novelraw Chapter 79
Chapter 79
Chapter 79
At last, our preparations were ready to bear fruit.
Exactly 837 Hunters. We had consumables to issue to the Hunters joining us, and transport to carry those supplies. The Seagull team agreed to cooperate smoothly, maybe because they had worked with Lee Se-eun once before.
Of course, it cost a lot of money. But the Seagull team were operating specialists worth the price.
Now we just had to depart. The plan’s main outline went as follows.
“Our vanguard, made up of us and about fifty Hunters, will set out from Vladivostok first and open the route to Harbin.”
Jaun Valley’s fog spread from Changchun up to around Songyuan on the northern edge. Harbin lay farther north than Songyuan, so it was free from the fog’s influence.
“If we get to Harbin and it looks bad there, we go to Mudanjiang.”
That would put us farther from Changchun, but closer to the one port we could call unequivocally safe, Vladivostok.
With the distance shorter, resupply would be easier, and of course holding that position while pushing toward Changchun would be far more manageable.
“Even so, if we think ahead to after the assault succeeds, settling in Harbin is best.”
North of Harbin there were many Erosion Zones.
If we cleaned up Harbin once and for all, then cleared Jaun Valley, the first-class Erosion Core beneath it, Harbin could serve as a forward base for Hunter operations.
It would be a kind of midsection cut.
“If possible, we will break through to Harbin. By the way, it’s still filthy cold.”
Our fifty-person vanguard, myself included, rode trucks from Vladivostok toward Harbin.
“Are you not cold?”
Our vanguard included not only me, Han Sang-ah, and Jung Oh-hoon, but also Adakawa Nanami.
Naturally, Adaka and Nanami wore those same frilly, pink outfits we had seen before. The temperature around Vladivostok was minus ten degrees Celsius.
“Those clothes aren’t suited for walking around in this.”
Jung Oh-hoon clicked his tongue and muttered under his breath at my remark.
“If there’s anywhere those outfits are appropriate, name it.”
There wasn’t. Nanami’s eyes turned to us.
“If you keep saying weird things, I’ll use my be-kind magic.”
“Be-kind magic?”
Nanami made a pop with her lips, then answered my question.
“All bad thoughts happen in your head, right?”
Pink, heart-shaped magic gathered above her hand. Just because something took the shape of a heart didn’t mean it symbolized happiness and peace.
Either way, Jung Oh-hoon and I shut our mouths obediently. Getting hit would hurt.
“By the way, this is fascinating.”
Chin in hand, Nanami studied the protective diagram inscribed on the truck. I had drawn it. We had etched the same thing on every vehicle carrying supplies and Hunters.
“Does it work?”
At Jung Oh-hoon’s skeptical tone, Nanami answered at once.
“It works. I can feel ambient magic flowing along it and activating the effect.”
Even so, I figured it would only weaken things a bit.
As time passed, our truck out of Vladivostok entered an Erosion Zone. It wasn’t Jaun Valley’s Erosion Zone, but one formed by several nearby Erosion Cores.
The moment we entered, Nanami slightly raised her left hand.
“I didn’t even say anything this time.”
Wearing an aggrieved look, Jung Oh-hoon glanced at her. Three pink lights rose above Nanami’s hand and slowly orbited in a track.
“Tracking?”
Nanami’s eyes went wide at my words.
“Oh my, how did you know?”
What surprised me more was that she could do tracking at all. That wasn’t Nanami’s innate ability. She must have developed the technique on her own.
It was a kind of radar.
You could call that real magic. Its structure was simple enough that a mage of some skill could spoof it, but it was efficient, and above all, its detection range looked tremendous.
So she wasn’t unable to use magic huh. Watching the three pink lights revolve, Nanami conjured a large pink sphere in her other hand and flicked it skyward.
The sphere shot up, writhed violently, then turned into a flash and streaked away somewhere.
“Unbelievable.”
Both Jung Oh-hoon and Nanami specialized in long range. But if Jung Oh-hoon was a sniper, Nanami was a self-propelled howitzer. If Jung Oh-hoon eliminated only the specific target he aimed at, Nanami simply erased the entire area.
Efficiency-wise, Jung Oh-hoon was overwhelmingly better. But when it came to sweeping a mass of monsters in one blow, Nanami would be far superior.
Her range was much longer too. Of course, no matter how long the range, if she couldn’t set bombardment coordinates correctly, it meant nothing. But Nanami had a radar.
She winked and said,
“With a right mind and a clear soul, and if you work hard, you can do it.”
I didn’t particularly agree. The world didn’t work like that. Still, that radar looked simple enough in technique that with a bit of practice, even I might use it.
“There will be villains who avoid this. But my magic sweeps friend and foe alike…”
“Understood.”
The monsters that managed to approach while dodging Nanami’s radar were ours to handle. If they could slip past her detection, they were likely quite dangerous.
Her bombardment range seemed to match her radar’s detection range precisely. Eyes on the tracking spell hovering over her hand, she kept launching pink barrages.
“They’re coming.”
The monsters that had succeeded in deceiving her radar appeared. As we had already learned, the creatures in this area were undead.
Corpses in worn armor, clutching weapons corroded dark red. Their bodies looked ready to crumble at a touch, but the magic inside them was considerable. They would not go down easily.
Shambling with drooping torsos, they suddenly snapped their heads up. Sinister light flared in their eyes, steeped in damp, fetid magic.
“What is that, are they convulsing?”
They froze, then began to shiver. Then, still trembling, they zipped toward us fast enough to leave afterimages, closing the distance.
It was a grotesque motion. No, it wasn’t motion. They only convulsed in place, but their bodies relocated here and there as if teleporting.
Seeing a ghost might feel like this.
“Prepare to fight.”
Once the undead crossed a certain distance, the protective diagram took effect. Black smoke rose from approaching corpses and spirits.
“As expected, it only weakens them.”
We had to clear them. Our job was to open the road. It wasn’t enough to charge blindly and simply reach Harbin.
Nanami’s radar and bombardment would handle the majority of the weak undead, and anything strong enough to slip past her radar, we would smash. Put simply, that was the division of labor.
“Time to feel like all the hard work paid off, Mr. Jung.”
“That’s the plan!”
With rapid gunfire, bullets poured from Jung Oh-hoon’s rifle. The corpses slipped this way and that with unnatural movement, dodging his shots. But the bullets curved as if alive and still burned into the corpses’ skulls.
With a wet thud, the rounds sank in.
“They don’t even cry out?”
“They’re corpses. Did you expect them to scream that it hurts?”
Heads snapped back when bullets struck their skulls, then lifted again. The bullets lodged in their heads slid out on their own and clinked to the ground.
“Am I even stronger than before?”
“Don’t ask me. You should know.”
It wasn’t that it had no effect. They took damage, but they were corpses without fear or worry, so they looked perfectly fine. Hunters riding the other trucks had also drawn weapons against the oncoming undead.
“Chan-seok, you do something too!”
“Quit whining, Mr. Jung.”
Spear in hand, I plunged among the corpses and spirits hungry to taste our flesh. One undead swung a rusted sword at me.
At the same time, a rotten arm burst from its chest and reached for my throat. I caught that arm instead and burned it with Paradoxical Flame as I muttered,
“Yeah, well… the privilege of the undead.”
It didn’t matter if joints, muscles, and bones bent and twisted in grotesque directions. Arms and mouths could burst from the chest. A mouth might be on a sole, or the instant you thought you had dodged a swing, a sharp shard of bone might shoot out.
Some undead of a certain level relished such methods. The most outrageous one I had faced was a crazy corpse that gripped swords in both hands, then spun both arms like propellers as it charged.
Because they were dead bodies or spirits that felt no pain, they could pull off such irregular movements and attacks. The enemies before me wanted to pull every dirty trick to make me end up just like them.
An unending hatred for all beings that breathed and carried hot blood beneath their skin.
“Graaah!”
During this, a Hunter screamed as his arm was severed, clutching the stump. He must have been caught completely off guard.
I did say it before. We worked with death right in front of us. No one could afford to space out. There was nothing I could do for him immediately, and everyone knew what had to be done.
Your arm flew off. Fall back quickly and staunch the bleeding, pick up the severed arm. What if you were unlucky and couldn’t find it, or even if you did, there was no way to reattach it?
You would have to worry about how to make a living after retirement.
The sounds of flesh tearing and bone breaking rang out. Now and then, there were screams and howls.
I drove my spear into a corpse’s skull and burned it, while with a hand wreathed in black flame I grabbed the throat of a pale shape that charged with a banshee’s wail.
The spirit’s body was swallowed by Paradoxical Flame, and black fire spread in all directions. Only to the limit I could control.
The ground around us burned, and the corpses and spirits standing upon it were consumed.
“Again.”
The spreading flame flowed back into my body. Wreathed in Paradoxical Flame, leaving blue trails in my wake, I went on cutting down the corpses and spirits before me.
“He’s shredding those ugly things like a weed whacker.”
Muttering that, Jung Oh-hoon kept up his fire. Many Hunters attacked from range, but even among them, Jung Oh-hoon’s skill stood out.
I didn’t mean raw power. I meant the knack for delivering exactly the right covering shot at exactly the right time. That alone relieved a huge burden on the Hunters fighting up close.
And that was exactly what I wanted from Jung Oh-hoon. The killing blows that cut the enemy’s lifeline were more than covered by Han Sang-ah and me.