Clearing the Game at the End of the World
Chapter 8: Oh, Happy Day! (8)

Trading means buying and selling. In general, it is a transaction in which you make adjustments until the values of what the other person wants and what you want are similar, and then you exchange the goods.

The problem in my case now is that I do not have what the other wants. No, it is, but that is something I cannot give up. What the trolls here want is my fresh and tender meat; I cannot give that.

<[Left shin- fracture: In recovery (contaminated bandage + splint (90%)]>

‘The leg… is still a long way off?’

The bone is slightly cracked at 90%? I can run, sure, but the moment I feel that my leg touches the ground, I am sure it will beak. And I cannot feed this troll. This troll probably wouldn’t even care If the reincarnation of Buddha or Jesus was here..

So I need to negotiate with it in another way.

“Kuaak…g-give! Give it!!!”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

As I did not respond to its words, Notum slammed its thick hands to the ground to relieve the anger.

‘What do I do? How can I pull out my blood for the troll who has been starving for four days in this realm while I, myself, am in trouble?’

There is a way. And because there is a way, the quest must have been issued. The troll is hungry and quite excited at the smell of blood. Aside from that, the troll has been starving for 4 days, so nothing can be explained.

‘Ah, wait. Four… four days starving troll?’

Something flashed through the mind of Professor, who was desperate.

‘The characteristics of a troll are their incredible strength and regenerative power. The high regeneration means that they have an active metabolism. It means the body consumes energy quickly. So a normal troll starving for half a day should lose its mind and go hunting. But this has been starving for 4 days? That sounds impossible no matter how rational Notum is!’

When a person goes hungry for 3 days, they cannot think about anything other than food. But this troll who is supposed to go insane on starvation is fine after 4 days? This is physically impossible.

‘The premise set has to be wrong. Notum hasn’t starved for 4 days. What he ate was something he didn’t like!’

Gradually, the outline of the quest began to draw in his mind. With the thought that maybe, really, maybe there is a chance to survive!

‘if I am right, I can convince them.’

Thinking so, Professor opened his mouth.

“Um. Notum?”

“T-tell me, big small human.”

“Ugh, calm down! You are right! I need to give you something to eat! I am sorry, Notum. You must have been hungry all this while?”

When I spoke softly, Notum nodded his head, agreeing with what I said.

“Notum. Strong. Finding food isn’t difficult wolves, bears, squirrels, and deer were eaten. Tasty. One, two, three. And it passed. Tasteless wolves, deer, bear, squirrel, keep the promise. Notum is hungry.”

As expected. The desire for Notum wasn’t the instinct but the feel of it. He had given up the delicious human meat because of what was said and filled the stomach with animals it didn’t like.

‘There was a reason why I didn’t come across even a single wolf while walking through this forest for 2 hours in this vicious game.’

“Okay, then, Notum! Tell me!”

I said that as I got up from the ground as I wiped the dirt off the clothes with my hands. I had to look as good as possible. That is how Notum will see me as a partner to talk to and not plain food.

“Ooh! Talk! One, two, three, four, five! Where are you!”

“I am~ over the hill! Not five, but ten! No, we already have 100 here!”

“H-How many? Hundred????”

“Um… you still don’t know? We are in the forest right now, so we have enough horses to fill the place! Come on, think! Horses! The forest full of those weeping and shouting!”

“Forest full!”

“Right! The forest has full of them! Enough to fill every corner of your body!”

“Woahhhhhh!!”

Notum pretended to count with their fingers as they smiled brightly.

‘The anticipation that this gourmet-loving troll will not touch anyone passing through the place for four days. The belief is that if one perseveres, their patience will always come back with a greater reward and more delicious food in the future. That is the belief that made this troll hold back on its intent to eat humans.’

If so, what I need to do is set it. To inflate the expectations and firmly fix the troll’s reasoning, I need to pull through from this. Fortunately, I might never have to see Notum again, so I didn’t have any problem using myself for it.

The troll, who had been drooling at his own imagination, spoke with twinkling eyes.

“Notum is ready! Where are the horses!”

“They… are over there, there….”

“Uh?”

Notum stared in the direction I was pointing to. Harvest season. The horizon was filled with wheat crops.

“That… is because something bad happened to the person here.”

“Bad… thing?”

“Yes. Bad thing. Very very bad thing. The bad ones showed and stole the horses of Notum from there!”

“What? Stealing Notum’s prey!”

“Right! Metal man couldn’t come here now because he is guarding them to keep the bad guys from stealing more horses!”

Notum seemed to ponder for a moment on what it heard.

“Then, no horses?”

‘One wrong word and I die!’

Gulp!

“Now! Not there now! You should be able to get them by tomorrow! Promise! I promise, Notum! Until this time of tomorrow, no matter what, I will bring the horses!”

‘Raise the expectations high enough and take the risk. If Notum’s expectations of being able to eat a mountain of horses support his reason, I succeed. If the desire for meat in front of him destroys his reasoning… then I die!’

I have done enough. Actually, if Notum was a little more intelligent, I would have never even tried this. So, this is the best I can do now. If Notum shows up again… I don’t know anymore. I’ll just turn off the damn game. Rather than feeling the pain of being chewed alive, I would rather work hard like a dog.

Still, the chances of success seemed high. Guess what? This troll always cringes at the word human or metal man. No matter how high the intelligence, there is no way that some degree of coercion wasn’t involved in educating these wild man-eating monsters. Perhaps maybe it knew the difference between itself and a knight. And since I keep telling them I am related to metal man, perhaps it wouldn’t touch me.

Notum, who seemed to be between a conflict of reason and instinct, took a deep breath.

“Notum? Where are you going?”

“Kuh. Notum. Hungry. Going to eat.”

“Then, you will not eat me?”

Shh—

‘He surely is a troll with a lot of expressions.’

Notum, who turned their head back, made a face that said he felt regretful for not being able to eat me.

“Notum. Wise. A mountain of horses. Hehe! Living horses. The metal man grants my request. Then Notum waits!”

“Living horse? Request?”

“Yes. Living horse. I only got dead horse till now. Ripped horses, bloated horses, weird horses. Notum eats anything, but it will taste better when alive. So I asked metal man to get you living horses.”

It seemed that the group which managed to give this troll food had given it dead horse meat.

‘Quite efficient. Because the price of a living horse and a dead one is so different. Did they use the brains to clear a forest where dangerous wild animals might appear with just a few pennies?’

As long as the troll is needed to give the medicine. As long as Notum stays here, the chances of new orcs or other trolls establishing their colony will be greatly reduced. If this is done occasionally, it will even be like Notum cleaning the forest of wild animals. This is a lot beneficial.

‘The true identity of that metal man is a knight of Lord Turan.’

After this, I even thought I was lucky for not attacking Notum due to being weak. Considering the current situation, this troll can be regarded as the property of the Lord.

What if he came down like a well-grown character and went after this Notum who looked ordinary? If he thoughtlessly killed it, the knights would be sent down by the angry Lord, and they would have hung him.

Well. Whatever, now that the dangerous part was skilled. Seeing Notum move by twitching the nose as it still could get the smell of blood made me relieved.

“Then you know that it happened. Wait a little bit till tomorrow! I leave!”

After saying that, Professor got up from his position.

Notum was looking at Professor, who was walking with a cane and a loose splint. The arms and legs looked weird at first glance, and then was the smell of fresh blood.

Notum felt a bit uncomfortable, not knowing what felt good.

“…well.”

Professor, who was about to leave, suddenly turned. Notum approached him before he knew it and held him by the shoulder.

‘Shit! I got caught! No matter how low the intelligence is, the mountain of horses is too much for anyone to believe! I should have reduced the number! Fuck!’

Professor was losing his mind in regret for pushing the luck too much when Notum turned and said, “Big small human. Hurt.”

“Uh, uhh! It is nothing!”

Professor desperately denied it.

Notum, on the other hand, shook their head. Metal man is strong enough to cut down a tree wielded by Notum. And he said that bad people took the horses and that bad people are so strong that metal man cannot leave his position. And this big small human was hurt as a result of listening to Notum’s words.

Notum looked at the big small human with a height barely reaching their waist. A weak, injured little one. But remembering the promise to Notum with such a wounded body, the human came from the stone nest to Notum’s place.

“Big small man. Hurt a lot. No strength.”

“Ah, no! it is fine! I am fine. Look at my muscles! Don’t they look like you need to chew well?”

Suddenly, an unfamiliar feeling rose in Notum’s heart. This human felt like a small creature that couldn’t even control itself right. It tickled his heart to see this fragile being struggling to look strong.

“Uhh…”

Scratch

Notum scratched the chest at this strange feeling and said to Professor, who was panicking.

“Small big human.”

“N-No! Mountain of horse meat! Think about a mountain of horse meat! Please!”

“Road… dangerous. Come with Notum.”

Notum didn’t know what they were feeling was called ‘maternal love.’

“… what?”

Notum is a female!

Thud! Thud!

Autumn. The season when the golden wheat will burst into laughter at the whisper of the wind and clear skies spread out like a lake.

It is the landscape that anyone who has seen only the desolate scene of wasteland for several years cannot take their eyes off, but Professor wasn’t in the mood for such a thing.

“Uh… Notum? Do you have to take me like this…”

“Small big human weak. Notum, strong. Notum, crush the bad ones and get horses.”

A new deep sorrow was added to Professor’s mind.

Ah, my god. It was perfect till the end! I really thought the nice word plays I did were going to work!

“Little big man, eat a lot of meat. Notum gives you a horse.”

“T-thank you. Hahaha…”

Damn it. How did this happen?

- professor : ugh, viewers. Does anyone know anything about the situation right now?

- Soygaybar : ah, I am going to die. Hahaha

- takealook : this is fucking funny lol

- Noru_is_druig : ah, if this is how this goes, I need to see the chat till the end lol

- Soygaybar : Professor, the Demonic Man!

- Heungandumpling : even the human-eating monsters are not safe in front of him! what is his defense?

- professor : Notum is female?

- Soygaybar : can’t you tell by looking at it? the chest and long lashes?

- professor : how can you see what I didn’t see? And chest? They are muscles

- Holli : hahaha lol

Alright then.

Earlier in the forest, I was so anxious while having a mental breakdown that I couldn’t stand the chat window coming up, so I closed it. I don’t think anyone would help me right now, either.

Thud! Thud!

I felt motion sick at how my body was swaying up and down on the shoulder of Notum, so I decided to shut my eyes.

‘What will happen if we go to the city like this?’

First, Notum is a troll. And perfect monster both in appearance and action. Even if we go close to the city, the city guards will alarm the place, and knights will come out.

And on the shoulder of Notum would be…

‘A warlock, for sure.’

Warlocks are the main enemies of World 3.

World 3 is divided into three parts. The era of the great war started with the territorial war of the Three Kingdoms, which ignored the peace treaty and concluded around the end of World 2 and declared war. The 121 to 124 solar year is called Spring and Autumn Warrior States Period in the Community.

Due to the resources consumed by the endless war for 3 years, the resentment between the cities, the estates, and villages had reached the climax, and the era of warlocks that started to shake right around them had created chaos was from the end of 124 to 127 of the solar calendar.

Unable to tackle the power of warlocks, in the years 127 to 130, when the destruction of the World 3 begins in earnest due to the massive invasion of mutated blood,

World 3 can be roughly summarized as follows. Despite not being able to figure out what era this is, seeing the path is peaceful, it isn’t yet the era of the great war. If so, there is highly like the era of warlocks had come.

‘it is time to start understanding the movements of the warlocks, which the leaders of each nation thought they cleared up 70 years back.’

In such a state of affairs, who sets in the city like a warlock? Ah, it is 100 times better to just hang the self. It is said that the knights of this era also learned torture through birth.

For that reason, it is right for Notum to be left outside.

But…

“Take you. Small big human, there is a soft swamp in my place. Notum met a lot of injured animals there. We get a horse, we go there too. You eat meat, soak your body, and get well soon. Right.”

‘No, why the hell are you doing this to me?!’

No matter how I looked, this troll didn’t want to let me go!

Angel’s Corner

Aaaww~ Mama found her baby boi. Hahaha