Chapter 29
[You have entered the middle level of <Demon Spirit's Nest>.]
Just as I stepped down from the stairs, a notification appeared.
At the same time, fog flowing low below my knees wound around both my legs.
[An eerie presence is interfering with your movement.]
[Your movement speed has been reduced by 10% by the curse.]
From the middle level onward, the curse takes effect. The area-wide curse mentioned in the quest was referring to this.
'What a nuisance. This won't be easy.'
I furrowed my brow as I watched my movements grow sluggish.
"I hate this curse. It feels awful."
Even Lee Sera, who had been riding piggyback on me, openly showed how uncomfortable she was.
A simple debuff, in a sense: the curse slowed movement by 10%. But it wasn't something to take lightly.
'Humans start feeling stressed over even the smallest things.'
Dense darkness.
Air that was stifling to breathe.
An unstable underground environment where we could be buried alive at any moment, along with cursed wraiths that hated the living and rushed to kill them.
As if that weren't enough to drain one's mental strength to the extreme, imagine some intangible force emerging and binding your body, preventing you from moving as you pleased.
It was a terrifying ordeal, enough to drive anyone with a weak mentality insane on the spot.
'My Magic Resistance is high thanks to my snowfield accessories, so it's somewhat less uncomfortable for me, but at this level, it's safe to assume there aren't any human hunters in the middle level.'
It was an intensely sensitive, grating sensation.
In a way, it was both a drawback and a clear advantage.
After all, there was nothing more troublesome than human hunters lying in wait in an environment where concealment, like this fog, was easy.
Scuff. Scuff.
I moved my feet slowly. A chapel gate well over twenty-five meters tall stood squarely before us.
It would have been difficult if I'd had to open it alone by force, but fortunately, the door had been broken enough to leave a gap wide enough for a person to pass through.
The fog interfering with movement was flowing out from beyond that door.
"Oppa, my head. I think I'm going to bump it while passing through."
"Just get down. From here on, we might have to fight from time to time."
"Okay."
At the words "might have to fight," Lee Sera got down from my shoulders without hesitation. Though young, she seemed to know exactly when she could play around and when she shouldn't.
'She must have really grown up here.'
I carefully passed through the roughly one-meter-thick door.
The fog grew a little thicker.
It covered the entire floor as if several stage dry-ice machines had been set up and were spraying it, yet the air above remained wide open enough for me to take in a rough view of the chapel.
'It's bigger than I expected.'
Rather than a chapel, it felt like I had entered an opera house.
From the entrance all the way to the raised stage, seats spread out in tiers, while on all three sides around them were galleries made up of rooms, layer upon layer.
And in each of those five-story galleries, fog flowed down like waterfalls, gathered toward the center of the chapel, then overflowed outside the chapel's main entrance.
Tap tap.
"Oppa, to go down to the deep level, we need to go over there."
"Behind the stage?"
"Yeah."
The stage area was completely engulfed by fog flowing down from the galleries, leaving almost nothing visible.
"Want me to guide you?"
"No, I'm fine."
For now, there was no reason to go to the deep level. I had already obtained [Bardo's Remains], and that one set of remains was enough for all of us to move on to the next Shelter.
"Then why did you come here?"
"Sera, you haven't explored much around here, have you?"
"No. This area gives me a bad feeling."
Sera made no effort to hide her discomfort.
Even after receiving the snowfield accessories from me, she was this uncomfortable; back when she hadn't even had those, there would have been no reason for Sera, who had already obtained the remains, to stay in the middle level.
Meanwhile, countless players had no choice but to make their way through this place.
That was why I needed to roam around this chapel from now on.
'Let's see. Shall I start by going up the right side?'
I headed for the seating area—or, more precisely, the pews on the right. Not long after I turned toward the stairs leading up, something lightly struck my foot.
'Bingo.'
I crouched to confirm what it was.
A human corpse. A desiccated body, apparently killed by a monster, lay forlornly abandoned in the fog.
I slammed my scabbard down hard on the area around its heart.
Thwack.
The bones crumbled into dust under the scabbard, and something rolled out from inside.
"Ah."
Lee Sera's eyes widened, as if she'd realized what I was trying to do.
[Strength Fragment]
When a player dies, there is a low chance of a stat fragment appearing.
[Strength has increased by 1.]
'A good start.'
Once I finished farming and stood up, Sera, having seen that, began to stretch.
"Oppa, can I collect them too?"
"Suit yourself. I'll search the right-side pews, so you search the left."
"Okay."
Just as I was about to leave, a thought occurred to me, and I quickly stopped Sera.
"Wait. Let's do this instead."
"?"
"You farm the stat fragments. I'll go around killing the monsters."
"You mean you're giving all of them to me?"
In truth, that was exactly what I was doing—if this girl had decided to follow me.
The more she grew, the more of humanity could survive, and in the end, it would also increase my chances of surviving the battle against the final trial, the Destruction Dragon.
"No."
But simply giving them to her might spoil her. It certainly wasn't because I coveted the large number of stat fragments that should be here.
"If you collect the stat fragments and give me half, I'll pay you an equivalent price."
"What's that supposed to mean? I'd definitely be losing out."
Lee Sera crossed her arms and snorted as if that was out of the question. Having spent days struggling through [Demon Spirit's Nest], she clearly understood the importance of stats.
Perhaps it was because she'd already eaten around thirty of them and experienced their effects firsthand.
But I had already seen all of Sera's cards, so I knew exactly how to hook her.
"You want to travel with us, don't you? If you give me half, I'll let you join our party."
"!!"
The cute hime-cut face that had been stubbornly refusing me a moment ago crumbled in an instant. Curiosity and delight rose to her face.
But, as befitted a girl, Sera soon put on a coy expression and rejected my offer.
"Still a loss for me. I can follow you around even now."
"You don't really understand what it means to become part of our party. You saw the two people upstairs, right? Their clothes and that staff? I provided them all."
"……."
"When I say I'll kill the monsters, I mean I'll sell the drops for money and use it to get you better weapons and clothes."
Sera's ears perked up, and she focused on me, clearly tempted. Of course, she still had to put on one more show of resistance.
"Hmph. The ones I got here were better than the weapons sold at the Shelter."
As she said that, the little girl pulled two daggers from her waist and showed them to me. I chuckled and said,
"Didn't you look at the special-option values on my weapon? There are plenty of items with even better values than this."
"…You're lying, right?"
"You don't know this because I haven't told you, but one of my [Unique Abilities] lets me freely buy special items like these from the shop."
"!!"
At that, Sera's eyes lit up. They fixed on the sword in my hand and wouldn't leave it.
I went so far as to place my sword in Sera's hands, letting her check the options herself.
A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she fidgeted.
She was almost hooked. I retrieved the sword and instead pulled out one final trump card, waving it before her eyes.
"And you remember this, right?"
[Summoner's Letter Envelope-Replica]
When the [Transcendent-Grade Item] she had once tried to steal fluttered before her eyes, Sera bounced on her heels.
"Have you ever seen an item like this anywhere?"
She shook her head.
"I'm the only one among the four billion people who can obtain something like this, you know?"
After I enthusiastically talked up the item, our greedy little brat grabbed my hand and said,
"I want in too! In Oppa's party!"
"We'll see."
"I'll give you half of the stat fragments!"
I stroked my chin and took a step back.
"Do we really need to do that? While you're farming, I can farm too and take half."
"Huh, wha?"
I had acted like I would let her join the party just moments ago, then changed my tune and turned away in an instant, and bewilderment spread across the little girl's face.
Even if she was a child who had survived for days in this vicious place, with my ten years of experience behind me, she was still just a fledgling.
Whether it was negotiation, bargaining, or trickery, she was no match for me.
"Let's just forget we ever had that conversation."
I turned around, and Sera immediately clung to me. She hung on like a cicada and pleaded.
"Oppa, I'm sorry. Please don't do that. Let me join your party."
"Sera. Life is all about timing. Opportunities come for a moment and then disappear. I gave you a chance not once but several times, and you kept rejecting me."
"Ugh. I-I was wrong. Please, can't you let me join too?"
The little girl hopped up and down as she pleaded.
To think this child would eventually become one of the S-rank heroes among the great hundred who saved humanity—the Reaper.
If people knew, they would be dumbfounded, but for now, she was still no more than a mere twenty-year-old youngster.
"Then good luck."
"Th-then 60%! If you let me join your party, I'll give you 60% of the stat fragments!"
"No, I'll just farm them myself."
As I moved my feet, Sera offered another condition.
"70%!"
"Could you get down already? My backpack is heavy enough as it is."
"80%!"
"Hup—well then, shall we start by searching the first floor of the right-side pews?"
When I continued to ignore her, Sera agonized over it, then shouted,
"I'll give you all of them! I'll give you every stat fragment I've eaten, so let me join too!"
It was almost a cry of frustration.
Her expression showed that she wasn't even sure whether this was the right decision, but she was clearly terrified that if she missed this chance, another one truly might never come.
"You'll really give me all of them?"
"Yeah. So take me with you too."
Well, in that case.
"Sera, you're promising me this?"
"I promise. So am I in your party now?"
"I'll watch what you do. You might say you promise, then secretly stash the fragments away."
Flinch.
"I need to watch you for a few days. I'll observe you and decide."
"Do you really have to?"
"Yeah. You lured monsters in and killed people, remember? From my perspective, I need to examine you carefully—to see whether you're the type to keep your promises to me, no matter how many bad things you've done."
"Ah, okay."
Sera drooped her shoulders and prepared to go farming. Her footsteps dragged as she left. I watched her pitiful back for a while, then said,
"But you can keep all the [Intelligence Fragments]."
Her ears perked up.
"Oppa, really?"
"Yeah. I don't need them. But you have to bring me all the rest."
"Okay!"
Until just a moment ago, Sera had looked utterly listless, but she instantly recovered her energy, bounced around, and disappeared down the stairs on the opposite side.
'[Stealth] consumes a lot of mana and stamina.'
That's why it requires a great deal of Intelligence and Vitality.
If I funneled the Intelligence I didn't need to Sera like this, and she made up some of the Vitality she lacked with level-up bonus stats, she'd be able to perform her role when [Stealth] truly needed to shine.
'Honestly, I wouldn't mind giving her all the stat fragments.'
If Sera gorged herself on stat fragments and rapidly grew until her total stats surpassed mine, she would become difficult to control.
It was best to avoid such a disaster.
'And I can raise my stats without putting in any effort while I'm at it.'
After confirming that Sera had completely disappeared, I turned and climbed the stairs leading to the right-side pews.
Corpses caught on my feet here and there, but I didn't bother checking them. Sera would take care of everything anyway.
'Then I should hunt as planned.'
Shing—I drew my sword.
A corridor stretched straight ahead. On the left were passages leading to the individual pew rooms, blocked by long blackout curtains.
And I saw a being entering and leaving without regard for those blackout curtains.
「Ahh….」
A wraith in the shape of a person, with a humanoid face, as if draped in a gauzy cloth so translucent its body showed through.
'A Specter.'
When it came to being troublesome, these things were worse than skeletons.
Perhaps because I had seen them, they seemed to have seen me too, and we all came to a dead stop.
Then they began flying rapidly toward me.
"Well then, let's see what good stuff these guys drop."
I charged toward them as well, gripping my sword tightly.