Black-Haired Alien From Another World 162

## Chapter 162 – Kobolds and the Underground Labyrinth

Somehow, it’s a captivating crown.

The dark, pitch-black color is impressive, and I liked how the spikes jutting out like a crown of thorns looked aggressive. It looks like a cursed item at first glance, but isn’t this what swag is all about?

“Now.”

Oh, oh…! The crown!
The crown is calling to me!

I lifted the crown above my head.

“We are one.”

And slowly, I lowered my hand and put on the crown. I felt a heavy weight…
A chill ran down my spine… This, this is!

This is!

Bbangtan!

“Aaaaaaaah!!!”

I threw the crown away in shock. A familiar sensation! It was the weight of Bbangtan! I, Kim Kkat, am a staunch reservist who would rather have a bullet through my skull than wear Bbangtan!

“I’m not Sergeant Kim anymore!!!!”

A chilling cold enveloped my entire body!

“S, Saintess?”
“Haa… Haa… It’s nothing. Let’s just gather everything we can take.”

Elise, looking puzzled, grabbed my shoulder. It’s okay. It’s nothing. A familiar feeling just momentarily seized my body and mind.

“…I’ll get the bag.”

She retrieved the bag that I had taken off before the battle. There wasn’t much to take from this place. The kobold warrior’s fangs and claws. And the restraints and crown that had been binding the queen.

“Tch. Not much to gain. But the crown looks like it’ll fetch a good price if I sell it.”
“It’s a bit disappointing, but there’s nothing we can do.”

The crown, which looked like a cursed item at first glance, clearly seemed to have some magical value. Should I take it to Risha and try to sell it? I could also sell the wand that’s been gathering dust in the corner of my room.

She also told me to come back when we last met.

I organized the inside of the bag. I put in the restraints and the crown, and piled up the warriors’ fingers and fangs, which looked like a psychopath’s collection of bizarre trophies. I didn’t forget to pack the guardian’s bone fragments either.

Winnia said she’d sell these, so they should be worth something.
Honestly, I don’t know what magical ingredients these claws and fangs are used for.

“For all the trouble we went through, we didn’t get jack shit.”

Anyway, it wasn’t a very satisfactory haul. But, what can I do? I feel like I made a bad choice with this quest. I would have been happy if we had found a treasure room, but all we found was a crazy queen.

I slung the bag over my shoulder and walked back.

“Cloudy, is Winnia doing any better? Can she move on her own?”
“Not at all. Kkat, give me a piggyback ride.”
“Alright.”
“Ah, Unni!”

I took off the bag and handed it to Elise.

“Elise, hold the bag for a second.”
“Understood.”

I bent my knees.

“Okay, get on my back in order. Tall Cloudy gets on first, and then Winnia, you get on Cloudy’s back.”
“Shall we try getting on Kkat’s back then?”

Cloudy, who jumped up, got on my back first.

It’s heavy, but good. I can still handle it. I am the Kwonwang Kim Kkat. I turned my head back and said to Winnia, “Hurry up and get on.” Then Winnia frowned.

“Seriously, you black bastard? This isn’t what I wanted, you know?”
“Then what do you want me to do? I only have one body.”
“That Unni looks fine, so you should have just given me a piggyback ride.”
“Cloudy looks pretty tired too, doesn’t she?”
“You’re such a pain in the ass, you black bastard.”

Winnia, who spat out those words, approached.

She hesitated a bit, but still wanted to get on, so she grabbed Cloudy’s back and struggled. Thus, the three-stage Kim Kkat combination was complete (not in a sexual way). I stood up to launch.

“Gyaaaaaaah!!”
“Kyaaak!”
“Kyaaaaak!”

ㅡThump!

There’s no way I could stand up. I immediately ran out of strength and fell over. More than anything else, supporting Winnia’s chest seemed impossible. Winnia cursed, and Cloudy chuckled softly.

“Well. I guess it’s impossible. Let’s each go with our own strength.”
“Aww, that’s too bad. Shall we get going then?”
“You’re such a useless piece of shit, you black bastard, really.”

I took the bag back from Elise and set off. Towards the passage that was behind the restrained queen.

“Kkat. What about the treasure room?”
“I’d like to find it if I could, but we’re too tired.”

We were already seriously exhausted. It would be better to just avoid combat and find a way to get back to the surface. Any further journey is too much. We’ve used too much physical and mental energy.

Right now, my body and mind are a mess.
I want to go back as soon as possible and sleep like a log.

And so, we tried to move forward through the dark passage, but as we left the queen’s room, where the minerals embedded in the ceiling illuminated the space, darkness spread again. For a moment, I almost asked Winnia for light magic, but her mana was almost depleted.

I took out a lantern from my bag.

“I would have been screwed if I hadn’t brought this… Ah. Shit, one of the oil bottles broke.”

I put oil in the lantern and lit it with a tinderbox. Then, an orange light bloomed, illuminating the surroundings. It was a really small light compared to Winnia’s light magic, but I would have been in serious trouble without it.

“Still, you’re prepared, you black bastard?”
“I’ve been rolling around in this other world for years. This much is basic.”
“What? Other world?”

I misspoke.

Winnia asked back.

“No, I mean I’ve been living in this shitty adventurer world for quite a long time. This level of preparation is the bare minimum.”

There were no remaining kobolds in the passage. Come to think of it, the hooded guys took the young ones somewhere to raise them, so I hope they didn’t go this way and something even more suspicious doesn’t come out.

“Elise. When we get back to the city, are you going straight back to the church?”
“I need to write a report first, so I’m thinking of staying in the city for a day or so.”
“That’s good. To be honest, it would take some time to sell and divide up the stuff we managed to get. So, is it okay if we take our time distributing it without rushing?”
“I don’t mind.”

For now, I’ll entrust the kobold material items to Winnia, and I’ll go to Risha myself and then distribute them. I’ll go back to the city with Elise, and then meet up in front of the guild the next day or so.

“Heung? Kkat? Over there.”
“Hmm? Uh.”

Cloudy gestured towards the front. I wondered what it was, and when I looked, there was a path going up and a path going down.

“It looks like there’s something more down there.”

Her long ears perked up. Did she catch some kind of sound? Perhaps something even more evil than the cursed kobold queen was sleeping down there.

“…Let’s go up. It’s too much for today. Honestly, I can’t fight anymore.”
“I certainly want to investigate further, but it seems impossible today.”

It felt like the secret of this labyrinth was hiding down there, moaning softly… Honestly, I would have gone to take a peek if it were any other day, but it’s too much today. Elise, who showed the might of a fanatic, also declared gg.

I need to rest, no matter what.

“Yeah. You black bastard. I would have killed you if you had tried to go down. You seemed completely out of your mind a while ago, but I’m glad you can still make reasonable judgments. I’ll give our black bastard a compliment.”

Winnia doesn’t seem to want to go down either.

“Is it that bad?”
“You were seriously like a crazy bastard a while ago.”
“Well, people can be like that sometimes.”
“Sometimes? And were you even a person, you black bastard? You look like a puppy to me?”
“Damn it! Cloudy! Winnia is bullying me!”

Enraged, I immediately snuggled into Cloudy’s chest, rubbing my face against her breasts. “Mommyyy!” She stroked the back of my head as if it were natural and said.

“That’s right, that’s right. Winnia. You can’t bully Kkat, okay?”
“Seriously, you’re such a pain in the ass. Aren’t you going to get off, you black bastard? Huh?”
“Cloudy Mama is the best, jaaaaat!!!”

With that kind of feeling, we gave up the underground search and went up. If we go up, there will be an exit. The structure of this underground labyrinth seemed to make that certain. ㅡThump, thump. After going up for quite a while.

I thought we would find an underground facility made of dirt, but it was still a labyrinth made of stone. Do we need to go up a little more? But there was no way to go up any further, and a new passage greeted us.

“Hmm… It seems like we’ll have to find our way from here.”
“Damn it.”

There were forks in the road, and there was also a path going down again.
Of course, we didn’t go down and searched each fork.

Dead ends or empty rooms.
…Were the kobolds really living here?

We searched the passages for quite a long time, but we couldn’t find a way to go up, no matter how wide it was. When we were checking another empty room in the middle, Elise said.

“The search is taking longer than I thought. Shall we take a break for a while?”
“Shall we?”

A break time decision. We immediately took a seat in the room and sat down, taking out the food we had brought. Buying salted meat, as Cloudy said, was a really excellent choice.

“If we had just brought dried food, we would have died here.”
“Kkat. From now on, don’t just buy a bunch of dried food without thinking, and make sure to buy meat like this, okay?”
“I definitely will.”

I said, chewing on a sausage. My body was craving energy, so I ate everything up in an instant, like a starving ghost. The water from the cooled canteen also went down gulp by gulp.

My body felt languid. After suffering that much and filling my stomach, an unbelievable amount of drowsiness began to wash over me.

Cloudy was also leaning her head on my shoulder, and Winnia was lying down with her head on my thigh. Then Elise said.

“It would be better to rest here. It doesn’t seem like there are any kobolds around, and it would be good to take a break while standing guard.”
“Yeah. That would be good… The order for the watch is…”
“Please sleep first.”
“Are you sure? You must be tired too.”
“It’s just a matter of order anyway. Don’t refuse and go to sleep. I’ll wake you up later.”
“…Thank you.”

Elise, who said that, leaned against the entrance of the room and sat down. It would be great if Elise stood guard. With that, I closed my eyes.

***

I slept well.

After taking one cycle of guard duty, my body was full of energy. The order was Elise, me, Winnia, and Cloudy. Seeing that there were no attacks while we were sleeping, it seemed that a lot of kobolds had died.

“Kuaaaaak!”

I stretched and heard cracking sounds all over my body. Winnia also complained that her shoulders hurt and asked me to massage them. But now it’s time to go back.

“I’ll massage you as much as you want when we get back to the inn.”
“Oh my? Shouldn’t you massage something other than my shoulders when we get back?”
“Shut up, Unni.”

Elise made a strange expression as she watched Winnia and Cloudy bickering.

“A trio of spouses… You seem to be very close.”
“Weird, right?”
“Yes. To be honest, I don’t really understand it, but maybe that’s because I live in the church.”
“No, you’re right.”

Elise’s common sense was right in this part.

We searched again to find a way to get back to the surface. After filling our stomachs and taking a nap, our physical condition had recovered a lot. I should think carefully when choosing a job in the future… This one wasn’t it.

“Hmm? What’s that?”

How much time had passed again? We found a room with a faint light coming from the other side. I looked back at everyone’s faces and nodded. We silenced our footsteps and slowly approached the room.

Then.

“No way!”

When I peeked inside, there was a pile of something. Could it be a treasure room! Half-delighted, I drew my sword and entered.

“Wi, Winnia!”
“…The feeling is similar. I think it’s the right answer.”

A positive answer!

I quickly looked around the room. There was a pile of all sorts of trash…! But! This is the treasure room! Valuable items that might be hidden among the trash!

“Elise! Cloudy! Loot it!”

The reward time after the boss battle!!!

“Understood!”
“Heung… I wonder if there’s anything useful?”

In an instant, the tension soared to a destructive level.
Isn’t this the alpha and omega of an adventurer!

“Shit!”