Ch.243Sasith’s Quest (2)

“Such insolence!!! Cut off their heads at once!!”

The Emperor spoke while holding his nose.

Click-! Swish-!

The surrounding guards immediately tried to draw their swords.

Fwooosh-!!

However, dealing with them was no problem. I immediately summoned the Pinocchio Sword into my Void Inventory.

Swoooosh-!!

And with a swing of my sword, I subdued one of the knights.

“Guhaaack!!!”

The knight groaned and collapsed.

Clank-!

Looting his sword was just a bonus.

“Relax. I didn’t kill him.”

I said with a smile.

Swooosh-!

Similarly, Kirtan, who had subdued another knight and stolen his sword, grinned.

“They’re all monsters anyway. Can’t we just kill them?”

Kirtan asked a reasonable question.

“Now, now, Kirtan. There’s no need to take their lives. True plundering lies in controlling life without taking it.”

I spouted some line I’d heard somewhere.

“Hah!!! You really understand what it means to be a true pirate!!”

Kirtan immediately cheered.

“Of course I do.”

Phew. Thankfully, Kirtan was simple-minded.

“Shota!! This isn’t what heroes do!!”

Sasith, who was too immersed in his hero role, immediately objected.

“No. This is a dungeon anyway.”

It would be troublesome to start sympathizing with monsters now.

Splat-!

Just then, I heard a strange sound. The sound of flesh and bone being shattered and scattered.

“I… I already killed him… thought we might get experience points.”

Kana said, holding a sword dripping with pixelated blood.

“Oh… we weren’t supposed to kill them?”

Thumbs-up Man also spoke in a confused tone. That’s right. These two were experience point fanatics. When they saw monsters, their first thought was always how many experience points they would give.

“Just subdue them! Just subdue!! NPCs don’t give experience points when killed!!”

I commanded.

“These bastards… after doing such things…!!”

The Emperor spoke as he got up again. This guy really has good endurance.

“Be quiet!!”

I immediately struck the Emperor’s neck with the hilt of my sword.

“Gack!”

The Emperor collapsed right away.

“Alright!! Let’s loot!! Everyone!!!”

I shouted loudly.

“Talk about a band of thieves…”

Frill said.

“Hahaha!! This is it!!”

As expected, it was good to leave things to professionals. Kirtan immediately located the treasury and was looting everything of value.

“Isn’t this… going too far?”

Umi muttered.

But… Umi was busy beating guards with her spicy fists. Her body and mind were clearly not in sync.

“Umi. When you punch, you need to put more rotation in your shoulder.”

Tina, true to her fighter nature, was coaching diligently.

“Hey. Is this all? If I find more when I search later, you’ll face terrible consequences.”

Taiga also had quite a criminal background. Grabbing a guard by the collar, he immediately started threatening him. As expected of a former thug.

“Th-there’s a secret door over there!! Please!!!”

The guard cried out with a tearful face.

“Okay.”

Taiga also enthusiastically joined the looting.

“Sigh… I don’t want to know.”

Sasith closed his eyes tightly.

Anyway, we thoroughly looted the royal palace. We collected over 30,000 gold. This was a money-making method that would be absolutely impossible in the original game. Indeed, games can’t match real life in terms of freedom.

“What do we do now?”

Kana asked.

“We need to quickly get equipment and go defeat the Demon Lord.”

I said.

There were a few quests we needed to do before that, but I planned to skip them all. We’re all busy modern people, after all.

“At least it’s fortunate that our levels remain the same even without equipment.”

Taiga said.

Actually, in the beta version, players had to level up from scratch. But after receiving feedback that the grinding was too severe, they decided to keep the levels intact—a sad story.

“First, we’ll go straight to the big city. There’s good equipment there.”

I said.

“Yeah. Let’s end this farce quickly.”

Sasith seemed determined to get this all over with as soon as possible.

———-

It was a characteristic of JRPGs. There was a beginner village right in front of the royal palace.

“Oh my!! Heroes!! The bandits in the cave in front of the village…!!”

A person who appeared to be the village chief immediately tried to explain the situation to us.

“The bandits are constantly looting? How despicable…!”

Sasith immediately empathized and wanted to help the villagers. What a softie.

“Please!! The tribute demanded by the bandits is increasing…!!”

As the pixelated village chief cried out, the villagers surrounded us as if they had been waiting for this moment. They were blocking our escape route.

I had no choice but to step in.

“Be quiet!!!”

I immediately swung my Pinocchio Sword to subdue the village chief.

Swoooosh-!!

“Guhack!!!”

The village chief, struck on the head with the flat of my blade, immediately collapsed.

“Kyaaaah!”

The villagers immediately fled.

“Shota!! What are you doing?!”

Sasith immediately got angry.

“Wake up!! Sasith! This is all fake!! We do quests like this to make money! We already have plenty of money!! Let’s finish this quickly!!”

I said to Sasith.

“I-I still feel a bit guilty though.”

Sasith said with a distant look in his eyes.

“Anyway, just follow me.”

I immediately attempted a speedrun. This is what it means to be a Kim-chi gamer.

———-

This mini-dungeon had a perfectly JRPG-like structure. From the royal palace, there were several villages, and we had to clear quests related to those villages to gather clues.

“It’s terrible!! Goblins are attacking our village!!”

“Cultists have kidnapped our villagers!!”

“It’s terrible!! The Demon Lord’s minions…!!”

NPCs from all directions followed us, desperately trying to give us quests.

“Argh!!! Our hero is not a person with free time!!!”

I immediately swung my sword widely.

Swish-!! Swoosh-! Swoooosh-!!

I swung the Pinocchio Sword like a club, chasing away the NPCs.

Clank-! Clank-!

Umi, Taiga, Kirtan, and Tina had already transformed into looters. They were searching through houses and taking anything of value. But… isn’t it an unwritten rule in JRPGs that you can freely search through houses?

“This scene shows how cruel people can become simply because it’s a game.”

Kana made a comment while watching this scene.

“…….”

Yeah. I can’t deny that.

———-

Anyway, we were supposed to find clues about the holy sword that could kill the Demon Lord based on quests from the village, but since I already knew the location, we didn’t need clues.

We decided to get equipment in the city right in front of the Demon Lord’s castle.

Thanks to looting every village we passed through, we had accumulated quite a bit of money.

“Give me the most expensive equipment you have.”

I said bluntly at the weapon shop.

“Yes!!!”

After getting the most expensive equipment we could buy, we left the city.

“Ah. This feels good.”

I said with a smile. It’s a characteristic of JRPGs. There’s an incredible sense of satisfaction when you get a full set of the best equipment.

“Somehow… I feel like I’ve forgotten something precious about being human in this dungeon.”

Sasith said with a distant look in his eyes.

“To defeat the Demon Lord, you need the holy sword, you know? There’s a piece of the holy sword in each of the four cardinal directions, so once we get them and attack, it’s over.”

I immediately gave a spoiler that wasn’t really a spoiler.

“Alright… whatever, I just want to finish this quickly…”

Sasith said with a complicated expression.

———-

I immediately traversed the mini-dungeon map, finding the pieces of the holy sword one by one. There were monsters in between, but with our current specs, they were opponents we could easily defeat.

This was a dungeon after all, not a meticulously crafted game. Naturally, the map wasn’t very large. It was a dungeon that could be cleared quickly if you knew the strategy.

Fwooosh-!!

Thanks to collecting all the pieces of the holy sword, the legendary holy sword was immediately completed.

“Done!! Now let’s see the ending!!”

I immediately handed the holy sword to Sasith.

“Yeah. Let’s end this farce.”

Sasith grabbed the holy sword, holding onto his mental stability.

“Honestly, I was starting to get bored. Let’s just hurry up.”

Taiga aggressively tilted his head.

And we immediately rushed to the Demon Lord’s castle.

——–

Woooong-!!!

There was a massive pixelated castle. A river of lava was flowing, and lightning was striking around the castle with thunderous booms. It was a stereotypically orthodox Demon Lord’s castle.

“Come out right now!!!!”

Tina and Kana, who had reached the limit of their patience, shouted loudly.

“Kuhehehehe. To think you would arrive so quickly. Well then, come inside. Let’s settle this, Hero Sasith.”

The Demon Lord’s voice was heard from inside.

But… we don’t have to follow the game’s flow exactly. Conveniently, Sasith had just synthesized a powerful psycho-robot suitable for this situation.

“Sasith. Bring out Dr. Bomb.”

I said to Sasith.

“Okay.”

Now Sasith followed my instructions without much thought and brought out the psycho-robot.

“Kihihihi!! Explosion is art!!!”

A goblin juggling huge bombs appeared.

“See that lava canal over there? Blow it up.”

I immediately thought of a brilliant move to end everything quickly.

“Go!! Dr. Bomb!!”

Sasith shouted heroically. This kid… he’s excited to have a chance to shine after a long time. That made me tear up a bit.

“Bomb away!!!”

Dr. Bomb immediately threw a bomb.

KABOOOOOOM-!!!!!

The bomb immediately blew up the lava canal.

Rumble-!!!!

With the canal destroyed, lava began to flow into the castle. The lava slowly engulfed the castle.

Bubble-bubble-!!

The castle was slowly submerged by lava. After a while, the lower part of the castle slowly began to melt. It seemed the interior of the castle wasn’t heat-resistant. Just as I expected.

“Kieeeeek!!”

“Keeeeeek!!!!”

The monsters waiting in the castle tried to come out with their bodies half on fire.

Rumble-!

But with lava everywhere, there was no escape route. The monsters immediately melted in the lava.

Rumble-!!

The castle slowly began to melt in the lava. Only when even the top floor of the castle was about to melt did the Demon Lord break through a window and jump out.

“Such a vile tactic!!!! What have you done to my castle!!!”

The Demon Lord immediately got angry.

“Well, who told you to build a river of lava around your castle?”

I said while picking my nose.

This is why Demon Lords fail. They’re all about appearances.

“I was going to handle this like a gentleman… but if that’s how you want to play it, I have no choice!! I’ll fillet you right now!!”

The Demon Lord immediately drew a magic circle in the air.

“Sasith!! Boss battle!! Be careful!!! He’s ridiculous but strong!!”

I instructed, immediately summoning the Pinocchio Sword.

The other party members also simultaneously took battle stances.