Free Web NovelOf course, Ian was not approaching people because he wanted to make friends.
I need useful characters.
What he was planning required labor. Physical labor. The more people he had who could put their backs into the work, the better.
“What’s your name?”
“Huh?”
Ding!
[Character]
‘Pitiful’ Hans
Not needed.
“What about you? Name?”
“Farmer.”
Ding!
[Character]
‘Drunkard’ Farmer
You’re not needed either.
After he had made the rounds for a while, the people who had been sitting around in despair began staring at Ian as if he had turned into something strange.
What is he trying to do now?
Ian ignored their looks and called over the cheerful farmer.
“Peter. Come here.”
“Huh? Me?”
He’s the only useful one.
“You too.”
Ian called Sema over as well.
“Ah! Me too?”
Sema was not particularly suited to physical labor, but he did have <Liquid Property Manipulation>. Used properly, that magic could improve their efficiency.
The problem is... with his success rate, I’m not sure it’ll actually improve anything.
Ian rubbed his forehead.
There was no other option. If this plan succeeded, the characters involved would gain experience. Unfortunately, Ian had no other heroes to level. Sema needed training too.
At least he listened.
Sema, who had no idea why he had been chosen, was brimming with enthusiasm.
His new master had to be a clever person. He would not give meaningless orders. The fact that Ian considered him necessary for the task made Sema genuinely happy.
Until now, he had always been the useless one.
But the direction they were heading in was strange.
They were going deeper into the cave.
Far past the place where the priest had been knocked out—no, put to sleep.
“Lord Ian, Lord Ian. Where are we going?”
“Underground.”
“Ah, I see. And why are ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ we going underground?”
“Because the Demon Archduke will be here soon.”
“Oh, I see. Wait, what?!”
Peter looked just as shocked.
“Are we running away? If we’re running away, shouldn’t we go outside? But it feels wrong to just abandon everyone... shouldn’t we at least warn them first?”
“Where exactly are we supposed to run when the Demon Archduke is coming?” Sema said, suddenly serious. “Shouldn’t we prepare instead? Ah, I understand! We’re hiding deeper inside the cave!”
“No. Not that.”
Ian ran his hand along the wall.
Most sections felt normal. But at one particular spot, his stamina began draining at an alarming rate.
Ding!
[You have been exposed to demonic energy beyond your tolerance. Your health is decreasing.]
Ding!
[Continuous exposure to demonic energy will curse you.]
Found it.
Ian had not invested any of the experience he had earned from clearing the tutorial yet.
He was going to use it now.
Invest all experience points.
Ding!
[Skill has leveled up.]
[Purification: LV.2]
[Purification: LV.3]
[Purification: LV.4]
Ding. Ding. Ding.
The notifications kept ringing as <Purification> leveled up one after another.
Ian’s tutorial route had not originally been designed for a perfect victory. Back when he had been a newbie, he had often cleared the tutorial through half-successes or by avoiding the hardest parts entirely.
The Warrikka Tribe was too strong for beginners to handle head-on.
But this time, Ian had wiped them out and even taken prisoners. There was no way the reward would be small. He poured every last point of that experience into <Purification>.
It paid off.
<Purification> reached level 4.
Purification is normally a late-game skill...
It was meant to be used against high-ranking demons who appeared much later in the game.
To defeat powerful demons, first you had to be able to approach them. The problem was that demons usually wrapped themselves in demonic energy like armor. Humans with low resistance could not even get close. Before they ever reached the high-level areas, they would collapse under curses and debuffs.
<Purification> existed to remove that demonic energy.
It weakened a demon’s aura, cleansed curses, and could even turn undead.
The issue was that demons, curses, and undead were all late-game content.
Unless the developers had lost their minds, they would not release dragons into a low-level zone.
Unfortunately, these developers were insane.
They’re throwing a Demon Archduke at me as a reward for clearing the tutorial?
And not just any demon, either.
One of the four Demon Archdukes of the continent.
If Ian was going to face something like that, he had to unleash something on the same scale.
Maybe, for example, a dragon sleeping beneath the cave.
These developers are seriously out of their minds.
Cursing under his breath, Ian gave Peter his instructions.
“Dig here.”
“Huh?”
“Dig. We need to go underground. Make it like a tunnel.”
Peter took out a tool, then asked hesitantly, “How far underground are we going?”
“To the end of this cave.”
“Where is that...?” Sema asked this time.
Ian could not understand why they kept asking so many questions.
In the game, I just gave an order and they followed it. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
Still, judging by their faces, they were not going to start digging unless he gave them some kind of explanation.
Ian clicked his tongue inwardly and spoke.
“Didn’t anything feel strange when we came in? This cave is far too large.”
“Well... I did think it was big, but caves can be big, can’t they?”
“Normally, yes. How far do you think we’ve come?”
“Uh...”
Sema’s eyes rolled as he tried to calculate it.
Ian did not give him time.
“We’ve come deep. Too deep. A cave like this couldn’t have formed naturally.”
“You’re saying someone made this cave?” Sema’s eyes widened.
“Exactly. And caves this big usually have owners.”
Of course, both of them understood what that meant.
But there’s no owner here.
Instead, there was a dragon buried beneath it.
Ian still did not know why things had ended up that way. Maybe the developers had simply wanted to mess with the players.
“If something carved out a cave this size...” Sema stammered, despite being a wizard himself, “then the owner must be enormous. Or maybe some kind of mad wizard...”
In truth, only a giant monster or a lunatic wizard would make a hideout inside a cave this massive.
Farmer Peter gulped.
“Do you think the owner of the cave will spare us? I’m not sure this is safe...”
“Of course it’s dangerous. That’s why you need to dig carefully. We have to do this without being noticed.”
“How do we dig without being noticed?”
“Carefully.”
“......”
“If we get caught, we die. But if we’re too slow, we die anyway when the demons chasing us catch up.”
Sema’s eyes went wide.
“But Lord Ian, how do you know demons are chasing us? I’m not doubting you, but demons aren’t exactly common. And I haven’t sensed anything...”
Their faces had gone pale.
Demons were different from ordinary monsters. They were higher beings, capable of controlling lower monsters as easily as people handled trained beasts.
Sharp.
Ian quickly searched for an excuse.
He could not exactly say, Because I saw it in the game.
“Sir Keith is here.”
“And...?”
“Do you think a knight of that caliber would really come just to rescue us? How many people do you think are begging the Papal States for help right now? It’s not as if they have manpower to spare. Obviously, there has to be another reason he came.”
“Yeah... I suppose so.” freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
Sema was convinced.
Peter nodded too, though his expression still seemed to say, Is that how it works?
Keith would absolutely jump into any rescue mission, though.
“Only something like demon hunting would make the Papal States send someone like Sir Keith,” Ian said without blinking.
“I see...!”
Both of them accepted it.
Ian nodded in satisfaction.
“It’s obvious there are demons nearby. And we’ve been rolling around in monster corpses, then coming back to this cave. We must stink of monsters and human blood. If you were a demon, wouldn’t you chase us?”
“Yeah, I would! What do we do?! We’re in serious trouble!”
“I’ll dig faster!”
Peter drove his shovel into the ground and began digging with all his strength.
“I’ll call the others!” Sema said. “If they hear this, they’ll help clear the path!”
“You want to tell a group of people who already look ready to die that demons are chasing them? Are you trying to make them hang themselves?”
“Ah...”
Sema groaned.
He understood the mood among the others. As a useless mage in the Magic Tower, he had often spent more time with laborers than with actual mages.
Ian’s people were not soldiers.
They were former servants who had been turned into “soldiers” because the kingdom was short on manpower.
In other words, they were workers.
A little sturdier than most, perhaps, but workers all the same.
They’re not troops. They’re refugees with shovels.
Ian’s assessment was brutally accurate.
“But we can’t dig this path with just our own strength, can we?”
Sema kicked at the ground.
“That’s where you come in,” Ian said with a nod.
“Huh? Me?”
“Yes. Use <Liquid Property Manipulation> on the ground.”
“On the ground...? How? This isn’t water.”
“What falls from the ceiling?”
“Water.”
“And the earth holds moisture too.”
“......”
Ian opened Sema’s status window.
Then he invested all of Sema’s saved level-up experience into a single skill.
Ding!
[Liquid Property Manipulation: LV.3]
Ding!
[Liquid Property Manipulation: LV.4]
