Chapter 28
When I woke up, something felt uncomfortable below my waist.
When I pushed aside the blanket, huh? Lee Sera was asleep, hugging my dick.
'...Why is she here?'
I had felt someone sucking my dick in my sleep, so I naturally assumed it was one of them, let her make me come once, and fell back asleep with her in my arms....
Yet some little brat was in my arms.
Fortunately, neither the Saintess nor Shin Seoyeon knew about it yet.
"Hey, Lee Sera, wake up."
"Mmm."
"I said wake up."
When I shook her awake, she instead gripped my dick tightly and sucked on it with little kisses.
"…Mmm. This is mine. You two just watch from a distance."
"What is she talking about?"
Was she dreaming?
No, that wasn't what mattered right now. For some reason, only the two of us were on the tent mattress, and we were both naked.
I fetched my underwear from where it had flown into a corner of the tent and quietly shook Lee Sera awake again.
Zzz...
Instead, she burrowed into my arms and kept sleeping.
Deciding that this wouldn't do, I tightly pinched the nipple on Lee Sera's flat chest.
Squeeze.
"!!"
As soon as I twisted it slightly, she reacted.
Her eyes flashing, Lee Sera sprang upright, assumed a guarded stance, and began looking around.
Those sharp eyes and that fierce presence were exactly what one would expect from a girl who had spent several days in this hellish region.
"What are you doing here?"
"?"
Only then did she look at me and blink repeatedly, before lowering her head to look at my dick.
"I'm joining the competition too."
"Huh? What does that mean?"
But instead of answering, Lee Sera just said her piece, gathered her clothes, and slipped out of the tent.
With a rustle, her figure soon faded from view and disappeared beyond the storeroom.
"...What?"
Left behind without warning, I scratched my head with a bewildered expression, got dressed, and went outside.
By then, morning must have arrived, because brilliant white light had settled over the stone chamber in place of the faint moonlight.
Shin Seoyeon and the Saintess were dozing while leaning against one of the walls.
'The time just before the morning sun rises is the sleepiest.'
And this was the happiest, most restful time a player could enjoy in a trial area.
The monsters' ferocity and desire to hunt dropped away in an instant, leaving them quiet.
So I left the two of them alone so they could sleep well. I fetched water to wash with and prepared breakfast instead.
'But I'm still curious. What on earth was Lee Sera talking about?'
She was normally the type who never talked about anything pointless. Was there something I didn't know?
I thought so as I washed my dick, which three women had sucked throughout the night.
***
"So what are we doing today? Are we going down to the middle level?"
"No, we're farming today."
Now that we'd secured a campsite, I intended to start making money in earnest.
After leaving the safe zone through the crawlspace, we explored the monastery ruins, still shrouded in deep darkness.
"We're not going down to the middle level? You're going to farm here?"
"Yeah."
"Wouldn't it be better to retrieve Vardo's remains first?"
"I already retrieved them."
"What?"
Shin Seoyeon's eyes opened wide. The Saintess clasped her hands together, her eyes sparkling.
"As expected of you, Mr. Minjun! You're amazing! When did you manage to do that?"
"No, seriously, when did you retrieve them?"
"Yesterday, while I was taking care of business, a cute fairy appeared and gave them to me as a present."
"I'm not in the mood for jokes right now."
"I wasn't joking."
I glanced back, and Lee Sera was still following us. Perhaps the future had already changed.
"Fine, let's say that's true. But you're going to farm items here? Don't stronger monsters drop better items? Wouldn't it make more sense to go down?"
That wasn't necessarily true.
Of course, the stronger a monster was, the higher the grade of the items it dropped, and the higher the values on their special options.
But I couldn't say for certain that those items were what we needed. Stronger monsters didn't always drop more expensive gear.
However, I didn't bother elaborating on that point.
"You're right, Seoyeon, but we don't know what kind of monsters will appear below. Here, on the other hand, we've already hunted here extensively."
If I explained it in detail, our sharp-witted Witch of Crimson Flame would question how I knew all that, too.
Shin Seoyeon nodded at my suitably vague explanation.
"So you're saying we'll play it safe."
"Exactly."
I marked the route we'd taken on the map as I continued walking.
After passing countless forks and rooms and walking down a very long corridor, we rounded a corner and found a passageway that was clearly different from the ones we'd passed through before.
"What's this...? The corridor suddenly got much wider."
"There are several large doors on both sides too, Mr. Minjun."
The corridor was one and a half times wider than the passages we'd previously used. Six enormous doors, each at least four meters wide, stood along either side.
Beyond those doors, at the end of the corridor, two monk statues stood sending blue flames upward. Between them was a tunnel that bent downward underground.
"That's the entrance leading down to the middle level."
"What? You said we weren't going down and would farm here."
"That's right. The place we're going to farm is just beyond this door."
We stopped in front of one of the six doors.
"What's this place?"
"The Waiting Room."
"The Waiting Room?"
"Before entering the chapel, the parishioners would come here to clean themselves, straighten their clothes, and prepare."
They would gather here, then descend to the chapel on the middle level via the central staircase visible over there when it was time for worship.
"For your information, the entire middle level is a chapel."
"The chapel must be enormous. It took us over four hours just to get here from the entrance."
"It's a mistake to assume the upper and lower floors are the same size. The lower floor is probably much smaller."
"Ah, I suppose that's possible."
However, there was no way to know the size of the deep level.
The Human Hunter had apparently never made it all the way down there, because his map only extended to the area around the middle-level stairs, and the drunken rambling of a survivor from my first run had offered no particularly useful information either.
-It's unbelievably vast. The deep level is like an endless maze. Yet strangely, you can reach the central room in no time. I don't know what's inside. It looked exactly like a boss room.
"We're going in, so get ready."
I gripped the Waiting Room's door and threw it open. There were statues inside as well, and because there were more of them than in the corridor, the Waiting Room was fairly bright.
The light alone was enough to dispel the oppressive feeling.
But that wasn't necessarily a good thing.
「Pray... but God will not listen....」
「O light... why have you abandoned us...?」
An astonishing number of skeletons were coiled up inside the Waiting Room. Despite the room itself being large, there were so many that it looked cramped at a glance.
Perhaps because the light was so bright, the skeletons' hideous forms were even clearer: bones caked with blood and eyes darkly bloodshot.
"Huh? I-isn't this too many?"
"Hey, Black Dick. Shouldn't we close the door again...?"
There were a full hundred of them, and even Shin Seoyeon seemed slightly frightened as she slowly backed away.
In fact, this room was a trap.
-We shouldn't have opened the Waiting Room. After opening that room, we could never make it back upstairs. The skeletons released from there were no longer trapped in the Waiting Room and began actively scouting the area.
Trial areas had traps like this. That was why players had to be careful with every action they took.
A careless decision could continue affecting everything that followed.
"Why are you scared?"
Of course, to me, this place was nothing more than a delicious farming spot.
'Wow, I didn't expect this many monsters to be gathered here.'
This was a real jackpot. I drew my sword and took up position in front of the two women.
"I'll block everything that charges us at the entrance, so Shin Seoyeon, throw fireballs at the ones farther away."
"A-are you sure you can handle it alone?"
"It's more than enough. Ms. Hana, please restore Seoyeon's mana."
"Y-yes!"
Around that time, the vengeful spirits, which couldn't detect sound but could see players, gradually turned to look at us.
「You will become like us too!」
「We need blood! More...!」
Clatter-clatter- The skeletons all began charging toward us at once.
"I-it's coming."
"Seoyeon, I told you not to be scared. Just trust me."
"Ugh...! Yeah, let's give it a try!"
Fwoosh! A blazing fireball flew into the center of the Waiting Room. KABOOM! The explosion unleashed flames hot enough to sear my skin.
A dozen skeletons were caught in the single attack and blown apart on the spot.
'As expected of the Witch of Crimson Flame.'
In the first trial, and in [Lair of Evil Spirits] at that—the trial said to have the highest difficulty—not a single other player could produce this level of firepower.
In terms of sheer destructive power, she was unquestionably among the top five in the world.
'Then I just need to do my part.'
「We need blood! More blood!」
I gripped my sword and glared at the enemies.
Dozens of skeletons were charging, but only a limited number of them could cross the doorway.
The number I had to fight at once was limited as well.
Yet standing alone before dozens of dead who charged with eyes gleaming with resentment was still frightening, even after ten years on the battlefield.
'That's the right of the living.'
Just as one couldn't abandon desire, one couldn't abandon fear either.
Most of those who tried to cast it aside went mad. Everyone who grew arrogant and claimed not to fear died.
Whoosh!
「Give me your body!」
As I watched the enemy's raised blade, I forcibly suppressed that uncomfortable emotion.
Even if I couldn't cast off fear, I could suppress it.
That was my own hard-earned skill, acquired by surviving ten years while facing the fear of death.
'Above all.'
「You won't escape this place either!」
Before the skeletons could swing their weapons, I moved my sword a step ahead of them. In a momentary flash of steel, the skeletons charging at the front were cleanly severed and collapsed.
-If I grow strong, I will repay you.
-Yes, I'll wait.
In my first run, I hadn't been strong enough to keep that promise.
But this time would be different.
「Guh.」
'Three down for now.'
The enemies charged again without giving me a moment to rest, but I moved my sword again and again, refusing to let even a single one pass through.
I refused to let them reach her.
Before long, the area near the door was filled with the remains of skeletons.
***
"Wow, so many came out."
The Saintess marveled as she looked at the eight weapons and twelve priestly robes. We'd killed a lot, but the drop rate was definitely high.
'[Luck]' and '[10x Drop Rate]' must be responsible.
The three of us had obtained in under ten minutes what would take others a ten-person party hunting all day to get.
"Hehe. I'm rich now!"
Shin Seoyeon cheerfully gathered up the treasure. Behind her, Lee Sera crouched in stealth, taking gems one by one from the pouch Shin Seoyeon had opened.
Interestingly, the moment Lee Sera picked up a gem, it vanished without a trace in less than a second.
'She's taking almost half.'
The clueless fool of a witch was too busy picking up gems to notice.
After finishing all the resets, I closed the Waiting Room door. Then I led the group to a corner of the Waiting Room and dragged over furniture, arranging it like a barricade.
"Ms. Hana, you remember what we did during the tutorial, right?"
"Ah."
"We'll do the same thing here, in this room. Seoyeon, kill the monsters as soon as they respawn, and Ms. Hana, restore Seoyeon's mana. When no more monsters appear, the two of you can leave the barricade and go around resetting them."
"What if a monster pops out in the middle of that?"
"After we reset these, it takes thirty minutes for them to spawn again. If you've watched for about five minutes and nothing appears, you can move then."
Shin Seoyeon crossed her arms and voiced her displeasure.
"Then what are you going to do? Go play by yourself?"
"As if."
"……."
A suspicious look.
Our Seoyeon was certainly quick on the uptake.
"I'm going to scout the surroundings. I'll check whether this area is safe and whether anything dangerous lies between the campsite and here. If I have time, I'll also look around the middle level."
"Hmm, that doesn't sound too bad."
Shin Seoyeon readily accepted my suggestion that settling down in one place and hunting comfortably was better than walking around to investigate.
I watched the two of them for about three hours to make sure there were no problems with their hunting, then quietly left the Waiting Room.
'That pair definitely hunts much faster than I do. And more safely.'
It was a party made up of two S-rank players. I was certain that among four billion people, there was no one who could hunt faster than them.
After making those two outstanding women grind away at hunting, I stood before the stairs leading to the middle level.
Ssshhh-
A gloomy energy different from this place was slowly seeping up from deep within the tunnel.
A chill crept over me like a thin layer of ice forming on my skin.
"It seems a little cold. Are you all right?"
Lee Sera, who had been toddling along behind me in her pantyless, bottomless outfit, felt the chill at my question, thought for a moment, then hopped onto my shoulders.
"……."
Lee Sera's thighs wrapped around both my cheeks, bringing the pleasant scent of a young woman's skin and a faint fragrance of body wash.
I looked up at Lee Sera and said,
"We're both uncomfortable, so how about you put on a priestly robe now?"
"Huh? I'm not uncomfortable."
In short, she meant that she didn't want to put on a priestly robe.
"Where are your panties?"
"They're drying with my pants."
"Want to borrow my clothes?"
"Hehe~"
"……."
Lee Sera perched on my shoulders and cheerfully swung only her legs up and down, like a child splashing around at a swimming pool.
Humming to herself, she filtered out everything I said and listened only to whatever she wanted to hear.
"Sera, I'm asking you."
"Mister, mister, there's something I want to know."
"...Call me oppa."
"Mister, do you have a wife?"
"……."
I huffed and gave up. She was completely self-centered. It felt like dealing with a high school girl who refused to listen.
'Should I smack her?'
But then I held back. Counting my first run, I was thirty years old. What was I doing bickering with a little brat at my age? I should just humor her appropriately and leave it at that.
"Mister, I'm asking you."
"Ah, what was it our little bed-wetter said?"
"……."
The top of my head suddenly fell silent. An answer soon came back.
"Oppa, do you have a wife?"
I descended the stairs one step at a time with the S-rank bed-wetter.
Soon, we reached the end of the stairs, and the entrance to a massive chapel came into view.