Hail the King

Chapter 35: Elena’s Surprise

Fei was shocked. He quickly beheaded the monsters in front of him and turned around to see what had happened. It turned out that Elena was not attacked by monsters at all. However, she looked soullessly at the entrance of a dusky cave located far away. Her body was stiff, and her hand that was holding the bow was shaking uncontrollably. Tears dripped down her pale face as she stared at a blackened object.

Fei was worried. He rushed to Elena. When he got closer, he found out that the blackened object was the ruined corpse of a female rogue.

The corpse wore rough leather armour that was common for female rogues. She had red hair as well, but looked younger than Elena; around 17 years old. She had definitely been tortured by monsters when she was alive. Her chest was torn open, and her heart was missing. There were horrifying scratches on her left thigh, and her flesh on her right thigh was missing, exposing the bone underneath. It looked like it was eaten by something……

“Oh god! ……No…… She……She’s Nina, she went missing when we were searching for food on 【Blood Moor】, and she was ……”

Elena lost the strength to stand. She fell on her knees and couldn’t hold back her tears. “She was only 17, and that was the first time she had left the camp and participated in a mission……and she volunteered to go……Nina worked hard in the camp. It didn’t matter how hard work was, she always had a bright smile on her face and encouraged us like a cheerful angel, making us laugh. How could this……Wahwahwah……These monsters should all go to hell!”

After listening to Elena’s cries, Fei partially understood what had happened. It was obvious that this female corpse was someone Elena knew. She was taken by monsters a month ago while they were on a mission and suffered a horrific death in this cave.

17 years old was an age that a girl should have been enjoying life and having fun, but Nina had a tragic fate. It saddened Fei, despite not knowing who Nina was.

From the start, the Diablo world gave Fei a realistic feeling. He felt pain when he was injured, the NPCs had their own intelligence, and he felt thirsty, hungry and tired when he battled for too long……But subconsciously, Fei had still treated this world as a game.

However, after seeing the ruined corpse in front of him and listening to Nina’s life story, Fei felt he got it all wrong. The Diablo World was also a real world. The residents in the world didn’t just have intelligence, but emotions and feelings as well. They were living humans, not some programmed scripts and codes.

“It’s alright Elena, don’t cry. Let’s kill all the monsters here and seek vengeance for Nina!”

Fei didn’t know how to comfort this crying beauty properly. He reached for her hand and held up the crying mercenary. The ‘Goddess of War’ who had previously brutally killed monsters was now as weak as an ordinary little girl that needed care and protection. Fei had seen her weak side under her quiet and independent demeanor.

Maybe this was her true nature, suppressed by the horrible environment. It didn’t matter how strong or how calm she was when facing monsters; Elena was only a 21 year old girl. On Earth, most girls this age would be in school and have a bright future. Alternately, in the Diablo World, they needed to train in order to survive and battle against vicious monsters. It wasn’t uncommon to watch their friends and families die and be unable to do anything about it.

Fei dug a big hole in the ground with his axe and buried Nina’s corpse. When he was moving the corpse, Fei found something – it wasn’t gold coins or items, but rather a pocketful of plant seeds.

The little girl who came out of 【Rogue Encampment】 to find food had saved her ‘treasures’, even though she died in such an environment. Elena treated those plants seeds as her most precious possession and put them carefully into her pocket. After Nina’s body was buried, the two of them continued on their journey.

Elena was still stimulated by what happened and transferred her sadness into anger against the monsters. Fei didn’t really fight much; every time he was about to strike, arrows would kill the monsters he could see and send them to hell.

Elena’s attitude towards Fei had changed a lot. Although they still didn’t talk much as they continued pushing forward in the dark passage, Fei felt that the eyes behind him were much softer when Elena looked at him……

As they moved forward, they had encountered a couple more corpses of female rogues. Luckily, Elena didn’t know them, so it saved Fei a lot of trouble. However, he was compassionate, so he still took time to properly bury the poor rogues.

Because Fei had memories of the original game, he chose the path that led them directly to 【Dark Wood】 instead of going to the second level of 【Underground Passage】.

It was brighter, similar to when Fei and Elena first stepped out of the portal from 【Underground Passage】 to 【Dark Wood】.

【Dark Wood】 wasn’t that dark. There was more grass and trees than 【Blood Moor】 and 【Cold Plain】 despite not being close to a forest at all.

Rain fell down from the sky. Fei looked in the distance and discovered crowds of monsters and demons. They were much more aggressive. When they saw two people appearing from the portal, they began charging towards them and screaming loudly.

“Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh – !”

A barrage of frost arrows shot out as if they were bullets from a machine gun.

“Whir, whir, whir -”

The double handed axe had drawn a deadly trajectory as Fei swung it forcefully.

Under the massacre of these two mad warriors, the monsters and demons died as fast as they charged.

Fei and Elena destroyed the monsters as if they were skilled farmers harvesting their crops.

Miserable screams filled the woods. The two of them quickly approached a giant withered tree about 50 yards (50 m) high while stepping in the flesh and blood of the monsters.

It was the tree of Inifuss.

There were piles of rotten corpses under the tree. Flocks of flies hovered above them. There were even some corpses hanging on tree branches, dripping blackened blood and pus. The stench around the tree could easily make anyone puke. The scene was like hell.

Fei squeezed his nose as he slowly approached the tree, and then softly touched it.

“Pa!”

A white parchment scroll shot off of the tree.

Fei picked it up and opened it. There was a large circle drawn with some sort of reddish-black material similar to blood. The circle contained a five-point star and mysterious symbols covered the rest of the scroll. It looked like it was one of those magic scrolls, but Fei couldn’t understand a thing.

“Looks like I have to get it translated by Akara.”

Fei threw it into his 【Item Slot】 and also picked up a few valuable items dropped by the monsters. He then used a 【Town Portal Scroll】, and the blue portal appeared again.

Fei turned around and signaled Elena who was guarding him to follow him into the portal. However, a surprised expression appeared on Elena’s face again.

“This……is a 【Town Portal Scroll】?”

Elena’s voice shook, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

The hot mercenary thought to herself, “If my fellow sisters had these kinds of magical scrolls, how many lives could that save? Maybe Nina would be still alive……”

“Yeah, it’s a 【Town Portal Scroll】.”

Although Fei had noticed Elena’s change in mood, he didn’t think too much of it, “What’s so special about a 【Town Portal Scroll】 that only costs 80 gold coins?” Time was tight and he needed a lot of time to execute his plans. There was no time to waste, so he answered casually and stepped into the portal.

……

【Rogue Encampment】

Fei went straight to priestess Akara to get the scroll translated. Elena followed Fei and carefully went through the portal. This was the first time Elena had ever used the portal to get back to the camp, so her mind was filled with shock and curiosity. She had planned to visit her sisters and tell them about Nina’s death, but after thinking about her new identity and Fei’s quest, she hesitated and eventually gave up her plan.

After about three minutes, Fei rushed back with the parchment scroll in his hand.

“Why didn’t you go and talk to your sisters?”