Chapter 89
Episode 89 You’ve changed a bit? (2)
“I’m sure it’s about here.”
Sung Hyun-Woo scratched his head and turned his head around. He had been to the Academy to get the personal information, and he came here after the last traces.
Lee Jin-Woo.
The man Jeong Si-woo had told him about had applied for a mercenary guild to become an executive officer upon graduation. Originally, Jin-Woo had wanted to apply for the Hunter profession, but he had chosen his career because his uncle had stopped him from entering the Crack.
“Well, where is it?”
Sung Hyun-Woo walked from place to place and looked beyond the wall, activating his clairvoyant skill.
It was the right building, but it was hard to find people in the building.
“What are you doing, kid?”
Thud.
Someone put his hand on Sung Hyun-Woo’s head. It was a tough-looking man. He was wearing a uniform with a guild mark on his chest.
“This is not a place where you can just come in. Get out of here quickly…….”
Thud.
The man who was talking suddenly collapsed. Sung Hyun-Woo turned away with a grave face and put his hand on the head of the fallen man. The memory in the man’s head flowed to Sung Hyun-Woo.
“Oh, not this way, over there. But…….”
Sung Hyun-Woo, who was reading the memory, frowned. Was this the right guy? It was similar to Lee Jin-Woo’s face in Jeong Si-Woo’s memory, but the feeling was completely different. Sung wondered if he came in the wrong place.
Sung Hyun-Woo tilted his head and tried to read the memory again.
It was then.
“Oh, long time no see.”
Someone walked around the hall.
“That’s you, right? The kid that Si-Woo used to hang out with. You’ve grown a lot. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
The man had rough hair and a long black coat with all kinds of weapons. He had ears full of piercings and long scarred cheeks. He seemed to have been through all sorts of hardships. He could not be thought to be the same age as Jeong Si-Woo. The man walked toward Sung Hyun-Woo in a friendly manner.
“You are Lee Jin-Woo, aren’t you?”
“Hey, you shouldn’t call others by their names like that. You should call me big brother. But what’s going on here? It’s not a place for you to come.”
The sly smile left little of Lee Jin-Woo from the Academy.
Sung read Lee Jin-Woo’s two years of memories as he made eye contact with Lee and unknowingly uttered a word out of his mouth.
“Mister, you will be much more helpful than I thought.”
* * *
“Mr. Zhang Wei, how long do you think we’ll be able to hold out if all the Hunters withdraw?”
“Hmm… well.”
“Why? Is Mana that short?”
“No, I thought if we were to fight her, we’d die instantly without any recovery.”
“…….”
I was speechless. He was such an excellent man with a talent for making people speechless.
“What if we don’t die?”
“Most likely, we’ll be able to hold out for an hour.”
It was enough. Bouncing bullets with a mirage, I approached Han Yeon-Soo next.
“How’s the situation?”
“It’s the worst! Big babies can’t be taken out because she is tearing up Mana’s protective membranes and braking characteristics. If all my troops are killed as soon as they come out, my army is over!”
“Is it hard to focus on using little things?”
“That crazy girl uses a bomb and a flame thrower, not a gun. Meanwhile, she stopped the attacks with strange walls… She’s annoying.”
“Hmm.”
It was simply a rare sight for a madwoman to be irritated by another madwoman.
With spiders and bees, Han Yeon-Soo protected the Hunters, who were pulling out. Her leadership was unbelievably sophisticated. The sight of a flying bullet being stuck in a spider’s web and stopped was majestic. It was too bad there was no audience here to applaud for it.
“Okay. Hang in there.”
I tapped Han Yeon-Soo’s shoulders and moved. Zhang Wei and Han Yeon-Soo couldn’t move here. They were the main players of the defense line.
I turned my head.
Kim Seung-Hyun and Yoo Ji-Yeon were seen working hard behind the shield. They were the only ones left.
“Are you tired, Seung-Hyun?”
“…….”
He didn’t reply. Kim Seung-Hyun was sweating and pushing his shield with his eyes closed. Yes, he couldn’t hear me. The bullet hit the shield, and there were explosions everywhere. In the meantime, it would be weird that he answered.
I scratched my head, turned my eyes upward, and shouted.
“Yoo Ji-Yeon!”
“Huh? Uh!”
Yoo Ji-Yeon, who was flying in the air like a witch, replied to my voice. It would have been perfect if it had been a broom, not a staff, but unfortunately, no broom in this world could use magic.
“Not much to do, is there?”
“Oh, no. There’s a lot I do. My magic is blocking all the bullets and interrupting her. It’s an indispensable role without me, now.”
“Come down!”
“Oh? I see.”
I couldn’t believe that she had a lot of things to do. Seol Ah-rin was the perfect natural enemy of the sorcerers. The most important thing in magic was the Mana System, and Seol Ah-rin’s bullets ripped out such Mana. There was nothing Yoo Ji-Yeon could do among the raining bullets.
“You should’ve come down earlier. You got hurt.”
“Oh, but I thought I’d still have to be up there…….”
However, she only got hurt. Yoo Ji-Yeon’s lobes were filled with torn and charred traces of whether she was shot. There were no injuries thanks to Zhang Wei, but if she had been hit at the critical point, it wouldn’t have been strange if she had died as it was.
Under these circumstances, her stubbornness and trying to step forward somehow was no different than before and now.
“The magic doesn’t work on her. What you’re doing now is no different than throwing matches into the sea and asking why it doesn’t catch fire.”
“…….”
“Don’t just stand there, help me.”
Crack!
Even during the conversation, Seol Ah-rin’s bullets flew toward us. One of the miracles that circled me like a flying bug bounced a bullet. Whether it was torn or not, it was not possible to break down the material of Orichalcum.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Get out of here!”
I could see Seol Ah-rin running wild in the center. Her eyes were naturally frowned upon by the look of madness. Her ability could destroy Mana, but at the same time, she could use up Mana. However, she didn’t seem to use it up yet.
‘That’s a good thing. If yes, there would be no solution.’
When she used up her Mana, Cracks appeared indiscriminately in the area. Contrary to her tendency to hate Cracks and hate Monsters, Seol Ah-rin was a walking disaster that caused Cracks whenever she used her abilities.
Boom, Boom!
The sound of bullets flying everywhere, hazy-shaped missiles, and a loud explosion in ravaged fields were constantly heard. Every time I breathed, my throat stung, and it was hard even to keep my eyes open properly.
Many people were impressed by her claim that Cracks must be smashed, but Seol Ah-rin was a disaster.
Did it make sense that she didn’t like the strange phenomena that had happened in reality, that she wanted to go back to the past, and that she burned and smashed the present?
Even if she succeeds in eliminating both Monsters and Cracks, no one in the world will survive. Only Seol Ah-rin will laugh gruesomely in the end.
“What can I help you with?” Yoo Ji-Yeon approached me and spoke.
“It’s not that difficult. I told you… I mean, magic didn’t work on Seol Ah-rin.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t mean that magic can’t exert any power. In the first place, the power of magic wasn’t considered the most powerful thing. There are so many Monsters with magical resistance. The important thing depends on how you use it.”
Yoo Ji-Yeon opened her eyes wide and nodded. I slowly pulled Mana out of my body, continuing to talk. A blue haze rose at the fingertips, with a rapid heartbeat.
“Look, you may be better at magic than me, but frankly, I’m more confident in application than anyone.”
“…….”
“So watch what I do and follow me. All we have to do is not kill that woman, but buy time until Hyun-Woo brings the man here.”
With the end of the remark, I raised my bent body sharply. Seol Ah-rin and my eyes met. Before she could react to anything, I pointed my fingers full of Mana at her.
[‘Great Mana’ has been activated.]
Seol Ah-rin’s body disappeared. To be exact, the ground she was on was sunk. It was easy to use. The land beneath her feet was transformed into a swamp by mixing the earth’s property with the water’s property.
Thud.
When I saw that Seol Ah-rin’s figure had completely disappeared, I folded my finger. Then, the fluctuating land changed back to the previous solid ground.
“Did you see that?”
I said so, looking at Yoo Ji-Yeon, who was blinking her eyes.
Bam!
A loud noise echoed from the ground before Yoo Ji-Yeon could answer anything.
“I can’t hold her for long. Tie her feet differently when she comes out. Since I showed you once, can you apply ways?”
“Yes!”
Yoo Ji-Yeon smiled and nodded.
…No, it’s still burying people alive.
It is not something you can do with such a happy face.
I held back my words and smiled.
‘Okay. Ji-Yeon, do whatever you want.’
* * *
“How can we deal with her on our own!”
One of the Hunters in Team 4 in charge of the Monster Fields grumbled.
It was dangerous that an unidentified woman had appeared and made chaos, but it was also dangerous here. All of the facilities’ systems, which were clumsy but helped in their way, were paralyzed, and the defense walls were completely neutralized. The mission of Team 4 in the situation was simple.
It was to stop Villain Seol Ah-rin from crossing over the line until they cleared her.
It was simple, but not easy. No matter how veteran they were, their stamina was not limitless, and it was too much to continue hunting without a break in a situation where they worked hard all day.
“Ahh… Anyone has a spare energy bar?”
“No!”
The surging hunger took away the stamina, and Hunters felt their hunting suits were getting heavier and heavier. A headache accompanied by a burning thirst and a distant smell of gunpowder. It was a hell of a situation.
“Ah… there comes a bastard.”
Meanwhile, one of the Hunters said so. Something was running from among the monsters, as he said. It was four-legged walking. It was covered with scales harder than alloys from head to toe, and there was a large iron fillet attached to the end of the wobbly tail.
It had always appeared when a strong line of defense was made.
People called it ‘Opener’.
It was a sort of rush-boss who rushed at a tremendous speed and smashed the door with a pullout attached to his tail or smashed the defense line.
“Oh… I’m going crazy.”
Originally, if the Association’s doors were closed, it would die after hitting its head there before he could wield his iron fist. It was a stupid object that couldn’t think of a transparent glass door as a door.
“Is that one going to get us through?”
But now, there was no glass door behind the Hunters. If it were pierced, civilians would die. It was a monster who could turn an awakening-free village into a mire.
“There’s no way to catch it unless it’s putting its head by itself! No Hunter has the power to stop the rush or firepower to pierce the scales at once!”
I wouldn’t even care if it were normal. I felt as if I had been hit in the back of my head. In the meantime, it was stomping its feet and rushing.
“Oh!”
Without that scale, I could kill him at once. If only I could pierce that scale……!
All the Hunters had the same idea.
And then.
“Grrrr… grrr !”
Bam!
The hard-running Opener suddenly fell. The dust shot up. The Hunters looked puzzled at sight. What, did it miss its step?
“Well, that’s dead!”
The Hunter at the front approached the Opener and shouted so. The big bull-looking guy was dead. The crooked fellow shook its toes and soon died.
“What is that……?”
A Hunter at the front said so, looking at the arrow stuck in the neck of the Opener. It was a very thick arrow. It had a curious shape, with a green ampoule at the end.
“Don’t go near it. Poison. You’ll die if you do something wrong.”
And someone said to those Hunters.
It was a man with a long coat. He held a large bow in his hand, even to say that he was the one who had shot the arrow.
Thud!
He pulled the arrow from the neck of the Opener skillfully, retrieved it, and opened his mouth, looking at the Hunters.
“Do you happen to know where Hunter Jeong Si-woo is? He’ll take me there if I know the direction… Just because he doesn’t know the direction.”
The man said so, putting his hand on the head of the boy standing next to him.
“That way, this way is towards the west gate… It’s probably over there.”
“Oh, thank you. Let’s go, Hyun-Woo.”
“Yes, uncle.”
“Ay, call me brother. I am not your uncle!”
The Hunter guessed roughly and gave the direction with his fingers. The man bowed his head with thanks and disappeared with the boy. They were strange people.
“…Who are they?”
Team 4 in charge of the Monster Field muttered. They seemed to have seen a ghost.