Chapter 187. Anger That Refuses to Cool
“The hardworking woodcutter carrying two enormous axes crossed several great hills.”
“Why do you think they deliberately called mountains ‘hills’?”
“Perhaps because ‘hill’ sounds friendlier than ‘mountain.’”
I clung to a cliff so steep that climbing it upright was impossible, letting the freezing wind batter me while listening to the Village Chief read the fairy tale.
I didn’t really understand it, but judging from the long vertical grooves carved artificially into the cliff, it looked like that woodcutter really had climbed this place in the distant past.
How the hell had he managed it with this many monsters living on the cliff?
“Haa.... Happy, that damn bastard.”
I clicked my tongue.
“He leaves shit everywhere he goes. It’s pissing me off.”
The Village Chief sighed.
“The aura of Misfortune is so powerful that even I find it difficult to touch.”
“Exactly.”
I frowned.
“Thanks to that, I couldn’t even bring most of the others.”
I looked upward.
“Seriously, he’s such~ a troublesome bastard.”
[An unfortunate fate rolls toward the Adventurer...!]
[The enormous cliff-dwelling monster spider, ‘The Woodcutter’s Pet Spider,’ has appeared!]
...
Seriously.
What a troublesome bastard.
Spiders driven mad by black vines descended from the cloud-covered cliff with heavy thuds.
One.
Two.
Three....
Uh?
“...Hyaaah! Bungee jumping without a rope!!!”
I shouted as more and more appeared.
The Village Chief’s expression stiffened.
“Good heavens. How can there be this many...?”
He looked around.
“A thousand? Two thousand?”
We had already climbed quite high.
But in a situation like this, there wasn’t much we could do.
Individually, we could deal with them.
But this many....
[Hayangi: Whoa. See those cracks in the cliff? Looks like the rocks we were stepping on were hardened spiderwebs. Spiders are squeezing out from between them.]
It was horrific.
That disgusting sensation of poking something and suddenly having bugs pour out from inside....
You couldn’t understand it unless you experienced it yourself.
Ugh.
Nothing had even touched me, yet my arms felt like insects were crawling all over them.
“...What do we do?”
Going back would take a while because the cliff stretched far too widely.
If Flying Fish were here, that would be different.
But he wasn’t.
...
Blow everything up?
Was that our only option?
No.
I didn’t even have enough explosives for that.
Damn it.
Rustle, rustle.
What was that?
A spider?
Did one follow us all the way down here?
Seriously, I should invent insecticide soon.
“What the? Someone else actually came all the way here?”
“...Hello.”
It was a player.
Judging from his clothes, he looked like someone who did extreme sports.
So...
Was he here to climb?
This cliff?
While carrying that enormous backpack?
With spiders pouring out everywhere?
Yeah.
He wasn’t normal.
The man looked at us.
“Excuse me, you guys.”
Then he chuckled.
“Oh boy. Looks like you ran into the spiders while climbing?”
“...You know about them.”
He had recognized what happened just by looking at us.
Had this guy attempted the route several times?
Why?
And that relaxed, confident expression....
He definitely knew a way through.
In other words, brute-forcing the spiders wasn’t the intended solution.
There had to be some special clear condition.
“Can we go with you?”
The man hesitated.
“Huh? Ahh....”
He scratched his head.
“That’s a little difficult. This place is pretty hardcore.”
Tap, tap.
I gave the Village Chief a signal.
Hurry and help me persuade him!
This guy was basically the guide from the Maze Forest!
The Village Chief carefully looked the man over.
Then he put on his usual good-natured smile and pulled a business card from his coat.
“Your equipment appears somewhat old.”
He handed it over.
“If you would like, perhaps our Outpost could provide you with new equipment.”
The man’s eyes widened.
“Outpost?!”
He grabbed the card.
“You guys are from the Outpost? Whoa! No way!”
The Village Chief smiled.
“We desperately need assistance crossing this cliff quickly.”
“If you help us just this once, I promise continued support in the future.”
The player’s eyes practically sparkled.
“Khh! A sponsor!”
He immediately nodded.
“Sure! I’ll help!”
I hadn’t expected him to get that excited.
Still.
It worked, so good was good.
I got to cross quickly, so there was no reason for me to add anything else.
Fine.
Once I caught Happy and finished this whole mess...
I was going to turn this cliff into a wall of fire.
Throwing this game-like event at me when I was already pressed for time....
I absolutely wasn’t letting it slide.
“Actually, this entire cliff is basically the spiders’ nest.”
Our new guide explained as he climbed.
“You know... if you leave the designated route and take another path, the spiders will attack.”
So that was the gimmick.
How the hell had we somehow kept choosing the right route while fighting monsters?
“There are walls that explode if you touch them.”
He pointed ahead.
“There are egg sacs that release swarms of baby spiders too.”
Then he pulled himself upward.
“Hup!”
He pointed farther ahead.
“And what was that again...?”
His face brightened.
“Right! If you want to reach the very top, you have to solve puzzles along the way.”
“There’s also a path that goes inside the cliff.”
“In there, you have to negotiate with an NPC before they let you through!”
Long.
So long.
And annoying.
“Is there another way?”
The man thought.
“If you want another way...”
He scratched his chin.
“You’d have to dig underground and tunnel through.”
“Or fight all the spiders and win.”
...
Stay calm.
Don’t rush.
Don’t get angry....
...
No, fuck that!
The kids could be in serious danger right now!
And I have to deal with this bullshit?!
Should I just kill everything?!
Right now, I was seriously considering using Flow to punch a straight hole through the cliff and walk through it.
[Hayangi: Don’t. Didn’t that guy say NPCs live inside this cliff? If you try exploiting things, some ridiculous monster will obviously jump out.]
I followed behind the player we had happened to meet.
I never asked his name.
Let’s call him Kim Climber.
Compared to the Village Chief and me, whose stats were high overall, his climbing pace was pretty slow.
But there was nothing we could do.
Following this guy was probably the fastest route right now.
“...Fighting!”
I called out.
“Yes~ Fighting~!”
Every now and then, I used Lion’s Roar to energize him.
It should make him...
A little faster.
Hopefully.
“Phew! Now we need to go inside here!”
The man smiled.
“There weren’t any monster attacks this time, so we got here ridiculously fast!”
I stared at him.
“Yeah.”
“Almost an hour.”
He laughed.
“Haha! When I climbed this route for the first time, it took me half a day!”
Then he proudly added—
“And this is the fastest route!”
His smile faded slightly.
“Of course, that also means it’s the most dangerous.”
We entered through a huge opening in the cliff that hadn’t been visible while we were climbing.
Apparently, it was an area revealed only after meeting certain conditions.
Maybe we had failed to satisfy those conditions before.
If so, even if we had climbed desperately, we never would’ve reached the end and would have eventually been chased back down by spiders.
[You have entered the Nest of the Pet Spider!]
A massive cavern lit by torches.
Spiderwebs stretched everywhere.
The constant sound of insects moving assaulted my ears.
Because it was a cave, every tiny sound echoed repeatedly and became louder.
Anyone without real-life resistance to this kind of thing might actually lose their mind here.
The Village Chief looked around curiously.
“They sell many unusual objects here.”
His eyes moved over the stalls.
“Collectors of peculiar items would go mad for these.”
I asked—
“Think they’re worth money?”
“Hmm....”
He examined them more carefully.
“Most cannot be used by humans, so selling them would present certain difficulties.”
I see....
Then if monster races ever become playable, these might finally gain value.
...
Assuming any of them survive me until then!
They should run before I burn the entire place to the ground!
Our guide pointed ahead.
“We have to go in there and meet the boss.”
I took Kim Climber’s heavy backpack for him and entered the boss room at a much faster pace.
My irritation was building again.
If this boss started spouting nonsense in front of me....
I might not be able to endure it.
[You have entered the Room of the Ancient Pet Spider!]
[She will attempt to test you...!]
“You have returned, human.”
A gigantic spider looked down at Kim Climber.
Gigantic.
Truly gigantic.
A single strand of hair on her leg was as thick as my arm.
Strangely enough, my anger calmed down a little just from seeing her.
There were few tranquilizers more reliable than overwhelming violence.
The player pulled something out.
“Here is this visit’s offering!”
“Very well.”
The spider accepted it.
“You may pass.”
Kim Climber gave me a thumbs-up.
Then he left the room again.
Couldn’t he have stayed and helped me negotiate a little?
The spider’s many eyes turned toward me.
“Demon King of Madness.”
“For what reason have you come here?”
“I’m crossing the cliff.”
“This is a place the hardworking woodcutter passed through to test his patience.”
Her voice echoed.
“If you can endure the same path he endured, you too shall be permitted to cross this cliff.”
Patience, huh.
At this point, wasn’t my patience better than anyone else’s in the world?
My girlfriend was lying unconscious in bed.
The kid I practically thought of as my own had me constantly worried that something terrible might happen every single day.
And despite all of that...
I was standing here calmly trying to solve this through conversation.
Huh?
Wasn’t that impressive?
Wasn’t it?!
Could I endure even more?
If enduring for years meant I could eventually give the bastard who did this to my kids the biggest middle finger in the world...
I could do it.
So!
I decided to endure a little longer even now.
The Village Chief read from the book.
“The exhausted woodcutter hung from the cliff by a single thumb for three days and three nights.”
The spider looked down at me.
“Will you undertake the trial?”
“Or will you hand over a meaningless object like that man and continue upward?”
“...A thumb, huh....”
Hayangi had already helped me develop a Spiral-exclusive skill called Index Finger.
If I had an Index Finger, I should have all the others too.
Preferably with each having its own personality.
Wouldn’t it be fun if I could turn the middle finger into some kind of one-shot attack?
Should I call this lucky?
Or should I praise Super Real for arranging everything so perfectly?
Whatever the Chairman might be doing...
I should at least praise the people operating this game.
“Village Chief, follow that guy and head up.”
I rolled my shoulders.
“I’ll try this trial before continuing.”
The Village Chief looked concerned.
“Will you be all right?”
“It may take an extremely long time.”
“Yeah.”
I nodded.
“I need to prepare properly.”
Happy was walking a path similar to mine.
Chaos was watching him closely.
If I expected to fight someone like that...
Then even a small increase in strength like this was worth taking.
If I lost myself to anger...
If I simply went insane and charged forward...
Then Chaos would just toy with me again.
Yes.
Properly.
I would crush them properly.
Those Fanatic bastards....
No matter what happened...
I would make absolutely sure....
“Phew.”
I looked at the spider.
“Fine. Let’s do this damn thing.”
“This way....”
Before starting the trial, though...
I should log out for a moment and properly check the kids’ real bodies.
I promised I’d solve this within a day or two....
Damn.
I’m sorry....
