Chapter 92 :
Episode 20 : A Fulfilling Meal (4)
With Frostina's snow golem gone because I melted it with the thunder, I sighed to relieve myself.
Walking onto the ground filled with boars scorched to the brim, I found a dagger on one of the boar's buttholes.
"Deja vu." Remembering the time where I shot an arrow into Behemoth's butthole, I shook my head after picking up the dagger.
Seeing as how I recognized this dagger, I put it in my inventory to return it to its rightful owner. Then I looked all over my vicinity, trying to count the boars.
Surpassing 400, there were approximately four hundred twenty boars, including the ones HwanGi's party had slain which was 138.
"They did great." Next, I proceeded to drag all the boars toward the grassland using the threads.
Upon piling them up, I cut off the threads from my fingers before staring at the tower of boars.
"This should be enough." I said, holding onto Lucifer who had turned into a butcher knife.
Out of the blue while I was laying my hands on one of the boars, the voice of Lucifer whispered within my head. ‘Master. I have completed my assignment.’
"Excellent work." I slided the blade of the butcher knife onto the skin of the boar.
Lucifer was quiet for a moment until he told me. ‘Master, the life you're living right now is your 777 life.’
My action halted when I heard the number 777, carrying a grave expression while mumbling. "A disastrous occurrence will happen in the near future."
‘I have transferred memories of stage 11-20 to you, Master.’
Listening to his response, I didn't reply and continued on chopping the boars as quickly as I could, so that I could go do my second quest.
Afterwards, the meats, bones, skins, furs, antlers and horns had been stored into my inventory, exceeding most of my other items.
Out of curiosity, I asked Lucifer, glancing at the direction where HwanGi's party had gone to. "Lucifer. Do you think you can recall my memories if whether or not I have met HwanGi-ssi while I was living as JoonChul?"
‘But there is no recollection of HwanGi in your memories except the current present.’
"HwanGi-ssi seems to know me of some sort. And I have been feeling a rather strange familiarity whenever I'm with him."
‘Master. No matter how much you ask, there remains no anamnesis of HwanGi.’
"That's good to know." I let out a sigh before running toward where HwanGi's location was, taking out a paper and quill that I had kept inside my inventory just in case.
I wrote what I needed to inform them, rolling the paper around the dagger that I had taken out of my storage earlier.
"We don't need to meet at the tavern."
[You have activated the Skill, ‘Discharge’ Lv. 2.]
———
Traveling along the clouds and wind, HwanGi's party was being flung toward their destination.
During this time, they were coming close to crash landing onto the ground which led to HwanGi gulping down his saliva because he has to do a good job at softening their descents.
"Brace for impact everyone!" HwanGi uttered before shooting out ‘Vortex Wave’ underneath everyone.
The water spiraled under them until Frostina gave more support to their landing by adding a storm of snow.
[Player ‘500’ has activated the Skill, ‘Winter Tide’ Lv. ???.]
The tide like snow circled around the water tycoon, decreasing their descent's speed at an extreme extent which led to them arriving on the earth gently without any roughness.
Eventually, Raiden removed his lightning lasso to let everyone move freely after confirming the surrounding was safe.
"Oh God.. That was.." Alaine, who had landed on the ground with everyone, swiftly rushed toward somewhere.
HwanGi saw Alaine's expression looking incredibly awful as if she was going to vomit.
Not only that when he turned to look at the person he was escorting, Maria looked terrified, shivering like a lamb in danger.
"I'm sorry for the unexpected and uncomfortable ride." HwanGi apologized to Maria.
Maria took deep breaths before trying to pull a smile. "I-I'm fine.. B-Beside w-we're close t-to our location.."
"Ah yes. We're only a couple steps away, aren't we?"
"O-Over there.. T-The cemetery.."
Frostina looked over to where Maria was pointing, staring at it for a while before glancing up to find where the sun was.
Immediately, she informed everyone. "We need to finish this quickly. There is not much time."
"Uggh..~ Never.. I don't want to try that again.. oof.." Alaine, who had got back from wherever she was, stumbled her way toward HwanGi.
"You're right, Frostina. You and Raiden still need to finish your quests." HwanGi, holding onto Alaine carefully, spoke to Frostina and Raiden.
Alaine stood up straight after telling everyone. "Can.. we just get this over with..? I need.. some place to lay down."
Maria bowed toward everyone, thanking them. "Thank y-you all for bringing m-me here.. Y-You can go and l-leave me h-here.."
"What do you mean? Are you going to go back on your own?" HwanGi asked in a worried tone.
"Don't w-worry.. I-I'll be teleport b-back to my home.. T-This is normal f-for us, NPCs.."
Frostina saw how anxious HwanGi was with his revealing expression, thus she mentioned. "What Maria said is right. The system will teleport her away, so we don't need to concern ourselves with her."
"..I guess we'll be leaving then, Maria." HwanGi looked at Frostina as he shifted his gaze over to Maria, smiling at Maria and waving his hand hesitantly.
Maria blushed and her eyes were having trouble focusing properly because she witnessed a handsome man concerned about her well-being. "I.. a-ah.. M-May you o-overcome your h-hardships.."
After bidding farewells to Maria, everyone began walking toward the opposite direction of which they came from.
"That ride was.. not so good at all." Alaine groaned, rubbing her temple.
HwanGi, who was still concerned about Maria's safety, casually talked to Alaine. "Sorry."
"What? What are you sorry for?" Getting shocked by HwanGi's apology, Alaine dazed at HwanGi.
"For what happened a moment ago. It's my fault that the ‘Forest’ bear showed up."
"Why is that your fault? You didn't do anything, so don't be so hard on yourself, HwanGi." Alaine patted HwanGi's back before suddenly feeling nauseous.
"..ack." In an instance, she pulled out a waterskin out of her inventory and drank it in one go. "Much better! Phew."
HwanGi watched as Alaine was drinking her water, during this time, he was recalling his trauma once more.
The death of his parents, the horrible injuries his relatives got because of him caused HwanGi to clench his fists.
‘I told myself to go solo, but I couldn't.’ Looking at his party members as he thought about JoonChul's party and the people he had met so far, he frowned at the idea of them getting affected by his rotten luck.
‘I must get stronger, so that no one will be hurt again.’ HwanGi knew he couldn't do anything by himself, as a result, his next plan was to be a helpful teammate for everyone to rely on.
Cleaning the dirt off his clothes, HwanGi aimlessly told himself. ‘If my luck causes trouble, I'll just protect my friends as best as I can.’
"No matter what."
"What are you saying, HwanGi?" Alaine, who heard that part, asked him.
HwanGi realized he had said the last part out loud as he quickly answered her with a slight grin. "Nothing much."
Raiden watching those two having a conversation, switched his glance to Frostina before he asked her. "Do you think Sensei is already doing his quests?"
Frostina with her disinterested expression was walking alongside Raiden, then she spoke in a tone that had a touch of disappointment. "Do you not know your Sensei? Of course, he is."
"How cold. I was only trying to start a conversation."
"It was a bad start."
Chuckling from the conversation, Raiden sensed a ringing sound of thunder coming ahead of him.
In a blink of an eye, the one responsible for that sound came charging in like a bolt of lightning, sprinting insanely fast toward Alaine's right side.
As if he was expecting it, Raiden, who was behind Alaine, extended his right hand out, awaiting for something.
With the clapping sound of thunder, Raiden's hand now had a paper, wrapping around a weapon as soon as the person left with a trail of electricity behind him.
Afterwards, Raiden turned around to look at the person leaving already without saying a word. "Really, Sensei. You could have told us instead of a letter like this."
"My Liege is odd in his own rights." Knowing that JoonChul was the one who came lightning-fast, Frostina expressed a smile.
"True, he's unique. Haha. Now, let's see what he wanted to say." Raiden unwrapping the paper from the dagger, was about to read the letter.
However, he was interrupted when Alaine was turning around to find what the lighting was all about. "What was that..?! Huh?! That's.. my dagger!"
"Oh. Right, this is your dagger." Raiden, handing over the dagger to Alaine, immediately went back to reading the letter.
When HwanGi heard about Alaine's dagger, he turned his head to find Raiden concentrated on reading something.
Even though HwanGi was curious, he didn't want to pry into Raiden's business and ignored the paper.
But as for Alaine, she let her curiosity overtake her and asked Raiden instantly. "What are you reading?"
Raiden finished reading and then, glanced at everyone. "We won't be meeting up at the tavern. Instead, we're going somewhere else."
"Somewhere else? Did JoonChul tell you that?"
"It's all in this letter. I know where this place is, so follow me." Raiden changed direction and briskly went the other way, walking there without showing anyone the letter.
"Hey Raiden, wait! I want to know what's on that paper too!" Alaine quickly followed after him.
Frostina and HwanGi stood there for a moment before looking at each other without saying a word.
With Frostina's expression being uninterested and chilly, she replaced it with a smile which caused HwanGi to be a little surprised by the sudden change.
"Ahem. We should go before we lose them." HwanGi looked away, entirely charmed by Frostina's beauty.
"Yes, we shall."
With just a single letter, HwanGi's party changed their destination without any difficulties, going there extremely fast but not too speedily to cause exhaustion.
