Chapter 18: Volunteering to Fight the Monsters

“I’ll deal with the monsters,” Luke declared, stunning everyone there.

After a moment of shock, one of the townspeople said, “You’ll deal with the monsters?”

Before Luke could respond, the driver said, “He’s a monster hunter. He’s been protecting us from monsters.”

Those words sent the townspeople whispering and muttering amongst themselves.

“A monster hunter? Do you think he could do it?” one person asked.

“He’s just one person. A group of monster hunters came, and they were wiped out,” a different person pointed out.

“But what else can we do? They won’t let us on the wagon?” another person asked.

After listening to the townspeople talk for a bit, Luke said, “I can help, but you have to tell me everything you know about the monsters.”

The townspeople were hesitant, but they didn’t see any other choice. They would have to either continue walking on foot or wait around for another vehicle to pass by. No matter which they chose, they would have to hope the monsters didn’t catch up to them.

Finally, someone stepped forward and said, “I’ll tell you everything we know about them.”

Luke listened carefully as the person explained in detail what they had learned from the monster hunters and what they had seen for themselves. Several other townspeople would add their own details, giving him a clearer idea of what he was dealing with.

There seemed to be over a dozen monsters. The exact number was uncertain, but it definitely wasn’t more than twenty of them.

The monsters appeared to be the typical kind, the kind that should have been easy to kill, like the one he had faced earlier down the road. The only difference was that they were stronger than normal, which had to be thanks to the evil god.

Of course none of the people were aware of this and were clueless over how the monsters were so strong.

Honestly, it should be doable for him.

The only tricky parts were the terrain and the uncertain number of monsters. The monsters would have the advantage of knowing the area better than him. He would also have to comb the area thoroughly to ensure he got all of them.

Otherwise, Luke was confident he could deal with them.

“Thank you. I understand everything. I’ll go deal with them,” Luke said with such confidence that no one could bring themselves to say otherwise.

Everyone shared glances before a townsperson said, “It’s about twenty miles from here. It’ll take a while to get there.”

He frowned.

Twenty miles was a fair amount of distance away. It would take him some time to travel from here to there. Then there was also fighting the monsters, dealing with the corpses, and returning back to the wagon.

“We can’t just wait here,” one of the people on the wagon muttered.

They weren’t wrong. Luke knew he couldn’t expect them to stick around because he chose to help the people out.

“Hold on. Are you suggesting we continue on without a monster hunter?” a different person said.

Their words caused discontent among the passengers who didn’t want to lose their protection to the townspeople.

While they understood that the townspeople were in need of help, the passengers didn’t want to risk their own lives. Giving up their only monster hunter was simply not an option for them, whether they stuck around or continued onward.

Luke gritted his teeth at the conundrum they were in.

He should have thought more carefully before declaring that he would take the monsters on and raising the townspeople’s hopes for nothing. No matter what choice was made, some people would lose out.

“Look at you. You are making the same mistake all over again,” the evil god said.

Luke wasn’t in the mood to deal with him at the moment, but the evil god continued without a care.

“You wanted to fight the monsters for the sake of your own ego. Now you’re stuck in a situation where someone’s going to be hurt because of you. How pathetic,” the evil god mused.

That was a lie.

He didn’t volunteer himself because of his ego. Luke sincerely wanted to protect the people from the monsters.

If he turned away people in need, what would that make him?

“Exactly. You wanted to prove you’re a hero, so you stepped forward. Now you’re going to be a villain in someone’s eyes,” the evil god said.

Luke knew he couldn’t let the evil god get into his head again. He had to block out the evil god’s words.

Unfortunately, Luke could still hear the evil god in his ears.

“You don’t want to admit it, but you’re trying so hard to prove that you’re a hero. I wonder if it’s because of your ex-comrades. They’re going around saving people, earning praise and adoration. Then there’s you. Someone who was stabbed in the back and left to suffer. You can’t even show your face to anyone in fear of being discovered. How could you ever compare to them?” the evil god mocked.

He nearly exploded, the words right on the tip of his tongue. If he had bit down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood, he would have looked deranged in front of all these people.

The people, unaware of his inner turmoil, were arguing over what should be done.

“You can’t leave us. You promised to deal with the monsters,” a townsperson wailed.

“Hey, you can’t just steal him from us. We need him,” a passenger snapped.

“Can’t you just wait for him to handle the monsters first?” another townsperson asked.

“Are you crazy? Do you seriously expect us to wait out here where monsters could attack us out of the blue?” another passenger shot back.

Listening to everyone’s bickering made his head throb.

This was the last thing he needed with the evil god whispering poison in his ears. He was going to go insane if none of them stopped talking right that moment.