novelraw Chapter 149 : Jungle
Chapter 149 : Jungle
Chapter 149: Jungle
Leading the injured and advancing through the Uncharted Area was no easy task.
Whatever happened, the only ones they could rely on were themselves and their companions.
Even so, Robin was traveling with as many as six people in tow.
That was not something made possible by mere luck.
“Jungle again.”
“From now on, close the gaps between each other.”
Those who had been spread out drew in to half a step’s distance.
At the front were Sigbard and Aelin.
In the middle were the six porters.
At the rear, Robin and Serena followed close together.
“They won’t chase us all the way out here… right?”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve dealt with them myself, so I know. They won’t pick a fight they have no chance of winning.”
Hank clicked his tongue bitterly.
Now that they had gained a powerful ally in Robin, part of him had secretly hoped the bandits would charge at them.
He could have smashed them to a pulp.
But the bandits had eyes as well, and so they did not dare make a move.
“If you all make it back alive, that means there’ll be witnesses. Aren’t they giving up too easily?”
At Robin’s question, Hank let out a short laugh.
“You’ve got a naive side. What happens in the Uncharted Area cannot serve as grounds for punishment.”
“There’s such a thing as reputation. It wouldn’t do them any good if word got out in the city that they’re bandits, would it?”
“It wouldn’t help, but it wouldn’t hurt either.”
Robin looked at him as if asking what he meant.
After drawing in a breath, Hank continued his explanation.
“There’s a case. An Adventurer whose team died and who returned alone reported the bandits. What do you think happened?”
“Didn’t end well?”
“On the contrary, he was branded the criminal.”
The Adventurer had gone to the Guild and even the constabulary to report what he had experienced.
Instead, he was saddled with the stigma of having falsely accused the bandits and left the city.
“If you run your mouth without evidence, the backlash can hit you instead.”
“Still, wouldn’t information circulate among Adventurers?”
“That’s true as well. But from the perspective of those in the city, there’s no way to verify whether it’s true or not, is there?”
They might suspect, but they could not assert.
Conflicts that arose in the Uncharted Area were not brought back into the city.
It was an unspoken rule among Adventurers.
Most Adventurers did not admit their own faults, and if someone pointed them out, they would loudly deny them.
You didn’t even see it yourself, so why are you trying to frame me? There was no way to counter that argument.
Even if they had truly committed a crime, the prevailing attitude was, so what?
You suffered something unfair in a lawless zone?
You shouldn’t have gone there in the first place.
That was what it meant to be an Adventurer—if you were wronged, you were treated as incompetent and foolish.
“That’s why Lady Serena is remarkable. She earned everyone’s recognition.”
Serena, who had been quietly listening, nodded calmly in agreement.
When Robin glanced at her, she pointed to herself with her thumb.
“Me. Amazing.”
“I know. I know, so stop making that face.”
Seeing her lift her chin proudly, soaked in self-satisfaction, irritated him in a strange way.
“That’s pitiful. It means there’s nowhere to appeal.”
“Even so, we’re grateful that you accepted the request, Sir Robin.”
Hank offered a moderate amount of flattery.
In any case, thanks to Robin taking on the Impromptu Request, they were heading toward the city without worry.
Smash.
A Monster that had rushed in recklessly was struck down by Sigbard’s Rod.
A jungle gorilla—one that required at least three Copper-Ranked Adventurers to handle.
It was a troublesome Monster that moved in groups.
Yet the ones observing from a distance retreated without taking any particular action.
“Let’s take a short break.”
Robin dismantled the Monster’s corpse together with the porters.
He did not skin it; instead, he chopped it into pieces and drained the blood to reduce the weight.
“You lot finally have something to do.”
“Just leave it to us. We’ll carry it safely.”
The six divided up the By-products and set off.
Any Monsters they encountered along the way were not avoided—they killed them all.
They grew accustomed to mechanically repeating movement and hunting.
By the time they had crossed through the center of the jungle, their packs had grown quite heavy.
“Hmm. This isn’t good.”
“What’s wrong, Aelin?”
“The Monsters have formed an Encirclement.”
Aelin, who had been walking ahead, stopped.
When Sigbard, Serena, and Robin gathered around her, she explained what she had sensed.
“It’s strange to say they’re targeting us.”
The Monsters were not surrounding their party.
Rather than encircling Adventurers, they had formed a wide circle around something even larger.
“This is more like… not an encirclement but a retreat? No, they’ve put distance between themselves.”
“From what?”
“That root we saw yesterday. The vibration is getting closer.”
Aelin pressed her hand to the ground and spoke gravely, but no one else sensed anything unusual.
The six who had become porters wore dubious expressions.
They clearly wanted to tell her to stop talking nonsense but held themselves back because she was Robin’s companion.
The same went for Sigbard.
The difference was that Sigbard did not hold back.
“Aelin, aren’t you being overly sensitive?”
“It’s because I’m sensitive that I can notice something approaching from afar.”
“Then explain it properly.”
Sigbard questioned Aelin with ample patience, yet he did not receive an answer he could truly accept.
That she heard sounds, that she felt tremors in the ground.
The senses of an Elf, beyond the realm of ordinary humans, were not something that could be explained in words.
“But it’s not an immediate danger, right?”
“Yeah. It looks like it’s searching for worthwhile prey.”
‘Prey….’
What a cunning Monster.
It must have learned something from its previous clash with Robin and Sigbard.
In a case like this, there were two possibilities.
Either it considered them difficult opponents and was hunting easier targets.
Or it might be searching for Robin in order to take revenge.
Intelligent Monsters sometimes did not forget their opponents after defeat and would pursue them.
“Can we get out of its range?”
“If we start running now.”
“Let’s move immediately.”
Aelin listened for a moment, then took the lead.
She angled their direction diagonally so they would move away from the path where it was approaching.
Thudududud.
Aelin gradually increased her speed.
Sigbard and Robin did not fall behind, and Serena kept up well.
“Ugh… wait a moment!”
The Adventurer with the injured leg ran on one foot with sheer Fighting Spirit, but it gradually became too much for him.
On the verge of falling behind, he pleaded in a tearful voice.
“Please slow down a little!”
“Someone carry him.”
Perhaps Sigbard’s voice did not reach them.
The injured Adventurer looked at his teammates with eyes begging for help, but they turned away.
‘Doesn’t look like a very tight-knit team.’
“What are you doing! I said carry him!”
“Th-that is… the luggage is too heavy, we don’t have the spare strength….”
Hank made excuses, but his voice trailed off as if even he felt embarrassed.
In the end, Sigbard stepped forward himself.
With one hand, he lifted the limping Adventurer and slung him over his shoulder.
Despite the weight, his running pace did not slow in the slightest.
“After going so far as to pay money and ask for help, wouldn’t it be a waste to die here.”
“Th-thank you.”
“What’s your name.”
“It’s Delinger.”
“Hold tight.”
The moment Sigbard finished speaking, as if it had been waiting, their speed increased another notch.
From the front, Aelin shouted.
“I think it’s spotted us!”
“It’s fine, just pick up the pace!”
What had been a light jog had, before they knew it, turned into a full sprint.
At this point, even Adventurers—whose stamina was their lifeline—were beginning to run out of breath.
“W-wait!”
“Huff, huff! How long… are we going to run.”
‘At this rate, we won’t last long.’
The porters had become baggage themselves.
The one fortunate thing was that even with their breath at their throats, they did not throw away their loads.
They knew as well. This escort request, little more than a verbal contract, was their only way to survive.
What were a few Monster By-products worth, anyway.
The thought of throwing away the packs crossed their minds several times, but it was not a good decision.
This relationship, formed over a modest fee, would shatter the moment they cast aside their backpacks.
From their perspective, they had no confidence they could escape that monstrous creature.
That was why they clung to their loads as if to their lives.
“Aelin!”
Robin shot forward in an instant to the front.
Aelin glanced at him and told him what he had wanted to know.
“At this speed, it’ll catch us within ten minutes.”
The porters were already at their limit.
They could not increase their speed any further.
“There’s one way.”
“What is it?”
“I think there’s a Dungeon nearby.”
“Are you sure?”
Without breaking stride, Aelin jerked her chin forward.
“There’s a wide space underground. It’s very likely a Dungeon.”
“And what’s your basis for thinking it’ll be safe if we go there.”
“There isn’t one.”
She answered so confidently that he was momentarily speechless.
It was not even reliance on instinct—she had merely stated what she had discovered.
“Everyone’s exhausted. Rather than fighting like this, it’s better to catch our breath, even if only for a moment.”
The reason Robin avoided clashing with that Monster was because they had no information about it.
When they had fought before, he had not felt overwhelmingly outmatched, but one never knew.
What if it had the habit of self-detonating right before death?
There were still countless bizarre Monsters unknown to the world; that was why being an Adventurer was such a dangerous profession.
“Can you even find the entrance?”
Aelin closed her eyes and focused.
Closing her eyes while running seemed insane, yet she moved as steadily as if they were open.
Thirty seconds later, she opened them and pointed to a gently sloping incline.
“There.”
After coming to a sudden stop, she abruptly called out to Sigbard.
“Sigbard! Break it!”
Though it was a sudden demand that would have flustered most, Sigbard immediately raised his Rod high.
With an Adventurer still slung over one shoulder, he leapt up lightly and then brought it down vertically.
At the bizarre sight of him smashing bare ground, the others stopped in confusion.
Crack, crack, crack.
From the point of impact, fissures spread, and a staircase leading downward appeared.
“Wh-what is this!”
“What are you all doing! Get in!”
At Aelin’s sharp shout, the porters entered one by one.
Aaaahhh!
The screams of those who entered first echoed, and then silence fell.
“It’s here.”
Rumble—crack.
Just like before, tree roots burst out and shot toward Robin.
In the blink of an eye, he drew his sword and severed them all, but the assault was far fiercer than before.
It was not only the roots that revealed themselves.
“What is that.”
An ordinary-looking tree advanced steadily.
It manipulated its roots like the tentacles of an octopus as it approached—and then it laughed grotesquely.
There was a face on the tree.
“Robin! Get in here at once!”
Sigbard, too, sensed that something was amiss and urged him on.
The moment Robin, the last one remaining, slipped inside, the entrance closed on its own.
‘Now we can’t see a thing.’
Before he could even worry about wandering through the pitch-dark Dungeon, the ground suddenly gave way.
At a steep seventy-degree angle, it became sharply inclined, and they slid down as if on a slide.
‘So that’s why they screamed.’
Thud.
He landed on the ground, brushed off his back, and swept his gaze around.
Serena had already illuminated their surroundings with a fire spirit.
When she confirmed Robin had arrived, she enlarged the spirit a little more.
“We’re all here.”
“It doesn’t seem like it’s chasing us.”
They watched the upper area, but the Monster did not follow.
Recalling its face, Robin felt a chill prickle over his skin.
‘It was a good thing we entered the Dungeon.’
Rather than fear, it was simply a face that provoked disgust just by looking at it.
“But is this all? Where are the porters?”
“There’s no one else but us.”
At Serena’s words, everyone’s expressions stiffened.
Robin, Sigbard, Aelin, Serena.
And the Adventurer slung over Sigbard’s shoulder—five in total.
The remaining porters were nowhere to be seen.
Aelin threw a nearby stone and listened closely.
Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok.
After deducing the structure, she let out a faint breath.
“It really is a Dungeon.”
Their arrival in the city would be delayed beyond schedule.