Only I’m the solo player

Chapter 18 – Humanity

—–CROW—– 

The Hour of the Wolf passed, and morning came.

The shepherd girl and I had a simple meal of white rolls and then immediately set off for the village.

Thanks to having swept away all the wolves in the field the previous day, only one or two wolves appeared during the journey.

“It’s strangely quiet today with the wolves, I wonder if something happened?”

I could have explained that it was because I had killed all the wolves, but when I tried to speak, I found it hard to get the first word out.

“Flanders, what’s going on? You can’t smell any wolves either, can you?”

-Woof! Woof!

“So, do you think the wolf leader might be using some strange trick?”

Since I didn’t respond, the shepherd girl started talking to her dog. Was my social skills worse than a dog’s?

Had it been so difficult to talk to people? At this rate, I felt like I would completely forget how to speak.

“It died.”

“Yes?”

“It’s dead.”

Wanting to say something, I told her about the Wolf King Lobo that I had defeated yesterday.

“That wolf leader, I killed it yesterday.”

The shepherd girl, who had been chattering away, suddenly fell silent with a dumbfounded expression, her mouth agape.

Then she exchanged glances with her sheepdog, returned to her dumbfounded expression, and looked up at me.

Maybe it was because her job was a shepherd, but her actions somehow reminded me of sheep. Especially in that she seemed slow and harmless.

“Really?”

I wondered if I had said something wrong, but it seemed like she was just surprised.

“Really.”

Forgetting to use honorifics and asking if I was serious, I gave the shepherd girl the same answer back.

Then, the shepherd girl started spinning around in place, making a strange noise like “Aaaaah.”

“Oh my, oh my, oh my… Flanders, did you hear that? Is it real? It must be real, right?”

-Woof!

“I, I can’t believe it either. But why would the adventurer lie… It must be real, right?”

-Woof!

“Wh-Who are you calling a fool? Flanders, you’re too suspicious. Sometimes you have to trust people.”

The sheepdog Flanders followed the girl, spinning around and barking.

And after spinning around for a while, the shepherd girl soon began to interrogate me about the Wolf King.

She asked about the size of the Wolf King, the color of its fur, how I defeated it, and so on.

She expressed doubt, saying that no matter how strong an adventurer was, it was impossible to defeat it alone.

It was difficult to convince the girl with my poor speaking skills, but I had proof that I had defeated the Wolf King.

-Thud!

I took out the wolf pelts that had piled up in my inventory from last night’s battle, and the Wolf King’s fang, and showed them to her.

Then the shepherd girl screamed “Hiiiiek,” covered her head, and sat down.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I actually believed you, but Flanders kept saying it might be a lie…!”

-Woof woof woof!

“What are you doing, Flanders! You apologize too, it’s all your fault. You bad, suspicious dog!”

I hadn’t been angry, but the sight of the girl trembling and bickering with her dog was funny, so I just watched for a while.

And after a while, she even hugged her dog and said things like, “We’re going to die here.”

“Pfft.”

That very human aspect made me laugh just by watching.

****

It didn’t take long to calm the shepherd girl down. It was all just a fuss from the beginning anyway.

“A-Are you going to spare me…?”

“Why would I kill you?”

“That’s, that’s, well… right?”

The shepherd girl was so embarrassed that she kept bickering with her dog with a red face for a while after that.

After walking for a few more minutes, a small village with a pastoral atmosphere appeared.

It was the shepherd girl’s hometown.

As the girl herself had said it was a small village, the village we arrived at was very small.

It was probably less than half the size of the 1st floor’s village area.

The open community had said that the 2nd floor village and labyrinth were very small, but I hadn’t expected it to be this small.

It was surprising that even such a small village had things like an inn and a shop.

When we arrived at the village, the shepherd girl suddenly straightened her posture and bowed her head.

“The God in heaven and the spirit of the earth have safely guided the shepherd, so I give thanks to the kind traveler who lit the way.”

[Quest Complete: Shepherd Girl’s Request – Wolf Pack]

“Declaring that the traveler’s torch was the guidance of God, I pray that you may be blessed accordingly.”

The shepherd girl began to chant something unintelligible in a small voice. Then, blue notification windows appeared one after another in front of me.

[Quest Reward: You have acquired ‘Experience’ and ‘Gold’.]

[Objective Completion Reward: You have acquired ‘Blessing of the Earth Spirit’.]

[The Earth Spirit stays by your side.]

I heard that the final reward for the shepherd quest known in the open community was a belt item, but I received a cryptic reward.

I thought it might be an item, so I opened my inventory, but there was no change other than a slight increase in the amount of gold I had.

Then was it a skill? With an excited heart, I opened the skill window, and a new skill called [Blessing of the Earth Spirit] was registered.

[Blessing of the Earth Spirit Lv.1]

A lesser spirit of the earth element resides by your side.

The skill level increases according to your intimacy with the spirit, and new effects are unlocked depending on the level.

– Basic Passive Effect: Defense +20

– Additional Passive Effect: (Unlocked at level 5)

– Additional Active Effect: (Unlocked at level 10)

It was basically a skill with only one passive effect, but additional options were added depending on the level.

The basic passive effect was less than that of a single [Goblin Bone Necklace], but the fact that it didn’t take up an equipment slot was attractive.

In addition, my eyes were naturally drawn to the active effect that could be obtained when the level increased.

Considering the skill name, Blessing of the Earth Spirit, there was a high possibility that the active effect was a kind of magic skill.

For me, a normal class warrior, being given a magic skill was very significant.

The only problem was that I didn’t know how to raise the skill level, but that was a problem that could be solved by asking the open community.

“This is really amazing.”

The reward was as generous as the quest difficulty was outrageous. With this, I had gained three new skills in just one day since entering the 2nd floor.

The quest reward experience was a bit stingy, so I didn’t level up, but this was enough.

I’ll clear the 2nd floor boss right away too.

****

The shepherd girl politely said goodbye to me and quickly ran off somewhere, saying she would gather the sheep.

“Thank you so much for today, I’ll definitely repay you again next time!”

The [Blessing of the Earth Spirit] I received as a quest reward was enough, but I decided to remember the girl’s words.

It was fun to watch her chatter, and I thought I might say hello if I saw her later.

After parting with the shepherd girl, the first place I went to was the village inn. Since it was a small village, there was only one lodging.

“Welcome. Are you staying the night?”

Ignoring the inorganic greeting unique to NPCs, which was completely different from the shepherd girl’s lively voice, I booked a room.

After entering the room, I took off the equipment I had been wearing all day and opened the open community.

I needed to gather information about the 2nd floor labyrinth area, and also find out about the [Blessing of the Earth Spirit] skill.

Finding information about a specific skill wasn’t easy just by searching. It was time to write a post on the community for the first time in a while, even though I didn’t want to.

[Author: Seo Jinhyuk#2661]

[Title: Someone tell me how to raise spirit intimacy]

(Photo)

I got this kind of skill, is there a way to raise its level?

It had been a long time since I was active, but my community habits hadn’t gone anywhere, so I wasn’t awkward writing the post.

As with most internet communities, it took some time for a question post to get a reply on the open community.

If the timing was bad, it could quickly get buried due to the overflowing number of useless posts, so I might have to post it a few times.

-Ding.

But surprisingly, maybe I was lucky, notifications started ringing quickly. I immediately reopened the community window that I had closed.

My post, which I had reopened, had a very large number of comments.

The problem was that none of them were the comments I wanted.

– Wow, this guy was alive???

– I thought Jinhyuk was dead, what have you been up to all this time?

– Holy sh*t, Jinhyuk was alive…

– Is this guy that 2661 b*stard?

–  ㄴ This guy is the only one on server 2661, it’s him

– The f*cking cliquishness is insane, so who the hell is this guy

– ㄴ There’s someone who doesn’t know Jinhyuk while being on the community lol

– ㄴ What a newbie, you don’t know 2661?

– ㄴ Open community originally allows cliquishness, you f*cking idiot… We need someone to report deaths to

It seemed that my silent break from the community to focus on growth had created a strange misunderstanding.

– Breaking) Popular poster Jinhyuk is back

My community activities seemed to have been more deeply recognized by other challengers than I thought.

—–CROW—–