Chapter 105 – LV.? Mage Troll – [Two]

From what Seo Yun observed, the sparring between the two was surprisingly evenly matched.

She was no longer surprised to learn that Oh Haengbok was skilled with his hammer, but it was her first time seeing Arnold wield a greatsword, and she was astonished by his skill.

Arnold fought by slowly swinging his greatsword left and right to keep his opponent at bay, then counterattacking whenever he saw an opening. Though she wasn’t an expert, she could tell he wasn’t just wildly brandishing the greatsword but was employing some kind of technique. The way he moved the large, massive greatsword with such finesse even hinted at seasoned experience.

However, the absurd part was that Arnold ultimately lost.

The moment Arnold swung his greatsword with force, Oh Haengbok struck the side of the blade, which was tracing a semicircle, with his hammer as if pushing it aside. Unable to withstand his own momentum, Arnold’s body was pushed back and spun half a turn, and Oh Haengbok kicked the exposed back of his knee.

“Ugh…”

Arnold fell. Since it was a sparring match where they shouldn’t hurt each other, the match ended there.

“Chief! Chief!”

Amid the cheers of the crowd, Oh Haengbok helped Arnold up.

“You okay? I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to say…”

At that moment, Arnold’s expression, though seemingly indifferent, revealed an unmistakable sense of defeat. Interpreting it as a warrior’s pride, Oh Haengbok grinned and praised him, saying he fought well too and that he honestly thought he would lose, but Arnold’s expression remained unchanged.

It seemed this defeat was particularly painful for him. Seo Yun quickly helped Arnold leave the area. After ushering Arnold into his tent, she asked.

“Are you alright?”

At that, the solemn expression Arnold had been struggling to maintain immediately crumbled. As Arnold looked up with a tearful face and sighed, Seo Yun asked.

“Who suggested sparring first?”

“He did… I refused, but he said to give it a try, so I had no choice but to spar. When I asked why he even wanted to fight me, he said if he stayed like this, he’d fall behind, so he couldn’t just laze around?”

His voice carried resentment toward Oh Haengbok. It was probably something like being forced into a fight he didn’t want and ending up humiliated.

Seo Yun tried to console him.

“For someone complaining, you fought incredibly well.”

“My greatsword proficiency is grade 9… As far as I know, he shouldn’t have any hammer technique proficiency, yet he fought well.”

“You can’t rely solely on game stats. For example, sometimes someone with an intelligence of 6 is much smarter and sharper than someone with 7.”

“Is that possible?”

“It is. I think Meteorite calculates stats weirdly. Actually, that Oh Haengbok guy doesn’t have low stats either. He just doesn’t have weapon proficiency because he couldn’t get training from a skill trainer, but judging by his high dexterity stat, even if he’s self-taught, his skill should be good.”

“That Orc is Level 14, right?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a really high level. He didn’t raise it by rolling dice or fiddling with a mouse and keyboard, but by actually fighting in life-or-death battles?”

“Right?”

“That’s really impressive. Thinking about it, it makes sense I couldn’t win. In a world like this, how could someone like me, who’s never earned a single experience point…”

It was closer to resignation than humility, and Seo Yun raised an eyebrow. How could someone who absolutely must not resign themselves be acting like this?

Perhaps this orangutan had already lost what little confidence he had by losing to a warrior of a lower level. So, regardless of his own level, he might have judged himself not yet ready for life-or-death battles and was looking for excuses to procrastinate further.

Seo Yun decided not to let him be.

“Never earning experience points from hunting monsters means you’ve never fought monsters appropriate for your level, right?”

At Seo Yun’s question, Arnold nodded.

“Right.”

“What about fighting for survival? Have you ever fought desperately, risking your life?”

Arnold hesitated, then answered.

“I don’t think so.”

“Then… follow me.”

Seo Yun grabbed his wrist and stood up. As she strode forward, Arnold followed, pulled along by her hand, saying “Uh, uh.”

“Ms. Seo Yun, where are you going with the Barbarian Warrior?”

“We have something to do.”

The two left the fortress wall of Happy Village.

It was still snowing. Inside the village, the Hearth Sanctuary Spell Seo Yun had cast was in effect, preventing snow from falling, but once outside the village, snow immediately fell on their shoulders and faces, melting.

After walking for a while, they reached a specific location.

“A Dimensional Gate?”

“It leads to France. Let’s go in.”

Passing through the Dimensional Gate, a world covered in gray snow appeared. A blizzard was raging in that desolate world.

Leading Arnold, she walked into the blizzard. Arnold, who had already looked cold, shivered and timidly requested.

“Wherever we’re going, could you cast the Warmth Granting Spell…”

“No need for that. You’ll get warm soon.”

After walking for several dozen minutes, she stopped. Estimating the distance she had walked, she muttered.

“This should be far enough.”

“Where is this?”

“Quite far from the village and the Dimensional Gate.”

After saying that, Seo Yun opened the pouch she usually carried.

When she pulled out a pistol from inside, Arnold’s eyes widened.

“Why do you have that?”

Without answering, Seo Yun pulled the trigger.

The moment the ‘bang’ echoed, Arnold’s eyes shot open.

“You…”

It was understandable to be shocked. Using a modern weapon that would anger Meteorite in a place famous for having so many monsters was practically suicidal.

“What did you just…”

“To call the monsters. They heard the gunshot and will probably swarm here pissed off, right? But don’t worry. In my opinion, the monsters here aren’t at a level that can kill you. I’ll probably die instead of you.”

“What?”

“You know I’m wearing cloth armor, right? My health is 11, but if some bear-like thing swings its claws, I’ll be torn in half and die… Ah, they’re coming. Looking with Soul Sight, they seem to be… kushti, I guess.

If those things howl, you get a fear status ailment, and if you let them keep howling, you die. But if you drown out their sound with a louder noise, it’s okay, right? You’ll have to shout your battle cry hard.”

Unseen wolves howled in the blizzard. Seo Yun said to Arnold, who was glaring at her.

“Do well. If you want to keep the secret and kill me, you don’t have to fight hard.”

—Arnold’s roars and curses echoed through the blizzard. The curses were more prominent—he was screaming about why this was happening to him. Seo Yun wanted to lash out at that pathetic man but held back.

Well, he had every right to feel wronged. Wishing on a shooting star for some trivial desire, only for the world to end up like this—it wasn’t even at the level of willful negligence. All the suffering he endured because of it must have felt utterly unreasonable.

But too many people had died to sympathize with his plight and console him by saying it wasn’t his fault. And if things continued like this, more would die, so to stop that, something had to be done. Right now, a building was engulfed in flames, and people were dying inside. You couldn’t possibly soothe fellow firefighters, telling them it wasn’t their fault and they should go home, while they had to rush into the fire.

If that Barbarian Warrior had declared he wouldn’t care since none of this was his fault, that would be one thing. But once he decided to take responsibility, he had to be forced to do something, even if it meant creating a contrived situation.

There was no room to leave him wallowing in self-pity or to accommodate his fragile spirit. The world was too cold and filled with danger for that.

The Barbarian Warrior’s panting could be heard.

“Mother—fuck—!”

A roar forced out through labored breath drowned out the roars of the monsters.

Through the blizzard, she saw Arnold’s back as he fought alone.

Regardless of his pathetic nature, the skills and ability scores engraved in that game character’s body were honest. With each swing of his greatsword, the air burst like a drum, sending blood and flesh flying through the air. The Barbarian Warrior’s passive skill, Owl’s Eye, at a high level, not only pierced through darkness but also allowed him to see invisible enemies. The wolf monsters couldn’t escape that blade.

Of course, even greater dangers lurked within the blizzard.

Not just Kushi, but even monsters she’d never seen before appeared. Buried in the blizzard, their forms were hard to make out, but it didn’t matter. They, too, all fell to the Barbarian Warrior’s greatsword.

One of them seemed to have a notably high Challenge Rating. A monster that looked like a white lion—from what Seo Yun remembered, its Challenge Rating was over 11.

That one didn’t die from a single swing of Arnold’s greatsword; it even counterattacked, leaving a massive claw mark on Arnold’s body. But even so, before a Level 19 Barbarian Warrior, it was just like any other insignificant monster. After a few more swings of his greatsword, Arnold brought it down too.

After killing all the enemies, he turned to look this way with a murderous gaze.

“Are you insane?”

The infrasound embedded in his voice made Seo Yun’s flesh tremble. But she showed no sign of it and spoke in a calm voice.

“No.”

“Gambling with your life…”

Arnold’s eyes, glaring at her, were bloodshot. He must have been really angry.

Seo Yun considered using a Calm Spell but decided against it. Instead, she cast a Healing Spell on Arnold’s body, which was scratched and bitten all over, and said,

“Yes, thanks to you, I survived. Thank you for saving me.”

“Are you kidding?”

She decided not to say it was fine, since she had planned to summon a Troll if things got really dangerous. Wasn’t this a situation where she had to instill confidence, even if forced?

“I’m not kidding. Let me say it again, you’re my lifesaver, really.”

Arnold wasn’t a fool either, so he looked at her incredulously, but Seo Yun ignored it and shamelessly said,

“You did really well. You’ll be able to do well in the future too.”

“In the future?”

“If you could fight like hell to keep one crazy woman from dying, then you can fight just as well for a grander purpose.”

Arnold glared at her again, as if to ask if she went through all this just to say that. This time too, Seo Yun shamelessly said,

“What you lack is experience. You fought quite fiercely this time; it must have been good experience. Right? If it wasn’t helpful…”

As Seo Yun said that and waved the pistol, Arnold, with a startled expression, repeatedly said it had been helpful.

Seo Yun giggled and put the pistol back in her pouch.

By now, Arnold seemed to have lost his steam. He asked in a tired voice,

“Right… Come to think of it, I guess I need to be pushed like this to do anything. But do you have to go through all this hardship? Like I said last time, you don’t have any responsibility to do anything.”

“The Troll said I’m the most suitable candidate to become a Goddess. Doesn’t that fact alone impose some responsibility on me to do something?”

“Even so… I don’t know what the Troll was thinking entrusting you with such a thing.”

“How did you even meet the Troll? The Troll opened the Dimensional Gate so you could come to Korea, right?”

“Right.”

“Detection Spells didn’t even work on you. I don’t know how they brought you over as a Sun God candidate when they probably didn’t even know your Level.”

“Well…?”

The blizzard cleared. As the forms of the fallen monsters were revealed, Arnold seemed shocked by the carnage he had created. Seo Yun collected the souls of the scattered monsters into a glass vial and handed it to Arnold.

“These are yours. If they ask why you suddenly killed so many monsters, say you lost a sparring match and got angry. Turn these in at the village; they’ll give you Contribution Points, so use them to buy chicken or something…”

Three days had passed since returning to Happy Village.

Whether that incident was good experience for Arnold or not was unclear, but it seemed to have provided some stimulation. Seo Yun secretly observed Arnold swinging his greatsword at the air alone, showing more intent to do something than before.

He was in the middle of boasting that he seemed to have a knack for handling orangutans.

The other primate she had to look after, Gaeulbi, brought Han Siwoo and came to find Seo Yun, saying,

“I’ve been mulling over the explanation you gave that day. And I’ve come to a conclusion… You know how I said some spell was cast on me by the Troll?”

Seo Yun thought. She must be talking about the conversation about how she had to become a Goddess or something. What did that have to do with the spell cast on her?

“A Geas? The one that prevents you from disclosing something…”

Gaeulbi nodded with a serious expression.

“Yeah, that. I need to break that damn spell.”