The Berserker’s Second Playthrough in the Game - Chapter 6



Only Krnovel

Episode 6. Goblins, Demons, and Children (2)

It’s still too early to get excited. Kadim looked around the inside of the cabin carefully. The first thing to do was to find out if there were any other monsters left.

The stale air, the twilight seeping through the cracks in the walls, exposed the thick dust. Cracked pottery and dried fruits were scattered on the floor. No crying could be heard, and the only smell was the musty smell of the hut. Fortunately, there was no sign of other monsters lurking.

But it wasn’t like he wasn’t popular at all.

‘Ugh… … Ugh, ugh… … .’

Under the table was a girl about six or seven years old. His limbs were tied and his mouth was covered with a cloth.

A deep furrow formed between the savage’s eyebrows.

‘He tied the child up like that and ran away, ra… … .’

It was a sight that was completely unacceptable, unless they were sacrificing a child to goblins.

There must have been some complicated circumstances that he didn’t want to understand. Kadim decided to release the child from his restraints and listen to the situation.

The rope had been tied so tightly that the boy’s forearms were all over it. The rag was soaked with saliva and snot. Kadim squatted down to get eye level with the boy and asked him:

“I have a question. Where did your parents go?”

“Sigh, ugh… … Heeeeeelp, Mom, heeeeeelp… … .”

Instead of answering, the child burst into tears and crawled to the corner. Kadim slowly raised her body and approached her again.

“Hey, if you just answer, I won’t hurt you, so don’t cry…” … .”

“Eek, mom, mommy, eww, eek, eeeeek… .”

It was meaningless to free him and save him. The sight of the vicious savage was just scary to the child. Kadim clicked his tongue and muttered something unpleasant.

“… … Damn it.”

The problem was solved only when the peddler came.

Duncan enters the cabin late and is snooping around. He looked very frightened, wondering if there might be a monster or a devil. He was momentarily appalled when he saw the goblin with its head split open, but he consoled himself by saying that it was better than facing a live goblin.

Kadim instructed him to try and calm the child down. Duncan nodded grimly.

Duncan takes out a licorice root, puts it in the child’s mouth, and shakes the metal rattle vigorously.

“Urururur, oh my, young lady! If you keep crying like that, the stream next to the village will overflow! Stop crying after seeing this! Please stop, tinkling tinkling!”

“Huh, huh, huh…” … .”

Although the child still seemed anxious, the sweet taste in his mouth and the peddler’s wit helped him stop crying. Kadim glanced sideways.

“You’re talented. Did you work as a nanny before becoming a peddler?”

Duncan was momentarily taken aback by the unbiased question.

“Ah, ahaha… … That’s not it, Your Majesty. My son back home is exactly the same age… … .”

Kadim nodded indifferently, as if it was none of his business. Now it was time to hear the child’s situation.

“Hey, kid. What happened? “Where did your parents go, and who tied you up and left you there?”

“Mom and Dad. Sob, Mom and Dad abandoned me… … .”

“… … .”

“Ew, what?”

Upon hearing the unexpected situation, Duncan looked like a rabbit. Just as Kadim narrowed his eyes, the cabin door burst open.

There were quite a few people standing in front of them. A bearded man holding an axe, a woman with a disheveled appearance, and a group of children who appeared to be their children.

The woman shouted in a very excited voice.

“Lenny! baby! baby!!”

“Damn it! Be quiet! There might still be goblins inside… … .”

The man tried to dissuade him, but there was no choice. The woman even shook off her hold and rushed towards her child.

“Lenny! Are you okay, Lenny? Oh my god, baby… … .”

“Oh, Mom… … .”

The woman hugged the child tightly. However, the child did not look relieved even in the mother’s arms. While the woman mumbled her prayers of thanks, her tears streaming down her face, the child looked confused and his little shoulders trembled.

Meanwhile, the man holding the hatchet flinched and trembled at the sight of the large, bloody savage. And when he saw the goblin with his head cut in half, he flinched again.

The man asked, trying hard to suppress his nervousness.

“This, this, you did this?”

“No, my sword did that.”

The man gave a blank look on his face. He Kadim approached the table. Then he planted the knife on the plank floor and sat down on a relatively small chair.

“I want to hear your story about what happened. “Have you been possessed by a devil and sacrificed your child?”

Squeak, the wooden chair let out an old scream, and everyone inside and outside the hut swallowed their saliva at the same time.

*

The woman took all the children outside. All the heads of the slash-and-burn village gathered in the man’s hut.

Pea stew and crusty bread under a flickering candle. They served a simple dinner and told their stories to savages and peddlers.

“This was originally a forest teeming with goblins. When the land we had previously lived in ran out of energy, we set it on fire and moved here. “When they saw the fire, most of the nearby goblins ran away.”

“… … But something strange happened. Some time ago, the remaining goblins in the forest started attacking us. They were so ferocious that many people were injured. “This guy was hit with a stick and his bones were broken, and this guy had his scalp bitten off and he almost went bald.”

The man pointed to a young man with a splint on his forearm and a middle-aged man covered in tattered rags. The two people did not hide their gloomy faces.

“Of course we didn’t sit still. We gathered the village’s men and set out to exterminate the goblins. But there… … “I ended up seeing ‘that’ with the goblins.”

Its bulging eyes, teeth like hacksaws, and ears stretched out to the side were sharper than those of a goblin. The skin is all dark red. His forearms were thin and thin, but his fingernails and hands were abnormally enlarged.

A bizarre atmosphere, as if it were not a creature of this world.

What was most shocking of all was the fact that it could speak human language.

-Humans… … are they?

A chilling voice that makes you lose your will to fight when you hear it. The faces of the villagers who recalled the voice all distorted. Kadim, who guessed the identity of the culprit, reacted calmly.

“How many horns did you have on your head?”

“……hmm?”

“How many horns did he have on his head?”

“uh… … There wasn’t. “There wasn’t one.”

“… … .”

If you wanted to know how strong a demon was, the most intuitive way to do so was to look at how many horns it had on its head.

According to the classification that Kadim remembers, demons without any horns were classified as low level, and each time they had more complete horns, they were promoted to intermediate level and higher level.

Kadim then asked if there were any strange abilities or characteristics. The man replied that the already ferocious goblins became especially ferocious when in the demon’s presence.

It wasn’t a particularly strange ability. Monsters that were close to demons or ate demon flesh naturally became more aggressive and stronger. The monsters became demons under the influence of ‘magic’.

Kadim estimated the level of the demon based on the testimony.

‘The grade is low. There are no special characteristics that distinguish it from other demons, so is it a ‘original’ type? … … ‘It won’t be difficult to deal with.’

Meanwhile, the man hesitated, observing Kadim’s expression. When he looked at the other villagers, they nodded their heads with gloomy faces. Only then did the man begin to speak again, with difficulty.

“we… … I didn’t have the strength to deal with those demons and goblins. “I barely managed to stop the goblins’ attack, but eventually surrendered to the devil out of desperation.”

“… … .”

“Surprisingly, the devil saved us. Instead, I made this suggestion: He will come to the village next week and ask each family to offer up one of the most useless children as a sacrifice. So we… … “He tied up the child in the house and left the place.”

The man’s youngest daughter survived because the goblin was the last to come to the man’s house. However, her children had already been kidnapped by goblins from the other house. A deep sadness appeared on the faces of the heads of families who lost their children.

At that moment, Duncan, who had been listening to the story quietly, suddenly got up in excitement.

“No, are you all crazy? How can you sacrifice your child to the devil? And then call yourself parents?”

The eyes of the man and the residents twitched and trembled.

If the person who brought up the subject had been a fierce-looking savage, they would have hung their heads in silence. However, since it was a relatively easy-going peddler, the farmers refuted it in an angry tone.

“… … Then what were we supposed to do? We are free people who have escaped the hands of the lord. We cannot expect the protection of the lord or the help of the paladins. Are you saying that we should all just die fighting the devil?”

“Huh, is it really necessary to fight? You guys are slash-and-burn farmers, right? Then why don’t you just abandon your hut and run away somewhere else?”

“That can’t be! It’s not easy to find a place to settle like this, and we’ve already finished sowing! Last year’s harvest was not good, and giving up on this year’s farming is no different from telling us to starve to death!”

“No, no matter what, how can you do that to a girl who is not even ten years old…” … .”

“Damn it, who would want to do that? The devil said so! Offer up the most useless child!!”

“Damn it, then who would you have sacrificed? Your son, who is now grown enough to do his own thing? Your daughter, who is just waiting for the day to get married? Who on earth would you have sacrificed? Tell me! Tell me!!”

People got blood in their necks and started screaming. The atmosphere became tense, as if a grab would break out at any moment.

Duncan, who had belatedly grasped the mood, was flustered and panicked. The sound of the high voice encroached upon the cabin, and the distorted shadows cast by the candlelight rippled wildly.

Bang – !

The commotion ended with a heavy noise.

As soon as he struck with his fist, the table shattered into pieces. The food and candles on it spilled onto the floor in a mess. The savage looked at the spilled candle holder with a dry gaze. He slowly extinguished the candle with his foot before it could stick to the board.

Breathtaking silence. Eyes filled with fear wandered aimlessly in the darkness. Some people were worried that their heartbeat would be too loud to be heard, while others squeezed their eyes shut and swallowed dry saliva to suppress sneezing.

Kadim looked around at the frightened faces. He didn’t really want to argue. He wasn’t in a position to morally condemn them.

He didn’t want any fuss. Right now, all he wanted was one thing.

“Where is the devil now?”

A resident in front managed to answer.

“… … It’s in a cave deep inside the forest. “All the goblins are also making a home there.”

“Take me there. I’ll come back and eat.”

The eyes of the residents all grew wide. Their eyes were a mixture of confusion, hope and fear.

“Ji, are you going right now? Wouldn’t it be too dangerous to deal with demons on a dark night like this? It would be better to wait for dawn and then go… … .”

Kadim tilted his head as if he was hearing all sorts of strange things.

“If you want the body to be fresh, wouldn’t it be better to go as quickly as possible?”

The subject was omitted, but I could clearly understand what was being said. The residents quickly turned on the lights and prepared to guide Khadim.

But the owner of this cabin had a rather lukewarm attitude.

The man was worried about something completely different from others. He kept glancing at the broken table and the savage. He mumbled the words he had been holding in his mouth and came closer to Khadim, spitting them out.

“I’m sorry to say this, but we don’t really have anything to offer you in compensation. As you can see, the entire village is barely surviving, so it would be difficult to offer you money, let alone meals other than dinner… .”

“I will accept it if you give it to me, but there is no need to pay anything in particular. “I do it because I need to.”

“Oh, really? Heh, heh! Thank you so much for this! You will be blessed, uh… … “A mercenary man!”

Although they can’t be sold openly, the devil’s byproducts make money. That’s why I heard that there are often mercenaries who hunt only devils, like the paladins. The man stroked his beard and smiled secretly.

The table was broken and it was a bit disappointing. After all, her daughter wasn’t kidnapped. But if the man asked for money, there would have been unnecessary joint expenses. She didn’t know how fortunate she was to be able to hire someone for free.

But Kadim’s words were not over.

“I wish I could give you this instead. “I only have one weapon right now.”

Kadim lifted the small hatchet the man had been using. A faint wrinkle appeared between the man’s eyebrows.

“Uh, this was made for cutting down miscellaneous trees… … Wouldn’t it be inappropriate to kill a demon? If you go to another house, there is a bigger and heavier axe, but it would be better to take that… … .”

Boom – !

The hatchet rushed at him quickly and cut off the man’s words.

“… … “Huh, huh!”

A man squinting at the ax blade stuck right next to his temple. The force of the throw was so strong that it pierced half of the wooden wall. The thought that even if his aim had been just a little bit off, his head would have been messed up made him feel bitter.

Of course, there was no way he would miss his aim. In the previous rounds, he had killed something by hitting it with an axe several thousand times. The savage’s throwing skills had reached a level where he could hit an ant a hundred paces away with his eyes closed.

Even though he had lost his strength, his senses had not disappeared. Kadim pulled out his axe and spoke softly as he retrieved it.

“no. “This is perfect.”

The man lost all strength in his legs and collapsed to the ground.