Chapter 29

　　It was easily five times the height and width of a grown man. Its grotesque, mismatched features were sickening, and its filthy body was slick with thick snot and saliva. Wrapping around it all like solid armor was a layer of bark-colored mineral.

　　The monster filling his vision was unmistakably an Armor Ogre.

　　What the? Why is there suddenly a monster… Ah, it’s gotten dark. Did time skip forward?

　　The intense dizziness must have been a side effect of fast-forwarding through time. As soon as he realized this, he heard heavy breathing beside him. His vision still spinning, Cadel turned toward the sound and screamed internally.

　　“Damn it… Now we have to deal with an Armor Ogre too? Did someone smear honey on your blood or something?”

　　It was himself! The Cadel he was supposed to be possessing was standing right next to him. He was watching his own body like someone having an out-of-body experience.

　　But what stood out even more than this bizarre situation was his own terrible condition.

　　Blood dripped down the right hand and forearm he had raised to cast a spell. One bloodstained eyelid was swollen shut as if he had smashed into something, and his dangling left arm hung low at the shoulder, clearly dislocated.

　　What happened to my body?!

　　Shocked, he hurriedly scanned his own figure. The exhausted voice that followed finally clued him in on whose vision he was currently borrowing.

　　“Run.”

　　It was unmistakably Van’s voice. He wasn’t watching the past through his own eyes, but through Van’s.

　　Van extended his greatsword to block Cadel instead of the monster. Cadel stared blankly at the blade barring his path, then coldly shoved it aside.

　　“Promise me one thing.”

　　“Cut the nonsense—”

　　“If we make it out of here alive, fix that nasty attitude of yours. To commemorate your rebirth.”

　　“…What?”

　　“Try being a little friendlier. Make saving you feel worth the effort.”

　　Van just opened and closed his mouth, at a loss for words. Ignoring him, Cadel launched the fireball gathered in his hand. It struck the Armor Ogre’s head, but failed to pierce the mineral wrapping its skull like a helmet.

　　Agitated by the scorching heat, the monster thrashed violently.

　　With a massive roar, the Armor Ogre began to advance, mercilessly swinging its massive wooden club. Gale-force winds whipped up with every heavy swing. The tearing sound of the air splitting apart hinted at its brutal power.

　　In the end, Van gave up trying to hold Cadel back and gripped his greatsword properly, while Cadel immediately launched his second attack.

　　An Armor Ogre blocks almost all attacks with the minerals it wears like armor. The best approach is to create an opening with a debuff skill like Armor Break to temporarily lower its defense, but…

　　Unfortunately, there was a high chance this past version of Cadel didn’t have that kind of ability. Weaker than his present self, his best option would be to blur the enemy’s vision with disruption magic and flee. That was about it.

　　However, this was Van’s recruitment story. Since it was merely showing a story from the past, it meant that these two ultimately survived and managed to overcome the obstacle in front of them.

　　How on earth did they defeat an Armor Ogre? Especially in such terrible physical condition.

　　Feeling as though he were watching a strategy guide video, Cadel eagerly observed their battle.

　　—However.

　　“Mage!”

　　The awakening of brilliant combat skills or an amazing strategic battle that he had expected never happened. Instead, Cadel kept provoking the monster with hot fireballs until he finally drew its full attention. Then, showing off the hopelessly frail physique typical of a mage, he failed to dodge the club’s trajectory and took a direct hit.

　　With a sickening crunch that suggested several broken bones, Cadel was sent flying. As if that still wasn’t enough to satisfy it, the Armor Ogre strode over to his fallen body.

　　“Mage! Snap out of it!”

　　Cadel didn’t budge. At first glance, he looked dead. If so, Van could just use the corpse as bait and flee while the Armor Ogre was distracted. There was no surer way to survive.

　　But instead of abandoning Cadel, Van sprinted toward him. The slow-moving Armor Ogre couldn’t catch up to the nimble swordsman. Without a second thought, Van scooped Cadel up in his arms and fled up the opposite mountain path.

　　Van panted heavily.

　　The mountain path was downhill, but the slope was steep. The unpaved trail was choked with protruding tree roots and jagged rocks. In the dark of night, spotting every obstacle was nearly impossible. Van stumbled time and time again, but he never let go of Cadel, forcing himself to speed up as the heavy footsteps chased them from behind.

　　Van… Yeah, this guy isn’t bad by nature. He’s such a gentle kid! Look at him now. He could have just abandoned such a half-dead man, but he stubbornly dragged him along…

　　Watching Van’s desperate struggle, Cadel felt a sudden lump in his throat. Of course, there was still the frustration that if he had been in control, he would have handled the battle a little less stupidly, but this was in the past.

　　After running for a long time, Van finally chose a narrow underground tunnel as their safe zone. It was a gap formed by the tangled, exposed roots of a massive tree. The gaps between the roots were a bit wide, making it feel flimsy, but it wasn’t a bad place to hide.

　　The Armor Ogre was slow, but it was still chasing them. As long as they kept bleeding, there was a chance it would track their scent to the ends of the earth. For now, they needed a place to hide. Despite his frantic rush, Van shoved the unconscious Cadel into the entrance first before following him inside.

　　The damp tunnel was just as narrow as it looked from the outside, cold and intensely humid. It was the worst possible environment for two injured people to be tangled up in.

　　“Hey, snap out of it. You’re not dead, right?”

　　After the long sprint, Van’s breathing was ragged, his entire body slick with sweat and blood. The wounds that had barely begun to heal had burst open again, leaving him a mess. Even so, Van anxiously checked Cadel’s condition first.

　　He held a hand under Cadel’s nose and pressed an ear to his chest. Only after checking several times was he certain that Cadel was still clinging to a thread of life.

　　“Damn it… Why? Why did you have to be so uselessly stubborn! If you had just abandoned me like I told you to, you wouldn’t have ended up like this!”

　　Van’s voice trembled pathetically. He bit his lip hard, staring at Cadel’s miserable face, before turning away with a resolute expression. His next action was perfectly suited to draw out a scream from the Cadel watching him.

　　Where are you going! Where are you going?! This bastard had the exact same crazy death wish back then!

　　Van crawled out of the tunnel alone.

　　As soon as he stepped out of the small burrow, he felt tremors in the ground growing closer. It was proof that the Armor Ogre had caught the scent of blood. Van’s gaze moved slowly. His trembling right hand gripping the greatsword, the dulled edge of the blade from prolonged combat, and the tunnel where Cadel lay. He took them all in, one by one, with careful deliberation.

　　“…It didn’t matter if I died anyway.”

　　It was a voice so precarious it made the listener’s heart feel empty. Speaking as if to convince himself, Van began to retrace his steps along the mountain path he had only just escaped from. The further he went, the stronger the tremors in the ground became.

　　Perhaps recognizing the thickening scent of blood, the Armor Ogre let out a deafening roar that shook the mountain with a heavy vibration. Not long after, Van found himself face-to-face with the beast.

　　“I just need to get far away. Far enough that the scent of my blood masks the mage’s. I just need to put that much distance between us.”

　　Van kept muttering as if casting a spell on himself. He truly intended to die. Cadel was so shocked he almost reflexively smacked the back of Van’s head, but his lack of a physical body made that impossible.

　　Is being live bait his hobby? When I get back, I’ll have to knock some sense into him.

　　In the tutorial, and in the main quest that followed, Van always had a tendency to treat his own life lightly. At the time, Cadel had thought Van was just overly eager because he valued him, his captain, so highly… but seeing him act like this even before he joined the order, it seemed to be an innate problem.

　　While Cadel felt a heavy sense of dismay, the Armor Ogre deflected the Sword Auras that Van unleashed with its armor, steadily closing the distance.

　　The Sword Auras, weakened just as Van was, couldn’t inflict even a speck of damage on the Armor Ogre. His greatsword had absorbed plenty of blood, but his battered body couldn’t draw out enough aura to use his Berserker power. A Berserker who failed to enter an awakened state was nothing more than a sponge soaking up blood. The pitiful clanging of futile strikes repeated over and over.

　　Van ground his teeth, sick to death of his own powerlessness. Thick blood flowed down his torn lip.

　　“Come on!”

　　With a desperate, spite-filled shout, Van slowly backed away. At the same time, having secured an opening, the Armor Ogre fiercely raised its club.

　　Staring through Van’s vision at the club poised threateningly to strike him down at any moment, Cadel thought to himself.

　　How on earth does he survive this…?