## Chapter 371 – The Troll’s Song
“Katt!”
“K, Blackie, are you okay?!”
Cloudy and Winia rushed over and grabbed me.
Honestly, it fucking hurt, but I couldn’t afford to collapse here. After getting this injured, letting the troll get away would be like cooking gruel only to feed it to a dog. More than anything, that bastard wrecked my equipment, so I had to smash him to bits.
“I’m okay…! If we let him go now, that bastard will leave the forest as is! We have to chase him now! Or we’ll never catch him!”
As soon as I tried to sit up, a bizarre scream erupted from my mouth, “Teeeeeeeeeeng!!!” No, fuck. It hurt this much?
A fucking fracture!
I felt an absolutely insane, searing pain. No lie, this was the first time I’d broken a bone since coming to this world. That hunchback son of a bitch was dead meat if I saw him again.
It wasn’t for nothing that I threatened to send him home, aish!!!
Why did he have to come out there, you son of a bitch!!!
“Blackie’s arm! Sis! Go get some wood for a splint!”
“Got it!”
“Ugh…! Thanks!”
Winia immediately tore a piece of her robe and took off my gauntlet. The way she ripped the hem without hesitation was really wild and cool.
“Te, chaat…!”
Even in the midst of all that, screams welled up in my throat, but I barely managed to keep the sound from escaping. My image was already in tatters; I couldn’t afford to scream pathetically anymore.
It wasn’t long before Cloudy came back with a splint.
“Katt, stay still!”
“Yes!”
Cloudy and Winia immediately began administering first aid to my arm. They skillfully applied the splint, bandaging it like a cast.
I kept thanking them, tears streaming down my face.
“Sniff! Thank you! Thank you, I love you!”
“Blackie, you crazy bastard! I knew it the moment you ran off like that! If you couldn’t do it, you should have run away! Why be so stubborn!”
Winia burst out in anger.
Of course, I wanted to run away, but if I had, the villagers would have died in my place. Just now, if I hadn’t thrown myself, that hunchback bastard would have exploded and died too.
As much as it sucked, I couldn’t allow that.
Better to have a broken arm than a broken reputation.
“Hey, at least I slowed him down… More importantly, let’s hurry! If that bastard runs away any further, we might not be able to catch him!”
“Yeah, we have to chase him like Blackie says. That fucking troll! Blackie, you’re going to get it later!”
“Ouch!”
Looking around, it seemed like there was nothing wrong besides my left arm.
Thankfully, landing in the rice paddy cushioned the impact, which was a stroke of luck. You really needed armor to survive.
The pain of the fracture was beyond imagination, but I gritted my teeth and stood up. I had to stand up. It was a little better with the splint on, at least.
“Katt, you did really well. You did your best. I saw a monster’s hand lying on the way here? Was that you?”
“Yeah… But that’s all I could do. If the troll hadn’t been blown away, if he kept at it, I probably would have lost.”
“That’s enough.”
Cloudy helped me retrieve my sword, and the three of us began tracking through the forest together.
We couldn’t let the troll escape. He had a big nose for human flesh, but now that he’d gotten hurt, he might run away forever.
If we wanted to catch him, now was our only chance.
He moved that huge body explosively, so he must have been tired.
His speed was faster than a normal human, but watching him run away on all fours with his long arms and short legs, I didn’t think his stamina would be that great.
Humans had the best stamina.
If we just followed his tracks, we should be able to catch him.
“Sis! Can you hear anything?!”
“It’s hard in the forest!”
I kept my arm as still as possible and ran busily after them. At least running speed wasn’t a problem. It was my arm that hurt, not my legs.
With the cast on, I could grit through this much pain.
Even though tears were coming out.
“B, Blackie, are you really okay? It doesn’t hurt like crazy, does it?”
“Just because my arm’s hurt doesn’t mean I can’t run, so don’t worry! Don’t worry! If it was a fatal injury, I wouldn’t even be able to run!”
“Really? You’re not lying about being okay just to catch the troll, are you?”
“It’s just my arm that hurts! I can run!”
It wasn’t as serious as Winia was worried about.
More importantly, the troll. There were a lot of tracks right now. Of course, there wasn’t any blood, but desperate footprints were scattered everywhere.
They were all lined up in a row.
Right now, that troll son of a bitch was running away like crazy. He’d lost half his hand, so it was only natural that he was running with his tail between his legs.
If he’d taken that much damage, his survival instinct would take precedence.
If that was the case, he would definitely get tired soon.
Unrestrained running would severely drain his stamina.
We just had to chase him until then!
ㅡThump, thump, thump!
And so, we ran for a long time.
Finally.
ㅡKuuuuuuuuuu!!!
Up ahead, we could see the troll running with noticeably reduced speed. He was dragging his tired body through the trees.
“Found him! Sis!”
ㅡWhoosh!
As soon as the troll came into view, Cloudy shot out.
ㅡSwoosh!!
It was an amazing speed. In an instant, she reached the troll’s tail, and as she swung her two curved swords, the thick hide tore open with a ripping sound, and blood spurted out.
Do you know Mama who uses a real-life beheading as a basic attack?
ㅡKuooooooo!!!!
The horrified troll ignored the bleeding and turned to attack Cloudy. He seemed to know how to use the terrain, grabbing trees and swinging like a monkey as he threw punches.
Of course, he didn’t hit Cloudy.
Every time Cloudy dodged a punch and slashed with her swords, the troll’s flesh tore open as if it were being sliced like ham. Not even 30 seconds passed before the troll was completely fucked up and struggling to survive.
ㅡSlash!
Compared to my clumsy fight, Cloudy showed extremely efficient movements, slicing the troll’s flesh as if she were torturing him.
ㅡKuooooooo!!!
A mournful scream erupted.
“Chain Lightning!”
ㅡPazzzzzzzik!!!
At that moment, Winia’s lightning struck, and the troll, hit by it, screamed bizarrely and trembled, and that was the end of it.
The curved sword fell like a guillotine, severing the monster’s head.
“Hoo, it was full of muscle, so it felt good to cut.”
ㅡSwish!
Cloudy shook the blood off her curved sword and said in a refreshing tone.
Compared to the rather long chase, ending his life was instantaneous. To Cloudy, the troll was just a pushover.
My role was to draw aggro so the troll wouldn’t kill the villagers.
Anyway, we breathed a sigh of relief.
“It’s a pretty big troll. Seems like an old one.”
Winia, who had recovered her stamina, said as she examined the troll’s corpse.
“And Sis, the hide is ruined.”
“But it’s a waste to kill it in one shot, isn’t it?”
“Tsk.”
Now, let’s collect the loot.
Winia had brought the backpack.
“Winia, so we just take out the heart and get the blood, right?”
“Blackie, just sit there. What are you going to do with a broken arm?”
“Oh.”
If it wasn’t too difficult, I could do it with one hand. It was night now; shouldn’t we do something quickly and go back?
“Katt, sit down. I’ll do it.”
“No, I feel bad.”
“It’s okay. You worked hard enough, didn’t you? To chase away a monster like this single-handedly, you’re really amazing.”
Cloudy smiled and hugged me, gently sitting me down. Well, I couldn’t beat the troll, but I could scare him enough to make him run away.
Let’s be satisfied with that for now.
At least it didn’t seem like anyone in the village had died.
Quest success.
“Okay, Sis. Poke a hole in the neck here. The blood has already stopped flowing.”
As Winia said, Cloudy stabbed the already severed troll’s neck, and blood flowed out again. Winia opened the mouth of the water bottle to receive the blood.
“Winia, I’ll do that.”
“I told you to just sit down.”
I could at least do something like receiving blood.
“It’s not that hard.”
I got up from my seat, took the water bottle from Winia, and squatted down to receive the blood. It wasn’t a difficult task. I could do it with one hand. Winia looked a little uneasy, but soon let go.
And Cloudy examined the troll’s corpse with her.
“This is… a male? A male troll?”
Winia said with a puzzled expression as she examined the corpse.
“If it’s a male?”
Was there something wrong? When Cloudy asked, Winia began to explain. I continued to receive the blood while listening to her explanation.
“It’s a male, and a male in heat. His balls are swollen like Blackie’s balls… It’s strange.”
“Hey, Winia? What the hell are you talking about?”
Why are my balls coming up?
“Just listen to what I’m saying. A troll in heat isn’t looking for a female, but he’s been hiding near the village for days, constantly hunting? It’s strange.”
“Is that strange?”
“Blackie, if you’re hard at night, I’ll take care of you, right?”
“Uh… Why are you saying such embarrassing things all of a sudden?”
It was embarrassing because it was too explicit, but it was true that Winia and Cloudy took care of me every night from night until dawn.
“What if I don’t take care of you?”
“I’d be in a lot of pain.”
“It’s the same thing. A troll in heat has no thoughts other than finding a female to mate with. His sense of smell, which wasn’t good to begin with, expands, and he becomes a monster that only looks for females. And when he finds a female? He doesn’t even eat and only mates until the heat ends and he leaves.”
As I just confirmed, the troll’s balls were swollen, so that meant he hadn’t found a female yet.
“For a guy like that to be doing this in a place like this…”
As Winia tried to deduce, Cloudy answered while cutting open the troll’s stomach and receiving the blood in the body cavity.
“Could there be a female nearby?”
“If there was, he would have stuck to her. But it’s hard to believe that he couldn’t find her for days… Is there really a female nearby? Then why is he doing this here?”
Well, monsters move according to their instincts, but sometimes they move as they please. But if Winia was questioning it this much, there must be something going on.
Anyway, with my arm messed up, I continued to receive the blood uncomfortably, and in the meantime, the work was finished.
Cloudy had skillfully butchered the troll.
The water bottle was also filled with blood, and we packed the heart and head in the backpack. And we also took a few bones. Unfortunately, the hide was no longer marketable, so we decided to throw it away.
“Katt, I’ll carry the backpack.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s not that heavy. Hehe, I’m just really happy that you fought so hard that you got hurt like that. Probably not even an average warrior could have mustered the courage to face a monster like that. Yeah. The troll seemed like a pretty strong monster.”
She gave me a kind consolation.
I was just embarrassed.
Compared to Cloudy, who played around with something she could have killed in one hit, Kim Katt was just a fucking bastard.
“Of course, Mama is strong, so she killed it easily, but Mama is older than Katt…”
“Hehehe, older?”
“Older…”
Cloudy stopped talking there.
Probably because I got messed up fighting compared to her easily killing it, she was saying that to be considerate. Of course, Cloudy, a half-elf, was definitely much older than me.
I didn’t pry and rubbed my face against her chest.
I was so grateful for her consideration.
“Tsk, anyway, Blackie, you just get hurt so much. Are you going to do that?”
“No, but I really could have avoided getting hurt, but I couldn’t help it.”
I was trying to save the hunchback.
“Anyway, Blackie needs to be punished a little. He tends to use his body too recklessly.”
“Isn’t that Katt’s charm?”
“Sis seems to have a different perspective on me and Blackie.”
“Is that so?”
And so, we walked through the forest to return to the village. It was still night. It seemed like there was still some time before dawn.
Shit. With my arm injured, I had to focus on treatment for the time being. But if I combined the 20 silver quest reward with other things, I could probably earn about 30 silver, so let’s move on.
A painful loss.
I was walking quietly because I didn’t even have the strength to talk, when.
ㅡRustle, rustle.
We discovered something and stopped at the same time.
“…”
The silhouette of what we glimpsed looked like a shrunken troll. For a moment, I wondered if it was a female troll, but it wasn’t anything that grand.
ㅡIt was the hunchback.
“Ah.”
No, fuck, that bastard…!
I was about to shout, but I closed my mouth.
I immediately told Cloudy and Winia to be quiet in a low voice.
“Quiet. Let’s follow him.”
He was heading somewhere now.
Even though I told him it was dangerous… No. Even though he just encountered the troll, it was strange that he came back to the forest.
It was clearly strange.
Why was he coming this way?
Wasn’t it for nothing that I beat him up?
Of course, I was pissed off because he sexually harassed my wives, but aside from that, I was trying to instill fear in him so he wouldn’t even set foot in the forest.
The villagers didn’t know that we had killed the troll yet.
The same was true of the hunchback.
I even saved him from almost dying to the troll earlier, and now he’s coming back into the forest like this?
This wasn’t a matter of not understanding.
ㅡThere was some kind of intention.
Yes, the hunchback was ‘obsessed’ with this forest. That’s why he crawled in even though I told him not to come.
That’s what I thought.
We silenced our footsteps and began to follow him secretly. Fortunately, it didn’t seem like the hunchback had noticed that we were behind him. He was just busy heading somewhere.
Finally, he stopped.
“…What is he doing?”
Cloudy whispered quietly in my ear. I swallowed and looked at the hunchback.
In the reflected moonlight, his appearance was revealed.
When the hunchback moved a lump of somethingㅡ
ㅡA small cave appeared.
He went straight into the cave.
