episode_0013

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The adventurer’s city of Turkan is located near the Abyss Valley, at the western end of the kingdom. The purpose of the existence of the city of Turkan is to block the monsters that come out of there.

However, Abyss Valley is too vast to be blocked by just one city. Therefore, the Spaniel family in charge of this area fostered an adventurer guild. If detailed monster damage occurs in a nearby area, a small number of adventurers can respond.

Although it achieved excellent results in terms of cost-effectiveness, it also had obvious drawbacks. It became impossible to respond to some difficult cases because adventurers did not receive requests.

If it is a problem that needs to be urgently solved, like the abnormal occurrence of pearl slime, the guild will take action, but if not, it will just be left to rot.

The request from Morian Village was also one of those difficult problems.

“Are you really from the guild?”

“Yes, I am an adventurer from the guild. This is TS Prana. Now, here is your registration certificate.”

“Oh, oh… !”

I told the child at the village entrance that I was from the guild, and less than 10 minutes later, the village chief with sparse hair came running out barefoot.

The reaction was a reaction, but when the village chief looked at me, there were deep dark circles around his eyes, like a panda. In fact, not only the village chief, but all the villagers I saw on the way here were like that. It seems like he was really going through a lot of trouble.

“Thank you so much. What a headache it was for them. People began to abandon the village and I couldn’t sleep at night, fearing that the village I had barely built would be ruined. The harvest day is getting closer and closer, and this is why──”

“Oh, sorry. I thought the sun would set soon because I was in such a hurry. Can you guide me to that place first?”

“Of course… . By the way, where is the priest?”

“I am also a priest. A priest of the Prana Church.”

After a brief self-introduction, I lightly revealed my divine power in my hand. The village chief, who was frowning slightly as if he had never heard of the name Prana Church, smiled brightly when he saw it.

“This was rude in front of the priest. Because I have limited experience… .”

“It’s okay, so please guide me.”

“Oh, that’s right! All right. Please come right here.”

The bald chief began to walk ahead, forcing the gathered villagers to retreat.

The place the village chief took me was a fairly large forest located on the outskirts of the village. Even though it was still early for the sun to set, the forest was spreading an eerie energy around.

It is a unique evil energy of the undead that robs the living of their energy and leads their spirit to death.

“Here I am. Those guys show up here every time. It’s so noisy at night. Some people say they have nightmares every night.”

“Have you ever seen a monster?”

“There is no one yet. No one was attacked directly. So the guild has been… Okay, excuse me. Anyway, some of the village men tried to stop him, but they couldn’t even think about it after one of them didn’t come back.”

Because of this, the villagers are said to be spending sleepless nights in anxiety, not knowing when the monster will attack.

After asking a few other questions, I found out that this quest was not much different from the game. It is important not to jump to conclusions, but you will only know this when you encounter it in person.

“Thank you for letting us know. You can go now. Ah, indeed. Could you please tell the residents not to leave their houses tonight? By the door, um… , Hang something like a cross.”

“Of course! I will definitely tell you!”

The village chief, who was trying to remain as calm as possible, became upset at my words and returned to the village. As expected, ordinary people seem to have a hard time withstanding this scam.

On the contrary, I was completely fine. Rather, it feels like fraud is avoiding me. As I pointed my hand covered in divine power forward, the atmosphere around me became a little lighter.

“Well, there is no choice with this.”

What has settled here is a spirit-type monster called ‘Lil Specter’. Physical attack power is nil. The end of the skill is a debuff that reduces the mana sensitivity and casting speed of players within the range.

But that only applies if the opponent is a player. If you’re dealing with an ordinary person, it’s a scary enough evil spirit. These guys can’t even be eliminated with physical attacks. The only means of removal is [Emperor], a tier 2 divine skill.

Still, Turkan is a place where the influence of the church is weak. The Church of Turkan cannot afford to send a priest to a remote settlement several days away from the city.

There is no room in the church, there are no major casualties, so the guild does not move, and the adventurers do not respond to requests because their luggage is heavy. That was the beleaguered situation that Morian Village was currently facing.

“It would be easy for me.”

“With your divine power, the task itself is simple. Doesn’t this take too long? Even if you can’t do it, you’ll have to be held for 3 days.”

“That’s not true. Because there are still mountains of difficult problems that need to be solved.”

Procrastination. As soon as the village chief left, Seraph crawled up from his arms, holding on to his clothes.

Of course, since Spirit is a skill that prays to a single target, it must be cast on all Lil Specters one by one. If you run through this vast forest and search for each and every invisible spirit, you will be tied up in this village for a few days as Seraph said.

The simplest way to solve this problem is to use the skill points you have accumulated to use [Purification], the Emperor’s high-level skill. I don’t want to use any non-auxiliary divine skills because their uses are ambiguous, so I don’t want to use them if possible. We haven’t decided on the exact direction of growth yet.

“So let’s go to plan B here.”

“Plan B? Is there any other way to catch Lil Specter?”

“You’ll know when you see it. I came here to solve this quest often because it requires a lot of hard work and the rewards are high when I complete it.”

If there is a shortcut, go for it, and if not, create it yourself. That is the instinct of a player who plays a game with a high degree of freedom.

I left the forest of ghosts while lightly stroking the head of the Seraph who was tilting her head.

***

The development of the quest, [Haunted Morian Village], is largely divided into two phases. One is to eliminate the ghosts in the forest as requested by the village chief. The other is to deal with the corpse golem that pops out of the corpse food pond in the middle of the forest.

If I remember correctly, the approximate background of the quest was like this. A person falls into an ordinary lake, dies, and becomes a ghost due to the influence of Abyss Valley. A ghost that looks like that tempts people around it and draws them back into the lake.

In other words, the culprit of this incident is the corpse food pond and the corpse golem within it. The people of the pioneer village settled around here without even knowing it.

“Then shouldn’t we just go to that pond? Why is this… , dungeon? Did we come to the same place?”

“If you recklessly charge into the pond, you will be surrounded by Lil Specters and get debuffed. No matter how good I am, I can’t fight in that condition.”

The place I am now is a dungeon a little far from the forest. In fact, it would have been more accurate to call it a cave rather than a dungeon. The only monsters that appear are crappy things like vampire bats and blind goblins.

A sub-dungeon for matching the assortment, where all you have to do is get ore for materials even if you go all the way to the end. This is a place that reminds us once again how poor a game Yggdrasil is without mods.

However, this cave gained value due to a comment posted by a user on the community. While digging through the map data, I discovered that there was a long cave one level below, and that part of it passed under the cursed forest.

A way to eat quests that have good rewards but are cumbersome to clear. It was inevitable that users would dig into that possibility.

“The best thing was the wall-piercing attack. I don’t know why they did it that way, but there was already a corpse golem object in the pond. So, when I honed my skills beyond the wall in a certain place, the golem died and the quest was cleared.”

“What can I say… , it’s a mess.”

“Right? It was made so roughly that you don’t know why your god referenced it. This game.”

They even prevented the trick by removing the object’s hit judgment in the next patch. I don’t know why I always feel like this is a knife, leaving bugs to catch forever.

In that sense, this world was really well made. In any case, it functions as reality. The system is also adjusted accordingly. No bugs.

They don’t even block tricks like this.

“Is it going to be like this? Yeah, I’m not sure. Just cut it roughly, okay.”

“I understand what you are trying to do. Please be careful of falling or collapsing.”

“Look at it that way. What is the penalty if you die from a fall or accident?”

While having a casual conversation with Seraph, I aimed my sword at the wall on one side of the cave. We have already completed comparison with the in-game map and confirmation of the surrounding terrain. All that’s left is to break through the wall in front of you.

[Performance]

The thrust, using my entire body like a spring, hit the stone wall. In reality, it would be abnormal for the sword not to break, but in this world where there is mana, it is rare for something to be impossible.

Even if it is an assault that involves digging out a stone wall with a single sword.

“Inhale!”

Bang, bang. As the stabbing continued, the hole in the wall became deeper and wider.

As I do this, I get the hang of it. The effect of penetrating is to ignore the opponent’s defense, so if you stab with all your might, the sword will dig into the stone wall like tofu. It is said that it is more effective to moderately disrupt the impact and create a crater.

The manufacturer responded to attacks beyond the wall by removing the hit detection, but in other words, the golem’s location itself remains the same. Moreover, unlike games, the terrain in this world is not an indestructible object.

So if you keep destroying the wall like this,

bang!

… Grrrr.

In this way, you will reach the bottom of the corpse-eating pond.

“Wow. I didn’t think of this.”

The water, which was leaking gently at first, broke the weakened stone wall and gradually began to gush. At the same time, the cave was filled with rotten corpses.

It is full of fraud and is already like poison. It may not be enough to break through my resistance, but the smell alone was enough to bother me so I immediately held my breath.

“Coming.”

As Seraph warned, the fallen corpses gathered together one by one and gradually began to form a gigantic shape. This is a cut-in of the corpse golem that was also seen in the game.

As a small boss mob, this guy’s specs are quite strong. It has very high physical strength, recovers physical strength by absorbing monsters around it, and has high physical resistance, making it difficult to deliver effective hits without Holy Enchantment.

But that’s just a story in the game. As a bonus, there is no rule in reality that says you cannot move during a cut-in.

[Holy Enchant]

[Baldo – Sakwol]

Among my current skills, it is a tier 3 skill that is the highest level in terms of single-shot destructive power. It heads toward the corpse golem that is in the process of being created with the Holy Enchantment already applied.

Suddenly. A silver-white arc embroidered the air, and the golem’s core, which had been slashed squarely by it, was split in two.

It tried to hold on, struggling with its arms, but the corpse golem’s body slowly collapsed. A person dies when his or her throat is cut. The golem stops when its core is destroyed. It is common sense in this world.

I was slightly stung because it attacked me while I was transforming. If you feel wronged, be reborn on the side of justice in the next life.

“Why. what. Call me a coward?”

“I didn’t say anything in particular. Isn’t that how you feel?”

“You saw it! ‘Wow, this is a bit… .’ You saw it with your own eyes!”

“No. I just hoped that the next challenge would be a bit more of an ordeal.”

“Huh? Most people will clear it this way, right?”

Turkan’s adventurer rating system is extremely annoying in multiple playthroughs. In such a situation, there is no way that users would not have looked for the best strategy for solving difficult problems to shorten the time.

The difficult problems I’ve swept through in the guild are all ones that have side-track strategies or that I can finish in an instant by pushing myself hard.

“… I think I understand a little bit why our God added the adult mode.”

“No, that’s really weird.”

After confirming that the golem had completely collapsed, I fired [Cure] as if I was spraying Febreze while throwing it away, and then returned to the village.

It’s a bit disappointing that there is no quest clear sign, but let’s continue like this for the time being.

[QUEST CLEAR]

[You have cleared the quest, ‘Haunted Morian Village’!]

… You are very kind.

*****