.

"Shin Seoyeon!"

As if she'd been waiting for it, a fireball flew out immediately.

Kaboom!

Seven skeletons were caught in the explosion, blown to pieces and engulfed in flames.

'Fire is one of the few attributes capable of dealing meaningful damage to undead.'

The terrifying thing about undead was their infinite regeneration, but fire was the symbol of destruction.

In particular, [Primordial Fire], which Shin Seoyeon wielded, was an ability with exceptional destructive power.

As expected, the skeletons caught in the explosion were unable to restore their bodies.

"Th-they're getting close!"

"Why are those piles of bones so fast?!"

But the others who had avoided the explosion closed the distance in an instant and raised their weapons.

Shin Seoyeon, who had been about to throw another fireball, hesitated.

If she launched it now, she might not be harmed as the caster, but the Saintess and I would be caught in the explosion immediately.

"Damn it, I'll switch from fireballs to breathing fire, so cover me!"

"Forget it. Take Ms. Hana and fall back."

"Huh?"

I gripped my sword and stepped forward.

-Thirty-one people were moving together, but fourteen died during the first encounter, and the rest scattered in every direction.

Old memories flickered through my mind. The survivor who had made it out of this place remained trapped by that trauma for the rest of his life and drank constantly.

-They wouldn't stay dead no matter how many times we killed them. Even if we broke their arms and severed their legs, they would crawl toward us with their backs broken and bite at the ankles of the living.

「You will become like us too! In this cursed place!」

I drew my sword. The two skeletons that had approached to within arm's reach also raised their weapons.

-When I faced the dead who wouldn't stay dead no matter how many times they were killed, my only choice had been to abandon my companions and run….

'It must have been horrifying, having to fight such ugly things that wouldn't even die.'

But the situation was different now. Whoosh, I swung my sword. The horizontal slash cut the two skeletons in half at the waist just as they were bringing their weapons down, leaving them sprawled on the floor.

'Two down.'

「I need blood! More!」

Three more skeletons charged in. I moved my sword again, quickly deciding my priorities and cutting them down one by one.

「We haven't died! We… are alive!」

The enemies charged without giving us a moment's rest, and their murderous intent was unmistakable. My skin prickled, and the fine hairs on my body stood on end.

Yet, for some reason, as I swung my sword against them, my mind grew clear and my heart became calm.

It was strange. This was more comfortable and soothing than laughing, talking, or fooling around.

'Eight.'

Wasn't this just like watching a YouTube Short on a smartphone? It was so relaxing, yet a smile slipped out of me without my realizing it.

'Twelve.'

After cutting down the last one, I let my sword droop and slowly exhaled the breath I'd been holding.

Phew. I looked around, and there was nothing left that was moving.

'Having a good weapon and high Strength makes things easy.'

Normally, I would have had to land more than ten hits on each one, but even a careless slash split them cleanly in two and left them motionless.

'So this is the fun of powerful weapons and overwhelming damage. Maxing Strength really was the answer.'

As I thought that, surprised voices came from behind me. I turned around to see the two of them staring at me with their mouths hanging open.

"Black Dick, what the hell are you…"

"?"

"D-did you learn kendo or something when you were young, Mr. Minjun?"

"No, I've never learned it."

Was that even a fight where learning kendo would have mattered?

I hadn't blocked a single attack from the enemy, nor had I dodged or deflected one.

I had simply swung my weapon first thanks to my stats and finished them with a single blow thanks to my weapon.

A grade-schooler could have done this.

"Th-that's amazing."

The Saintess's eyes sparkled. Our Saintess was always sincere when she praised someone, which was incredibly healing. It was hard to find anyone whose actions and words matched so perfectly.

"Then let's see what items they dropped."

I began rummaging through them, but it was strangely quiet. When I raised my head, I realized I was the only one checking.

"What are you doing? Neither of you is checking?"

"……"

"I've confirmed that they're all dead, so you don't need to worry."

But the two women still didn't move, and I soon understood why.

"M-Mr. Minjun, do we really have to touch them to reset them?"

Ah, they were having trouble touching those bones covered in blood and scraps of flesh.

Their expressions clearly showed how disgusted they were. I understood. I had been shocked by their appearance when I first saw them too.

Even so, I couldn't do everything alone every time we hunted monsters.

So what else could I do?

"Yes, you have to touch them. I'll reset nine, so each of you take five. Ms. Hana, we aren't leaving until you fill your quota."

"Y-you can't be serious."

Faced with my firm attitude, the Saintess began resetting them, swallowing her tears and doing it because she had no choice. Shin Seoyeon was horrified when she saw her.

"H-hey, do I really have to do this?"

"You won't make any money otherwise."

"No, I mean, do I really have to do it too? I'm the strongest source of firepower in this party. Can't you leave this kind of menial work to someone else?"

She wasn't wrong. In reality, the ideal arrangement would be for Shin Seoyeon and me to handle all the firepower while the Saintess went around picking things up.

Even so, I made them do it because—

"Because I felt like being petty."

"What?"

Oops, my inner voice had slipped out. I hurriedly corrected myself.

"If you help too, I'll give you all the jewels they drop from now on."

"Really?"

"Of course."

Shin Seoyeon's eyes lit up, and she readily accepted the offer.

"Black Dick, don't go back on your word later. If you ask me to call off the deal or beg me to give you even a few percent, I'm not budging."

"Yeah, yeah. Just don't be the one begging to pretend it never happened later."

Telling her not to worry because that would never happen, Shin Seoyeon happily placed her hands on the skeletons and began resetting them.