29. Crimson Camouflage (2)

“You son of a bitch!”

Jo Seungcheol spat his rage out along with the curse. For all the crude language, he was leaning on years of experience to size up the fighting strength of Yujin’s party. Fafnir loomed, fists wreathed in dark fighting-aura. Yujin commanded magic, bending bone to cancel out a Fire Ball Jo had loosed with everything he had. The instant the fight opened, two Martial-line Hunters had gone down, and the magic-line Hunters needed time to realign their mana before they could mount another attack.

Looks like he’s got a summoning-type trait.

He’d heard no rumor of a Hunter who dealt in undead summons, but he wasn’t closing the door on it. The unique traits uncovered among Hunters already numbered in the hundreds of thousands; there was nothing strange about one of them being the power to command the dead.

To turn this around, I have to bring that guy down.

He read the situation fast and opened his mouth.

“Minu, you pin that undead down. The rest of you, wreck that bastard.”

A Hunter wielding a large shield charged in.

He turned the shield face vertical and pressed it flush against Fafnir’s forearm. Bound by the viscous green mana, Fafnir swung his arm, but the shield clung to it, lurching this way and that and fouling the motion.

— Bold of you, I’ll grant, but a mark of this caliber—

Jo Seungcheol triggered his unique trait again. A rope of streaming fire shot out and seized hold of Fafnir.

— …I can’t shake it loose.

A note of dismay laced Fafnir’s voice. While the lone tank held him, the rest of the Martial-line Hunters charged toward Yujin.

Decent judgment.

Yujin kept his eyes on the Martial-line Hunters closing in by the second. It would have been nice to keep this easy. The Hunter who seemed to be running the show, Jo Seungcheol, had sharper judgment than expected.

Well, I figured on that much.

With the White Night trait, he swapped spirit-power and holy power in a flash. The instant the buff settled on him, he switched the holy power straight back to spirit-power. Then he sent the rest of the wraiths he’d kept hidden behind his back flying out.

“Kihihihit!”

A whitish mist seeped into the Martial-line Hunters as they kicked off the ground and rushed in. In an instant, stacked debuffs dragged at the two Hunters’ movements.

A black shard of bone shot up from Yujin’s waist and surged into the air. He spun spirit-power through the Cursed Fang again and again, maximizing its penetrating power.

Loosed, the bone split the air and drew a single line across the sky, its sharp tip aimed at the Hunter with the sword and shield. The man angled the shield on his left arm, trying to bat the Cursed Fang aside and deflect the Bone Spear.

“Ngh, gh?”

— Ka-ga-ga-gak!

The instant it touched the shield, the spirit-power spun round and round, refusing to be shoved off and instead dragging the Hunter into the line of the attack. He’d meant to glance the blow away and ended up meeting the Bone Spear head-on. The iron shield, engraved with a reinforcement circuit, crumpled. The full weight of the impact rolled through his body and drove him back several meters. The shield held, but his whole body must have gone numb; the Hunter stood rooted in place, dazed.

“Die. You bastard!”

There was no stopping the Hunter rushing in from the side, who closed to point-blank range. Deploying several at once, the way the lower-tier spell Bone Control did, was impossible at First Rank. To a Hunter who’d long since outgrown the limits of an ordinary human, a hundred meters was a gap he could erase in the blink of an eye.

The remaining three, minus the Cursed Fang he’d shot off first, sprang up.

— Pa-pa-pat!

The magical armaments stabbed down on a diagonal.

“Looks like you can only do that attack one at a time?”

The Martial-line Hunter’s arm swung wide.

— Ti-ti-ting!

The Cursed Fangs, caught in the arc of the heavy mace, were batted bouncing into the air.

“Tch.”

Clicking his tongue, Yujin pushed the Skeleton Guard out in front. Its bone shield had melted away by half and cracks ran all over its body, but it hadn’t been annihilated yet.

The Martial-line Hunter’s eyes turned cold.

“You half-dead thing. Get lost.”

The mace came down in an honest arc, high to low. The Skeleton, stance locked with Iron Wall, raised its half-remaining shield to block.

— Kwajik!

A clean, sharp sound rang out, and its whole frame collapsed in a heap.

Ignoring the system message hanging at his ear, Yujin gathered his spirit-power at once and used Bone Control again. This time, instead of the Cursed Fangs, he moved the body of the defense-type Skeleton that had just been shattered to pieces.

I have to hold out until Fafnir sweeps the magic-line Hunters away.

There was a little time yet before the Martial-line Hunter could draw the mace back for another swing. That much would be enough. The bastard had smashed the Skeleton, which only made it easier to lay out the ‘contingency’ Yujin had prepared.

— Cha-ra-ra-rak!

Part of the broken bone tangled together and stretched out long, a rod a little under three meters. With Bone Control, Yujin drew the newly made staff into his hand.

“A magic-line guy playing at close combat?”

The Martial-line Hunter kicked off the ground and leapt.

That’s right. That’s the correct answer.

Just as he’d learned from getting beaten black and blue by Fafnir, Yujin tracked the Martial-line Hunter’s every move.

The bone spear traced a great arc through the air.

— Tae-ae-ae-aeng!

A dull, heavy sound rang out.

The Martial-line Hunter, even as he swung his mace, was certain he could smash Yujin’s skull to pieces.

A mage who can cancel out the Fire Ball Jo Seungcheol throws — so what if he picks up a rod!

Jo Seungcheol’s magic skill reached quasi-Fourth-Rank thanks to item support. His mainstay, the Fire Ball, was at its most powerful in a cramped space like a burrow.

I saw right through that cheap trick — stalling for time with a bluff.

He ignored Yujin’s plainly visible counter and threw his strength into the hand gripping the mace.

— Tae-ae-ae-aeng!

A strong recoil came surging up through his forearm.

“Ugh.”

With a short groan, the Martial-line Hunter gave ground a pace. The spear shaft, carrying the subtle principle of the Verdian basic spearmanship, had struck his arm and drained the strength clean out of it. He was lucky he hadn’t dropped the mace.

“Dammit.”

“What. Something not going well for you?”

Yujin deployed Bone Control once more, steering the Cursed Fangs he’d just batted away and taking aim at the Martial-line Hunter.

“Quit screwing around!”

Veins bulging at his neck, the Hunter ignored the Cursed Fangs and rushed in head-on.

— Puk! Pu-uk!

The Cursed Fangs, aimed at the gaps in his armor, tore through skin and burrowed deep into his body, yet none of it could stop him from throwing aside any counterattack and barreling toward Yujin.

This was the same blow that had shattered the Skeleton Guard in a single stroke. Yujin had laid the foundation of his Verdian spearmanship getting pummeled by Fafnir, but it fell short of withstanding the full strength of a Third-Rank Martial-line Hunter.

“It’s fine. I figured on that too.”

— Cha-reu-reu-reung!

The Dragon-Scale Armor, which had taken the shape of a shirt, answered Yujin’s thought. In a tenth of a second, white armor sheathed his whole body.

Wearing the Dragon-Scale Armor, now shifted into full plate, Yujin unleashed the 4th Form once more.

— U-ji-kkeun.

The bone spear shaft snapped almost without resistance. Hastily improvised, it had nowhere near the strength to withstand a Martial-line Hunter’s full power. The mace broke through the bone spear and struck Yujin’s body head-on.

“Kheugh!”

Unable to endure the heavy impact, he was sent flying several meters back along with a single cry.

But.

“Ugh.”

The Martial-line Hunter who’d landed that telling blow on Yujin also crumpled. With the wraiths’ curses stacked on him, the Cursed Fangs had burrowed into vital points all over his body.

The gamble had failed. He’d pushed all his chips in, and the price came just as steep.

“Khuk, son of a bitch. Good thing I learned the spear.”

Spitting out a dry cough, Yujin muttered, unruffled.

He’d thrown his main force, Fafnir, into the vanguard; how could he not have planned for a situation like this? The Red Spider crew’s trump card had been broken, and the price was the precious fighting strength that had pinned Fafnir’s foot, now frittered away.

The aura conjured from spirit-power mercilessly ripped apart the stream of fire binding his arm.

“Gurk, gk.”

The Martial-line Hunter who’d held Fafnir down with his aggro-fixing skill soon became a cold corpse too.

“Dammit. To think a mere wraith would get in the way of my realignment.”

The wraiths Yujin had sent out at the start had scattered the magic-line Hunters’ focus while they collected themselves, and preparing the magic to intercept Fafnir had come a step too late.

“F-Flame…”

— Yawning here, waiting on you.

— Kwajik!

One went down with every blow. Each time Fafnir drove a fist forward, another magic-line Hunter’s life winked out.

“Me, beaten by some no-name nobody…!”

Jo Seungcheol, the man set to mine the crimson camouflage, must have felt the injustice of it; he toppled with both eyes wide and glaring.

The burrow fell still.

— Hooo. Hoo.

Only the sound of Yujin’s ragged, heaving breath stirred the battlefield that had sunk into silence.

— Master. You all right?

“Thought I was gonna die.”

A deep dent had been driven into his chest. He’d copied the very style once used by Kim Yeongsu, the Hunter who’d wielded the Dragon-Scale Armor in his past life, but he couldn’t reproduce the defense the armor had boasted back then. Epic-grade artifact though it was, it was the growth type, with a long way to go before it showed its true worth. At its current level it barely matched the efficiency of a Rare-grade defensive piece. Even shaped for maximum defense, his chest had still been caved clean in.

— Heh. Haven’t you heard? Better to roll in a dung heap and live than die in glory.

“Pain’s pain.”

He cushioned the shock with his stockpiled life force and got to his feet.

— However it went, we won.

“Sure did.”

— A First-Rank Hunter, alone, took down men who’d reached the tail end of Third Rank — anyone who heard it would write it off as a bad joke.

“All thanks to my splendid underlings.”

Yujin twisted his cheek and laughed lightly.

Most of the wraiths, annihilated. The Skeleton Guard, destroyed. And one Rare-grade magical armament, smashed beyond repair.

“I used every card I had to play. This is the best result possible.”

— And what would you have done if I’d gone down?

“I’d have bolted.”

— What a loyal master you are.

“You’ve got a Life Force Vessel, so you can be brought back any number of times.”

I’ve only got the one life.

Yujin muttered the words breezily as he looked over the corpses of the Red Spider crew.

“Yeah. That was a name I’d heard before.”

— Jo Seungcheol, you mean?

“Yeah. He must’ve been a pretty big deal.”

— Saying it in that unsure tone of yours isn’t very convincing.

Blood-Stained Leg. That was Jo Seungcheol’s epithet, one of the Red Spider’s officers. No. In this life he’d already died, so it had slipped into past tense.

A Seventh-Rank talent, was he.

You almost sound like you’re hoping for it.

Jo Seungcheol had struggled to the bitter end when the Red Spider was wiped out at Ground Zero; killing him here took one job off the Madam’s plate.

“Come to me.”

He’s a cut below the Mirror Hunters, but a man like Jo Seungcheol makes a serviceable underling.

A high-grade undead like a Lich is out of the question, but if I sync his soul I should be able to make a decent undead.

Branding Jo Seungcheol’s soul with the seal of the curse to subjugate it was no great trouble. Mustn’t forget to grab the bastard’s corpse, either.

After collecting the body with the Ring of Black Darkness, he picked out the intact items as well.

— Master. Are Rare items common in this age?

“That’s a joke, right?”

Yujin shot back at once.

Even the Staff of Resentment, an unpopular item, was valued in the millions of won. Gather up everything here and it would run to hundreds of millions at the least; what was that supposed to mean?!

“Quit the nonsense and just grab the gear.”

He hounded Fafnir into collecting every last item the Red Spider crew had been wearing.

— Master. How about this item?

“Why would you recommend Martial-line gear. Just grab it, that’s all.”

Most of the magic-line items, too, were skewed toward options that amplified fire magic, so they were useless.

Ah. A couple of them I can use right away, though.

A plain description, plain options. The boost was smaller than the same-grade Staff of Resentment, but accessories were inherently less efficient than a main weapon. No wearing restrictions, clean amplification options, and versatile on top of it; how good was that?

Without hesitation, Yujin brought the silver rings up to both ears.

“Do these suit me at all?”

— I finally understand your aesthetic sense, Master.

“And what’s that supposed to mean.”

— From now on, leave the coordinating to me. Your taste is all wrong.

This little punk. Quite the masterful hand at a backhanded insult. He found himself missing the taciturn Mr. Park Haneul of his past life, just a little.