35
"What does that tilted head mean?"
"My neck is a bit stiff."
When Jang Hye-na, who had been expressing her emotions with her whole body, suddenly narrowed her eyes and glared, Baek Woo-jin naturally massaged the area around his neck as he answered.
"That's strange."
"It's a misunderstanding."
Of course, it's not a misunderstanding.
'I guess it's better to think that I was drawn to Hye-na rather than Hye-na being drawn to me.'
If I thought it was the former and it turned out to be the latter, it would be troublesome in many ways, but if I acted thinking it was the latter, at least I wouldn't be more flustered after this, so I decided to think of it as the latter for now.
"When I was promoted to D-rank, I was alone so it was really hard. Every single one that came out was disadvantageous for a tanker."
"I see."
"Why is your reaction so lukewarm?"
I don't know what the situation was like back then, but my current situation couldn't really be called good either, and above all, Jang Hye-na's misfortune was in the past tense while Baek Woo-jin's misfortune was just beginning, so there was nothing I could do about my lukewarm reaction.
Flash!
Just as they were about to wait for the actual test to begin.
A cute fairy, slightly larger than a palm, suddenly appeared before the two.
[Hello~! I'm Berber, your helper for those visiting the tower!]
The fairy, possessing a cheerful and adorable voice that perfectly matched her cute appearance, spun around once in the air where she appeared and greeted Baek Woo-jin and Jang Hye-na.
[The first stage test is finding beads! If you defeat the monsters wandering somewhere in that forest, red beads will randomly drop! Bring them back here and show them to me, and you pass!]
Perhaps because it was the first stage, the content was very concise.
[The barrier will disappear in 10 seconds and then it starts. Then, good luck!]
The fairy disappeared just as stealthily as she had appeared, in the blink of an eye.
"Will you be okay?"
"I'm not sure what you're referring to."
"The terrain. The terrain."
The first stage area was a forest terrain filled with robustly grown trees and bushes, making one wonder what they had been fed to grow so sturdy.
It certainly seemed somewhat problematic for freely swinging a halberd with considerable length.
"I'll try my best not to be a burden."
"Sure. I already know Woo-jin's skills. Let's go in first."
As the translucent barrier blocking entry disappeared, the two put down their bags and slowly walked into the forest.
'It is reassuring.'
Two heads are better than one.
Having an experienced person and a tanker who would reliably take charge of the vanguard, the tension was definitely less compared to running a dungeon alone. The fact that there was one less direction to be mindful of was also good.
...Rustle.
Baek Woo-jin, who was keeping watch around with his second sight while following behind Jang Hye-na, stopped walking and looked in the direction where a very subtle movement had been caught in his expanded sensory range.
A tree that just looked ordinary.
If a living creature had entered his range, there was no way he wouldn't sense it.
But saying that the sound and movement from earlier were caused by the wind, that action was too stealthy.
Baek Woo-jin's dilemma didn't last long.
He swung the halberd in his right hand with all his might toward the tree where the movement had been caught. Even without magic power imbued, it was enough force to shatter the tree he was looking at.
Kkyaaaaah!!
The moment the sharp blade of the halberd, which had been swung while tearing through the air, embedded into the middle of the tree, a piercing scream that made one frown involuntarily erupted from the tree.
"……!!"
Jang Hye-na, who had been walking ahead, immediately turned around and raised her shield. However, the moment she confirmed the tree tilting with its waist completely severed by the giant blade and the gray powder flowing out from the severed gap, she lowered her guard.
"Woo-jin, are you okay?"
"……."
Baek Woo-jin, lightly pressing his temples and lowering his head, stopped Jang Hye-na who was trying to approach him with his left hand.
Seeing Baek Woo-jin's obviously poor condition, Jang Hye-na raised her lowered shield again and kept watch around them.
"Thank you."
"No. That's what I should be saying."
When Baek Woo-jin recovered his condition much faster than expected, Jang Hye-na let out a sigh of relief inwardly and approached beside him.
"It's a corrupted spirit."
Of course, Baek Woo-jin didn't ask for a detailed explanation.
The moment the sharp scream was cut off, knowledge about the corrupted spirit that Jang Hye-na had just mentioned was injected into his mind.
Normal spirits that show a friendly attitude toward neutral or very rarely awakened summoning-series awakeners who awakened affinity instead of magic power.
However, spirits that could no longer return to the spirit realm for various reasons, the longer they stayed in the middle realm, the more they were influenced by all kinds of things and gradually lost their purity.
And when that passed a certain point, they lost their original nature and became corrupted spirits.
These corrupted spirits had lost their original nature, that is, the power to handle nature, so they couldn't cause harm on their own. For that reason, these corrupted spirits possessed objects or weak-willed living creatures and committed misdeeds through them.
Although they had lost the power to handle nature, their essence was still that of a spirit, so just like normal spirits, those without affinity couldn't see or feel these corrupted spirits until the spirits directly revealed themselves.
Also, since spirits manifested with their roots in the spirit realm, they would never die as long as their roots were not destroyed. Of course, in the case of spirits, the word 'extinction' would be more appropriate than 'death.'
However, corrupted spirits were different.
Corrupted spirits, cut off from the spirit realm, were beings that had lost connection with their own roots and thus lost most of their abilities as spirits. Therefore, unlike normal spirits, their manifested form was their main body, and if that main body received significant damage, they would be extinguished.
The situation just now was a good example.
In their spirit state, they had perfect immunity to physical force, but when they possessed an object or living creature, the possessed thing became the spirit's main body for that moment, so they shared all the damage.
That was also the reason why a scream suddenly erupted from the tree.
"How did you notice?"
"I have a pretty good sense."
"That was a bit uncool just now."
"Let's go."
"Are you sulking?"
"We're still in the middle of the test."
"You are sulking. Seeing this, you're definitely twenty years old~"
"I'm going alone."
"Is it because your legs are long? Your walking pace is really fast too."
There was a bit of commotion, but Jang Hye-na quickly dropped her playfulness and returned to being an outstanding tanker.
"Woo-jin."
Whether they had gathered after hearing the spirit's scream or not, they encountered a group of orcs with the same green skin as goblins but several times larger in size.
Their number was three.
"The terrain isn't just disadvantageous for us."
"That's true."
Each of them held a club comparable to an adult man's.
Because of its considerable length, they were forced to restrict their attack stances.
"I'll pull the aggro, can you take them down?"
"Hold on a moment."
Baek Woo-jin lightly swung his halberd while watching the group of orcs steadily closing the distance with flickering red eyes.
"I'd appreciate it if you could come running and take the aggro after I take down one."
"Pulling aggro is easy. But if I think it's dangerous, I'm just going to step in, okay?"
"Thank you."
He checked the distance between the approaching orcs and the surrounding trees.
'I don't feel tense at all.'
Thanks to the experience of endlessly exchanging attacks and defenses with Goblin Warriors who could easily dismember orcs despite being goblins, the approaching orcs just looked like fat goblins to him.
"I'm going."
"I'll rush in right away so don't worry... Woo-jin? Excuse me?"
Lightly brushing off Jang Hye-na's voice coming from behind, Baek Woo-jin slowly walked toward the approaching group of orcs.
Grrrr?
"These green-skinned bastards all have terrible voices."
Having finished calculating the distance between the club and the halberd, Baek Woo-jin plunged into the embrace of the orc that tilted its head at him.
Kwoooer!!
Perhaps befitting a D-rank monster, it brought down its club with a reaction speed unbefitting its obese bulk.
'Schulodin, what on earth did you do to me?'
Having perfectly plunged into the orc's embrace, Baek Woo-jin thrust the halberd held in both hands upward, caught the club between the blade and the tip, and pushed it slightly to the side.
Thwack!!
By a hair's breadth, the club the orc swung down grazed Baek Woo-jin's shoulder and smashed into the innocent grass. And the spear blade imbued with gray magic power directly severed the orc's right ankle.
"That won't do."
Meanwhile, the second orc that had approached threw its club without any sign of comradery, so Baek Woo-jin slightly twisted the halberd that had cut the ankle and kicked up the left leg of the first orc that had lost its balance.
Kwueeek!!
Kwieek?!
When he forcefully struck the remaining leg of the comrade whose ankle had been severed instead of the human he wanted, both the one who swung and the one who was hit let out pig-squealing screams at the same time.
"Hye-na. One please."
"Be honest. You're not twenty, are you?"
Having nothing particular to say, Baek Woo-jin thrust the spear blade of the halberd directly into the crotch of the orc whose comrade's remaining leg had been shattered.
**
"Isn't this a scam?!"
"One did come out."
"Only one came out!!"
Two hours after the test began.
As a result of defeating every monster they encountered, they had successfully acquired one of the red beads the fairy had requested. The problem was that only one bead had dropped after killing over a hundred monsters.
"It might be my bad luck, so next time Hye-na could──"
At Jang Hye-na's gesture of holding out her palm, Baek Woo-jin closed his mouth and reached for the halberd he had set down.
"Blood smell."
Jang Hye-na whispered softly, then put her shield forward and headed toward the bushes, and Baek Woo-jin followed behind her. And before long, the two discovered a woman who had become a cold corpse.
"How unfortunate."
Baek Woo-jin and Jang Hye-na approached the woman lying face down in the blood-stained grass while maintaining their guard. And the moment they confirmed the woman's cause of death, both of their expressions stiffened almost simultaneously.
"Hye-na."
"Yes."
A small stab wound between the pale woman's shoulder and the nape of her neck.
"It seems a rat has mixed in."