41. Reinforcing Combat Power (3)

“Fafnir.”

— I’ll take the one in the middle.

“Then you take the left.”
“Executing the command.”

The holy spells settled over Fafnir. The Blood Golem, being inanimate, made no valid target, so the buffs wouldn’t take.

Works on undead, but not on a golem, huh.

Even this much was a luxury he’d never enjoyed in his past life.

I ought to be grateful.

I’m busy enough as it is, so cut the nonsense. Backwater goblin spirit.

Pushing Kronos aside, Yujin surveyed the battlefield. Fafnir had his buffs, so he’d be fine. The Blood Golem held the matchup advantage and had already proven itself in the last clash. If they could just pin down the legs of the one that remained, that would settle it.

“Think you can manage? I won’t be sending in the rest of the undead.”

A Troll’s hide was thick enough on its own that landing a telling blow was hard, and unlike with the Blood Golem, there was no way to seal off its regeneration; it would recover in no time.

“Leave it to me.”

A blue glow stained the shield, then lashed out into empty air where nothing stood. The technique aligned mana and force along a single vector and detonated them; knowing better than to meet the Troll head-on, Kang Minho set off the blast the instant before its arm reached him.

“Graoh?”

Just as the Troll stretched out its arm, the wave of force bursting in midair broke its stance.

— Shwaaaak!

An arrow flew with the sound of slicing wind. Just as the reeling Troll raised a hand to guard its head, the arrow’s straight-line path twisted aside, slipped between its fingers, and punched through the left eye it had failed to cover.

“Graoooooh!!!”

A scream wrung from agony thundered across the riverside.

“Heh-heh. It’s not just crossbows I can put Sync on.”

She’d cast Sync on the arrow loaded in the crossbow as well, and catching every slightest movement, she’d twisted its flight the instant before impact.

The force behind the arrow had fallen short of a clean pierce.

“Graoh! Graoooh!”

Even so, it had dealt the Troll a heavy shock.

— Bang! Bang!

Maddened by the searing pain in its eye, the Troll flailed its left arm wildly, and the gravel strewn across the riverbank sprayed in every direction.

A shield shot out of the pitch-black subspace and covered the party. The whole sequence flowed like water; had their timing slipped for even an instant, it could have ended in serious harm.

They’re holding up against a Troll without flinching. Not bad. At this rate, I won’t be satisfied with merely buying time.

The Scraps team’s hard fight set Yujin’s blood pumping.

“Jo Seungcheol. Your turn.”
“Ge-gel. Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!”

The mage, nothing but bare bone now, raised his gaunt arm and worked his jawbone. Mana began rearranging itself. In front of those dried-out finger-bones, the realigned fire-attribute mana condensed into a sphere.

“I-isn’t that a Fireball?!!”
“It is.”
“A Skeleton Mage’s a 2nd Rank, ain’t it?! How’s it crossed over the Stellar Rank?!”

At Lee Seongmin’s stunned reaction, Yujin gave a satisfied smile. It came down to Unison. Because he’d achieved that bond, part of the magic Jo Seungcheol had mastered in life had carried over to him. Against an ordinary Skeleton Mage, its firepower stood far above. In magic, a single step up the Stellar Rank made an absolute difference.

A scorching gust whirled up, and the Troll at the blast’s epicenter was charred black.

“Did that finish it?”
“It’s not the sort to die from just that.”

By raw destructive power, Fireball ranked at the top of the 3rd-Rank spells. Even so, it wasn’t the kind of firepower to burn a Troll down in one blow. Had the creature not already taken the wound to its eye, it would have shrugged off the explosion and charged straight in.

That’s why I prepared two shots.

Jo Seungcheol’s unique trait carried a steep mana cost, but in exchange it let him fire destructive spells back to back.

Now do you see how impressive Unison is?

— Kwaaaaboom!

The Troll faltered under the back-to-back explosions. The crossbow Kang Minyeong had floated into the air loosed a second shot the instant an opening showed, and this arrow was aimed at the remaining eye. Its body, gone sluggish from one Fireball after another, couldn’t react to the snipe.

“Sis, that’s brutal.”
“She’s my sister, but that’s a little….”

Even her own teammates looked away from the cruelty of it. Both eyes gone, the Troll sank down and thrashed about with a shriek.

“Good. You went for the weak point well, even though I didn’t tell you to.”
“You all heard that? Bro praised me!”

Leaving the triumphant Kang Minyeong to her gloating, Yujin gave orders to the rest of the undead. A Troll’s real menace lay in its power to break through a line. It shrugged off most wounds and could keep charging even as it took damage, but that was no longer an option. How was a blinded creature supposed to chase down the party?

“Project all your firepower.”

…

The Skeleton Mages stationed at the rear loosed their spells all at once. The Troll’s hide, already gone red from two Fireballs, tore and mended, tore and mended under the barrage, but its recovery crawled slower and slower.

Still not enough, as I figured.

In regeneration alone, the Troll outstripped even the Ogre, a 5th-Rank beast. He’d managed to neutralize it, but the Scraps team and the Skeleton Mages didn’t have the firepower to finish it off on their own.

“Fafnir.”

Fafnir, who’d been holding down a Troll at the front, whipped around, forced Dark Fighting-Aura into his legs, and leapt high.

— Crunch!

A fist wreathed in Dark Fighting-Aura slammed straight down onto the crown of the Troll crouched on the ground, and pale brain matter and chunks of flesh scattered everywhere.

“Graoooh!!! Brother!!”

— Now I really do feel like I’ve turned into a villain.

“A Necromancer’s Great Warrior is plenty villainous as is, no?”

— Damn it. I should’ve just stayed an earthbound spirit.

The two remaining Trolls, a beat too late, marked Yujin as the threat. They charged in blindly, bent on boring straight through to him.

“Target. You shall not pass.”

— I’m your opponent. You ugly Troll.

The Blood Golem had climbed to the 4th Rank by drinking in Troll blood, though its physical ability still sat at 3rd Rank. Even so, the Troll could find no way past Fafnir, who carried the buffs and the better martial skill by far.

“Graoh….”

The Troll’s mournful cry echoed across the riverside.

Experience had piled up over all his comings and goings through the borderlands, and on top of that, felling a formidable foe two whole Stellar Ranks above him sent his level climbing sharply.

At this pace, the 3rd Rank will come quickly too.

In my past life, how long after awakening did I reach the third Stellar Rank? Four years, I think.

This time the experience was stacking up with the runaway momentum of a car barreling down a wide-open highway.

“Harvesting a Troll’s mana stone is no easy job, huh.”

Kang Minho was drenched in sweat.

“Boss. I can’t do it.”
“Sorry. I’m no help either.”

Even with the head crushed, the regeneration didn’t vanish right away. The Troll’s hide was tough to begin with, and the moment anyone finally cut through, it knit back together in no time.

“Nothing for it. Fafnir.”

— Don’t expect any delicacy from me.

— Riiiiip!

Fafnir’s brutish hand tore the Troll’s chest wide open. From inside, he plucked out the mana stone fused to its slowing heart and held it out to Yujin.

“Why are you giving it to me?”

— It’s a B-grade mana stone. Isn’t it valuable?

“I told you to take all the mana stones that come out from here on.”

The Scraps team had agreed to it as well.

— If it weren’t for you, boss, this is money I couldn’t have laid a finger on.

He’d lined up all sorts of arguments to talk them into it, but the moment he raised the first one, they’d agreed so readily that he gave an awkward laugh.

Fafnir looked back at the party and let out a short sigh.

— Then I won’t decline.

— Crunch.

Wow. I’m at a damn loss for words.

Is he going to give himself a stomachache at this rate?

Because he’s eating it up too easy.

Why is Life Drain such a broken spell? Because, normally, it hands you “stats” there’s almost no way to raise outside of elixirs. Same goes for Fafnir devouring mana stones.

That guy’s undead.

Just how rare is a growing undead? Even high-grade undead like Death Knights and Liches can’t easily break their mold and climb to a higher Stellar Rank. Even Park Haneul, in my past life, had to be reinforced bone by bone back in his Skeleton Knight days.

His growth method is easy, and the ceiling is high too.

Fafnir was an undead raised from a Draconian corpse, and since the final destination of all dragonkin is the dragon, he too could become a true dragon if he kept devouring mana stones.

Ohh. Sweet. So sweet.

Ah. I just don’t want the hassle. Better not to pay any mind to a backwater goblin spirit.

You think it’s easy to reach the 9th Rank as a Necromancer? There’s nowhere near the information out there that the other class groups have.

Hunters with Constellations at their back openly treated Yujin as an enemy.

I’ve already bought myself plenty of hassle.

Spearmanship and my skills as a Priest are the exceptions. Those are techniques I had no link to before the regression, so I mean to learn them the hard way.

But still, I’ll take every advantage I can get.

“Eat all the rest too.”

— Then the bleeding will be severe. You sure that’s all right?

“Troll’s blood is precious… though I wonder if there’ll be any to spare.”

Two of them had had their blood drunk up by the Blood Golem, and the one they’d swarmed under had spilled most of its blood out across the riverside.

That leaves just the last one to worry about.

“Ah. Now that I think of it, I should use Life Drain.”

The shredded ones were already a lost cause, so Yujin walked over to the last Troll Fafnir had felled and drank in its life force.

Mmh. Sweet. So sweet.

— Then I’ll take the rest, too.

Fafnir devoured every last mana stone from the remaining Trolls. The instant he tossed back the fourth, a fierce surge of energy welled up.

— Whoooom!

Spirit-power surged up over Fafnir’s shoulders, and across his whole body spread the very form the living Park Haneul had attained: mana made material, an aura made manifest.

— Now it manifests properly.

The Dark Fighting-Aura trait had been handed down to him through all he’d lived before death.

But.

The fighting-aura of a Fafnir risen to the 4th Rank was far sharper than before, and it carried a real air of menace.

“Doesn’t look like we need to rest, so let’s get moving.”
“Boss. You’re not making those corpses into undead?”
“Trolls are 4th Rank. Raise Undead can’t draw out the abilities of these corpses.”

Low-grade necromancy could only ever produce zombies and skeletons. Drawing out a large monster’s abilities took higher necromancy and a whole battery of preparations.

Turn these things into undead? At best they’d come out around 3rd Rank, sluggish and with no regeneration. It’d just be a waste of the Troll corpses.

Kang Minho took in the explanation and clicked his tongue.

“What a waste.”
“Isn’t that my line?”
“I just figured a Troll’s corpse would make for a strong combat asset.”
“I’ve no intention of leaving them behind.”

Yujin had already issued the undead their orders, relaying through the Black Obelisk.

— Take the Troll corpses and bury them in the Profane Graveyard.

The Black Obelisk’s main role was as a necromancy amplifier, and simple commands like this he could issue from a distance.

“You can leave the rest to the undead staying behind at the domain.”
“I see. As expected of you, Boss.”
“Flattery won’t get you anything, you know?”

Yujin’s party had ratcheted up another notch in fighting strength. Monsters up through the 4th-Rank class they could now turn away without much trouble, and they’d grown strong enough that if they ran into something around the 5th Rank, they could at least pull out in one piece.

If I die, you really do end up a backwater goblin spirit, you know?

Around these parts, you only have to watch out for Eye-Patch.

The monster that lorded over the whole Paju region as its tyrant, the mutant Ogre Eye-Patch, was rated at the 7th Rank. As long as they gave that one creature a wide berth, their lives would be in no real danger.

Or are you praying for the opposite?

Kronos fell silent. Yujin gave a crooked grin and began his push south, on down past the riverside.