Chapter 4 - Hundreds Years of Silent Has Worsened My Communication Disorder

Chapter 4 : Hundreds Years of Silent Has Worsened My Communication Disorder 

As I approached and came into the four-man party’s line of sight, they froze in place as if forgetting their battle against the wild boar demon.

They immediately changed their focus to me, huh.

It made me who never met a human for who knows how long it was, a little nervous.

On the other hand, the wild boar who was fiercely fighting them a moment ago.

「BUFUUUU!?」

It was running away at full speed while making a rough huffing noise from its nose.

Thus, only me and the party was left in this place.

Was I really that scary?

As we stood across each other in silence, I observed the composition of the adventurer party.

In front, there were two people acting as a vanguard. A burly middle-aged man who held a giant battleaxe on his hand, pretty clear that he was a warrior. And a hunky bald middle-aged man with a cane in his hand. I couldn’t really identify his class and role in the party though, his equipment as priest didn’t match his physique at all.

Behind them was a young swordswoman who seemed to be the youngest in their party..

And lastly, a man in light armor whose position was not in formation, a thief I suppose. His age was hard to determine though.

The silence continued for some time as we keep staring at each other.

Come to think of it…. W-What should I do next?

Though I felt relieved now that I finally met humans, I had no idea about what to say in this situation.

I meant, I was a poor talker even when I was still alive.

Furthermore, as I had been loitering around the dungeon as an undead and killed demons right and left, It seemed that my communicative ability deteriorated even further.

I didn’t think I could break the ice.

As I was still being bewildered, fussing on how to break this awkward silence, I noticed that the four-man party’s face was getting paler and paler as if plunged into the abyss of despair.

Could it be that they recognized me as some kind of dangerous demons?

No way, my figure and appearance were clearly humans. Although the hair and eye color were uncommon, it was still far away from the characteristic of an undead.

As long as they know that I could understand their words, the other party’s vigilance should be lowered a little bit.

Okay.

Let’s start with a greeting.

A bright and lively 「Good day」 should do the job!

「…. G….. ay….」(ED: Gay memes appear in my head as I read this)

Despite my effort, only a small, disintegrated voice came out of my lips.

I mean, I had yet to get used to the act of speaking.

Nevertheless, it was still counted as a greeting.

I felt like I finally take a great step forward.

By now, they should’ve realized that I was not a dangerous existence, right? Optimistically, I peered to the party’s reaction. What greeted me was expressions of people that ready to fight to the death.

「「「……」」」

Wait a minute, what’s with their reaction!?

I sent my greeting properly, right?

Why did they become more vigilant than before?

Looking at their stance and expression, they were basically about to pounce toward me at any moment.

Kuh, j-just where did it goes wro—!?

Ah, I knew it.

The greeting was missinga smile!

It might be due to my expressionless face combined with the nervous, almost inaudible voice that my greeting didn’t reach them.

No wonder my greeting backfired instead.

Thus, I desperately tried to move the muscle around my face to form a smile.

Smile~

After a bit of twitching, I made a brilliant smile.

Or so I thought.

The result of that smile was pretty devastating.

The warrior suddenly raised a bestial roar.

「UOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!」

And then, he leaped at me with resolute expression to bet his life.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!?

WHY DID MY SMILING FACE BACKFIRED INSTEAD!?

The burly warrior swung his giant battleaxe onto my head.

As the battleaxe coming closer, a thought came at me.

Could it be that this axe was strong enough to kill me?

It would be nice if it could.

As such, I  didn’t even try to dodge the incoming giant battleaxe.

A moment later, the heavy battleaxe struck me right in the middle of my forehead.

BAKIN!

And then, shattered into pieces as it made contact to my head.

「!?」

The male warrior’s eyes opened wide.

I expected that one blow was enough to crush my head and send me to oblivion.

But sadly, the reality was harsh, the battleaxe got its blade smashed instead.

And I… was completely unscathed.

「M-Monster…」

The male warrior muttered so with a stiff look on his face as he held his broken axe.

「Alec, step back!」

The swordswoman shouted as she readied his stance and started chanting.

Upon a closer look, instead of a sword, she was equipped with a wand, with a giant blazing fireball forming on top of it.

It seemed like she was a magic swordsman.

「Meteor Fire!」

The giant fireball accelerated like a bullet and fell right on top of me.

ZUBOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

It was a direct hit.

My entire body was enveloped by scorching flame.

Undead monsters in general should be weak against fire magic.

Though the previous occurrences proved again and again that physical attack couldn’t even leave a scratch on me, magic at this scale might be enough to k――

My thought was interrupted by a realization.

「Hmm… It’s not hot at all.」

Despite I was being roasted from head to toe with scorching[?] flame, I couldn’t even feel the heat through my skin.

It’s definitely not something as simple as I lost my sense of pain.

「He is… unscathed!」

Murmured the magic swordswoman in disbelief with a small voice.

As I was calmly enveloped by the blazing hellfire, I felt a presence suddenly appeared behind me.

I turned around in a hurry and saw that the scout was standing there gripping a knife.

No, its blade was too thin and long to be called a knife. It might be closer to a 〝Stinger〟.

It seemed he had been standing there for some time, suppressed his presence and killing intent to the utmost limit, waiting for a chance to land a critical hit.

And the time I turned around to face him was the moment he had been waiting for.

Without hesitation, he thrusted the stinger straight to my eyeball.

BAKIN!

And yet, the 〝Stinger〟 broke as soon as it struck my eyeball.

That oversized needle couldn’t even  damage something as weak as an eyeball.

Well, my eyeball might be an exception though.

「H-HOLY SH*T…..」

Knowing that his attack failed, that expressionless man finally showed a surprised look on his face while promptly retreated back to the party’s formation.

Meanwhile, I who was on the receiving end of the attack was standing still, stupified by the sudden action.

Despite failing, I was impressed by his ability to conduct such a covert surprise attack. I was utterly surprised and couldn’t react in time.

Without a doubt, such precise attack could only be performed by a highly skilled assassin.

My early assumption about him only being a scout was proven wrong.

. After that, the baldy who was on the rear sprung forward while chanting some sort of aria.

As the chanting finished, he swung down his cane which now was wrapped with beautiful light patterns with a roar.

「DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEE!」

My body was instantly enveloped by a brilliant flash of light.

PRICK

. I quivered slightly as a sudden prickly pain runs through my entire body.

But soon, the flash of light settled down as if it told me that was all it could do.

「It also… has no effect…」

The baldy muttered slowly, shock and disbelief written on his face.

「Oh my… not even Guy’s highest level undead purification arts work on that thing….」

「W-What the hell is this monster?」

「No way, we’re done for.」

The other three adventurers also followed up by muttering those words as if they couldn’t believe what they saw.

Erm….w-what should I do now?

I never expected that the first people I met for a long time would suddenly attack me as I greet them.

But fortunately, I came out unscathed.

It’s true that they attacked me first but, I didn’t mind it though since all of their attacks didn’t have any effect on me.

Thus, I had to show them that I was not angry with their sudden attack just now.

We might start a friendly conversation after that.

Though it failed before, I would make sure that the power of smile will work this time.

Then, I gave the best smile I could ever do.

Smile~

「HIIIIIIIIIIIII…………….」

The adventurer party’s expression dropped a notch.

They…. became even more frightened than before.

Then, around that time.

With his hand slightly trembling in fear, the warrior took out a crystal that emitted an eerie aura from his pouch.

「It’s sink or swim situation so… Let’s use this!」

After screaming that line to pluck up his courage, he threw the crystal to me.

PARINN!

The crystal broke right in front of me.

The next moment, the scenery in front of me suddenly distorted as if the space itself was ripped apart.

「… ?」

Was this, some kind of attack.

Nothing was happening though, not to my body, nor my surrounding.

It was just the scenery in front of me seems distorted, that’s all.

But then, a huge shadow came out from the ripped space. It kept getting larger and larger until it blocked the sun from my view.

A huge goat-like monster with lower half of a horse appeared on the place where the scenery was distorted a moment ago.

Strangely, there was a pair of jet-black wings on its back and a pair of curved-winding horns on both sides of its head. Furthermore, the goat’s whole body was covered with bright red furs.

It seemed that the crystal was a medium of forced summoning magic, or something like that.

「That’s…. a… Devil?」

. The creature known as a Devil was said created by the evil God and also the inhabitant of the spirit world.

Though every individual had different traits, the most common traits between them were their jet-black wings, the pair of horns on their head, and their high combat prowess.

Even skilled adventurers could barely win against the lowest rank Devil.

「UOOOOOOOOOOO!」

After standing still for a bit, the Devil raised a terrifying roar. It seemed to be pissed of after forcibly summoned to this place.

They actually got high intelligence and it was possible to talk to some high-rank devil. But, the one in front of me didn’t seem to be that type.

While I was pondering about that matter,  I realized that only the devil and I was left in this place.

EH, THOSE GUYS HAD ESCAPEEEED!

The moment I got distracted by the devil, the four adventurers turned around and escaped as fast as they can.

What the…. come back here you guys.

Why the hell did you summon this goat and then ran away immediately?

Did you think I could be a friend with this abomination of a devil?

I only wanted to meet and talk to some people.

Was that too hard for you to accompany me for a bit?

While I was still retorting in my head, the Devil aimed its wrath toward me, the first one it saw.

The winged half-goat, half-centaur creature charged toward me with its massive body frame.

Usually, I would let the attack hit me and tried to die. But, I didn’t want to die from this Devil attack.

There was a rumor that people who killed by Devil would become the subordinate of them.

I would be glad if I die, but I didn’t want to be this thing’s subordinate.

With that being the reason plus annoyed to the four adventurers that tried to eave me here, I unintentionally punched the Devil.

BAAAM!

What followed the collision between my punch and the Devil’s charge was a terrifying explosive sound.

Yes, explosion, as for what exploded, it was the lower-half of the Devil’s horse-like lower half.

Blood and entrails scattered around.

The Devil who got half of its body blown off fell to the ground and stopped breathing.

Before it drew its last breath, The Devil looked at me with a shocked, incredulous expression.

… Please don’t look at me like that, I was really shocked too you know.