Faceless Phantom

"Are you ready, Zeroth laddie? Heh heh..."

I pulled my sword, and it cried as I was swinging it around. Then I readied my stance to start my attack.

"Yeah."

I saw Hagwim was ready as well. Beside the field, the five dwarf vengeful spirits were spectating our spar.

"Come..."

'Alright, here I come...'

I rushed toward Hagwim and observed him. I immediately swung my sword as I saw an opening. But of course, it wasn't easy to penetrate dwarf's defense. My sword and his shield clashed.

Clank!

I didn't stop there. I circled him while kept attacking.

Swoosh~ Clank!

Swoosh~ Clank!

Swoosh~ Clank!

However, he leisurely blocked my attack without any effort at all. He looked calm yet excited. On the other hand, I began to get annoyed because he blocked all my attack.

'Dwarf's defense is definitely hard to break.'

I was getting tired, and eventually, I recklessly attacked him. Then his shield was, somehow, moved and he let his guard down. Given the opportunity, I immediately swung my sword downward.

Clank!

My sword hit his shield which he swiftly raised upward. I almost lost my balance because it was bounced back. Then I saw a glimpse of his axe being swung low horizontally.

Swoosh!

I thought it would hit me. However, I successfully dodged it by jumping backward. I jumped again to make a distance. I stopped for a moment and thinking.

'Damn that was close...'

He was intentionally lowering his shield, and I fell for his trap. Thankfully, it wasn't a serious battle. If Hagwim didn't hold back, my feet were probably gone already.

Suddenly, I saw him rushed forward to attack me. I stayed calm and observed him. I had learned my mistake, so I searched for another opening which wasn't an obvious bait, and then I thrust my sword. However, he was very nimble. He avoided it by rolling forward, and then, in an instant, I felt pain on my right foot.

'Wha- What!?'

I fell on my knee. It was then I realized that Hagwim swung his axe onto my right foot after he rolled.

I grunted, gritted my teeth as I suppressed the pain. I immediately turned around while swinging my sword low horizontally. However, Hagwim did a little jump, enough to dodge my sword. And then I saw him raised his axe overhead. My eyes were wide open as he swung his axe toward my face.

Swoosh! Hack!

His axe hit the ground.

I evaded by rolling sideways. Then I immediately thrust my sword toward him. However, his axe was already stopped right in front of my neck. After a few seconds, he pulled his axe away and smiled.


"It's my win, Zeroth laddie. Hehahaha..." He said as he put his axe on his shoulder.

"Hahhh... You're strong. Heh hahaha..." I sighed and let out a relieved laugh.

Dwarf's fighting style was freaking amazing. They used their short body as advantage. Attacking low while their sturdiness parried and blocked all the enemy's attack from above. Not only that, they could also attack high if they wanted to.

"I'm more impressed by your swordsmanship, laddie. Your fighting style is very unique and strange. It's not in a bad way, of course. I know you're still inexperienced. Still, if you had more experience, battling you would be very hard for me. I'm very excited to see you grow."

What he just said made me thinking. To be honest, up until this moment, I learned everything by myself. Well, I wasn't sure if I was a genius or a fool. I just copied what I saw on anime, movies, or anything I read and heard.

Of course, not everything I learned was by copying someone or something. I also had my own idea and intuition. No matter what you did, you couldn't mimic precisely what others did. I flexibly did what I saw fit to myself. I combined everything, and that was probably why my messy fighting style was pretty unique to Hagwim.

"T-thanks. I always learn everything by myself."

"Burhahaha... I see. You're indeed very interesting." Hagwim walked away and stopped. He turned around and opened his mouth again. "Alright. Now I will not attack. You can also try to injure me."

"R-really?"

"Well, to be fair, take it as a pay back for what I just did to your leg. Heh heh... And I also wanna see how good this body is." He said as he hit his chest with his fist. "Well, if you can break my defense of course. Attack me whenever you're ready..."

'I see. Since he is now an undead, he wants to know if I can damage him or not.'

However, he didn't want an easy way. He wanted to get hurt by fighting.

'What a strange dwarf...'

I scoffed as I used my sword to get up, and then I readied myself for round two.

Hours had passed, Hagwim didn't lie when he was saying that he would not attack. Still, his defense was unbreakable. He was also telling me if I did good or even bad whenever I did a certain move. With that hint alone, I learned a lot from him, and eventually, I could see a hidden opening in his defense.

I jumped and raised my sword overhead. Hagwim raised his shield as well and was ready to block my attack. I swung my sword downward.

Swooosh!

My sword and his shield didn't clash. I intentionally missed to create an opening. Then I thrust my sword toward him.

Stab!

He tried to evade but I got his arm. I could see Hagwim smiled as my sword stabbed him. After a few seconds, I felt pain in the same place where I stabbed him.

I fell and let out a scream.

"Guaarrghh..."

I was so confused.

'What? When did he attack me?' I gritted my teeth. 'Didn't he say that he wouldn't attack me?'

It was strange. Hagwim looked trustworthy, so I knew he wouldn't lie to me as well. There was no reason for him to lie when he could defeat me in an instant. Therefore, there was only one explanation.

I used Astral Eyes to check his skill, and I immediately found the answer.

[Reflective Aura]

Level Max

Active: Form user's aura to become a barrier. It will reflect a great portion of damage taken back to the attacker.

*Only works for melee.

Reflect Damage: 90%

Mana per second: 250

'Dammit! This fricking sneaky dwarf.' I sighed. 'I should've check his skills first.'

Even though the skill looked like a cheat, it actually had weaknesses as well.

First, I could penetrate it by ranged attack, be it magic or physical. Unfortunately, I was a melee attacker. I had to stay away from him until he deactivated the aura. Once the toggle off, I could attack him again. Of course, keep in mind that he might turned it on again when I attacked. I needed to be careful.

And secondly, it also drained tons of mana to keep active. If I calculated it correctly, with his mana pool at the moment, he could only maintain the aura for around 40 seconds. It was less than a minute. If he was using it recklessly, then it would be his demise to fall into a disadvantage. However, Hagwim was a skilled fighter. He was once a Commander of Dalgor after all.

"Burhahahaha... You alright, laddie?"

"That is an interesting ability..."

"Yeah. It's supposed to damage me as well. It's an ability to share my pain to the attackers, but it seems I can't feel anything since I'm an undead now. So it's fully transferred to you instead. Oh I was nervous and expected your sword burned my flesh, y'know... Ghahaha..."

Well, no wonder. With his high defense and his undead specialty of feeling no pain, the 10% damage taken was nothing to him.

I felt excited. Somehow, the spar filled me with determination and motivation to learn something new.

"Let's do it again."

The tip of Hagwim's lips went up after he heard what I said. He lift his axe and put it on his shoulder.

"That's the spirit, laddie. Burhahaha..."

・・・

Days had passed.

Mirage also joined when she found us on the field. Thus, we eventually spar everyday.

Sparring with Hagwim and the five vengeful spirits would significantly raise our battle experience and stats. However, I didn't check my status window at all. I didn't know why. Perhaps, I didn't want to stress over stats differences between me, Hagwim, and the Dark Army. I would eventually open it later, of course. But I wasn't really curious about it at the moment.

I also checked the Dalgor Castle's Library with Mirage. She joyfully picked some books and sat down. I didn't want to disturb her so I immediately took one book and sat down as well. When I opened the book, I frowned and sighed.

'Of course. It's written in dwarven language.'

Then I saw Mirage came to me and asked.

"Umm... Zeroth, can you read it?"

"Uhhh... No..." I answered as I looked at her awkwardly.

I could see Mirage's troubled face. It seemed she wanted to read the book so bad. So I got an idea to call Hagwim and ask him for help. When I was about to leave, I saw a shadow was peeping behind a bookshelf. It was one of the Vengeful Spirits.

He was surprised when I noticed him. He immediately came closer and bowed on his knee.

"Your Majesty. Do you need my assistance?"

"Ah... You are?"

"I am Pamli, at your service."

"No need to act like that. Please get up..."

He hesitantly got up.

"Oh, pardon me for my rudeness. So, I can talk like this?"

"Yeah. That feels better." I smiled a little.

"Gheahaha... What a humble King. Anyway, can I help you with something, my King?"

"Ah yes... Can you teach us your language?"

"Oh! You're willing to learn Dhunmal?"

"Dhunmal?"

"Yes. Dhunmal is our language."

"Ah yes. Please teach us."

"I, Pamli Almandine, will be the greatest teacher for you, my King."

Mirage was very happy to be able to learn Dhunmal. She was a fast learner. Unlike me, I took a bit of time to fully understand the language. It was like back to school again, and Pamli was indeed a good teacher.

Although sometimes he was impatient, he did his best to teach me. I knew he was holding up his anger at times. It was because I was his King, he didn't want to be rude. Somehow, I felt really strange to be treated like one. It was something really unexpected for me.

Well, I eventually learned the basics, and I would learn the vocabulary by myself as I read. I could ask one of the dwarves if there were some words I didn't understand. Thus, I immediately gobbled up some knowledge within the library.

Of course, I didn't have time to read hundreds of books at once. I could come back later. I had been here long enough so I needed to go back searching for Mirage's parents.

And about Beleth and Uruzak, I checked the Black Tome yet I still didn't understand the language at all. Then I remembered, Halton indeed said that he knew Elvish and Dwarvish, but the writing in this tome was totally a different language. I also checked the news about the Dark Army on some threads with the system window. However, it seemed the Top Ten Guilds kept the information for themselves. So, I could only hope we would coincidentally meet again with Beleth and Uruzak.

"Sir Hagwim, it's about time for me to leave. So, I think I'm going to go tomorrow."

"Ooh okay. I'll prepare what I need later for our journey."

"Uhh... About that... I'll just go with Mirage."

Hearing what I said, Hagwim looked troubled. Moreover, it seemed the five Vengeful Spirits wanted to go with me as well.

"What about us, My King?"

"Yes. I want to see how the outside world has become."

"Uhh you know... You're all now...different, right?"

Everyone looked puzzled, so I had to explained their situation to them.

"Sir Hagwim, you're a Death Knight now. And five of you, you're all Vengeful Spirits. What would happen if you're all going to town?"

The town would be in jeopardy. And once everyone realized that, they were all looking down. Their heads were hanging and looked sad. I had to come up with something or it would be a troublesome farewell.

"L-listen... I can just open a portal to this place. So, I can always come back here...or, maybe, you can go to my location as well by passing through the portal. I'm not sure about the latter. Let's just check that out later."

They immediately looked at me with their jaw wide open.

"R-really!? You can do that!?" Hagwim asked in disbelieve.

'Why are they so surprised? Isn't it just like using the Gatekeeper's teleportation?'

"Y-yes..."

They were all quiet. After a few seconds of silence, Hagwim broke it with a laughter.

"Ghahahaha... Of course... I'm sorry, Zeroth laddie...for this selfish old dwarf. You did say that this place is now your Dimensional Space. Still, I didn't know you're capable of doing that."

"I'm sorry, my King..."

"I wholeheartedly apologize for my ignorance of your greatness..."

"Forgive my rudeness..."

"H-hey it's fine! You don't need to apologize." I deeply sighed.

Looking at their reactions, it seemed opening a portal was a great deal. Its concept was basically the same as teleport, just like the Gatekeeper's ability in each town possessed. However, it was only one-way teleportation.

On the other hand, a portal could be two-way teleportation. I could travel through it, or I could summon someone with it. Either way, it seemed the dwarves didn't reach that technology yet. I would definitely check it later once I got out to the surface.

'So even an advanced race like dwarf don't have the ability to make a portal, huh...'

"Anyway, can I ask you guys a favor? No, maybe...two things?"

"Sure, laddie. What is it?"

"Ask us anything, my King."

"Yes. We will do as you say..."

"Right. Umm... Can you mine materials for me? I need them to train my skill in smithing. I'm an artisan after all."

"Consider it done!" Hagwim instantly accepted my request without any hesitation. He looked excited as well. "What about the other one?"

"Is there another way out beside the Mine's Entrance?"

Hagwim folded his arms and thinking.

"There are several paths, actually. But looking at how many years has passed, some of the passages must be already filled with monsters. We could kill them to make our way through, but it will surely take time. Anyway, where do you want to go exactly?"

"That I'm not sure. I don't want to go north yet. So, I think I want to go west, maybe?"

"West, huh... Then you're going to Karmia Kingdom."

"Y-yeah... I guess so."

"Alright, then. I know exactly where it is. I'll escort you to the western path tomorrow."

"Thanks!"

It was already night when I checked the time, so I immediately went to bed. I was doing my daily inventory check as always. Because tomorrow was the day I continued my journey, I needed to make sure everything was prepared well. It was then something unexpected was happening.

The system message notified me that the egg was about to be hatched!

I didn't know what caused that to happen. I checked the egg's status everyday, and it was always cold all the time. I was thinking multiple ways of warming it up, but none of them worked. Its status remained the same. I assumed it would take a long time to hatch, so I just left it be.

'Uhh ohh... It's cracking...'

Perhaps, it was hatched by the cold, not by warming it up, or maybe it was because of the environment, because I was underground. Moving a certain distance could also be a good idea, however, it was not likely that way since the game grasped the reality approach. Nonetheless, I watched the egg as the shell cracked open.

Crack... Crack... Pop!

Suddenly, the air around me became misty, and the temperature turned chill as the baby spider coming out from the egg.

Three pairs of red eyes. Black hairy cephalothorax and legs. And lastly, white hairy palps and abdomen.

The baby spider looked at me for a moment, then it slowly crawled onto my left hand. Nervous, I tried to pet it with my right hand.

Purrr...

It was purring as I gently petted its fist-sized abdomen. Unexpectedly, its hair felt so silky and strangely pleasant.

Curious, I used Astral Eyes to check its status. My eyes were filled with excitement, and the tip of my lips went up while I was seeing the new opened window.

・・・

"So, anyway... How did you guys meet? I'm curious."

Vallas and Nel'Thas looked at each other for a moment. Nel'Thas nodded, and then Vallas began to open his mouth.

"We uh... We met at the battlefield."

"Battlefield?"

"Yeah. We met when we were fighting against the Dark Army."

"I see.."

Ylvaark unexpectedly accepted their answer easily. Still, they looked uncomfortable by his sudden question. However, the feeling was washed away once he shouted in delight.

"Oh! Look! A light!"

Eventually, they saw the exit in front of them. And they felt a familiar feeling which they could never find underground.

A breeze cleared the damp air with cool and fresh one. They could see the trees dancing by the wind which were seen beyond the exit, and the soft-looking green field which refreshed their eyes. They finally got out from the cave. They were now arrived inside the eastern forest of Karmia's Territory.

"We're finally out!" Ylvaark exclaimed. "Ahh... It's nice to see the sun again."

Vallas felt deja vu, but the feeling didn't last very long as Nel'Thas stopped and talked.

"Let's keep going straight to Alkronia. We can't guarantee our safety if we stop by the village or town. Nightalons spies are everywhere."

"Right."

Vallas and Ylvaark nodded. Then they continued their journey to Alkronia.

・・・

"Hey look!" Byul exclaimed.

"What?" Bemmy asked.

"Look over there! Can you see it!?"

Everyone squinted their eyes as they tried to see far away in the distance. Their gaze were wandering right and left, but they couldn't find anything strange.

Of course, their eyes were different than Byul's, because she was an Elf. Elven eyes could see three kilometers ahead at ease. That was why she could spot whatever she was seeing. Thus, everyone complained about it.

"I don't see anything." (Zagard)

"What is it, eonnie? I can't see it." (MiniMin)

"Noona, just tell us what it is!" (Bemmy)

"Ughh... There!" Byul grunted. "You guys ar- Ahh right... Sorry, wait a sec. I'll give you all Far Sight buff."

Byul chanted the spell and, one by one, their eyes were glowing. They could zoom in and out at will with the limit of additional two kilometers sight range.

"Now look over there..."

Then Byul pointed toward Baradran Mountain Range which could be seen from the lonely small mountain where they were on.

Everyone gasped.

"Akh... Is that..." (MiniMin)

"Dark skin with strange beasts. Yeah... That's definitely the Dark Army." (Zagard)

"Holy crap! How many are they?" (Bemmy)

"One... Two... Hmm... It's a pack of ten. They are marching down..." (Byul)

"There should be more behind them." (Zagard)

"Oh crap! That means the war is starting soon!" (Bemmy)

"Ahhh I'm excited! We're the first who spotted them!" (MiniMin)

"Yeah. We need to use this advantage to fully prepare our strategy." (Byul)

"Anyway, what about our mission?" (MiniMin)

"Well, we can't find the NPC but we just spotted a jackpot." Zagard said. Then his gaze moved to the light armored human. "Theo, go back to the Guild Hall and report it to Kimchi-nim. We will be waiting here and keep watching their movement."

"Okay." Theo nodded.

He immediately took out a scroll from his bag and opened it. Magic circle was formed on the ground, then his body became white and dispersed into thin air.

Once Theo vanished, everyone turned their gaze back to the group of the Dark Army.

One of the pack of Dark Army Scout was looking directly at them.