I Was a Crazy, Berserker-Type Dungeon Streamer, but When I Helped a Beautiful Dungeon Streamer and Treated Her Politely, It Was Revealed That I Was Actually a Normal Person - 26

Chapter 26: Can’t See Him?

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Dumbfounded, I kept staring at Pixie Grandpa. To be precise, I was staring at his mouth.

“What’s wrong? Why are you staring at me like that?”

The old man said, seemingly genuinely concerned about me, but his mouth didn’t move. I had heard something familiar about this situation before. There was one skill called ‘telepathy’ that allowed its user to communicate with other people through my mind. I decided to test my theory out and just strongly concentrate on what I wanted to say in my mind without speaking it out loud. 

‘Can you hear me?’

“I can hear you.”

‘Grandpa, are you using a skill that clouds someone’s recognition of you?’

“Yeah. Good job on figuring it out. This is quite advanced magic if I may say so myself, you know?”

With this, I could safely cross out the possibility that this old man was just an illusion created by an unknown external force. 

‘Grandpa, there’s something I want to ask.’

Before I could think it twice, those words already came out of my mind. Yes. I didn’t say it out loud. The words just popped into my mind. I was certain that this Pixie Grandpa held the key to allow me to escape from the deep level of the Okutama Dungeon.

‘Can you tell me how to get out of this forest?’

“Unfortunately, I genuinely don’t know anything about that.”

‘But you’ve been living in this forest for 100 years, right? You must have some information about this forest… Anything. Any information can be of help to me.’

“Hmmm… Right. I think I remember the exploration team said they found a staircase a while ago. That staircase might be the way out you’re looking for.”

‘Really?! Where is it? Where?’

I grabbed the old man’s small hand with both of mine, clinging to it desperately. 

I need to stick with my speedrun rules? The heck. One wrong move and I’m a goner. There’s no way I’m going to stick to any rules. Everything is a free game here!

“Stop trying to rush me. Also, I didn’t hear the exact location from the exploration team. I don’t know where the stair you’re looking for is.”

‘I see… In that case, could you please introduce me to someone from the exploration team?’

“Sure. I can do that.”

Pixie Grandpa gave me a positive answer. 

Huh? He’s surprisingly understanding of my circumstances?

“Garura. The human guest is calling for you. Show yourself.”

When Pixie Grandpa said so…

“Tch. Finally.”

A young male pixie with a spear on his hand suddenly appeared from thin air. He immediately spat words of venom the moment he showed himself to me. 

‘Huh? Fro-From where…?!’

Could it be… He had been hiding this whole time with some sort of recognition-obscuring skill?! I had been tricked! The other pixies might be hiding as well! Since I couldn’t see the pixie, they could easily attack me from any direction. My chances of winning were literally zero! And here I thought the old man was being surprisingly understanding of me, but turned out it was all a trap!!

“Human, you’re looking for an exit to this forest?”

‘Ye-Yeah… I mean, of course I want to leave this place… Right?’

“I see, but… That’s not possible.”

‘?!’

“Because… First of all, helping you won’t benefit us in any way and besides, 10 years ago, you humans attacked us first. We have no obligation to help you humans.”

‘A-Attacked you? Could it be…’

Ten years ago. Those words brought back memories of the S-rank party that went missing 10 years ago. Could it be… The same S-rank party mistook the pixies for mere monsters and attacked them?!

“S-rank party, you said? Now that you mention it, that guy, Touya Igarashi, said he was part of an S-rank party… That guy, the moment he found us, he started pressing us for answers to no end.”

The young male pixie glanced briefly at me while saying that. 

No, wait. Somehow, certain memories popped into my mind. Cold sweat started running down my back. 

“After that, they started begging us for food and information. Well, since that was our first time seeing humans, we gave them some information and food as a sign of goodwill, but… In the end, those guys had the audacity to attack us.”

‘No way… You’re lying, right…?’

No, no. That actually made sense. I remember hearing that the members of that S-rank party were notorious for their bad behavior. Such as treating women badly, bullying other students, shoplifting at convenience stores and even being involved in fraud. 

“They caused us tremendous losses. Many of your young warriors were killed in that attack. But this old sage, his disciple and I somehow managed to drive them off.”

‘…’

I couldn’t say anything in return. No matter how notorious they were for behaving badly, but I never imagined they would do something so terrible like that. Or… Maybe they genuinely thought the pixies were monsters. In the era of dungeons, monsters were considered as the ultimate evil. Monsters were beings that should be killed on sight whenever and wherever. That was the golden rule in this era. 

That being said, why did they still keep me alive despite their experience with those evil humans?

I’m a human, just like the ones who attacked them, so why…?

They could easily kill me by ambushing me. I couldn’t see where they were, so they could just use their recognition-obscuring skill to attack me in my blind spot. 

“Oh? Seems you’ve finally realized our true intentions?”

‘No way, don’t tell me…’

I instinctively took a step back. The worst possible scenario flashed through my mind. 

“There’s something we want you to do for us.”

The reason why the pixie didn’t kill me, who was the weak one in this equation… It wasn’t because of their benevolence. It was because they still had use for me. 

Grandpa Pixie gave me the aura that practically screamed,’You know what happens if you refuse, don’t you?’ 

Then, with a grim look on his face, Grandpa Pixie said to me…

“Please, could you conquer this dungeon for us?”

It was a totally incredulous request. However, that ‘request’ was nothing but an ‘order’ disguised as a ‘request.’

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