Ch.84Interrupting NPC. (4)

Why did I ask for a whole year when I only planned to enroll Ira and have her change her profession?

Obviously, because [Land of Knowledge, Neyti] is also a major city in [Eight] and has its own fitting storyline.

The story here is a bit different from other places. There are no demons involved; rather, humans are the problem.

As I mentioned before, the ugliness of humans who put demons out of work. This is the map where that starts to surface.

[-Job: Spirit Master- : Level 59]

Looking at the man who froze in place after I successfully tracked him down, I can see his expected job and level.

But I wish his race would show up too. Is he a demon-magic race? Or not?

“Who are you?”

“I asked first, so why are you answering a question with a question?”

“How did you follow me?”

“Am I talking to a wall here? Hello?”

“Are you with those women from earlier?”

“…Are your ears clogged?”

The conversation isn’t going anywhere. Maybe I’m just too stupid.

I should get help from educated people.

I naturally summoned our lawyer who’s good at conversations, and our main lawyer immediately prepares for dialogue.

“Raise your hand if you think you’re about to get beaten to death. I’ll break that hand first.”

“You trash with no magical power.”

Oh. Finally, the conversation is connecting a bit. See? You need an intellectual to step in.

As I clenched my fist, the guy started chanting something, and stones from the ground began gathering to form a human shape.

[Rock Spirit(Status?): Level 106]

[HP: 4,100]

“Kill him.”

In the online game Eight, Spirit Masters can summon spirits up to three times their own level.

That means at max level 1100, they can summon a level 3300 spirit. Of course, even then, they just have a lot of HP. They’re just sandbags with worse AI than partner NPCs, so honestly, they’re not good dealers. Plus…

‘Now that this is reality, I doubt they can summon them every cooldown.’

The one Gor dealt with earlier was around level 150 and bigger than this one. That means that guy was this fellow’s strongest card.

-BOOM!!!

“So slow.”

What’s the point of being over level 100? In Eight, all spirits under 300 are low-level spirits. They’re spirits with no unique skills, only capable of basic attacks. Rock spirits, in particular, are tanks.

The level 150 one was fast enough to hit Gor, but this one is literally newbie-level—no, below what even a newbie would use.

After easily dodging its attack, I throw a punch, and the smaller pockmarked creature staggers greatly with rocks falling off in chunks.

[HP: 3,210]

“Wh-what?!”

“Huh. One hit takes off a thousand?”

Completely fragile? Does this mean what I had Gor do earlier was serious overkill?

I was concerned because it seemed like a main story enemy and even had all the kids run away, but now I look like I overreacted for nothing.

“Y-you!! What kind of person are you?!”

“I don’t talk with beasts who can’t communicate properly. Please speak through our main lawyer.”

“You bastard!!!”

Just three punches. After throwing exactly three more punches to send the rock spirit back to the ground, I rushed at him.

He pulled out a knife from his pocket and tried to counter me.

This is ridiculous. He saw his spirit get destroyed and still wants to fight me?

“Spirit of the earth!!”

-CRASH!!!

“Ugh?!”

Correction. When he stabbed his dagger into the ground, several stone pillars suddenly shot up from the ground and hit me.

Damn. He shouldn’t be high enough level to use Spirit Master attack skills. Wait, is this what Miho got hit with and went flying?!

“Ow. That hurts, you bastard.”

[HP: 309,850+???]

The impact definitely resonated through my body, but my HP, which I haven’t checked in a while, still shows no change. At this point, it’s as unchanging as my bank account in my previous life.

“Wh-what?! You took that hit and you’re fine?!”

It did hurt, but I didn’t fly away like Miho did. I just got pushed back a little and dusted myself off. Seeing this, his eyes widened in disbelief.

Ha! A mere level 50-something landing an attack on a level 400 is already unbalanced.

“That dagger, you can’t use it consecutively, right? Now let’s fight properly.”

“W-wait!!”

“No way, punk. According to our main lawyer, you owe 10 hits each for seeing Rey and Ragni naked, and execution for seeing Ira.”

“Wh-what are you talking about?!”

Having only retreated a few steps, I quickly closed in on him again, and our lawyer continued to help with the conversation today.

*

[Spirit?!@#Dagger?King?#@!: !@$%*%&$*%]

“A weapon that breaks the status window.”

Like the spirits’ status earlier, it’s not just showing question marks but the text is completely garbled. This is content from ep.3. I remembered after getting hit. This must be the [Spirit King’s Dagger]. In the story, it was a weapon forcibly forged from a fragment of the Spirit King.

“Hey. Open your eyes.”

-Tap tap.

“Ugh…”

“Hmm, for someone who tore off a piece of the Spirit King’s body, maybe it’s not polite to wake him up with a gentle kick. Should I tear off something of his?”

After an intense conversation with our lawyer, I mutter to myself, displeased with his groaning, and he painfully opens his eyes through his swollen face.

“I beat you just enough to keep you alive. Pretty generous, don’t you think?”

Originally it was supposed to be execution, but I let him keep breathing. I’m pretty nice, right?

“Ugh…”

“So, where are your comrades and their leader? Are you willing to talk nicely?”

“K-kill me…”

“Oh. You know the ‘ugh, kill me’ line?”

-Crack.

“ARRRGH!!!”

“But you’re not a princess, not a beauty, not a knight, and not even a woman. If you’re going to use that line, you should have been born as a pretty girl—that’s the rule.”

I gently step on his hand, and small groans escape through his gap-toothed mouth.

“In the first place, you saw all our girls naked, right? Our girls are very angry. And honestly, I’m very angry too. If you had just said ‘I peeped, I’m sorry,’ it would have ended with just a kiss on the philtrum from our lawyer, but you attacked and ran? And you’re fundamentally evil?”

“Wh-what are you talking about?!”

-CRACK!!

“ARGH!!!”

From his perspective, it might seem unfair to be beaten nearly to death and have his hand shattered just for peeping at some naked women.

But if he thought that was unfair, he shouldn’t have attacked in the first place. Plus, why didn’t my veteran photographer skill detect him? That’s also suspicious.

Something’s definitely off about this guy, but sigh, I’m not smart enough to think it through completely. I should have brought Ragni.

“I wonder if the kids went far? Well, I’ll drag you along and make you spill everything you know. I was planning to kill all you ‘Spirit Society’ bastards anyway.”

“…!!!”

I see his pupils dilate between his bruised face at my words. He’s probably wondering how I know that name, ‘Spirit Society,’ but I’m not going to tell you about my past life memories when I haven’t even told my own people.

I broke the rest of his limbs and, just to be safe, struck his neck to prevent him from making any sound.

“For Ira’s safe school life, consider this special violence falling upon you for a specific reason.”

I slung the peeping criminal over my shoulder like luggage and followed after my companions.

*

“Brother!”

“Oh, Ira, wait. Your brother is dirty right now.”

My adorable sister, who seems to listen to me less and less, immediately hugs my waist and rubs her face against my stomach despite me telling her I’m dirty.

Sigh, I feel bad for always making my sister worry.

The carriage the kids had been riding was parked not far from the city of Neyti.

It was clearly positioned between a good spot to enter the city if something happened and a good spot to follow me.

Geez. Why didn’t they just go ahead and secure an inn first?

“I’m so glad you’re safe!”

“You caught him?”

“Yeah. I’ve already made sure he can’t move. Do we have a sack to put him in?”

[We don’t have a sack, but I could carry him and jump over the city wall?]

No. We can’t act like we did in Aigram when we’re in Neyti. There’s the Academy Headmaster character there, and according to the setting, the city is protected by some kind of barrier or protective field.

Gor could probably break through if he wanted to, but it wouldn’t be good to get caught doing that.

“Why? Is he not just a peeping tom? Is there something we need to find out?”

“Yeah. I don’t plan to hand him over to the city guard right away.”

“What is it? Did he commit some other crime besides peeping? Is he a wanted criminal?”

At times like this, it’s awkward to know what to say. I can’t just say, ‘He’s one of the villainous masterminds who causes incidents in the online game Eight from my previous life.’ So for now…

“More importantly, how’s Miho? She seemed to have taken a pretty hard hit earlier, is she okay?”

“Oh. Yes. I bandaged her up. It doesn’t seem to be a fracture, but we should get her checked out.”

“What about potions?”

“I gave her some. But she still hasn’t opened her eyes.”

Successfully changed the subject!

We bought potions when we visited the church last time. Expensive potions at 20,000 cans each.

It’s a price ordinary people could hardly afford, but fortunately, our funds are far from ordinary. Of course, we’ve spent quite a bit recently on weapons for everyone and buying the carriage. But we still have plenty of reserve funds.

“Let’s enter the city for now.”

“What about this person?”

“Well, we can put him next to Miho and say he’s an injured person we picked up who was attacked by monsters on the way.”

“I see. Then, he might have some identification on him, so check him. If he does, keep it separate, and say we’re adventurers who will take him to the guild for a reward—they should let us through.”

Ragni neatly finalized my sloppy plan. As she suggested, I searched his body and found an ID.

[Gibson, Department Head of the Spirit Department, Academy Middle School.]

And on that ID was a name I knew from my previous life.