Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyou Survival [WN] - Chapter 60
Dungeon Trap (3)
“Eh, what’s wrong?”
Three men from the Mercenary of Dawn turned their attention to me as I quickly caught Glenda, who was instantly killed and collapsed without uttering a sound. I called out to her.
“What, what’s wrong?”
“Oh come on, Glenda, you’re getting too excited…”
Duncan, the scout, approached with a dazed look on his face, lowering his guard.
“–?!”
At that moment, I pushed Glenda’s corpse towards Duncan, who instantly showed his nervousness at what he saw in Glenda’s eyes as he looked at her.
“Wha!!!?”
By this point, no one had thought Glenda would be dead. As Duncan quickly caught Glenda, I pulled out a black knife and brandished it wide backwards.
“–Double Edge–“
“Gooooo!”
Duncan evaded my dagger Combat Art by twisting himself around with the still-warm Glenda in his arms.
However, even if the first of the two strikes was avoided, perhaps because he unconsciously tried to protect Glenda, his right arm was slashed when he received the second strike.
…I failed to finish him off. They were really good, weren’t they?
They must have noticed by looking into my eyes, so it seemed like I still needed more training to not enter a state of combat after killing one of my targets to deceive them.
“What the hell! What’s going on?
“Duncan! What happened to Glenda?”
“Glenda’s not moving! The kid is the enemy!”
The Mercenary of Dawn members were confused, but after they heard Duncan’s words, they prepared themselves for battle without needing further explanation.
At that moment, I threw a knife at Duncan, and Daggart, the leader, quickly interrupted me and flicked the knife away with his great sword.
“Duncan, you use the potion to heal Glenda! And you…!”
Daggart shouted as he held his sword up to protect them.
But I knew. The healer in this party was Glenda, the mage.
Randy, the guardian, could also use some light magic, but like most adventurers, he would only be able to use Heal.
Most of the healing potions sold in the market had little healing effect and were more restorative, so while they could close wounds, they would not be able to fully restore the function of a deeply wounded arm.
My plan was to defeat Duncan and retrieve the bag where the potions were stored, but things didn’t go that easy.
I let out a sigh and with a light swing of my hand, I removed the blood stain on my knife flying and beckoned at them to provoke them.
“…You!!!”
Randy was enraged by such an obvious provocation from me.
“Stop it, Randy! There’s something wrong with that kid!”
Duncan stopped Randy while holding his deeply wounded right arm.
Duncan was alarmed by the attack, and Daggart, as the leader of the party, calmly chose to protect the wounded man to keep him in line.
Randy, however, lost his mind over the wounding of his comrades, ignoring his comrades’ attempts to restrain him, he pulled out his sword, and came at me.
This was where I saw the downside of the party.
The reason the Adventurers’ Guild encouraged partying instead of soloing was that by working together, we could cover our shortcomings, take advantage of our strengths, and increase our survival rate.
However, there appeared to be two types of adventurers in the world. One was the manager type, who considered the interests of the party as a whole and could make ruthless decisions, and the other was the worker type, who was only concerned with fulfilling his own role.
I would not say that the worker type was bad. But Randy, who only had been in the position of a shield in the party from the beginning, would find it difficult to show his ability when he left his role.
“I won’t let you go!!!”
Randy chased after me as I ran toward the back of the dungeon.
“Randy!”
Daggart’s shout who was trying to stop Randy didn’t reach. In this situation, the best course of action would have been to heal the wounded and then pursue with everyone else, or retreat.
Normally, Randy would have chosen that course of action. But he did not, and this was the result of the first trap I set.
“Don’t think you can escape with only 200 combat power!”
When I entered this dungeon, my maximum combat strength was around 240.
The combat power visible by appraisal varied slightly depending on the individual’s detection ability, so the exact number was never revealed. Because of this, Glenda referred to my combat power as about 200, and Randy, whose combat power was 440, assumed that I was only half as strong as he was.
But now that the Level of Dark Magic had increased, and my physical strength and Taijutsu increased due to the increase in the magical power path that flows through my entire body, my combat power now was comparable to Duncan’s or Randy’s.
Even so, I would not let my guard down.
My Short Sword Technique was still at Level 2 due to my physique, and with a dagger that specializes in cutting through skin and flesh, it would be difficult to inflict damage on a shield-carrying full-body armor like Randy’s.
I loaded arrows into the wrist armor gear while sensing Randy’s presence as he pursued me.
This particular gimmick was a component of a small crossbow given to me by my Master, and I had asked Gelf to install it for me.
The crossbow, used by the sorcerer master as a check in close combat, used a flying dragon tendon as the string through a mithril core in torrent wood, which regenerated with the user’s magical power even when the arrow was still loaded, and the string never stretched.
It also had a gimmick that allowed it to be loaded even with one hand, making it easier to use than a throwing knife in close combat.
“I’m catching up!”
If I took too long, Daggart would catch up with us. Deciding that this distance was the best I could do, I moved about 30 meters and slowed down, and Randy, a hunk of steel, came charging at me.
“–Shadow Pain–“
“G-Gyah!!!?”
Randy grunted like a poisoned toad and stopped moving due to the intense illusion of pain that I activated.
If we were of the same rank, the magic would still have an effect, but Randy would be able to prepare, and the pain would have little effect, who had had the role of a shield. But Randy, who considered me to be a lower rank, would never have imagined that he would suffer from such intense pain.
“Goh!”
I didn’t miss that moment, and using my Level 3 Taijutsu and Body Enhancement, I jumped up to the level of his pocket and launched an attack at Randy’s jaw directly from below with the bottom of my palm, and thrust my knife deeply toward his neck piercing up to his brain.
A Shield User was only effective with the support of his teammates. Their heavy armor and shields might be suitable for taking heavy blows, but they had too many disadvantages when it came to fighting alone.
“–!”
I pulled out my knife before Randy’s eyeballs went white, as his muscles went rigid, and I jumped over Randy, who was falling on his back, and ran straight to Daggart and Duncan.
Two left.
“She’s back!”
“Where’s Randy?”
“I saw him go down, but I don’t know!”
When I returned to where everyone was, I found Glenda’s body lying in the aisle. Duncan, was facing me as I approached, with his wounded right arm hanging limp, while holding a dagger in his left hand.
Daggart was holding a large sword to protect Duncan, and as I tried to approach him, he pointed his palm at me.
“Wait! You are a nobleman’s pursuer, right? Do you know what they were carrying?”
“…”
Daggart shouted at me as I came closer. Daggart raised the corner of his mouth slightly as I stopped in my tracks because I had made him get into a fighting stance either way.
“You seem to be interested in knowing about it… those guys had the forbidden [Tears of the Spirit]. That’s a magic stone of the spirits, possession of which has been forbidden by the Holy Church of the Fandria Faith.”
What did that have to do with it?
The water spirit I defeated did not drop it, but it was said that spirits that have existed for a long time, even those spirits that were spirit life forms, very rarely dropped that kind of magic stone.
Master had told me that there was a time when she had intentionally killed a summoned spirit to obtain a magic stone because of its beauty and luster like a bright jewel, although it had strong attributes as a magic stone.
Spirits were important beings that maintained the nature of this world. The Holy Church did not allow such an article to be hunted with desire.
“Don’t you see? I don’t know what you heard that made you attack us, but it was that nobleman who was the criminal! If you want justice, join us!”
“Daggart!”
Duncan looked accusingly at Daggart, who suddenly tried to draw me in, which he recognized as his enemy.
“She’s the one who killed Glenda! Even Randy…”
“Let’s face it, Duncan. You brought the Tears of the Spirit because Glenda wanted it, and that’s why we had to go up against the nobles. Besides, we would have a strong friend.”
“…Damn it, I get it.”
It was only Glenda’s selfishness that made them steal the Tears Of The Spirit. Duncan, who nodded reluctantly at that admonition, turned his attention to me and approached me while protecting his right arm, which was immobile.
“If you were just tricked by nobles, then you need to listen about our situation first.”
“…Okay.”
I gave a small nod, and Duncan smiled slightly and turned his left hand to me, stowing away his weapon as if asking for a handshake.
“Well, then, let’s start with–“
Clank!!!
At that moment, the knife Duncan had hidden in his right hand collided with the blade of my black knife, sending sparks flying.
“Dang!”
I then used Duncan as a shield to avoid Daggart’s attack. After that, I attacked Duncan’s right hand, which was heavily wounded, with my knife and shot a crossbow arrow in his mouth after we clashed.
“Duncan!”
Filled with intense anger, Daggart turned his distorted face towards me, as he caught the fallen Duncan, who collapsed and convulsed as I rolled away from the greatsword he brandished.
“You… how did you notice?”
“Why did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
I heard that the client, a nobleman, requested the assassin’s guild to recover the relic because it was an item that could not be shown to the public.
And since I was asked to recover the relics and take care of the thief, I had no intention of listening to the thief’s nonsense from the beginning, no matter what logic they might have had.
While the average commoner, who had little opportunity to see a play, might have been fooled, to me, with my knowledge of the woman, it was nothing more than a farce of a three-sentence play.
I knew that Duncan would not have been able to use his right arm that was badly injured even if he used an advanced healing potion on that wound.
“It was difficult to take care of Duncan while I was being protected. Thank you for letting me approach you when you saw that I have a low combat power.”
“Ki, you aaaaah!!!”
Perhaps feeling mocked by my honest grateful words, Daggart let out a cry of rage as he tossed the dead body of Duncan, who had long stopped moving.
One more.
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