49. To The Victor Goes Everything

The battlefield, swallowed in dense fog, had been turned into a wasteland in the most literal sense. The ground was gouged into pits and hollows, part of the woods still burned, and fragments of monsters, undead, and things that had once been people lay splattered everywhere.

“A pity. Less worth salvaging than I’d expected.”

— Master. Aren’t you a little too pitiless, with no blood and no tears in you?

“They’re the ones who bared their teeth at me. They ought to be ready to die for it.”

He’d flung Corpse Explosion around by remote so freely that the Red Spider Hunters caught in the blasts had been pulped past the point of being raised as the dead. The ones in halfway-decent shape he’d mostly turned into plague zombies.

“Well, I’ll settle for two 5th-Rank corpses.”

He’d gathered the souls of the pair as wraiths, and Unison worked on them too. The catch was that at his current level he couldn’t learn a spell to draw out a 5th-Rank’s full potential.

I’ll likely reach 3rd Rank before long, so I’ll have to let them age until then.

Building the Profane Graveyard had been a deliberate hedge against exactly this kind of situation. It was the sort of structure that normally got bumped down the priority list, but doing it ahead of time had paid off.

“Still, there’s a fair amount of gear that came through intact.”

— Gathering it up one piece at a time looks like it’ll take quite a while.

“Then I just add more hands.”

There were corpses he could raise scattered around, few as they were. Yujin scraped the Red Spider Hunters’ gear together with his hastily-raised zombies.

— Well, I’ll be. More Rares than Magics.

“They swept up that much money in their crimson camouflage, so it figures.”

— It makes me feel the gulf between the ages.

In the early days of the Great Cataclysm, the story went, there had been no choice but to seize and wield the items monsters carried. Only much later did item specialists like Magus and Greybase get off the ground.

“Full-scale research into magitech engineering only started a few years back, after all.”

— In any case, an age where good items come easy is something to welcome.

“It’s still pricey enough that I’d hardly call it easy.”

— Back in my day, a single Rare item ran a billion won, minimum.

Yes, yes. I’m sure it did, back in those days.

“Gathered up a whole pile, and not one thing worth using?”

The items that had somehow escaped breaking in the blasts were mostly weapons. The armor, with its higher durability, should have fared better, yet hardly a piece of it had survived intact.

“They got smashed shielding their owners, no doubt.”

— I see. A reasonable answer.

“Fafnir. Is there a weapon you fancy?”

— Is this very body not the finest weapon of all? Why do you ask?

“If it’s useless, I’ll sell it.”

— You could arm one of the other undead instead of me.

Yujin shrugged at Fafnir’s suggestion.

“Pearls before swine.”

Hand an Armored Skeleton a Rare weapon and the thing couldn’t wield it properly anyway. To draw out a Rare grade’s full power, an undead had to be mid-tier at the least.

“And growing you matters too.”

— What do Rare items have to do with me?

“I’ve got to buy mana stones for you to eat.”

There was no rule that growing Fafnir’s heart meant feeding it only mana stones won by hunting. Unless it was an item, a catalyst, or a corpse he flatly had to buy, the money was better poured into Fafnir.

— Ah. I hadn’t thought of that.

“Tch.”

Yujin heaved a sigh.

What am I supposed to do with that mana-stone-guzzling hippo.

Most of the Rare grade didn’t suit Yujin, but a few usable pieces had turned up among them all the same.

There were two of these rings. The mana-boost option converted automatically into spirit-power, so there was nothing to mind there; it was much like the Mana Earrings he’d picked up earlier.

The stats are small, but it raises total mana capacity, so it’s fine.

Necromancer-exclusive magic ran fairly cost-efficient, but across a long string of battles the drain mounted high. Before the regression, back when his Stellar Rank was low, he’d struggled to manage his spirit-power as well.

Gear like this is pure gain, no question.

He had Life Drain, but he still had to plan around the times every last potion was gone.

The instant he slid the plain-looking rings onto his fingers, his mind cleared, the effect of the spirit-power rising in him.

Heh heh. Usable enough.

— Why did you leave out the staff?

“Ah. I mean to give that one to Jo Seungcheol.”

A piece by Greybase, that distinguished house of magic weaponry. A so-called mass-produced model, but its stability was first-rate, which made it something any magic-line Hunter would covet.

“Now then, shall we look at the highlight.”

The finest prize from the spider hunt. Now it was time to see what the Unique items could do.

The first Unique was Lee Seungyeon’s staff, a spec the Rare-grade GB - R5 Type couldn’t begin to touch.

“Rearrangement speed down and mana up. I like it.”

— You don’t need flame-magic amplification, though, do you?

“I just swap the socket.”

The socket was a quirk that turned up on only some gear, a gem holding one specific attribute. Slot something like the Flame Orb already set in the staff into a piece of equipment, and an extra option latched on.

“For this staff, though, the socket option is practically the main draw.”

Here it served to wring the most out of the catalyst bound into the staff. Whoever forged it had likely meant to swap sockets in and out to answer every kind of situation.

— Which means that for you to use that staff properly, you need a catalyst.

“Yeah. That’s right.”

— Then for now it’s a prize you can admire but not actually use.

“Did you have to put it like that.”

Fafnir’s blunt dose of fact left Yujin without a retort.

“Quit the nonsense and look at this instead.”

Like the Blood Axe he’d stripped off the Orc chieftain, blood-related items just kept turning up.

— That’s the gear Choi Hyeongtae used.

“You spotted it right away.”

— How could I fail to recognize the gloves that pounded my body into shape?

Fafnir grumbled.

“You take these.”

— You do love your jokes. As if my hand would even fit.

“They’re elastic, aren’t they. Bet they’ll fit fine.”

Fafnir slid his fingers into the gloves, doubt flickering like ghostfire in his eyes.

— Oho.

The gloves stretched to fit the size of his hand without the slightest resistance.

— Did you know it would turn out this way, Master?

“When the description says it’s elastic, or that it adjusts to the user, then yes.”

To the victor went everything, and the loser was robbed of even his life and his rest in the world beyond. This was what a Necromancer’s fight came down to.

— And what’ll you do about that farm place?

“For now I leave it be.”

— If you mean to deal the Red Spider a blow, isn’t it better to burn it down?

“Why would I burn something that’s worth money?”

At Yujin’s retort, Fafnir let his displeasure show.

— I thought that would be the most effective way to deal the Red Spider a blow.

“I doubt they’ll even have the spare attention to spend on it.”

He’d cut off half their legs, exactly as the commission asked. Whether it came to precisely four he couldn’t say, but the damage would have run to that order. Could they really keep a farm running inside monster territory after a loss that crippling?

— Hmph. A narcotic, though.

“It’s used for meditation too, I told you. There are even elixirs that make use of its properties.”

— Ha. Don’t tell me you saw all the way to that.

“Two birds with one stone.”

Some years down the line, Black Herb would step into the spotlight as the core ingredient of an elixir yet to be developed: the Heavenly Pill. That knowledge too he’d have to slip to the great alchemist of the future when the timing was right.

“It’ll be amusing to let the Madam know how things stand at the farm.”

Yujin chuckled to himself.

Three great organizations held sway over Ground Zero: the black market, the Galaxy Pub, and the Red Spider. A balance kept for close to ten years had collapsed inside a single month.

Two blows had landed back to back. Their main source of income, the blood-stone supply, had been cut off, and a massacre in the borderlands had wiped out half their Hunter forces. With the Red Spider’s grip thrown into doubt by both at once, the Madam, who had been biding her time, drew her blade in an instant.

A pitch-black stain congealed in the night sky and spread wide until it blanketed the ground around the Red Spider’s headquarters. Madam Oh Hyeonjeong’s innate trait, the Sorcery of the Moon.

“Now. Go on and kill each other.”

The Red Spider members ringed around the building rounded on one another, glaring.

“You son of a bitch! When did you go over to the Madam’s side?!”
“Bullshit. That’s you, you bastard!”

— Kwajik— Thwack— Whump—!

They swung their weapons at one another.

“So this is the Madam’s power.”
“They said she’s got no equal when it comes to nighttime…”

— Gulp.

The Hunters in the Madam’s pay swallowed hard.

Half a day had passed since the Red Spider Hunters were annihilated in the borderlands. The Madam had hired Ground Zero’s outlaws on the Galaxy Pub’s trade terms, along with the Hunters who came and went through the borderlands. Two hundred of them, assembled inside a few hours, a turnout that spoke to her recruiting power.

“Weren’t we not even needed?”
“Eh, getting paid without working is a win.”

The mercenaries were all smiles and easy cheer. A single one of the Madam’s sorceries had thrown the Red Spider into internal chaos, and what could be sweeter than pocketing money without ever drawing a blade?

But.

“Are you all right, my lady?”
“Mm. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

The Madam answered the old man Jeong’s question, winding a lock of her hair round and round.

“There are a lot of ordinary people.”
“Eighty percent are non-Awakened. The Hunters aren’t of a high caliber either.”

Powerful as the Sorcery of the Moon was, it produced no force that transcended Stellar Rank. As a rule, the higher one’s Stellar Rank climbed, the stronger one’s willpower grew alongside it. Anyone beneath the Madam’s 4th Rank struggled to resist the sorcery, but those at her tier or above wouldn’t lose their reason in a single stroke.

“So they spirited away the Red Spider’s main fighting force.”
“They gave up faster than I’d expected.”
“Pardon? What you’re saying is…”
“That Kim Jaewoo made up his mind to abandon the Red Spider.”

“He got one over on me,” the Madam murmured under her breath.

The old man Jeong nodded along, as if he couldn’t make sense of it.

“I can’t believe it. How could that greed-driven man make such a choice.”
“Thanks to Yujin carrying out the commission far too faithfully, I’d imagine.”
“The damage they took in the borderlands was that great?”
“Two of the officers died, and the Hunters were killed beyond counting.”

The Madam had seen clear through to Kim Jaewoo’s nature. He’d played the magnanimous boss while he reigned over the Red Spider, but at bottom he was a coward who prized his own safety above all else. He had culled only the elite from the organization’s Hunters and fled before she could make her move.

“The judgment itself was sound. Had he stayed put, he’d have ended up scrabbling for scraps.”

The old man Jeong and Kim Jaewoo stood at identical Stellar Rank.

But.

Weigh proficiency, mana control, and the various other factors besides, and the edge lay with the old man Jeong.

“And here I’d even arranged people to take on the officers.”

The Madam murmured, a note of regret in her voice.

“Then we should give chase.”
“No. By now he’ll have slipped out to the West Sea, I’d say.”
“The West Sea… ah!”

A sigh leaked from the old man Jeong’s lips. He had belatedly recalled that the Red Spider and the Guryongbang had been in contact.

“Could Kim Jaewoo have had this situation in mind as well?”
“Hoho. He just got lucky.”

The Guryongbang meant to build a crime network spanning all of East Asia. If the Red Spider fell, Kim Jaewoo’s worth vanished with it. So he must have peeled off none but the elite of his Hunters and slipped out of Ground Zero.

“A truly cunning man.”
“Crafty, too.”
“My lady, it would be wise not to leave a future threat behind.”
“Out of the question. Wiping out the Red Spider’s remnants comes first.”

It was a shame Kim Jaewoo had pulled out, but with him now under the Guryongbang’s wing, running him down was no easy matter. If anything, the surest way to remove the future threat was to gut the Red Spider whole and erase any place left for him to return to.

“Understood.”

The Madam looked down in haughty satisfaction at the Red Spider members crumpling in their own blood. This victory had been possible at all only because Yujin was there.

The spider’s empty seat. I do hope you can handle it.

The Madam thought back on the commission reward Yujin had laid out, and a soft smile touched her lips.