Chapter 71

“Grrrrr…”

What is this? What on earth is going on?

“Is it good?”

“Nyaheuu… My hair must smell terrible…? Plus, I didn’t wash it today, so it’s all greasy…”

“It’s fine. It only smells good. You’re clean.”

What is this? The Forest Guardian is brushing my hair.

But I feel so good that I can’t refuse.

I should pull away even now.

But I can’t do that.

“Do elves usually do this to people they’ve just met?”

“Yeah.”

“I think it’s a really good culture to emulate. So warm and grrrrrr…”

At first, I thought I was still a bit drunk, but my mind was completely clear.

That the Forest Guardian is brushing my hair is quite a thing to experience long-lived beings.

Just as bad things come one after another, good things seem to have come in droves.

What Gestalt and Daniel told us about the mission was actually a secret mission!

It not only allows us to play tricks on the Academy Staff but also means that bringing back the laurel will ultimately be Adella’s doing!

“Wow, this is easy! You can expect great things, Gestalt!”

“Show respect to the Chief, Adella.”

Despite having a completely changed mission, the Forest Guardian seemed to accept it calmly.

“I almost said something rash about a bald head being ignorant.”

“Nya haha! Bald head! Even if you look closely, Gestalt Uncle’s hair grows like cotton candy, you know?”

What’s up with this elf? She looked like a delicate princess, but her behavior and speech were rough and unabashed like a mercenary who had rolled around on the battlefield for a long time.

I think I have finally found a likable partner after a long time.

The ones who left the Abyss first were No Name and me.

The distance to the Observatory was quite far to walk, so we had to arrive early to meet the mission time.

Traveling by carriage should be avoided due to the risk of being tracked.

I thought it was quite harsh for just two ladies to take such a long journey, but isn’t it better to have good fortune?

However, unexpectedly, she was a quiet type.

If I didn’t start the conversation, she would absolutely not open her mouth.

I also had a clear reason for not initiating conversation.

In fact, becoming too emotionally attached was something a true mission operative should refrain from.

The most important thing on the battlefield is my own life.

Even in a situation where one of us must survive, I had to be able to abandon the other without regret.

I’m not saying I’d betray already, but with my personality, I can say I would cut ties decisively in such a situation. This mission is going to be tough.

I want to blame the alcohol for the vulnerable moment in the inn when I let down my guard and showed my hair.

Why did I suddenly do that?

The clock tower of the royal palace rings every hour, quietly marking the time.

Both of us walked briskly, arriving early at the Observatory.

The Forest Guardian showed no signs of tension. Had she experienced such situations many times before?

“Are you not bored?”

“A little.”

“Tell me some past stories. It’s not common to have a chance to meet an elf.”

What kind of place is the Arseria Forest?

The mythical space, often referred to as the paradise of elves, was a place forbidden to outsiders.

“I was the fourth princess of my country.”

“Princess? The princess I know?”

Wait, isn’t this a person of tremendous status?

Is she really a princess of a nation? I thought she surely had an extraordinary aura.

The immense gap in status made my own situation feel pitiful.

“So, being the fourth means you have many siblings, right? Did you get along with them?”

“No. I don’t think I could.”

“Yeah, families with siblings often say the same thing about how can you get along.”

I couldn’t empathize due to not having a family, but that’s what I heard.

“Then do they remain in that forest? Or did they come to find the laurel like you?”

“No, they’re all dead. Except for one.”

“Eh? You mean dead…?”

“I killed them all.”

“What kind of delusion is this…? Aren’t you completely insane? Was everything about being the princess of a nation a lie?”

I was a fool for taking the insane Forest Guardian’s story seriously.

Still, thanks to that, I feel quite relaxed now.

As for whether her skill matches her looks, I guess we’ll have to check.

Time is dragging on terribly.

It’s that feeling when even the falling leaves seem slow to me while I’m on night watch.

How great it would be if things appeared like this in an actual battle.

Unable to endure the boredom any longer, I decided to take the plunge and share my own story with the Forest Guardian.

“Do you know why I joined the Abyss?”

“Did the Chief accept you into the Abyss?”

“Well… I guess. He saved me when I was being beaten by the guards and brought me here. I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I’ve stuck around.”

I now casually spoke about the Chief, whom Adella always kept silent about.

Just as I thought, she was someone who hungered for interaction with others.

Despite having a slightly rough personality, she no longer ignored or brushed off my words.

But Adella wasn’t the only one who changed.

The guards we encountered at the Observatory.

Like Adella, they were now freed from the shackles of their intelligence.

Originally, the guard that would first stab from the right could be knocked off a cliff if I pushed him over with my foot while he was only impeding visibility.

“Grrk… This bastard dares to use tricks? Don’t let your guard down! The enemy is a high-level magician!”

A knight crawled up from the cliff.

Just before he fell, he cleverly threw off his helmet.

Once his visibility was cleared, it seemed he could support himself with his sword.

The enemies in the second cycle were stronger than those in the first, and the enemies in the third were stronger than in the second.

It wasn’t that I had weakened; objectively, they had become much smarter, more cautious, and more meticulous.

They didn’t attack recklessly, pretending to show weakness.

Like highly trained elite soldiers, they only wielded their swords when their safety was assured.

The guards of the Observatory weren’t zombies or golems; they were real knights with only one life.

“Be cautious of the sword’s aura! We have the numerical advantage, so keep pressing!”

They aimed to separate me and Adella, isolating us.

This cowardly plan prevented me from protecting the injured Adella, making her a hostage.

The difficulty level of the game was going through the roof.

I barely managed to deflect a sword that was lunging for my throat.

I spun half a turn and precisely plunged my sword into the chest of an enemy approaching from behind using inertia.

Ping—

It felt like an attack that should’ve pierced the chest!

My blade shattered helplessly.

[Current Penalty (3): -45%]

‘Ah, so that’s how it works.’

Everything I did was being halved.

That felt familiar.

It was the curse, like when I first logged into World of Arseria and my mana circuit was cut off.

Though the mass and acceleration remained the same,

the power contained in my sword didn’t reach the product of the two.

“Now!”

The heavy great sword buried itself into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

I momentarily twisted my body and managed to dodge, but that limited my range of actions absurdly.

Dozens of ominous eyes flared up.

It was the gaze of a predator waiting for my mistake.

A knight attacked from behind, and two knights attempted to completely pin me down without their shields. Was this a trap?

A sacrificial lamb was needed.

The first offering, of course, was my own body.

I inserted my hand into the path of the first knight’s sword.

Crash—

The sword path skewed by the gauntlet grazed my waist, completely shattering my right arm instead.

But I used my left elbow to smash down on the knight’s wrist, completely disarming him.

Using the point of balance shifted forward, I grabbed the knight’s sleeve, who was likely twice my weight, and flipped him over.

The knight, who fell headfirst, couldn’t regain his senses due to being incapacitated perfectly.

“Grab him! The opponent is still unarmed!”

I evaded the guard rushing at me from the air, but he still managed to catch my ankle as he fell.

If it’s acceleration, I can shake off even an adult man’s grip.

“…!”

[Cannot use acceleration. (0.4 seconds)]

Was it still on cooldown?

Things weren’t looking good.

I could feel their smiles even through the covered helmets.

Since my skill was on cooldown, I should have come up with some alternative, but fatigue from the ongoing battle rejected my brain’s reasoning.

A violent strike came soaring towards my body.

Death was hovering close.

“No Name!”

Bang—

“Adella?”

“What are you doing? You… almost died! Hurry up and get up!”

Adella crossed her small dagger in an X shape to block the guards’ strike that would split my head in half.

Without even a moment to be surprised, she pushed the guard back and handed me the censer.

“I picked it up while fleeing from the Observatory earlier! Being a priest, I can handle at least this level of a weapon, right?”

[Corrupted Censer]

[A censer dropped by a passing pedestrian. The censer, which absorbs earth’s magic, gives off an ominous aura.]

[Skill Acceleration +30, Spell Power +15, Healing Reduction Effect 20%]

Acceleration, eh? This item has quite decent stats, doesn’t it?

[Acceleration lv.2: Grants 23 (20+3)% movement speed and 17.25 (15+2.25)% attack speed for 5 seconds.]

[MP Cost: 50, Cooldown: 10.77 (14-3.23) seconds]

“Thank you. Let’s fight together.”

With acceleration, even weak attack power can be somewhat supplemented.

“No, I’m asking you to heal me! What if you leave me behind, Forest Guardian! Hey, hey, hey, Adella, I’m going to die! Save me!”