I slept soundly for 12 hours. When I woke up, for some reason, Missha was sleeping on my stomach and drooling again.
«...»
Anyway, we still had plenty of time, so I organized our loot. I checked what was in the backpack, took the rest of the equipment from the three enemies, and put everything in the expandable backpacks. It was lucky Missha had one too. With all the equipment packed in, it was remove heavy dismiss the weight reduction magic.
This should be sufficient compensation for all that hard work.
I left Missha sleeping, took out some jerky, and chewed on it. Well, if she woke up and was hungry, she could take care of herself.
Whoosh!
After eating, I simply washed my body with a damp cloth. I even shaved for the first time in a long time.
Now I feel more like a person.
After burning all the remaining wood in the fireplace, there was nothing left to do, so I went outside and sat in the rocking chair. A faint scent of blood drifted from the serene grassy field. As I basked in the sun and let my thoughts wander, I slowly closed my eyes.
Suddenly, I remembered the religious man whose head had been crushed while he slept...
The entrance must have already been closed, so I didn't have to worry about that.
He was calm.
At least while I'm here, I'm safe. Yes, that's all that matters.
"Bjorn, wake up. You should at least eat something. Otherwise, your stomach will hurt!"
When I opened my eyes, Missha was shaking my shoulder. I looked at my watch and saw that another 14 hours had passed since I last checked it.
"Here, even if you're not hungry, eat!" Missha broke off some dried beef and bread and put it in my mouth. I had already woken up once in the middle of my sleep to eat, but since I was hungry again, I ate it. "Are you going to sleep a little longer?"
"No."
"Mm, okay. Ah, okay. But how did you know that if you put people in the fire, you can stay here longer?"
"I read it in a book."
"Bjorn, do you like intelligent women?"
"That's how it is."
When we finished eating, I gave a few half-answers to Missha's questions and checked the fireplace. Judging by the fire's intensity, it looked like we had less than an hour left.
Click.
I closed the watch and secured it tightly in my clothing. Stretching my body, which had been asleep for a long time, I began to get ready to leave. It was still too soon to claim victory, but my heart felt strangely overflowing.
This day has truly arrived.
The 15th day would begin soon. In other words, if we survived just one more day, we could escape this cured forest and return to the city.
So, let's stay focused until the end.
[The Witch's Cabin is closed. It will be relocated to the Witch's Forest.]
As usual.
"B-Bjorn! What's going on?"
"Fuck..."
Because it ain't over till it's over.
***
[A fifth sacrifice has been made in the cabin.]
[A sixth sacrifice has been made in the cabin.]
[A seventh sacrifice has been made in the hut.]
[The Seven Sacrifices Special Condition has been satisfied. The Lord of Chaos, Riakis, has begun to wander on the ground].
***
As soon as we left the cabin, I could feel the change in the forest with my whole body.
[Field Effect-The Witch's Forest has been cancelled.]
I could see forward. All the hallucinations were gone. The surroundings became bright enough that he could see into the distance without a torch.
«B-Bjorn...?»
The ceiling emitted an ominous red light. Furthermore, the spirit-type monsters that we had seen everywhere in the forest had completely disappeared.
It was the first silence I had found since I entered the Witch's Forest. I crouched down and touched the ground.
Dddddd.
I could feel a slight tremor through my fingertips. There was no longer a need to confirm or deny the current situation. I knew the cause of this phenomenon.
«...He is the Lord of the Soil».
He was a monster who acted as a kind of field leader. In the game, his name was the lord of the ground. There was a monarch with a different nickname on each floor. Except for some of the floors, most were summoned with a trigger.
«Lord of the floors? Don't tease me. I heard there's no boss on the third flooroooo».
«It's not that there isn't. Only the summoning method is kept secret».
In the case of the Crystal Cave on the first floor, after the third day, it was known that when there were more than five people, the Lord appeared with some probability.
However, the Lord on the third floor was different. The royal family and guild treated the invocation method as top secret, and even made a new law to severely punish those who invoked it once without warning. According to the books, that was about 150 years ago.
«Did the guild keep it a secret? But why?»
«Because if some lunatic decides to summon one, he won't end up with just a few deaths».
The Lord on the first floor disappeared once he killed whoever activated the trigger, but the Lord on the third floor was different: Riakis, the Lord of Chaos.
[Erosion has begun. All the monsters on the floor have hidden in the chaos. A creature of chaos has awakened].
This guy didn't just affect the entire third floor.
[Riakis, the Lord of Chaos, has begun to wander on the floor.]
Once summoned, he wandered through the labyrinth and committed massacres to death. To make matters worse, movement between floors was also blocked.
[The portal is temporarily disabled due to erosion].
That meant that even escaping to another floor was impossible. When I explained this, Missha's complexion turned white.
«So what is this?! Y-if it's a secret, then why has the Lord of the Floor appeared now?!»
Ah, eh... eh...
Should I tell him the truth or not? I was a little worried, but the decision was not difficult. «Probably for us.»
It would be better to make her an accomplice here. Saving or not, that would be more effective in keeping the secret.
» N-us? N-I don't understand...»
«We burned the bodies in the cabin. It is one of the conditions».
When I explained it kindly, the reaction came late. «... Was that the summoning method?! Bjorrrn! What the hell have you done?!»
No, I didn't know it would be like that either. Even in the books I read in the library, it said that only a few people knew about this, and the last time Riakis was summoned was more than ten years ago. So I thought it wouldn't be that big of a deal, even if we burned three people.
Damn, but who would have thought that someone had already burned four?
I couldn't help but curse the absurd coincidence. But who could he blame? In the end, it must have been my fault for not imagining the worst. So, in that sense... «Missha, make one more promise to me.»
«Promise?»
«You must not tell anyone that we have summoned the Lord of Chaos.»
He was not summoned after preparations made by a giant clan. Obviously, there would be many deaths. But if it were known that we were the cause...
They will make us take responsibility in some way.
Slowly realizing our situation, Missha drew the line. «We? What do you mean? You were the one who burned the bodies». Very urgently on that, too, so that even his pronunciation was very clear.
That made me a little sad. She was the one who said she would serve as my savior and repay me until the day she died. Anyway, if that was how he wanted to do it, he had no choice. I had to corner her a little. «Do you think the guild will believe that? No, even if they do, the result will be the same. To appease that anger, the more sacrifices, the better».
«Ugh...» Well, based on that reaction, I didn't think it was necessary to threaten her with false testimony.
«If you understand, wake up. We'll be lucky if we can die in the city».
«...Okay. So what should I do now?»
The answer was simple. «Let's run.»
First of all, we had to go as far away from here as possible. I never thought I'd leave this place like this, but...
The safest thing would be to go there first.
It was time to leave the Witches' Forest.
***
Getting out of this damn forest was easy. Since the abnormal Loss of Direction state had disappeared, we only needed to move in one direction while following the compass. The problem was that the entire third floor was filled with new types of monsters.
«Bjorn! Something is following us!»
«It is the spirit of chaos.»
For reference, the Lord did not even have a rank. He gave no mana stones, and no essence came out.
«We should take care of him».
The spirit of chaos was a preemptive monster, and once attracted to an aggro, it would follow him to the end.
«... Is this something we can catch?» Missha seemed wary of hunting a monster she had never seen before. True, ignorance in this place was the same as death. I also learned by dying countless times in the game.
«Attack power is on the high side, but that's it. Don't worry, it will probably disappear with an elemental attack».
«... Is that information reliable?»
«Yes, I read it in a book».
«Okay.» Relieved to hear the features, Missha fixed her grip on the spear enchanted with holy water. Then, he pushed her towards the spirit of chaos that was slowly following us.
Boom!
The spirit exploded with a spear attack. Something resembling silt wet the ground, turning it black.
[The Spirit of Chaos has been destroyed. This place will be eroded].
Stepping on that ground now would cause chaotic type damage over time, but there was no need to worry about that. It wasn't like we were hunting the Soil Lord here, and it hadn't even been a whole day since he was summoned.
After today, the maze will close, so we can ignore the erosion rate.
At least that was a positive factor. Although the Lord of the Ground was summoned out of nowhere, the clock read 00:01. The 15th had just begun. If we could survive the next 24 hours, we could return to the-
«H-hey! Help me!»
As we were about to leave the place, a single explorer ran towards us from afar. No companion was seen, but I wasn't surprised that he was alone. The dozens of chaos spirits following him were explanation enough.
«B-Bjorn?»
«What worries you? Run».
Clinging to Missha's trembling wrist, I ran in the opposite direction to the man asking for help. Thanks to that we had to make a small detour, but what could we do? It was better that the aggro was attracted to us.
«Agh, ah!» Apparently, he was already at his limit. I turned to look back at the brief scream and saw that the explorer had fallen.
«A-Help-!»
Damn, our eyes met.
«B-Bjorn...?»
«Don't look back». I pulled Missha's wrist and looked forward again.
«No! Do not go!»
The screams of despair were drowned out by the sound of the wind brushing my ears. I muttered to myself briefly: «ignore them. If it had been the other way around, do you think it would have stopped for you?».
«But! It's our fault the third floor became this!»
Well, I had nothing to say to that.
Fuck...
I felt dirty, as if every aspect of myself had been completely exposed. But this would only be a passing sensation to remember one day. We should do what we had to do.
This should be enough.
After heading south for a while, we turned east again and moved forward. We could see eroded land and the bodies of explorers all over the forest. The more I saw them, the more I just looked ahead and ran.
Boom!
It was after we had been moving for an hour, busting the spirits of chaos that were following us. The forest was coming to an end and a plain with an open view was revealed.
I thought it would take us at least seven hours...
Had we been on the eastern outskirts of the forest? We left it much sooner than expected.
We were lucky.
We soon crossed the plains and entered Orca Colony. And how much time had passed since then?
"Now, now, everyone. Please calm down and follow the rules!"
As expected, a large number of people were there.