13. Into The Borderlands (3)

“Grruaaah!”
“Kurrrk!”

The Orc had tried to lock the Armored Zombie in a head-on test of strength.
Their fingers had barely locked together in midair before it happened.

— Crrnch.

The Orc’s hand twisted off at a grotesque angle.

The Orc glared with bloodshot eyes, straining to wrench its arm back.
The Armored Zombie wouldn’t let go. Instead it dragged the hand inward, breaking the Orc’s stance apart.

“Kurk! Monster. Die!”

An Orc that had hung back swung the glaive in its hands with everything it had, meaning to save its comrade.

— Claaang!

The iron-forged curved blade bit against the bone plating and blunted, leaving nothing but the faintest scratch.

“Decent enough.”

Yujin tossed off the appraisal without a flicker.

In the rear, Kang Minho stood dumbstruck.

“That reinforced zombie. It’d overwhelm a 2nd-Rank Hunter, wouldn’t it?”
“It’s a fellow I went to a lot of trouble making. Naturally it ought to be at least that good.”

A pack of Orcs, infamous as a race born for battle, was being toyed with by a single bone-clad zombie.

“Kurrrk!”

One Orc brought down a strike with everything it had.
As luck would have it, the blow landed on the very spot that had taken the earlier hit.

— Crrk.

Under the accumulated force, the bone split a little.

“Graah?”

The price was steep.

The Armored Zombie, its head wrenched aside by the shock of the cracked plating, thrust out its right hand.
The Orc resisted the brutish grip, but the moment the Armored Zombie put its strength behind it, the head burst in an instant.

Whoever provoked its temper has only itself to blame.

When most of the Orc pack had fallen, the one that remained turned tail and fled the other way.

The members of [the Scraps] marveled.

“Somebody told me Orcs don’t run. That’s a total lie.”
“Fair enough. I’d run too.”
“Run, my foot. I’d’ve pissed myself on the spot.”
“Minyeong. I keep telling you to talk a little softer.”
“What. Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”

It was a creature of monstrous strength that wouldn’t so much as budge under any ordinary attack, and the instant it caught hold of you, you had to give up an arm.
Going up against that was the height of unreasonableness.

“Boss. Are you just going to let the Orc go? A zombie’s mobility won’t catch it.”
“Wait and watch.”

The Armored Zombie sprang with all its might.
In an instant it closed the distance, then rammed the Orc with a shoulder cocked like a football player’s.

“Kuk!”

The Orc tumbled away, retching out a dry scream.
Its back, exposed to that explosive force, caved in, and its chest took a blow hard enough to send bone jutting out.

“Grruaaah!”

Just as the Armored Zombie raised a foot to snuff out its life, the order came down.

“Stop.”

The instant Yujin’s command landed, it pulled back the foot that had been about to crush the Orc’s head.

Its aggression has increased.

The Armored Zombie, remodeled with Bone Armor and Flesh Control, had grown far more savage.
As the spirit-power poured into it rose, so too did the dead’s peculiar hatred of the living.

You think I’m going to die because I can’t even control my own minions?

Some Necromancers, failing to gauge their own capacity, crafted high-grade undead and ended up dead for it.
It was a tale that didn’t apply to Yujin, but there was no harm in caution.

If anything, it’s a good thing.

Just look at that ferocious killing intent of the Armored Zombie.
Hadn’t even an Orc, a creature that treats combat as the whole purpose of its life, fled at the sight of that savage thing!

Ignoring Kronos’s lament, he drew his spirit-power up.

The damaged plating, too, once imbued with spirit-power, was restored without a single scratch left behind.

“I can’t tell who the monster is anymore.”

Watching the bone plating mend itself, Kang Minho muttered, admiration creeping into his voice.

The third day since they’d entered the borderlands.

“Are you all prepared?”

At Yujin’s question, every member of [the Scraps] nodded.

The Orc colony.
In gate terms, it was a dangerous place that fell at the very tail end of the 2nd-Rank tier.

Considering that the land north of Paju was the borderlands…

It amounts to clearing a 3rd-Rank gate.

For two days they’d circled the area around the colony, thinning out the Orcs’ numbers, and by applying Flesh Control and Bone Armor he’d crafted the Armored Zombie, an undead not recorded in the Library of Knowledge.
Raising his level by three more in the process was a bonus.

The one pity was that absorbing the Orcs’ life force no longer raised his stats.

Well, it’d be stranger if there were no limit at all.

Yujin wasn’t disappointed.
The residual life force he’d gathered during the hunt he kept stored away for healing.
That way, should an ally ever be wounded, he could restore them on the spot.

That’s a Priest class’s actual line of work, after all.

Yujin gave a wry smile.
Now that he thought of it, hadn’t there been word that a holy spell had been added?

What a useless Constellation.
Once his business in the borderlands was finished, he’d have to drop by the Pantheon.

“Look after your own bodies.”
“We’re Hunters too, in our own way. Don’t you worry.”

He had a means of healing, true, but he’d never tried using Life Drain for recovery.
There was no telling whether it could mend a grievous wound like a severed arm or leg.
And he had no desire to test it in a situation like this.

“Advance.”
“Graah!”

Twenty Armored Zombies pressed forward.

The Orc colony, settled beside the river.
With no boulders or large trees for cover, the sight of the Armored Zombie horde bearing down came into plain view.

“Kurrk. Enemies!”

— Clang. Clang.

A bell rang from the watchtower, and the Orcs scattered throughout the colony began gathering near the entrance, fully armed.

The Cursed Fang shot out, splitting the air.
It buried itself with a thunk in the nape of the Orc that had been ringing the bell, and the sound died away.

“Don’t bark so loud.”

The moment Yujin moved to retrieve the Cursed Fang.

— Pa-pa-pa-pat!

A few arrows came flying toward the group, tracing parabolas.

“Leave this much to us.”

Kang Minho’s shield took on a green tint, and the arrows falling toward the group’s heads were turned aside toward it.
A fireball loosed the instant the arrows clustered.
With a small explosion, half of them burned to ash in midair.

— Ti-ti-ting!

A few arrows lodged in the shield.

“It’s fine. I can hold.”

Bracing both legs hard, Kang Minho blocked every attack without giving an inch.

Told you. A lottery ticket with a hundred-percent chance of winning.

Yujin commanded five Cursed Fangs at once.
So long as [the Scraps] blocked the stray arrows, he could devote himself entirely to the offensive.
There was no longer any need to hold back a reserve for working the magical armaments.

— Shhhk!

The Cursed Fangs crossed the air again and again, cutting down the Orcs standing exposed atop the watchtower and the high ground.
The casualties mounted before the colony’s Orcs had even fully assembled.
When that number passed twenty, the Orcs’ patience hit rock bottom too.

“Kurrk. We just charge!”
“Kurk, intruders. I kill.”

The Orcs came pouring out of the colony, shoving aside their shoddily-built entrance with rough swipes of their hands.

“Go. My underlings.”

“Grruoaaah!!”

The twenty Armored Zombies rammed their shoulders into the front rank of the Orc pack as it spilled from the entrance.

— Kraddk!

The grisly sound of muscle rupturing and bone snapping.

Some of the Orcs swung their blades to match the speed of the charging Armored Zombies.

— Kaang.

On the contrary, a glaive that caught on the bone armor snapped in two.
The Orcs went flying left and right like pins struck by a bowling ball.

“Graaah!!”

Riding the momentum, the twenty Armored Zombies drove the Orc pack back to the entrance.

“Kurk. We have to push through.”
“Ku, kurk. Stinking monsters. Too strong.”
“Kurrk! I’ll make an opening!”

Several Orcs, burning with fighting spirit, threw themselves head-on at the Armored Zombies, and scar after scar piled up, one and two at a time, on the sturdy bone plating.
Some put too much force in and their blades snapped, but the Orcs clung bare-handed to the Armored Zombies’ arms and legs, hampering their movements.

“Monsters mad for battle, they said. So it’s true.”

Kang Minho clicked his tongue at the sight, muttering as though sickened.

Several cracks were carved into the Armored Zombies’ bone plating that had seemed unbreakable.

The Orc chieftain, standing at the rear, threw back his head and shouted, veins bulging at his neck.

“Kurk! Fight harder, warriors! Just a little more and the enemy will…”

The cracks in the bone plating filled in in an instant.
Repairing the plating was perfectly possible even at a distance of over a hundred meters.

“Just a little more and what. I’m curious how that ends.”
“Kurk, kurrk!”
“What. Not going the way you wanted?”
“Kurrk. You coward. Fight fair and square.”

The lumps of flesh from the Orcs fallen on the ground clung to the one prattling about fairness.

“Kurk!”
“To a Necromancer, this is fighting fair and square.”

— Squelch! Squelch!

The Orcs clinging to the Armored Zombies grew sluggish too, weighed down by the gobs of flesh stuck all over them, and the Orcs, left with nowhere to go, fell into confusion.

By the time nearly half their number lay toppled near the colony entrance, made fools of by Yujin, the Orc chieftain moved to bring down the colony’s fence.

“Kurrk! Smash the side and make us a path.”

“So you’ve finally thought of it?”

Yujin smiled broadly.

That’s right.
He’d figured the only way to break this deadlock would be that.

How delightful it is when they move exactly as I planned.

Once more the Cursed Fangs danced, and the Orcs trying to break the fence fell, spilling blood.

“Well now. Sticking your heads out, asking to be killed?”
“Kurrrk!!!”

The enraged Orc chieftain, eyes bloodshot, clung to the fence and swung the axe in his hand with all his strength.
The fence wobbled visibly though he’d brought the axe down only a few times.

The Cursed Fangs shot toward the Orc chieftain.

— Thnk! Th-th-thnk!

The rock-hard hide tore away, and green blood streamed down to stain the ground, but he did not stop.

At last.
Part of the fence collapsed, opening a route to Yujin beside the colony entrance.

“…is what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”
“Kurk!”
“You could’ve just come back around through the entrance facing the river. Why go and wreck a perfectly good palisade?”

This was what Orcs were like.

The sight of Yujin clicking his tongue, tsk, tsk, reflected in the Orc chieftain’s eyes.

“And don’t go counting on a comrade coming up from behind. I’ve cleared them out in advance.”
“Kurrrk!!”

The Orc chieftain gave himself over to rage once more.

The blood surging through him reddened his skin, and the grimace of pain softened to a drugged, vacant look.
In contrast, killing intent several shades darker spread at the corners of his eyes, reddening pupils and whites alike.

A skill that, with pain and reason both numbed, holds nothing but bloodlust for the enemy.

“I was waiting for you to use it.”

The instant after he triggered Berserk.
He’d waited for the Orc chieftain’s body to lock up from the skill’s effect.

“Pin both arms and the legs and even a Berserk state can’t move.”

Not missing the small opening of that one moment, the five Cursed Fangs he’d kept on standby pierced the Orc chieftain’s limbs.
Perhaps thanks to the extra spirit-power he’d lent them, the black awls tore through flesh and muscle, punched clean out the other side, drove deep into the earth, and shackled the Orc chieftain in place.

“Kurrrrr!”
“What. Something not going right?”

The Orc chieftain thrashed, skewered by the Cursed Fangs.
The wounds gaped wider, and though blood flowed down enough to form a creek, the chieftain glared at Yujin with eyes full of killing intent.

“You’re not the only one dying, so don’t take it too hard.”

Yujin took the Staff of Resentment in his hand under Bone Control.

When you’ve no teeth, you make do with your gums.
If even one Cursed Fang came loose, the Orc chieftain would break free. So he’d make do with this in a pinch.

Finish it fast.

His mana drained out like an ebbing tide.
Trying to control as many as six mediums with Bone Control left his mouth bone-dry.
Letting go of the Staff of Resentment meant he couldn’t draw on its mana-assist effect either, and even to convert the life force he’d stored up into mana, he’d have to invoke the White Night trait once.
And if he did that, the flow holding the Orc chieftain down would snap.

The target’s the heart. Pierce it in a single blow.

— Shhk!

The Staff of Resentment came flying, spinning ferociously.
The keen tip bored mercilessly into the chieftain’s chest.

The red glow gathered at the corners of the chieftain’s eyes faded.

“Khk.”

His vision swam from the excessive mana consumption.
It was the second time he’d been through this after the Garden of Antiquity, but Yujin didn’t fluster. He deployed White Night and converted it to holy power.

The uncanny holy spell that heals the target with stolen life force.
Because it could refill both life force and mana, it was the perfect healing skill for Yujin, who’d been hit with mana exhaustion.

“Kurk, the chieftain’s fallen.”
“Kurrk. This is bad.”

The Orcs’ spirits broke under the one-sided slaughter.
Some among them turned to flee the battlefield.

“Where do you think you’re running?”

Before they could, the flesh of their fallen kin fastened on and caught the Orcs’ feet.

The colony, turned in an instant into a graveyard.

“Kurk…”

When the last Orc fell, [the Scraps] quickly set to work as well.

“Boss. We’ve picked out all the mana stones.”
“Good work.”

It was no empty praise.
Prying the mana stones out of a monster’s heart was considerable labor in its own right.

— Blood Axe (Rare).
— D-grade mana stone, 1
— E-grade mana stones, 427

“If they’re E-grade mana stones, that’s three times the price of F-grade.”
“How much did we rake in over three days.”

Exhausted as they were, [the Scraps] tallied up the total haul, unable to close their gaping mouths.

“This is the real prize.”

The Orc chieftain’s weapon.
Conditional though it was, it was growth-type equipment, which made its value far higher than an ordinary Rare grade.

You don’t know a thing, as usual. It’ll sell high on the market.

The Bloodsucking option absorbs blood to refill the user’s stamina and life force.
At that level the effect would be slight.
But since stacking it strengthens the option too, in practical terms it was a quasi-Unique-grade item.
It’d fetch a staggering price, wouldn’t it?

An item worth the trouble of clearing a whole Orc colony.

He’d confirmed the harvest, too.

Recalling the true purpose he’d come to the borderlands for, he poured spirit-power into the corners of his eyes.

Spirit-Eye.
The eyes that read not only matter but spiritual wavelengths swept swiftly across the Orc colony.

He’d turned his gaze for how long?

Found it.

Yujin’s steps quickened.