Chapter 524: A Predictable Story 4

A crazy side quest with Phase 1 featuring illusion traps requiring dice roll checks, and Phase 2 where she chooses to escape the moment her illusions are broken and she loses health.

This kind of pattern would make even the most patient gamer curse and pound their desk, even in a regular PC online game with a mouse and keyboard, not just in virtual reality. I wasn’t exactly a patient user either, and felt like throwing the warhammer in my hand.

Actually, if Elize hadn’t stopped the witch, I’d definitely have been cursing while frantically chasing after her like a dog after a chicken.

“You’re not even half-witted!”

“But I can still grab your ankle, you fucking bitch!”

The one who caught the mad witch trying to flee into the sky without hesitation was Elize, who had popped out of thin air just like me.

As the mad witch said, Elize’s 4★ strength might be negligible. After all, the mad witch used traps that could plunge a natural 6★ into hallucinations and neutralize 5★s without them even being able to resist. She was such an annoying and powerful opponent that the quest had provided two 5★ mercenaries from the start.

But Elize could certainly grab the ankle of a witch trying to fly away. Even if her title was “Fake Witch,” the sorcery she learned from her master was very real.

“You witch, didn’t you know this would happen? Your dead master would lament how pathetic you are!”

“This, this is nothing!”

“Die because of your toys, you fucking bitch!”

Elize screamed while frantically throwing sorcery-related objects from what must have been an enchanted pouch inside her clothes. A chilling sensation filled the air.

It wasn’t like she called out a skill name as with magic, nor had she summoned something visibly striking like fire or ice. But something invisible, gloomy, and terrible was creeping up, grabbing onto the witch’s broomstick and ankles.

Was it a sorcery related to grudges? Not wanting to miss an opportunity due to curiosity and end up in a nighttime chase, I charged my body with mana for extreme enhancement. The silhouette of the sorcery that became faintly visible was countless arms.

Like a scene from a horror movie, the hands of the dead crawling up from the ground tenaciously held onto the witch—children’s hands, elderly hands, even the grotesque hands of orcs and yeti, all united in purpose.

“Are you trying to escape because you’re scared of toys?!!”

“You worm, getting all high and mighty!”

Was it because she had her village’s and master’s enemy right before her eyes? Elize’s mysterious and elegant demeanor was completely gone, replaced by a frenzied madwoman. At this rate, I should be calling them the Tentacle Witch and the Mad Witch.

Anger doesn’t make auras rise for knights. Sorrow doesn’t increase mana for mages. Without special skills, awakening events triggered by mere anger only happen in bards’ tales, not reality.

But sorcery seemed to be different.

‘…Should I step in?’

If Elize had faltered even slightly, if the witch’s broomstick had looked like it might escape, I would have instantly charged in to break the broomstick and crush the tentacled witch’s head like a vegetable in a juicer.

But the broomstick was gradually being pulled down by Elize’s gestures as she raged, now even shedding tears of blood. At the same time, as if hands alone weren’t enough, heads of all kinds of corpses began crawling up from the ground. It looked like nothing less than the gates of hell opening.

The mad witch, now a mass of tentacles on the broomstick, writhed her entire body, shooting strange wavelengths and frantically waving weird branches, but the broomstick continued sinking slowly.

‘If she’s getting revenge for her master who was like a parent, wouldn’t it be wrong to steal the final blow?’

Though I knew nothing about sorcery, Elize clearly had the upper hand, and this luxurious concern born from confidence briefly held me back.

Call it quest sniping or kill-stealing, but there should be limits even for humans. Rushing in to tear off the head of someone about to achieve revenge for their master with their own hands wouldn’t be very knightly… was this sentimental thinking due to Roland’s revived memories?

As an adventurer, I should throw away this nonsense and immediately rush in to destroy the witch, but both Roland’s revived memories and my modern sensibilities agreed that one shouldn’t interfere with revenge against a sworn enemy.

No matter how tempting the final blow might be, interfering with someone’s revenge is just… not right, is it?

“Die! You treated people like toys, now get caught by toys and die!!!”

“This, this toy-like, gahhh?!”

While I was contemplating this, someone had no hesitation in doing something questionable. A flash of lightning tore through the darkness, frying the tentacles crispy.

“Got her!”

It was Han Se-ah, who had been in the same space as Elize.

※

Han Se-ah, who had been in the same space as Elize, burst out of the darkness and roasted the witch with Call Lightning. At the same time, our companions who had regrouped after weathering the aftermath of the wind from the direction I had come from all joined together.

Everyone’s eyes turned toward the mass of tentacles wriggling disgustingly.

“What is that?”

“What’s left of the witch.”

“Heh, serves her right. Consumed by her own sorcery, the stupid bitch.”

The witch’s appearance began to change after two devastatingly powerful attacks—once from Grace’s arrow, which had pierced through the sorcerous illusion to accurately target her head, and once from the lightning that Han Se-ah had poured more than half her mana into as she burst through the passage Elize had opened.

According to Elize, who was laughing with tears in her eyes and a “serves you right” expression, the excessive sorcery had become mixed up due to the shock. The witch, who had used people as test subjects merely for entertainment, had diverse but not particularly sturdy sorcery.

In gaming terms, these techniques would overkill regular monsters and turn even named monsters into mush, and apparently her escape pattern had been interrupted by two such attacks.

Or maybe Han Se-ah had succeeded in her dice roll check, allowing Elize to nullify one of the witch’s patterns. If Han Se-ah’s dice hadn’t rolled properly and wasted time, Elize would have been trapped in darkness too, and the witch would have flown away on her broomstick.

“So, can we beat that thing up now?”

“Yes. Kill it, as cruelly as possible.”

While I was rotating my wrist with my hammer in hand, Jacob stepped forward.

Like a warrior race awakening in some classic cartoon, his hair floated up and swayed in the wind like reeds, and bluish haze rose from his body like steam.

Floating hair, bulging muscles, protruding veins, killing intent becoming visible as a haze, the prairie shattering with each step he took, and mana compressed precariously like a bomb about to explode.

“I’ll beat it up a bit.”

“…Go ahead.”

If the fake witch who lost her master (who was like a parent) had grabbed the evil witch’s ankle, then the one who smashed the evil witch as she writhed and transformed was a father who had seen his daughter’s corpse in the illusion. The idiot who had threatened a daughter-obsessed father began paying the price in blood.

A horrific violence flowed seamlessly, using the scorched tentacles as a punching bag, starting with a straight punch. After throwing a full-force punch, he spun his upper body with the recoil to strike with his elbow, then used that momentum to swing his leg like a whip, severing tentacles.

The beast-like fighting technique continued endlessly—punching, kicking, headbutting, elbowing, and if that wasn’t enough, clawing, biting, ramming, and stomping.

…Is the player’s role just rolling dice?

“Um, is it dead yet?”

-Lol cargo carrier showing off LOLOLOLOLOL

-Using the magic words “Is it dead yet” here, you troll LOLOLOLOLOLOL

-LOL she couldn’t do anything except roll dice, let her do something

-Gives me chills how she’s willing to sabotage allies to shed her pack mule reputation LOLOL

-Just let them beat it to death LOL it’s creepy how you’re reciting revival spells trying to get kill credit LOL

Han Se-ah seemed unwilling to let the Empire side quest end so anticlimactically, as she hovered near Jacob and Elize who were pummeling the tentacled witch while reciting magical incantations.

Her magical words seemed to have some effect, as a strange cry came from far away.

Ah, awoooooooo―――!!!

Grrrr, kuhk, kieeeeek―!

A bizarre sound that mixed a beast’s howl with a monster’s roar came from beyond the ruins of the hut.

…Were the minions that Grace had blasted away finally arriving?

Trap, escape, minion summoning. If Han Se-ah had failed her dice roll, this would have been an absolute nightmare to deal with.