Ch.13Blood Bag (2)

[Play Time: 8,817 hours]

When pursuing a target, humans tend to easily become impatient.

They grow anxious, miscalculate, and fail to make accurate judgments.

That’s why they’re easily caught by pursuers and mess things up. That’s usually the case.

Especially when the pursuing entity is closer to a disaster than a human, or a calamity wearing a human shell.

In fact, even a disaster with will is quite terrifying, but if it also harbors malice, it’s the absolute worst.

But just lying down with my legs stretched out wasn’t my style.

What should I do, what can I do? When I sorted through my options, it was quite simple.

I needed to exploit the properties of the calamity.

That’s why I had entered the prison of the forces occupying this dungeon.

Was this my third imprisonment?

If being captured by cannibals doesn’t count as imprisonment, then it would be my second; if it does, then my third.

And by the third time, I felt like I was getting the hang of it.

As I leaned against the wall, staring blankly through the prison bars, Isla poked me with her tail from not far away.

“Is this right?”

“It is.”

I was certain.

The Blood Knight would definitely track me down. I just didn’t know exactly how long it would take or what his capabilities were.

So this was a kind of verification process. Testing the abilities of the pursuer I would have to deal with, and further confirming how much I needed to grow to defeat him.

If he died in the process, all the better for me. I smoothed the crimson cloak wrapped around my body while staring blankly outside the bars.

I didn’t think the Blood Knight would die here.

But I thought it would be difficult for him to escape unscathed.

“Why?”

I answered Isla, who was watching me with her knees pulled up to her chest.

“What do you think of the forces occupying this dungeon?”

Isla perked up her ears and turned her expressionless face. There wasn’t a single guard outside.

The security was inadequate. It could be carelessness, but to Isla and me, it seemed different.

“They’re overflowing with confidence.”

These people were brimming with confidence. I could sense their assurance that they could protect and defend themselves in any situation.

Why? How could they have such confidence in this new continent filled with forces similar to their own?

I could easily infer the answer. Rolling my eyes, I saw a flag depicting a star.

They were a famous mercenary group. The remnants of the civil war I never expected to see on the new continent.

The Star’s Blade.

A mercenary group with a famous leader.

“I wonder why?”

Instead of answering, Isla swished her tail. She tilted her head as she diligently moved her large, plump tail to keep dust from settling on it.

It meant she didn’t know. I adjusted my sitting position comfortably and glanced at the corridor visible through the bars.

There were scorch marks in the corridor.

Intense scorch marks that couldn’t be made with a red spear. Even a fire would have difficulty creating such burns.

The secret was in their name.

The Star’s Blade.

They were a mercenary group and a collective of contractors who served the transcendent being “Star.”

And their leader was a famous mercenary.

During the civil war, he was renowned as a nightmare on the battlefield, and later, special operations were organized specifically to kill him.

Having killed him several times throughout the game, I knew exactly what kind of being he was.

“No matter how strong the Blood Knight is, he can’t easily defeat Star’s contractor in such a confined space.”

I recalled the flames I had seen from the isometric perspective in the game.

Waves of fire that seemed to fill the entire screen, terrifying flames suddenly falling from the sky.

Whirlwinds of fire erupting from the ground, burning everything around, and sparks flying with every swing of the sword.

Star’s contractor was a nightmare on the battlefield, one of the few human disasters capable of clearing a dungeon alone.

And the way to counter a disaster is with another disaster.

Boom—!

I raised the corner of my mouth at the sudden thunderous sound.

Good, according to plan.

“Your expression is disturbing.”

Isla scolded me, but I ignored her and got up.

“Alright, let’s move. It seems he’s here.”

The way to deal with a disaster.

It lay in the nature of disasters.

They don’t distinguish between friend and foe, don’t separate those who will be caught up in them.

I focused on that characteristic.

“Time to leave.”

[Mourning]

The iron bars were pulled out, and Isla gripped the two hand axes I had already taken out from my cloak.

*

“The main gate! Everyone assemble!”

The sound of people rushing out. I lowered my posture as I heard the busy footsteps traversing the corridor.

There was no need to peek around the corner of the corridor. A homunculus had superhuman senses.

I closed my eyes, mapping the space in my mind through the receding footsteps and the echoes they created.

The map in my head was clear. A long corridor extending from my front right to my back right.

The footsteps were quickly fading away, suggesting it led straight to the main gate.

“They’re gone.”

Isla said, poking my shoulder with her tail. I nodded and stood up.

“What are you going to do?”

As Isla and I walked down the corridor, a thunderous booming sound could be heard from afar.

It was a sound that only vaguely suggested what was happening.

Judging by the occasional sounds of burning, it seemed like they were engaged in battle, but the outcome wasn’t decided as quickly as I had expected.

I couldn’t tell if the Star’s Blade had many contractors or if the mercenaries were protecting their leader well.

Honestly, I didn’t care either.

Either way, they were enemies. Although I had allowed myself to be captured, it would be troublesome if one side won overwhelmingly.

Frankly, there was almost no way for me to deal with a contractor at my level, and the Blood Knight could predict where I would go, which was problematic.

He might have sophisticated tracking methods. I hurried my steps, hoping that the Blood Knight and the contractor would mutually destroy each other.

“Are we going to the armory? It’s just ahead.”

“No, I have enough weapons.”

I had a cavalry axe in my hand.

It was the item in the best condition among those I had found after thoroughly searching the cannibals’ armory or corpses.

It was an excellent item that wouldn’t easily be damaged even when wielded with my strength.

[Imperial Cavalry Axe]

[This is a cavalry axe with excellent craftsmanship.

Mainly used by the imperial cavalry, its long handle and body made entirely of a single metal guarantee both outstanding durability and power.

However, an ordinary human would find it difficult to execute proper techniques with this axe. It’s an item for trained warriors.]

They say ordinary humans would find it difficult to wield properly, but am I an ordinary human?

I am a homunculus. A synthetic human and monster of dark fantasy.

Although my level is still low and I’m not performing at full capacity, this was enough to easily handle the mere grunts of a mercenary group.

There was no time to feel guilt about murder. First, I had to survive to do anything else. I tried consciously to think that way as I continued walking steadily.

“Then to the innermost part?”

“That’s right.”

Isla was perceptive throughout all this. Perhaps because a hunter needs to be observant, she remembered my actions and made inferences.

My strategy was this:

Intentionally drive the Blood Knight toward a common enemy, aiming for mutual destruction, while also collecting rewards from the reward room in case things didn’t go as planned.

Since clearing the dungeon itself gave experience points as a reward, repeating this action a few times could raise my level.

It would be unreasonable to face a vampire knight at level 3, but what if I repeated this?

The other side would probably prepare countermeasures, but as long as I had the initiative, they would have to play along with my plan to some extent.

To be frank, what could they do?

Even if they had enough firepower to bury the entire dungeon, they couldn’t rashly do so. They would need to confirm whether I was dead or alive, wouldn’t they?

As long as they pursued me, they would continue to encounter situations like this, and they couldn’t resolve them well just by explaining.

The opponent was a vampire.

Infamous, arrogant, and an enemy of all humanity.

Just as the Joker would pull out a gun against Nazis, saying “I may be a villain, but I’m an American villain,” even these exiled and banished bastards would attack vampires on sight.

And that was exactly what I was counting on. If the vampire died in the process, great; if not, I’d just repeat the process.

I continued walking with the distant explosion sounds as my background music.

My game knowledge continued to shine. The dungeon’s structure didn’t deviate from my expectations, and I was able to reach the reward room by following the structure in my memory.

It felt like less than 30 minutes. Probably around 20 minutes.

“This is really easy.”

It seemed that way to me too. It appeared that all troops had rushed to the main gate, as there were no soldiers to encounter.

If there had been, there might have been contractors mixed in, and I would have had to use Mourning, so it was good to have it as a precaution.

What remained was…

Opening the chest placed conspicuously ahead as if asking to be opened, and receiving the homunculus reward.

I nodded to Isla and approached the chest.

It was a chest locked with mechanisms that one wouldn’t recognize unless they knew the dungeon or had played the game.

Press buttons, pull levers, and turn pulleys that might be found in front of a bunker.

Then the chest opens. What gradually reveals itself as the chest opens in an innovative way, splitting top and bottom, is…

A ring.

[Molt]

[“Father created all of us alone. Shouldn’t we do the same?”

-???

This item focuses on a certain aspect of Father, a research achievement considered fringe even among the three clans that conduct all sorts of experiments.

The person in charge was later transferred to another department after failing to gain recognition for their research.]

[When worn, it fixes the wearer’s gender to the opposite of their original gender and increases agility up to 20.]

“What the fuck…?”

A bizarre item that made even someone like me, who had seen all sorts of items, lose words in astonishment.

I was contemplating whether to pick it up when—

“Ruwellin!”

I heard a voice calling my name briefly. It was quieter than an ordinary person shouting, but I heard it clearly.

The moment I turned my head at that clear voice, I saw it.

A severed head floating in the air, the head of the leader contractor who had been called the captain when I entered, shriveled and then crumbled, turning into something like a red awl flying toward me.

It was blood. A siege projectile formed of blood.

Something too powerful to be used on a single individual’s body.

And it was the Blood Knight’s magic that I had experienced being hit by multiple times in the sky fortress.

“Oh shit—”

CRASH!

Before I could fully cover my arm with sacred blood, my arm was crushed and shattered by the impact.

Unable to use Mourning in time, the excruciating pain invaded my brain. My body stiffened and involuntarily bent from the numbing pain.

Even the breath I exhaled with a “kuk” sound couldn’t be properly formed.

I just rolled on the floor from the violent impact pushing my body.

But there was no time to stay down. As I barely managed to get up, I saw someone through a translucent window.

It was a threatening figure.

A knight in full armor with blood-red armor and an executioner’s sword.

It was the very man who had cornered me when I tried to escape prison, ultimately forcing me to choose to jump.

While shocked, I belatedly noticed that the ring I had in my hand had been shattered to pieces.

The translucent window proved it.

[‘Molt’ has been destroyed!]

[A magical backflow is occurring due to the powerful magical energy that destroyed ‘Molt’!]

Magical backflow.

The phenomenon where magic inscribed in a magical item flows back and takes root in the destroyer.

A magical mystery that could be either a curse or a blessing.

I stared blankly at the vampire.

[The spell of ‘Molt’ has been bestowed upon Blood Knight Lorian!]

More precisely, at the translucent window that appeared right in front of the vampire.

For a moment, I felt sympathy for this Blood Knight.