Chapter 126 – Madness and Hope
“What? Where did Jin go?”
Right in the middle of the fight, just when it finally felt like we might actually clear this raid on this attempt, Jin suddenly disappeared somewhere.
He had not been participating in the battle at all to begin with, so his disappearance was not exactly a problem.
But where did he suddenly go?
“Dorfin, did you see Jin?”
“Looks like he found a child he likes~? That little one finally found a partner of his own!”
“What do you mean, partner?! And what do you mean that little one ‘too’?! Stop saying creepy things!”
“Aww~ Does Grandma bother you that much?”
Goosebumps rose all over my body.
Seriously, what was wrong with this woman?
Still, if that really was the case, then there was a chance Jin’s problem might finally be solved too.
If so, I could probably guess what the Chairman had intended.
Maybe his intention really had just been something innocent like, Make him act more like an NPC.
Was the Chairman surprisingly serious about making this game?
“Ingwang-nim! We’re ready!!”
While the raid party fought desperately against the army outside the castle gate, the advance team managed to get over the walls without Pie.
Unlike the time we had dived toward the outside before, the inner side of the walls looked like a relatively normal city.
Well...
“Normal” might be stretching it.
It looked more like a painting whose colors had melted and begun running down the canvas.
From the moment we crossed the wall, there were traps, wooden barricades, and all sorts of defensive structures along the path.
Apparently this part required its own strategy too.
“Well, there’s no reason we have to follow the road they made for us.”
So I decided we would simply make a straight path ourselves.
Buildings?
Barricades?
Traps?
Whatever.
We would smash straight through all of it.
The method was nothing special.
Levi, who had not had much of a chance to shine in recent battles, would use the one burst-damage skill she could only fire once.
“I-I’m so nervous, Ingwang-ssi!”
“Don’t worry! I believe in our Levi! Our Levi is the best! I can’t live without Levi!”
“...! Y-You’re doing it again! Trying to sweet-talk your way through the situation! Hehe... I’m not some easy elf who falls for those sweet whispers every single time!”
Your voice is full of laughter, though.
What a pervert.
Aien infused Levi with the water power unique to the Sea Dragon Armor.
Malleangi prepared to block the backlash that would hit Levi.
Meanwhile, the Village Chief kept watch over our surroundings.
“Aah! Hurry!!! Hurry up and do it already, hurry~!!”
“Please stop whining like a child! I can’t concentrate!”
“...Levi, you really are honest with your desires. I can feel your power surging because you’re excited. Do you really like an old man like that?”
“Eek! D-Don’t look! Fine! Five seconds until firing! Four! Three! Two! One!”
BOOOOM!!!
Levi shaped her fingers like a gun and aimed them toward the castle.
As she counted down, a thick dark-blue liquid formed at her fingertip.
It gathered rapidly.
Then it exploded forward as a gigantic, violent stream of water.
Even standing nearby, we could feel how powerful it was.
The water blast instantly smashed through walls, erased wooden barricades, and carved a perfectly straight road toward the castle.
The water cannon she used before had felt like water blasting from a fire truck hose.
This time...
It was more like an entire collapsed dam unleashing everything at once.
“Hweee... eee... Uweeeeeegh!”
Levi collapsed immediately after emptying all her power into that single attack.
She was completely out.
Even Aien, who had been supplying power to her, looked exhausted.
Apparently far more energy had been sucked away than she had expected.
So the collapsed dam comparison had actually been accurate.
Was this my foresight?
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, I guess.
“Not bad. Village Chief, Malleangi, stay here and look after Levi. Aien! You’re coming with me! You can still keep going, right?”
“...Yes!”
“M-Me toooo... Hnn...”
The moment I caught a glimpse of Madness in Levi’s eyes, I immediately turned around and headed toward the castle.
If I accepted her advances even once here, then next time she might stop accepting rejection even if I pretended to be unwilling.
You had to push someone away once in a while to make them more obsessed.
Besides...
Abandoning her decisively here made me more like a bad man.
And that was exactly Levi’s type.
[Due to the Adventurer’s highly suitable behavior, Leviinge’s affection has greatly increased...]
[Your contribution to the Mosanrim Elf Tribe has greatly increased!]
Aagh!
Please!
This is beyond anything I imagined!
And that “tribe” is literally just Levi!
“We’ve got a straight path all the way to the entrance. Let’s hurry inside.”
“What are we supposed to do once we’re in there?”
“That’s simple... improvise.”
After receiving even more undeniable confirmation of Levi’s tastes, we jumped past the soldiers guarding the castle and rushed inside.
If I had to guess, there probably would not be anything particularly normal inside.
The half-destroyed city behind us was not properly formed.
The soldiers endlessly chasing us were not properly formed either.
So would the castle itself really be normal?
Of course not.
THUD!
“...Thought so....”
Despite how enormous the castle looked from the outside, once we opened the door and entered, the entire interior was nothing more than a massive warehouse-like space.
There was no ceiling at all.
Black, sticky liquid dripped down from above and flowed along the walls.
There were no decorations.
Nothing that really looked like a proper castle interior.
And in the hazy distance...
A single figure stood there.
“Please... Please don’t let it be the Great Hero....”
“Why would the Great Hero be in a place like this?”
“You don’t understand....”
I clutched my pounding heart and slowly walked farther into the castle.
The soldiers who had seemed ready to chase us all the way inside suddenly stopped at the entrance.
They remained outside, shouting at me as if they were laying siege to the castle instead.
Step by step, we cautiously approached the blurry figure.
Then, as if it had been waiting for us...
Asset’s voice entered my head.
[I remember the first time I met Hope.]
“Kyaaaak! What is this?!”
“Uwah! Y-You scared me...!”
Asset’s familiar voice flowed directly into my mind.
And immediately afterward, Aien’s piercing scream tore through my ears and made me jump too.
I had been listening with full concentration because this was a story from four hundred years ago.
Then Aien screamed at maximum volume because she got startled.
There went the entire atmosphere.
“It’s just a story event. Don’t be scared.”
“Y-You never told me something like this would happen!”
“Turn down the volume in the settings. And don’t get scared again.”
“Ugh...!”
This was exactly why you were not supposed to stay on a call while playing a story-heavy game.
Not that I had personal experience with that.
But whenever streamers played story games while talking with friends, it completely killed the mood.
Well, I guess ruining the atmosphere could be entertaining in its own way.
[Back then, the man who had not yet been called the Great Hero came to kill me, trapped within a tower like a princess from a fairy tale.]
This was Asset’s memory.
Asset, who possessed the power of Madness just like me, had been imprisoned in a tower.
And the Great Hero of Hope had come there to kill her.
Then where was Asset’s younger sibling, Pastien?
Usually in situations like this, the whole family got dragged into the witch hunt together.
That was basically the standard cliché.
[Hope asked me, “Do you hate humans?”]
[I answered, “Not even once. I’ve never hated them. I simply understand that there are many people who cannot understand me.”]
The Great Hero of Hope must have understood that her answer had nothing to do with being broad-minded or forgiving.
Asset was the kind of person who had laughed while describing her own horrifying death.
She could say something like that because she treated everything in the world as if it were someone else’s problem.
Even things that happened to herself.
Yet someone like her had still asked me to help her younger sibling.
If I failed to keep that promise...
I had no idea what kind of curse she might place on me.
[Hope groaned softly after hearing my words. He looked at me with unbearable sadness and drew his sword.]
[I thought I was going to die. Madness was the enemy of everyone, after all. I believed I would die here and become fertilizer for Hope. I assumed Hope had asked whether I hated humans because he had come here to kill me, and I had been imprisoned here for the purpose of dying by his hand.]
[“Promise me one thing.” I spoke.]
[“...” Hope silently nodded and looked at me.]
[“I have a younger sibling named Pastien. That child is very fragile. Since you are Hope, I want you to plant hope inside that child’s heart as well.”]
[Hope tightly shut his eyes after hearing my request. I thought that probably meant he would never be able to fulfill that promise.]
Apparently the game still had no intention of revealing the Great Hero of Hope’s appearance.
Both he and Asset were shown only as black silhouettes.
The Great Hero raised his sword toward Asset.
Watching the two shadows felt strangely like watching a stage play.
Knowing that the two of them had actually existed once made the whole thing feel unexpectedly bitter.
CLANG!
[The sword fell swiftly. Yet there was no pain. As expected of Hope, I thought. His swordsmanship was even better than the rumors said.]
[“I cannot keep that promise.”]
[Hope’s voice was still reaching me. Had I not died? When I came back to my senses, I noticed the chain wrapped around my ankle had been severed.]
[“Everyone calls me Hope, but I cannot plant hope inside people by myself.”]
[Hope extended his hand toward me. It was an unexpected response. I had believed my life would end here, so naturally, I was confused.]
It was exactly the development I expected.
I already knew how this story ended.
Even if I wanted to be surprised, I could not.
Aien, standing beside me, looked genuinely moved.
As expected of someone from another world.
That pure reaction was impossible for someone like me, who had seen this kind of story countless times.
Honestly, I was a little jealous.
[“Come with me. Let us plant hope inside people together, so that no more innocent victims like you will ever appear.”]
[Hope’s voice trembled as if he was about to cry, yet it remained strong and firm. Even though doing such a thing could threaten his position or even get him killed, he still said it.]
Asset silently stared at the Great Hero.
Then she took his hand and stood up.
Aien looked like she would start crying if someone poked her even once.
[I rubbed my suddenly light ankle and stood up while holding Hope’s hand. From that moment onward, freedom and opportunity became my ankle. Perhaps it is difficult to understand, but the extraordinary lightness I felt at that moment was unmistakably freedom. And what freed my ankle was unmistakably the opportunity Hope gave me.]
Bright light suddenly burst out from behind their shadows.
As the light slowly faded, the silhouettes of both people disappeared.
Only blue system messages remained floating in the air.
[The relic of the Great Witch of Madness, the cause of the Forest of the Maze, has appeared!]
[The power of Madness contained within the relic reacts with your own power of Madness and approaches you!]
The castle in this Demonic Realm would probably continue being raided over and over again in the future.
There were not many raids of this scale available right now.
People would come here just out of curiosity.
But I was probably the only person who could see this message.
Seriously.
Was I some kind of protagonist in a game novel?
I was monopolizing all the good stuff.
[I still do not regret the choice I made that day. If the day ever comes when I regret it, I will wrap chains around my own ankle once again.]
[Asset Kalette’s left ankle will gladly show you freedom and opportunity!]
[You have acquired the skill Freedom and Opportunity!]
[You have successfully achieved the first clear of the giant raid boss “We Are an Army!”]
[Your fame spreads throughout the Empire, Aipot, the Black Market, and all of Karantlia!]
[You have gained an enormous amount of contribution toward the Empire!]
[Karantlia praises your achievement!]
Why Karantlia?
They did not even participate in the raid.
Was it something like—
Our hero is amazing!
That was honestly a little embarrassing.
“That felt... kind of anticlimactic.”
Aien quietly wiped away the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.
Then, while glancing at me, she deliberately spoke as if she had found the whole thing boring.
I should probably play along.
“Why? Were you expecting some fight to the death?”
“Yes. But I can tell this isn’t the end. The story continues, right? All the way until the part you told me about before... when they separate from Pastien.”
“...There are probably stories even beyond that. I wonder how long this is going to continue. Really long stories are exhausting.”
“Mister... you really never change.”
The story was one thing.
But where had the World Residue that was originally here gone?
Was it underneath the castle?
But the castle itself was a monster.
And we had basically just ripped out its heart, right?
Strange.
There was nothing similar to it in the dropped item list either.
“Mister, let’s hurry outside.”
“Yeah, okay.”
...Well.
Maybe I would find out if I cleared the place a few more times.
It could be an item with a random drop chance.
This raid seemed to distribute rewards differently depending on participation percentage.
If I returned next time with only our group, I might at least get some kind of clue.
Rrrrrumble—
As soon as we stepped outside, the soldiers began collapsing.
The city, which had already looked like dripping paint, started crumbling with them.
Apparently the raid party outside had successfully depleted the castle’s entire health bar.
Hmm.
I was hearing reports that a lot of people had died.
Still...
The raid was a complete success!
Unfortunately, my work was not over yet.
“Haa... Do I seriously have to sit down with both the Empire and the Alliance now?”
“Wait, you just watched that incredible story, and that’s what you’re worried about?!”
“Why should I care?”
The purpose of clearing the Demonic Realm was not to collect Asset’s story.
It was to build up my characters and help Pastien.
Everything else?
Could not care less.
I already knew how the story ended anyway.
Once I felt like the characters had grown enough, I was going straight to the Forest of the Maze where Hayangi was waiting.
[The skill Freedom and Opportunity activates automatically!]
[This skill activates against opponents subdued by the Adventurer!]
[Freedom and Opportunity: Grants the opponent an opportunity to choose. The price of that choice is freedom.]
...Ohhh....
Now that...
That skill description was really...
Interesting.
Very interesting.
“Of course! Seeing this tragic story through to its end must surely be the destiny of one who has become a hero! Who gives a damn about national politics?! I have a duty to witness the end of this story!”
“...Mister, do you know you sounded exactly like Levi just now? Your personality suddenly flipped like you have multiple personalities.”
“Some days are just like that.”
