"I"m so stupid…"Random teams would never be reliable as their members wouldn"t be well acquainted with each other—and I was well aware of this fact. Problems would abound; the archer would be nearsighted, the priest would always be daydreaming the moment the battle would begin, the combat warrior would focus on raising his Intelligence stat and would put all his skill points into haggling and diplomacy, or the mage would forget her magic books and mana potions. Situations would twist and turn in ways one couldn"t even begin to imagine as truth was forever stranger than fiction. There was no worst teammate—an even worse one would always come along. This time, however, I had readily accepted such an invitation from a random team only for convenience"s sake.
"Hunt the undead? Why do I feel like it"s the undead who are hunting us!?"
I roared out furiously as I fled. Behind us was a ma.s.sive troop of undead. When did this all begin? Since when were so many undead chasing after us?"
Perhaps it was all because of this gigantic two-meter-plus tall barbarian next to me? Covering his face with a leafy branch, he proceeding to tiptoe while repeatedly muttering to himself, "You can"t see me, you can"t see me…" Yet everyone was clearly able to see him, not to mention the excellent noses of the Blood Tribe. Just what was going through is mind when he attempted to ambush the undead, the undead with their expressions of "Are you kidding me?"
Perhaps it was all because of this little girl named Betty—or should I call him a little rascal? Even after the hunt for the undead concluded and a huge wave of skeleton knights was rus.h.i.+ng in our direction as their reinforcements, he still insisted on prying out every gold tooth of a dead lesser lich before finally agreeing to leave.
Perhaps it was because of that dwarf archer auntie who shot a super long range mega cannon shot-like arrow that accidentally hit a cyclops as tall as a mountain?
At any rate, my current situation was due to these garbage teammates of mine! As expected, the worst possible game is one where you have garbage teammates!
"Garbage teammates? Teammates who made you suffer? Did you already forget that it was you who insisted on obtaining undead ingredients right here so that you could cook some bone soup for everyone!? If it wasn"t for you wasting time, we"d have long been gone!"
Harloys seemed to have a different opinion from me.
"Hmph. You simply don"t understand. Bone elves are a very rare undead species. Making a soup with bone elf bones will be excellent for one"s skin, and it"ll even improve one"s mana pool!"
"…You must be quite the skilled cook with how proud you"re sounding right now."
"Of course. When we were all adventuring back in the day, I was the cook for our team. After all, more than anything, a good cook is required on your team while going out on adventures. Otherwise, no matter if you"re a Myth rank or a SemiG.o.d, you"re still going to go hungry when the time comes. Well, even if you don"t starve, eating what"s available can be quite disgusting if you don"t know how to cook. Look at me for instance. I merely used two bags of spices for this bone soup, and not only have I neutralized the bone elves" natural toxicity, but there"s not even a pungent smell. Harloys, didn"t you even drink two bowls of my bone soup just now?"
"…Indeed, your bone soup was delicious. But why didn"t you tell me first that it had the added side effect of being a sleeping potion! You caused us all to fall asleep until we were totally surrounded by the undead!"
"Ahaha, didn"t I just happen to forget? Since it has the power to improve a person"s mana, it"ll help improve your ability to concentrate and meditate. Isn"t meditation really similar to sleeping? It is only natural for it to end up with the side effect of putting people to sleep…"
The silly cat kept glaring at me with a look of dissatisfaction. Fine, I admit it, perhaps I had a slight, ever so small amount of responsibility for the undead horde chasing after us. But, at the very least, I didn"t have all the responsibility! I wasn"t even the main one responsible!
"Tsk, how unseemly for a man like you to be pa.s.sing the blame onto others."
I looked back to check and saw that all the slow undead species such as the low-level skeletons, zombies, and mummies were no longer there. The ones still able to follow us were skeleton knights and other such mid and high-level undead. I estimated their number at roughly forty to fifty, and if they successfully caught up and stalled us, there were even more behind them. Our little team would never be able to handle that many. Yep, at least with the power level I was pretending to be at.
"Sheesh, I don"t think I can deal with so many undead without getting serious. But if I get serious, wouldn"t that reveal my true power… wait a moment, why do I need to avoid revealing my true power level here? Why do I need to run from the undead? There"s absolutely no reason for me to be running here!"
I suddenly had an epiphany. I had only intended to check out the combat situation and how the Contract Warrior adventurers were doing here. At most, I would secretly help out the wood spirits a little so that their planned operation would succeed. I wasn"t planning on doing anything like acting far weaker than my power level to fool some enemy, so why was I being so worried about hiding my real power level?
And that was why I unhesitatingly turned around.
"For the Holy Light—"
"Don"t be ras.h.!.+"
"As expected, Holy Knights like to get hotheaded at critical moments. It was right to keep an eye on him."
And so, before I could even unsheathe my sword, the dwarf archer auntie and the trap priest dragged me away and carried me while running…
"Hey —hey—hey! I was going to kill them!"
"Yeah, yeah, you"re amazing, we get it. I have a friend who"s a Holy Light priestess. She told me that Holy Knights are forever fearless thanks to the Holy Light"s guidance…"
Although Betty was saying so, his expression seemed to be one of pity. It was as if he was looking at an unsalvageable fervent believer who wasn"t right in the head.
"Cough, my alcohol barrel of a husband told me that Holy Knights have an illness where they love to sacrifice themselves the sake of everyone else. But you should at least sacrifice yourself at a worthy moment. You"re so young; you shouldn"t have such depressing thoughts at your age. I"m already 136 years, so let me tell you, this world isn"t actually that bad at all…"
The dwarven auntie was far more direct. But why did it sound like she was trying to convince me to not commit suicide?
"I really can beat them! I wasn"t intending to sacrifice myself, nor am I pus.h.i.+ng my limits!"
"Yeah, yeah, we believe you."
Why did they all say that together in such an obviously fake fas.h.i.+on and send me looks of sympathy? I really did have the power to kill all those undead!
"Ahhhh! Let me go! I"m not crazy! Let me go kill those undead…!"
******
Deep in the mountains was a temporary mountain camp, with only some round logs piled up as a rudimentary fortification defensive wall. Tents were spread out everywhere. However, to those who underestimated the defensive prowess of this temporary base, the wood spirits" magical vines and trees hidden in the log walls would teach them a harsh lesson.
This had originally been an important base for the adventurers. Normally, adventurer teams would only be permitted to enter here when they lacked supplies or had injured among them. However, due to a certain special "reason," there were far more people here than antic.i.p.ated.
After being busy for an entire day… fine then, I should say running away for an entire day, our starving and fatigued adventuring team finally arrived here, earlier than scheduled.
"Look, it"s them."
"F***, we had to run away from the undead for three full hours because of them."
"Ha, you guys are still fairly lucky. The s.h.i.+eld of Glory team just killed a high-level Abomination but didn"t even have the time to obtain a part of its corpse for the proof of slaying it before they had to flee because of the Wood Spirits are So Cute team. A high-level Abomination is worth almost 100 Justice Points!"
Our Wood Spirits are So Cute team was now famous… After all, pulling an huge horde of undead after us while we ran through the entire combat area ended up creating a s...o...b..ll effect of more and more undead chasing after us. This naturally made all our allies suffer together with us. They all wished that they had been born with an extra pair of feet to run with. Perhaps, in that scenario, you"d become famous as well, famous for being a burden on the team, famous for being a professionally garbage teammate!
Right now, no matter where we went, people were pointing at us and whispering, "Those garbage teammates!"
However, the other members of the team I was in ignored all the adventurers" condescension. It appeared as if they were already used to this. No wonder they had been unable to find another teammate.
Betty smeared some sort of strange liquid on his face. It appeared to be some type of makeup. Ah Gen happily continued a.s.sembling his "Stealth Equipment" set, adding more leaves and painting it… To be honest, although many thieves will indeed give camouflage colors to their clothing, Ah Gen was only adding more leaves onto two tree branches… and he was even adding more ingredients right now, tying on two rotten heads of cabbage and a carrot. Wasn"t this making him stand out even more than not doing anything at all!? Or was he intending on selling vegetables to the undead… Can I pretend to not know him?! I really don"t know him!
As for the dwarf little girl… she was only 136 years old, far younger than I expected, and not an auntie at all by dwarven standards. If 136 years old could be called an auntie, then what would that make me as I was more than 300 years old? A granddaddy?
Cough, getting back to the main point, this young dwarf named Mary had all the typical dwarven habits. After downing just three gla.s.ses of alcohol, she was already so happy that she had started dancing. Of course, a female dwarf"s dance… when looking at it from a distance, it looked just like a dancing alcohol barrel!
Judging by her other three teammates" att.i.tudes of pretending that everyone else"s watching-joke looks didn"t exist, she did this quite often. This entire team had made so many others suffer before that they got used to ignoring others" condescension.
As for the only relatively normal person in this team, the handsome gay elf bard Solonor, he was currently cheerfully making today"s events into a tale he could sing in taverns as he strummed his harp. Of course, I understood that stories arising from real life were permitted to have artistic embellishments so that the story might be a bit different from what really happened. Making the main character more appealing was the job of every author. However…
"I can understand changing the skeleton mobs we defeated into a mob of corpse zombies, and changing a mere lesser lich into a SemiG.o.d mummy can still be excused by saying you had poor eyesight, but being chased around for a single afternoon actually got changed into successfully keeping an Undead Lord"s entire army busy for three consecutive days and nights? After being pushed to the limits, we even killed off the Myth-ranked lich leading the army? And what"s with rescuing a princess damsel in distress? This is too ridiculous, too shameless! None of this actually happened!"
"…Sir Roland, you don"t understand. In this day and age, all we seek is reputation. It"s long past the era of telling true stories. We must do this in order to not starve to death. The more unreasonable the storyline"s plot, the more people"s attention it"ll attract. The scarier the storyline, the more thrilling it will be, and all my listeners will reward me with more money. Even if everyone knows it"s all made up, it"s fine as long as they have their fun. n.o.body will actually treat it like it"s real. This is how the market works!"
Alright then, I didn"t know what to say at being lectured by a native of this world on how the market worked.
I shook my head at the more and more ridiculous behavior of these teammates of mine and decided to instead focus on my own things.
There was a gigantic ancient tree in the middle of the campground. Although it wasn"t as tall as the skysc.r.a.per-level trees in the Forest of Dreams, it was at least several hundred years old. However, starting from two days ago when this base was established, the entire area around the tree had been cleared out.
A large number of treants and wood spirits were guarding this tree. While some adventurers tried to find out more about this area, all the ordinary adventurers were blocked off by the wood spirits. When people saw me walking here, a friendly adventurer called out to me in reminder.
"Don"t go over there, the wood spirits won"t allow anyone to pa.s.s…"
Before he even finished speaking, I had already walked past into the wood spirits" forbidden zone. The wood spirits and treant guards seemingly didn"t even notice me walking past.
The adventurer who just called out to me proceeded to run over to try for himself. But before he even got close, a wall of thorns suddenly rose up from the ground, while the wood spirits glared at him with expressions of vigilance and distrust. The adventurer could only stop in his tracks and apologize for the intrusion before stepping back.
The perceptive adventurers who witnessed this made a mental note to remember the physical appearance of the seemingly young youth who had just entered and hurriedly went to find out which adventuring team he was in. After all, the wood spirits had only made a single previous exception for a human, and he was the adventurer in charge of all other adventurers in this operation. Yet this unfamiliar young man had received equal treatment. Even though he didn"t appear to be anyone special, perhaps he had a special connection to the wood spirits, which meant that it would be worth their time to investigate his ident.i.ty.
Of course, I didn"t know about all these things as I had already walked into the treehouse at this ancient tree. Instead, I was surprised to see another human being here.
This man had blonde hair that reached his shoulders, blue eyes, and white skin. His black armor was glittering with the dim gold of adamantine, and his black gloves were enchanted with powerful magic runes. His gem-encrusted longsword had such powerful mana waves emanating from it that I could sense the mana waves even before I entered the treehouse. While I didn"t know this handsome man"s power level, it was definite that he was incredibly rich. Every single piece of equipment on him was at minimum a Myth-rank equipment.
Of course I would recognize such a rich individual. He was "Black Guardian" Kaise Elowen, the leader of the super mercenary group "Westwood Guardians". He was also the "overall commander" of the adventurers here. Of course, this was in name only as the wood spirits were the true leaders.
I soon started disliking him. This was because…
"I feel we should punish that strangely named team that caused so much chaos today. Otherwise, if everyone is influenced by them and stops listening to orders, it will become much harder to organize anything in the future…"
All three Virtues were currently in the main room of the treehouse. However, Samantha was the only one of the three who did any leaders.h.i.+p-related work. She coldly shook her head upon hearing Kaise"s righteous words, but when she noticed that I arrived, she actually turned to look at me for once and even did her best to faintly smile.
"You"re here."
"Yeah. How are the seeds doing? Is everything well?"
"They"ve already begun sprouting. Their growth period should be over in two days. After that, we should be able to stimulate them into the next phase at any time we wish."
Kaise had a look of incredible astonishment. He was equally surprised to see another human in the wood spirits" central command area. However, I had no intentions of talking to him.
I walked up to the center of the room and saw that the tree hearts we were speaking of were beating slightly, just like a living creature"s heart. Hidden within these tree hearts were tremendously strong life forces that were growing in strength. The moment these tree hearts finished their initial period of growth, they would start blooming explosively, as unstoppable as a volcanic eruption.
There were seeds from the Forest of Dreams, as well as the hope of the wood spirits.
Once these seeds finished their growth period, they would be able to grow into skysc.r.a.per trees right away at a new location, creating a new Forest of Dreams. The sleeping Amelia would also increase her territory.
Although these seeds needed nourishment from the main Forest of Dreams, the forest"s roots had long since reached this location ten days ago. This towering ancient tree had actually been hollowed out, and its true ident.i.ty was now a member of the Forest of Dreams. Once these seeds finished their growth period, we would tear off the disguise and speedily establish a second Forest of Dreams here. This would also make Amelia stronger as she would obtain additional nourishment and territory.
Obviously, the undead wouldn"t like to see this happening. And for Amelia"s dimensional will to be able to descend here, the forest would need to grow to a sufficient amount. This would require time. Just like a wildfire, it could only be put out at the very beginning. The undead weren"t blind, and when a dimensional will expanded its territory, the entire area"s natural laws would obviously be rewritten. This weakest time of all for a new territory would naturally make it into the undead"s target.
So, as long as trees started growing here, the undead would one hundred percent take some sort of action. There would definitely be a hard battle waiting ahead of us. And since we were going to have to battle either sooner or later, it would obviously be best to fight as early as possible, before even more high-level undead arrived. The wood spirits" judgment in taking action now was absolutely correct, and I, too, hoped for the Forest of Dreams to expand its territory. Increasing Amelia"s power would help her wake up earlier.
Since Samantha said the seeds were fine, I nodded and didn"t ask any further. It was probably better to leave this up to the plant magic experts.
"May I ask who you are?"
Instead, Kaise was the one who asked a question. He felt that the person before him looked quite familiar, but he couldn"t recall this person"s ident.i.ty.
"You"re asking who I am? You don"t even recognize someone from the team you wanted to punish?"