Dark Fantasy Guide for the Summoner - Chapter 12

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 12.
The Path into the Forest V
The Achievement Shop is not omnipotent.
In the early stages, where the difficulty feels almost unreasonable, it merely eases things by a certain degree.
‘Well, I can’t complain about that much.’
How many times had I faced Game Over during just the Tutorial phase?
I’ve played this game thousands of times over, but never has the beginning been this grueling.
Welcome to the Achievement Shop.
Your current shop tier is Bronze. Certain items are locked based on tier. Please note that all purchases are final and non-refundable.
As I opened the Achievement Shop, the familiar text appeared before me.
Of course, I’d never spent a single point before, but I checked the shop regularly nonetheless.
Someday the moment would come to spend those points, and I had to devise the most efficient spending pattern for when it did.
‘The problem is my class.’
I’ve devised countless builds, but none of them involved the Summoner.
That was natural enough—I hadn’t even known the class existed.
Truth be told, I could devise a proper build even now if I had to.
‘…… but there’s no time to sit and think.’
Sometimes speed of judgment matters more than accuracy.
I swept quickly through the shop and grabbed an item I’d already decided on—the most versatile one regardless of class.
Potion of the Forerunner
Price: 100,000 P
…… Obscenely expensive.
‘One hundred thousand points—who’d ever have that kind of money?’
Of course, the price was worth the value.
What was this potion, exactly?
Simply put: ‘learn a skill early.’
Say you consumed the potion at level twenty—you could acquire skills that normally wouldn’t unlock until level fifty, sixty, or higher.
‘The catch is the randomness.’
True to form for this game, even this part was randomized.
So getting lucky and learning a top-tier skill wasn’t purely beneficial.
Usually, such endgame skills either consumed so much resources a low-level character couldn’t afford, or required prerequisite skills or special equipment.
‘Like the Swordsman class’s Shield Attack or the mage class’s Hellfire.’
If you learned such a skill, at least initially it might as well not exist.
‘I only get three chances to buy from the Bronze shop.’
Using one before I’d even properly entered the forest would be unwise.
Of course, if some garbage skill appeared, there was nothing for it…
But I bombed with the Talent’s Rough Stone last time, so maybe something decent would show up this round?
You know, like they say about sacrifices.
‘Damn.’
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Here I was, relying on superstition of all things.
If the community players caught wind of this, they’d mock me outright.
I pushed aside the wandering thoughts and drank the potion.
[You have consumed the Potion of the Forerunner.]
[You will randomly acquire one advanced skill from your class.]
I was aiming for something in the forty-to-sixty level range. Skills at that tier would be usable with my current stats and came without awkward restrictions.
[You have acquired the skill Wild Force.]
What kind of stupid name is that?
I felt a chill of foreboding and reached out to examine the skill.
Tap.
A cold droplet of water touched the bridge of my nose.
I looked up at the sky.
I’d thought it was dew falling from the leaves, but it seemed otherwise. The sky visible beyond the branches was far grayer than I’d realized.
Whoooosh―
It didn’t take long for the sporadic drops to become a downpour.
‘Great.’
I’d already lost plenty of blood, and now rain on top of it. My window to act was closing by the minute.
Without lifting my eyes from the sky, I read through the description of my newly acquired skill.
And then―
“……”
I closed the shop window.
* * *
Dorman was thinking.
So I’ve ended up in this cursed forest after all.
‘No matter how many times I come here, it’s always a miserable place.’
Trees towering far higher than the buildings of the Royal Capital, an inexplicable eeriness, and that bone-chilling sound like the wails of the damned whenever the wind whispered through the leaves…….
Dorman despised everything about this forest.
Whoooosh.
To make matters worse, a downpour was falling now, turning the ground to mud.
‘Did he flee all the way into the depths of the forest?’
It was a reasonable assumption, but certainty eluded him.
Dorman recalled the face of the man he’d been chasing.
The man’s physical abilities were pitiful, yet through quick thinking and crude tactics, he’d slaughtered most of Dorman’s companions.
An irritating man. Or rather…….
‘A frightening man.’
Dorman admitted to himself the faint dread he’d felt from this adversary.
Cain Del possessed a terrifying obsession and venomous resolve, and above all, he seemed the type never to forget a grudge.
If Dorman let him slip away today, before long he would return as a far more formidable enemy, hunting for his life.
Which meant there was no longer any use clinging to unique items.
‘Reina’s arrow is still embedded in his abdomen. With the rain pouring down like this, he won’t be able to flee far in that condition.’
Perhaps he’d already bled to death, or been devoured by the beasts of the forest.
None of it mattered.
As long as he could confirm even a single piece of that man’s corpse.
Dorman pressed forward through the mud-soaked forest without pause.
Though the rain obscured his vision, he maintained his alertness and caution without the slightest lapse.
Squelch.
So I can say with certainty:
Dorman was not careless.
The fact that he only realized his enemy’s presence after being pierced through the abdomen was in no way the result of negligence.
Dorman spat blood as he watched the falling rain form the silhouette of a man.
“Stealth……?”
A skill only a thief would possess—how did this bastard have it?
And if he’d had such a skill, why hadn’t he used it from the start?
‘This is no time to be thinking such things……!’
Dorman immediately tensed his abdomen and swung his blade, but his opponent—Cain Del—evaded with movements unlike anything he’d displayed before.
“Ugh……!”
The sword piercing his belly was a familiar shape.
Nelson’s sword.
Meticulous bastard. When did he pick that up?
‘Did he miss the vital organs……?’
It wasn’t luck.
The result came from the enemy precisely thrusting the blade through the gaps in his armor.
Perhaps thinking it was time to press the attack, the man came at him again, and this time Dorman’s counterattack was swift.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
Trading blows in the rain, Dorman felt an odd sense of both dissonance and familiarity. The opponent’s movements had distinctly changed…….
And more than that, something was wrong.
‘……That ferret bastard from before?’
His movements were nearly identical to that annoying Blade Ferret.
What in the hells was this man’s class?
Even as the battle raged on, the chill wouldn’t cease. And it wasn’t merely because both of them were accumulating wounds.
……Dorman had felt this sensation a handful of times in his life.
‘When I was hunted by a swarm of killer hornets, when I was caught by a man-eating tree, when I mistakenly stepped into a marsh crawling with the undead…….’
Of course, this man wasn’t as strong as those things were.
Throb.
His abdomen ached. The rate of his bleeding was far more severe than he’d anticipated, and the relentless rain was sapping his body heat rapidly.
‘I need to end this quickly.’
There was still a card he hadn’t played. He’d thought it wasteful to use on such a man, but facing death made such calculations melt away.
Clang-clang-clang-bang!
Fortunately, his opponent wasn’t entirely without openings. The man wielded a strange weapon—a sickle—but his proficiency with it seemed far from refined.
‘Has he not yet adapted to the sickle’s range?’
Dorman deliberately feigned inability to close the distance, luring his opponent into the false belief that the current gap was absolutely safe.
The moment of decisive engagement arrived quickly.
Whoosh!
The opening came immediately after the scythe’s swing—a vulnerability that would normally be impossible to exploit with an ordinary blade’s reach, but now things were different.
Dorman aimed his sword at the opponent from a distance.
“Die!”
With a muted pop, the blade launched forth—literally ejected as a whole sword.
Dorman’s face twisted into a triumphant smile, but in the next instant, his eyes widened in shock.
“What?”
Cain Del evaded the projectile. Not through reflex or dynamic vision, but with movements so natural they seemed prescient—as if he’d already foreseen it.
In the breath after dodging, Cain Del closed the distance in a heartbeat and swung his scythe.
“…!”
In that instant, Dorman’s eyes flashed with lethal intent. He twisted his left wrist counterclockwise, and the Hidden Dagger he’d concealed sprang forth, then he drove it straight toward Cain Del’s throat.
By range, the scythe would reach first, but it didn’t matter.
Even if he died, he wouldn’t die alone.
“―!”
In that fleeting moment, Dorman saw something flicker across his opponent’s eyes—a flash of disbelief. So, he hadn’t anticipated this either.
But the instant that thought crossed his mind, his body’s balance shattered violently.
‘What…?’
The answer came immediately: his foot had slipped in the muddy, waterlogged ground.
Squelch.
A cool sensation swept through him, and all strength drained from his body. The Hidden Dagger meant for his throat buried itself instead in his shoulder.
“Guh…”
He knew instinctively his throat had been cut. He clapped a hand to the wound reflexively, but the blood wouldn’t stop—it poured out in a steady, sickening gush.
“Gargh…!”
Blood welled up in his mouth. Dorman staggered backward, and in that moment, he looked into his opponent’s eyes.
‘This…is just a lamp-lighter?’
Status didn’t matter anymore. This man was someone who’d kill to avoid death, someone who’d do anything to survive. Just like Dorman himself.
‘Damn…’
As belated regret washed over him, Dorman let out a hollow laugh and thought: if he’d known the man was like this, he should never have touched him.
‘Not worth it.’
That was his final thought.
* * *
My head is spinning.
My body aches.
How bad is the wound? Should’ve saved that potion if I’d known. Though if I had, would I have been able to run properly with my side in pain? Maybe the arrow’s old wound opened up again—I might’ve been incredibly unlucky.
“…Ah.”
Either way, I won.
Wild Force Lv.1
Type: Buff
Casting Time: Instant | Range: Self
Duration: 60 seconds | Cooldown: 600 seconds
Borrow a portion of the summoned beast’s stats and gain access to its skills. The number of stats and skills borrowed scales with trust level and skill level of the summoned beast.
A newly acquired skill.
I’d wondered if I could use it with the Blade Ferret in an incapacitated state, but apparently I could.
Through this skill, I gained additional stats, and I was able to use the Blade Ferret’s Stealth skill as well.
“…”
After exhaling, I looked at the corpse before me.
Dorman Bedro.
Occupation: Swordsman, Rank 4 Delver.
Level somewhere between 30 and 35.
Looking at the now-cold body, a thought I’d had when I first saw him resurfaced in my mind.
‘D-rank.’
A talent grade I’d personally assigned.
A-rank were talents that absolutely had to be secured―
B-rank were excellent talents with high priority.
C-rank were mediocre, interchangeable talents.
And D-rank, finally, were…
‘Beings utterly worthless as comrades.’
Even as my wounds throbbed, I found myself laughing. If the rain hadn’t fallen, if the mud hadn’t turned slick, if Dorman hadn’t slipped in that waterlogged ground…
His final blow would have pierced my neck instead of my shoulder, and I might have died.
‘Pathetic bastard.’
I’d grown arrogant, believing I could read his every move.
I knew the function of Dorman’s weapon, the Eagle Sword.
⁝
It could fire the blade for a ranged attack.
⁝
An ability usable only once.
I’d assumed Dorman would stake everything on that technique—that it was his final gambit. I’d been wrong.
But I was mistaken.
A man driven to the precipice can do anything.
Literally—he becomes ‘desperate.’
And I, of all people, the one who should have known that better than anyone, had let my guard down.
“Ha ha…….”
I laughed at my own pathetic state.
Laughing, I barely managed to stand. My vision blurred and my body refused to obey, but I couldn’t remain here. I had to at least reach the forest’s edge, then find shelter from the rain.
Splash.
Battered by the downpour, I staggered forward until a slope leading out of the forest finally came into view.
Thud.
My legs gave out as I climbed, and I slipped.
I had no strength left to stand.
Caked in mud, I crawled up the slope. And just as I crested the hill……
“……?”
A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me.
The landscape around me felt oddly familiar.
‘This place……’
The wreckage of a train scattered across a clearing.
Black rain falling in a gentle patter.
And behind me, the forest’s entrance gaping open like some terrible maw.
“Ah.”
This location—
‘The game start screen.’
Splash.
If this world truly were a game, this moment would bring an eerie BGM and red text scrolling across the screen.
[FOREST OF SHADOW]
Below it, a list of options would appear.
[New Game]
[Save]
[Options]
And at the end, [Exit Game].
“…….”
I reached out and pressed my index finger against the non-existent exit button.
I did this pointless gesture several times.
Splash.
The rain didn’t stop.
The landscape remained unchanged.
Everything stayed as it was. My consciousness didn’t return to reality, and the pain from my wounds persisted.
“Tch…….”
Well, of course it did.
Hadn’t I already finished verifying? After deciding to treat this place as real, the moment an escape presents itself, this is what happens. How unlike me.
Perhaps I’ve lost too much blood.
Thud.
I collapsed.
The mud, which should have been cold, felt strangely warm. My senses, broken as they were, screamed a warning, but my body refused to move.
As my consciousness began to fade……
Hoot—
Somewhere, I heard the cry of an owl.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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