WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Alyo

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Surviving as a Warrior in a TRPG World ◈

Chapter 7: Priest and Adventurer (6)

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Lugos muttered bitterly as he ran his fingers over the Skillbook fragment, then continued.

“Still... I’m one of the lucky ones. It may be a lesser class, but I can still gain a class. Most adventurers die or retire without even seeing a Skillbook, much less changing classes.”

After grumbling for a while, Lugos looked somewhat relieved. Then he began packing up the various pieces of equipment scattered across the floor.

“...Are you leaving?”

“I have to. I’m healed, so what’s the point of staying?”

Gerik had grown attached to Lugos, and he thought he could learn more about adventurers if Lugos stayed. He tried to talk him out of leaving.

But Lugos had made up his mind and continued to insist on leaving. As Gerik argued with him, something the leader Aron had said earlier came to mind.

“Come to think of it, your companions told you to wait here because they’d return after finishing their mission in Norton.”

“Hmm...”

“If you go off on your own and miss each other, that’ll be even more troublesome. Why are you so determined to leave? Just rest a little longer.”

Perhaps Gerik’s reasoning had left him speechless. Lugos let out a low groan and fell silent. At last, he spoke with an expression of reluctant surrender.

“Fine. I’ll be honest. Something feels wrong.”

“...Something feels wrong?”

Gerik was puzzled by the sudden explanation. Lugos told him that, given his companions’ abilities, they should have finished their mission and returned long ago.

“From here to Norton, it takes ordinary people like you fifteen days. Even with a penalty forcing them to take a roundabout route, capable adventurers can make it in a week. But they still haven’t returned? Something definitely happened.”

“Uh...”

“If it were only that, it wouldn’t matter. The problem is your family.”

Lugos feared that if the people who attacked his party killed his companions and still failed to find what they wanted, they might track him down.

“If I leave, at least your family and the villagers will be safe.”

“But...”

Seeing Gerik worry about him, Lugos shook his head more firmly than before.

“I’d rather die than repay kindness with enmity. That principle is what’s kept me from going mad while working this filthy adventurer job. So I have to leave, if only for my own sake.”

As he packed, Lugos seemed to remember something and added one last thing.

“You seem genuinely interested in becoming an adventurer, so let me give you one final piece of advice. Never cross the line of basic human decency. Be careful that you don’t become a monster yourself.”

Lugos said that people blinded by profit would make excuses and cross the line bit by bit. In the end, they would commit inhuman acts, and it would always end in tragedy.

“They were all like that. Even those exceptionally strong adventurers... In the end, they believed they would always win, crossed the line, and got hunted down by someone stronger. So be careful not to get drunk on your own power and become a monster. If you don’t want to be hunted.”

Hearing Lugos’s sincere advice and the reason behind it, Gerik gave up trying to persuade him.

Instead, he offered to prepare a few days’ worth of simple provisions to help him.

“I understand. But could you wait just a little? I want to pack something for you. You can’t set off on a long journey without proper food.”

“...All right. Then I’ll go say goodbye to the priest. Meet me at the monastery. Since you’re packing things anyway, bring some simple supplies like oiled cloth as well.”

“I will. I’ll see you there.”

While Gerik gathered supplies, Lugos left the house to say goodbye to Priest Osrik, who had treated him all this time.

Baron and his wife, who had been chopping firewood, were startled by the news of Lugos’s sudden departure. Gerik asked them to prepare provisions for him.

Since Lugos had given them a considerable sum, Baron and his wife readily agreed.

“You’ve come?”

“Yes. Please take this.”

“Mm.”

About an hour later, Gerik arrived at the old monastery and handed Lugos the items he had prepared for the journey. Lugos was chatting with Priest Osrik.

“I wish you a safe journey.”

“Thank you for everything, Priest.”

As Lugos left the monastery, he said his farewells to the priest and Gerik. They exchanged well wishes, and just as Lugos was about to leave, he suddenly flinched and looked toward the village.

“What is it...?”

“...I think I heard a scream from your village just now.”

“What? I didn’t hear anything...”

Gerik truly had not heard a thing, so he was confused. Priest Osrik, on the other hand, froze at Lugos’s words and looked toward the village as well. After listening for a moment, he spoke.

“...You’re right. I think I can hear a sharp cry.”

Gerik still could not hear anything, but even Priest Osrik had heard screams. Startled, he strained his ears.

“It’s no use trying. The priest and I have better physical abilities than ordinary people, so we can hear it.”

With a grim expression, Lugos adjusted his leather armor and took up the longsword and shield at his waist, preparing for battle.

Then thick smoke began to rise from the direction of the village. Unable to bear it any longer, Lugos gripped his weapons and readied himself to head there at once.

“Wait. I’ll get my equipment too. Let’s go together.”

Looking at the smoke, the priest stopped Lugos and hurried inside the monastery.

While Osrik gathered his equipment, Lugos handed Gerik the longsword slung across his back and his traveling pack.

“Do you remember the emergency hideout we made together yesterday?”

“What? Yes...”

“Hide there. Don’t use the longsword unless it’s a truly dangerous situation. Understand?”

“What? I’m coming too! My family is...”

The sight of smoke rising from the village made Gerik blurt it out without thinking.

“No.”

Lugos cut him off without hesitation.

“What are you going to do if you come? You’ve never even swung a sword properly. You’ll only be dead weight.”

“But...”

“If you follow us, the priest and I will have to protect you while we fight. Then even the people who could survive will die!”

It was logic too sharp to refute. Gerik had no choice but to close his mouth.

In the end, Gerik said he understood. Lugos patted his head and told him that if neither he nor the priest returned, Gerik was to stay hidden in the shelter for at least three days.

“At least three days. Got it? Promise me.”

“Yes... I promise.”

Lugos kept throwing out death flags one after another. Gerik, who had not thought much of it before, was beginning to feel uneasy when Priest Osrik emerged from the monastery, wearing a helmet and chainmail with a heavy mace slung over his shoulder.

“Let’s go.”

Without a word, Lugos took up his sword and shield and followed the priest back toward Mudholm.

Gerik watched them for a long time, then let out a sigh and made his way to the temporary hideout he and Lugos had built the day before.

“...This is how he said to do it, right?”

Following Lugos’s instructions, Gerik laid out the sleeping bag in the temporary hideout to block the damp, then covered the hideout with leaves and branches to reinforce its concealment. He lay inside, hiding himself, and thought.

‘Please... let nothing be wrong...’

Lugos and the others had not stayed here for long. They had only stopped by briefly. Gerik tried to reassure himself that those thugs had no reason to attack a perfectly ordinary village.

But no sounds came from the forest, no matter how much time passed. No birdsong, no branches brushing in the wind.

He waited to hear something, anything, from the direction of the village, but all that returned was a terrible silence.

‘...Is it really that serious?’

The quieter it became, the more the anxiety he had forced down swelled inside him. Gerik watched the light filtering through the fallen leaves slowly fade.

Anxiety and tension had numbed his senses so much that he had forgotten he was crammed into a narrow hideout.

‘...It’s cold.’

Once the sun set, the forest’s chill seeped into his bones. His body temperature dropped sharply, and his dulled senses gradually cleared.

Scrape... Scrape...

The space was so cramped that even a small movement made his body and belongings rub together.

Worried the noise might cause trouble, Gerik carefully lowered his backpack and pulled the sleeping bag over himself.

“Whew...”

Perhaps it had been made from good leather by a skilled craftsman. Lugos’s sleeping bag gave Gerik’s body a welcome warmth.

‘Please let them be safe.’

Remembering that the sleeping bag’s owner had headed toward the village wearing nothing but armor made the warmth less welcome.

As he curled up inside the sleeping bag, a pungent smell gradually reached his nose.

“No way...?”

Gerik cracked open the entrance to the hideout and looked toward the village. Far thicker smoke than before was rising in that direction.

‘Those bastards... Are they planning to turn the whole village into a sea of fire?’

The acrid smell of smoke turned his stomach. If he carelessly peeked outside and made eye contact with someone, it would be over. Gerik quickly pulled his head back and curled deeper into the hideout, rearranging the leaves and rocks to conceal it again.

‘A little more Orksh sap...’

Just in case, Gerik snapped off an Orksh branch, extracted its sap, and sprinkled it around the entrance as Lugos had taught him.

Once he had done everything he could, Gerik curled tightly into a corner of the hideout and waited for time to pass.

“Awoo!!”

Gerik had dozed off. He jolted awake at the sound of a wolf howling in the forest. The light that had shone through the leaves was gone, and he realized night had fallen.

“...They still haven’t come back.”

Even after waking, there was still no sign of either man. Gerik felt an urge to check what was happening outside.

‘If I just go out for a moment...’

As he tried to rise, Lugos’s voice echoed in his mind.

『At least three days. Got it? Promise me.』

Remembering his promise, Gerik abandoned the careless thought and lay back down.

‘Like Lugos told me, first...’

He needed to relieve himself, so instead of going outside, Gerik dug into the ground with both hands and made a makeshift toilet.

After struggling for a while, he finally managed to dig a hole the size of a child’s head and urinated.

Gerik filled the hole with dirt and lay down again.

‘Oh, right.’

He remembered Lugos’s advice that he had to sprinkle Orksh sap afterward to erase the smell.

He was hungry and exhausted, and it was bothersome, but he snapped off another branch and scattered the sap just in case.

‘That should do it... Hm?’

Just as Gerik breathed a sigh of relief, he suddenly heard signs of people nearby. His body went rigid with tension.

‘Lugos? Priest...?’

Gerik prayed again and again that the people outside were the ones he had been waiting for.

But his prayer was in vain. Far more people than just the two of them were moving around the hideout.

“Is this the monastery where that damned priest lives?”

“Are you insane? Watch what you say. You’ll be cursed by God!”

One man spoke in a coarse voice that seemed to carry a grudge against Priest Osrik, and one of his companions reacted in horror.

Hearing their conversation, Gerik became certain that they were the unknown group that had raided the village.

‘The villagers and those two really...!’

Realizing that the worst had happened, cold sweat ran down Gerik’s back.

He thought he might cry out in shock, so he clamped both hands over his mouth and desperately hid any sign of his presence.

“No... He’s only an Intermediate Priest. Why are you so scared? It’s not like you haven’t killed a priest or two before.”

“Crazy bastard... Even so, not in front of a monastery...”

The man who had been cursing looked incredulous and mocked his companion for trembling just because he had cursed.

“If you babble carelessly one more time, I’ll rip that mouth of yours apart myself.”

“...”

As the two bickered, someone warned the cursing man in a chilling voice.

There was something in that voice that filled Gerik with extreme dread.

‘...!!’

The moment he recognized it, Gerik’s blood ran cold to his toes. His breath caught, and the hands covering his mouth began to tremble on their own.

It was clearly an ordinary human voice.

Yet it contained something that was hard to believe belonged to a human.

Footnotes:

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