Chapter 12
Chapter 12: The Etiquette Enforcer Erik (4)
“Well, well, he really was a small fry.”
Ignorant.
But magnificent.
Kuwoong!
The sight of the Paladin facing off against the massive Goblin evoked such impressions.
A mere human had overwhelmed a monster through pure strength.
A giant Goblin over 2 meters tall.
A similarly tall, massive Paladin.
Both seemed monstrous.
‘His physical prowess is insane.’
Jang Du-sik roughly knew of Erik’s martial strength.
But what he was seeing now was somewhat different from usual.
The power of Erik that he had mainly witnessed was typically used to purify black mages or extremely wicked Possessors with divine power.
From his massive body and densely compressed muscles, Du-sik had known that Erik was physically powerful as well, but…
Kraaaak!!!
He hadn’t known Erik could bring a Goblin to its knees through pure strength alone.
Kuwoong!
The green monster looked up.
Hating humans and preying on them is a monster’s instinct.
They are beings that exist solely to kill humans, no different from humanity’s natural enemies.
Erik had overwhelmed the Labyrinth’s monster.
‘I’m no longer afraid.’
Unlike surface monsters, monsters within the Labyrinth use a power called ‘Intimidation.’
It instills instinctive fear in humans.
When he had come here following his master as a child, Erik was small and weak. Back then, he had trembled in fear, overwhelmed by the monsters’ intimidation.
But now, at fifteen, things were different.
“Weak.”
Thud-thud!
Erik had grasped the Goblin’s hands with both of his.
When he applied pressure to his grip, the Goblin’s arms were bent backward.
Grrrrr…
The Goblin’s eyes changed as its arms were bent in an abnormal manner.
In eyes that had been filled with hatred and murderous intent…
Fear settled in.
Thunk.
Erik knocked the Goblin down.
Then he opened his empty right hand. Beyond his palm, he could see the Goblin that had fallen several meters back.
Woooong.
Golden waves surged over his palm. Erik lightly clenched his fist.
Peoong!
The Goblin’s head exploded, and green blood splattered everywhere.
Erik waved his hand through the air.
The golden flash evaporated the spurting blood.
“Du-sik, what did I tell you?”
Erik asked, looking at Jang Du-sik.
Judging by his expression, he seemed quite refreshed.
Behind him, the Goblin burned brightly like oil-soaked firewood.
“Huh…”
Jang Du-sik let out a deflated groan at the sight.
He was at a loss for words.
Well then, brother is a monster.
Even that common exclamation wouldn’t come out past his throat.
What could one say to a monster Paladin who had crushed a massive monster that made one’s knees weak just by looking at it, then performed a miracle to blow up its head?
After pondering for a while.
“The Possessors will all burn to death too.”
Jang Du-sik deflected by worrying about the Possessors.
It was a much easier conversation topic than discussing Erik’s prowess.
“Why would they hurt?”
Erik tilted his head.
Through experiments with his master, Erik had learned to control his divine power to minimize damage to Possessors.
“Those guys have their uses too, so God keeps calling them in.”
That was his master’s claim.
Unlike the atheist Erik, Riferoze was a fanatic.
Surely among the Possessors, there existed those who had received important missions from God.
Riferoze held such beliefs.
‘God my ass.’
Erik didn’t think that way in the slightest.
“I-It really doesn’t hurt.”
“Yeah. Why doesn’t it hurt?”
“Ugh, b-but I’m in pain?”
The Possessors informed Erik of their respective conditions while looking at him.
The Possessors said they felt no pain but experienced fear.
Of course, one claimed to feel pain equivalent to third-degree burns, but Erik ignored his words.
The important point was.
‘They’ve all come to their senses.’
Both the Possessors and Jang Du-sik had been captivated by Erik’s prowess and freed from intimidation.
There are several reasons why the real Labyrinth has become more difficult.
One is that facing monsters inflicts an ‘Intimidation‘ status effect.
“Among the things that changed from the game, the most important is scale. Both monsters and the Labyrinth have grown several to dozens of times larger.”
Next was that the scale of the Labyrinth and the size of monsters had become overwhelmingly larger.
“Even small Hobgoblins are over 3 meters tall.”
It wasn’t just that they’d grown taller.
“Their movements became faster too. Their bodies became harder as well. The fortunate thing is that unlike in the game, monsters die instantly if you blow up their heads or crush their hearts.”
He had begun explaining calmly, and everyone was listening attentively when suddenly he felt doubtful.
‘…Don’t tell me?’
‘Are they telling us to hunt them?’
‘Huu. Too hot.’
The three Possessors steeled their resolve. Not having their heads cut off at the guillotine meant they were reasonably quick-witted Possessors.
“Any questions?”
Erik finished his brief explanation and tried to deploy the Possessors into actual combat.
Just then.
“It’s, it’s too hot!”
Nishida Ryo, who had been about to make an improper remark to Ruelle, raised his hand and shouted.
Erik’s brow furrowed.
‘Why did they keep that idiot alive?’
No sense, clumsy in everything he did.
Setting aside the fact that the body he possessed was fat, every single action made Erik frown.
He couldn’t understand why the Imperial Inspection Bureau had kept that trash-tier Possessor Nishida Ryo alive.
‘It’s not a trait or class.’
The Empire lacked the ability to discern [Unique Traits], so it wouldn’t be because of his [Death Sense] trait.
His profession was a common Warrior, a class that overlapped with at least 50 others in the detention camp.
‘Yet the Imperial Family kept him alive…’
There must be a good reason for it.
It was quite puzzling.
‘First, I need to find out what use that guy has.’
Erik withdrew the divine power he had placed on Nishida Ryo.
Then he approached him.
“Hieek!”
Trembling with fear, Nishida stepped backward. Before long, his back touched the Labyrinth wall.
Erik stood in front of Ryo and looked down at him.
Then he asked.
“What are you good at?”
The torch attached to the cave wall brightly illuminated Erik.
His bright face and bitterly twisted lips were clearly visible.
***
Thud, thud!
Thud, thud, thud!
“That Possessor seems like a madman.”
Jang Du-sik muttered while watching the Possessor continuously striking the cave wall with his scabbard.
Rhythmically tapping the cave walls of the Labyrinth’s first floor at regular intervals…
It looked like watching a crazy person.
“brother, don’t you remember the Peran region slums? There too, those whose life force was drained by dark magic lost their minds and tapped walls while smearing feces like that… Why are you frowning…”
“I ordered him to do it.”
“Ah… I thought it was different from the feces-smearing guys because there was a regular interval.”
Erik let out a ‘Kuk.‘ laugh at Jang Du-sik’s quick change of attitude.
This is why I enjoy teasing Du-sik.
It was getting boring watching Possessor Ryo strike walls for an hour straight.
Thud! Theoong.
“Huh?”
Then Ryo stopped at one section of wall.
“Huff, huff, huff. H-Here, I think it’s here.”
It was Ryo who had been tapping the wall with his scabbard for quite a while. His arms were trembling and sweat was pouring from his entire body like rain.
“What’s supposed to be there if we break that?”
“Huff, huu-. A, a Monster Room and treasure chest are there.”
Erik was skeptical.
He too had once been a veteran player.
‘Was there such a mechanic?’
He’d never seen this content even on strategy sites.
When Erik had asked Ryo what he was good at.
“I can do everything except monster hunting, leveling, and character development!”
He’d heard such an insane answer.
‘Then doesn’t that mean he can’t do anything?’
That was his first thought.
“Hidden pieces! Easter eggs! I’m really sharp with that stuff! I know all the hidden pieces in the Labyrinth up to the middle floors!”
When Erik was inevitably considering Ryo’s disposal, that’s what he had said.
Still, since he was a Possessor the Empire had captured, Erik decided to trust him once, pretending to be fooled.
‘I hope I didn’t waste an hour.’
Erik looked at the cave wall where Ryo had been standing. It was an ordinary wall with nothing different about it.
“Breaking a Labyrinth wall doesn’t make sense to begin with.”
Erik observed the wall.
The torches and walls looked ordinary, and even when he performed a miracle on his eyes with divine power, nothing was visible.
In the first place, the Labyrinth’s walls were indestructible. It was so in the game and in reality as well.
“If you’re lying, I’ll personally bestow divine blessing upon you.”
Erik said this while wrapping his fist in divine power.
Then he immediately threw a straight punch at the wall.
Hwoong!
Looking at his thrusting fist, Erik prepared himself to feel pain for the first time in a while.
‘This will hurt a bit.’
Striking an indestructible wall—even with his monster-like body, it would surely hurt…
Kwaaang!
Kwarrrrrrreung.
The Labyrinth wall crumbled.
“What?”
Erik was rarely surprised.
He wasn’t surprised that the wall had crumbled, but by what was inside the collapsed wall.
‘Goblins and a treasure chest?’
A Monster Room was like a trap you might encounter while traveling down a path. A space filled with monsters, known in reality by the alias ‘Room of Death.’
A treasure chest was literally a chest that produced treasure, called ‘the Flower of the Labyrinth.’
It was adventurers’ main source of income and the driving force behind conquering Labyrinths.
‘How on earth…’
Grrrrreuk.
Grreuk!
About ten Goblins were visible inside the collapsed wall, and in their midst sat a treasure chest.
It was a strange sight of things that couldn’t coexist being together.
‘Was there really such a thing?’
Erik was flustered.
What was a treasure chest?
An object that provided random-grade items with 100% probability.
The flower of the Labyrinth, the essence of adventurers.
“Brother. Couldn’t we just get rich quickly by exploring the Labyrinth? Finding something like that in just an hour.”
Jang Du-sik was right.
Treasure chests were something you might see once or twice when going up to the 10th floor.
‘Does only this guy know about it?’
The number of executed Possessors alone exceeds a thousand.
Since Riferoze had also killed about that many, it was certain that roughly ten thousand were possessed.
“Nishida, was it? From this moment, you enter 24-hour special management.”
Erik said this while boldly stepping into the Monster Room.
Originally, confirming the Possessors’ combat abilities was the priority, but that no longer mattered.
***
‘I-I survived.’
Nishida Ryo let out a sigh of relief.
Finding hidden pieces in a Labyrinth that had grown much larger than in the game was truly difficult work.
Having possessed a fat body made moving difficult, and the oppressive atmosphere of the Labyrinth made the scabbard in his hand feel extremely heavy.
Still, he moved.
[Death Sense]
The unique trait randomly granted to Possessors kept ringing alarm bells.
Even when captured by the Imperial Inspection Bureau.
Even when tortured with holy water at the Possessor detention camp, this trait hadn’t activated.
But after meeting Erik, it had been warning him incessantly.
‘Like the grim reaper holding a scythe to my throat…’
It was frightening and terrifying.
In the contradiction between the brilliant, beautiful divine power and the terrible pain it brought, Nishida Ryo was even more terrified.
‘If I just do well like this…’
He was about to sigh in relief while watching Erik walk among the monsters surrounding the treasure chest, but.
Kuuuuuuwoong.
Seeing that overwhelming divine power, anxiety raised its head again.
He felt tremendous fear.
‘Monster-like NPCs…’
It was completely different from the first battle with a Goblin.
Paladin Erik killed Goblins that had grown several times larger than in the game by merely clenching his fists.
Squish. Squish.
Each time he clenched his fist once, one creature’s head exploded.
With their heads crushed, the Goblins’ bodies burned away in divine power.
‘I-I too… if things go wrong…’
Frightening thoughts kept occurring to him.
The reason Possessors became continental enemies was precisely because their reaction to divine power was identical to monsters.
Even when blessed with healing miracles, Possessors burn and suffer.
The monsters before his eyes were the same.
The three Possessors were terrified while looking at the Monster Room.
“Heu, hieek!”
Erik, having burned fifteen Goblins to a crisp, returned toward the Monster Room entrance.
The already frightened Possessors stepped back.
Erik ignored the Possessors and placed his hand on Jang Du-sik’s head.
“Du-sik, are you ready to receive a blessing?”
“Honestly, it’s strange for a cleric to still believe in such superstitions.”
Probability-based items weren’t a scam created for profit in games.
Based on Erik’s life experience, it felt like ‘the world’s laws‘ had created probability-based items.
And while Erik was the master of magnificent divine power, he was unlucky.
Especially in this regard.
“It’s not superstition, but a fact proven through experience.”
Erik said this while manifesting divine power.
Kuguguguguguguwoong-!!!!
A golden cylinder shot up, surrounding Erik’s massive body.
Stone fragments from the Labyrinth floor floated toward the sky, and water droplets falling from the cave ceiling rose toward the ceiling as if time had reversed.
It was truly a sight reminiscent of miracles.
“Ahh…”
Even those Possessors were captivated by the beauty of the brilliant divine power and let out gasps of admiration.
“Please raise the probability.”
Amidst such grandeur came a crude, carelessly uttered prayer.
The magnificent divine power responded and moved to the half-hearted prayer.
Woooong.
The pillar of light traveled through Erik’s hand and seeped into Jang Du-sik’s head.
The buzz-cut head gleamed.
It was light that made even a thug-like guy appear brilliant and holy.
“A, a miracle…”
It was beautiful enough to make a Possessor involuntarily gasp in admiration.
“My head feels tingly—the blessing doesn’t suit me at all.”
But Jang Du-sik, who was actually receiving the blessing, looked displeased.
He rubbed his forehead with the end of his club while muttering.
“It’ll be over soon. Bear with the tingling.”
Kiiiiing!
A clear resonant sound rang out and the light surrounding Jang Du-sik disappeared.
“So, do I just open this?”
Walking toward the treasure chest placed in the center of the room, Jang Du-sik asked.
Erik nodded.
“I’ll open it.”
Jang Du-sik blinked and opened the treasure chest.
When the crude, old wooden chest opened, the item’s name floated above the chest.
It was an element only visible to Possessors.
“Huh…?”
“C-Crazy. Was there such an item?”
It had a strange appearance that could never exist in reality, something you’d only see in the game’s cash item shop.
Reading the name tag that appeared above the item, it was a name he’d never seen even in the game.
“Brother, what is this thing that’s making them act like that?”
Jang Du-sik handed Erik a bundle of long tickets while asking.
“So the Labyrinth was what summoned the Possessors after all.”
Erik said admiringly, pulling out one long paper ticket.
Then he strode toward Nishida Ryo.
Holding out the ticket, Erik asked.
“What happens to you if you use this?”
“Hieeeek!”
The trash-tier Possessor Nishida Ryo screamed and stumbled backward.
“Why, no, why did that thing come out!!”
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