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 into, shrieked even as it swung its blade and lopped off the zombie’s wrist.
A melee of spraying blood and flesh.

Yujin swept his eyes left and right, reading the flow of the battlefield.

“Answer my call.”

The instant one zombie went down, he raised a nearby corpse to its feet.
The most he could sustain at once was twenty.
He was outnumbered, but every time one fell he crafted a new zombie 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.
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 top of the totem, into the skull itself.
The totem was neutralized in an instant.

“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 thing to watch out for most against a Goblin Shaman is the totem.
Buffs of every kind for its escort troops.
Intruders, meanwhile, get a taste of every kind of debuff and hallucination.

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

— Crunch! Crunch!

Every totem the shaman planted was smashed the moment it went up, by the bone rod under Yujin’s control.
The shaman’s sorcery couldn’t manage a thing, and the goblin horde’s numbers dwindled fast.

The Goblin Shaman’s face twisted with rage.

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

— Whirrr.

The staff clutched in the Goblin Shaman’s hand suddenly slipped free and plunged into the ground.
A gloomy wave of mana began to spread from it.

“Not a chance.”

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

The instant the long bone closed in, a surge of purple energy rose up and flicked it aside. — Clang!

“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 let his mana flow in a slow, steady stream.

Bone Control.
If it was the bone of a corpse, then whatever it was, with enough mana he could move it at will.

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

Dropped his own bone staff.
He’ll regret that.

— Crrrk!

The staff that had been buried in the ground shot up into the air.
Driving out the curse-power the Goblin Shaman had imbued it with, replacing it with spirit-power, and seizing control: child’s play.
Easy enough to make him yawn.

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

The Goblin Shaman’s hidden trump card.
An ordinary Hunter party or raid would have struggled to deal with it.
But Yujin wasn’t ordinary.

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

Perhaps because vengeful spirits dwelled in it, the Bone Control’s response speed and power both far outstripped ordinary bone.
No wonder the shaman had saved it as 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 Goblin Shaman flailed its arms in a panic, but the staff dodged 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 colored the corners of Yujin’s mouth.

The Goblin Shaman was mortally wounded.
The goblins, weakened by the aftereffect of the Sorcery of Madness, were dwindling in number 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 Goblin Shaman, its nape half-skewered, came flying up along with it.
He laid a hand on the thing’s forehead and unleashed Life Drain.

“Gurkk…”

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

— Crrk. The shaman’s freshly drained vitality transformed his body.

Maybe because it was a boss monster, it disgorged far more life force than an ordinary goblin.

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

It was proof of his guess: the stats that rose, and the range of the gains, differed by monster species.

“Whoops.”

The medium that holds the most life force is blood.
Careless with the Life Drain, he’d nearly drained the Goblin Shaman’s blood bone-dry.
He cut a wound into the thing’s nape and pressed the PET bottle he’d brought before entering the gate snugly against it.

— Glug, glug.

He barely managed to collect the little blood that remained, then 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 swallowed even his own children to keep his throne could put up with this much.

When he slew the Goblin Shaman, the morale of the remaining goblins visibly plummeted.
After that it was a one-sided slaughter.
Goblin corpses lay strewn here and there 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 number 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 a smile.

Step— step—.

Yujin emerged from the gate.
The Scraps followed behind him, dragging 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.
Astonishment.
And 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 were no end of ways to grow the funds in his grasp.

All I need is a bit of starting capital.

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

—Staff of Resentment (Rare).
—Krachi’s Poison Sword (Magic).
—1 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 known it’d be harder than fighting monsters.
Yujin’s hunting speed was so tremendous that the Scraps, run-of-the-mill Hunters until now, struggled just to 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, that was a decent take.
The money Yujin had scraped together over three years of grinding work was thirty million won.
Twice that, earned in a single day.
Quite the staggering sum, no?

Pfft. Over this much.

He’d once stood at the very peak of the world’s Hunters as a Necromancer.
Set against the things he was going to accomplish from here on, this was nothing.

And there was that, too.
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 used, the one that severed its own 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 million won, at most.”

Kang Minho let out a rueful chuckle, a dejected “Hah…”, at the merchant’s words.
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 used carried 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 exclusive, yet it raised mana.
For Yujin, it was no real problem.
Spirit-power was a Magic-line Hunter’s ability too, so the mana-boost option applied in full once he swapped abilities with White Night.
Strength flowed naturally into the hand gripping 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 won. 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 he’d never seen before in the mix, but he’ll be worth keeping around.

A blue-chip stock set to climb several times over just by holding it had walked right in on its own two feet.
Letting that slip would be the stupid thing to do.

A formidable foe, one of the Hunters from his past life who’d stuck in his memory.
Drawing the Mirror Hunters in as allies would lend great strength to his plans ahead.

No — they’re already pretty useful right now.

As gofers and hired hands both.
He’d been needing supporting Hunters to hunt inside gates anyway.
The Scraps weren’t a proper support team, but still.
As slaves to be his hands and feet and do the tiresome work… no, as teammates, they were worth 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 came out to over five million a head for a day’s wage.
For the all-1st-Rank Hunters of the Scraps, an astonishing income they couldn’t even dream of.

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 was rare.

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

The two of them fell silent.
But.
As if by prior agreement, the members of the Scraps exchanged glances, and then,

“Just leave it to us!”

they shouted in unison, voices matched.