Dark Fantasy Guide for the Summoner - Chapter 21

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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 21.
Wood Revenge II
Screeeeeech…….
In that instant, I felt a presence from behind.
From the opposite direction of where Lorang stood, a group of Woodmen were rising from beneath the rubble.
‘Damn it.’
Sons of bitches. This game is an absolute mess.
I’ve run through Wood Revenge at least dozens of times, but this is my first time seeing mobs spawn from behind.
At the same time, I feel it anew.
Draw on gamer experience, yes—but never, ever trust it blindly.
“Grab my hand!”
“Huh? W-what?”
I snatched Seigrena’s wrist before she could fully collect herself and yanked her upward.
“Oh my god!”
Her body shot skyward with a weak cry that made her forget the danger entirely. She’d manage the landing on her own—I dropped downward to meet the ground in a crossover motion.
“Blade Ferret!”
Roooaaarrr!
With a thunderous roar, the party’s ace revealed himself.
“A… a beast?!”
Seigrena, clinging somehow to a branch above, gasped in shock—but there was no more hiding it now.
I’d save excuses for later; I raised my shield and engaged the Woodmen immediately.
[Lv. 30 ‘Woodman Guardian’]
At least these weren’t Avengers.
Given the name Guardian, they were probably entities that protected the forest, something like that.
‘That has to be the best this thing’s got.’
The Avenger that already spawned was surely being held in check by Lorang.
In any case, seeing this new pattern emerge only reinforced my hypothesis.
Grooooaaahhh!
Fighting a level 30 Woodman Guardian.
The basic tactics remain identical.
I defend and pin the enemy down while Blade Ferret finishes the job.
We’re at a level disadvantage, but we can hold the line.
For two reasons.
First, Woodmen are weaker than monsters of equivalent level.
Second, I’m receiving additional stat bonuses through the Servitude skill.
……Of course, that doesn’t mean the situation’s optimistic.
For starters, there are too damn many of these bastards.
‘Shit.’
How much longer can I hold on?
If only I knew the remaining time exactly, I’d have something to draw strength from—but this friendless game won’t even display that much.
The only way to guess is…… the size of the Ashen Branch?
“This… this thing! It keeps getting bigger—is that actually okay?!”
Hell if I know.
Maybe it’ll absorb all the tree’s nutrients, slaughter every last Woodman, and then come for us.
‘Low probability, though.’
It’s a reasonably sound hypothesis.
After all, Woodman spawning grounds are on the forest’s fringes. No matter how vicious ForOp’s creators are, they won’t dump high-level monsters onto a place like this out of nowhere.
The hard limit’s probably around the Woodman Avenger I saw earlier?
‘But that means the probability isn’t actually low.’
A bitter laugh escaped me.
I know. But what the hell can I do?
My principle is always the same.
No matter the situation, move with whatever option carries the highest survival probability.
[Beast ‘Blade Ferret’ has contracted the abnormal status ‘Poison’.]
[Beast ‘Blade Ferret’s’ HP is continuously decreasing.]
In the thick of combat, both Blade Ferret and I picked up wounds in multiple places.
Unlucky for him—he’d even contracted Poison.
The miserable part is, I don’t have the leeway to help him.
‘This is gonna kill me…….’
The pain after so long without it was blinding, searing, stealing my focus.
I don’t have the luxury of checking my wounds.
The number of Woodmen simply refuses to dwindle at any reasonable rate.
Screech-screech-screech—!
“Argh!”
In that instant, the ground lurched violently and Seigrena cried out.
An earthquake? No. A moment later, I glimpsed two creatures clinging to the tree like monkeys.
‘The tree?’
The Black Tree trembles like an aspen.
Shriek-shriek-shriek—!
At the same time, the Woodmen began to rage.
Now that I think about it, the lore says all Woodmen are connected to the Black Tree.
Their progenitor is suffering, and that agony seems to spread to them as well.
“Kaindel! The branch, the branch is—!”
At Seigrena’s cry, I turned my attention to the Ashen Branch.
It had grown considerably larger than before, but what caught my eye was a far more distinct form.
‘A lizard?’
Coiled though it was,
its overall silhouette was unmistakably reptilian.
A lizard that parasitizes wood?
I’ve never heard of such a creature in my life, but one thing is certain—that beast holds our lifeline in its grasp.
Roar—!
The moment that hideous cry jolted me awake, I thrust my shield forward.
My teeth clenched instinctively.
Each time the shield absorbed a blow, my knees buckled as though they might shatter.
‘Damn….’
These bastards. They’re far stronger than before.
Could they have gotten a buff along with that glow?
Fortunately, the shield Kazen made held up even in this nightmare.
Crack!
[The Tattered Shield is destroyed.]
Hell.
I hurled the utterly shattered shield aside and immediately drew the sickle slung across my back, swinging it in a wide arc.
Slash!
The wood gave way more easily than I’d expected.
There was a trick to it, of course—instead of targeting thick points like the torso or neck, I focused on the limbs and joints to strip away their combat effectiveness immediately.
Blade Ferret finishes off the toppled Woodmen.
Smooth sailing, clearly, but….
“Hah, gasp….”
My body feels leaden.
Health, mental power, stamina—all of it bottoming out. Blade Ferret’s in the same state.
Yet even as we falter, the Woodmen show no sign of thinning.
I figured out why in the middle of the fighting.
Bulge.
Fresh Woodmen kept surging up through the ground without pause.
Hell. Do these creatures have no spawn cap? Though they should, shouldn’t they?
“Ah! Lorang!”
Seigrena’s voice.
‘Lorang?’
I can’t see him from where I am.
I called out urgently to Seigrena.
“How’s he holding up over there?”
“Lorang’s defeated all the crimson Woodmen! As expected of him—incredible!”
All of them?
Hard to believe. Not that I underestimate the White Knight, but Woodman Avengers are no trivial foe.
‘Could the Black Tree have withdrawn its summons directly?’
The only plausible explanation that springs to mind. There must be a limit to how many Woodmen it can maintain at once.
That’s how this game’s system works.
Jobs that command armies—Spiritcallers, Summoners, Necromancers—all face caps on the number of servants they can control.
‘Monsters follow the same rules.’
And depending on the individual combat strength, each minion probably consumes a different portion of that cap.
To give a famous RTS game as an example…….
Some units consume only 1 population even when two are combined, while advanced units fill 6 or more population with just one, the way it goes.
‘Of course an Avenger would be far superior to a level 30 Guardian.’
And now the Black Tree, sensing danger, had dismissed the swarm of Avengers and summoned Guardians instead.
‘Not bad, actually.’
Now the causal chain had become clearer, and the conclusion was simple: this was the tree’s miscalculation.
A move like this would actually give the White Knight wings.
Crunch!
The moment I severed the leg of the Woodman standing before me, I caught sight of Lorang’s party in the distance.
Just as Seigrena had said, there wasn’t a single Woodman nearby.
There’s no time to relay our situation, but the circumstances are crystal clear.
“Lorang! Here!”
Seigrena proved useful for the first time, shouting at the top of her lungs and waving her hand.
But then.
‘What are they doing?’
Why aren’t they moving?
Unlike me, frantic and desperate, their stillness radiated an unsettling composure.
Only Kazen—just one of them—was moving violently, shaking his entire body and shouting.
Then, in that moment―
“……!”
Lorang’s fist drove into Kazen’s abdomen.
Kazen’s body went limp, and the others moved to catch him.
“…….”
Lorang looked at me.
His inorganic eyes held the same expression I’d witnessed many times before.
A chill ran down my spine.
I knew exactly what that look meant—the moment he was calculating someone’s value in his mind.
‘Surely not?’
An involuntary laugh escaped me, and in that same instant, Lorang and his companions turned away.
I ground my teeth and shouted.
“Lorang Le Fevre!”
I’d forced it out despite having no leisure to do so, but the bastard didn’t even pretend to hear.
From the moment they turned their backs until they vanished completely from sight, less than ten seconds passed.
“L-Lorang…? Where are you going? If you leave me here, Father will…….”
Didn’t she understand the situation yet?
I’d thought that being part of his group, she at least grasped the White Knight’s nature.
Yes. That man possessed such a from the start.
‘……Trait: .’
The White Knight would gladly abandon one to save ten.
And yet, his identity was that of a knight. I’d thought surely he wouldn’t abandon even his ward.
‘There must be another reason.’
I barely wrenched myself free from the persistent grip of a Woodman’s hand, then climbed the Black Tree.
“……Th-this is a dream……. A terrible nightmare. It doesn’t make sense that I’d even come to a forest in the first place, does it……? That’s right. I am of the House of Montreille…….”
I examined Seigrena’s overall appearance as she rambled, unhinged.
She wore clothes so ill-fitting—as though a child had stolen an adult’s garments—but the strangest thing was the glove on only one hand.
……Could it be?
“What are you doing!”
I grabbed at the glove to check, and the pale back of her hand was revealed.
Along with the ominous marking imprinted there.
‘The Sacrificial Stigma.’
I spoke to Seigrena.
“Did Lorang tell you to hide that?”
“W-what?”
“Answer me.”
Seigrena, catching on, glanced nervously at my expression before giving the slightest nod.
“Ha…….”
An involuntary laugh spilled out.
‘Lorang, you son of a bitch…….’
He’d known all along about the Wood Revenge.
* * *
Seigrena watched my expression carefully before speaking.
“That, that thing just now—you called it a stigma, right? What exactly is this stigma……?”
“Lorang didn’t explain it to you?”
“He just told me I had to hide it, that’s all…….”
Seigrena’s murmur trailed off as she dropped her head.
Seeing her like that, my thoughts turned ice-cold.
“The Sacrificial Stigma.”
“Sacrificial……?”
“Simply put: if you offer your life as a sacrifice, the rest of us can save ours.”
“That, that can’t be……”
I looked down for a moment.
The Woodman Guardians were crawling toward the tree below, clambering up its trunk.
For now they tangled with each other, collided, and fell back in a chaotic cycle—but that wouldn’t last forever.
“You, you’re going to throw me? Down there?”
What was she talking about?
I shouted, ignoring Seigrena’s expression of utter devastation.
“Blade Ferret! Come back!”
Blade Ferret bounded back toward me. She was drenched in blood, her health bar dangerously low.
A moment later and she might have been rendered unable to fight again.
“……You did well.”
Without the strength to respond, Blade Ferret collapsed.
I hoisted her onto my shoulder and peered down below.
The situation was desperate, but I couldn’t surrender to it.
So think. Figure out what needs to be done now.
“……How can you stay so calm?”
Seigrena’s question drew a bitter laugh from me.
Calm? That’s ridiculous.
Though my mind was surprisingly lucid, and I was accepting the current predicament with a kind of emotional detachment.
As for why—well.
“Because I already considered the possibility of it coming to this.”
“What……?”
Seigrena’s eyes widened as understanding dawned on her.
“So you’re saying you knew Lorang would abandon you?”
“Precisely speaking, he abandoned us—not just you.”
“That’s the same thing…….”
It was entirely different.
With causality now clear, I began to make sense of the white knight’s earlier actions that had puzzled me.
‘He already knew Seigrena was the sacrifice.’
After all, he’d been openly concealing the back of her neck from the start.
When Kazen volunteered to join us, things must have become easier for him.
From Kazen’s perspective, he was acting to protect his sister by sending her to safety—but in the end, he’d helped Lorang.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“What……?”
“Do you want to live? Or will you meekly become the sacrifice and die as a noble martyr? Well, if you do that, then your precious white knight might just save his own skin.”
“…….”
Seigrena’s teeth clenched.
“Stop… stop mocking me. I, I can’t die here.”
There. That was the answer I wanted.
The situation seemed hopeless at first glance, but it wasn’t.
In a strange way, my mind had even found some peace.
The crisis had worsened, yes—but with Lorang’s departure, the situation itself had become far more straightforward.
‘This is better, actually.’
If the only problem was an absurdly high difficulty level, I was confident I could push through it.
“Then from now on, follow my instructions.”
“If I follow you? Then I can survive?”
“Yes. I promise.”
Hesitantly, Seigrena nodded.
“All right. Then, first instruction.”
I pulled out an item I’d purchased from the Achievement Shop as I spoke.
“Give me your hair.”

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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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