I Got a Gallery in the Wild - Chapter 425

The Butcher Ogre hung dangling like butcher shop meat.

For a final confirmation kill, I lowered the creature to the ground and decapitated it.

Since it had remarkable regenerative abilities and might still recover, I couldn’t lower my guard even after cutting off its head.

’Just how did it mutate to turn out like this?’

I fell into thought while looking at the headless Butcher Ogre.

Unlike normal ogres, it didn’t live in the forest or mountains.

There had to be a reason it made this building its residence. What mattered was whether it had claimed the entire building as its territory.

"Ggyuuuu~"

"There, there. My little cutie."

More important than that was Wonmo. The moment I confirmed the Butcher’s death, I checked on Wonmo’s condition.

Having gotten enough rest while I was fighting, he had recovered to the point of acting affectionate.

If I hadn’t had an Elixir, it would have been extremely dangerous; thank goodness.

↳ Heavenly Demon) With this, its respect and affection for you will surely grow. It will pledge its loyalty to you for life.

↳ Sword Matstar) You should have tortured it a bit more before killing it. It tormented our Gallery Master.

↳ Starlight Lady) I completely agree. How could such an evil creature exist?

↳ Suspiciously...) Any creature that uses a cub as bait is the worst even among beasts.

↳ Don’t Abandon the Hero) You have smitten evil! Justice shall always prevail!

Perhaps because it tormented Wonmo, who was practically the Gallery Master and mascot.

Comments flooded in saying I should have killed the Butcher Ogre more brutally, or that it died too easily, and so on.

Deep down, I wanted to do that too, but sadly I lacked the strength.

If my physical strength had been just a bit greater, I could have dealt with it far more efficiently.

But because the Butcher Ogre was so unpredictable, it was a major ordeal.

"If I had enough strength, I would’ve toyed with it for revenge. I just didn’t have the luxury."

↳ Smart Demon) Uh... are you seriously saying that?

↳ Suspiciously...) Even among Great Warriors, very few can win a contest of raw strength against an ogre.

↳ Passing Dwarf) Didn’t that bastard even use aura? What kind of absurd nonsense are you talking about?

↳ Allfather) An ogre can uproot an entire giant tree whole. Furthermore, using aura on top of that means its strength would be terrifying.

Though their explanations differed, their meaning was unanimous: Stop talking ridiculous nonsense.

Seeing this, I raised an eyebrow in doubt. I knew full well that my strength was high.

Heavenly Demon Yoo So-wol back at the tournament, and Sword Master Ash who slaughtered monsters, were prime examples.

Despite their slight builds, both manifested terrifying physical strength.

"What about Heavenly Demon and Sword Master? Heavenly Demon blocked most attacks with one hand during the tournament, and Sword Master threw giant monsters around like ragdolls."

↳ Heavenly Demon) That is simply because I am strong.

↳ Sword Matstar) I agree. Those individuals are extraordinary; an ordinary knight could never do such things. Plus, an ogre using aura makes it even harder.

↳ Heavenly Demon) I can block it effortlessly.

↳ Sword Matstar) Is that possible with pure physical strength? You have mana, but purely physical strength without technique?

↳ Heavenly Demon) Hmph. With pure physical strength alone, it might be slightly difficult. I do not train in External Arts.

↳ Sword Matstar) See? Even I dislike clashing strength against strength, so I use technique.

↳ Internal Cultivation Master Robert) Ash isn’t renowned as a Sword Master for nothing. If anyone could easily achieve such feats, every random person would be accomplishing grand exploits.

↳ Allfather) It seems spending so much time on the Gallery has skewed your baseline.

↳ Suspiciously...) Being in the Forest of the Four Seasons also plays a part.

↳ Passing Dwarf) Next time you see an ogre, ask him to arm wrestle. I’ll bet a pint of beer you win.

Those two were the weird ones; my strength was also way above ordinary human standards.

Feeling bashful for no reason, I scratched the back of my head. Well, a compliment’s a compliment.

[Hey! Are you in there!]

"Master! Found you!"

A moment later, my companions dropped down from the collapsed ceiling. As expected, the Butcher Ogre had distorted space at will.

With its death, the warped space had reverted to normal.

"Is everyone okay? Are you hurt anywhere...?"

"Wonmo! What about Wonmo?!"

[Where is our furball?!]

"..."

These people aren’t even worried about me, only Wonmo. I felt slightly hurt, but I let it slide.

Upon reuniting with the party, Wonmo flashed his signature smile and began nuzzling up to them.

At that, the stern expressions on my companions’ faces melted away instantly.

It seemed they had intended to scold him, but gave up after seeing Wonmo’s affection.

"What is that thing?"

Only the taciturn Ludwig showed any concern for me.

I looked at the corpse of the Butcher Ogre he was pointing at. Its head and torso were completely separated.

"Um... so what happened was..."

I roughly explained how the fight went down.

As I spoke, Ludwig’s expression turned increasingly strange. Midway through, he asked a question.

"The ogre used aura?"

"Yes."

"A fully grown ogre usually reaches nearly 5 meters. But that creature easily exceeds 7 meters."

"Right?"

"Even if you utilized the pulley principle, you strung that giant up and smashed its head?"

"Yes."

"Are you even human?"

"Hey now."

Please don’t treat a human like a monster. It’s making me sad.

Grumbling internally for a brief moment, I began thoroughly examining the Butcher Ogre.Read this novel at NovelPing for the best experience.

First, I unwound all the chains tightly wrapped around it like armor. Its bare body was exposed.

The mouth split vertically across its abdomen was still wide open. But given that it didn’t move an inch, it was definitely dead.

’An Inner Core... isn’t here? What gives?’

Surprisingly, I couldn’t find an Inner Core inside the creature.

Even the Ragged Golem I encountered before—that is, the Flesh Golem—had an Inner Core.

What was the reason? Rummaging around its heart area yielded nothing except dirty hands.

"Phew... let’s check other areas first."

Chyureup!

"Wonmo. You can’t eat that. It’s dirty, dirty."

I gently chided Wonmo, who was licking his lips while looking at the Butcher.

Soon after, Bbareumbo, who had been clinging to Tyranno’s back, returned(?) to my back.

Now all that remained was checking what was in this building. Before that, I had something to ask.

"How did you find this place?"

[We came immediately as soon as we heard loud noises.]

"Loud noises..."

Loud noises occurred multiple times while fighting the Butcher. Yet they said they heard it only after the ceiling collapsed and the Butcher died.

As expected, the entire building seemed to have been under the Butcher’s domain.

It could alter space at will, so it was quite a formidable monster.

’Its main body was ridiculously strong too. In the past, I would have been completely helpless against it.’

Unpredictable patterns combined with raw martial prowess. Blending those two made it immensely troublesome.

Setting aside my thoughts on the Butcher Ogre, I thoroughly searched every corner of the building.

Starting with the slaughterhouse where the Butcher and I fought. This was essentially its lair.

[It looks like a slaughterhouse on the surface... what is that?]

"It’s machinery. Probably used to stun livestock?"

[Isn’t butchering automated as well?]

"Who knows? Even if it could, there’s no electricity, so it wouldn’t operate."

I kindly explained to Cain, who had encountered new technology. Meanwhile, I collected meat hooks here and there.

They would be useful when returning to the Shelter later. I’ll hang them up in the food pantry.

[Are you planning to go fishing with those?]

"...What on earth do you take me for?"

[A monster out of the age of myths. I heard about what happened from Ludwig earlier.]

"Forget it."

Grumbling, I looked around the slaughterhouse. Then, we arrived at a place resembling a break room.

It originally seemed to be a place where butchers rested, and surprisingly, I found an item here.

"Master. Book here."

"A book? There’s a book?"

A book—and one in quite decent condition.

Normally, books that aren’t properly maintained discolor and crumble like sand.

Unless it was maintained by Alex like in the library, most books ended up like that.

’What could this be?’

Before opening the book, I looked around the surroundings.

I hadn’t noticed before, but there were surprisingly distinct traces left behind.

Crudely made wooden beds and shelves, whetstones for sharpening blades...

Even if some items were originally here, it was obvious they had been moved into place.

’Did someone live here?’

As I wondered, Alex’s words suddenly came to mind.

That occasionally people visited the library. Even though much time had passed, there weren’t zero survivors.

Meaning, a survivor might have lived in this place.

"Master. Look at this."

"Hmm?"

"Strange marks here."

True to my guess, marks were carved into the wall—tally marks counting survival days.

Tally marks densely packed the entire wall of the spacious break room.

It seemed a survivor had stayed here before falling victim to the Butcher.

[Just looking at the tally marks, it easily exceeds five years.]

"It seems they gave up counting after that."

The last survivor of the Balkan Kingdom came to mind. A soul currently resting peacefully in a grave at the Shelter.

Someone who endured in the Owlbear Cave only to eventually succumb to a gorilla troop.

Could they have been killed by the ogre just like that person? First, I opened the book.

Since it might crumble, I made sure to open it carefully.

[#$%%^%%#]

It wasn’t English; it was a different language. At least, not a language I knew.

I asked my companions if anyone recognized this language. Even Lackey replied that he didn’t know.

Except for just one person: Ludwig. Staring intently at the words, he opened his mouth.

"It is Messiah Imperial script."

"Messiah Imperial script?"

"I do not know its meaning."

It was fine if he didn’t know the meaning. There were plenty of people from the Messiah Empire on the Gallery.

I immediately pulled up the chat window and spoke.

"Starlight Lady-nim. You mentioned you’re from the Messiah Empire, right?"New chapters come out on novelping . com first.

↳ Starlight Lady) Yes! I’ll translate it right away!

"I can send you the book."

↳ Starlight Lady) The book might get damaged, so it’s fine.

Since the book could be damaged, I decided to turn the pages slowly myself.

In the process, Starlight Lady translated it bit by bit. And then...

↳ Starlight Lady) Uh, shit?

The moment she saw the first page, Starlight Lady let out a rare curse.

She was someone who almost never swore, calling it vulgar; what happened?

I wondered if, like with the Balkan Kingdom, some dark secret of the Messiah Empire had been exposed.

"What’s wrong?"

I asked in as calm a voice as possible, praying it wasn’t something horrible.

Fortunately, a second El Dorado incident did not occur.

↳ Starlight Lady) This person is a felon who gained notoriety 10 years ago? He was famous as the Human Butcher;;

↳ Allfather) I am aware of that incident as well. Was his nickname... Butcher King?

↳ Internal Cultivation Master Robert) I remember it clearly too. There were rumors he consumed human hearts to gain immense power. I recall my blood pressure spiking from dizziness back then.

↳ Sword Matstar) I heard he fled after his identity was exposed, but it seems he entered the Forest of the Four Seasons.

Instead, it was simply revealed to be the diary of a notorious felon.

Hearing that he was a felon who engaged in cannibalism sent a chill down my spine.

Thinking ’no way,’ I asked Starlight Lady for a rough summary.

↳ Starlight Lady) To summarize roughly... he managed to flee and ended up in this building. He also encountered a bizarre-looking creature in the library.

Alex. The combination of a library and a bizarre creature could only be Alex.

This felon’s name was Matthew. In his own mind, he described himself as a simple butcher.

How he committed his crimes, for what reasons he entered the Forest of the Four Seasons, and so on.

Since it was entirely subjective, it contained a huge amount of self-justification.

↳ Starlight Lady) How ridiculous. This man’s methods were truly vicious.

"How so?"

↳ Starlight Lady) Should I explain it to you?

"No."

I had already heard that he ate human hearts. The rest of the story was obvious, so there was no need to know.

Anyway, I looked into how this man lived in the Forest of the Four Seasons.

Since he was originally a Human Butcher, he possessed decent combat capability.

But in the Forest of the Four Seasons, ’decent’ was nowhere near enough. It was a place where even masters easily perished.

↳ Starlight Lady) It says he killed small beasts to survive. And ate them raw.

"...Chewed them raw?"

↳ Starlight Lady) He seemed to believe he could absorb their strength completely that way. There are descriptions of his body growing larger day by day.

"..."

Then, was that Butcher Ogre actually this felon?

It was hard to believe easily, but not impossible. Look at me right now.

My body couldn’t use mana or anything before, yet at some point I became this strong.

As Allfather mentioned before, the Forest of the Four Seasons was a zone that accelerated evolution.

’Did an inhuman monster of a person turn into this because he committed beastly acts?’

I looked over my own body. Though I had only recently begun training in External Arts, well-balanced muscles stood out.

For what reason did this forest accelerate evolution? I grew increasingly curious.

↳ Passing Dwarf) No wonder it felt strange when he shouted ’meat’ earlier.

"Meat?"

↳ Passing Dwarf) He yelled ’Matooooo!’ back then. When translated, it sounded like ’Meat.’

↳ Smart Demon) Wasn’t that a translation error?

↳ Praise the Sun) I thought it was a translation glitch too lol

There had been a clue after all. I just hadn’t understood those words.

Anyway, I suppose we can end the story of this criminal here.

Afterward, I explained the truth about the Butcher Ogre to the rest of the party.

Everyone was shocked upon hearing that it was originally human, but soon accepted it.

[Indeed. When there’s a gorilla talking human speech, this isn’t so strange.]

"There are humans more beastly than gorillas."

"Are you talking about me?"

"Correction. More than a beast. Didn’t you overpower that monster with sheer strength?"

"Whatever."

I pledged to myself: from now on, whatever food I eat, I will roast it over fire.

Unless I was insanely starving, I intended to avoid eating raw meat.

[So what will you do now? Search around a bit more?]

"Hmm..."

Hearing Cain’s question, I pondered. Frankly, there was no need to stay here any longer.

Moreover, it was about time to return to the Shelter. Going back was better.

"Before returning, let’s grab one thing."

[What are you taking?]

"Something extremely important."

Taking that important item, I returned to the Shelter. The identity of that crucial item was none other than...

[~~~~]

"You have so many songs. I’ll give you something to eat, so play another song."

The jukebox.

It was a truly massive haul.