Chapter 26
- Proof Post) Here's a photo proving I have bottled water...jpg
- New bed I got, pretty decent?.jpg
- Seriously, you can't tell day from night here.jpg
“What do you mean, this is all?”
Frederick frowned as he looked over the posts Duke Isaac had brought.
This was just a shitpost from Head Mod, wasn't it?
It even had .jpg appended to the end, trying to bait people despite being Head Mod.
But Isaac was relaxed.
When he beckoned behind him, one of the assassins brought over a trembling man.
“Who is that?”
“He is the head of the Glain Merchant Guild.”
“Ah, I know it. Isn't that the guild that once sold food supplies to the Kingdom of Kelton?”
It was the merchant guild they had put forward as a sort of token when establishing diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Kelton.
Of course, that was all a thing of the distant past.
Because the Kingdom of Kelton no longer existed.
“Look at the photos in this post.”
Title: New bed I got, pretty decent?.jpg
Author: Head Mod☆
(A meme showing off a bed acquired through barter)
Lol, my back hurt from the stone floor, but this is solid.
Since I can't even leave, shouldn't I at least make lying down comfortable?
- Fuck, what's with the pink? lol
ㄴ It even has a canopy.
ㄴ Are you admitting that Head Mod is a beautiful half-elf girl?
- What is this, why is it so dark;
ㄴ It's darker than the shed in my backyard.
ㄴ Head Mod, go outside and get some sunlight, live a little!
ㄴ Head Mod☆) Can't, there are weirdos outside ㄴㄴ;
“As you can see, barrels of food supplies are stacked behind him. Every one of them bears the Glain Merchant Guild's crest.”
“And?”
“The stone floor and the inability to tell day from night suggest that it's an underground warehouse.”
“Hmm.”
Frederick put a hand to his chin.
“So that must be the Kingdom of Kelton?”
“The Glain Merchant Guild was founded solely to establish diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Kelton. And our Empire does not make much use of underground warehouses.”
At that point, Duke Isaac unfolded a map.
The map, drawn with the capital of the Kingdom of Kelton at its center, contained numerous circles.
“This is a map showing the locations of all the underground warehouses.”
Most of the circles had an X drawn through them, leaving only a few places remaining.
“Then that means!”
“...That's right.”
A deep smile spread across Duke Isaac's lips.
“I'll go kill Head Mod.”
The perfect opportunity had arisen to eliminate Head Mod, the obstacle in the Adrian Empire's way.
*
“Oh?”
There was really nothing to do in the warehouse.
When that happened, you naturally took an interest in all sorts of things, and one of those was the Rift, my pet lava.
After conducting various experiments with the Rift to kill time, I learned one thing.
“What the hell? It's a teleport.”
It was a teleport leading directly somewhere.
I repeatedly put the holy sword into the Rift and pulled it back out on purpose, but the holy sword was perfectly fine.
There was no sign that it had been damaged or broken anywhere.
“If I went in there and posted a proof thread, it'd be featured instantly.”
Head Mod was ultimately just another gallery user.
I felt a momentary impulse, but I didn't do anything reckless like sticking my face in there.
Having realized only that it was a passage leading somewhere, I simply resumed browsing the gallery.
But there wasn't much to do.
The unpaid-slave full-blood elf had finally shed the air of a newbie and started managing their share of the gallery.
And with two blue moderators working hard, I didn't need to manage the gallery as strictly as before.
“Since things have turned out this way, should I look through some old posts?”
Thus began the digging through my gallery log.
A gallery log could be called a sort of gallery-user library, collecting all the old posts written by one gallery user.
I had a hobby of occasionally looking through my old posts and checking the reactions in the comments.
While looking through the posts, I noticed something strange.
“What the hell? Why did the view count go up?”
- New bed I got, pretty decent?.jpg
- Seriously, you can't tell day from night here.jpg
They were shitposts whose bait had failed.
But hadn't the view counts increased?
The change wasn't just from single digits to double digits; they had even gone over a hundred views.
It wasn't as if any new comments had been added, either.
“Tsk, what is this? It feels a little unsettling.”
Someone had searched through my gallery log to look at a post with nothing but a single photo.
As if they were investigating something.
- Head Mod, be careful about your safety
- There are lots of creepy gallery users targeting you
- Be careful when uploading photos, too. Some things could give away your location
- If you're not around, the gallery will die!
- Please be careful
Come to think of it, a lot of worried comments had been posted in the early days after I joined the gallery.
“I do make sure to be careful with every photo now, but...”
In the early days, I had a history of taking pictures of all sorts of things and uploading them simply because they were fascinating.
I felt a sense of alarm.
“Should I move, just once?”
It had been far too long since I'd holed myself up in the warehouse.
I should consider taking measures to secure the warehouse or finding a second shelter.
Of course, starting tomorrow.
“Seriously, starting tomorrow. I swear I'll do it for real.”
It absolutely wasn't because I was too lazy.
I slipped beneath the blanket and slowly closed my eyes.
And just as I was about to wake up after getting a reasonable amount of sleep and continue thinking about moving...
Rattle, clunk.
“...?”
It was a tiny sound, the sort that could only be heard in complete silence.
Clunk, clunk.
I opened my eyes and turned toward the source of the noise. A small sound was coming from near the entrance.
I slowly approached on cat's feet and realized what the sound was.
“Is that the sound of someone picking the lock?”
It was the sound of someone picking the warehouse door's lock and coming inside.
Then they were repeatedly opening and closing it because they had been blocked by the materials I had piled up like a mountain in front of it.
*
The finest assassins in the imperial court.
They were a group of experts who had never failed to catch a target once they had been assigned one.
They were in the middle of carrying out their recently assigned mission to find Head Mod when they picked the lock on yet another warehouse.
Clunk.
“Something's caught.”
“It's here. They're inside.”
They had picked the lock, but the door wouldn't open.
Something had been used to block it from the inside.
The assassins were just gathering near the entrance, magic in one hand and daggers in the other, when—
“I didn't order a package!”
A loud voice came from inside.
It was the voice of someone unfamiliar.
They couldn't be certain it was Head Mod, but it didn't matter.
“We only need to observe whether Head Mod continues to operate after we kill them.”
They had killed around fifteen innocent people like that.
They felt no guilt.
They were in the middle of melting the wooden door away with corrosive magic.
“Stop! I can shoot!”
The gallery-exclusive ultimate magic: Stop.
The assassins froze for a moment at the sound, but ignored it and continued melting the door.
Then they spotted someone inside.
“Found them.”
A sinister smile spread across their lips.
Their movements looked inexperienced, and their reactions were clumsy.
There was nothing easier than killing an opponent who was hesitating.
It was just as the assassins grinned and prepared to enter.
Bang!
Sparks flew in the darkness.
“Urgh!”
And the leader of the assassination squad was knocked flat.
“C-commander?”
“They're dead?”
The leader, the most skilled of all the assassins, had died in the blink of an eye.
Seeing them sprawled over the stairs and bleeding profusely, the assassins swallowed hard.
“So they're not Head Mod for nothing.”
“We'll go in with magic resistance up.”
When the deputy commander, now the commander, gave the order, everyone covered themselves in magical barriers and advanced again.
Whoosh!
This time, an unfamiliar iron ball came flying at them.
“It's that weapon!”
The assassins immediately realized what it was.
A bizarre magical explosive attack that could pierce even a Bone Dragon's magical defenses before detonating.
One of the assassins instantly cut the flying grenade cleanly in two with a dagger.
It was speed befitting the finest assassin!
Kaboom!
Of course, the grenade exploded just as quickly.
“Aaargh!”
“You crazy bastard! This isn't that weapon!”
This weapon wasn't a fragmentation grenade.
It was a high-explosive grenade.
One of the worst modern weapons, sending its embedded iron pellets flying toward every nearby target.
“Aaaagh...”
“Y-you monstrous bastard!”
They had never felt this much of a crisis, not even when taking down high-ranking mages.
What on earth were those attacks?
There was no more probing exchange.
Leaving their bloodied comrades behind, the few survivors began leaping over the wreckage and charging in.
Click!
Then they heard a spine-chilling sound.
“Freeze, freeze! Hands up! Move and I'll shoot.”
Head Mod emerged from behind the cover, holding an ugly, unpleasant black object.
It was a KK2 rifle, the tears of Korean soldiers.
“Hwarang?”
“Forget it!”
The assassins didn't know the password, so naturally, it didn't work.
Head Mod had no intention of letting them off, so they immediately shouldered the rifle and aimed at the assassins on full automatic.
“I'm a top-class marksman. Assassins? That's a problem.”
And just as Head Mod was about to turn the assassins into corpses!
Click, click.
“Fuck.”
The rifle had malfunctioned.
A round had jammed after the previous shot, rendering it useless.
“Damn it! I should've just used the shotgun!!!”
Why had Head Mod chosen the KK2 for the sake of familiarity?
Why had they forgotten that familiarity came with malfunctions?
It felt as though a flashback were passing through Head Mod's mind.
Then the forgotten Rabbit Hole ticket came to mind.
At that moment, an assassin shouted in a voice filled with venom.
“Don't think you can get away by lucking your way past my dagger!”
“Thank you!”
Head Mod barely dodged the dagger and fled to a corner.
Because they had placed obstacles between them, the assassins couldn't chase after them immediately.
In the meantime, Head Mod managed to find the Rabbit Hole ticket they had stashed in the corner.
“I was supposed to tear this, right?”
The escape button they had been saving for the absolute last, last, last moment.
Using it would let Head Mod escape to the rabbit beastfolk village that was after them.
It was anyone's guess whether they could escape from there, but it was still better than dying right now.
“Die!”
At the exact moment the assassins reached them.
Head Mod held the ticket in both hands!
“Still, the rabbit beastfolk village is a bit much.”
They threw themself into the Rift.