Chapter 64 - The Hut (3)

Ever since getting stranded in Witch's Forest, I had sometimes wondered.

Could the dwarf's group be wandering through the forest looking for us right now? If so, perhaps running into them by chance wasn't entirely impossible?

To cut to the chase, it was a pointless fantasy.

'Of course it wouldn't happen.'

Imagination and reality never did match. Learning there were three occupants had gotten my hopes up, and now I smiled bitterly.

Miracles really weren't for me.

Tragedies, maybe.

"... Bjorn."

Misha climbed up my back and whispered very softly into my ear.

"What are we going to do now, nyah?"

Good question. I was thinking about it.

I hadn't imagined meeting these fuckers here either.

'His name was... Davis something, wasn't it?'

First, I readied myself to bring my mace down and smash his skull at any moment, then examined the soundly sleeping man closely.

Davis.

A religious nut plastered with symbols of the Followers of Leatlas, from his necklace and bracelets right down to the buttons on his shirt.

In short, the leader of the explorers who had fallen for Elisa's scheme and attacked us.

'What the hell is this bastard doing here?'

The longer I looked at his face, the more questions I had.

Why was he resting here? Where had they dumped that bitch Elisa, leaving just three of them? And why did they look like beggars, just like us?

"..."

Setting those questions aside, I checked inside through the window again. Fortunately, the other two were still fast asleep.

Now that I knew they belonged to the religious nut's group, their builds and hair colors gave me a good idea of who they were.

'That archer and swordsman from before.'

The exceptionally large shield warrior and the red-haired archer were nowhere to be seen.

'... Did they get separated from their group too?'

The thought struck me, but I couldn't be sure.

Shit, what should I do? Something felt wrong. Should I forget the questions and just smash all their heads while they slept?

As I deliberated, Misha whispered.

"Bjorn, we might be able to get news about Hikurod's group, nyah."

Hmm, true enough. Talking to them would be best, after all.

Though we'd need to create the right conditions for a conversation first.

"Let's knock them all out and tie them up first."

"Good idea, nyah."

With that settled, I sent Misha into the hut so she could subdue them before they got their bearings if they woke up.

"..."

Well, that seemed to be everything ready.

I exchanged a look with Misha through the window and nodded. Then I raised my mace overhead.

THWACK!

Holding back about half my strength, I brought it down on his head.

As expected, the religious nut went limp without so much as a dying groan. Wiping the blood and bits of flesh off my clothes, I let out a long breath.

'Whew. That's one knocked out.'

Time to knock out the next one.

I crept into the hut, where the other two lay lost in dreams, utterly dead to the world. They must have been exhausted.

Which one should I start with?

While I considered it, one of them stirred.

"Ugh..."

Right. He'd make a good second choice.

I was just about to bring my mace down to knock him out when—

"Didn't you say you were going to knock them out, nyah!"

Misha rushed over, grabbed my arm, and shouted in a hushed voice.

I tilted my head, then belatedly realized what she meant and nodded.

"Don't worry."

Even in fighting games, short hops had been my specialty.

That's how confident I was in my control.

Well, if they died, there was nothing I could do about it.

That was the kind of world this was, wasn't it?

THWACK!

The moment my mace came down, the man resting in the rocking chair went limp.

At the same time—

"Wh-who—"

Perhaps hearing the noise this time, the man on the bed sat up.

Of course, that wasn't a problem.

Asleep or awake, my mace treated everyone equally.

THWACK!

Without bothering to creep closer, I dashed forward and drove my mace into his face at roughly half strength.

Since the aim was to knock him out, the move's name...

'Bash should do.'

That successful "Bash" completed the initial subjugation.

I looked at Misha.

"What are you doing? Hurry up and tie them up."

Misha answered as she looked at the three bloodied wrecks.

"Do we really need to tie them up, nyah...?"

Uh, well...

Still, better safe than sorry, as they say. Being thorough never hurt.

That was my cardinal rule.

* * *

"Wow, they're actually alive, nyah..."

Fortunately, all three men had survived their respective blows from my mace.

"Didn't I tell you not to wor—"

"But they look like they'll die any minute, nyah."

"..."

Their breathing was irregular and growing shallower, as though they might expire at any moment. The one I'd hit in the face was the worst off.

But as long as they were alive, there was no problem.

This was literally a fantasy world, wasn't it?

"Just as I thought."

I picked a backpack at random from those in sight and took out a bottle of potion. Then I sprinkled it over the unconscious men's heads.

Just a little each. We couldn't have them getting too lively.

HISSS!

The reactions came after a delay.

"Aagh!!! Aaaaagh!"

"Ghaaaaaah!!"

As their cracked skulls slowly healed, the three men flopped on the grass like live fish.

I brought the rocking chair outside, sat down, and waited for them to come to their senses.

"You barbarian brute, nyah..."

Misha looked at me and hurled that accusation, but what could I do?

Whether that bitch Elisa had tricked them or not, these were enemies who had tried to kill us once.

And Bjorn's barbarian heart rarely felt pity for an enemy.

"Y-you're...!"

"That barbarian from before!"

"It's a misunderstanding! A misunderstanding! We're not your enemies!"

Eventually, the three came to their senses. But all three talking at once was unbearably distracting.

"Just one of you."

At my low words, spoken as I wiped my bloody mace with a cloth, silence fell.

Bound together like a string of dried fish, the three exchanged looks and reached an unspoken agreement.

"Listen, this is all a misunderstanding. There's been a misunderstanding."

Their leader, the religious nut, had been chosen as their representative.

"I'll explain everything, so please unt—"

"Forget that. What's the misunderstanding?"

At my question, the religious nut launched into a long-winded explanation, sounding aggrieved.

"That bitch! She used us, that's all. We had no idea she was a servant of accursed Carui...!"

Oh, so they'd figured that out now?

Something really had happened, then.

"So why don't you untie us first, and we can talk this over calmly...?"

"Enough of that."

What mattered now wasn't how wronged they felt or how much they'd suffered.

"Tell me everything, from beginning to end. What exactly happened after we escaped?"

Establishing the chain of events.

That alone was why I'd used "Bash" instead of "Smash."

"Uh, well..."

"Don't even think about getting clever."

"U-understood. Ultimately, trusting that bitch was our mistake, but I'll tell you everything."

"I'll be the judge of whether you're hiding anything."

The religious nut swallowed hard. Then he spilled the whole lengthy story I hadn't known.

"After falling for that wicked woman's scheme, we caught up with them, but for some reason, there were only three."

Of course there were.

That was right when we'd gotten left behind.

GRIND.

It really made me gnash my teeth.

How could the timing have been so fucking awful?

"Should I go on...?"

"Of course. Continue."

"We couldn't have them keep running, so we first ambushed and wounded the man who appeared to be their Scout."

"Y-you don't mean Rotmiller, nyah!"

"I don't know his name. But don't worry. He should be alive with a wound like that."

Anyway, piecing together the rest of his account, this was what had happened.

The ambush had left Rotmiller unable to fight. It was an utterly desperate situation.

The dwarf must have decided that their only chance of escaping safely was to take out the enemy Scout.

"I don't know what it was, but light burst out just like before and pushed us back."

"By the time we recovered, an Ice Spear had already pierced Anderson's head."

"Ah, Anderson was our Scout's name."

"He wasn't the sort to fall to something like that..."

"Perhaps having the numerical advantage made him careless. It seems he failed to dodge in time."

Whatever the extraneous details, Dwalki had used the opening the dwarf created to kill their Scout. Then they'd fled with the injured Rotmiller without looking back.

As soon as she heard this, Misha slapped my back.

"It really was thanks to Hikurod, nyah! He killed the Scout because he was thinking of us, nyah!"

Well, I didn't know what the dwarf had truly intended. But there was no denying that we were alive thanks to what he'd done.

Anyway, back to the story.

"With Anderson dead, never mind pursuing them—we had no choice but to wander through this forest ourselves."

The religious nut's group, who had so eagerly chased us, had fallen into much the same predicament as us when their Scout died.

Of course, they were still somewhat better off than us. There were five of them, and they even had a priestess among their number.

But...

"It was about two days after we started wandering."

On their second day stranded, while they were taking turns standing watch and recovering their stamina, that bitch Elisa had shown her true colors and killed another of them.

"The moment I saw him shriveling up as his life force was drained, I knew. That bitch was a worshipper of evil Carui!"

"Enough. Why did she kill your friend?"

"That... I don't know either. The instant we witnessed that evil, horrific sight, all the three of us could think of was getting away and warning the world."

Bullshit. You just ran because you wanted to live.

Abandoning your companion in the process.

Anyway, I skipped the rest of the story. Apart from there being three of them, it was no different from what Misha and I had been through.

"So, now that we've cleared up the misunderstanding, please untie—"

"I thought I told you to stop bringing that up?"

I sighed at what was already his third request for release.

"Bjorn, what are we going to do now, nyah?"

"Ahem. We seem to be in the same predicament. Why don't we work together instead?"

"You keep your mouth shut."

I sank deeper into thought.

Of course, I had absolutely no intention of accepting his proposal and joining forces for the remaining two days.

But...

"C-come to think of it, we haven't apologized yet! I apologize! We were fools to fall for her tricks. We're sorry!"

There was room for doubt.

Could I really classify these men as "fucking scumbags"?

Sure, we'd been through hell because of them, but in the end, none of us had died. The dwarf's group seemed to have all survived too, at least.

"O-of course, we'll also compensate you for the harm we caused!"

They were even offering material compensation.

Did I still have to kill them?

"Bjorn, I'll go along with whatever you decide, nyah."

I'd killed several people by now. But those had been life-or-death situations, and they'd been irredeemable trash.

What about these men?

It wasn't clear-cut.

Yes, as I'd said, there was room for doubt. My modern mindset, which I still hadn't shed, was trying to defer the decision.

"What is there to consider! I-it was a mistake! We never imagined a priestess would li—"

"Be quiet. Keep that up and I might accidentally smash your head."

"..."

Even as I answered harshly to keep them from looking down on me, I continued deliberating inside.

Was killing them right?

I asked myself one last time.

And the barbarian warrior Bjorn Jandel answered.

'Does right or wrong matter? Killing them makes things easier. Why leave trouble for later?'

An exceedingly practical answer.

Lee Hansoo, twenty-nine years old and born in Seoul, spoke up too.

'Idiot, what's there to think about? Obviously, killing someone for making a mistake is absurd. But...'

For once, the two agreed.

'That's how it works in the world we used to live in, isn't it?'

Killing someone over a single mistake.

It really was absurd.

If this had been the place where I'd been born and raised.

My grip tightened around my mace.

That was why I'd taken hold of it. And yet, perhaps I still hadn't made up my mind.

The question slipped out before I knew it.

"Misha, what do you think?"

Misha, who would have been born and raised here, answered.

"I don't trust these bastards, nyah."

"And?"

"Mistake or not, they tried to kill us once, nyah. When that happens... my father taught me as a child that you must never forgive them, nyah."

Hmm. So that was it after all.

That was simply normal in this world.

My mind cleared as though a fog had lifted.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

The reason was simple.

Otherwise, you could fucking die.

And so I smoothly raised my mace.

"I-I told you it was a mistake!"

The religious nut shouted from the ground.

"A mistake..."

I nodded.

Yes, it might indeed have been a mistake.

But somehow, I had a feeling you'd make another mistake after this.

CRUNCH!

And so I brought my mace down.

With all my strength, as if to erase my hesitation.

CRUNCH!

One after another.

CRUNCH!

Three swings of my mace, and silence fell.

「Achievement Accomplished」

Condition: Kill count of 10.

Reward: Mental permanently increases by +1.

I had no intention of justifying my actions.

If I had, I would have laid a trap, shown an opening, and waited for them to make a "mistake."

After all, the more of a "fucking scumbag" the bastard I killed was, the better it was for my mental health.

But...

'It's time to let go of that shit.'

From the very first day I opened my eyes in this body, I'd already known.

'Bjorn Jandel.'

That was the name I would have to live by from now on.

No, not just the name. I had to become this barbarian completely.

That was the only way to survive here.

PLIP, PLOP.

Blood and bits of flesh fell from my mace.

"Bjorn... are you all right, nyah? Your hand is shaking, nyah."

In this world, you died if you were weak.

You died if you made a mistake.

You died if you were unlucky.

"Don't worry. I'm perfectly fine."

Soon, my hand stopped shaking.

I stripped the equipment from the religious nut, then dragged his corpse, now in its underwear, into the hut.

"Huh? Wh-what are you doing, nyah!"

Misha asked in horror, and I answered.

"What needs to be done."

Something I had to do even if I didn't want to.

Without hesitation, I threw the corpse onto the half-dying fire.

WHOOSH!

The flames sprang back to life in an instant.

At the same time, a nauseating smell rose.

No, actually, I only thought of it as nauseating.

My strong-stomached barbarian body couldn't tell the difference between that and the smell of meat.

WHOOSH!

Watching the flames grow stronger, I exhaled.

So this worked just like the game too.

「A new sacrifice has been offered.」

「The duration of Witch's Hut increases by 8 hours.」

With two more pieces of firewood left, that meant we could rest in the hut for at least twenty-four hours.

"What are you doing? Go get some rest."

With that, I lay down on the bed.

Misha said something, but honestly, I didn't hear it.

"... Comfortable."

Closing my eyes, I counted pointlessly from one.

As though it had finally found peace, my weary body slowly drifted off to sleep.

CRACKLE, CRACKLE, POP.

The sound of the fire faded from my awareness.

'A bed really is the best place to sleep.'

It didn't even seem ironic anymore.

The more I shed the traces of my modern self, the more like a human being I could live here.