Wandering Mercenary in an Open World

The red haze created by the bonfire dispelled the darkness. Luon, who looked at the flickering flame, took out the dried jerky from his bosom and poured it into his mouth.

It’s so tough. The beef jerky dried with salt without spices was like rubber. He was also annoyed by the disgusting smell coming up his nose. The more he chewed, the more he missed the 6,000 won jerky that was hanging at the convenience store. At the time, he even grumbled that it was expensive.

Luon still missed the 26 years of living in Korea. It’s not the beef jerky that he enjoyed, but the life where he drank beer while chewing on delicious food.

Luon clenched his teeth at the memory that became clearer rather than worn out as time passed.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

It was an unknown sob that put the brakes on Luon’s thoughts.

The eerie sobs, incompatible with the forest at night, were something that ordinary people would be terrified by, but Luon stood up without any hesitation. Rather, there was a faint smile on his face. Caught you.

“Oh, my!”

With silent footsteps, he approached the source of the sound and saw someone squatting under a large tree.

Its face was buried in its raised knee, so he couldn’t see its face, but its long hair and thin wrists and ankles made him guess that the opponent was a woman.

Are you all right? Instead of asking that, Luon drew a sword from his waist. The sword gleamed and shimmered coolly in the moonlight. The woman’s tears never stopped.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

“You’re gonna try to fool me until the end, right?”

Luon smirked and put his other hand in his arms. As soon as the dagger’s hard handle touched his fingertips, he stretched out his hand forward. A dagger that flew through the wind is about to pierce the woman’s forehead.

CLANG!

Unbelievable sound of flesh and iron colliding resonated in the forest. It was the woman’s thin arm that struck the dagger. At the same time, the sobbing stopped.

It was Luon who broke the silence that had fallen in an instant.

“Stop acting ridiculous.”

“Kyaaaaaaaah!”

With a sharp scream, the woman jumped to her feet and her face covered by the knees was revealed. Her skin was as dry as a mummy, and maggots were falling from her eyes, as if they had been devoured by mice.

Luon’s forehead slowly narrowed at the horrific face. At times like this, it’s annoying to have good eyes.

“Kyaaaah!”

The woman, no, the monster screamed again and ran towards him. The curse contained in the scream put pressure on Luon, but he let the intangible power flow into the air lightly as if brushing off dust.

The monster, which was waving its long limbs, crawled towards him and swung its hand. Luon, who avoided the monster’s sharp claws by simply turning his head, raised the sword he had drawn earlier.

“Keeeeeeek!”

Luon kicked away the screaming monster in the chest, raised his arm and swung his sword hard. The opposite arm of the monster, which lost its balance, was cut off. Next is the chest. Finally, the head.

In an instant, the monster’s severed body fell to the floor.

“Not bad.”

Luon smiled as he felt a gentle exaltation from deep inside. He was a man with quite a bit of experience.

Luon, who found something shiny in the monster’s corpse, which had turned into gray powder like briquettes, reached out. Bagging a rusty necklace, he fell on the floor, hoping for something more to come out of it, but nothing did. There was only one piece of clothing that looked like a rag on which maggots crawled.

This is why I hate ghosts. At best, the only thing you’ll want to take is the things it wore while it was alive.

Luon spat once on the floor and turned around without hesitation.

***************

“Welcome!”

At the sound of the bell, Hobson, the innkeeper, raised his head to welcome the guest. On the day of receiving customers from such an early hour, the owner smiled broadly at the lucky guest who came after a long time because the income was good that day.

“You seem to have been walking all night, would you like some warm milk?”

“I’d like to ask you for a quick bite. If possible, I’d like something soft.”

“You seem to have only eaten jerky the past few days?”

“My jaw is about to fall out.”

As if he knew it, the owner chuckled and entered the kitchen, and Luon slumped into his chair and stretched. He frowned a little, but that was it. It’s been a long time since he felt tired enough after walking for a long time thanks to the stamina stats he increased steadily after each level up.

Luon, after killing the ghost, found a small village on the hillside only at dawn, and had just entered an inn emitting smoke from the chimney.

The inside of the inn looked old, but it was closer to a vintage atmosphere rather than an old feeling because the owner paid a lot of attention to it. Luon really liked the atmosphere.

After a while, the owner set the steaming dishes and glass down in front of Luon.

It was a thick pie with warm milk and a sweet scent. When he dipped into the pie, the red jam flowed deliciously.

“This is the most popular menu item in our store. It’s sold out after lunch, so you can’t even look at it.”

As if to represent the confident owner, the pie was excellent. While Luon was smiling contentedly at the dish that was going to be eaten in a short time, a group of people came down from upstairs with a buzz.

The stubby hair man who was the first to come down the stairs fixed his gaze on Luon, who was eating.

“Huh?”

Broad shoulders and a solid physique. A bow on his back and a sword on his waist. Seeing Luon’s unusual appearance, the stubby hair had a brief conversation with his party, and then approached the table where Luon was sitting.

The ponytail sitting across from Luon asked.

“Are you a mercenary?”

Luon, who had been enjoying the softness of the pie in full swing, wrinkled his forehead.

“Can’t you see that I’m eating?”

“I apologize if I was rude.”

“If you know, I’d like you to keep it a little bit.”

“Do you want to work together? I know something that is quite tempting.”

What if a guy who knows it’s rude is just saying what he has to say? In a situation where he couldn’t complain, Luon stared intently at his head, In the spirit of wanting to hear what he is talking about.

Accepting the silence as a yes, the ponytail raised the corners of his mouth.

“There’s a notorious Banshee around here.”

Luon’s expressionless expression became subtle. Banshee? He thinks he knows what he is talking about.

“It’s an old entity, so it’s quite powerful. It’s strong enough to screech some of the youngsters who rushed in fearlessly to death. Well, thanks to that, the reward has nearly tripled, so it’s a good thing for us. As you’d have noticed, my colleagues and I are going to kill that banshee bitch. But it’s true that I’m a little uneasy when I look at the precedents. From the looks of it, you are also living off knife rice too. How about it? Go on a banshee hunt with us. The more colleagues the better, right? The pay will be divided equally, so don’t worry.”

By the time the ponytail had spoken up to that point, Luon was already thinking about something else.

‘Yay, I got some money.’

He was disappointed that he didn’t earn much except for the old necklace, but it had a bounty! It was very fortunate that he handled it without much effort.

Of course, the Banshee was a powerful evil spirit. But that’s only if you’re defenseless or unable to resist the banshee’s screams.

It was not applicable to Luon, who had ‘resistance to various debuffs’ as one of the main character perks at the time of character creation.

“What will you do?”

Luon, who had been silent, answered the question in a soft voice.

“Is the Banshee’s keepsake a necklace? A rusty necklace adorned with small green jewels.”

The forehead of the ponytail slightly narrowed.

“That’s right. That’s exactly what was described as evidence. What? You knew everything, but you’ve been listening to me pretending you don’t know?”

“No. I heard it for the first time today.”

“But how do you know about the necklace? It doesn’t make any sense.”

The ponytail raised his eyebrows. He seemed to think that Luon was lying because he put a lot of strength into his raised eyebrows.

Luon didn’t want to explain so instead of answering he took out the necklace he had obtained after killing the ghost from his arms.

“What? No way…”

Luon said to the man looking at the necklace with a surprised expression.

“That Banshee. I killed it on my way.”