Survival Story of a Sword King in a Fantasy World

Midsummer Night’s Evil Spirit (3)

The black spirit approached them as it let out an ear-splitting scream.

“Kaaah!”

Emil and Artis stepped back out of sheer fear.

“No way…….”

“The soul of the dead…”

Ryu Han-bin stepped forward, his greatsword in hand.

“Let me have a shot at it.”

Emil looked at him with skeptical eyes.

“Are you crazy? What makes you think you can cut the souls of the dead?”

Han-bin felt puzzled deep in his heart.

He had no idea why Emil thought he was insane.

‘I can cut the living but not the dead?’

It must be what the Latnains believed. In an attempt to appease the Priest, he shouted.

“We can’t lose like this, can we?”

“T-that right…”

Emil quickly cast a spell on the black greatsword.

As the spell enveloped his blade, Han-bin propelled himself forward.

A devastating blow hit the evil spirit.

“Hump!”

He slashed against it with ease.

It was just like swinging a sword through the air.

The spirit immediately launched a counterattack using a whip made out of the shadows.

Weeep!

He quickly positioned the greatsword in front of him to defend himself.

Clash!

The whip passed through the blade and hit his torso.

Han-bin frowned as he stepped back.

‘It really doesn’t work, huh?’

The evil spirit launched another attack.

A series of lashes bombarded him from every direction.

Clash! Clash! Clash! Clash!

He was beaten helplessly.

He had no means of countermeasures against it since its weapon simply passed through every defense he tried to use.

In the pouring whippings, Ryu Han-bin clicked his tongue.

‘It’s not a problem if I get hit by it, but I can’t even fight back.’

Han-bin’s body was strong enough to withstand its attacks since it wasn’t particularly powerful.

It wasn’t that fast either, so he had the option to dodge all of its attacks.

But it was powerful enough to prove fatal against the other party members.

He wasn’t sure if they’d be able to fight it in their real forms, but it was lethal enough to bring instantaneous death to Artis and Effir.

Needless to say, Priest Emil, a simple human being, would prove to be no match against it.

‘I should keep it focused on me!’

He held on without backing down.

He knew it would become a real disaster if he were to retreat and allow the spirit to assault the others.

‘Fortunately, there is only one opponent. For now, I have to endure it and find a way–’

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However, he was proven wrong almost instantaneously.

The evil spirit stopped its attack and stood idly in place.

Han-bin raised his head in wonder.

Keeeeeek!

A door to the corridor opened in the distance.

Another evil black spirit emerged from the doorway.

It had the same silhouette as the other spirit and walked just the same as well.

Han-bin’s face stiffened.

“There’s two now.”

* * *

Door after door opened simultaneously, and from each of them came out spirits as dark as the first two.

Keeeek, keeeek, keeeek…….

The hallway soon became filled with evil beings.

Effir looked at Emil, urgency drowning her eyes.

“What should we do, Priest Emil?”

Emil stuttered.

“I-I’ve never seen a-anything like this before…”

“But you said you’ve already been through something like this!”

“I just heard it from someone else! I merely told you all about it as if it’s based on my own experience story for fun! Oh my God, Althea…….”

Ryu Han-bin calmly talked to Emil, who was muttering the Goddess’s name.

“For now, I will stop them.”

“But how?”

With determined eyes, Han-bin stared at the crowd of evil black spirits.

While everyone was panicking, he remained relatively calm.

He carefully examined the situation, then acted upon his own conclusions!

“Like this!”

Ryu Han-bin swung his sword repeatedly, not at the evil spirits, but the corridors around them and the pillars supporting the ceiling.

An overwhelming force raged inside the crumbling mansion.

Crack! Boom! Boom!

In an instant, the walls and ceiling collapsed.

Parts of the building, lying in ruins, clogged up the entire corridor.

Numerous building ruins clogged up the entire corridor.

Emil was confused.

Indeed, he had just witnessed the incredible power of the Valtara warrior, but…

“What was that all about?”

“I blocked the passage so they wouldn’t be able to come.”

“They are ghosts! Those things would just pass through!”

“Yeah, ghosts would.”

Han-bin softly agreed, then raised a question.

“But didn’t they open the doors?”

“… Ah?”

“I know it doesn’t make sense, but there’s no harm in trying.”

With a blank look, Emil looked back at the collapsed corridor.

The entire hallway had been blocked.

The spirits didn’t appear through the pile of collapsed buildings like typical ghosts.

Instead, a sound began to echo throughout the mansion.

Rumble! Thump! Thump thump!

It sounded like rocks being moved and hit, almost as if they were trying to clean up the ruins to go after them.

“What the hell?”

Putting the four major powers of Latna aside, the evil spirits also passed through Ryu Han-bin’s black sword.

It meant that they could pass through existing substances.

“But why are they clearing the ruins?”

Han-bin grinned.

“I did it because they only entered through the doors, but I didn’t think it would work.”

He then jogged towards the other end of the hall.

“Let’s retreat and regroup. We still don’t have any answers against them.”

* * *

In Emil’s ghost story, the Beginner Hunters couldn’t easily escape because they kept encountering the spirit while trying to find the mansion’s exit.

However, Han-bin and his party didn’t have to find the exit.

‘If there’s no door, then just make one!’

Ryu Han-bin smashed through the wall with his sword, making a hole large enough to for a couple of people to pass through to the next room.

A window reflected the mansion’s yard was positioned on the other side of the room.

Even if there wasn’t one, they could simply get out of the mansion by destroying the wall.

Quickly, the party jumped over the window.

However, the moment he stepped into the garden, he became filled with confusion.

‘Huh?’

He tried to look around.

He was standing inside the mansion.

There were large ceilings and spacious halls, full of ruins and a lot of webs.

‘Why am I not in the garden?’

No, he was still in it.

The floor underneath his feet was still grassy, but the garden was inside the building.

Beyond the large hall, they could see the same garden waiting for them.

Ryu Han-bin turned pale after maintaining his cool throughout their battle against the spirit.

‘What’s happening?’

It felt like seeing the world reflected in a mirror.

The same scene was repeated endlessly in front of them.

‘Damn it! That’s scary!’

Han-bin looked around, his face stiff.

Artis grinned, however.

“Is it a spatial distortion?”

Effir and Priest Emil also looked relieved.

“It’s just a normal dungeon phenomenon.”

“It wasn’t the soul of the dead, either. I was surprised for a moment, haha.”

Ryu Han-bin made a blank expression at the reaction of the three.

‘… Are you saying this isn’t a big deal?’

The very space they were standing on was distorted, and in front of them was the very same scene, stretching beyond what they could see.

How was it not a creepy sight for them?

Why were they so relieved to be in there?

He really couldn’t understand.

Their cultural differences were just too large.

‘Ah, I can’t ask them out loud.’

It was dangerous to act like an Alien because there was Priest Emil.

Artis, who was quick to notice, explained.

“Good thing, Felard. If it’s a dungeon phenomenon, it means that the power of the Devil is involved. There’s no reason to be afraid if it’s just monsters imitating the souls of the dead rather than actual souls.”

There was a similar concept on Earth. The trope was for the ghost to be an actual human all along, pretending to be an ethereal being.

“Now I understand why they purposely removed the ruins. Pretending to be dead, they must have done something useless.”

Muttering, Artis turned to Emil.

“What do you think, Priest? It seems like we entered the dungeon as it was appearing.”

“That could be, or it could be a part of the power of the Devil that’s affecting this area.

As soon as they encountered the phenomenon of spatial distortion, Emil returned to his cool-hearted appearance.

It was impossible to encounter the souls of the dead since it was a phenomenon contrary to the doctrines.

If everything they were experiencing was due to the dungeon phenomenon caused by the Devil’s powers, then it was nothing out of the ordinary.

It wasn’t a horror unknown to them, but only an ordinary dungeon attack.

Looking at their reactions, Ryu Han-bin clicked his tongue out.

He thought he already knew a lot about this world’s norms and culture over the past few months, but Han-bin suddenly felt like he didn’t know any better than when he started.

‘This is why it’s possible to identify an Alien just by the way they speak or their behavior.’

He felt more gifted to be able to disguise himself as a Valtara warrior.

If he pretended like he was an ordinary person, he would’ve been caught quickly.

As he pondered over his thoughts, Artis and Emil exchanged opinions.

“If the dungeon is really in progress, the solution is also simple, Priest. We need to find and remove the core before the dungeon is settled.”

Emil urged the party.

“Then let’s move on. The dungeon is still being created, so the interior won’t be that huge yet. If we find and remove the core, those evil spirits will also disappear.”

* * *

The party went back into the darkness of the mansion.

The entire mansion remained quiet.

The spirits were also nowhere to be found.

While keeping a lookout on their perimeter, Emil apologized.

“I apologize, partners. It wasn’t supposed to be this big of a deal.”

Their original mission was just to clean up ghosts.

Artis shook his head and responded gracefully.

“Isn’t this a great result for following the will of the Goddess?”

Emil responded with a smile.

“The Church won’t forget your hard work.”

Essentially, since they were forced to take on more significant work than expected, the church would score them accordingly.

‘Looking at those two joking around, it seems like they’ve both finally calmed down.’

After their conversation, Han-bin leaned in towards Artis and whispered something into his ear.

“Hey, Artis. I have a secret to tell you.”

Sensibly, Artis distanced himself from Priest Emil.

“What?”

“I looked at the evil spirits in the Guidelines earlier.”

“And?”

“No information appeared.”

[Race: Unknown. Lv. Unknown]

“It’s the first time for me, so I’m not sure, but are there monsters out there whose level isn’t visible?”

“I don’t know. It’s normal for us not to know the opponent’s level.”

Ordinary Latnains couldn’t immediately discover the enemy’s skills from the beginning.

The level they knew about the monsters was just approximated based on the level of the Hunters that could kill them.

‘Should I ask Artis about that?’

As they moved forward, another black figure appeared from the other side of the hallway.

A loud roar thundered all the way into their ears.

“Aaaaaaaaah!”