Chapter 382 - Us (1)

What the hell? Why is he here?

At first, even that thought failed to cross my mind.

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.

My heart hammered harder than it had while fighting the Deep-Sea Giant, and my mind was blank, as though an eight-ton truck had slammed into the back of my head at full speed.

I only came to my senses after he spoke first.

"Whoa, what are you? Did you seriously kill that thing alone?"

I'd only spoken with him a few times while he looked like this, but that voice and manner of speaking were unforgettable.

'Lee Baekho.'

The moment I recognized that this was real, I noticed the old man standing beside him.

'The Scholar of Destruction.'

For now, those were the only two I could see.

'They were fighting and talking about knocking each other's teeth out back then. Now this bastard and Baekho are teammates?'

My thoughts were a tangled mess.

Never mind them becoming teammates. Why were they here? Could they be after me? No, more importantly, what had happened to Erwin and Amelia back there?

I'd only told them to keep waiting until I returned.

"Weird. I've never heard of anyone like you."

"Never heard of him? There was that man everyone was talking about recently."

At the Scholar of Destruction's interruption, Lee Baekho nodded with a look of realization.

"Oh, right. There's that guy. He fits the description, too."

"Though we cannot be certain yet."

"Well, we can find out now. Hey, are you that Schuitz guy, or whatever his name is?"

He was unbelievably rude for someone speaking to a stranger, but I actually felt relieved.

'... So they didn't come looking specifically for me.'

I wasn't Lee Baekho's target.

And if so, then probably...

'Whatever he's after is here in this place.'

Hadn't I already been on guard against the "competitors" who'd cleared the rocky island events besides us?

Maybe these two were them.

'Then this encounter was entirely a coincidence...'

Just as my thoughts reached that point...

"How about answering me?"

Ha. What a rude little shit.

"How about introducing yourself first?"

At my question, he gave a small chuckle, looking rather pleased.

"Lee Baekho. You?"

"I'm most likely the man you have in mind."

"Wow, that's wild. Meeting a celebrity out here."

"A celebrity?"

"I heard you fought four Noark small fry by yourself. Someone like that shows up out of thin air, and you expect people not to talk? Not to mention how that elf girl, the Blood Spirit Marquis, dotes on you."

I couldn't really argue with that.

The Labyrinth's population decreased exponentially the higher you went.

Even on the seventh floor, everyone knew everyone through a few connections. A powerful fighter appearing whose name and face nobody knew must have seemed strange.

"Wait, doesn't that mean that elf girl's here, too?"

"Come to think of it, I don't see the mage, either. We must have missed them because we teleported here."

Listening to their conversation, I suppressed another sigh of relief.

If what they said was true, Erwin and Amelia were safe.

"So, what brings you here?"

As I spoke, I slowly walked toward the Essence. If a fight broke out, I intended to absorb it immediately.

It wasn't the color I wanted, but I judged that it would help in the short term.

"Freeze."

Lee Baekho addressed me in a playful tone.

"Don't touch that Essence just yet."

'The Essence?'

That was a clue that could help me analyze the situation.

Lee Baekho wanted the Deep-Sea Giant's Essence.

Normally, that would have been the full extent of my deduction, but my brain, fired up by survival instinct, questioned something I might otherwise have overlooked.

'He's coming all the way here for it instead of going to the ninth floor, where a dozen or so Deep-Sea Giants spawn at a time?'

There were two possible explanations.

["You cleared the ten-times version too, right? Maybe in about ten years you'll be on my level. There's practically no room left for me to get stronger..."]

Either Lee Baekho wasn't actually as powerful as he'd claimed back then...

Or something was preventing him from going to the ninth floor.

I planted my foot and stopped walking toward the Essence for now.

There was no telling how that lunatic might react if I needlessly approached any closer.

Still...

"This is my loot."

It wouldn't be good to seem too obedient, either.

When I challenged him in a slightly belligerent tone, Lee Baekho raised his hands in a calming gesture.

"Whoa, whoa. Why so touchy? I only stopped you because I thought we might be able to make a trade."

"A trade?"

"What I need is that red Essence over there. If you don't specifically need that one, how about a swap?"

Honestly, his words didn't quite feel real.

I found myself asking,

"Why bother trading?"

As his rude attitude made clear, Lee Baekho considered me beneath him.

So why was he proposing a "trade" anyway?

When there was an easier way.

"What, should I kill you and take it instead?"

Lee Baekho gave an answer I hadn't expected at all.

"Honestly, I'm annoyed I came here for nothing... but it's not like you pulled some shady trick. It'd be pathetic to whine just because you got here faster and killed it first, wouldn't it?"

"... What if I refuse to trade?"

"Who knows? I'd be disappointed and come back some other time, I guess."

It was an undeniably normal way of thinking.

I was momentarily speechless, but on reflection, it wasn't incomprehensible.

His ultimate goal was to return to Earth, after all.

He must have drawn his own lines somewhere.

Just as I had up until now.

"All right."

Unexpectedly, things were more civil than I'd imagined.

I'd considered the worst-case scenario of us coming to blows without so much as a word.

At this rate, it didn't seem things would go that far.

And the proposed trade itself wasn't bad for me, either.

"What will you give me for the Essence?"

When I asked him to make the first offer, he seemed to think for a moment before putting an item into the trade window.

"A Deep-Sea Giant's Essence."

"...?"

"I've been killing them regularly lately. I've got blue and green—"

What?

I immediately cut him off.

"I'll take green."

One more piece of good news.

For the moment, at least.

* * *

"What, was that the one you wanted?"

"Green has a higher average market price. And it saves me the cost of a test tube."

At my immediate, unhesitating answer, Lee Baekho nodded as though convinced, then took a test tube out of his subspace.

"But how can I trust that it's from a Deep-Sea Giant?"

"Because if I were going to pull some pathetic scam, I wouldn't have offered to trade in the first place?"

Hah. All that glaring just because I showed a little suspicion.

"So, are we trading or not?"

"... I'll take your word for it."

As soon as I answered, Lee Baekho casually tossed me the test tube.

The very idea of throwing a test tube was hard for me to comprehend...

But well, I caught it just fine.

"You've got your stuff, so mind moving aside? This old geezer's too scared to go over there."

Once I moved aside to give him space, the Scholar of Destruction approached and collected the Essence in a test tube.

That concluded the trade.

'So Lee Baekho wasn't getting it for himself. Is it for a teammate, then?'

While I quietly observed them and sorted through my thoughts, Lee Baekho spoke to me.

"Schuitz, was it?"

"That's right."

"You dropped the formalities for a bit, and now they're back? Just talk however you're comfortable."

"This is how I'm comfortable."

"Suit yourself, then. Anyway, there's something I want to ask. Mind?"

When I gave him a look indicating I was willing to hear him out, he asked me point-blank,

"Are you Bjorn Jandel, by any chance?"

This guy really didn't have a reverse gear.

THUMP!

My heart lurched, but I did my best not to show it.

I merely asked back as though he'd said something strange.

"Why would you ask that?"

"Some guy whose name and face were barely known suddenly shows up, right? And that elf girl follows him around everywhere, calling him Mister. She's not a fucking idiot, so that's a little strange, isn't it?"

It was a reasonably sound argument.

The Round Table members had suspected me for the same reason, in fact.

"So, your answer?"

He stared straight at me.

What he was doing was obvious.

'He's using his lie detector.'

The lie-detection skill Lee Baekho possessed.

'If I keep my mouth shut, he'll interpret that however he wants. He might even get forceful.'

I quickly sorted through my thoughts.

There were two possible candidates for Lee Baekho's detection skill.

One could distinguish truth from lies, while the other only picked out lies.

Some might ask whether that wasn't the same thing, but the two were decidedly different.

Because I had the gift Auriel Gabis had given me.

In the latter case, if he activated the skill and got no reaction, he would accept my words as the truth.

'... If I play this right, I might even find out which Essence he absorbed.'

It didn't take long to make my decision.

"I am not Bjorn Jandel."

I answered without averting my gaze, and he gave a small chuckle.

"Really? That's a shame."

His expression and tone suggested he didn't doubt my answer in the slightest.

Thanks to that, I was able to identify one of the many Essences he'd absorbed.

If he'd had the former skill, he couldn't have accepted it so easily.

The natural response would have been to wonder why he couldn't determine whether my statement was true or false.

'Well, I more or less expected it, given how he didn't doubt anything I said earlier. But now it's confirmed.'

In effect, I'd gained a way to have the upper hand in conversations with Lee Baekho.

But rather than being satisfied with that, I asked,

"May I ask you something as well?"

"Sure, it's give-and-take."

"..."

"That means you can ask."

I'd naturally secured the right to one question.

I took a moment to think.

"Aren't you going to ask?"

I had mountains of questions.

What he intended to use the Stone of Resurrection he supposedly possessed for.

Why he'd become teammates with the Scholar of Destruction.

And...

["That woman is one of Lee Baekho's teammates now."]

Why Clown had said Misha was his teammate.

Where Misha was now.

What the hell he'd done to her. The list went on and on.

"..."

I swallowed the many questions I wanted to ask right then and there.

The moment I asked anything like that, he'd take an even greater interest in me.

Not yet.

I couldn't even predict how he'd react if I revealed I was Lee Hansoo.

I still didn't know what he was planning.

Right, so...

"Lee Baekho."

I called his name.

Then, as he grinned and remarked that my pronunciation was good for a local, I asked,

"Since we're on the subject of Bjorn Jandel, let me ask you this."

"What?"

"Why did you spread the rumor that Bjorn Jandel was an evil spirit?"

Lee Baekho's smile stiffened slightly.

"So you already knew who I was?"

"Of course. It's a famous name."

"Is it? Well, everyone in the know seems to know these days."

Though he'd briefly flinched, Lee Baekho showed no great suspicion over my question.

"Anyway... looks like the Blood Spirit Marquis even figured that out, huh? That I was the one who started the rumor."

"So, your answer?"

At my prompting, he twitched the fingers resting on his hip as though considering it.

Then, just as he opened his mouth...

"His companions are coming."

At the warning from the Scholar of Destruction, who'd finished collecting the Essence in the test tube, Lee Baekho's expression changed.

"Really? Then we'd better scram."

"Is that truly necessary?"

"Running into them will just make things a pain. Me, maybe not, but they'll be hell-bent on killing you, old man. Kitty told us, remember? Never touch her former teammates."

"But how would she know what happens here?"

At the Scholar of Destruction's words, my grip on my hammer tightened involuntarily.

And in that instant...

"... Old man, don't cross the line."

Lee Baekho, who'd been smiling and speaking cheerfully throughout the conversation, lowered his voice to an icy tone.

"... It was a joke. I'll cast Mass Teleportation magic."

Their conversation brought relief, but anger welled up alongside it.

By Kitty, he had to mean Misha.

A sense of loss struck me belatedly—something I hadn't felt when I'd merely heard that Misha had become Lee Baekho's teammate.

But...

"Wait."

Suppressing all those emotions, I spoke.

"I'd like you to answer my question before you leave."

"Oh, right. You asked why I spread that rumor, didn't you?"

Looking as though he'd completely forgotten, Lee Baekho signaled the Scholar of Destruction with his eyes.

The Scholar clicked his tongue with a "Tsk," then nodded.

For some reason, that tongue click gave me a sense of déjà vu.

It felt like a situation I'd seen often before.

Why? Why did this feel familiar?

Just as those thoughts were circling through my head...

WHOOOOSH!

A magic circle formed around the Scholar of Destruction and radiated blue light.

'What?'

It was so sudden that it took me quite a while to grasp what was happening.

'A surprise attack?'

Just as that possibility surfaced in my confused mind...

"Hey! What the hell, old man!"

Lee Baekho delivered his next lines in a blatantly theatrical tone.

"We're in the middle of a conversation! Why would you activate teleportation magic now? I can't answer him like this!"

"..."

"Schuitz, right? Sorry, I'll tell you next time we meet. It's really not because it's a hard question to answer. Seriously. Okay? Got i—"

There was a brilliant flash.

Lee Baekho's voice scattered and vanished the instant the light flared.

I was too dumbfounded to get any words out.

My grip tightened.

Right. He was Korean, too.

It had been a long time since I'd felt toyed with like this.

Ever since coming here, I'd always been on the other side of it.

'No, wait a second...'

Belatedly alarmed, I hurriedly broke the test tube.

「[Deep-Sea Giant's Essence] seeps into the character's soul.」

... Fortunately, the Essence was real.

* * *

「Bjorn Jandel」

Level: 7

Physical: 1,461.40(New +231.01) / Mental: 521.3(New +78) / Ability: 1,807.65(New +62.4)

Item Level: 8,305

Overall Combat Index: 5866.60(New +371.41)

Obtained Essences: Orc Hero - Rank 5 / Ogre - Rank 3 / Bayon - Rank 3 / Stormgush - Rank 3 / Vol-Herchan - Rank 3 / Gacha Bone - Rank 6 / Deep-Sea Giant - Rank 3(New)