Before going to the open dungeon in the Dark Forest, Elliot decided to get out of sothing important.
The subject of Jeff.
He asked Steward to take him to talk to him. They locked him in a special room, and only Steward and Anna knew where he was.
Jeff was startled to see him arrive, but Elliot simply walked over to where he was and sat down across from him.
"They’re looking tirelessly for you, those guys out there. Apparently, you were very important to them." Elliot said, with a smirk.
Jeff frowned. "...I don’t think you ca here just to tell that."
"Hey." Elliot shrugged. "Is that any way to talk to your savior?"
"Savior? You did all this to ."
"Yeah, but I didn’t kill you. I should have killed you, but I held back. So I’m your savior, am I?"
"You..." Jeff rolled his eyes at such stupidity, but said nothing. He knew Elliot was making fun of him.
"Fine. It’s not like I like seeing you either, so let’s be direct. Work for ."
"Oh? Work for you? What nonsense are you talking about?"
"Hm? Haven’t I told you that before? I think I rember telling you sothing about that. Lately, I’ve been working hard to take down the Clarks soon. I have a small organization that needs to be managed. I have one worker already, but I need soone else. Soone who knows the movents of the Misfits and can do a little dirty work."
"And that’s ?" Jeff frowned. "You... Aren’t you afraid I’ll double-cross you?"
"Hehe, you can try if you want. But I have this, and it was signed by you, " he said and pulled out a magic scroll Steward had given him. There were two types of blood there.
One belonged to him and the other was Jeff’s.
"A blood contract?"
"Yes, of a slave."
Jeff’s heart suddenly raced, feeling strangely desperate. He jerked up and pointed his finger at it.
But he couldn’t utter a word.
He didn’t know what to say.
"Haha. There’s nothing you can do. Such is the life of traitors. You should be thankful that I didn’t put you through hell, and I’m giving you a chance to redeem your mistakes."
"..."
"You’re not talking?"
"...What am I supposed to say?" Jeff returned to his seat, helpless.
"I don’t know. Maybe you could say sothing like: I will endeavor to redeem the mistake of betraying your father, Young Lord. Sothing like that might do the trick, you’d co across as more emotional, and maybe you could move my heart to undo the contract."
"...You’re not the sa as Luke." He said, looking at the dangerous gleam crossing Elliot’s eyes when his father’s na crossed his mouth.
That made Jeff lower his head. "I can see that. You’re no fool."
"Hm? Are you saying my father was dumb?"
Jeff couldn’t answer. He lowered his head more, but it was just what he thought.
That way of thinking about wanting to be a hero was too dumb. Too dumb.
Elliot knew his thoughts, but he didn’t do or say anything. What could he do? It would be hypocritical to move when he thought the sa thing about that ntality, too.
"Well, the thing is, you’ll be working for now." Elliot pulled out several docunts and tossed them to him. "You’ll have to study it to know what you’ll be doing and live in the right location. You have a partner working, but since you’re a scumbag, you can only be good at doing dirty jobs, so try your best to listen to him."
Elliot stood up after he finished speaking.
"I’ll tell you what, Jeff." He grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up. "If you ever do anything foolish...I’ll make your life hell."
Jeff found it hard to breathe, but he nodded twice before he was thrown to the ground.
"The fall of the Clark Family is stipulated to happen soon. I’ll give you a gift if you’re still alive and witness it by then. My father’s dying wish." He said, imdiately catching Jeff’s attention.
But he said no more until he reached the door.
"Rember that right now you’re dead to the city. If anyone learns of your presence... Hehe, you wouldn’t want to know what will happen."
Elliot stepped out and left the door open.
"Are you done?" Steward asked outside.
"Yes. By the way, let him out."
"Okay. Shall we keep an eye on him?"
"No need." Elliot replied.
’I can’t risk whoever’s watching him being a spy, after all.’ He thought inwardly.
"Thank you, Mr. Steward. I’ll get back to the apartnt."
"Haha, good. Get a good rest, and I wish you luck hunting that crow tomorrow."
-
The next day, it was December 17.
The whole group gathered on the outskirts of town... Way out in the suburbs.
It was even farther than the mountains where Elliot found Jeff.
In front of them was a dark forest. Too dark.
Even though there was sunshine, it was so dark inside that it seed as if it were nightti.
Because of the tall trees, the large leaves, and their abundance, not even a ray of sunlight was able to filter into the interior.
Its na is simple: Dark Forest.
Better known as the Dark Forest of the Shadow Crow.
Rich frowned and looked at Elliot.
"Are we really going to hunt that crow?"
"Yes."
"Don’t you know how hard it is to hunt a crow? Let alone the Shadow Crow..."
"Haha, I know all too well."
Rich raised an eyebrow, thinking: You don’t know shit. No one who knows how hard it is to hunt a crow can even think about hunting one.
Still, he knew Elliot did crazy things occasionally, so he tried to remind him.
But he couldn’t.
Elliot and the rest of the group were already walking toward the forest, leaving it behind.
"Hey! Are you guys really going to do it!?" he yelled.
And Chris turned to look at him. "There’s no other way, Rich. Stop whining and walk."
"You bastard! You and I both know how hard it is to hunt those shits down! Why don’t you say sothing!?"
But Rich was forced to walk behind them, as they were all ignoring him. They weren’t going to back down at such an important mont.
It didn’t take them long to realize the type of beasts that were here.
"Dark-scaled Lizard n. Black-Toothed Werewolves and Night Ravens, eh." Elliot. "It’s going to be tricky." He spoke.
"I told you that before I ca in." Rich replied reproachfully.
But still they all kept going deeper.
Dry leaves on the ground covered much of their shoes, so Elliot had to take special care with the snakes.
"On top of it being stressful to hunt these critters, this dungeon doesn’t even give out items, and the beasts are barely worth ntioning... Sigh." Rich continued complaining, but soon he didn’t have ti to do so.
The beasts started attacking them.
Despite Elliot responding fiercely and Jenna and Andrew trying to grab them, these bastards were incredibly cunning.
They avoided their attacks because they attacked from strange places.
For example, sotis they were walking on the body of so lizard man attacking them from below, combined with wolves falling from trees and crows attacking from the sides as if they were wolves.
But the sizes were very different. So when attacking sideways, looking to kill a wolf, their attacks hit nothing, because they ca from above and only managed to remove so feathers from the crows.
anwhile, the lizard n were simply taking advantage of this to disappear.
They were using cunning to attack.
There ca a point where they decided to stop attacking, because they were wearing themselves out unnecessarily and had to start dodging them.
"Do you see why I told you?" Rich started complaining again. "We’ve been walking like idiots in a straight line for two hours now, and the boss, where is he? Nobody knows. Because the boss is a bastard who’s possibly watching us from above, having fun while his vassals use cunning to fuck with our lives."
"Shit. I haven’t even gained any energy. Why did we have to hunt these bastards? Can’t you find another beast? God, it would even be more fun to hunt a dragon than this bastard."
He had activated his submachine gun mode to speak. Words were continuously coming out of his mouth, quickly wearing Chris’s patience.
It got to the point where Chris smacked him hard upside the head. "Shut up, you bastard, I’m already stressed out with these crows, and you’re going to get more stressed out than they are!" He roared.
Rich had to keep quiet, but inside, he was still talking nonstop. Maybe there was going to co a point where he would stress himself out.
So, the hours passed...
Their biggest problem in this dungeon was the lack of knowledge about where the boss might be. They basically had to walk in a straight line, hoping to find him and nothing else.
If they couldn’t the first ti, then they just had to do it a 2nd ti...
No rest.
Hunting this could take them, at best, 12 hours. At worst, several days.
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