Inside the hut, it was pitch black.
[George is Delicious has donated 50,000 Won]
Yo, you asleep?
"Your girl's not asleep."
- lolololol
- Damn
- Stop baiting
- Guys, be serious for a sec
- So is he coming today or not?
If my predictions were correct, there was a high chance the rapist would watch me for a day or two before making his move.
But you never know.
I couldn't be sure if the real culprit was so horny he'd come for me tonight or not.
And since I wasn't willing to gamble with my womb, sleep was out of the question.
- I'm just gonna go to sleep
- Yeah, he's not coming today
- Stop baiting with donations
Just as I was joking around with my viewers…
Thud. Thud…
The sound of someone's footsteps slowly approached.
"Shh…"
- Gasp
- He's really here, holy shit
- Emergeeeency!!!
I quickly hid the chat window and pretended to be asleep.
I waited for him to enter, my breathing calm, regular, and relaxed.
After a short while,
Creeeak…
The old wooden door scraped open.
Thud!
And then it closed.
Now.
I wouldn't let that filthy rapist even touch the hem of my clothes.
I shot up like a cat in the darkness, silent and swift, and struck the rapist in the abdomen.
Thwack!
"Oof!"
As he doubled over from the surprise attack, I locked a rear-naked choke around his neck, cutting off his airway.
"Kugh…! Ugh!"
He struggled desperately for his life.
He tried to pry my hands off, scratched at me, and stomped his feet, but my arm was wrapped perfectly around his neck and wouldn't budge.
A moment later,
The unidentified man's body went limp as he lost consciousness.
"Hmph, what a weakling."
I dragged the man to the bed and lit a small candle to see his face.
His identity was…
"Paul?"
It was Paul, the red-haired son of the village chief.
"Wait, this…"
A sense of dread washed over me as I pulled down his pants.
"Ah, fuck…"
There was no scar on his lower abdomen.
I was screwed…
*
- Just kill that bastard too, right?
- lolololol
- Fuck, I knew this would happen.
- It's fine, just dispose of the body first lol
"No, I can't kill him…"
I was so fucked.
I was angry enough to want to stab Paul in the neck as he lay sprawled out on my bed, dead to the world. But if I killed him, I'd fail the true ending.
"Why did this bastard show up?"
Could it be a gimmick, like there were actually two culprits?
"No, no, the victim's testimony was consistent. Besides, this guy…"
I pulled his pants down further to check again.
"It's small, isn't it?"
- Gasp
- T_T
- Paul is just a baby
- Small dick…
- What
- lolololol
- Hey!
- Hey, hey, hey
- Fuck, he looks pathetic now that you point it out
- Isn't that why he can't get a girl and came all the way here?
"Ahem… Is that so? Anyway, what should I do with him?"
The most straightforward approach would be to say he tried to assault me in my sleep, so I fought back and subdued him…
'But then the real culprit won't show up.'
I'd gone to all this trouble to advertise myself as a defenseless, easy target. Would all that effort go to waste?
In that case…
"Where was this bastard's house again?"
I had no choice.
Surely, he wouldn't wake up in the morning and go around telling everyone, 'I tried to rape that female adventurer, but she knocked me out with one punch and a chokehold~', right?
- lolololol
- That bastard's gonna be so confused when he wakes up tomorrow
- He'll probably be too embarrassed to even show his face
- Yeah, he won't be able to say anything lol
In the end, I hoisted him onto my back, snuck into his room, and quietly laid him down.
Smack!
As punishment for troubling me, I gave his thigh a good smack before leaving. He'd probably feel a bit of muscle soreness tomorrow.
"Hoo…"
Losing sleep, carrying a heavy load, and making a round trip had left me quite exhausted.
More than anything, I felt empty and dejected that the culprit I thought I'd caught wasn't the real one.
"Sigh, I'm just going to sleep. If someone comes, you know what to do with the donation alerts, right? I'm counting on you guys."
- You can count on us!
- Nah, I'm not gonna do it~ I wanna watch you get fucked~
- lolol you really trust us?
- You're trusting us?
*
[Ding~]
[Dohee Tuna So Delicious has donated 100,000 Won]
Do-hee, wake up! EMERGENCYYYYYYYYYY~~~!!!!!
- Damn
- Aww
- Guys, that's the right call
- Where's the sleep-rape scene?
- No!! My porn!!!!
- Idiots, if it ends here, the porn ends too.
- So close
'What the.'
I shot up the moment I heard the donation message.
"Huh?"
"Hmph!"
Someone was halfway on top of me.
Quickly assessing the situation, I raised my knee to strike his groin.
Thwip.
But he clamped his legs together, narrowly dodging the blow.
A fist flew at me in the darkness.
I turned my head to avoid it, then pulled my legs back as far as I could and kicked him in the chest.
BAM!!
He flew back, hit the wooden wall lightly, and landed steadily on his feet.
"Who are you!"
This was no ordinary opponent. The only person in this village capable of such movements was…
Shing!
The sound of a sword being drawn.
I, too, grabbed the spear I had propped up next to the bed and aimed it at him.
A quiet tension instantly filled the air.
The hut was shrouded in a darkness so thick I could barely make out his silhouette.
The only light was a single, faint sliver of moonlight filtering down from the ceiling.
We stared each other down in silence before wordlessly rushing at one another.
Swoosh!!
A blurry silhouette, the sound of footsteps, the sound of breathing.
I used everything to pinpoint his location and thrust my spear with all my might.
The tip of the spear glinted in the moonlight.
However, he turned his sword sideways, parrying the spear as if pushing it aside, and charged forward.
Then, he channeled all his forward momentum into his sword and swung.
Swish—
I quickly retracted my spear and jumped back just as the sword sliced through the air where I had been standing.
A close call. My torso could have been sliced in half.
'Crazy bastard… Is he trying to kill me?'
"[Haste]."
This was not an enemy I could beat by taking it easy. It was only one point of agility, but it was better than nothing.
I didn't attack recklessly. Instead, I used the distance between us to feint, aiming for his legs.
He tried to charge in whenever he saw an opening, but my quickly retracting spear would inflict a minor wound, forcing him to retreat again and again.
"Tch, you… were you hiding your skills?"
A deep, middle-aged man's voice. He couldn't get close to me easily, focusing only on avoiding my spear.
"And you were hiding that filthy desire of yours, weren't you?"
Clang!
He barely managed to parry the spear and retreated.
A dark space.
I gave him no time to discern the spear's position.
A dazzling flurry of feints and real attacks rained down in the pitch-black space.
I pretended to aim for his legs, then struck at his head. It only grazed his shoulder, but the wounds on his body were starting to pile up.
"Damn it… How can this be?"
He tried to charge in a desperate, all-or-nothing attack, but the back of his hand was pierced by my spear, and he hastily retreated again.
"How… This is…"
Sparks flew as his sword met my spear. His strength pushed my spear back, but by the time he closed in, my spear would reappear from somewhere and graze his calf.
"Kugh… This is ridiculous… To think I, to a mere woman."
It wasn't a difference in strength, but a difference in skill and experience.
"You can repent in death."
I aimed a final blow at his neck.
Just then, his eyes glowed blue in the darkness.
"You brought this upon yourself."
As he spoke, an immense energy gathered in his body.
KABOOOOM!!!
'Is that… Aura?'
The mana he had gathered in an instant exploded, causing the shabby hut to collapse and sending my body flying outside.
"Ugh!"
Through the scattering dust and wooden fragments, he appeared, his eyes glowing an eerie blue. With his sword imbued with the same blue mana, he closed the distance in an instant.
I knocked away a flying piece of wood with my spear to obscure his vision, then quickly rolled to the side.
VWOOOOM!!!
The air tore apart where I had just been. He cautiously took up a fighting stance again.
"Ha! I expected as much, but this difficulty is fucking insane!"
I knew it from the moment he blocked my punch back at the village chief's house.
In the faint moonlight, I could finally see his face clearly.
"Guard Captain Michael! Why are you attacking me!!!"
Drawn by the loud explosion of the hut, people were already starting to gather.
But Michael, standing before me, showed no signs of backing down. In fact, I could see blue mana gathering around his entire body. I could feel his resolute will to focus solely on the battle.
"Ha!"
I like it.
This was a fucked-up situation, but I was actually happy.
How long has it been?
How long has it been since my last life-or-death duel?
How long has it been since a duel made my blood boil like this!!!
The moment I saw the muscles in his thighs tense, the ground shattered beneath him, and he was right in front of me.
Shwick!!
I dodged the sword thrust at my chest by a paper-thin margin, right between my breasts, and tried to counter with my spear, but—
The tip of my spear was deflected upwards as if it had touched a rapidly spinning gear.
I took a large step back to dodge his follow-up horizontal slash.
"My apologies, but you will die here. Undercover investigator, Pichina Ibenstein."
'Fuck.'
He knew all along?
The air shifted. A dense, eerie blue mana gathered on the Guard Captain's blade.
A spatial slash using Sword Aura.
A crescent-shaped blade of energy, cutting through space itself, came hurtling toward me vertically.
The atmosphere vibrated, and the ground split apart.
"Hup!!"
I took a deep breath and quickly dodged to the side. As if waiting for that, his blue, Aura-infused sword came down in an instant, ready to slice my body in two.
We clashed.
The tip of my spear and his sword tangled in mid-air.
Naturally, the Aura-infused sword overwhelmingly cut through my spear as it descended, but in that small opening…
I deflected it.
The sword's trajectory shifted, its speed slowed. In that instant…
I abandoned my spear, escaped the sword's path, and closed the distance, getting inside his guard.
"What?"
He must have expected me to block until the end, as his body was completely lunged forward.
I drew up all the power from my lower body. I channeled all of it into a single punch and landed it squarely on his chin.
POW!!
Even as his body staggered, he tried to swing his sword horizontally, but I ducked completely under it and swept his legs out from under him.
"Gahk?"
Then I picked up the spear stuck in the ground and thrust it into his chest.
CRUNCH!!!
His heart burst, splattering red blood everywhere.
"Keuk… How?"
His eyes wavered. It was a look of confusion, not because he was dying, but because he couldn't comprehend how he had just lost.
"Talent."
Thud…
Michael's eyes flickered as if asking what on earth that meant, and then they went still.
Sorry, but there was nothing more to say.
Actually, there were over twenty things I wanted to critique about that fight, but I didn't have the time.
'Hoo… Now what.'
Everyone was watching in stunned silence after the sudden commotion. They all looked bewildered, having just witnessed a couple of lunatics destroy a house and fly around fighting in the middle of the night.
I had to make the first move before they started questioning me.
'No need to reveal I'm an investigator.'
"Whew, everyone!! I've caught the crazy sex offender who broke into my room!!"
"Oh?"
"Ah…?"
"The Guard Captain is a sex offender…?"
I couldn't give them time to think.
What I said was the truth, but I had no evidence to present right now, and for all I knew, these crazy villagers might try to kill me even if they knew.
Of course, I wouldn't lose, but then all my hard work would be for nothing.
First, I grabbed a sack I had prepared in the ruined hut and stuffed Michael inside.
Before putting him in, I quickly checked his lower body. There was a scar, and he had a third arm. He was indeed the culprit.
"Hey… what is this?"
"The Guard Captain!! What do you think you're doing!!"
Those who had been close to him were starting to come to their senses and tried to block my path.
'Damn it, this stupid mission.'
This was the shittiest part of the 3rd Floor trial.
To arrest the culprit and achieve the true ending, you had to safely bring the body to the city. That's why tactics like assassination or sniping were difficult.
'Ah, screw it.'
I lifted the sack containing his body and started running. The villagers grabbed their weapons and began to chase me.
"Get her!!!"
"Catch the murderer!!!!"
"No, I'm telling you, this bastard is a sex offender!!"
And then, I finally reached the village entrance.
"Ah…"
Could my luck get any worse?
The huge herbalist, Rude, was standing guard right in front of the gate.
'Damn it, I don't have time for this…'
But just then,
"Go, quickly!"
'Huh???'
He subtly stepped aside and even opened the gate for me.
'What the…'
I didn't know his story, but he had done me a huge favor.
I gave a slight nod and left, and the gate closed behind me.
I could hear a commotion from inside, and the gate opened again not long after, but the distance between me and them had already grown considerably.
"Wooo!! Fuck yeah, guys, I did it!!"
Of course, it was too early to relax.
I quickly untied the horse I had tethered near the village, mounted it, and galloped away.
The distance between me and the pursuing villagers grew wider and wider until they disappeared from sight.
I really did it…
"Hahahahaha!!! This is it!! This is what it's all about!!"
The exhilarating joy of victory I hadn't felt in so long.
"Guys, isn't this a world first? 3rd Floor, SS-rank!!!"
That's right.
A Guard Captain who suddenly used Aura.
A difficulty level where he even knew my true identity beforehand.
Just fighting him would have been an S-rank trial, but by successfully clearing the true ending conditions, the rank would increase even further.
As far as I knew, no one had ever received an SS-rank here.
Filled with anticipation, I opened the chat window.
"How was I?"
- Damn
- What the hell, you fight so well
- Wow… that was insane
- I'll give you this one
- How'd you even win?
- Daaaaamn~
- Heard the rumors and came to see. Let me see your boobs.
- Is this really a world first?
- They're saying it's at least a first in Korea
- Fucking sick
- Oh....
- So this is Lee Do-hee?
"Hahahahahahaha!!"
This is why I stream. Hell yeah!
Hmph~
"???"
My vision suddenly flipped.
I felt a floating sensation as I was thrown from the horse, flying through the air.
"Eh?"
'Why?'
Crash, tumble, thud!!
I hit the ground with the full momentum of the galloping horse, my body rolling violently.
"Gahk… Kugh!!"
It felt like I'd been in a car crash. I couldn't breathe properly.
'What the hell was that?'
It seemed the horse had tripped over something, but so suddenly?
'Ah…'
The cause soon came into view.
Kieeeek!
Kishaaat!!
Goblins. Hordes of goblins, mad with excitement, were rushing out from the forest onto the road.
And only then did I remember what the villagers had said.
[We don't normally accept adventurers, but with goblins appearing nearby, we couldn't just turn a blind eye.]
[The number of monsters around here has certainly increased lately.]
[Later, please accept a request to subjugate the monsters in this area. The goblins have been so rampant lately that the women can't go outside…]
[It's dangerous outside the village, so we have to go to the well together.]
And even the excessively sturdy-looking wooden fence around the village…
All the clues had been warning me to be careful of the goblins.
"Haha… Right, they won't give me the SS-rank reward that easily, will they?"
I knew things were going too smoothly.
"Come at me all at once! I'll kill every last one of you!"
Looks like it's going to be a long night.