Strange Grief Wants to Retire ~ The Weakest Hunter Dreams of a Hero ~ - Volume 1 - Chapter 4.1

Chapter 4: Thousand Tricks

“I just had this great idea. If we find you some strong Relics, you should be fine, yeah?”

“Luke, please. No matter how good the weapon, an incompetent user is still gonna die when it’s time to die.”

Past conversations with my friends bloomed in my memory. As I flew at speeds that could kill even the most hardened hunters, I had completely thrown the idea of survival out the window.

I’m gonna die! I’m seriously gonna die!

The White Wolf’s Den was surprisingly large for a den built by monsters. But the width and height of its passages were far too small to traverse with the Night Hiker and its lack of brakes.

It was dark inside the den, but there were luminous rocks here and there that lit the way. On my right index finger was one of my many Relics that allowed the user to see in the dark: the Owl’s Eye. Between that and the stones, I could see pretty well. A silver lining, maybe, but the dark cloud was far too large for my tastes.

A wall entered my line of sight. Frantically, I steered around the corner. The inside of the cave was so dismal that I would have never normally stepped inside. Now, however, the only thought in my mind was the question of how I was gonna stop this crazy thing. I had brought a map, but at this point, who knew how far in I was?

The Relic wasn’t exactly good at graceful turns, so I was being tossed against walls, ceilings, and the ground over and over. With each impact, my field of vision rocked intensely. I felt like a rubber ball at this point. Heck, I hardly knew what was going on anymore.

My face was fixed in a grimace. Looking back, I should’ve found a way to stop before I came into the vault. I was nauseous and ready to vomit from the ungodly speed, but it was my own fault. I whizzed right over a phantom that was blocking the path.

No matter how much stronger a phantom was than a human, it couldn’t follow an unpredictable bullet like me. Especially since even I didn’t know where I was going. By the time it had noticed me and turned my way, I had already passed overhead. I decided to ignore the fact that I had just seen a wolf standing on two legs and holding a sword.

Where’s Tino?!

Unlike phantoms, hunters stuck around for quite some time after they died. Even if their corpses were eaten by the phantoms, it was unheard of for them to leave no trace at all. At least, I thought so.

My eyesight was shabby at best, but at the very least, the blurry scenery didn’t seem to contain the corpses of Tino and her merry band. It was unlikely that they were dead.

Unlike me, Tino had a strong sense of duty, so she wouldn’t just give up on it. Additionally, if they had come this far, ignored the request, and headed back to the imperial city to idle around, they would’ve been be a complete laughingstock. Then again, being Liz’s apprentice means she has a crafty side, so maybe—

My train of thought was derailed as I slammed against the ceiling once more. It didn’t hurt, but I was seeing stars. I had ended up in a long, straight passageway. Ahead of me, phantoms gaped in shock at this intrusive human missile. I shot right past them.

My shoulder smashed into a wolf’s head, sending me careening toward a wall. The impact shook me, but I somehow managed to navigate a sharp curve afterward, dragging myself along the wall. It was a miracle that I hadn’t slammed flat against one yet.

I was using a different Relic to adjust my trajectory, which was helping out a little. Thank you, O Great Relic.

Even so, I was just barely hanging on. I had to do something about this fast, or I was dead meat. Then, I’d go down in history as the victim of the Second Human Missile Crisis, or just “That Idiot Who Crashed in a Vault.” I hated the thought; it was just too pathetic.

No more. I need to stop, no matter what it takes.

Suddenly, I saw the path open up ahead. Right in front of me was a ginormous phantom. Sensing that my life was in danger, I exercised my excellent decision-making abilities and came up with a perfect solution: I would use this phantom’s body as my landing pad.

All that was left now was to brace myself. I held my head, shut my eyes, and prayed desperately. Seconds later, my entire body sustained an impact greater than anything I’d ever experienced. I blacked out.

When I finally regained consciousness, I warily opened my eyes.

Looks like my stop was safe...ish.

I released my head and tried to stand, but to my surprise, I was already on my feet. Despite the incredible force, I had survived just fine. Something must’ve been up with my inner ears, though, because I felt pretty dizzy. The unsteadiness brought me awfully close to vomiting, but I held it down. I shook my head violently in an attempt to keep my wits about me. Despite my long hiatus, I knew that losing consciousness in a treasure vault all but guaranteed death.

After patting the dust off my shoulders, I heaved a great sigh. My heart was still pounding like a drum. If I didn’t calm down soon, it might explode. My face was still taut, too. After seeing my life flash before my eyes like that, I supposed it was a good thing that I’d gotten off so easily.

Yeah, the Night Hiker was definitely a defective product. Whoever came up with this thing had been even crazier than my childhood friends. The brakes ought to be the first thing you consider!

The unfortunate phantom that had acted as my cushion had been thrown headfirst into a wall. Well, more accurately, the phantoms—there were two of them. I hadn’t seen them both at first, but now they were piled on top of each other, unmoving.

Phantoms from a level 3 vault wouldn’t fare well against a human missile blow from behind. Their thick, black armor was badly dented and broken. On the ground along the wall were a massive bow and greatsword—presumably their weapons.

For some reason, these phantoms were nothing like the ones I had heard about. They were different in form, color, and... just about everything, actually. The phantoms in this vault were meant to be wolves, but the fallen phantoms before me were adorned in thick armor that even high-class imperial knights didn’t have access to. They weren’t what I had expected, and that was a bad thing.

When I used to get dragged into level 3 dungeons, the phantoms had been a little... well, a lot weaker. To be fair, it had been quite a while since then. Had they always been this strong? On the other hand, maybe they were all bark and no bite. Either way, I was so ready to vomit.

By now, the dizzy haze had lifted, and I felt normal again. I took a good look at my surroundings. As it turned out, this wasn’t a passage at all; it was a wide-open chamber. The ceilings were high enough to make you second-guess whether you were really underground. The walls and floor were so smooth, it was hard to believe wolves had dug them out. If there were some windows and we did away with the phantoms, it would make for a pretty sick room.

Then, I noticed a familiar figure. With disheveled hair and ghostly white cheeks, she looked much wilder than she had back at the clan house. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to be hurt. She was the one and only Tino Shade. Li’l Gilbert and the Great Greg were there, too. They were all panting and staring at me in astonishment, but hey, they were alive.

“M-Master?!”

“Oh, hey. Found ya.”

Lucky me. Wait, hold on, you idiot! Don’t just say “Found ya”!

I had greeted her cheerfully in my confusion, but I seriously needed to apologize here. Safe or not, Tino was white as a sheet. She was also clearly fatigued, which I found pretty unusual. It was obvious that this level 3 treasure vault had somehow put an immense burden on her. Was this the time for a mere underling to bear witness to my illustrious “get on the floor and beg” technique? Whatever came next, I had to keep smiling.

As I stood there grinning like an idiot, Gilbert croaked, “Hey, geezer, look behind you!”

“Huh?”

Hey, I’m not that old. “Dude” would’ve been fine. “Bro,” even! That was the first thought that came to mind. Regardless, I was perfectly blank-faced and dumb-looking, no doubt and carelessness in a treasure vault was a disgrace to hunters.

When I slowly turned my head, the first thing to enter my line of sight was a phantom much like the two I had used as brakes only moments before. This one, too, was clad in black armor. Its imposing presence caused me, a coward, to instinctively sidle over to the wall. Upon closer inspection, there was one near Li’l Gilbert as well, holding a laughably huge club. Adding in the fallen ones, that made a total of four.

I hadn’t noticed when I came crashing in, but they didn’t have human heads; they were more canine in nature. The right sides of their faces covered in human bones, the beasts’ blood-red eyes shone down on me, the oblivious intruder. Their shoulders shook; their breathing was ragged. Saliva dripped from their mouths.

Normally, I would’ve been petrified with terror, vomiting at the mere sight of their eyes. But I was so appalled, my senses so dulled with shock, that my thoughts took on a life of their own.

Huh. Do level 3 phantoms get this big? They’re really advancing. If this is level 3, imagine what happens in a level 8 vault. Good thing I quit. Past me really knew what was up. Am I a god, or what?

The wolf with the crazy gun looked at me, with my dumb grin, and growled as it backed away. Meanwhile, the one with the ceiling-high club gave up its post near Gilbert and stood in front of the gunman, protecting it. Nostrils flared, it narrowed its eyes to slits, surveying me cautiously.

At last, it dawned on me what was happening. My smile slid right off my face. Are we in danger? Am I about to die? They weren’t moving to attack me, but I had no hope of beating an enemy that had put Tino at her wit’s end. What to do here?

As I desperately tried to think of a plan, the Great Greg spoke in a quavering voice. “No freakin’ way. The bosses are... scared of him?!”

Come again?

“Of me?” I blurted.

That wasn’t possible. If they were wolves, I was a sheep. My mana material fortification was just about gone, so I was just a sheep with a high recognized level. While I was still trying to wrap my head around the situation, the wolf knights took another step back. Their snouts bobbed up and down. They had forgotten about Tino entirely and were now focused only on me. Their eyes definitely had “caution” written all over them.

What’s so scary about me? The Great Greg is way more terrifying.

I followed their lines of sight and realized what they were looking at. Their crimson eyes weren’t focused on my face, but rather my chest, where the metallic capsule containing Sitri’s slime lay.

I stepped forward, and the wolves stepped back. Their eyes were fixed in my direction, but they weren’t looking at me.

This is what these huge phantoms are so afraid of? What the hell’s in this capsule, anyway? What did I bring in here with me?

I moved another step closer, and the knights retreated two steps back this time. Guess they realized I was a poisonous sheep. Luck was on my side. Indeed, today did not seem to be the day I would die.

Without taking my eyes off the wolves, I called out to the group of hunters behind me. “Tino, can you run?” I acted calm, but my heart was still throbbing painfully.

“Um, yes, of course!” Tino, vacant as she was, gave an energetic response.

There were three tunnels leading out of this room. The forward path was blocked by wolves. Frightened or not, I couldn’t discount the possibility of them saying “Forget the poison, let’s eat.” Nor could I take these two giants down. The best option was to retreat, let Tino’s party rest, and get out of here together.

“Over there.” I pointed to the closest path, the one on the right.

It was the one that the knight with the metal club was blocking. Since that one had moved for us, I figured we might as well take him up on it.

“I’m sorry, Master, but wouldn’t it be best to defeat them?” Tino asked, sounding apologetic.

Okay, yeah, true. If we could defeat them, that would be ideal. But I can’t beat them, dammit, so what do you want me to do?!

Chancing it all on throwing Sitri’s slime and hoping all our enemies died was one option, but there was too much risk inherent in gambling my fate on a slime I knew nothing about. If it was useful while it was still in the capsule, that was the much more prudent option.

I sighed and said to my cute subordinate, “Tino, you mustn’t lose sight of what’s important.”

“Oh! That would be...”

...the most important thing of all, which didn’t even bear asking. That was her life.

From my point of view, any fight that risked your life was dumb as hell. Sure, people had their own rights, so if they wanted to fight these things on their own time, I didn’t care. But I wasn’t gonna do it myself.

Suddenly, there was a loud clanging noise. Tino gasped weakly as a shadow loomed over me. The wolves pummeled by my crash landing had recovered and closed the distance between us in one step.

I guess neither of the phantoms I rammed into ended up dying.

As soon as I realized it, there was a blade as long as I was tall being swung down at me from above. The wolf knight’s roar, full of overwhelming rage, shook me from head to toe. Every muscle in my body contracted at once. I couldn’t even move, let alone react, as the blade came down on me like a guillotine.

Then, this attack—which should’ve sliced me right in two—was deflected without wounding me in the slightest.

“Bwuh?!” came the Great Greg’s dumbfounded voice.

The attacking wolf’s eyes opened wide in shock; clearly, it hadn’t expected this. It took a few steps back and forgot its resentment for a moment as it looked down at the greatsword in its hands. Following that, a giant arrow was loosed directly toward my forehead. Like the sword, it simply glanced off.

They were pissed. I could see why; if someone had hit me from behind out of nowhere so hard that I’d slammed into a wall, I’d be pretty angry, too. The bowman, the swordsman, and the other two knights glared at me. All I did was curl my lips into a wry grin. That was all I could do.

I’m dead. I really am gonna die here.

With that, I realized I should be counterattacking. I thrust out my index finger, pointing it like a gun at the wolves. Then, I activated the Relic on my left pinkie: a Shooting Ring that shot shock waves instead of bullets, aptly called the Shock-Shooting Ring. A blue light burned at my fingertip, forming a magic bullet.

Just before the shot fired, a super-cool line emerged from my lips. “Too bad for you; I’ve got seventeen lives.”

Treasure hunters were submerged in a world of talent. Human beings themselves were weak. Their physical abilities, especially, were among the worst of the many life-forms out there. They weren’t made to traverse these cruel treasure vaults or fight monsters and phantoms.

To bend this law of nature, a hunter needed certain vital aptitudes, such as a high mana material absorption rate. Thus, even in this age where hunters were lauded to the heavens, there was never an overabundance of them. In my case, misfortune lay in the fact that I only realized this after I became a hunter.

Fortunately, I was the only one in my group of friends who lacked aptitude. Grieving Souls could easily raid treasure vaults, even when I was excluded. Each time they brought home wealth and fame, it would lift me up alongside them. So even with no aptitude, courage, motivation, dreams, hope, or luck, I was still alive.

Much like the Shooting Ring, Safety Rings was a popular ring-type Relic. If I were attacked, they would surround me with a somewhat dense barrier for a set amount of time. Perhaps that explanation was too obscure; basically, these Relics would only protect me from a single attack.

Though all Safety Rings shared the same name, they varied in barrier density and effective time. Some were more expensive and rarer than others as well. However, I didn’t want to die, so I had just bought as many as I could find. At the moment, I had a total of seventeen. Together, they were worth enough to buy two or three more clan headquarters.

Typically, super-high-class hunters kept one or two of these on hand just in case. In this vast empire, I don’t think any other man wore as many of these bad boys on the daily as I did. Naturally, a man only had ten fingers, so I had to keep the rest in my bag. Still, the effects were going strong. Incidentally, I never would’ve used that terrifying Night Hiker if I hadn’t had these on hand.

They weren’t infallible, though. Safety Rings’ barriers lasted, at best, a second. Typically, only a fraction of a second. Once activated, all of the mana within them was consumed and it became just a normal ring. I had activated a ton of them hitting walls on the way here, so who knew how many attacks I could take before these guys flattened me instead? We had to get out of dodge before then; saying I had seventeen lives had been a teensy bit of an exaggeration.

The greatsword-wielding wolf quickly reacted to my blue bullet, crouching down just slightly to evade. I frowned; it was like the wolf knight had known it was coming.

“He dodged it!” Rhuda cried.

The blue bullet sailed over the wolf’s head and, not long after, there was a dull thud as a powerful impact sent the wolf crashing into the floor. The cave trembled as it landed. Although it had dodged, the bullet had boomeranged in midair and smacked him in the back of the head. The wolves were shaken by this development.

Without turning away from them, I shouted, “Tino, run!”

“Hm? Oh, yes, sir!”

On my order, Tino and the rest of her party bounded off. The wolves looked only at me, not bothering to pursue them.

“Shooting Ring” was a generic term for Relics that shot magic bullets. Shock-Shooting Rings’ bullets came with a powerful shock wave on impact. At maximum charge, they could shoot up to seven bullets. Flashy as it was, though, it just wasn’t that powerful. The wolf who’d fallen down after getting hit in the head was probably just surprised.

Shooting Rings came in a multitude of types, but none of them were strong enough to defeat phantoms. At best, they could be used as a diversion. The wolf on the floor pushed himself up with his hands and slowly rose. As expected, he had no stand-out injuries.

All four of them fanned out around me: two front-liners, two back-liners. They were pretty balanced. I watched them carefully, and when my eyes fell back on the one with the gun, I grimaced. That thing’s dangerous! I’m really bad against rapid-fire weapons.

Here I thought I had scared them with Sitri’s slime, but they were probably too pissed by my counterattack to care. Their eyes showed about 10% fear, 30% rage, 30% enmity, and 30% caution. Note that I pulled these numbers right out of my ass.

The first thing to consider was making time for Tino to escape before me. As long as I was alone, I could just take flight again in the worst-case scenario. With a weapon, I could at least distract the enemy for a little while.

Laughing like an idiot, I pulled the sword Relic from its sheath on my back... or I tried to, at least, but my hand grasped only air.

I tried a few times to grab it, but all I made contact with was a crossbow Relic. It had the ability to guide missiles, which I had used to guide both myself and the magic bullets from my Shooting Rings—despite the crossbow itself shooting neither of them. I called it the “Always Hitty Boy” (although it didn’t necessarily always hit).

No way. Did I drop it?!

The sheath was there, but no sword. I retraced my journey here. The whole way, I had been desperately trying to avoid hitting things, so who knew where I’d dropped it? What a shame. That thing was really expensive. Meh, I guess it wouldn’t really have helped me get out of this anyway.

The wolves warily watched my weird flailing.

“Master? What are you doing?!” Tino asked me from the entrance.

Weren’t you supposed to be running?! It wasn’t just her, either; the others were hanging around there as well. I told you to run, dammit! Besides, “What are you doing?!” is what I should be asking myself! What the hell am I even trying to do? I literally dropped a freaking Relic in a treasure vault. That can’t be chalked up to bad luck. Am I stupid?

You know what, yeah. I’m just stupid.

Apparently trying to overcome his fear, the club-wielding phantom roared and took a step toward me. The ring on my right pinkie, Red Alert, emitted heat when danger was near. It was warming up my finger, but I couldn’t evade the attack. The club came down, ready to crush me, but it was repelled by a barrier.

Wow, this sucks. I’m even worse off than I thought. I couldn’t move, so even though I knew I was fine, I was still terrified. The phantoms shuddered, incredulous at how I was still standing after that club swing. It’s okay, dudes. I can’t believe it, either.

The Hounding Chain hanging at my waist rattled, trembling at its owner’s precarious situation. It was a real valuable item, so I’d hate for it to be broken, but it wasn’t worth more than my life. It ought to be a good way to stop them.

I removed the chain from my belt. All charged up and ready to serve, the chain flew into the air and sprang at the club-wielding wolf like a snake. Again, it wasn’t strong enough to defeat the enemy, but this was the most annoying thing a huge phantom could deal with. It wrapped around the wolf’s legs and knocked it off balance.

Having no experience with such a thing, the other three knights were on guard. Yep, it’s pretty scary. I felt that way when I first saw it, too.

One Hounding Chain alone wouldn’t stop them all, though. Besides, those ranged weapons looked deadly. The world was full of terrifying stuff. If I just ran away, would they follow me?

The wolves were scared of... well, not me, but Sitri’s slime. But there was unsuppressed rage in their eyes, too.

I just wanted to run. Forget the rescue mission; it was time to go home. Thus, I spread out my hands and activated my Shooting Rings.

There were a lot of famous ring-type Relics out there, but not many people knew that they could be divided into two groups: the kind that you had to wear in order to use, and the kind that you could just have on your person. The Shooting Ring was the latter.

Li’l Gilbert’s jaw dropped as countless lights appeared in my hands. I had activated every single one of the Shooting Rings stuffed in my hip pouch. One positive of ring-type Relics was that they were lighter than most other Relics—and cheap to boot. With a little bit of money and effort, you could get a whole stash like mine.

The color of each Shooting Ring’s bullets depended on the type. The countless colored lights in my hands may have been eye-catching, but practically speaking, they were very weak. Still, the wolf knights were shaken. The appearance of these bullets alone made them look like normal magic attacks, so they were wary. Unfortunately for them, this would be impossible to evade. Typical magic bullets flew in a straight line, but I had my Always Hitty Boy with me.

As I let the bullets loose, they started tracing crazy arcs all over the place as they flew toward the knights. The wolves dispersed in an attempt to outrun them, but I controlled the arcs so that the projectiles would follow. I didn’t even give them a chance to swing their weapons.

Either deciding they had no escape or assuming they were homing missiles, the knights all dropped down to the floor. They turned their backs up like turtles, so I mercilessly rained bullets upon them.

“Holy shit,” Li’l Gilbert blurted, mesmerized by my street performance.

“So that’s what a level 8 can do?” Rhuda murmured.

The Great Greg watched in awe. Even Tino’s eyes sparkled with joy. I appreciated their approval. It would’ve been even better if they’d tipped, but whatever. More than that, I wished they’d just run.

The bullets were all direct hits on the wolves’ heads, arms, shoulders, eyes, and masks. They made plenty of crazy sounds as they struck, some burning, some freezing, some numbing, some repelling. Every single Shooting Ring I carried was unique. Low growls rumbled in the phantoms’ throats, making them sound like the beasts they were.

When the magical light faded, darkness returned to the chamber. Though my “magic” was flashy and looked powerful, it had one fatal flaw: it was really, really weak.

As everyone watched with bated breath, the wolf knights rolled onto their feet and stood up like nothing had happened. There wasn’t a single scratch on them.

“But he hit them with so many attacks!” Rhuda protested hoarsely, sounding like she was about to cry.

All four phantoms made similarly confused noises. It wasn’t my fault, though. The vast majority of Relics weren’t made to inflict killing blows. Weapon Relics were a different story, but their effectiveness was based on the user’s abilities for the most part. A talentless street performer like myself couldn’t use them very well.

Once they’d confirmed that they were safe, the wolves glared at me, enraged by my tickling session. Didn’t work, huh?

I had even fired off numbing and sleep-inducing bullets. Though I’d thought they might work, it seemed they’d been nullified. To be fair, they had been made for use on people, not inhuman apparitions.

My bag of tricks was nearly empty now. The situation was getting worse and worse.

“Aah, fine. Good grief. I really didn’t wanna have to use this.”

In desperation, I ripped the metallic capsule off of my neck. It was a little larger than my pointer finger. The wolves jumped back, apparently just now remembering that I had it. They really had been scared of the capsule instead of me. But hey, I had already guessed as much. If we were all gonna die here, we might as well die swallowed up by a slime (I think? I didn’t want to know the details, so I had never asked).

With shaking fingers, I unscrewed the cap and peeked inside the capsule before prepping to throw it. I rubbed my eyes and checked again. Frowning, I fearfully poked my finger inside. Tino and the others watched me, worried.

With a nod, I screwed the cap back on. Then, I swung my arm hard. Simultaneously as I lobbed the capsule at them, I fired the Shock-Shooting Ring in their direction. The wolves panicked and scrambled away from the landing zone. While confirming that the controlled bullet’s path would land where I wanted it to, I ran over to Tino.

“Hurry!”

As they saw me approach, the party finally turned and started to run. The metallic capsule bounced off the floor. I heard a snarl from behind us, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that. After all, we needed to hurry out before they realized it was empty.

What was up with that? Where’d the contents go? Whew, spooky.

I ran, squeezing out every last bit of my strength. I just moved my legs, trying to regulate my breathing along the way. How long had it been since I last ran? Along the way, I didn’t have it in me to look back. I just ran and ran through the dim corridor, feeling the cold air caressing my cheeks.

The Great Greg, Li’l Gilbert, Rhuda, and Tino were just ahead of me. Despite running as fast as I could, the distance between us wasn’t closing. Wait. Are they going slower out of consideration for me?

In front of me, Gilbert was running just fine, even with that giant greatsword in his hands. He turned to me and frowned. Despite being in big trouble before I arrived, he looked perfectly composed now. No way. Did he recover while running?

“They’re gonna catch up at this rate,” Gilbert said. “We’d better hurry—”

“Shut up, stupid! Krai’s being considerate of Tino because she’s hurt!” Rhuda snapped.

“Oh, dang, my bad. Sorry.”

Uh, did she get hurt? Wait, so my top speed is only as fast as an injured Tino’s? Come on, I’m not slow. Tino’s just fast. Or am I actually being considerate like Rhuda said, and I didn’t even notice?

My feelings were hurt, but the petty grievance calmed me down. After listening for any suspicious noises behind us, I stopped. I didn’t have a Thief’s skills, but Tino would’ve said something if we were still being chased. We must have shaken them off, then.

Seeing that I had stopped, the party also came to a halt. They were surprisingly obedient; guess they’d gotten along well during the raid.

“Uh, are we good?” Li’l Gilbert asked.

“Looks like we shook ’em off. Damn, that was close. You saved our hides.” The Great Greg thanked me, but honestly, I should’ve apologized.

For now, though, I had to get myself together. Resisting the urge to vomit, I relaxed my rapid breathing and looked at Tino.

Under the weight of my gaze, she clutched her shoulders as if afraid. “Master, I...”

“Hey, Krai? Tino really, um, did her best. Without her, we would’ve gone down long before you arrived.” For some reason, Rhuda spoke like she was defending her.

“It’s okay. Hey, I’m sorry. I just wish ‘sorry’ was enough to make up for all this.”

They didn’t have to tell me; I knew from one look at her that she’d done everything she could. Tino had clearly been an active participant, as her usually well-kempt hair was a mess, and her face was extremely pale. Her black shorts were torn along the right thigh, leaving her white skin visible. The contrast was really attention-grabbing and... kind of sexy.

Having noticed my leering, Tino suddenly pulled up her shorts, revealing her thighs. Girl, are you seriously doing that here? They’re already short shorts. I can see your damn underwear now.

Tino looked away, embarrassed.

Watching Tino purse her lips, Li’l Gilbert mused, “Thousand Tricks, you can even heal people?”

Oh, this is about her wound! At least tell me that, c’mon! Obviously I didn’t notice! I thought this was one of her usual weird tricks.

The whole reason we’d stopped was so I could recover, anyway.

She showed me her toned thighs. Her veins were just barely visible, but no wounds. Even if it wasn’t visible on the surface, she could still be hurt. After all, despite her being much faster than me, she and I had been running at the same speed.

Of course, I’d brought a healing Relic. I wouldn’t dare step outside without one. I removed the silver cross necklace, Healing Faith, from my neck and placed it against Tino’s thigh. Blue light emanated from it and flowed into her body. Her expression relaxed.

Really sorry for not realizing!

“Thank you, Master. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

I mean, I still needed Tino to keep doing her best for me.

After watching the scene, Li’l Gilbert said with relief in his voice, “Oh, it’s just a healing Relic.”

What’s wrong with it all being Relics? Huh, you little shit? Got a problem?! If we hadn’t been deep inside a treasure vault, I would’ve been so pissed that I’d hightail it back to clan HQ.

“Krai, did you take down those wolf knights?” the Great Greg asked, glancing nervously toward the chamber.

If pressed to say, no. There’s no way I took them down.

Wolves had good noses, so they had probably been terrified of the slime smell on the capsule. Well, I didn’t know if slimes smelled like anything, but that was my best guess. By now, they were probably going mad with rage. They’d been fooled by an empty capsule, and their prey escaped. Thus, the only option for us now was to keep fleeing. Things were pretty gross back there, but once we escaped the treasure vault, those phantoms shouldn’t follow us out.

I was convinced that the rescue targets were dead by now. No point in trying to save them if it ended with us dead, too.

I sighed and stretched. It felt bad to lose my poor sword, but at least I had my life. I wasn’t sure whether the Hounding Chain would return to me, though. Once I got back to the clan house, I’d have someone go and fetch it for me.

“Nah, but that was the ideal action for the time being. We shouldn’t worry about it. For now, let’s get moving.”

“Uh, sure.”

Now, where were we, and where was the exit? I walked silently at the front. Nobody said a word, probably because of the fatigue.

According to the map I had checked beforehand, the White Wolf’s Den was full of thin, branching passageways, like an ant nest. To put it simply, you could go on forever seeing the same scenery and have no idea where it would take you. It wasn’t a big treasure vault by any means, but it was entirely possible that we were just going through the same passageways twice.

Actually, why am I at the front? I’m not a Thief. Isn’t this a Thief’s job? Why am I doing this when this party has two Thieves?

I tried stopping to let them go ahead of me, but when I stopped, they stopped as well. Thus, I was stuck at the front the entire way.

What happened to your usual initiative, Tino?

I looked back at her, but whenever we made eye contact, she looked away. It was like she was rejecting me, like she was saying, I don’t want to talk to you, Master. Please go die. How could my poor, beloved Tino look at me like that? Maybe I should’ve gotten on the ground and begged after all, despite being in this dangerous vault?

I couldn’t do anything about it now, so I continued my blind march forward. Sometimes, if I felt like it, I randomly picked a side path. The one saving grace here was that, amazingly, we didn’t run into any enemies along the way. Maybe Tino was casually guiding me in directions that were free of phantoms? We occasionally heard roars and howls from within, but they were still distant.

At least, I think they’re distant. Maybe they’re not? Gee, sure hope they are.

Even after walking for some time, we didn’t reach the exit. I figured the direction itself was probably correct, at least. This was why I hated cavern-type vaults. Maybe it was time to get on the floor for Tino.

As I fretted, Li’l Gilbert started to sound irritated. “Uh, hey. I dunno if you’re not telling us on purpose, so sorry in advance, but... where are we going? We gettin’ outta here or what?”

The guy was awfully meek about it. Unfortunately, I had no idea! Although our destination was obviously the exit.

Before I could say as much, Tino quickly intervened. “Gilbert, learning to read Master’s thoughts is a part of your training. Also, we’re not going toward the exit. The rightmost path isn’t connected to the exit, no matter how far you go. To leave this place, we’ll need to go through the chamber again.”

“Oh, uh... Is this really the time to be training?”

“Oh, uh...” Same, Li’l Gilbert. Same.

If nothing else, I had been trying to take us to the exit.

Okay, so the path we took doesn’t lead to the exit. And wait, that was the boss chamber? No wonder those phantoms seemed weirdly strong. So, what, does that mean we have to turn around and go back?

Also, what the hell, Tino? You were using this situation to “train”? If we weren’t going for the exit, where else would we be going? What else is worth seeing here?

This was why I had so much trouble with “disciplined” people.

“But um, Krai? Do you think maybe you could tell us where we’re going soon?” Rhuda asked timidly. She was starting to sound pitiful.

That’s a deep goddamn question there, Rhuda. All my life, I’ve never known where I was headed. No milestones, no guides, nothing. If anything, I’m becoming a guide of what not to do.

Anyway, might as well make a casual U-turn. We’ve been walking for a while now, so maybe those wolves are gone.

Oh, how I wished I could U-turn my whole life around. I wanted to cry, but I managed to keep a straight face.

At the next fork, I took a turn. If I turned the same way at the next juncture, surely it would be an actual U-turn.

Are we really gonna be okay?

After a few more minutes of walking, I decided it was about time to take the second turn. Suddenly, I heard the Great Greg let out a muffled gasp. I turned around to find that he was looking at me like some sort of monster.

“No freakin’ way. There weren’t any traces at all. He didn’t even check, so... how?”

“I keep telling you, everything Master does is intentional.”

“Now’s not the time for that! We need to help them!” Rhuda cried as she darted ahead of us.

That was when I finally noticed multiple people lying down at the very far end of the path. Based on their size, they weren’t phantoms. I squinted to see that they were all still moving somewhat.

Huh, what? Did the Great Greg notice that? Gee, you all have good eyes. On a bad day, I would’ve just walked on by without noticing them. Wait. Are those the rescue targets we’re here for? How are they still alive? That is some ungodly luck. Wish I was that lucky.

Tino gazed at me with bizarre and undue reverence, puffing her chest out with pride. “See? All this has been according to his plan.”

I shook my head. “No, no, no. This is clearly a coincidence.” Even a Relic couldn’t have foretold this future.

“You’re the one who brought us here, dude,” Li’l Gilbert said, annoyed.

Our primary rescue target was a man even larger than the Great Greg. He wore a full suit of gray armor and had a green-painted shield. Next to him was a conical lance, one you’d never use against other people, positioned in such a way that he could grab it at any time. Based on its mystical shine, it was probably a Relic.

No doubt, this was Rudolph Davout. I had never heard his name before receiving the request. He was looking pretty lazy right now, but this giant was imposing enough that I could see why he was a recognized level 5 hunter.

Apparently, Tino and the Great Greg did know of him. Why’d you guys take the request when you knew it was a level 5 hunter in trouble? Weirdos.

His bones seemed to be broken. Tino and the others ran up to him and smoothly removed his helmet in order to feed him a potion. As for me, I had no idea how to find his face under all that armor.

Nearby, many of his fallen party members were roughed up all over. Some of them had really bad injuries, but at the very least, they were alive. It was nigh miraculous that this party had made it this far without being killed.

“How’s the pain?” Tino asked.

Rudolph’s face was haggard, but the fire of life still burned deep within his eyes. Through labored breaths, he croaked, “All good... Thanks. You really saved us.”

“You should thank him instead,” Tino replied, gesturing to me.

“I really didn’t do anything.”

Seriously, I didn’t help at all. All I did was send Tino into this hellhole. Wait, am I in a position to be thanked?

Rudolph looked up at me, his eyes hazy. He had been in here for three days. Whether the pain had faded or not, he must have been deeply exhausted. I felt bad for him, so I handed over one of the chocolate bars I had kept on hand as a treat. Rudolph dug into it with voracious hunger.

I waited for him to finish eating before asking, “Where’s your food?”

“Ngh... Outside.”

“Master, ours is outside as well. We were planning to set up camp out there.”

“Oh, huh. My party always just camped inside the vault.”

My childhood friends had considered treasure vaults a handy place to get some training in.

Now that things had calmed down, I went over the situation again. There were multiple unconscious folks, but we’d given them potions, so they weren’t in danger of dying. With all of them alive, though, we were facing a new kind of obstacle. The Association would call their survival good news, but for the people rescuing them, it was a massive pain.

First, it took a hell of a lot of work to carry five injured people. Even more so because of those terrifying phantoms. Secondly, we didn’t have much fight left in us. As a level 5, Rudolph could’ve lent us a hand, but he was beyond malnourished. No way he’d be able to fight those phantoms after three days of this. Besides, he was in this mess because he’d lost to begin with.

Could he even move while wearing that huge armor? We sure as hell wouldn’t be able to carry him. I doubted he’d even be able to lift his lance. Now, if it had been the sword I’d lost along the way, that would be a different story. Worst-case scenario, I figured we might have to ask him to strip and leave it all behind.

Staying collapsed here for so long, you’d never know when a phantom might come around to snack on you. Rudolph might have been lucky, but I was painfully unlucky.

As Rudolph was still only half conscious, Tino looked him up and down and then got straight to the point. “What happened? You’re level 5, so you should have been able to fight through this vault just fine.”

Level 5 hunters were seen as first-rate, and he probably wasn’t a loser like me who had upped his level without improving his abilities. Plus, it wasn’t as though Rudolph was here alone.

Rudolph’s green eyes were as wide as saucers, which told us just how terrified he had been. He pursed his lips for a moment, then said in a quivering voice, “There’s some real bad stuff in here. This isn’t a level 3 vault. I’m telling you, there’s bad stuff going on. I wasn’t careless, but... our attacks didn’t work. Not my lance, and not my buddy’s, either.”

“Yeah, we know. Those wolf knight things with the stupid bone half-masks, yeah? We fought ’em, too.” Li’l Gilbert just shrugged. Clearly, he didn’t know how to read the room.

Rudolph was shocked and shook his head vigorously. “Half? No, that’s not right. The thing that got us... had its face fully covered. It’s a phantom. We gotta get out of here!” He was pale, and his eyes opened even wider, like he was envisioning the enemy and suffering the horrors anew.

Tino looked over to me, her expression grim. Don’t look at me. It’s not my fault!

Were there even stronger phantoms here? I was about ready to sue someone.

What is the deal with this vault? Bad luck or not, we’re not gonna run into that monster... right?

I wanted to laugh it off, but somehow, I just wasn’t in the mood.