61. Aftermath (1)

‘You see Undying Commander among the traits?’

‘It’s an undead-soldier command trait.’

Right now Yujin could control forty. Without an item to support him, that ceiling doubled with every Stellar Rank he climbed, and no matter how his spirit-power overflowed, he could never push past the number the System had set for him. Short of stepping into the realm beyond the 7th Rank, forty was the wall.

‘At Undying Commander C-grade, he can command up to fifty.’

‘A Dark Minion is a mid-grade undead. Of course he ought to be stronger than I am right now.’

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

What would a backwater goblin know?

Mana Circulation was a fine trait in its own right.

Realignment speed decreases by 25%.

Magic manifestation power increases by 25%.

The kind of trait that proved simple really was best. It granted no special ability, but for a magic-line user it was a tremendous boost.

‘A trait an ordinary Dark Minion doesn’t have.’

In his Unison state, Jo Seungcheol’s latent potential had reacted to the Lump of Iron Steeped in Obsession, awakening a talent worthy of the 7th Rank.

‘I’ll raise you up little by little until I promote you all the way to a Lich.’

‘I’ll work you until the iron I transplanted is ground down to nothing.’

‘Wouldn’t living as the Undying King’s retainer be far more glorious than serving as the Red Spider’s enforcer?’

‘This is what it means to have a Necromancer for an enemy.’

Death was no escape hatch. Neither the body whose breath had stopped nor the spirit that had fled the flesh could slip free; pawned to the Necromancer, the already-dead corpse would labor on until it was ground to dust.

‘Hey there. O great and exalted Constellation.’

‘I set up another feat. Just wondering if there’s anything in it for me.’

Kronos fell silent for a moment.

‘Ugh. The level of a backwater goblin, honestly.’

‘You only ever feast on my feats. There’s nothing coming back. You useless Constellation.’

The pocket watch shook wildly. The backwater goblin’s reaction was fiercer than usual today.

‘Did I mock him as useless a bit too much?’

‘I’ll have to needle him just the right amount from now on.’

Restoring Kronos’s starlight had only ever been a means to win a Constellation’s blessing. That blessing, his first aim, still hadn’t come. Even so, he’d changed his class to the Saint of the White Night, which fused only the strengths of the Necromancer and Priest job groups, and he’d come away with potent holy spells far above his Stellar Rank.

‘I’ve already gained plenty, but you can never have too many options.’

‘You said you wanted to reclaim a Constellation’s lost rank, didn’t you?’

‘Let’s both put in the work.’

‘The stronger your one and only believer grows, the better your odds of winning back your old authority.’

The next morning.

— Clang! Cla-clang!

The sound of metal striking metal carried in from the empty lot and woke Yujin from his sleep.

“Hwaaam. Who’s out doing a sword dance first thing in the morning.”

The next Sword Saint had beaten him within an inch of his life the day before, and on top of that he’d been put through an undead reinforcement procedure. Body and mind both worn ragged, he’d meant to sleep long and deep.

‘Which one of them is it.’

Grumbling, Yujin stepped outside, and his eyes went wide.

“Kuk.”

With a short cry, Kang Minho went rolling across the ground. Just as Fafnir was drawing back the fist he’d thrown, Jang Miseon slipped into the space at his back.

“Haap!”

A wind blade fell straight down. At the same moment three arrows loosed from different angles, Telekinesis and Sync linked as one. Kang Minyeong’s handiwork.

— Well now. We’ve barely sparred a handful of times, and your teamwork’s already pretty sharp.

Muttering casually, Fafnir stamped his foot down hard.

— Kwuung—!

The earth heaved, throwing off the balance of everyone standing on it.

“We’re not weak enough to fall from this much.”

— Enough to break your concentration will do.

— Shwaak—!

The arrowheads that had been closing in inch by inch lost their bearing for an instant and faltered. Sync and Telekinesis had been gripping even the arrows, and Kang Minyeong, who’d meant to pin down Fafnir’s movements, had been caught in the backlash of the stomp and lost her focus.

“To think you’d target her.”

The three-person linkage collapsed. Going after Fafnir alone was dangerous, but Jang Miseon had already closed the distance, and there was no evading now; she poured more force into her wind blade without hesitation.

— A fine call.

Fafnir grinned and struck out.

— Cla-claang!

Once again a sharp sound rang out, and Jang Miseon, unable to disperse the impact, was flung several meters back.

A green cushion swelled out of a fissure conjured in midair and caught Jang Miseon.

— The things you’ve got prepared.

“A head-on’s no good. So I got ready.”

His power let him stash objects, magic, even phenomena away in a separate space. This time, rather than conjuring a shield-like mass as he had before, Lee Seongmin had thrown himself into supporting his companions.

“What’re you all doing?”

— The early bird spars at the crack of dawn.

“No. I mean, why are you brawling in the first place.”

— Because those friends wanted to.

Yujin’s gaze drifted toward Kang Minho before he knew it.

“Ha, haha. The thing is, boss.”
“I imagine an explanation is in order.”
“Watching you two spar yesterday, and seeing Master Fafnir, we found it hard to just sit still.”

At first light they’d gone to Fafnir and asked him to train them, and Jang Miseon, when she heard, had joined in too, turning it into a four-on-one mock battle.

“Even four of you ganging up, would you stand a chance against a 4th-Rank Fafnir?”
“That’s why we set the conditions — no aura allowed, and we win if we land even a single clean hit.”
“And you failed.”
“Ha, hahaha. That’s how it turned out.”

A diligent bunch, the lot of them. The Scraps he understood, but Jang Miseon keeping pace with them was a surprise.

“Hunter Yujin. Your companions are no ordinary talents, are they?”
“They’re kids I raised.”
“If the chance comes again next time, why not work alongside the Phoenix—”
“The Arahan lot put in the same offer, you know.”
“Their motives were impure. I’d never do anything like that.”

Even before the regression he’d been on decent terms with the Phoenix Guild. With Arahan as a shared enemy, the two of them had traded plenty of give-and-take.

‘It’s just that the guildmaster’s limits were clear.’

Kim Yeongsu, master of the Phoenix, had been the owner of the Dragon-Scale Armor in the original history. He’d made a name for himself as Arahan’s rival, yet in the end he never broke through the wall of the 8th Rank. Jang Miseon, hailed as the next Sword Saint and weighed down with so much expectation, had died a pointless death. The Phoenix had joined hands with Yujin and brought the Arahan Guild down, but the one who actually claimed the country’s number-one seat afterward was the Dawn Guild, the guild Shin Yuseung belonged to.

‘It wouldn’t hurt to make a point of contact.’

The Dawn Guild was an improvement over Arahan, and yet it slighted Yujin all the same. What was the use of becoming the country’s number-one guild? So long as Yujin walked the earth, the seat of strongest Hunter would always have to be handed to him.

‘You all kept me in check more than I realized, didn’t you?’

Come to think of it, since regressing he’d paid little attention to the state of the domestic guilds. He’d built the Necropolis, and he was cultivating his own faction in Ground Zero, but turning it over now, there was no reason to sit on his hands and merely watch what the country’s Hunters were up to.

‘Even if I drive out Arahan, someone will take that seat.’

Just as he’d carved off a few business operations as spoils from the Red Spider hunt, he had to account for the aftermath of Arahan’s collapse as well.

‘You’re teaching me something important.’

‘Thanks to the next Sword Saint dropping by, I’ve gained quite a lot.’

Yujin tidied away his thoughts and held out his hand.

“I’ll think on it favorably.”
“If we have business to do next time, I’m counting on you.”

The two of them clasped hands.

“Don’t work yourself to death while I’m gone.”
“Isn’t my business partner in more danger than I am?”

The next destination was Ground Zero. He’d heard the talk at the Company founding briefing, but the notoriety of that lawless zone wasn’t easily forgotten.

“If I die, consider the whole Company business off the table.”
“There’s so much I have to learn from you, partner!”
“Then go pray, or something.”
“Last time, too — I asked which Constellation you serve and you wouldn’t say a word.”

‘Ah. It’s just that our Constellation is the sort you’d be embarrassed to show anyone, anywhere.’

‘So you’ve finally cooled off a bit?’

‘Ah. Is that so? I nearly went and broke my vow to needle him a little less.’

Barely shaking off the dangerous temptation, Yujin left the Paju workshop and headed for Ground Zero.

“Boss. Looks like the rumors really were just rumors.”
“Right? People live here too. It’s a bit exaggerated.”
“Hmm. More like the rumors failed to capture the reality, if you ask me.”

Black smoke rose in the distance. A lawless zone had settled into the concrete ruins, and sporadic fighting kept breaking out all across Ground Zero. Yujin couldn’t argue any further with Kang Minho’s read of it.

“Yeah, well. How’d it get this far gone.”
“Wasn’t it always like this?”
“…I’ll go find out what the situation is.”

The group pushed deeper into the concrete ruins. Wary eyes poured down on them from every corner of the wreckage.

— The mood’s a little different, isn’t it?

“They’re not scared of you, are they.”

— Have they ever seen an undead this magnificent. No chance of that.

Fafnir seemed to have grown fairly used to his Draconian form, and he struck a playful pose.

“Word of the spider hunt’s gotten out.”

— Ah. I see.

Rumor had it a mysterious powerhouse had wiped out half the Red Spider’s main combat Hunters. The story of Yujin and Fafnir had spread through all of Ground Zero, carried by the Galaxy Pub and the black market.

— Doing something out of character for you, master.

“If you want to swallow up the spider’s territory, you’ve got to spread the word.”

The guarantees the Galaxy Pub and the black market offered covered reputation, too. In a lawless zone, nothing worked better than a show of force. The people watching them from among the ruins wore looks of fear more than hostility.

“Madam. I’m here.”
“You’ve quite the entourage today.”

Today the one who received them was a woman of indeterminate age in a black dress. The Madam greeted Yujin’s group with an enigmatic smile.

“Whoa…”
“Ohh…”

The two of them wore dazed expressions. Kang Minyeong gripped both of them firmly by the ears.

“Agh! Aaagh!”
“Real fine work you’re doing. Hm?”
“Senior Kang! I’m sorry!”

Branding themselves idiots at the very first meeting, the pair of them. Yujin shook his head, and the Madam let out a short “hoho.”

“You’re [the Scraps], aren’t you? I’ve heard of your reputation.”
“Is that true?”
“You’re the up-and-coming Hunters who gave Arahan’s Supernova a taste of defeat, aren’t you.”

Honestly. They hadn’t managed to keep it together during the Arahan business either, and they still had a long, long way to go. Leave them to it and they looked ready to make a full spectacle of themselves.

Yujin didn’t wait any longer and got to the point.

“Enough of that. Why’s it gotten into this state?”
“They may call it the Three Powers, but the Red Spider held the greatest force of them all.”
“So the Galaxy Pub and the black market’s confirmation alone isn’t enough, you’re saying.”
“They’re Ground Zero residents, after all.”

The Madam spat out a sneer, as if thoroughly fed up.

“Doesn’t look like things went as smoothly as you’d hoped.”
“The Red Spider tangled the situation up quite a bit, you see.”
“They shouldn’t have had the spare room to pull any tricks.”
“Originally the plan was to hand off everything aside from the operations you took over, but…”

Around the time Yujin set out on the spider hunt, Kim Jaewoo, the Red Spider’s boss, had made an example of the Legion and the Ghosts, who’d recently been encroaching on his turf, and wiped them out wholesale.

“The problem is that the Red Spider’s defeat created a power vacuum.”
“So every random nobody’s eyeing the spider’s operations?”
“Thanks to that, the black market seems to be having a fair bit of trouble too.”

Yujin fiddled with his chin.

‘It’s not as bad a situation as I’d thought.’

‘Right. But the situation’s changed, hasn’t it.’

The sizable organizations had already been swept away by the Red Spider beforehand. Whatever groups remained were nobodies, every one of them. Given time, another organization would rise to fill the lawless zone’s power vacuum, but at this particular moment there was no force left to replace the Red Spider.

‘Isn’t this the perfect stage for Ground Zero’s new Three Powers to debut?’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

— Kwang—!

With an explosive sound, the door of the Galaxy Pub was torn clean off.

“Madam. Look here, instead of some no-name nobody, recognize our Scorpion—”

Just as a man with a scorpion pattern emblazoned on him was bellowing brazenly, Fafnir reacted to the killing intent and drove out a fist.

— Pung—!

A head lost its place and evaporated into mist.

— Shall I kill him, master?

“Don’t ask after you’ve already done it.”

Yujin shook his head side to side.