Chapter 5

“Hah...! Hah...!!”

Woojin began running with all his might, tearing frantically through the undergrowth.

“... What the hell is that thing?!”

His heart felt ready to burst at any moment. But if his legs stopped, he would die right then and there.

“Goddammit...!!!”

He did not know whether he was cursing the monster pursuing them or his own predicament—he had only wanted to play a game, and now he was on the verge of death. Either way, curses kept spilling from his mouth.

“Leave... me behind.”

The strained voice came from Raoul, whom he was supporting.

“If you have the strength to say that, put a little more effort into walking.”

Gritting his teeth, Woojin pulled Raoul closer.

'Was he always this light?'

Perhaps it was because something that should have been there was missing.

GRIND.

Woojin looked at Raoul’s right arm. The hand that should have held his sword was gone.

“Ngh...!!”

The potion he had brought had barely managed to stop the bleeding, but reattaching the severed arm was impossible. With every step, blood spurted from Raoul’s side, soaking his clothes.

It had happened in an instant. The monster emerged from the darkness and swung its sword with an awkward stance. Yet astonishingly, that sword had cut off Raoul’s hand on the spot, then buried itself in his waist. It was a crude swing without a trace of swordsmanship, but far too fast for the aging man to react.

'At this rate, we’re going to die.'

He knew he could not get much farther supporting Raoul as his strength ebbed away. As though toying with them, the monster ambled along behind them, slowly following their trail.

“What do we have to do?”

“... What?”

“I’m asking what we have to do to kill that monster!”

Woojin’s shout came between ragged breaths.

“Have you forgotten what I told you? That thing is a monster in every sense of the word! It’s not something we can kill!”

“So what? We just die like this?” Woojin demanded.

“You said you wanted to live! Didn’t you say you were going to the Lion King’s stronghold? Well, so am I. I don’t want to die!” he shouted.

“Will it die if I stab its heart? Or do I have to smash its arms and legs?”

Woojin’s cries snapped Raoul back to his senses. Raoul looked at him. At his eyes. At the will to fight in them.

He nodded silently, as though he had finally realized what he needed to do.

“W-wait! What are you doing?”

Raoul unfastened the sword at his waist and thrust it against Woojin’s chest.

“Those who can live must live.”

“Raoul!!!”

He shoved Woojin hard. Steep slopes flanked the path, and Woojin lost his balance and pitched down one of them.

“... Gah!!!”

Only after tumbling several meters did he slam into a tree and come to a stop.

“Raoul!!!!”

He called the name over and over, but no answer came.

“Shit...!! Goddammit...!!!”

Only a few hours ago, he had found a sliver of hope in this horrific world.

And now...

“Goddammit!!!”

Who was he supposed to blame? God? Himself? The game? Or... that monster?

Woojin clutched Raoul’s sword tightly to his chest and bit his lip.

“I have to get back up there somehow...”

Then it happened.

CLANK.

An alien sound broke the silence. Woojin raised his head, his gaze trembling.

“...!!!”

Red eyes stared down at him from the top of the hill.

THUD! THUD! THUD!!

RUMMMMMBLE!!!!

Woojin could not believe his eyes. The monster was sliding down the slope, charging straight at him like a mad thing.

“Oh, fuck!!!!”

* * *

'Where do I go?'

Woojin shook his head and searched for a path through the forest.

'First, I have to lose it.'

He had no chance in a head-on fight. He needed an opening.

'There should be a goblin nest somewhere around here...'

An open-world dungeon shaped like a maze. He thought it would be the best place to shake off the monster.

“Aagh?!”

As he ran desperately, Woojin stumbled and pitched forward. He had tripped over a tree root and rolled across the ground.

“Ngh...!!”

The breath was knocked out of him, but he could not stop. Sprawled on the ground, he barely managed to get up and lift his head.

[GRRRR...]

He heard the monster growling.

'... There.'

In his mounting desperation, Woojin spotted a collapsed cave. Like the town, it lay in ruins, but fortunately the entrance looked passable. Without a moment to think, he slipped inside.

“Hah... Hah...”

Were all the goblins dead? Almost every trace of monsters seemed to have faded from the old cave. Only the relatively low ceiling and the passages branching off like an ant colony’s tunnels marked it as a goblin habitat.

“That stench...”

Was it from the goblins?

The smell of rotting corpses made him desperately want to leave at once, but Woojin tore off a sleeve, covered his mouth, and concealed himself deeper in the cave.

“Huh?”

Walking farther into the cave, he tilted his head at something odd.

“... What is this?”

Though rotten and broken, the wooden table looked too tall for goblins to use. Then there were the assorted experimental instruments piled to one side. These things did not belong in the boss room where the Goblin Lord should have been.

Traces of a human presence.

PAT, PAT.

He dusted off a book lying on the floor. Unfortunately, its cover bore characters and patterns he did not recognize. In the game, he would have been able to communicate across racial languages without any trouble for convenience’s sake...

'Of course there wouldn’t be an automatic translation system here.'

But the moment he saw the pentagram on the cover beneath the obscuring dust, and the goat engraved inside it, he could guess what the book was.

“Dark magic?”

A memory flashed through Woojin’s mind.

“... No way.”

'Is this where the dark mage who created the headless monster lived?'

He swallowed involuntarily, his mouth dry. The thought had struck him that he might have stumbled into an even more dangerous place.

'... Still, there might be something here that could serve as a clue.'

Fortunately, he could no longer hear the monster after entering the cave. He began searching the room carefully. Sweeping aside the books piled on the floor, he uncovered something.

'A magic circle?'

A faint pentagram appeared on the floor farther inside.

Of course, he did not know the first thing about magic, so he had no idea what the formation on the floor meant. But he could tell something had been going on here.

'The headless monster... It was wearing armor.'

Perhaps it had been human when it was alive.

'Did the dark mage Raoul mentioned turn it into that thing?'

Holding his breath, Woojin stood up, leaving the magic circle on the floor.

[◆◀...!! ▲■▶●!!!]

At that moment, a roar threatened to split his eardrums.

'Shit! Did it find me?'

It was an awful sound, like rough metal scraping. He could not understand what it was saying, but he could tell it was looking for him.

There was nowhere to hide. And only one exit.

'I have to get out, fast.'

KABOOOOM!!!

But just before he stepped into the exit, an old blade shot toward him.

BANG! BANG! BANG!!

As though searching for him, the monster kept swinging its sword into either side of the exit.

'Dammit!!'

Woojin took his stance. He aimed Raoul’s sword at the creature, but its tip was shaking wildly.

Of course it was. This was reality, not a game. The image of that battered sword plunging into his throat kept pressing down on his mind. Himself, thick blood gushing out...

The thought alone was horrifying.

[SCREEEEEECH!!!]

The monster appeared. Woojin barely dodged its wildly swinging sword.

“Goddammit...!!”

WHOOOOSH!!!

The monster’s sword came crashing down past his head.

CRUNCH!!

It narrowly grazed his shoulder as it fell. The blast of air from the swing made Woojin’s legs give way, and he nearly toppled.

'... Huh?'

Yet at that moment, strangely enough, an unfamiliar strength filled the leg he planted to steady himself.

CLANG!!!

He shot forward like a bullet and swung the sword in his hand.

CRAAAAANG!!

With a deafening crash, his attack sent the monster reeling.

THUD!!!

Its feet were driven back several steps.

'Wh-what was that?'

Hurriedly putting distance between them, Woojin stared at the creature in bewilderment.

'That just now...'

His form had been clumsy, but the power of his downward swing was completely unlike anything before.

It was the warrior skill, Power Strike.

'It... it worked.'

For the first time.

Woojin stared at his hand in astonishment for a moment.

“Hooo...”

There was no time to be amazed. He looked at the monster approaching him.

CLANK. CLANK.

For every step the monster took farther inside, Woojin retreated one step. The tension was taut. He focused all his attention on its battered sword.

WHOOSH!!!

Its sword moved.

PATTER-PATTER!!

Seizing that instant, Woojin charged inside its reach with all his might.

'If I can use warrior skills...!'

BOOM!!!

He did not even need to work out how. He moved instinctively, as though his body and mind had remembered it all along.

The warrior’s second skill, Sprint.

Circling to the monster’s side with explosive speed, Woojin swung his sword as hard as he could.

“Hyaaaaah!!”

BOOM!!!

Another Power Strike landed. As the monster reeled, he kept swinging without stopping.

“Hah... Hah...”

How many times had he swung his sword? He was so breathless his head hurt.

“Dammit...”

He had poured everything into his attacks, yet the creature did not have so much as a scratch. Woojin’s expression hardened as he watched the monster still standing firm, blocking the narrow exit.

Of course. This was the monster that had killed Raoul. There was no way he could win.

But...

'I can’t die like this.'

If he could just make an opening to slip through to the exit...

Then it happened.

BOOM!!!!

The monster, which had remained still through his assault, moved for the first time.

“...?!!”

Its blade grazed his cheek. Red blood trickled from the cut. Woojin stared at it blankly.

'Wh-what was that?'

He had not even reacted, let alone blocked its attack. This was different from before.

'... Has it been playing with me this whole time?'

Goddammit.

Woojin bit his lip as anger surged inside him, but there was nothing he could do. Instead, all he felt was crushing terror. His final desperate struggle had come to nothing. Now all he could do was inch backward whenever the creature approached.

THUMP.

His back touched the wall.

[GRRK, GRRK.]

The instant he realized there was nowhere left to run, the monster’s shoulders somehow began to shake.

As though it were laughing at him.

'... Am I going to die like this?'

No matter how hard he thought, he could not come up with a way to escape it.

GRIND!!

Like hell he would. If there was no way out, he would keep struggling until he found one.

“Aaaaaaagh!!!!”

Fear became rage and drove him into action.

At that moment...

HMMMM...

Incredibly, the magic circle beneath his feet began to glow.

“...?!!”

Startled, he looked down. His constant retreat had brought him to the center of the magic circle drawn on the floor.

“Wh-what the hell?!”

He could not hide his unease as the magic circle suddenly activated.

WHOOOOOOSH!!!

A sharp gale enveloped him in an instant, together with a brilliant white light.

'That’s...'

As the gale swept away the accumulated dust, Woojin spotted something slumped against the inner wall beyond the magic circle.

A black robe. And the bare bones left inside it.

The dark mage’s corpse.

“Mmph... Mmmph.”

He could not breathe, as though he were underwater. His consciousness grew hazy.

EEEEEE.

Then a high-pitched tone, like something from a broken radio, pierced his head.

His mind was dazed, as though he had sunk into the ocean’s depths. His vision blurred, and his powerless limbs drifted as if afloat.

'... What is this?'

He felt as though he were falling endlessly, yet at the same time rising without limit. It was a state that defied words and any explanation grounded in common sense.

His vision rippled. Something like soft pudding burst through the darkness pressing down on him.

It was a tiny light, quivering rapidly.

“... Mmph?!”

In that instant, the light forced its way into his mouth.

GULP.

In the blink of an eye, it slid down his throat and seeped into his stomach.

* * *

“... Cough!!! Cough!!!”

He opened his eyes. Clutching his throat, Woojin retched.

“U-uuurgh!!”

But all that came up was thick saliva.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Who knows? Guess he’s trying every weird stunt he can now.”

“Tsk, tsk...”

He heard people talking and hastily lifted his head. The once-ruined town was packed with buildings as though nothing had ever happened, and the red sky was utterly clear.

“This is...”

Woojin stared at them blankly.

[You have logged in.]

The notification window lingering before his eyes slowly disappeared.

He was inside the game.

“Goddammit...”

He sank down against the fountain in the square, exhausted, and closed his eyes.

“Ha... Haha.”

The logout window still would not appear. Nothing had changed.

And yet it was absurd. He was inside the very game he had been so desperate to leave... but ironically, realizing he was in the game had put his mind at ease.

“... Was it a dream?”

He slowly opened his eyes. Had he been exhausted? Perhaps. He had spent dozens of days standing here, doing nothing.

A chill ran through him, and his body shuddered.

CLATTER.

The sword in his hand fell to the ground.

Name: Raoul’s Dragon-Slaying Sword

Grade: D

Description: The cherished sword of the Dragon Hunter Raoul, found in the Dark Forest. The sword has no special abilities, but is said to be so sturdy that it cannot break.

▶ Attack Power +50

▶ Cannot be destroyed.

▶ Contains Raoul’s essence.

Woojin swallowed involuntarily, his mouth dry.

“... Of course it wasn’t.”

It had all been real.

[Would you like to acquire Raoul’s essence?]

At that moment, a notification appeared before his eyes.