“Leave you here alone against enemies like that...!?”
They had suddenly run into the monsters.
Those beasts were striding toward them without bothering to hide their rage, yet
Yunseong couldn’t make a decision easily.
“How could you tell me to do something like that!”
To be honest,
Yunseong was suspicious of the man in front of him.
Of this man named Shin Youngjun.
“Section Leader Seo Younghee’s son, huh.”
The first thing that came to him when he heard that
had been joy.
– Yunseong, for such a big guy, why are your knife swings so timid?
From the time he’d first joined the group, back when he hadn’t even awakened yet,
the ones who had taken meticulous care of him were the couple Seo Younghee and Shin Seokjun.
And right after that joy came
a touch of sadness and...
a crushing sense of guilt.
Because those two emotions had taken over his mind,
he’d ended up, without thinking it through,
telling Shin Youngjun about that couple.
Only much later had he realized
that this had been a mistake.
“I’m the one leading this group right now. That means I should have been more cautious.”
Because the information he’d heard from that couple about their son,
and what this man said, matched to a certain degree, he’d accepted it without much thought.
But if he’d thought it over carefully,
even that could have been a lie.
Some might think, How could anyone fake stories only the person themselves would know? but
Yunseong was different.
“Maybe the enemy can find out even things we think only we ourselves know...”
Because there was one person who knew for sure that this was possible.
Yunseong.
That was why.
He’d started keeping his guard up around this man only after the fact.
Even though he thought the man’s warning
seemed to have some validity, he’d seen it as an attempt to interfere with the group’s decisions and had deliberately ignored it.
“Reckless again, Ha Yunseong...!”
And.
This was the result.
They’d gone out of their way to clash with a monster they could have avoided if he’d heeded the warning.
They’d ended up in this dangerous situation.
And on top of that...
“This happened because I ignored his warning, and that young man...!”
The one who’d given the warning,
that man, Shin Youngjun, was now saying he’d stay here and hold the line,
telling them to run.
“If you’ve run into them, someone has to deal with them... It’s a sound argument.”
“I’m glad you understand. Now if you’d just hurry up and go...”
“But there’s no reason it has to be you.”
Yunseong bit down hard on his lip.
“Since this happened because I was reckless... it’s only right that I deal with it.”
He clenched the hand holding his greatsword, took up a battle stance,
and stepped forward.
“I’m sorry I ignored your warning. I’ll try to hold those monsters off here. You run!”
“...?”
“Back then, I didn’t say it, but I’ve owed my life to Section Leader Seo and his wife more times than I can count. This happened because of my mistake, and I can’t go and drag Section Leader Seo’s own son down with me on top of that!”
He might not have been some outstanding powerhouse,
but he was still an Awakener who’d built up his share of experience.
Raising his whole body’s aura,
he moved to block the monsters’ path.
Seeing Yunseong like that,
I...
“...What the hell is this guy babbling about.”
“Ghk!?”
grabbed him by the back of the neck
and hurled him backward.
Yunseong hit the ground with a thud, letting out a startled sound.
He hurriedly scrambled up and looked to the front, but—
“D–Damn it...”
the monsters that had been approaching were already right up in my face.
Even if Yunseong started running now, the distance was too great for it to mean anything.
“When someone tells you to go, just go.”
“S–Still!”
Even if it was a little late,
Yunseong was about to grab his greatsword again and charge toward the monsters when—
“Most of those people are low-level.”
“...What?”
“If it were just that their levels were low, that would be one thing, but they’re people who barely know the basic know-how you need to move in a world like this, aren’t they?”
At my shout as I walked toward the monsters,
his steps faltered.
“If they don’t have a proper commander, they won’t even be able to join up with another group nearby. They’ll just freeze to death.”
“......”
“You’re okay with that?”
Yunseong looked like he was wrestling with himself for a moment,
then he clenched his teeth and shouted,
“I’m sorry...!”
In the end,
Yunseong had no choice but to abandon an innocent young man to be food for the enemy
and run to rejoin his group members.
****
A sudden encounter with monsters.
The moment they realized those monsters were far stronger than they’d imagined,
the low-level group members ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) decided they couldn’t possibly defeat them
and started to flee.
In the rear of that party, of course,
and having nothing at all to do with combat roles, there was a man who had no choice but to just move with everyone else.
“Wh–What the hell!”
Howard, too, was part of that fleeing column.
“Wh–What! What the hell is going on!?”
Being in the rear, he hadn’t even seen the monsters.
As someone who’d just been dragged along into this sudden retreat in a daze, Howard had no idea what was happening.
“Everyone, we’re going around on Route 3!”
“Yunseong!”
“I’ll take the lead. Move behind me!”
Fortunately, once Ha Yunseong, who’d been holding the monsters for a bit, made it back,
he started directing the group and the chaos eased somewhat.
After they’d managed to get far enough away,
found another route, and started resting in a safe area there,
the man finally regained some composure.
Howard.
“Hey, Yunseong.”
“...Howard, huh.”
“Don’t call me that name.”
He walked up to Yunseong, who was still catching his breath, and spoke.
“Anyway, I heard the gist of it. You say some insanely strong monsters showed up up front?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, so I get that’s why we ran. But, uh, sen— no, wait.”
He was talking to Yunseong
to clear up something that had been bothering him.
“Where’s Youngjun?”
The man who’d been moving right alongside him while they were marching.
There was no sign of Shin Youngjun anywhere.
“......”
“Hey?”
But.
Despite Howard’s question,
Yunseong just grimaced and didn’t answer.
...Don’t tell me.
Howard prided himself on having good instincts.
Seeing that expression, he frowned.
“Something happened to Youngjun, didn’t it.”
“...I’m sorry.”
“You bastard...!”
Howard grabbed Yunseong by the shoulders, furious, and shouted.
“What happened!”
“Those monsters were too strong. With the group as we are now, there was no way we could shake them off.”
“Yeah? And?”
“...Someone had to hold those monsters by the ankle while the group ran.”
“You crazy son of a—!”
Howard felt the blood rush to his head.
When he’d first met Shin Youngjun, he hadn’t had a good impression of him.
In fact, it wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to call it the worst.
But.
After his rage had cooled somewhat, things had changed.
This man had reached an incredible realm as a chef,
though what he did was a bit different from what Howard had studied all his life.
Every concept he taught Howard as a [Chef]
had been something Howard had never even imagined.
Howard couldn’t even begin to guess what he’d gone through to get that knowledge.
I still have a lot left to learn.
He might have had a lot he didn’t know compared to his skill,
but watching how he absorbed the techniques Youngjun taught at a terrifying pace,
Howard had even found himself thinking, Is this how my teacher felt when he was teaching me?
I still have a lot left to teach him, too.
And now.
What?
“Someone had to hold them off?”
Howard shouted in disbelief.
“Then you should’ve held them off, you bastard!”
“I thought so too, but someone had to lead this group in the retreat...”
“Oh, I see. So to get everyone to safety, you tossed some perfectly fine kid to the monsters as food and ran off? Truly a rational decision.”
“......”
“Oh, or maybe it’s like this? Since Youngjun isn’t a member of our group or our Guild, you figured ditching him wouldn’t hurt our fighting power. What magnificent leadership.”
At that open sarcasm,
Yunseong grimaced, then turned his head as if he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
Of course.
“It’s not like this would’ve happened if you’d just listened to Youngjun in the first place, right? Hm?”
Howard wasn’t about to shut up just because of that.
Kitchen work is brutal, and most people who’ve spent years in a kitchen wind up with a rough personality.
Howard had never been meek, even to begin with, and in his case it was even worse.
There was no way a guy like that was going to just sit on his hands after something like this.
“I keep thinking about it and it just doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t you listen to his warning? You picked a fight in the dining hall too. What, you just couldn’t stand some younger guy telling you how it should be? Hm?”
“...I’m the one who has to lead this group. At first I let my guard down with him, but that man has plenty of suspicious points. He’s a guest from the Northern Branch, so I couldn’t just drive him out, but as the group’s leader, I had to keep him from interfering in our business.”
“And this clown show is the result of that ‘keeping him in check,’ huh?”
“...I regret it too.”
“Incredible. You drive someone into a deathtrap and you even regret it. How noble of you.”
At that,
it seemed even Yunseong couldn’t hold back anymore; he clenched his teeth and said,
“That’s enough.”
“Enough my ass—”
“Then what did you want me to do!”
It was like something that had been tightly clamped down in his head snapped.
Ha Yunseong shouted, wild.
“Was I supposed to charge in to save him and die right there with him!?”
“......”
“Was I supposed to leave everyone here without a commander, let them scatter in all directions, and just let them all freeze to death? Huh? Is that what I should’ve done!”
After he finished venting in one burst, Ha Yunseong panted in anger,
then covered his face with both hands, lowered his head, and said,
“It’s not like... I wanted to do things this way...”
“......”
“Damn it. Acting as proxy for the Chair... it’s not like anyone takes this position because they want to...”
He muttered in a voice on the verge of sobbing.
“I’m sick of abandoning people and running...”
It wasn’t something he was saying for anyone to hear.
It felt more like he was talking to himself.
“If it weren’t for the Chair, I’d never have ended up in a position like this...”
“...What the hell are you talking about.”
To Howard, he just looked pathetic.
Even so, he didn’t press him any further.
“The moment we get to the Southern Branch, we’ll need to send out a rescue party.”
“...It’ll be pointless. The aura I felt from those monsters was beyond imagination. Unless it’s the Chair himself, no one person can handle monsters like that.”
“Okay, enough bullshit.”
Things had already happened.
There was nothing more pointless than arguing over whose fault it was at this point.
“That guy is probably a lot stronger than you think.”
“...You think so?”
“Of course, even then, there’s no way he can take down monsters like that by himself... But he might have managed to shake them off somehow and hole up somewhere nearby.”
“...!”
At those words, even Yunseong raised his head.
Because a thought had flashed through his mind.
The weapons that man had carried had been a pair of daggers.
You could generally guess a person’s class by their weapons.
He’s probably in the assassin family.
A class specialized in shaking off enemies
and hiding.
“The problem is, he doesn’t know the route to the Southern Branch.”
“...Right.”
“Even if he manages to survive somehow, this whole area is just a white void if you don’t know the terrain. Making it back on his own is almost impossible. The moment we arrive at the Southern Branch, we need to send a rescue party to the vicinity where we ran into those monsters. To do that...”
“I can’t just sit here like this.”
Yunseong picked up the greatsword lying on the ground,
got to his feet, and said,
“Sorry you had to see me like that.”
“As long as you’ve come back to your senses, it’s fine.”
“...I’d say the group members have had enough rest by now.”
As he looked around,
he saw the group members who’d gathered at the commotion staring in their direction, curious what was going on.
At this point, the only thing to do was head for the Southern Branch as quickly as possible.
It might be a little embarrassing to have to ask help from another Branch,
but that was shame they’d just have to endure.
They rushed toward the Southern Branch at full speed.
To dispatch forces to rescue Shin Youngjun,
who might still be struggling to evade the monsters even now.
****
“...So. You want to borrow troops.”
And.
When they reached the Southern Branch—
“To rescue the outsider who attended that meeting... this Shin Youngjun?”
“Th–That’s right.”
among the three leaders of the Southern Branch,
Jo Beomseok, the central pillar among them,
“I’m sorry to turn you down, but I don’t think we can grant that request.”
flatly refused.
However,
it wasn’t because troops were too valuable,
or because the request was too difficult.
“For a very simple reason.”
His reason was perfectly reasonable.
“You’re asking to borrow troops to rescue someone who’s already here...”
“......”
“That just doesn’t make sense.”
The three leaders representing the Southern Branch.
And next to them—
“Don’t be too hard on them.”
sitting in front of a warm fire,
warming himself and drinking tea...
“After getting hit by a monster attack, it’s natural to be a little out of it.”
was Shin Youngjun.
