65. Capturing Yeonpyeong Island (2)

“Krrk.”

The Reric’s neck, caught in Fafnir’s grip, twisted the wrong way round.

— This area’s all cleared out.

“Don’t let your guard down. The second wave will be here soon.”

— Persistent, aren’t they.

“Their territory’s been invaded. Anyone who just takes it lying down is an idiot.”

Yujin breathed spirit-power into the rims of his eyes. Reaching the 2nd Rank had made the irregular handling of Spirit-Eye a fair bit easier, too.

I won’t be weeping tears of blood this time.

He traced the flow of the spirit vein and picked out a suitable plot of ground near the shoreline. The spirit-power density was a mere 1, but he’d have to be satisfied that it cleared the bare minimum for construction.

Yujin set straight to work building the Black Obelisk. The materials it needed lay strewn all over the shore, so he laid the foundation of the Necropolis without much trouble.

“Urp. I think it’s coming back up.”

— Keep that up and you’ll wind up with drug poisoning, won’t you?

“Dammit. I need to raise my spirit-power fast.”

No. Truth be told, it was rough. Even with the bonus stats and Life Drain steadily pushing his spirit-power up, the Black Obelisk’s construction devoured so much that he had to drink potions like water.

Next time I’ll have to ask Shin Junseok to throw in a strawberry flavor or something.

— Can you even do that?

“That’s something my business partner will figure out.”

— That’s not the same as it being doable.

“I gave him the idea. That’s enough.”

After spitting out a line that would have the countless engineers of this world weeping tears of blood, he caught his breath.

A faint, hazy smoke spread slowly from the tip of the obelisk. It raised the undead’s stats, and conversely slapped the living with a debuff that hemmed in their line of sight.

— So the preparations to receive the enemy are complete?

“Complete, my ass. It’s only just begun.”

Easy for him to say.

Every corpse left over from crafting the Black Obelisk, he turned into Armored Zombies, down to the last one.

— Those dead men can’t stand and fight against the Rerics.

“I know. With the 2nd-Rank Armored Zombies, holding the line is the best I can manage.”

The Armored Zombies ranked below the Rerics. Beating an opponent of higher rank was the province of a monster like Fafnir, or some other high-ranking foe; expecting that kind of showing from low-grade undead, however painstakingly crafted, was greedy thinking.

— Why not make more dead like Jo Seungcheol?

“You seem to be forgetting. I’m 2nd Rank too.”

Using the Lump of Iron Steeped in Obsession, he’d carried out the procedure by irregular means. Jo Seungcheol had completed Unison, and by awakening that latent potential he’d managed to reinforce him into a mid-grade undead. With nothing but a Reric’s corpse, there was no attempting it at all.

— So there are things even the master can’t do.

“I’m not all-powerful. I’m always aware of my limits.”

Yujin always judged himself objectively. Even if, since his regression, he seemed to be walking a tightrope at every turn, he made his moves only after weighing the odds cold.

— Zzt.

The linked Black Obelisk sent a signal.

“Get ready. We’ve got visitors.”

— How many are there?

“About three hundred.”

— Since they’re the Necropolis’s first customers since opening for business, I’ll go on ahead and greet them.

“Don’t overdo it.”

Winning the fight wasn’t the issue. The crux was repelling the Reric horde while keeping the Black Obelisk safe. The basic plan was for Fafnir to take the vanguard and grind down their strength, then hold off the battered Rerics with the Armored Zombies and the Blood Golem.

— Hoho. I won’t push myself, so don’t worry.

Fafnir charged headlong into the fog. A moment later, a red aura bled out through the haze.

The beacon tower stood at the center of Yeonpyeong Island. Before it gathered reptilian monsters twice the size of an ordinary Reric.

“Intruders have come onto the island.”

“How long has it been? Since the likes of humans set foot in our territory.”

“It’s been ten days.”

“What. That’s hardly any time at all.”

“Mrian’s memory has always been like that.”

“Karararak!”

These were the five Reric brothers. Not true brothers, of course; the term simply covered the mutants that had risen among the Rerics spawned over the past twenty-odd years.

“I sent three hundred to scout them out.”

“That many? What do we do if the human who finally came after so long up and dies on us?”

“Surely they can’t be that weak. Let’s wait a little, and when more ships come, that’s when we kill them.”

The five Reric brothers exchanged meaningful looks.

Yeonpyeong Island was a place cut off from the mainland. Leaving it meant finding a way to fly through the sky or cross the sea, and for monsters with intellect, the confinement was unbearably stifling.

“More blood. Slaughter!”

“This isn’t enough to satisfy us. Kararak!”

The five Reric brothers stood at the 5th Rank, a high grade hard to come by even out of a 3rd-Rank gate.

An island is a confined space. The gate that had turned Yeonpyeong into an erosion zone had been spawning monsters for over twenty years, and the Rerics, with nothing left to eat, had kept their numbers up through cannibalism. The five mutants were born in the course of that. Like Eye-Patch in the borderlands, they had come into strength and abilities beyond their species, so it was only natural their eyes turned toward the mainland.

“We mustn’t repeat the same mistake.”

“Rashly kill every human and we’ll have no way out.”

“Karak, I know.”

This wasn’t the first time the humans of the mainland had coveted Yeonpyeong Island. The black market. The Guryongbang. The Red Spider. And even the Fifth Revolutionary Corps, the man-hunters.

“To eat more humans, we have to get outside.”

“Understood. I’ll endure it.”

The five brothers had slaughtered every human who landed on the island and chewed them down, bones and all. A delicacy they’d tasted for the first time in their lives. But the number of humans visiting the island dwindled, and the brothers came to realize that to savor more of that delicacy, they would have to cross to the land beyond the sea.

“We wait until a big ship comes.”

Baltak, the mightiest of the five brothers, smacked his lips and warned the rest.

Fafnir, who had laughed with full confidence, tossed one Reric corpse to the ground.

— Hohoho. Nothing to it.

“Exactly three hundred.”

— Was the master’s intuition this precise?

“No. It wasn’t.”

Yujin fiddled with his chin.

— What are you mulling over?

“I figured it’d be about three hundred. But not a single one off—isn’t that artificial?”

Monsters move on instinct. Half-formed lives spawned by gates, stripped of will, they were governed by nothing but their hatred of humans and their appetite.

— Now that you mention it, that is strange. For exactly three hundred to come on the dot, unless somebody gave the order——!

“Only just caught on?”

— Has Kaesong already made its move?

“No. If that were it, ships would’ve been going in and out of the dock.”

He’d glanced at the southern dock before landing, and there hadn’t been a trace of humans. Besides, the date he’d seen through Memento was still a ways off.

‘Even so, I can’t let my guard down.’

It would be a month before the man-hunters received a constellation’s ‘blessing’ at the altar. Their raising an altar at all would mean they’d won over or driven out the Rerics on Yeonpyeong Island.

‘A week if it’s fast, two weeks at the latest before they come.’

Within that window he had to take Yeonpyeong Island in hand and set up defenses so the man-hunters could get no foothold. An all-out war meant his certain defeat; the best option was to fortify the island so they couldn’t even land.

‘The one supposition that fits a case like this is… a mutant, that’s all.’

Drawing on the countless experiences he’d amassed before his regression, he closed in on the truth by reasoning alone. He had no way of knowing the mutant Rerics numbered five, but that a monster with ‘intellect’ lay behind the attack just now seemed certain.

“I’ll have to change the plan.”

— Master. What are you going to do?

“Since the other side only means to test the waters, we’ll have to take the initiative.”

Fafnir would serve as the attacker. Yujin and Jo Seungcheol would defend, clinging to the Black Obelisk, and push the Necropolis’s territory outward.

— The original plan was to defend, hugging the Necropolis, and chip away at the monsters’ strength.

“That’s right.”

— If I leave the domain, won’t the master be in danger?

“Don’t worry. I’ve got it all worked out.”

The Armored Zombies were no match for the Rerics. In numbers, in quality, he was at a disadvantage on every count, but it was exactly at times like these that a Necromancer’s true worth showed itself.

‘I’ve got four skill slots I can inherit.’

His level had climbed to 37 during the spider hunt. After clearing a gate with the Arahan Strike Force, and with the experience from the fighting at the Yeonpyeong landing, he’d just broken past level 40.

A spell suited to a situation like this would be…

“Gh, ghhh.”

Still hurts like hell.

His unique trait, Clear Mind, far from dulling the pain, only made him feel it all the more vividly. He flicked away the single bead welling at the rim of his eye and checked the spells.

Good. The description hadn’t shifted from what Yujin remembered by so much as a single letter.

‘Add the new holy spells and I can defend as much as I please.’

Yujin separated bone from flesh in the deep-green corpses and used Raise Dead. Stripped down to bare bone, the Rerics rose again as Skeleton Mages; the fire-spewers had an aptitude for ‘magic’ as well, so they could be worked into magic-line undead.

“You take control of these ones.”

— Thank you. Master.

He handed all fifty Skeleton Mages to Jo Seungcheol and raised another forty Armored Zombies on top. It drained every last drop of his spirit-power. He pushed himself to the brink of total collapse, downing so many potions he lost count.

“Uuugh.”

I need to hit the 4th Rank fast and eat the Human-Shaped Snow Ginseng.

Life Drain could fill in for it, but only as a stopgap. Keep this up and something in his body was bound to give; of that he was certain.

‘You build up a tolerance to potions, after all.’

He shouldn’t be converting potions into life force and then into mana except in an emergency, but with the scene of the future he’d glimpsed through Memento in mind, he had no choice but to push on.

He steeled his resolve once more and wiped the potion smeared at the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.

— You okay?

“No. But I’ve got to do it anyway.”

— Next time I’ll catch you some fresh ones.

“Ah. Right. I need to absorb stats too, so I’m counting on you.”

Even after landing, he hadn’t had the breathing room to plunder the Rerics’ life force. The corpses in plain sight he’d either detonated or worked into undead, so he’d seize their vitality whenever the chance came and convert it into stats.

— Then shall I start the search from the shoreline?

“No. Head for the center of the island.”

— You said there might be a mutant, didn’t you.

“That’s exactly why we need to scout where a mutant would be.”

The intellect-bearing entity, the mutant Reric, was most likely at the island’s center. The Reric horde had come down the mountain not long after the Black Obelisk went up.

“The one giving the orders is in that direction too.”

— Hoho. The master’s insight is something else. To work all that out in such a short time.

“Just don’t die. Without you, capturing the island is impossible.”

Even with Fafnir’s Life Force Vessel, regeneration took quite a while if he was smashed apart entirely. And the life force his resurrection demanded was staggering besides.

— If I get the chance, I’ll drag back that mutant or whatever it is as well.

“Heh, if you weren’t all talk.”

Yujin let out a snort of a laugh.

About thirty minutes after Fafnir left the Necropolis, the Black Obelisk sounded its warning once again.

‘The shoreline this time. About three hundred again, huh.’

Heh heh heh.

It really is unfolding just as I thought.

He’d pulled Fafnir out to the vanguard on purpose to see how the Rerics would react, and they’d seized the gap and come storming in.

If the numbers were large, I might not be so sure. But sending nearly the same count as the first wave makes it certain — there’s a mutant mixed in among the Rerics.

‘They’re trying to size up my strength and how I’ll respond.’

Even after the Armored Zombies and Skeleton Mages, over a hundred corpses still remained. Too late now to rig a remote detonation like in the spider hunt, but as long as there were corpses, there was always a way to manage.

I’ll engrave into your eyes exactly why a Necromancer is called a one-man legion.

“Move their corpses over here.”

Yujin laid the Reric corpses out in a long line, matching the direction of their advance.

“Karararak!”

“Karak!”

The Reric swarm tore through the gray currents and closed in on the Black Obelisk. Reptiles that they were, their heat-sensing and touch ran keen, so even with the fog scrambling their sight, their advance barely slowed.

— Kwadrrrk—!

Bone erupted up through the Reric corpses, drank in the spirit-power, and swelled to dozens of times its size. Bloated into shapes sharp as thorns, the bones layered crosswise over one another and were reborn as a wall four meters high.

Given time, he’d shore up its durability with the Reinforcement Circuit as well.

‘Right now I’m going to test something else.’

A holy shield settled over the Bone Wall. From behind the wall of bone, the Skeleton Mages loosed a barrage of magic.

…

A barricade of bone, gaps left here and there. The wall rose taller than the Skeleton Mages, so the holes had been opened on purpose, for their magic to fire through.

“Karak, break the wall.”

The Rerics, enraged by the one-sided assault, threw themselves at the Bone Wall. Claws sharp as a finely honed sword would smash mere bone aside with ease, and the corpses packed inside the wall along with them.

A Reric swung its arm with a snarl.

— Kwajik—!

The instant its claws met the Bone Wall, the Negation Shock Shield spat its light and an awl-shaped spur of bone shot out,

— Pwaaak—!

and the Bone Wall’s spirit-power, compounded with the shield’s reflected damage, skewered clean through the Reric’s forearm.

“Kararak?!”

The Reric staggered backward, blood dripping steadily.

“Solid performance.”

Just as calculated. Watching it unfold, Yujin chuckled to himself.