6. This Is Why You Play Necromancer (3)

— Kwadeuk!

A zombie tore a chunk of flesh from a goblin. The goblin warrior, its thigh bitten through, shrieked even as it swung its blade and lopped off the zombie’s wrist. Blood and torn flesh sprayed through the melee while Yujin swept his eyes left and right, reading the flow of the battlefield.

“Answer my call.”

The instant one zombie was destroyed, he raised a nearby corpse in its place. He could sustain twenty at once, no more. Outnumbered as he was, every time one fell he crafted another on the spot and held the line.

“Keum mausora kalla!”

A stake topped with a skull plunged deep into the midst of the goblin army.

An eerie light leaked from its empty eye sockets, and the rims of the goblins’ eyes flushed a deep red.

“Behold. The valor of we noble goblins—”

— Crack.

“Valor what? You were saying?”
“You arrogant human, ignorant of honor!”

The bone rod Yujin hurled smashed clean into the crown of the totem, the skull itself, and in an instant the thing went dead.

“Yes, yes. Of course. How wonderful it must be to be an honorable goblin.”
“Kill that human, no matter what!”

The Goblin Shaman’s neck bulged with veins.

Tend to your contractor first, my lord Constellation.

The most dangerous thing about a Goblin Shaman was its totems. They poured every kind of buff into its escort troops, while intruders caught every kind of debuff and hallucination in return.

“You think I’ll give your totems a chance to stack?”

— Crunch! Crunch!

Every totem the shaman planted, the bone rod under Yujin’s control smashed the moment it went up. Its sorcery couldn’t manage a thing, and the goblin horde’s numbers dwindled fast. Its face twisted with rage.

“Kireuk, kireureuk!”
“What. Something not going your way?”
“Incarnation of Madness. Come forth!”

— Whirrr.

The staff clutched in the shaman’s hand slipped free and plunged into the ground, and a gloomy wave of mana spread out from it.

“Not a chance.”

A bone rod came flying, splitting the air. Imbued with the essence of death, it had been reinforced many times over the original spell, with destructive force enough to bore through a boulder the size of a house.

— Clang!

The instant the long bone closed in, a surge of purple energy rose up and knocked it aside.

“So that staff is your trump card?”
“My staff is not so weak as to be broken by a feeble little attack.”
“Looks like it.”
“Heh heh heh. A bone staff ground and forged from the vengeful spirits of goblins. Not an object for the likes of a human to lay hands on.”

The Goblin Shaman spoke with pride.

“You ground souls into the bone?”
“Indeed. A staff holding hundreds of vengeful spirits covets your soul.”

— Kieeeee!

A ghastly wail poured from the bone staff, scattering the Hunters’ composure.

“Has fear robbed you of words?”
“Nah. I’m just wondering if it’s okay to have it this easy.”

Yujin drew his mana out long.

Bone Control.

If the bone had once belonged to a corpse, then whatever it was, enough mana let him move it at will.

Even if it’s the enemy’s weapon or totem!

You dropped that bone staff from your hand. You’ll regret it.

— Crrk!

The staff buried in the ground shot up into the air. Driving out the curse-power the shaman had poured into it, channeling his own spirit-power in its place, and wresting away control was child’s play, easy enough to make him yawn.

“Y-you human!”
“Thanks to you, this got a whole lot easier. Much obliged.”

It had been the Goblin Shaman’s hidden trump, the kind an ordinary Hunter party or raid would have struggled to handle. But Yujin was no ordinary Hunter.

“Hoo. Now this isn’t your run-of-the-mill bone.”

Perhaps because vengeful spirits dwelled in it, under Bone Control the staff answered faster and hit harder than ordinary bone ever did. No wonder the shaman had saved it for his trump card.

“In that case, let me give it back to you.”

Yujin leveled the tip of the bone staff at the Goblin Shaman.

— Fwip!

The staff came flying, splitting the air. The shaman flailed its arms in a panic, but the bone jinked aside with an uncanny movement and bored into its throat.

“Gurk, gurkk…”
“Looks like it’s got a real grudge against you. Is this what they call just deserts?”

Heh heh.

A faint, bloody smile touched the corners of Yujin’s mouth. The Goblin Shaman lay mortally wounded, and the goblins, sapped by the aftereffect of the Sorcery of Madness, dwindled fast.

“I-I cannot die like this.”

The Goblin Shaman thrashed its limbs where it had collapsed on the ground.

“What. Something not going your way?”

Yujin yanked the staff back with Bone Control. The shaman, its nape half-skewered, came flying up along with it, and he laid a hand on its forehead and unleashed Life Drain.

“Gurkk…”

The Goblin Shaman groaned for a long while, then let its head droop.

— Crrk.

The shaman’s vitality, freshly drained in, reshaped his body. Maybe because it was a boss monster, it gave up far more life force than an ordinary goblin.

This one gives a lot of mana, doesn’t it?

It confirmed his guess that the stats which rose, and the size of the gains, varied from one monster species to the next.

“Whoops.”

Blood was the medium that held the most life force. He’d used Life Drain carelessly and nearly wrung the shaman dry. He cut a wound into its nape and pressed the PET bottle he’d brought before entering the gate snug against it.

— Glug, glug.

Barely managing to collect the little blood that remained, he let out a sigh of relief.

Don’t act so surprised. If you can’t get used to it, keep your eyes shut.

Yes, yes.

A being who’d swallowed even his own children to keep his throne could put up with this much.

With the Goblin Shaman slain, the morale of the remaining goblins visibly collapsed, and from there it was a one-sided slaughter. Goblin corpses lay strewn across the village, now draped in silence.

“I’ll leave the cleanup to you.”
“Ah, yes. That is the contract, after all.”

Kang Minho, his face gone ashen, nodded over and over. A rough count put the bodies at a good hundred.

When are we going to finish harvesting all those mana stones?

Even with money rolling around on the ground, Kang Minho couldn’t manage to crack a smile.

Step— step—.

Yujin emerged from the gate, the Scraps trailing behind him on heavy feet.

“What’s that he’s hauling out?”
“Hold on. Those are mana stones.”
“Four people killed all those monsters and dug out the mana stones too?”
“That’s insane. There’s no way.”

Stares poured down on Yujin and the Scraps. Shock, then astonishment, then admiration.

Surprised over this much?

It was a look all too familiar to Yujin.

“What are you doing. Come on.”
“Ah, yes. Coming.”

The Scraps gave a violent start at Yujin’s curt words, then picked up their halted steps again.

“By the way, where are we headed?”
“Yongsan. That’s the quickest place to offload all of this.”
“You’d get a fairer price working it through dealers. If you leave it to me…”
“You want me to trust you lot, when I met you only today?”

When Kang Minho’s mouth snapped shut, Yujin let out a short laugh.

“Joke. More than that, it’s better to save even a little time.”

No need to fuss over loose change. There was no end of ways to grow the money in his hands.

All I need is a bit of starting capital.

Yujin’s group entered the Yongsan Hunter Market and swiftly offloaded the goods they’d won from clearing the gate.

Staff of Resentment (Rare).

Krachi’s Poison Sword (Magic).

One E-grade mana crystal.

358 F-grade mana crystals.

“That’s a fair number of mana stones.”
“Well, we hunted so unbelievab— I mean, so diligently.”

Behind him, Lee Seongmin and Kang Minyeong smiled awkwardly.

My wrists are killing me.
Thought I was gonna keel over and die on the job.

Who could have guessed it would be harder than fighting monsters? Yujin’s hunting pace was so blistering that the Scraps, run-of-the-mill Hunters till now, could barely keep up.

“How much do you figure it’ll all come to once it’s sold off?”
“Sell it all to me and I’ll round it off clean at sixty million.”

Sixty million won, then. For a first hunt after awakening, a decent take. The money Yujin had scraped together over three years of grinding work came to thirty million won, and here was twice that earned in a single day. A staggering sum, by any measure.

Pfft. Over this much.

He had once stood at the very peak of the world’s Hunters as a Necromancer. Set against everything he meant to accomplish from here on, this was nothing. And then there were the enemies he had to bring down.

“The poison sword’s a pretty popular weapon too, so you can get two thousand for it. But in exchange…”

The merchant cast a sidelong glance at the Staff of Resentment, the ill-fated weapon the Goblin Shaman had wielded, the very one that had severed its master’s throat.

“That staff won’t fetch much.”
“Why’s that?”
“Check the options yourself and you’ll see.”

Kang Minho wore an odd expression. Yujin checked the bone staff’s properties.

“The restriction’s the Priest class group, but it boosts mana. Where would anyone even use this?”
“And if you did sell it, how much would it go for?”
“Seven hundred, at most.”

At the merchant’s words, Kang Minho let out a rueful chuckle, a dejected haa. The highest-grade item to drop from the boss raid was worth less than they’d hoped; if anything, the poison sword the goblin warrior had carried held more commercial value.

“Heh heh.”

Yujin smiled too. But the meaning behind the two men’s smiles was entirely different.

Got my hands on something pretty good.

A peculiar option, Priest-class only and yet a boost to mana. For Yujin it was no real problem. Spirit-power counted as a Magic-line Hunter’s ability too, so the mana boost would apply in full the moment he swapped abilities with White Night. Strength flowed naturally into the hand that gripped the staff.

“You selling this one too?”
“I’ll take it out of my cut of the settlement.”

A flicker of puzzlement crossed Kang Minho’s eyes.

“You’re keeping the Staff of Resentment?”
“Beats selling it off for seven million. Figured I’d rather use it myself.”
“You wouldn’t have earned any of this if not for you, Hunter, sir, so just take it out of the count entirely.”

Kang Minho looked around at his companions.

“What do you all think?”
“Whatever you say, Senior. He said he’d pay its price anyhow, so I reckon there’s no reason to refuse.”
“All we did today was harvest mana stones. Suit yourself.”

The little rascals. Not on Kang Minho’s level, but their instincts were serviceable enough.

Well, something like that.

There’s one in the mix I’ve never seen before, but… they’ll be worth keeping around.

A blue-chip stock all but guaranteed to climb several times over just by being held had walked in on its own two feet. Letting that slip would be the stupid play. Among the Hunters he’d crossed in his past life, the Mirror Hunters had been a formidable opponent, one that stuck in his memory, and drawing them in as allies would lend real weight to the plans ahead.

No — they’re already pretty useful right now.

As gofers and hired hands alike. He’d been needing support Hunters to hunt inside the gates anyway. The Scraps were no proper support team, but as hands and feet to handle the tiresome grunt work… no, as teammates, they more than earned the role.

“The Scraps, was it?”
“Yes. Yujin, sir.”
“Work more jobs with me and your pockets will get pretty full.”

Of the fifty-three million won, Yujin’s share came to thirty-seven million. Split three ways, the remaining sixteen million still worked out to over five million a head for a single day’s wage. For the all-1st-Rank Hunters of the Scraps, it was an astonishing sum, more than they could ever have dreamed.

Senior. What do we do?
You decide, Big Bro. We don’t know.

At the two of them whispering, Kang Minho swallowed a sigh.

So dishonest, the lot of them.

There was no one among them who didn’t know an opportunity like this didn’t come along often.

“You’re all thinking the same as me, right?”

The two of them fell silent.

But then, as if by prior agreement, the members of the Scraps traded a glance.

“Just leave it to us!”

They shouted it as one, voices matched.