Seven arrived at the camp.
He tried to steady his breathing, but his chest kept on rising and falling too fast after running for so long.
Turning around, no one was following him. Truth is, even the environment was eerily silent.
Perhaps the senior knight had dealt with the attacker.
But that thought didn't sit right with him. Because if that were true, then Seven wouldn't have died in the novel in the first place.
Step, step.
He moved through the camp, checking each cabin and tent one after another. Yet he found nothing that matched the storage room Heinrich had told him about.
"Damn it… not this one either. Where is—"
Thwack!
A searing pain exploded in his chest.
"—ughkk!"
His breath collapsed as he staggered.
Looking down, a jagged and uneven crude arrow lodged deep in his chest, barely missing his heart. Frothy blood bloomed across his white sleeve.
His thoughts raced, but even in that state, one thing was clear.
There was no way this came from the attacker he was trying to escape, because something this poorly made wouldn't even leave a mark on that radiant and senior knight.
Which meant—
"Kikiki!"
From somewhere ahead, a high-pitched ugly shriek echoed.
It came from a small figure, barely three feet tall, hiding behind a wooden training dummy. Its appearance looked like a mixture of a monkey and a goblin.
"Imp…? You've got to be kidding me. The starlit lantern in the village was the only one that malfunctioned, so why is there an imp here, inside the camp?"
Imp.
They were the weakest of the corrupted beast, beings that were originally chimpanzees but couldn't withstand the zi of nature.
The imp held a crude bow.
As Seven watched, it slowly pulled another arrow from its quiver made of thickened leaves and licked the arrowhead as if savoring it.
Thwish!
The bowstring snapped.
The arrow came with such speed that made it impossible to dodge— but by pure serendipity, it missed him. The imp was such a bad archer!
The imp then pulled another arrow, but Seven rushed inside the cabin he had just checked. An arrow pierced the door just as he closed it.
Inside, a single torch lit the interior.
It was mostly empty, containing a plain desk with locked drawers, a shelf filled with scribbled parchments and a map of the continent, and five stacked wooden crates full of potatoes.
"Kikiki…"
The shriek came closer and closer, slowly.
The wooden plank on one of the wooden crates was loose, thus Seven tore it off with the nail still attached. He also grabbed three potatoes then put them in his pocket and hid behind the desk.
Creak.
The door opened.
Seven peeked under the desk, seeing the imp standing by the doorway, bow loaded with that jagged arrow as it scanned the interior for any presence.
"Kiki…"
The arrow lodged in his chest throbbed in rhythm with his heartbeat, but he refused to pull nor snap it apart. Doing either of those would only worsen the wound.
'...It hurts like hell. Damn it.'
The imp took a few cautious steps forward.
Seven fished out a potato from his pocket and hurled it to the far end. The imp immediately turned around, its bow raised its bow towards the sound.
Tak, tak!
Seven threw another one, and the imp finally exposed its rough back at him.
The distance between them was barely five steps, so he took the chance and charged forward, ignoring the sharp pain on his chest.
The imp turned around, panicked by sudden aggression. But it was too late for a clean shot.
"Ki—?!"
Thwack!
Seven smashed the nail jutting out the wooden plank to its forehead, sending its small figure flying towards the wooden crates. Potatoes scattered on the ground.
"Take that, you damn piece of shit."
The imp rolled and popped back up, pulling out the nail on the plank that stuck in its forehead and threw it away. Frothy green blood leaked out from the wound.
As the crude bow flew from its grasp, the imp picked up the remaining arrow mixed with the potatoes and held it like a dagger.
"Kikiki…"
Seven frowned, now having no weapon but his fist.
The imp noticed, its tail flailing from the excitement of the thought to face a defenseless human. It let out a triumphant shriek as it leaped above, hanging but the joist of the ceiling and used it as a springboard.
But…
Seven caught the attack with his palm, the arrow pierced the potato in his grasp.
The imp's eyes widened in surprise; Seven smirked.
"Caught you."
He grabbed the imp's wrist so that it couldn't run away with its impressive agility. It shrieked, claws raking wildly across his arms, flailing in panic but to no use.
Thwack!
A clean uppercut connected.
The impact sent the imp disoriented. Seven used that chance and grabbed the wrist with two hands, spun around and slammed the imp on the desk like a baseball bat.
Thud!
The imp relaxed its limb, laying atop the desk motionless.
Seven flexed his fingers, his expression contorted as he looked at his reddened knuckles. The imp had a hard damn chin, and the uppercut misaligned his frail knuckles.
He spat on the ground and turned around, running a hand through his hair.
"I feel lightheaded. I can't even feel my fingers, damn it. I should let Iria heal—"
Bzzt!
Bzzt, bzzt!
A static, glitching sound.
Behind him, the imp's body flickered into pixels like that in a video game after the player defeated the monsters. The difference is that this was not a video game.
Seven spun back around.
The imp's body twitched, its eyes then snapped open and stood back in its feet.
— "How is it?" asked the imp. "Are you having fun?"
Its body continued to flicker in a countless numbers of 7, just like what happened to his phone back on Earth, outside of the convenience store.
The imp grinned.
— "Answer me, Yoon Seo—"
"Shut up!"
Seven grabbed the imp's face and slammed it back into the desk.
Thwack!
Frothy green blood burst outward.
Seven then pulled out the arrow that pierced his chest, ignoring the pain and consumed by rage, and drove it to the imp's grin.
"Die!"
Again.
"Die!"
And again.
"Die! Die! Die!"
Each stab tore through the imp's skull until nothing remained but a mangled cavity. Frothy green blood smeared his face like a tattoo.
At that moment, he was certain.
'This thing… is the one who brought me here.'
Even if he didn't entirely hate this transmigration, that didn't mean he could just accept it. As cliché as it was… he still wanted his life as Yoon Seojin, not as Seven Hart.
However…
Even with its skull shattered, the eyeballs rolled to look at him.
Seven hated that. He raised the arrow high in the air, his arms trembling as he prepared to deliver the final blow that would end this once and for all.
"Just die already, you damn— urkh…"
Before the blow could fall, blood spilled from his mouth in a wet cough. He felt a sudden, cold weight as though something had pierced him from behind.
Looking down, the tip of an iron sword reflected the dim, flickering light of a single torch, protruding through his chest.
He had completely forgotten about the attacker he was trying to escape.
"W-who—?"
But the face he saw was far from what he had expected.
The one responsible for such an attack was no assassin, but a cadet with jet-black hair, and the very opponent he was meant to face in the finals.
"I… apologize, young lord. I c-cannot control my body."