Fully Expected

The signal made by the mage's life was noticed by many others in an instant. Mark and I needed to hide in order to avoid being found out, and that was a problem for both of us.

Mark was heavily exhausted despite drinking potions, and carrying him around wasn't an option.

"What are we going to do?" said Mark.

We were hiding in a crack inside the cave's wall. Without seeing, I could hear the footsteps and talking of Dark Mages who were scouting the area to find the intruders.

"We need to wait a little longer," I said.

Although it seemed like we were in a bad situation, this was the best way of winning this fight. All we needed to do was to be quiet and patient for the right time to come.

"Are you guys okay?" said the skeleton crew.

"We are safe. How about your side? Did you encounter any problems?"

"No. We only encountered low-level undeads so far and basically no mages. We should reach our destination soon."

After hearing that, I laid down to catch my breath and opened my [Inventory] to organize my items.

‌

[ Inventory 12/27

> Auto-Browning Cauldron

> Sword of Beginning

> Bottle of C-grade Corrupted Mana Infusing Potion x 2

> Bottle of D-grade Unstable Mana Mixture x 2

> Shout-Distance Teleportation Scroll

> E-grade Undead Core x 5

> F-grade Undead Core x 2

> Normal Sword

> Clean Set of Clothing

> Gold Coin x 7

> Silver Coin x 14

> Bread x 5 ]

‌

I took out one bottle of Mana Infusing Potion and gave it to Mark, even though he had a Mana Skill. The look on Mark's face brightened up, but for some reason, he seemed worried.

Mark's worried look made me think about my past for some reason. I could remember the day I left my parents' house as clearly as yesterday. At first, I thought I could handle anything on my own, but then reality hit me. I dropped out of college and couldn't face my parents, so I decided to live alone by working at a shop. It was hard and lonely for me. I didn't know what to do until I found [Doomed Fantasy], which made my life a lot easier to manage.

Thinking back then, I wanted to know what would have happened if I had studied harder or returned to my parents' house. I wouldn't have died in my 20s and would probably be living a normal life.

Of course, I don't regret anything. Living as a streamer was like a dream, and even if I got a redo, I would be one again.

Mark looked fiercer from the outside due to his red hair and eyes and his muscular build, but I knew deep inside he was a normal 20-year-old kid with a lot of dreams.

"Grab everything. We need to go," I said.

Mark nodded in agreement and grabbed his sword and the potion I gave him.

We slowly crawled out of the crack, and I looked around to see if there were any mages nearby.

"Now what?" said Mark.

"We need to avoid any mages and reach the middle of the mountain."

"W-wait, what?"

"We need to avoid any mag—"

"I heard you the first time. I mean, how on earth are we going to avoid all of the mages and reach there?"

"I have only one shot."

Mark and I began to move as fast and stealthily as possible to avoid any mages and chose the right path to reach the destination. We did this for about an hour.

"Huff—how on earth haven't they found us yet? I feel like I used a lifetime's worth of luck just for today."

"I feel like that too (lie). Now then, should we prepare for the real deal?"

I took out one of the Unstable Mana Mixtures from my [Inventory] and aimed it directly at the passage we came from. The place where we were standing was heavily protected by wooden pillars and strong-looking stone, so I looked for the weakest part and then tossed the potion.

BOOM! It crumbled as soon as the potion made contact with it. Thankfully, the path was the only thing blocked by the stones, and nothing tragic happened.

"What are you doing?" said Mark, with a face full of panic.

"I basically blocked the path to our location from the mages... you're welcome."

"Then how are we going to get out of this place once we're done with everything?"

"We can go out from the Brass's path. Just relax."

The panicked look on Mark's face calmed down after I said that. The most noticeable thing I found out about Mark was the fact that he was too hasty and couldn't bear the patience... the thing I needed from him.

"Nothing goes according to plan so far. Are you sure nothing bad is going to happen to us?"

Of course, I didn't hand out the actual plan of clearing this hideout. If I were to tell them that I'm going to risk all of our lives, then nobody would have done it.

"Well, sometimes plans do not go as smoothly as imagined, and all I did was use everything I had to improve our situation. Although not as planned, we are still alive and reaching our final goal."

"Ugh! Fine."

We walked for two hours after I blocked the path outside. There were some low-level Dark Mages left inside the cave, so we killed them to avoid any future problems.

"Hey Action, we reached the end of our path. It seems like we are in the middle of the mountain, just as you told us," said Brass... or the skeleton crew.

"Great. We are on our way. Just stay hidden and avoid the mages as much as you can and prepare for any fight until we regroup," I said.

"Yes, we will..."

The skeleton crow suddenly dropped dead before finishing the sentence. I knew this happened due to an outsider's interference with the magic since Brass's [Vision Sharing] could remain activated without needing any power source.

"We need to go now."

Mark and I ran as fast as we could. There were too many variables inside the cave, so I was expecting some problems to occur.

We reached the middle of the mountain after some minutes of running. The mountain was big inside, and its ceiling was open to the outside light.

I could see Brass and the twins fighting the undead and Dark Mages under a lot of pressure. Mark was about to rush and help them, but I stopped him.

"Why aren't we helping them?" said Mark, agitated.

"Something is wrong."

The connection between the crow and Brass couldn't have been broken by a normal mage interaction. Somehow, I felt, not just in this [Reset], but from the very beginning, that something wasn't adding up.

"Ugh—I wish I could at least watch a video."

"What do you mean?"

I didn't know a lot about this [Event] since I hadn't played it like this before. The only reason I knew the location of the Necromancer Hideout was because of my friend mentioning it.

The reason I didn't play it was simple. This [Event] was considered a beginner's plan, and the reward for finishing it wouldn't change despite the high difficulty of the Necromancer, so I always created a new save and started all over to get what I wanted.

But this time was different. I couldn't just create a new save and hope for better luck. At least I knew a lot about the hideout, thanks to the numerous [Resets]. All I couldn't find was the Necromancer.

I brushed the annoyance off my face since I couldn't do anything regarding that. I began to think of something that might be helpful for the situation we were in, and thankfully I wasn't empty-handed.

"Hey Mark. I need you to help them and fight the undead," I said quietly.

"Why aren't you helping?"

"I need to do something. I need to cause an annoying problem for the boss to appear."

"W-why are you smiling? What are you going to do?" said Mark, as if he knew what was about to happen.

I touched my face and felt the uncontrollable smile on my face. After I reincarnated into this world, the number of times I cracked a creepy smile skyrocketed. Most of it was after I learned swordsmanship from Gabriel. I didn't know if it was a bad thing or not, but I could feel the confidence rising each time I smiled.

"You don't need to worry, JUST GO."