novelraw Chapter 151 : Mission 10: The Hunters of Old (24)
Chapter 151 : Mission 10: The Hunters of Old (24)
It happened a long time ago.
Midway through the Gate War, not long after the first five S-Rank heroes had teamed up.
The group had lucked out, finding a big-box store with its supplies miraculously intact.
The Five Heroes and the survivors traveling with them had a proper, plentiful dinner for the first time in ages.
All except for one: the Savior, Seong-ah Yu.
Exhausted from a brutal battle followed by healing the wounded civilians, Seong-ah had collapsed into a deep sleep.
The duty of protecting her share of dinner from three particular hyenas—Iron Knight, the Spirit Lord, and the Archmage—fell to Ghost.
Night wore on, the darkness before dawn deepening.
Ghost gazed at the stars by the campfire, strumming her guitar softly, as Seong-ah slowly woke.
“Oh, sis…” The Savior sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Where’d you get a guitar?”
Ghost set the instrument on the ground, looking a little sheepish.
“They had a bunch of them abandoned in the musical instruments section. I just grabbed one.”
“Whoa. I didn’t know you could play.”
“Well, you hang around enough rock concerts, you naturally get it… And after dabbling in a university band… it just sort of happens.”
Her voice trailed off. Ghost picked up a pot that had been sitting on the dying embers of the fire and set it down in front of Seong-ah.
“Saved you some dinner. Eat up.”
“Wow, that smells amazing! What is it?”
“Curry.”
It was a simple curry, made from canned goods, bottled water, and bouillon cubes found in the store’s warehouse. But in an era when a proper meal was a rarity, it was a feast.
“Whoa, this is incredible!” Seong-ah’s eyes sparkled as she hastily mixed the curry with instant rice and shoveled it into her mouth. “This is the best curry I’ve ever had. Who made it?”
“I did,” Ghost replied nonchalantly.
Seong-ah gushed, “No, seriously! This is so good! You could sell this!”
“It’s harder to make bad curry than good curry.”
“What’s the secret? Can’t you just tell me? Huh?”
“Secret? Don’t be ridiculous. You’re just starving.”
Perhaps because it had unintentionally simmered all night, the curry was, in fact, delicious.
Ghost remained aloof despite the continued shower of praise, but Seong-ah didn’t miss the way the tips of her ears turned red.
“You have to promise me!” Seong-ah said after she’d finished her meal.
She suddenly held out her pinky. “When this war is over, you have to take me on a food tour of Seoul!”
“You think there are any restaurants left in Seoul?”
The monster invasion had leveled the city, and its citizens had long since evacuated.
Ghost scoffed at the absurd suggestion, but Seong-ah’s eyes shone as she pressed on.
“And we have to go to a rock fest together!”
“What? A rock fest?”
“You know, I’ve never been to a big outdoor concert like that. Hearing you talk about them all the time makes me really want to go!”
As it happened, the Five Heroes all had wildly different tastes in music.
Ghost, like the rock geek she was, had preached the gospel of rock to anyone who would listen. And while everyone else ignored her sermons, only Seong-ah had paid attention.
Still, a rock fest… The idea was so preposterous that Ghost couldn’t help but laugh.
“A rock fest? You think they’ll ever hold one of those again in this ruined world?”
“Then we’ll just have to save the world.”
Seong-ah beamed, her characteristically round, innocent eyes crinkling.
She raised her hand again, pinky extended. “We can do it, sis.”
“…”
“And after that, you have to! A restaurant and concert date with me! It’s a promise!”
“…Honestly.” With a short, breathy laugh, Ghost slowly raised her own hand. “All right, all right. I get it.”
Seong-ah’s small pinky and Ghost’s calloused one locked together under the brightening dawn sky.
“Promise.”
***
Suddenly, Ghost remembered that long-forgotten, unfulfilled promise from thirty years ago.
She let out a hollow laugh.
Then she studied the Boy approaching her.
After all the places I took him, his favorite was a Kimbap Heaven… How absurd.
The only thing they had in common was those wide, guileless eyes… yet for some strange reason, his face kept reminding her of the girl from thirty years ago.
“…Right. There are still so many things I haven’t let him taste yet.”
Ghost took a deep breath and turned back to her opponent. “Iron Knight.”
“Speak.”
“To be honest, I thought it might be fine if I died by your hand today.”
“…”
“I thought that if your will and conviction were strong enough to kill me without hesitation, then letting you end this wretched life of mine wouldn’t be so bad.”
If Iron Knight had committed to his rebellion with unshakable resolve, Ghost would have been willing to fall before his cause.
If he had unleashed his killing blows without hesitation, she’d have been prepared to reluctantly accept them and get out of his way.
But Iron Knight had faltered, and so had Ghost.
A Hunter to his very bones, Iron Knight could never become a true villain. And Ghost, who had come here ready to let everything go, still found herself clutching things she couldn’t release.
“Guess it’s no good after all. I still… have things left to teach that kid.”
“Ghost…”
“So, this is a temporary truce.”
Ghost turned her head again, facing the monster of the past as it widened its valley of corruption.
“You were right. That thing is a relic of the old era. If it has to die, it should be us who drag it down with us.”
The world was a harsh place, anyway.
The children would have their own future trials to endure. The least the people of the old era could do was clean up their own filth before they disappeared.
“And frankly, I don’t like the idea of handing over my title to some young punks for free.”
Ghost smirked spitefully.
“The Old Five Heroes are the only ones in this world who have ever successfully subjugated a Demon Lord, and the title of ‘Demon Lord Decapitator’ is mine and mine alone.”
The government had likely intended to crown the New Five Heroes as the “Vanquishers of the Fallen Hero,” but that title had probably just been upgraded to “Vanquishers of the Resurrected Demon Lord.”
Ghost had no intention of relinquishing either.
“So, you could call this a title defense match.”
“…Thank you.” Iron Knight gave a faint smile.
Ghost snapped, “What are you thanking me for? Once I take the Demon Lord’s head, you’re next. We kill this thing as fast as we can, and then we settle things between us.”
Then she jutted her chin toward the Demon Lord. “I’m counting on you to be the shield, Iron Knight. I’ll be the sword.”
“You remember the strategy from thirty years ago?”
“How could I forget? It’s carved into my bones.”
The plan was as simple now as it was then.
While the Sword team aimed for the Demon Lord’s neck, the Shield team would buy them time with their lives.
The Savior, the Archmage, and the Spirit Lord were no longer among them, but other old soldiers still remained.
With a mere gesture, Iron Knight raised a new set of fortress walls and roared to his subordinates.
“Knights! All units, fall in!”
The old soldiers, who had been recovering and waiting, instantly formed ranks behind him. Chevalier had rejoined them.
“Do you remember the final battle of the Gate War?”
“Yes, Knight Commander!”
“We’re using the same formation as back then! Form a phalanx!”
As the Knights moved with perfect discipline, Iron Knight turned and shouted over his shoulder.
“Chairman Choi!”
He yelled toward the chairman of the Hunter Association, who had been waiting in the rear.
“Do you remember your position from thirty years ago?”
“As if it were yesterday!”
“I’m leaving your sector to you.”
As if he had anticipated this, Chairman Choi ordered his men to assume the formation he had already briefed them on.
Behind the thick, layered walls, humans lined up in formation.
While the Shield prepared, the Sword also finished its arrangements.
“Deck 0 team.”
Ghost gathered her subordinate convicts and gave her command.
“We kill the Demon Lord first. The strategy is the same one we planned for Iron Knight.”
After bleaching, paralyzing, controlling, and burning, it would be cut down.
Ghost judged that the combination she had prepared to kill Iron Knight would be just as effective against the Demon Lord.
“…Ghost,” Puppeteer began quietly. “Our mission is—”
Ghost cut him off. “Protecting this country. Isn’t that our guiding ‘principle’ as cogwheels? A Demon Lord has been resurrected in the middle of Seoul. There is no higher priority.”
Puppeteer looked like he had more to say, but they were inside Ghost’s Domain.
And the power of life and death over the Deck 0 team rested with the field leader, Ghost.
“I will follow your orders for now, but there will be repercussions.”
“Be my guest.”
The Shield and the Sword were ready.
Staring at the Demon Lord’s rapidly terraforming nest, Ghost shouted to her side. “Hey, Metal Geezer!”
Iron Knight had just finished positioning his men.
As he turned around, Ghost pointed to her ear, wiggling a finger. “We’re heading into the final battle. Don’t you think we need some killer BGM?”
“…!”
“Cue up some badass rock for us.”
Iron Knight grinned. “As a matter of fact, there’s something I’ve been wanting to hear.”
He barked an order toward the control tower, and a moment later, old, loud music began to pour from every speaker inside the Cheongnyangni Gate.
It was the sixth track from Guns N’ Roses’ legendary 1987 debut album—”Paradise City.”
Ghost nodded along to the raucous intro. “Not bad.”
She readjusted her grip on her sword and stepped forward.
“Well then, shall we go save the world again? What a damn chore.”
***
“Huh? What’s everyone doing?”
The old soldiers, the Deck 0 convicts, even Chevalier—they all snapped into formation and began to advance as one toward the Demon Lord.
Watching their backs, Jae-hee looked around in a panic. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Hey, didn’t you say you wanted to be the Deck Commander?” Razor clicked his tongue. “How many times do I have to tell you? You have to give the orders.”
“Ugh…! This isn’t easy, being the Deck Commander…! So this is the weight of the crown…!”
As Jae-hee tore at his hair, Status Window adjusted his glasses beside him.
“Those people have a reason to fight desu.”
“Huh?”
“The Knights need to defeat the Demon Lord now so they’ll have some cover for this whole mess later when they’re captured desu. They’ll have to argue, ‘We may have committed treason, but we also slew a Demon Lord.’”
“Ah, I see.”
“They’re all facing the death penalty as it is, so to have any chance of survival, they have to take down the Demon Lord, win or lose desu.”
Status Window continued his analysis.
“It’s the same for the Hunter Association desu. They’re already on the outs, a lost cause. To stage a dramatic reversal, they need to achieve something spectacular. That’s why they’re pushing themselves so hard.”
“So that’s how it is.”
“And those scary folks from Deck 0 are cut from a different cloth than the rest of us convicts. They’ll have their own reasons, too.”
Status Window fixed his gaze on Jae-hee. “But what about us? We have no reason to risk our lives anymore desu.”
“…”
“The Credits we’ve farmed here are already an astronomical sum desu. There’s no practical benefit to fighting any longer in this hellhole, and we have no sense of duty. We’re just convicts.”
His point was clear.
“How about we pull back desu?”
They weren’t soldiers.
They certainly weren’t heroes.
They were captured Villains, prisoners forced to fight under threat of death. There was no need to throw themselves into a battle where they had nothing to gain.
Jae-hee hesitated.
“…Um, just so you know, I’m only asking for reference, but…”
He glanced around nervously. “Are there… lots of good restaurants around Cheongnyangni?”