Ch.31Burning

# 31. Burning

[Soul Absorption Orb]

– Skeleton: 45

– Ghoul: 22

’67 monsters. It doesn’t feel like much, but we’ve already killed this many.’

Excluding the first 7, I’ve been pulling groups of 10 to 15 monsters five times now.

I thought 15 monsters might be a bit dangerous even if they were weak mobs individually, but the stability of Cutdeadra with her shield and holy magic was beyond imagination.

The thrill and exhilaration when charging into the midst of undead with a holy-enchanted shield, sending mobs flying like bowling pins!

Even at a low level, she was still a “Holy Knight” class.

And Saex, who had cleanly sliced through 5 monsters, was beyond impressive.

I was the weakest.

But that was perfectly fine, and it was a pleasant kind of weakness. After all, I was originally the weakest fighter among the seven of us.

My class was “Battle Commander.” Specialized in providing aggressive buffs during combat, it was perfect when the people receiving my buffs were strong.

At first, I was trembling with chills when pulling aggro, but as I got used to it and saw the benefits, that horde of undead started to look like a mine.

Wow! An experience mine!

Wow! A proficiency mine!

Wow! A gold mine!

Still, it was time to check the party members’ stamina. Even in games, we’d take short breaks at checkpoints, and I’d deliberately stop after several consecutive speed runs. How much more important would that be now that we were moving in reality?

If we got too absorbed and suddenly felt dizzy, or if pain we hadn’t noticed due to combat excitement suddenly hit us all at once, it would be disastrous.

“How’s everyone’s stamina?”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m okay too.”

My party members had good stamina. Their faces were just a bit flushed and they were sweating a little. As expected of two physically fit people, I was impressed, but…

“Really? We’ve only used about 30% of the spirit stone fragments.”

When I mentioned the still-abundant supply of spirit stones in my inventory, their expressions changed slightly. As I thought, they were pushing themselves a bit too hard.

“Who knows when we’ll get another opportunity like this? Might as well push a little harder!”

“You bought a lot. But it’s fine.”

But they were also greedy in their own way. They put on a slight show of bravado, claiming this level of effort wasn’t even worth calling hardship.

“Just so you know, I bought this expecting it to last a day.”

“…You said we’ve killed 67 monsters so far, right?”

“Yeah.”

“If 67 is 30%, then roughly calculated, we need to kill about 220 monsters total. That means 153 more to go. Sis, can you do it?”

“Of course. We walked for over ten hours every day for a week. How could I not handle 200 undead mobs?”

They had looked nauseated for a moment, but after calculating the numbers, they rekindled their fighting spirit.

‘Can’t resist a burning event, can they.’

Though it wasn’t my intention, I’d reminded them that we’d been slightly overexerting ourselves, so it was fine.

“Shall we go again?”

“Bring it on! Bring it on!!”

[Command-Success effect is applied to party members.]

[Party members’ stats increase by 5% of the sum of all party members’ stats.]

Last time I used [Command-Charge], so this time I’ll try the newly learned [Command-Success] to build up some proficiency?

This bus is so sweet~

**

[Soul Absorption Orb]

– Skeleton: 184

– Ghoul: 55

“I’m dying…”

“My arm… my arm doesn’t feel like mine anymore.”

“Was my shield always this heavy…?”

After finally using up all the spirit stone fragments, we left without regrets. Fortunately, we completed the operation without any accidents.

[JeanneDarcIsASaint]

[Level 7][Title: First Tower Entrant (Growth Bonus 10%)]

[Class: Battle Commander]

[Strength: 14][Agility: 10][Endurance: 10][Magic: 10][Will: 14]

[Remaining Points: 5]

[Skills Owned 4]

[Common Skills 2]

– Rest(2)

– Basic Swordsmanship(3)

[Class Skills 2]

– Charisma(3)

– Command Shout(3)

– Order: Charge

– Order: Success

Looking at my boosted character level and skill proficiency was truly satisfying. Cutdeadra and Saex must have leveled up a lot too. That’s why they were grinning despite their groans.

“Raid leaderrr.”

“Yeees?”

“As I expected, we killed over 200 monsters, but it didn’t make a dent. Isn’t that dangerous?”

The undead horde was slowly but steadily advancing toward Albrant’s North Gate, and we kept baiting and pulling them from the same spot.

About fourteen times.

Which meant that even after repeating the same actions fourteen times in the same location, the size of the horde remained unchanged.

“You really only focused on combat, huh?”

“I didn’t want to hear the toxic dialogue… heh.”

“No matter how many there are, Albrant won’t fall to mobs like these. It was the same in the story.”

Cutdeadra, who claimed not to be a cutscene-skipper, explained in my place.

“We’re low-level with three melee DPS, so we could only chip away at them like this. But imagine if we had someone like Yebub or Mulanswer with us.”

“Ah.”

Cutdeadra’s words hit the mark. As she said, if either of them had been here, we wouldn’t have needed this strategy at all.

Even accounting for our low level, if Yebub had been here, he could have scored multi-kills just by throwing fireballs from a distance. If Mulanswer were here, I wouldn’t have needed to waste fragments pulling aggro myself—just having a lesser elemental swish its tail would have been enough.

“Albrant is full of elves like those two. They have plenty of ranged DPS in the back, and they can hide behind safe gates, so that undead horde will never break through.”

“I see! Thanks for the explanation, Cut!”

“W-whatever.”

As I was comforting my tired party members, Albrant’s North Gate came into view in the distance. It felt like we were returning after about three days, and I was overjoyed at the thought of finally being able to rest comfortably.

“Halt. Who goes there?”

I could genuinely smile even at the toxic elf’s face in this moment.

“I’ve already spoken with the North Gate guard.”

“Inferior human, how dare you—”

Since I was happy but didn’t want to hear the toxic elf’s toxic words, I took out the soul absorption orb from my inventory.

‘Cutting off toxic talk.’

The toxic elf recognized the orb immediately, made a face like he’d eaten something foul, and disappeared inside.

A moment later, Al-Kedran, the North Gate guard who had handed over the orb with a sour expression this morning, appeared.

“It hasn’t even been a day, as I recall. Have you lost your nerve and turned tail?”

“Didn’t you say you wouldn’t care at all about what we were doing or where?”

“I merely needed to identify the material of the orb.”

Ah. Of course.

I couldn’t help but smirk. When the guard raised his eyebrow, I quickly tossed him the orb before he could say anything else.

The guard examined the orb for a moment, then said:

“…I see you’ve done enough to justify your brazen approach.”

[Total Contribution – 3.19%]

“But not enough to prove yourself sufficiently.”

“I never said we were finished. We’re only showing you because someone blocked our way calling us nobodies. Of course we’ll fill it more.”

The toxic elf glared at me with bulging eyes, but I ignored him. What’s he going to do about it? It’s just facts.

“I see. I’ll return the orb to you. However, you must return without fail when Debita’s horde disappears.”

“Of course.”

With the orb returned and the guard letting us pass, no toxic elf could block our way. Now we just needed to regroup at the inn, buy more spirit stones to crush, and repeat the same “work” as before.

“Raid leader. This is important.”

“What is it?”

“So, how many hours do we rest?”

“Hmm. Given the speed of the undead horde… maximum two hours?”

Cutdeadra and Saex’s jaws dropped. Their expressions suggested they’d heard something unbelievable and absurd.

“W-why are you looking at me like that?”

“I knew you were the type to push hard, but I didn’t think you’d handle us this roughly and harshly!”

Saex gripped my shoulder tightly.

‘Ouch!’

Is this the grip strength of a woman who claims she can’t even hold an axe?

“H-hey! ‘Roughly and harshly’? Someone might misunderstand if they hear that.”

“Sis! Say something too!”

“I…”

Cutdeadra, who had been blankly denying reality, closed her mouth and rolled her eyes. Then she smiled and said:

“The leader didn’t just give orders… she worked just as hard as us, so what can we do, Yuri?”

“I knew you’d defend her, sis!”

“Ahaha.”

“Well, I was just kidding. Right now the undead are moving slowly, but they’ll probably speed up like crazy when they get closer to Albrant. You want to chip away at them as much as possible before that happens, right?”

Ah. So she was just kidding.

If she hadn’t been kidding, what would have happened to my shoulder, Yuri?

“Then to maximize our rest time! Sis! Let’s bathe together!”

“T-together?”

“Why are you surprised? Haven’t you ever been to a public bath?”

“N-no…”

“Then let’s get some experience now. We don’t know what will happen when more people join, so we should get used to it early. Want to bathe with us, raid leader?”

“Yeah.”

……………Huh?

“Huh? Really?”

“No! No no no no no. Mistake! Mistake!!!”

I almost got into big trouble after reflexively answering her too-natural question.

Saex clicked her tongue and licked her lips, while Cutdeadra, her face red, kept glancing at me.

Girls… if you keep doing that, I won’t be able to sleep. Seriously.