Chapter 341: Balak (1)
-Ding!
[You have exited the 10th underground level, 'Lost Paradise']
[Entering the 11th underground level 'River of Flow']
.
.
Vikir felt his vision slowly brighten.
When he looked up, he was alone, seemingly separated from Dolores, who was beside him.
"I've fallen into a bad place."
Vikir looked around at his surroundings.
Razor-sharp leaves and thorny bushes.
The climate hot and humid.
In the distance, a large, gently winding river circled the forest.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary jungle, but there was one crucial difference.
Daylily of Blood.
These grotesque aquatic plants cover the surface of the river.
A colony. Vikir had fallen into the center of a colony of blood daylilies.
" ...Are they surrounding this jungle? It will be difficult to go out like this."
The blood daylilies covered every inch of the river that circled the jungle.
They were so numerous that it was hard to see them all at a glance.
Vikir pulled a picaresque mask over his face in case the daylilies gave off poisonous gas.
"Looks like a normal jungle, except for the daylilies."
Vikir turned his gaze back to the forest.
A moment.
"...!"
Vikir realized something was wrong.
He hadn't realized it until he was distracted by the daylilies that filled the vast river.
The jungle looked the same now as it had when Vikir first looked at it earlier.
The basic landscape remained the same, with large boulders and giant trees, but everything else was changing in real time.
Tsutsutsutsutsuts...
Leaves sprouted from the dainty branches, then blossomed into flowers and fruits.
The fruit then falls back to the ground, sprouting seeds, and the original branch shrivels up and dies.
Everything in the forest is born and dies at an incredible rate.
It was as if time was being rewind dozens of times.
Vikir looked at the standing water in the muddy puddle.
The water was evaporating at a noticeable rate, shrinking.
The tiny eggs in the puddle hatched in the blink of an eye and turned into tiny flying insects.
They flew up into the sky, fluttered around a few times, and then fell to their deaths.
"...Is that a mayfly?"
Something is definitely wrong if a mayfly, which usually lives for about seventeen hours after two days, can die so quickly.
'Time passes quickly.'
Vikir once again paid attention to the name of this floor.
<Level 11, 'River of Flow'>
Time flows like a river.
Perhaps the name of this floor refers not to the surrounding river, but to the swift passage of time.
"A jungle where time flows quickly. Another strange place."
To be precise, it's a place where only the time of organisms passes quickly.
The breeze on his nose, the speed of the river's flow, these things were no different from the normal world.
Vikir noted his body.
Tsutsutsutsuts...
The marks of his deep wounds were noticeably fading.
This was a speed that even a Basilisk's regenerative powers could not match.
'...The passage of time is even faster than I thought.'
Vikir's expression hardened.
Considering that recovery was so rapid, it was highly likely that time was passing at a much faster rate than 2 or 3 times.
"We'd better hurry."
Vikir tapped his foot quickly, feeling the time running out.
* * *
Vikir paused and looked around the jungle.
As he moved away from the river and into the center of the forest, he frowned as the sunlight filtered through the leaves.
'It's not going to be easy to spot the enemy in this.'
Blue and red, blue and purple.
The trees around them were changing color every few seconds, casting a brilliant glow over the jungle.
The splendor is incomparable to the huge stained glass on Quovadis Street.
"...."
Vikir decided to change his method of searching the jungle.
The scariest thing in a jungle battlefield is not the enemy, but nature itself.
Vikir understood this well, having lived in the Red and Black Mountains.
If you don't know the ecology of a jungle, don't tread near it.
That was the rule of Balak's rangers.
Still, the good news was that it was only the plants that had changed.
Perhaps the only thing that has adapted in this great river is the plants.
For them, aging is a natural and familiar concept.
"We'll have to climb a tree for now."
Vikir quickly decided on his next move.
It's better to get out of a place like this quickly than anything else.
Staring at it would only make his head hurt.
He grabbed the vines around him,
Sreuk-
The tree vines fell helplessly.
In the meantime, the vines have dried up and grown new ones from their roots.
Tub-
Vikir grabbed the tree trunk for good.
He'd had enough of tree climbing when he was in the military.
It was an abnormally large tree, but with Vikir's tree-climbing skills and his current physical abilities, he should be able to climb it without difficulty.
"For now, we'll go to higher ground...."
Vikir stroked his chin and muttered.
...Ping!
A strange sound sounded in his ears.
Ssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
An arrow flying with such incredible speed that even Vikir could barely react.
Luckily, Vikir is an expert in archery and ducked his head to avoid the flying arrow.
However, one of his earlobes is torn off.
Puff-puff!
Arrow after arrow flew from an unseen angle.
The attacker seemed to be well-adapted to these woods.
It was only in the area of surprise that Vikir found it difficult to react.
Reading the approximate direction of the arrows, Vikir was dodging them with ease.
'About 74 meters.'
The arrows were clearly coming from a single person.
They all have their own unique heaviness.
While Imperial archery was usually sharp, this archery felt more like a cannon, as if the arrows were being fired with real force.
It's also different from Balak's archery.
Something about this archery is very familiar.
'This is....'
And with that, Vikir tries to deduce information about the attackers,
Shae'ek-!
A flying arrow pierces the rocks behind him.
Flash!
A dull iron light sprayed in front of him.
An extremely small dot shoots out in front of him.
It was a spear.
Since it is stretched out in a straight line, only the front view is visible, and the side view is not visible.
As fast as an arrow, the spear was like a bolt of lightning striking horizontally.
It was aimed directly at Vikir's eyes.
...Tada!
Next, two monsters appeared in front of Vikir's eyes.
A man in his mid-twenties and a woman in her mid-twenties.
Both were nearly naked, their bodies covered in animal skins and leaves.
The man was covered in mud and grass, so it was clear that he was probably hiding in the ground. The woman, on the other hand, had already dried the mud on her body.
'A combination of ranged and melee.'
The man was carrying a long spear and the woman was carrying a large bow, which seemed like a good match.
Swoosh-pass!
The man swings his spear to create a gap, and the arrow from the woman fires right through it.
This was a coordinated draw attack, where the arrow didn't fill in the gap left by the spear, but rather the arrow finished off the path that the spear had deliberately created.
A high-level combination that would be impossible to pull off except between partners who had been practicing together for a very long time.
... But Vikir was a seasoned veteran who had rolled on the battlefield dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times the amount of time they would have combined.
kkilig- kwagig!
Vikir grabbed the spear that was digging into the solar plexus with his hand and spun it around to break it.
...Thud!
The man tries to hold on to the spear, but he's outmatched in strength stats.
Seeing the spearman's wrist snap, Vikir immediately pulled the spear away.
hwaeg- kwaag!
Reaching for the spearman's throat like a snake, Vikir tightened his grip.
"...kuhg!"
Vikir grabbed the man by the throat and slammed him right into the ground.
The woman behind him jumped back in horror.
Puff-puff-puff!
With the man in danger, she used her superhuman strength to fire four arrows at once.
All while running!
But Vikir took a step back and at the same time stretched out his other hand forward.
The arrows are visible in real time as they slip through his five outstretched fingers.
'It's helping that I raised my Reflexes stat.'
Even though it was only a 1 increase, the effect was amazing, as it was like having a stat that didn't exist at all.
...Charak!
Vikir caught all four of the flying arrows with a single movement of his hand.
"No, no way!"
The woman muttered in disbelief.
Just then, the man who had been grabbed by the throat by Vikir's hand cried out with all his might.
"Don't come!"
The man was warning the woman.
His voice was so desperate that even as Vikir pressed down with his knees, his entire body shook.
"Run away, you're in danger!"
"... But you've been caught, how can I leave!"
"Go! Go and call for backup!"
"No! I can't go!"
The woman ignored the man's words. She gritted her teeth and drew the dagger she wore on her thigh.
She was about to charge at Vikir, even if it meant giving up her life.
Then. Vikir opened his mouth with a light sigh.
"That's enough. Don Quixote, Usher."
For a moment, the struggling man and woman stopped moving.
"...!?"
"...!?"
Through the leaves, I see a pair of eyes wide open.
Don Quixote of the spear. Usher of the bow.
It wasn't every day that two people came from such prestigious families.
Then, their mouths opened at the same time.
"...Vikir!"
They scrambled to their feet, wiping the dirt and leaves from their faces.
They were Tudor and Bianca!
They were both surprised and delighted to see their friends for the first time since entering the tower.
But Tudor and Bianca weren't the only ones who were surprised.
Vikir was also stunned as he jumped out of his seat.
"...!"
The two of them removed their leaf masks and muddy makeup to reveal their bare faces.
They looked at least ten years older.
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