Grow With In-App Purchases

73. Corrupted Lands Monster Hunt (6)

“But how is the mercenary boss here?”

“Is that weird now?”

It must have been well over 30 minutes since we met that Ariando asked me this question.

For more than 30 minutes, Ariando stretched out on the rock with a full stomach and even took a break.

After leisurely looking up at the sky, he belatedly remembered that this was a polluted area and asked me.

A person who is not an Awakener cannot enter the contaminated area.

“Of course it’s because it’s an awakened person.”

“????”

The child is unable to grasp the situation.

“It’s really nothing. I was only able to come in because I was awakened.”

“So you’re not the mercenary boss?”

“A mercenary is right, and a general store owner is also right? It just has a rather complicated story.”

To be honest, my face is burning because I’m a little embarrassed.

I entered the contaminated area because I was afraid he would die, but on the contrary, I almost died and was not saved.

Still, I decided to shamelessly put an iron plate on my face.

Ariando also seemed to see the situation as natural.

“Actually, it wasn’t long before I woke up.”

“Eh? How long ago?”

What do you mean? Ariand tilted his head with a look.

“It means that I woke up at the age of 30. It’s not like you and I woke up when we were young.”

“Is that possible?!”

“I don’t know. But I’m doing it because I’ve experienced it rather than whether it’s possible.”

“Wow. amazing! Congratulations to the mercenary boss!”

“Okay. This is not something to celebrate.”

“????”

“If you report an Awakener, you will be taken to the military at this age, right? If you are discharged, you will be in your 40s.”

“omg!”

Ariando’s eyes widened in shock.

“Besides, I never trained at an academy. It hasn’t been long since I awakened my abilities, so I haven’t realized what abilities I can use yet.”

“Hey!?”

Ariando teases his chubby cheeks with a monstrous scream.

Since the child’s cheeks are so chubby, the cheeks sway as they are crushed here and there, but it was rather cute.

A cuteness that is very different from the look that saved me coolly earlier.

“So what? It’s a big deal! Did you report it?”

“I haven’t done it yet. If you look at the frontline situation right now, you’ll be taken away as soon as you report it, right? Saying that the shield rolled in by itself.”

I don’t have the slightest desire to suffer like that.

I was going to hold on as long as I could without continuing to report it.

I also had the idea to steadily select SSR characters to build friendships and lean on their power.

No matter how much the military units are like My Way, they are the ones who shout out, “We are the best!”, but the high-ranking aristocrats protect them, and it would be burdensome to enlist me in the army, ignoring that.

“But the mercenary boss is a special case. Wouldn’t it be?”

“I heard that a commoner with no background awakened abruptly, wouldn’t you think, then enlist in the army and use your abilities?”

“……”

Ariando sulked.

“Anyway, this will be fine as long as you keep it a secret, so don’t worry about it. Come on, let’s get out of here. It took much longer than expected. How long will they be looking for you in your house?”

My body was still shaking a bit.

Did Ariando really see the shadow?

If I had seen it, I wouldn’t have been able to be so calm.

“You… no, no.”

“???”

It seemed careless to mention the shadows carelessly.

Don’t you know anyway?

Will you secretly follow us just because you talked about yourself?

‘There’s a good chance you haven’t seen it. At least if I saw that, there’s no way I could be so calm.’

What the hell was that shadow?

Thinking of the shadow kept giving me goose bumps.

It becomes stiff again, as if caught in a spasticity.

Now was not the time to tremble in fear, thinking of the shadows.

I had to get out of here as soon as possible.

Of course, you have to take care of things before that.

“I need to get that by-product.”

“Ah… It’s annoying.”

The place I pointed to was the corpse of the monster he had killed.

Throwing it away was like throwing money on the ground.

“ah! Since I took this, the mercenary boss should take that! I don’t care.”

Ariando shows a novel bag (?) tied with leaves of grass behind his back.

“What head is that?”

Having already been harassed by the two-headed wolves, I was fed up with the reappearance of the wolves.

“This is the head of the monster that tried to kill my sister!”

“Did you get your loot in the meantime?”

The monster’s face was almost as big as Ariando’s.

Shouldn’t I have packed my bag with that spirit?

“Ehehehehe, I was so surprised that I jumped out with this. When I came to my senses, I was so embarrassed that I only had this in my two hands.”

“Anyway, did you keep carrying that ugly thing?”

“I was going to throw it away at first, but I thought I would regret it later if I didn’t take the loot, so I picked it up again. Besides, monsters didn’t come close to me because I was holding this. hehehehe, I’m quite attached to it.”

Ariando, who was smiling hehehe, looked very bad.

It would have been strange if he had been fine since he had been wandering around the contaminated area for two days alone.

The head is not important, so let’s move on.

“I roughly expected it based on the traces. Did you run into someone else?”

“Yes. I didn’t expect anyone to come nearby. I should have killed him before that. Ehyoo~”

Catching the monster meant using the death penalty, and then the stealth would have been broken, so it would have been inevitable to be caught by people.

What did he really say to those people?

It would be better if I didn’t say anything and ran away.

When asked to explain what happened with them, Ariando scratched the back of his head.

“Actually, I don’t even know that.”

“huh?”

“I don’t remember. I was so embarrassed, I told him not to come near me and ran away. Before that, I was covering my face with this.”

“…At least I couldn’t see what he looked like.”

If you covered your face with that big thing, it’s only natural that it would be completely covered by that small thing.

“Something strange was said, but I couldn’t hear it well, so I forgot.”

“It is enough that the face has not been revealed. Anyway, I can eat this, right?”

“yes.”

Although there is a high probability that he will be accused of being a criminal (?) in that he is exceptionally small, his status as an academy student will protect Ariando.

Since it was discovered by Ariando anyway, I decided not to take the monster’s by-products for a long time.

[Sales amount: KRW 1,250,000]

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amount is crazy

The 14 years of my life as a mercenary and the money I had saved up was about to become futile.

It is understandable that the price jumps because it is handing over all intact corpses, but it was absurd that this baby only cost 1.25 million won.

Imagine that Perongpa was 43,000 won.

When I pressed sell, the monster’s corpse disappeared in an instant.

“uh?! The body is gone!”

Ariando is startled.

“It is my ability.”

“Wow! Interesting. Ah, what is this about?”

“No, it’s over when it’s gone. I can’t take it out again.”

“Um??”

Ariando makes a puzzled expression as if he couldn’t guess my ability at all.

There’s no way I can reveal the details of my ability just because I’m making such a cute expression, right?

“Don’t keep saying unnecessary things, pick up your bag.”

A polluted area that had only existed for a few hours.

Nonetheless, this place was boring.

Once we got our bearings right and started to get out of the contaminated area, it looked like we would be able to get out by the end of the day.

Fortunately, it seems that it was going round and round in a place that was not that deep.

“hehehehe, that way was west.”

“Could you come from there?”

“lol.”

“…”

“There were so many monsters. That’s why I was hiding.”

It seems that the agility stat has risen quite a bit.

“I was thinking that I had to change direction because there were more and more monsters as I went. But I heard the sound of firecrackers in the distance.

I went west and ran all the way here…

I can’t imagine how fast it ran.

‘Is this enough for Tier 1?’

Even if I wrapped my body with buffs with a scroll, I couldn’t keep up with Ariando’s speed.

Actually, I felt this desperately while moving.

“Whoa, let’s take a break.”

“Yes!!”

Ariando, who was resurrected after eating, answered in a clear voice.

The fact that I can finally get out of here makes everything look good.

He looks sloppy because he couldn’t even wash himself, but he’s cute when he’s excited and wanders around.

After taking a short break, we started moving again.

The day was almost over, but he thought it would be better to go outside and make a bed than to spend the night in a polluted area.

“Hey! Look there! We’re finally out!”

Ariando cheered and ran forward first.

In a place where you can see it with your own eyes, you can finally see the boundary line to get out of the contaminated area.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

If the scenario went according to the scenario, it would be normal for Ariando to have someone coming after him.

No matter how early we worked, we needed to be careful because we wasted two days in vain.

Especially since I entered the city, I had to pay attention.

“Press the hood and wear it. Caught.”

“Already?”

“Don’t look at your family as water. They must have tracked it pretty close.”

“omg.”

Ariando listened to me and obediently put on the hood even though he wondered if that was the case.

Because of his short height, Ariando would be suspicious the moment he was seen by those who were looking for him, but it was important not to reveal his face.

“First, let’s wash here and eat, then move right away.”

“Aren’t you taking a day off?”

“I don’t have time for that. Wash up as soon as possible and come out. Even if I can’t, I’ll leave in two hours.”

Ariando wanted to enjoy the civilized life he hadn’t enjoyed in a while, but at my words, he had no choice but to go in to wash.

It was the same for me that I had not been able to wash because I had been living in the forest for a while, so when I soaked in the hot water, my muscles naturally relaxed.

“ha…”

It was the first time I had entered the Contaminated Zone, so I couldn’t help but feel nervous.

I even had a direct chase and chase fight with the monster, so my body couldn’t stop being tense.

“When did you get hurt here?”

He had bruises all over his body.

After I was injured yesterday, I undid the area where I had only bandaged it, applied ointment, and lightly bandaged it.

Some of the ointment’s performance was good, but because the Awakener itself had high regenerative power, this level could be regarded as a scratch.

It’s a level where you don’t even need to take a potion.

The difference between being injured and recovering as an ordinary person and recovering from being injured as an Awakener is that much different.