105. The Victor's Rights (2)

“You’ll have to strip off every last piece of gear.”
“Then I’ll have nothing to wear.”

Lee Seongmin’s face flushed a sudden, vivid red.

This kid’s still got a long way to go.

“Minyeong. Grab some spare clothes for her.”
“Ugh. What if she pulls a hostage stunt or something?”
“She knows better than anyone that pulling that won’t get her out of here alive.”

A bleak killing intent welled at the corners of Yujin’s eyes. Kim Mijeong laughed, hahat, thoroughly delighted.

“Chilling. I love it.”
“This is a person I find psychologically off-putting, sir.”

She was a genuine powerhouse, one who had fought the Fafnir pack to a slim advantage even bare-handed. Against a Hunter of Kang Minyeong’s caliber, though, a single second would be enough.

“Eek. If she dies she’ll turn into a wraith and cling to your shoulder, Bro.”
“I’ll put her to good use, then.”
“Ugh. I really hate this.”

Kim Mijeong cooperated docilely. Kang Minyeong blindfolded her with a long strip of cloth and then worked through her gear piece by piece: two daggers, the backup weapons, the armor besides. For all her grumbling about being scared, she searched with meticulous care and recovered every last armament.

“Put this on.”
“Bit small, isn’t it?”
“If you don’t like it, stay stripped in the dead of winter.”
“Kihi. Fine. I’ll wear it.”

Watching the two of them squabble, Kronos laughed mischievously.

’…Stripping the gear off a corpse. Wresting it from the living. Aren’t they the same thing?’

‘You mean, why not just kill her and raise her as one of the dead, like Song Myeongseok?’

‘A style like hers is hard to make the most of even raised as undead.’

Hers was an assassin’s style, built on slipping into an opponent’s gaps to cram a burst of damage into a single instant. Even with the most painstaking adjustment, that fine sensory edge and feel for speed were hard to preserve in the dead.

‘Better to keep her breathing and put her to use.’

If it was possible, that is. The woman was a mad dog. Depending on how things played out, he was also weighing killing her outright so no trouble would linger afterward. His knowledge from before the regression wasn’t perfect either; there was only room for persuasion, nothing more. She was a completely different case from the Scraps’ team or Shin Junseok.

‘Well then. Shall I go tidy up?’

Countless pools of blood spilled across the Necropolis. The gear left behind by so many Hunters. And the wraiths still drifting, unable to leave the world, snared by Dark Calling. There was far too much harvest to gather in at once. All of it.

How long will it take to digest it all, I wonder.

‘Just thinking about it fills me up.’

Yujin grinned.

Cleaning up the battlefield took a solid half a day. Hauling corpses, sorting items, and on top of that a mountain of other things that needed doing.

“Lay that one in the Profane Graveyard.”

— Under, stood.

The Hunters who had been 4th Rank in life he buried apart from the rest. Dark Calling’s main target had been the magic-line, and since he hadn’t managed to round up the martial-line Hunters, reinforcing them through Unison was difficult.

‘The ones that never went through the Unison process don’t get much stronger no matter how I operate on them.’

A corpse laid to rest in the Profane Graveyard wouldn’t decay. Better to let them ripen a good long while and, once they reached the 4th Rank, raise them with higher-grade necromancy. Having picked out the ones who had crossed the wall from among the corpses, he turned straight to sorting items.

“Put the Magic and Rare grades on the right. Don’t touch the Uniques.”
“We’ll help too, sir.”
“Go on, then.”

The weapons, armor, and accessories the corpses had worn were another matter. Many were damaged from the fighting, but a fair number could perform at full spec once repaired.

Low-grade undead like the Returner and the Skeleton Warrior couldn’t handle commands as complex as stripping gear, so he mobilized every mid-grade undead as well, all but the Fafnir set to guard the surrendered Kim Mijeong.

— Damn it. What a hassle.

— I. Can work as hard as it takes to earn the Master’s trust.

— That won’t do. The undead who earns my liege’s recognition must be none other than I.

Meanwhile, Song Myeongseok and Jo Seungcheol were locked in a loyalty(?) contest.

“I’m here. Partner.”

Shin Junseok, contacted the moment the situation wrapped up, arrived at the Necropolis.

“The potion factory?”
“Stabilized enough to run a few days without me.”
“Don’t go getting your recipe stolen like an idiot.”
“That won’t happen anymore. Got robbed plenty back in my company days.”

Something to brag about, that is.

Then again, hadn’t this fellow gone freelance precisely because Daeseong had snatched away his results?

The mercenaries’ equipment ran from Magic to Rare grade at best. He gathered it all in one place.

“That doesn’t really seem like a level you can dismiss with an ‘at best,’ Boss.”

At Kang Minho’s dumbfounded reaction, Yujin let out a short pfft.

“If there’s anything you want, pick it out and use it.”
“You serious?!”
“Bro. You know I really, truly love you, right?”

Men who hadn’t even crossed the wall had held off two opponents, a 5th-Rank Hunter and a 4th-Rank Hunter both. Even granting the Blood Golem’s help, that wasn’t something anyone could pull off without a fair measure of nerve and resolve.

“This much is only fair as a reward.”
“Thank you, Boss. I’ll work even harder from here on.”
“Senior. Aren’t you being too stiff?”
“When Big Bro talks like that, it makes us look like trash.”

The Scraps’ team grumbled at one another and went off to pick out weapons.

‘Why, what’s the matter?’

Just as Kronos pointed out, Yujin had set the Unique-grade items and artifacts apart.

Huh.

Get a load of this.

‘Does he think I’d embezzle or something?’

‘Every item has its concept. Just being a Unique doesn’t make them all the same.’

Take, for instance, the two swords lying on the ground.

‘Same grade, that’s all. The way you use them is completely different.’

Godric’s greatsword was a balanced weapon, leaning toward neither cut nor thrust. Geresis’s Wrath, by contrast, showed its true power on the swing.

‘I’m doing this to pick out gear that suits my underlings and the Scraps’ team.’

‘What do you take me for?’

In the present era, gear tied to Necromancers had barely come onto the market at all. That was the very reason he’d leaned on Shin Junseok to make the Magical Armament ‘Cursed Fang.’ Some of it was cheap, sure; the trouble was that you couldn’t get it even with money in hand.

‘I’ll dispose of everything I don’t need, but anything usable I’ll hand out to my comrades.’

The two Unique-grade swords became Song Myeongseok’s property.

— So you have finally recognized my worth!

“Talk nonsense and I take them back.”

— I shall grind my very bones to powder in loyal service.

The brat.

He’s all in a fret, scared he’ll lose his artifacts.

“Hold still a moment.”

The blade Song Myeongseok carried was forged from the Lump of Iron Steeped in Obsession, with a dedicated circuit carved into it so the undead would perceive it as part of its own body. To reinforce him into a Skeleton Knight, the weapon had to act as a catalyst, lending him the ‘frame’ of a higher-tier entity.

“Partner. Melt this down for me a sec.”

He dropped the two swords Song Myeongseok had originally used into the Witch’s Cauldron, melted them, and skimmed off a portion. Flattening the molten iron thin, he coated and wrapped the grip of Godric’s Longsword with painstaking care, as though plating it.

“Now grip it.”

He handed Song Myeongseok the sword and carved a Reinforcement Circuit into it.

— Ah. That stings.

“It’s the process of linking soul to blade.”

Geresis’s Wrath went through the same process and became Song Myeongseok’s weapon too.

The spoils didn’t end there.

Rodriguez’s Staff had been Oh Jeongsu’s weapon. Its options all but restricted it to a lightning mage, so he couldn’t put it to use right away.

‘No matter — I just put it in the hands of the item’s owner.’

Rare as the lightning attribute was, its strengths were just as clear-cut: tremendous destructive force and discharge speed. It came in at the speed of light, so by the time you saw it and tried to react, it was already too late.

‘It was obvious where it was aimed, so I just put my spear there.’

Its destructive power outstripped even the flame attribute. The drawbacks were its scarcity of area attacks and how finicky it was to control; of all the attributes, lightning was said to be the hardest to master. Raise Oh Jeongsu well, and he might prove more useful than Lee Seungyeon.

Beyond that, he came away with a Resonance Stone, Krieta’s Kite Shield, and one subspace pouch.

“Minho takes the shield. The subspace pouch I’ll keep.”
“Thank you, sir!”
“Boss. Isn’t this too much for me to receive?”
“If you’re grateful, get stronger. That’s how you’ll be of help in my work.”
“Understood.”
“Uh, Bro. What about me?”

Kang Minyeong looked at him with eyes full of expectation.

“As you can see, there are no Uniques among the ranged weapons.”
“But stiiiill. I’m here too, you know, Bro!”

Honestly.

I’ve got it all worked out.

She’s just getting ahead of herself.

“I’ll use this to make you an item that’ll amplify your ability.”
“Really?”
“When have I ever lied?”
“I love you! Bro!”

With that, the Unique-grade artifacts and items had all been handed out. Next came the undead crafting. He summoned the wraiths he’d bound fast with Dark Calling into one place.

“How about this body?”
“Kihihihit.”

A wraith settled into the body of a Skeleton Mage. He read the wavelength it gave off as the soul seeped in, then shook his head.

“Take the one beside it.”
“Kihihit.”

Kronos yawned as though bored.

‘Until it’s done, of course.’

‘If I use the Spirit-Eye I can read the wavelength of soul and body both. For now there’s no helping it.’

‘I mean properly, not the half-baked way.’

Drawing out the full power of the Spirit-Eye took 5th Rank at the least. The one who needed it had to do the work himself; for now, there was no helping it. One consolation was that the matching failed less often as the selection work went on. The fewer the possibilities left, the faster it moved.

“Ge-ge-ge-gel.”

After hours of repetitive labor, he finished the Unison of forty-two Skeleton Mages.

“You know what’s next, right?”
“Hah. I knew it’d come to this.”

Shin Junseok muttered in a lamenting tone and heated the Witch’s Cauldron.

— Bubble, bubble.

He lowered the Lump of Iron Steeped in Obsession into water that had mana stones melted into it and heated it for the set time. Then he pulled on alchemy gloves and kneaded it by hand.

“I never get used to this, every time I see it.”

Shin Junseok watched in wonder as the metal tore apart without the least resistance. Then again, when had anything in Yujin’s behavior ever made sense? He’d seen the man pull off astonishing feats with a perfectly nonchalant air far too many times; by now even this stirred no great reaction.

“Pour in more mana stones. There are plenty of fellows to operate on.”

— Give me your command.

The magic-line Hunters reborn as Dark Minions came to thirty in all. Even after Unison, the ones without innate talent failed to be promoted. Still, this much was already a blessing.

The Dark Minions took up a posture of obedience.

Heh heh heh.

If I teach these ones necromancy too, it’ll really spur the Necropolis’s growth, won’t it?

“How long are you gonna keep me tied uuup.”

— …is what she says. Master.

Sorting through the battle’s spoils alone took over a day. Kim Mijeong, kept bound the whole while, had begun to grumble, looking bored.

“Seems she don’t grasp her own position.”
“Heh. I’ve got no interest in a girl like you, so shut it.”
“Hiiik.”

At the killing intent radiating from a 6th-Rank Hunter at her peak, Lee Seongmin let out a shriek.

“Depending on how you act, I might let you go.”
“Oh. Really?”
“All you have to do is make one honest confession.”

The right word could settle a debt of a thousand gold. This was exactly that kind of moment.

Yujin smiled brightly.