Hyper Luck

Only silence remained in the path which the fierce flames passed through.

Silent enough to be able to hear the harsh breathing sounds of Swordsman and Guile, and the nervous footsteps of Sharan from above.

[ Removal of the harmful animal colony in the mines of De Munt Hill ]

Commuds: 995 / 1586

?: 0 / 1

I still couldn’t get used to the power of the legendary item which instantly killed countless amounts of Commuds no matter how many times I used it.

After looking around for good measure, I quickly turned to Swordsman and Guile.

"Is everyone okay?”

They nodded without saying a word answering my question.

"I lost half my HP, but it will regenerate soon.”

Guile put his hands out to show how tattered they got and smiled.

The bleeding from Swordsman’s shoulder also stopped. Sharan’s sharp voice echoed from above.

"Is everyone okay?”

"Yup!”

Guile answered her question in a strong voice. And amidst the awkward silence, I started hearing the unpleasant sound from below once again.

"Mister.”

Swordsman turned his gaze towards me at my call.

"We’re about to enter the second half of the fight. How are you feeling? Do you think you can do it?”

Swordsman walked towards me with big steps as he almost finished up healing himself. Then he fixed his clothes and armor and started laughing out loud.

"Of course, I am!”

Swordsman shoved his shield into the floor in front of him and prepared to welcome the monsters coming up from below.

And I too adjusted my posture with my blade in my hands.

Although we cleared a large number of Commuds in an instant, the remaining number still could be considered quite a threat.

Because the quest wasn’t over yet.

"They’re climbing up the wall from all sides again!"

Sharan urgently shouted out loud. Guile also got close behind us and raised his head up and shouted.

"How many arrows do you have left?!”

"I’ve got enough!”

Guile grabbed the Shining stone again with both his hands, almost completely healed from the burn, and knelt down on one of his knees and began to chant a spell.

Soon, an intense light came out and heated Swordsman's back.

The light that came out through the gaps in our formation was enough to clearly see the wall standing opposite us.

By the time the bustling movements of the Commuds and the noise they created were getting closer to the point where the floor we were standing on trembled,

***

Hundreds of Commuds stopped on the spot as if someone had pressed the pause button on the remote control.

Swordsman, Guile, and I looked at each other, feeling completely baffled. Sharan also kept silent from above.

Clearly, someone was there.

I focused all my senses on the last line of the quest list.

That must have been the main factor that brought the Commuds into a community.

< ?: 0 / 1 >

Who could it be? The one that had enough charisma to bring such aggressive creatures together.

While I was busily thinking about the topic, Sharan carefully shouted at us with a shaking voice.

"O-over there…”

I could see her arm stretched out when I put my head up to look above.

Her hand was pointing at something, with her finger shaking. Guile, Swordsman, I all turned to look in the direction she was pointing at.

And found something.

A distinctively different individual among the other hundreds of Commuds that were climbing the wall.

It was a Commud nonetheless.

Its look was nothing different from his friends, but someone was on top of the monster.

A ‘thing’ with pale skin, had its extremely skinny arm covered in wrinkly leather around the Commud’s neck.

And soon, only that Commud was moving towards us.

At its bizarre and eerie appearance, we all took a step back.

The thing cautiously climbed up to the floor we were on and went on the plaza we were standing on as it flicked its tongue.

The thing carried on its back tapped the neck of the Commud who had carried him with his bare hands that had nothing but leather.

Its wet, thick hair, much like a stalk of seaweed attached to a stone, trembled violently as it came down from the lizard’s back.

Eyes with nothing but whites appeared between the hairs.

It had a back curved outward because it had a huge lump growing on its back.

The thing with a hunchback suddenly raised its head at us, and only then did I recognize that it was a human.

He had wrinkles all over his body like a bird that had just hatched from an egg and his extremely pale skin, which was almost blue, had his skin sticking to the bone with nothing in between.

When he turned his head, one eye was covered with skin, revealing a hideous face that seemed to have been melted.

He slowly observed us. He moved his completely white eyes as he looked at us. His crushed nose that had only its holes left was also busily moving.

"Person. Two legs, two arms. They are person.”

He said with a gloomy voice as he opened his tiny chin.

"Th-that’s a human?”

"It’s talking…!”

Guile and Swordsman seemed to be in shock as they came to a realization that it was indeed a human after listening to its words.

"Who are you…?”

I asked him carefully. I was not repulsed by his appearance. I have already met Lairo who was raising hundreds, if not thousands, of tentacles within himself.

He answered my question as he trembled his partly cut ears and breathing heavily.

"Me! A fell person! I have two legs, and two arms but I fell!”

Suddenly he started jumping on the spot as he started to get excited. Soon the Commuds attached to the wall also began to flick their tongue and began to breathe harshly.

I felt the atmosphere getting rough in an instant, and quickly approached him to draw his attention to me.

However, the Commud that he was riding blocked my approach.

"What do you mean by ‘a fell person’?”

I immediately stopped walking and asked the guy who was breathing very heavily.

he carefully opened his mouth, rolling his white eyes through the clumps of hair.

"Fell person! I fell because I have a lump! Mom! Dropped the lump person!”

He put his finger on the floor and started rubbing it after he finished talking.

His actions seemed very naive which was contrasted by his appearance with deep wrinkles all over his face.

"Are there more people like you under here?”

I carefully squatted down to look at him, who was consistent with his childlike demeanor. At this, he nodded his head in excitement, showing interest.

"Many! Person with no legs! Person with no arms! Mom and dad dropped them!”

I couldn't help but frown. An uncomfortable sigh of Swordsman came from behind.

Other than mining for ores, this deep mine was a place where children born with disabilities were abandoned in such a way.

"But they all turned to bones! But I am not bone!”

He acted like he was going to show us something with his hands outstretched, like a young child.

The man, who was showing bizarre movements, suddenly stopped his ridiculous behavior and dropped his head for a while.

"But you who look the same as mom and dad came.”

Then he started to glare at me fiercely. The red blood vessels on the whites of his eyes had terrifyingly thickened.

"You came to throw someone away.”

"That’s not true!”

Guile shouted from the back. But the hunchback was looking only at me.

"That’s what my mom said. You can’t fool me. And you even killed my friends.”

His voice was starting to calm down.

"These fishy-smelling friends. They took me in who was abandoned. My mom abandoned me, but these friends took care of me.

They taught me how to talk. I learned to talk like my friends too. So I taught them how to become friends with each other.”

Just a moment ago, he spoke in a clumsy manner and slurred words with his short tongue. But unlike before, he continued his speech as if he was chanting a spell, without a distinctive accent or even the rhythm contained in the words.

"That’s why my friends here don’t fight each other anymore. They take care of each other. They thank me. So they decided to grant my wish.”

"And what could that be?”

I asked him with caution. At this question, he raised the corners of his mouth, stretched his waist as much as possible, and tilted his head upward.

"Other mom and dad can’t drop person if this hole doesn’t exist. This hole, I am going to make it disappear. Completely.”

I could sense that there was bitterness in his final words.

Sharan, who had come down to where we were, had tears in her eyes upon hearing his words.

"If you interfere, I am going to get angry. A lot.”

Guile, Sharan, and Swordsman couldn’t say anything after they heard the hunchback.

There was not a single quest in this virtual reality game that started without any causes.

It means that it is not something like meaning homework that NPCs give as determined by the system.

This is something I've only recently discovered.

The quest in virtual reality did not exist by itself.

There was a starting point where the quest had no choice but to begin.

Such as this man who was abandoned just because he had a hunched back.

And this applied to tragic quests also. Surely, Sharan and others rushed in with great enthusiasm at this quest only looking at its huge rewards.

And now, they too were put at the crossroads of conflict, just like the time I met Lairo.

The baby, which was thrown away mercilessly by someone, and survived,  was raised by monsters in a place where even sunlight could not reach, while the skin rotted and one eye melted.

Living with those monsters, he united them and got to a position where he could accomplish even greater things.

However, this little guy was just digging the bottom of the mine with these terrifying monsters, hoping that no one would be abandoned like him.

The fact that his mind was still at the level of a child seemed to play a huge part in him not being outraged despite the fact that we’ve killed so many of the Commuds.

They were animals with poor intelligence and they fought each other whenever they had a chance, but since they were united around a young human child, it was only natural that the herd would also have the intelligence of a child.

He seemed to be wary of the power that I just exerted, judging from the fact that he would only stare at me despite others talking to him.

Maybe the reason that he wasn’t outraged was to not provoke me.

However, when he said that he was going to fill this hole, his white eyes were especially shining.

That showed me how desperate he truly was to get his goal accomplished.

But a quest was a quest.

I stood up and pointed my blade at him.

"I’m sorry. I see what you’ve been through, but I have no reason to grant your request.”

Swordsman walked all the way next to me as he wrapped his warm hands around my arm holding the blade.

"Maybe we can find another way…?”

Sharan and Guile also spoke up.

"This is too cruel.”

"How could such a thing happen…”

This was not a strange sight to be seen, for they have set their feet into the realm of emotions which was one of the most difficult miracles to withstand provided by virtual reality.

Sharan, Guile, and Swordsman must have fought against villains and ferocious monsters who held a threat to people who deserved punishment so far.

I too was like that.

However, this was their first encounter against someone who had survived through a terrifying past trying to achieve their ideals.

For Sharan, Guile, and Swordsman that was.

I withdrew my blade.

This was not a choice for me to make.

This was the time for Sharan, Guile, and Swordsman to make a choice.