“Fuck, the smell of blood just won’t come off.”
“We might get attacked by wild animals.”
“I’ve been dizzy since earlier as it is, and now the reek of blood’s everywhere… shit. Makes me feel filthy.”
“I’m saying this just in case, but we don’t know what might happen, so save your water.”
“I know, asshole. And we took the canteens off the dead bastards to begin with, so we probably won’t run short.”
The voices of the two women echoed softly through the darkening forest.
Both of them were drenched in blood.
They had just finished tearing apart comrades who had been perfectly alive and moving only moments ago, and even after several hours, the stench of those men’s blood showed no sign of fading.
Ray spoke to her companion, who was irritably sweeping back her hair.
“We won’t be able to camp looking like this.”
“Right. You and I didn’t come here to become wild animal feed. All right, change of plans.”
Valerie, shrugging off her jacket with a concise motion, spoke with a flash in her eyes, almost growling.
“Somehow, we get out of this shitty forest before the day’s over. Then we sleep afterward, even if it means collapsing in the middle of the road. How’s that?”
“Why not just say we’ll sleep when we’re dead? But fine. Looks like that’s our only option.”
Ray replied with a shrug.
As she said, if they couldn’t get out of here even by staying up all night, there would be no rest for them.
With two of them dead, they were short on people to stand watch, and whether wild beasts or bandits, every dangerous thing under the sun could sniff out the smell of blood like a ghost.
There was no guarantee they would be safe once they left the mountain, but for now they had no choice but to trust the official notice sent down by the Association.
It had said that if they went to the mansion planted right in the center of this domain, the client would be there, so at the very least, the area around it should have been made fit for human habitation.
Getting near there would be their best option. Valerie, savagely shoving her jacket into her pack, opened her mouth as if to toss out some kind of joke.
“Sir Knight, how about this? First, the canteens we took—”
“Shh.”
But at the short, sharp command that came back immediately, Valerie instantly held her breath.
An intruder?
Ray, who had been walking ahead, lowered her stance with a force honed like a crouching tiger.
Combat posture. Angling her flintlock pistol forward, Valerie gripped a dagger with her other hand.
But even after several seconds passed, there was no sign of an attack.
“What is it?”
She asked briefly and quietly, but no answer came from Ray.
Still, that razor-sharp aura of hers seemed to ease a little.
Only then did Valerie relax slightly and ask,
“Getting jumpy? Well, I understand.”
“No.”
Ray flatly denied it, straightened, and planted the tip of her claymore against the ground.
Only then did Valerie, standing behind her, begin to see it as well.
“I’m not an enemy. Please be at ease.”
A voice came. It belonged to a young man.
What appeared before the silhouette of the hooded figure was, first of all, the torch blazing ostentatiously in his hand.
Valerie found herself staring quietly at that flame, which somehow soothed her heart a little as she looked at it.
Was this why her companion up ahead had suddenly reacted in such a dull way?
Just as she thought that, the man continued.
“You’re from the Association.”
“Ray Gladstone, mercenary of Guild Aurantius.”
“Same here, Valerie McBain. And who are you?”
Ray answered calmly, and Valerie followed by giving a slight tilt of her head as she asked.
Beneath the hood, the man’s mouth, wearing a faint smile, emerged dimly into view.
The moment she took in that sight, Valerie thought for some reason that her heartbeat seemed to have quickened.
Naturally, it was not anything so romantic as first love.
In direct contrast to when she had seen the torch, it was a strange and unfamiliar sensation, as though something were scratching at her heart.
“I am the client. Shall we head to the mansion first?”
The man said so gently and took one more step toward them.
Then, aided by the light in his hand, the man’s figure, half-buried in the deep darkness, became a little more distinct.
Quite tall, with clean-cut features.
A man whose soft, dark green hair hung long.
Pretty attractive. At least compared to the two bastards from the same team who’d gone mad and attacked them.
Valerie let out a soft, uncharacteristic hum and lightly licked her lower lip.
Then, in the midst of it, a sudden headache surged in.
“Kh.”
As she briefly faltered, Ray, who had confirmed that the man was leading the way, looked back.
“What?”
“No, nothing.”
She brushed it off and sheathed her dagger.
Has my condition been a little strange since earlier?
Muttering inwardly, Valerie pressed a hand to her forehead.
For some reason, she felt as if she had a slight fever.
Since childhood, hers had been a body that had never suffered from petty illnesses.
What was more, Valerie McBain was a fairly skilled mercenary in her own right.
This sort of drop in condition was not a common occurrence.
Is she fine?
She stealthily looked over at her companion walking ahead, but there was no sign of anything in particular.
So I really am just tired.
Having reached that conclusion, Valerie began walking with purpose.
It was the result of her judgment that she needed to rest as soon as possible.
* Ray Gladstone, Grade 4 mercenary of Guild Aurantius, has joined. *
* Valerie McBain, Grade 4 mercenary of Guild Aurantius, has joined. *
*
A woman with smooth hair, black as obsidian, braided like a crown—Ray Gladstone.
Wearing an expression as cold as ice, her crimson eyes, which gleamed even in the darkness, occasionally inspected me.
She’s practically radiating that she doesn’t trust me completely yet.
By contrast, the woman a couple of steps ahead of her had faded white hair, and her skin, slightly darker than the pure-white Ray’s, formed a contrast in many ways.
This woman was Valerie McBain. A pistol was tucked into the holster at her waist, and she was following along while idly twirling a dagger in one hand.
She seemed less wary, which was understandable.
At Grade 4, her confidence in her own force of arms must be rock solid.
To put it bluntly, people like them could beat a bear to death single-handedly.
No matter how crawling with monsters beyond human comprehension this world was, they weren’t at the level where they’d die by the roadside somewhere.
“Grade 4 mercenary.”
To Koreans, who would have a hard time believing even that the national average was Grade 5, “Grade 4” might sound a little laughable, but in this world, a Grade 4 mercenary was someone most monsters couldn’t even meet eyes with before having to slam their heads to the ground.
In other words, under normal circumstances, you could call this a splendid start.
It was only regrettable that the other two who had come with them had died in an unforeseen accident.
Guiding the two of them toward the mansion, I worked my brain fiercely.
The mercenaries who came to the domain in Tombstone were, of course, subject to probability shifts depending on whether certain conditions were met, but were basically completely random.
Everything from which guild they belonged to, to their position, to what skills they came with.
Even so, when it came to the first mercenaries to arrive, their specs were fixed to a certain extent.
They would definitely be operatives from each guild’s actual subjugation division, and at the same time either Grade 4 mercenaries or experts equivalent to them.
After all, if even that were completely random, then in the worst case, you might have to do some stupid nonsense like territory rerolling.
You could call it Tombstone’s last shred of conscience.
Among them, Guild Aurantius was close to a jackpot.
Among mercenaries of the same grade, their average combat ability was among the highest, and the skills they brought were generally easy to use and not too dependent on conditions—in other words, they were the sort of guys who made it easier to endure the impoverished early stages.
…It would have been really nice if I could have brought the other two back to the domain alive as well.
Feeling a little regretful, I tried speaking to the woman following behind.
“Come to think of it, I heard four of you were being dispatched. The other two…”
“Dead. They suddenly went mad and attacked. We had no choice.”
“I see.”
The woman who had introduced herself as Ray Gladstone answered curtly.
I had known that already, but honestly, I hadn’t expected the person involved to say it so calmly.
With the soft sensibilities of a modern person, it felt a bit difficult to continue the conversation from there, so I chose to shut up.
So that was what the butler had meant by “the males lose their reason” and all that.
No sooner had that happened than the other woman came walking up ahead and suddenly slung an arm around my shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah. So, dear client, what was it you wanted to entrust to us? There are some pretty nasty rumors going around about your domain.”
“…Um, please keep a little distance.”
“Why? You’re the one with the fire. It’s dark, so I can’t see well.”
The woman who made contact without hesitation, a sly smile hanging on her lips, was Valerie McBain.
When I glanced aside, the black rose tattoo covering her shoulder and the upper part of her chest came neatly into view whether I wanted to see it or not.
On top of that, she reeked of blood.
It was probably the blood of the men who had just been torn apart by these women’s hands.
S-scary.
Of course, perhaps because of the mod, she was pretty enough that I found myself looking without thinking, but this woman in particular gave off an even more dangerous scent.
While my field of vision was trembling despite myself, Ray called us to a stop.
“Looks like we’re here.”
“Ah… yes, that’s the mansion.”
Had we arrived before I knew it?
It had taken quite a while, but at any rate, we had arrived safely.
The butler had said there were almost no dangerous things near this mansion, at least, so it should be fine to relax a little now.
“I want to wash up first. Feels like the smell of blood’s going to seep into my body.”
Valerie roughly swept back her silver bob.
Looking at her now, this person was wearing nothing but something like a tank top.
I had been a little afraid of her just moments ago, but in the end, she was someone I had to get along with.
I asked as casually as I could.
“Um, aren’t you cold?”
“Huh, me? Uh… not really.”
Even I, wrapped up in a robe, found the forest at night rather chilly, but it seemed not to be the case for her.
She tilted her head in puzzlement at my question and answered.
The very fact that I had such a question seemed unfamiliar to her.
Well, in truth, from the moment they were mercenaries who had rolled around in a guild, these people were more than superhuman enough.
In other words, it wasn’t my place to worry.
Maybe because they looked like women on the outside, I had stuck my nose in without realizing it.
Feeling awkward, I gave an unnecessarily stiff smile and started walking silently again. This time, perhaps curiosity had gotten the better of her, because Valerie spoke to me.
“So, you’re not going to tell us? What is it that has you making requests this regularly? I heard not even one guy came back.”
So that sort of terrifying rumor was going around.
Well, even if mercenary work tended to involve plenty of unsettling jobs to begin with, “not even one guy came back” was not something anyone could simply overlook.
The fact that these people had crawled into such a place of their own accord meant they surely weren’t normal either.
“To put it simply, the goal is to explore the labyrinth beneath the domain.”
“A labyrinth? Ah, is it like those dungeons that supposedly pop up every now and then? I’ve only heard of them, never actually seen one.”
As if something had come to mind, Valerie lightly clapped one palm against the other.
I didn’t know what a dungeon was, but at the very least, it seemed this wasn’t entirely without precedent in this world.
I hadn’t been possessed here for very long either, so I didn’t know the details.
“It’s probably different from a dungeon. Those appear abruptly in midair, and if you don’t stop them, they burst pretty quickly, so they’re not the sort of thing that would remain a problem this long. I’ve seen one before.”
“Oh, a dungeon?”
Ray, who had been walking silently, threw in a word then.
Valerie asked back with interest.
“Yeah. I went on a group commission once, a long time ago. It was filthy huge. Not as big as the Great Labyrinth of the Frontline, though.”
“I thought you were just a bookish type, but you’ve had a lot of interesting experiences.”
“Um, have you two not known each other for very long?”
They seemed to get along so well that I had thought they were longtime close friends, but listening carefully to the way they spoke, it didn’t seem quite to that extent either.
“Well, if you call it long, we’ve known each other a while… but we’re not that close, are we?”
“Disgusting.”
When Valerie looked toward Ray with a giggle, Ray made a thoroughly repulsed face and turned her head away.
“Ah, we’re here. I’ll take you straight into the mansion.”
“Ah, thanks. I wanted to rest a bit.”
Ray answered, clearly pleased by my words.
In truth, it was also because there was nowhere in the domain to stop by other than the mansion, but if she wanted to take it as kindness, then I was grateful.
To begin with, this domain was currently on the verge of destruction.
The residents had all long since vanished, and all that remained on this cursed land were madmen who were practically corpses, while an amorphous evil lurked underground.
There was no way they could know the truth of it, but—that was the kind of place this was.
At any rate, since it was late at night, I gave the two of them a barracks for the day and let them recover from their journey.
When I returned to the office, the butler was already completely out cold, even snoring softly, so I decided to introduce them tomorrow and take some rest myself for now.
Now that the first mercenaries had come to the domain, tomorrow would be truly busy.
So I should get as much rest as I can now.