Chapter 28: Everyone Slips Sometimes
“Whether you believe it or not,” Kiro said, her finger almost poking Gostoc on the bridge of his nose, “we’re going in there, and we’re going to kill that ugly grafted freak named Godrick.”
[Gostoc’s Affection toward Kiro: -20 → -25]
[Status: Offended / Deeply Skeptical / Secretly Mocking]
The muscles on Gostoc’s face twitched.
But very quickly, that flattering smile piled itself back onto his face.
“Of course, of course.”
He nodded and bowed.
“You’re too funny. How could I not believe you? The two of you look brave and exceptional at first glance. Godrick is nothing more than an empty shell pretending to be strong. Surely he won’t be a match for you. I only... I only feared that even heroes might take one wrong step, so I dared to suggest that the side path would be safer.”
“Cut the act.”
Kiro was not buying it.
“I’m not wasting words with you. The bet is simple. If I kill Godrick...”
She paused there, then stuck out her tongue and licked her lips, a hungry expression appearing on her face.
The sight made Gostoc’s skin crawl.
He instinctively covered the money pouch at his waist.
This madwoman could not possibly be thinking of...
“...then you have to treat me to your Silver-Pickled Fowl Foot.”
“...Huh?”
Gostoc froze.
The ten thousand responses he had prepared—pretending to be poor, playing dumb, even clinging to her leg and begging for mercy—all got stuck in his throat.
He suspected that he had misheard.
“You... you said what? A fowl foot?”
“Yeah, Silver-Pickled Fowl Foot.”
Kiro repeated it confidently, even drawing the shape in the air with her finger.
“You know, that pickled silver bird foot that makes it easier to find good stuff for a while after you eat it. I smelled it on you earlier, so don’t try to deny it.”
Gostoc was completely dumbfounded.
His mind, which was normally filled with petty calculations, was struck blank by this absurd demand.
Kill a demigod, and the stake was just one pickled bird foot?
This...
This deal...
Gostoc’s small eyes began darting around rapidly.
This was not even a gamble.
In his view, these two were walking in there to die.
And all he had to pay was one fowl foot. Then he could send these two walking disasters away and wait to pick up the runes they dropped after death.
This was practically a pie falling from the sky!
No, it was even better than a pie falling from the sky.
A pie still required effort to catch.
“That’s all?”
Afraid Kiro might change her mind, he hurriedly pulled the fowl foot from his clothes.
“Friend! What are you saying? A bet? No need to make it sound so distant!”
Gostoc handed the fowl foot over, the smile on his face more sincere than it had ever been.
“If you want to eat it, I’ll treat you right now! Consider it a little gift from me! The two of you must be hungry after traveling all this way. Take it, take it. Fill your stomachs!”
Without giving Kiro a chance to refuse, he stuffed the fowl foot into her hand, then nodded and bowed toward Loran as well.
“Here, one for you too! Don’t be shy!”
On the road, Kiro gnawed on the Silver-Pickled Fowl Foot, seemingly in an exceptionally good mood.
She held it up before her eyes, narrowed them, and carefully inspected it under the sunlight.
“What are you doing?” Loran asked, puzzled.
“I’m checking whether it’s actually silver,” Kiro answered. “If it is, then Gostoc lost big time. This thing sells for several thousand runes in the game, and he just gave it to me. What a great guy.”
Loran shook his head.
He was already too tired to comment on Kiro’s completely illogical thought process.
“How is it? Tastes good?” he asked instead.
“It’s okay.”
Kiro took a bite, then frowned.
“It’s just kind of salty. And there’s this... weird taste. I don’t know what it is.”
She carefully sniffed the fowl foot again, and a look of disgust appeared on her face.
“It kind of smells like... foot odor.”
“Speaking of which,” Kiro suddenly said, as if remembering something, and looked at Loran. “Do you think this thing really works? If we eat it, will we really find better stuff more easily?”
“I don’t know,” Loran answered honestly. “In the game, the description says it boosts item discovery, but in this world, no one knows exactly how much it improves anything.”
“Tch. So you said nothing.”
Kiro curled her lip, stuffed the rest of the fowl foot into her mouth, chewed it down in a few bites, then licked her fingers with lingering satisfaction.
“Forget it. Whether it works or not, I already ate it.”
She clapped her hands and stood up.
“Let’s go, let’s go. Hurry up and see what good stuff this dump has.”
The two continued along the side path.
“Hey.”
Kiro lowered her voice and jabbed Loran in the waist with her elbow.
“Is that Gostoc guy following us?”
Loran did not look back.
He merely listened carefully, then distinguished the vibrations through the stone road beneath his feet.
Aside from the two of them, there was indeed a third person deliberately lightening his footsteps, following at a distance that was neither too close nor too far.
“According to the game,” Loran answered quietly, “he does follow us the whole way, until he locks us inside that dark room with the Banished Knight.”
“I knew it!”
A wicked smile immediately appeared on Kiro’s face.
“That sleazy guy acts all friendly to our faces, but behind our backs he’s just waiting for us to die so he can pick up runes! No way. I need to teach him a lesson.”
Before Loran had time to stop her, Kiro had already come up with an idea.
“I’m going to scare him,” she said.
After saying that, she slipped into a narrow corner ahead.
The light there was dim, just enough to completely hide her black-robed figure.
She stuck half her head out, winked at Loran, then silently mouthed,
You. Keep. Walking.
Loran sighed.
He said nothing more and simply followed her plan, maintaining his previous pace as he continued forward.
He could feel that after a brief pause, the sneaky footsteps behind him began following again.
Gostoc was creeping along behind them.
His back was hunched, and every few steps, he would poke his head out to confirm that the two people ahead had not noticed him.
That black-robed madwoman seemed to have had some kind of disagreement with the sorcerer, and the distance between them had grown somewhat wide.
As for the sorcerer, who looked much easier to talk to, he was walking at an unhurried pace, apparently lost in thought.
A good chance!
Gostoc felt a burst of secret joy.
He quietly quickened his steps, preparing to get a little closer.
Once they passed the corner ahead, there would be a platform.
They would definitely stop there to observe the soldiers deployed below.
When that happened, all he had to do was give them a little push from behind...
“Heh heh heh...”
Thinking of the runes pouring into his pouch, Gostoc could not help letting out a few sleazy chuckles.
He reached the corner.
And at the exact instant his head poked out—
“Boo!”
A black shadow suddenly jumped out from the darkness right in front of him, a pale face almost pressing against the tip of his nose.
That madwoman was rolling her eyes back, sticking out her tongue, and letting out a sharp, shrill cry at him.
“!!!”
Gostoc was startled badly by the jump scare and took half a step backward.
But it was precisely that half step—
Something tripped his foot.
His body lost balance.
“Aaah—!”
Gostoc let out a short, shrill scream.
He felt his body lighten.
His foot stepped into empty air.
The sensation of falling came over him.
The wind howled past his ears.
Kiro was still holding that ghostly pose, staring blankly.
She had only wanted to scare him.
In the script she had imagined, Gostoc would be so frightened that he collapsed and crawled on the ground begging for mercy. Then she could mock him as much as she wanted and enjoy the fun of playing with someone in the palm of her hand.
But she had not expected him to fall.
She slowly moved to the cliff edge, carefully poked her head out, and looked down.
Gostoc’s figure had already turned into a tiny black dot, disappearing into the bottomless mist below.
Only one long, desperate scream remained, echoing between the gaps of the castle walls for a long time before fading away.
“...Uh.”
Loran walked over from the other side.
He looked at her frozen expression, then at the empty cliff.
“...”
He did not ask anything.
But he already knew the entire answer.
“I... I didn’t mean to.”
Kiro said in a panic.
“I just wanted to scare him a little... Who knew he was that timid? And that his feet were that slippery...”
Loran did not speak.
He was only thinking.
If the essence of luck was the transfer of “misfortune,” then what had Gostoc’s “misfortune” brought to Kiro?
He walked to the cliff edge and discovered that at the place where Gostoc had fallen, a bundle had been caught on a protruding rock.
He crouched down, carefully leaned out half his body, and pulled the bundle back up.
“Huh? What’s that? Something he dropped?”
Kiro also came over, curiously craning her neck.
Loran placed the bundle on the ground and spread it open.
A pile of miscellaneous items appeared before them.
Several pieces of jerky dried as hard as stone.
A rusty dagger.
A few scattered rune fragments.
And...
Loran’s breath stopped for an instant.
He reached out and picked up a stone from the pile.
Held in his hand, the stone felt cold and heavy.
An ancient power flowed within it.
[Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone]