The dwarf had a hasty temperament.
Isn’t it too discriminatory to think that all snakes are evil monsters?
I might have even healed it.
It died because it moved hastily in surprise, causing its wound to burst open.
I gained quite a lot of experience points.
The poor dwarf will now live and breathe eternally with me as mana.
‘Let’s burn it.’
I asked the adventurers to do so.
They nodded reluctantly.
Leaving the corpse here would only attract hungry monsters with its rotting smell.
It wasn’t for nothing that the dwarves had left traces of burning other corpses.
Whoosh-
The adventurers quickly performed the cremation without me needing to help.
The unnamed dwarf burned to ashes, leaving only bone fragments.
Jerico muttered, looking at the smoke rising to the sky.
“Someone will see it.”
Although the view in the Blade Pillar Zone is narrow, the black smoke rising to the sky is certainly noticeable.
Everyone in this vicinity will see the smoke.
“I’m not sure what consequences this will bring.”
The dwarves might see it, or the other adventurers who entered earlier might see it.
If it’s the latter, it might help us meet them.
If it’s the former… well.
The dead dwarf showed inexplicable hostility towards humans.
“Did the ones who went ahead do something to the dwarves?”
“Why would the guys who took the quest fight with the dwarves?”
“There’s no reason to fight.”
Could it be that humans have greatly wronged the dwarves?
Is that why the dwarves all entered the mountain range to track down the humans, and they met and fought?
It seemed to make sense, but I couldn’t imagine why that would happen.
Then someone spoke up.
“Let’s withdraw.”
It was one of the B-rank adventurers.
“This situation wasn’t mentioned in the quest. It seems like the entire dwarf village has mobilized. How can a few adventurers stand against that?”
“Hey, if we bail out now, the penalty is double the advance payment we received. I’ll be finished if I have to pay that penalty.”
Another adventurer burst out angrily.
“In a situation like this, withdrawal is possible. We might not even have to pay the penalty.”
“That’s just your opinion. The union won’t be that lenient. If this quest was that easy, would the advance payment have been so generous?”
Just how much was the quest reward?
I’m participating too, shouldn’t I get a share?
I should seriously talk to Jerico or Pandan about this.
The adventurers don’t seem as brave as I thought.
They argued back and forth about whether they should withdraw or not.
If you all leave, I’ll have to break through alone.
That won’t do.
As I was thinking this, Isil flapped its leaves above me.
It seemed to be saying that it was here too.
Interestingly, the humans seem to consider me and Isil as one entity.
Since Isil has been attached to my body all day, they probably think I’m some strange snake with ivy attached to me.
Then Jerico spoke with a heavy voice.
“We’re not withdrawing. We should at least find out what happened to the adventurers who went ahead.”
As expected of the implicit leader of the adventurers.
When he made that decision, a few showed dissatisfied expressions, but they didn’t openly oppose.
“If we just return, it won’t end with just a penalty. And the possibility of a wyvern appearing was already mentioned.”
There was a strange weight in Jerico’s words.
Pandan and Jerico seem to know something more.
The other adventurers also seemed to notice something, as their faces turned ashen.
“Damn, we stepped in it.”
“This is why we shouldn’t touch blue quest papers.”
It seems the quest they received was special.
“Still, it would be good if one person, including the injured Hanson, goes back.”
As soon as those words were spoken, the adventurers’ expressions changed.
But Hanson himself didn’t look too happy.
“You’re… you’re abandoning me, aren’t you?”
“What nonsense! That’s why we’re sending someone with you!”
“But still, just the two of us going back…”
“Think rationally. Is it safer to continue with an injured leg? Or is it better to turn back from here, even if we give up the completion fee?”
“…”
Being together doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safer.
If necessary, the adventurers would surely use Hanson, with his injured leg, as bait.
Knowing this, even the one with the injured leg eventually nodded.
Returning with just two people was equally dangerous, but there was a volunteer.
“I have no intention of dying in a place like this…”
There’s always someone who has to make things worse by talking like that.
The atmosphere became quite rotten.
‘Well, let’s go, let’s go.’
Isil and I had no choice but to be the mood makers.
I climbed onto Jerico’s shoulder and patted his back, and Jerico nodded.
“Let’s move out.”
We had rested as much as we needed to.
The adventurers started moving carefully.
“I’d like to reach that white peak before the sun sets…”
Jerico muttered.
‘Hmm, the smell of tension.’
Snakes have a good sense of smell.
I have a good sense of smell too.
Thanks to that, I learned something.
The cold sweat that tense people release has the smell of tension.
It wasn’t a particularly pleasant smell.
Right now, the adventurers were afraid of the night’s approach.
Well, for guys without night vision, how scary must the darkness be?
A suspicious passage appeared.
Jerico repeated what he had been doing so far.
He threw a cage with a chicken in it into the passage.
Thud, flutter flutter!
With a loud noise, termites that had been hiding popped out of the ground.
But their number was a bit much.
We were five humans, one snake, and one ivy plant.
There were more than ten termites.
Even though we shouted from this side, those guys seemed to be able to count our numbers too.
“Squeeeeek!”
The termites chose to fight.
The adventurers grimaced, but I rather liked it.
The battle began.
Pandan struck a termite’s face with the buckler in his left hand.
Thud!
Then I fired a sunset beam, cleanly beheading the termite.
「You have killed a Hell Helmet Termite lv34.」
Now, it’s hunting time…
‘Oh.’
An unexpected event occurred.
The termites all stopped fighting at once.
They looked up at the sky.
It was a clear sky.
There was nothing particularly visible except for clouds.
Click, click, clickety-click.
But the termites all made strange noises by clashing their jaws together.
“Uh oh!”
Jerico’s face turned pale.
The termites started hurriedly crawling back into the burrow they had emerged from.
It didn’t seem like they were running away because they were scared of us.
“It’s a wyvern!”
A black dot-like thing was visible between the clouds.
Are we finally meeting a wyvern?
Unlike me, the adventurers were in a panic.
Pandan, who had been following Jerico’s instructions without much fuss until now, suddenly shouted.
“Catch the termites! We need to catch two more!”
He drew his longsword and chased after the fleeing termites.
Then he swiftly cut off the head of one termite.
His movements were faster than I expected.
Was that guy hiding his skills?
He reached out his hand to me.
I crawled up his arm and hung onto his shoulder.
I was wondering why we needed to catch termites when a wyvern had appeared, but I soon understood the reason.
