64. Capturing Yeonpyeong Island (1)

A memory, read out by the Broken Pocket Watch of Kronos.

The first scene Memento showed him was an island, a stretch of land that had turned to monster territory in the wake of the Erosion. Down its shore, figures cloaked in hoods little better than rags were filing off a cargo ship.

‘The Kaesong man-hunters.’

They enslaved and drove monsters, and herded human beings like livestock.

The man-hunters walked toward the center of the island, into the grounds of a ruined cathedral, and came to a halt before an altar piled from rough-hewn stone.

“Receive the tribute we offer, and grant unto us your great power.”

One man cried out, and the others took up the call.

Corpses lay heaped upon the altar. Blood streamed from a pile of human bodies that numbered, at a glance, well over a hundred, and seeped down beneath the stone.

— Hwaaaack—!

A green aura surged up from the altar’s center. The power of a constellation they called Aureole spread outward until at last it swallowed the whole altar.

— Tk.

His vision returned to normal.

It was still dark, this being the interior of the Pantheon, but Yujin blinked his eyes open and shut several times against the strange aftertaste the vision had left behind.

‘From now on, I won’t call you a backwater goblin spirit.’

Kronos laughed heartily. He looked even happier than the moment he’d reclaimed his starlight.

‘You must’ve really hated being called that.’

Did I promise that too easily?

Seeing how violently Kronos reacted, Yujin figured he’d better dig up one more thing to needle him with.

‘Come to think of it, didn’t you say you needed a temple?’

‘I’m your Saint, aren’t I. After a fashion.’

‘Good, then.’

Yujin smiled faintly.

Let’s go build a temple to consecrate to our backwater go— no. To our esteemed Constellation.

‘Do you Constellation lords fuss over feng shui and the like too?’

‘And then?’

What Memento had shown him was a future one month from now, a reality not yet come to pass.

‘I’ve already scouted out a spot fit for you to plant your rear, so just leave it to me.’

Chuckling, Yujin left the Pantheon.

Back in Ground Zero, Yujin made for the heart of the ruins.

There the buildings stood in comparatively decent shape, the ones raised after Ground Zero came into being, put up once the black market had established itself.

“We meet again, Master Yujin.”
“You’re looking sharp, Mister Black.”
“Hoho. Thanks to you, work’s piled up something fierce. I’ve been putting in the overtime.”

Mister Black gave Yujin’s joke a barbed reply.

“The work’s done by your underlings, yet you take the credit.”
“I’m the one who picked those fellows. I’ve earned that much.”
“You’re claiming rights against me?”

Yujin slid back against the chair and settled in at his leisure.

“It’s just a manner of speaking.”

Sulking over one little ‘you’re looking sharp.’

If it weren’t for the blunder after the meeting, Mister Black would never have given that much ground; his mouth twisted sourly at the corners.

“You must be busy. What brings you here?”
“You know what I mentioned at the meeting. I’m about ready to kick things into gear.”
“That remark sounds to me like you mean to strike the man-hunters.”
“I won’t be picking a fight just yet. I’m only going to test the waters.”

Yujin pointed at the map laid out on the table. His finger came to rest on a single spot.

“Yeonpyeong Island. Looks like you’ve already caught wind of the rumor.”

A rumor?
Now, Yujin here doesn’t know a thing about that.

“Word is the man-hunters covet it.”
“Correct. As it happens, Yeonpyeong Island’s been giving me a headache lately.”

He’d lobbed the line out based on the pre-regression events he’d glimpsed through Memento, and it seemed he’d hit the mark.

“What’s their movement like?”
“Crossing the sea is no easy matter for them, it seems.”

The mainstay of the Kaesong man-hunters was Ogres and Trolls, hulking great brutes that no little fishing skiff could ever carry. A single Ogre alone weighed several tons. It would take a cargo ship to move them reliably, and the man-hunters didn’t yet have the funds for one.

“‘Yet,’ is it.”
“There’s a chance the Guryongbang reaches out to them.”
“Useless bastards, the lot of them.”
“No need to fret over it too much. It’s only a possibility, after all.”

No.
My friend.

‘It’s not a possibility. It’s the real thing.’

In the future I saw through Memento and the Broken Pocket Watch of Kronos, a cargo ship sat moored there, plain as day.
Drag my feet and the man-hunters move in earnest.
I’ll have to take Yeonpyeong Island before that.

“I need a boat to get to Yeonpyeong Island.”
“There’s a speedboat we use for smuggling.”
“Hand it over, now.”
“Understood.”

Without a word of complaint, Mister Black lent him the boat, a sleek-looking speedboat. Not long after clearing the lower reaches of the Imjin River, it broke into open sea and cut westward across the waves.

“That island up ahead is Yeonpyeong Island.”

One of the Five West Sea Islands. Before the Great Cataclysm it had been a stronghold guarding the West Sea region against the former North Korea, its area broad enough to support some two thousand residents and a brigade-strength garrison of two to three thousand soldiers. And with Hwanghae Province bordering it to the north, geographically too it held considerable strategic weight.

“All ancient history now. After the Great Cataclysm it became an island of monsters.”

The captain steering the speedboat grumbled.

“How many monsters are there?”
“They’re swarming all along the coast, so there’s no telling.”

Factoring in the area, at least a thousand. It wouldn’t top ten thousand, but it was a staggering number all the same.

“Bring her in closer.”
“Understood.”

— Chwaaaack—!

The speedboat carved through the waves and drew near the island’s southern shore.

“Kak, karak.”
“Kakak. Food.”

Reptilian monsters swarmed the shoreline. Between their green scales, slit yellow pupils scattered a baleful light. They stood two and a half meters tall, prowling about stark-bodied without a single weapon or scrap of armor on them, glaring at Yujin.

“Rerics, huh. Didn’t expect to run into the dragon race’s lackeys here.”
“Uh, uhh.”
“Don’t be scared.”
“Those monsters do ranged attacks too, you know.”

No sooner had the captain spat the words out than the bellies of the deeper-scaled Rerics swelled up enormously.

Balls of flame came arcing in on parabolic paths. Dozens of ranged volleys rained down on the speedboat.

“There’s always somebody who has to lay it on with the foreshadowing.”

Tsk, tsk.
I never understood why people say things like ‘Did I get it?’ or ‘No one’s ever survived a hit from this!’

— Spewing flames when you’re not even of the dragon race.

“Eh, they’re not that strong.”

The flames carried about the force of 2nd-Rank magic, the kind of thing he could swat out of the air with Bone Control, though it would chip away a fair bit of his magical armament’s durability.

“Their accuracy’s no good either.”

— True enough. At this rate, of the ones still falling, three at most will reach the speedboat.

Long range, bought at the cost of wretched aim. Of the fifty-odd flame-balls flying in even now, only three would actually land.

The two of them chattered away without a care, and the captain lost his temper.

“There are fireballs raining down right now and you two are just going to keep talking?!”
“Don’t worry.”

I came back having learned a holy spell perfect for a moment like this.

Holy power condensed at his fingertips.

An angular barrier formed of several stacked hexagons. It was rooted in holy power, yet it bore a gray hue that carried even a touch of ill omen.

‘The defensive range is three meters. Unless it’s a spherical type, it guards a single face at a time.’

Yujin cast Negation Shock Shield in succession, throwing up three more sheets overhead until they blanketed the air above the speedboat.

‘Cast speed scales with agility, that is, reaction speed. And throwing up several at once is no strain.’

Up to this point, it was quite useful. Defensive holy spells were either hard to maintain in numbers or capped on how many could be deployed at once.

If there’s a drawback, it’s that the coverage skews to one face rather than spreading across many directions, maybe?
‘That much I can cover with sheer volume.’

Not only was the holy spell highly cost-effective, Yujin had the means to refill his holy power, so the drawback wasn’t much of a problem.

‘All that’s left is to check the one thing that matters most. Its defensive strength.’

Arms crossed, he watched the flame-balls fall in their curving arcs. Crimson flames collided with the barrier, and though the color faded a touch, a single hit didn’t break it.

— Boom— boom—!

The flame-balls that came after pummeled the freshly-struck Negation Shock Shield without mercy, and yet, even under the unbroken assault, the color only dimmed. The holy spell Kronos had granted blocked all three flame-balls flawlessly.

“Our Constellation handed over something worth using.”

Ignoring the noisily cackling Kronos, he looked out over the battlefield. The first attack had failed, but the Rerics, showing no sign of fluster, swelled their bellies again.

“Captain. Bring the boat in closer.”
“Is that all right?”
“You just saw it, didn’t you. There’s no problem at all.”
“Understood.”

The captain swallowed hard and edged the speedboat toward the shore. It was about seventy meters to a point where they could make landfall.

The Rerics spat out their flame-balls once more.

— This time the hit rate’ll be about 22%.

“How very kind of you.”

Grumbling, Yujin deployed the Negation Shock Shield with care.

If the speedboat sinks, that’s a problem for us too.
I’d rather not get soaked.

— Pop— pa-pop—.

The defensive wards fixed in the air blocked the shower of flame-balls, and the speedboat closed the distance unobstructed.

“It’s your turn to shine.”

— Leave it to me, Master.

The staff in Jo Seungcheol’s hand answered. A fireball coalesced at the tip of the GB (Greybase) R5 and shot off in a straight line. The explosion left the ears ringing, and several of the Rerics clustered along the shore were swept up in the blast and burned to a crisp.

— Oh. Not bad at all. Skeleton.
— I have a name. It’s Jo Seungcheol.

Grumbling, Jo Seungcheol used Quick Reload and poured out a second and third strike.

Yujin’s Stellar Rank fell short, so Jo was operating under a stat cap. Even so, Jo Seungcheol’s fireballs carried power on par with a 4th-Rank magic-line Hunter.

‘Thanks to high stats and Mana Circulation.’

With Quick Reload’s boosts to realignment speed and destructive power layered on top, in raw firepower alone he stood at a level that wouldn’t lose to a 4th-Rank Hunter capable of Multi-Casting.

— Kwaang—! Kwaaang—!

Jo Seungcheol had been raining down fireballs without pause, and then his arm dropped limp.

— Master. I’ve exhausted all my mana.
— What. That’s it?
— Using Quick Reload increases mana consumption.
— Tch. Master, this one’s no good at all.

Why?
That much was earning your keep.

The Rerics killed outright by direct hits alone numbered over thirty. Add the wounded, and he’d dealt tremendous damage in a short span.

And besides.

“A Necromancer’s got himself some corpses now.”

— Ku-kwakwakwakwa!

Blasts erupted here and there along the shore. Bone fragments and gobbets of flesh scattered in every direction as the Rerics shrieked. Over a hundred of them were caught in the explosions and went down.

“Now you can drop us off.”
“R-Right.”

The captain, gone white as a sheet, brought the speedboat up to the pier. Yujin and his minions set foot on the southern shore of Yeonpyeong Island.

The Rerics that hadn’t been caught in the Corpse Explosions came charging, eyes blazing.

— Master. The victory spell, if you please.

“Hold on.”

Yujin deftly cast Wedge of Retribution and Unholy Blessing.

Fafnir, buffed and granted the Dragon-Scale Armor’s added stat correction on top, drove the Rerics back.

“Sh*t. What the hell did I just see?”

The speedboat captain muttered, trembling all over.

Rerics were tricky monsters to face, even among 3rd-Rank-class ones. Every Hunter who’d dismissed them as unarmed had met with disaster.

‘Their tough scales don’t crack easily even to spear or blade, and they’re nimble to boot.’

A light body meant quick movement. Their claws cut sharper than a halfway-decent sword, and some of them could even strike at range, monsters fit to answer just about any situation.

‘The Rerics are exactly why the black market gave up on Yeonpyeong Island.’

And here was a Hunter cutting down those notorious monsters with ease. The talk of him having wiped out half the Red Spider’s mainstay was no idle rumor after all.

“Captain. Mister.”
“Yessir!”
“Just leave the field rations and go. See you in five days.”
“Yessir!”

The captain snapped bolt-upright to attention, hauled out the rations stowed on the boat, and then hightailed it away from Yeonpyeong Island.