Level Up Inquisitor [EN]: Chapter 102

Eile exited the dungeon through the stairs he had first entered.

Thanks to those White Fang Guild bastards, he had to flee without even fully exploring the dungeon he had finally found.

Hiding himself in the thick fog, Eile avoided the Undead and made his way out of the plains.

‘Fortunately, I managed to escape… but it’s too early to relax.’

The flash was only meant to create a brief opening, and its effect wasn’t very long-lasting.

Even if they couldn’t see him right now, the guild members who had regained their senses would be chasing after him.

Judging by how they had tracked his trail through this dense fog, they must have an item or skill related to tracking, and if they were determined, the distance would quickly close.

Moreover, Tulli Village, the only stronghold in this vicinity, didn’t even have proper guards.

To evade their pursuit, he had to run even farther.

‘Around here… is that the only option?’

Heading in the opposite direction from the village and the palisade, Eile soon left the foggy plains.

At the end of the plains, a dense forest with tall trees stretched out, and he hurriedly entered.

A place with a very complex and vast structure, perfect for concealing oneself.

However, that alone wouldn’t be enough to shake off the pursuers chasing him, nor was it the breakthrough Eile had in mind.

Eile continued to check his location and the map, searching for something.

Whoosh!

A javelin flew from behind, narrowly missing Eile and smashing into a tree trunk in front of him.

But Eile didn’t flinch or look back, continuing to run.

‘They really did follow.’

Even after drinking a doping potion that increased his speed upon exiting the dungeon, the guild members were quickly catching up.

However, judging from the sound, it was a javelin thrown from quite a distance, and if he hadn’t noticed it in advance and moved, it would have pierced him.

With the level difference, there was no hope the moment the distance closed.

‘Wait, I found it……!’

As if he wasn’t meant to die here, the pit he was looking for appeared.

A small pit that didn’t seem like much on the surface, but Eile knew very well what was inside.

Swoosh!

Eile immediately threw himself into the hole and slid down.

What came into Eile’s view as he quickly reached the bottom was a cave with spiderwebs, large and small, covering all sides, including the ceiling and floor.

This place, where a cool air swept through, was a spider cave.

The habitat of the Giant Spider, a massive monster of level 150.

Giant Spiders were classified as ordinary monsters, but their difficulty was known to rival that of most elite monsters.

Their caves stretched far and wide in all directions, enough to escape this surrounding area.

Of course, normally, stepping into such a place with Eile’s stats would be no different from suicide.

But not now.

Krrrr!

A threatening snarl came from above.

Eile reflexively looked up and saw an incredibly huge spider dangling from the ceiling, fast asleep.

As strictly nocturnal monsters, they were in a deep sleep during the day and wouldn’t wake up unless directly attacked or a loud noise, like an explosion, was heard.

Added to the eerie scenery of the cave, it was truly horrifying, but for now, it was the only way to save him.

‘That way.’

Among the dozens of passages leading in all directions, Eile found a large hole in the wall.

Giant Spider caves basically had a very complex structure, but they didn’t deviate from certain patterns in each space.

With the right knack, it was possible to identify passages leading inward rather than dead ends, and Eile had that knack.

Eile looked for parts of the spiderwebs that had lost their stickiness, climbed onto the wall using them, and stood above the passage on the wall.

But for some reason, he didn’t run away immediately and stood there, waiting for a signal.

And not long after, he heard the sound of someone coming down from the pit Eile had descended from.

‘Now!’

Taking out his bow from his inventory, Eile immediately drew the string.

Thwack!

The arrow that flew with fanfare didn’t even damage the giant spider, bouncing off its thick hide.

But it didn’t matter.

It was enough to awaken the sleeping monster.

Thump, thump, thump!

Boom!

The Giant Spider, landing on the floor with a heavy thud, rolled its dozens of red eyes, tracking the intruder who had disturbed its sleep.

And right at that moment, Godin, who had been chasing Eile, came down.

“What……!”

Keeeeeek!

The Giant Spider, finding the intruder, roared.

The spiderweb that shot out from the enraged spider’s mouth soared to the ceiling and instantly covered all directions.

It was the monster’s pattern, activated to prevent anyone from escaping until the end was seen.

And beyond the created spiderweb, Godin and Eile’s eyes met.

Eile was already positioned near the passage, ready to escape.

Seeing him, Godin sensed that the chase was over.

“Why are you refusing the guild! You give us your name, and we protect you from pressure. Why this offer?”

“Sorry, but I don’t need protection from incompetent guys who can’t even catch one person.”

Eile said with a smirk, and Godin’s expression twisted fiercely.

As if there was nothing more to see, Eile turned his back, and Godin, watching his retreating figure, shouted.

“You haven’t been playing the game for very long, so you don’t know, but with that kind of naive thinking, you’ll never survive! Warlord is all about guilds. No matter how strong a ranker is, if they don’t have a force to back them up, they’ll eventually be trampled. But what can you do with less than level 50? You can’t do anything alone!”

“No. One user can do more than you think. I’ll teach you that.”

Eile’s back disappeared beyond the wall.

* * *

“…….”

In front of the corpse of the giant spider, sprawled out dead.

With an unreadable expression, Godin sheathed his sword.

Meanwhile, a guild member who had been running breathlessly from behind approached him.

“H, how did it go?”

“We completely lost him. It’s clear that suppressing Rhoden wasn’t just a fluke.”

Not even imagining that he would escape in this situation.

Godin readily admitted that he had underestimated and been careless with his opponent.

“But this won’t last long. There’s a limit to how much you can run alone against a guild.”

“Is it really necessary to go this far? It’s not usually our way.”

“It’s an unavoidable decision. The atmosphere within the guild hasn’t been good since the agreement with Frostflame.”

Godin said, trying to hide his annoyance.

Their guild, White Fang, had recently succeeded in reaching an agreement with the Frostflame Guild, with whom they had been in conflict.

But the problem was that the process of reaching the agreement wasn’t smooth.

Godin, who had been negotiating and consistently maintained a belligerent attitude, yielded a lot and stepped back to prepare for the upcoming alliance and stronghold battles without any setbacks.

It was a position of humbling his pride, but from the guild’s perspective, occupying a stronghold was an important goal that couldn’t be exchanged for anything, so it was a perfectly rational choice.

But even so, dissatisfaction was bound to erupt among the guild members.

If the conflict had been with a truly strong guild, the guild members wouldn’t have objected to backing down.

But this opponent wasn’t.

A guild with a similar physique that seemed like they could win if they fought properly.

Moreover, with their guild backing down first in a state where they had experienced such severe friction that it was difficult to turn back, the guild members’ pride was bound to be hurt.

Although the story hadn’t spread everywhere yet, if the Frostflame guild members were to mock and talk about them, there would be no greater shame.

From the perspective of guild members who had a strong sense of belonging to the guild, they naturally had dissatisfaction with the guild master who made such a decision.

“I expected there would be backlash… but the current atmosphere is definitely a problem with the alliance ahead. It was necessary to bring in a named player to change the guild’s atmosphere.”

Forcing someone to join the guild was a somewhat unreasonable attempt.

However, at the most important time ahead of the stronghold battle, they couldn’t leave the situation as it was, with dissatisfaction accumulating and cracks forming.

Right now, it was essential to somehow change the atmosphere.

“He has no power, connections, or forces to back him up. You can see that from how he struggled against Amaranths, even if he was lucky enough to get out of the situation.”

Godin had heard the whole story of how his younger brother had commissioned a bounty guild to deal with Eile.

But Amaranths had completely withdrawn and given up just because Eile had accidentally met a Nightmare guild member.

It was just like Amaranths, with his extraordinary caution.

But if they hadn’t stopped there and continued the request, Eile would have been helpless.

“We won’t be able to hold him forever. But for now, he’ll have no choice but to follow our orders. He just needs to play a role that can promote the guild’s name and change the atmosphere.”

Even excluding the difference in power, they had a weakness of Eile’s, who was trying to hide his identity.

He seemed to want to earn video revenue but not get involved in troublesome matters, so if he wanted to operate quietly, he would have to accept the guild’s offer.

But then, another guild member who had followed from the pit ran up to him with an urgent voice and called him.

“G, Guild Master! His name and face have been revealed!”

“What are you talking about? Information we already know…….”

Godin asked, at the guild member’s words that were spouting strange things.

But he shook his head and hurriedly blurted out.

“That’s not it! That guy revealed his identity himself!”

“Wh, what……?”

Bewilderment colored Godin’s face.

* * *

“Haha… they must be dumbfounded right now, right?”

Inside the passage with spiders hanging all over, Eile smiled, imagining Godin’s bewildered face.

Eile had just revealed his nickname on WarTube and even removed the filter that blocked facial recognition in the video.

It was better to reveal it first than to have the bastards unnecessarily exploit his weaknesses.

It was only a matter of time anyway, and to have a real impact on individuals, both the name and face had to be revealed.

Right now, the reaction to Eile’s identity reveal, which had taken place without warning, was heating up.

However, now was not the time to be concerned about such reactions.

He had safely escaped from the bastards’ clutches, but in the long term, it was naturally impossible to resist with Eile’s strength alone.

A mid-sized guild with hundreds of members.

Unlike Amaranths, they wouldn’t react sensitively to various factors, and it was impossible to hope for the same luck as before.

Moreover, given Eile’s current situation, it was impossible to expect anything from the gods, the church, or other NPCs.

No easy way out was visible, and so Eile’s mind became clearer.

‘There’s no solution unless I see this through to the end. It’s meaningless to save cards any longer.’

Having completely made up his mind, Eile manipulated the screen and entered the messenger function.

And he entered the channel code that he had clearly remembered.

[Connection request approved.]

[‘NightMare-4918’ channel is connecting!]

It was time to bring out the trump card he hadn’t used in a while.