71. Once You Know It's A Trap, It's No Longer A Trap (1)

“B-Big bro.”
“First let’s just eat. I’m starving.”

He’d come straight to the Scraps without a moment’s rest. Yujin’s physique might rival a Martial-line Hunter of the same Stellar Rank, but putting that strength to use burned through just as many calories.

— Grrrrrr.

Right on cue, a loud rumble rolled up from Lee Seongmin’s belly.

“H-haha. Sorry ’bout that.”
“You’re hungry too. Good timing, then.”

Blood crusted their swords, shields, and armor, and their faces were grimy besides. Since splitting off from Yujin at Ground Zero, the Scraps had spent days slipping in and out of the mist to hunt monsters. He looked them over like the sorry sight they were, then dug out the provisions stashed in his subspace pouch and threw together a quick meal.

“This sweet-and-sour pork is incredibly crispy.”
“The starch concentration and the oil temperature are the key.”
“Bro. The sauce is unbelievably good, too.”
“That one’s store-bought.”
“…”

Ingredients like flour and starch came out of the pouch exactly as they’d gone in. Setting the Necropolis fog aside, on land where monsters respawned without end they’d never have been in any frame of mind to cook a meal. So when dessert turned out to be a cup of instant coffee, every one of them smiled, thoroughly content.

“Thanks to you, big bro, we ate like kings.”
“Loyalty, always, loyalty.”
“Senior. That’s my line, that is.”

Out on the monsters’ land, that kind of comfort was a rare luxury. A full belly and a warm back really were the best things going.

Once he’d seen the tension ease from the Scraps’ faces, he got straight to the point.

“You’ve been sorting through your thoughts pretty noisily, haven’t you.”

At that, the contentment that had melted across their faces froze right where it was.

“I’m not scolding you. I’m just impressed.”
“We figured that, as is, we’re not enough to work at your partner, big bro — the Black Company.”

Kang Minho bit down hard on his lip.

“Enough. I’m not telling you to go kill people.”

Someday the day would surely come when they’d have to stain their hands with another’s blood. Even so, there was no need to shoulder that weight ahead of time.

“Your resolve and your actions alone are enough.”
“Bro…!”
“Big bro!”

The three of them gazed at him, eyes shining clear and bright. Ugh. This was a bit much.

“That’s enough of the sappy talk. Saying it all solemn like this is giving me goosebumps.”

— Ahem.

Clearing his throat to shift the mood, Yujin moved on to the next matter.

“We’ve got a job to do, so pack your things.”
“What kind of job?”
“Phoenix and Arahan are running a joint gate capture.”

The group’s faces went blank. Kang Minho let out a long “ahh” and parted his lips.

“We’re joining the Phoenix side?”
“Correct.”
“Bro. Then aren’t we going completely against Arahan?”
“We’re already in opposition, the way I see it.”

Arahan clung to its standing as the nation’s number one with an obsession that bordered on madness. Burying Park Haneul out in the borderlands; before his regression, springing the trap that doomed Jang Miseon. Every move of it had served one purpose: to remove any variable that might cost the Arahan Guild its top spot.

‘The CEO and the vice-president both — they’re cunning bastards, every one of them.’

The one to watch most closely was Vice-President Baek Seonghyeon. He was the one who’d sprung the trap on Park Haneul, and of all the schemes Arahan had ever plotted, it was hard to name one the vice-president hadn’t had a hand in.

“It’s not like we didn’t know we’d crossed them.”
“Let’s just give it a shot. What the hell.”

Once the Scraps had finished packing, they set out.

He drew out the corpse of the Red Spider officer Choi Hyeongtae, aged now in the Profane Graveyard, and worked it into a Returner.

‘There he is.’

Picking Choi Hyeongtae out from among the spirits circling the Black Obelisk, he fused the soul into the corpse at once.

“So, how much stronger does an undead get when you breathe a soul into it?”
“For a low or mid grade, as long as the sync lines up, it can put out the skill it had in life.”
“Huh. Isn’t it common knowledge that even at the same Stellar Rank, an undead’s combat power falls a bit short of a Hunter or a monster?”

Kang Minho had a point. It made no sense for a dead thing, strayed from the natural order, to wield as much power as it had held in life. It was the high-grade undead, the Liches and Death Knights, that handled strength greater than they’d ever had alive; skeletons, zombies, and the rest of the low-grade ones came in well below their source bodies.

“I don’t go to this trouble for nothing.”
“Incredible, big bro.”

When Yujin crafted a corpse, he poured spirit-power into it to amplify its strength, leaving it able to put out twice the power it otherwise would. An army of undead whose inherent death-penalty, those lowered stats, had been remodeled clean away, until nothing but the strengths remained!

“Even the three of you charging in together couldn’t bring this one down.”

Choi Hyeongtae, raised now as a Returner, carried stats on par with the Fafnir that had once inhabited the freshly-made Draconian corpse, thanks to the crafting correction and the lingering aftereffects of the fusion.

Quasi-4th Rank.

He couldn’t wield a dark fighting-aura, but his raw spec could hold its own against three 3rd-Rank Hunters at once.

“Wow. Worse than a walking corpse, that stings a little.”

When Kang Minyeong worked herself up with fighting spirit, the Returner, Choi Hyeongtae, met that energy with a killing intent of its own.

“Eep. Sorry. My bad.”

She’d heard Yujin say the three of them together still wouldn’t be enough, so the moment Choi Hyeongtae worked his half-rotted jaw, she tucked her tail at once.

‘Tch. If I could do the procedure on him too, he’d be just right.’

Remodeling something into a mid-grade undead took more than bare bone or scraps of flesh, the way the Armored series did. A Revenant could only be crafted thanks to the peculiar nature of a lesser dragon-race corpse, and the procedure itself demanded a special catalyst, something like the Lump of Iron Steeped in Obsession he’d used on Jo Seungcheol, whom he’d promoted not long ago.

‘Next time I’ll have to ask Shin Junseok to make a house call.’

Lee Seungyeon, too, he worked into a Skeleton Mage. Once that fusion was done as well, he gave the two undead their orders.

“You two will guard the Necropolis here.”

— W-we, obey, your command.

Such was the wretched end awaiting those who made an enemy of a Necromancer. To be worked like slaves even after a gruesome death was the only road left to the pair of them.

‘As long as that Eye-Patch bastard doesn’t show, the defense should hold.’

Even if Fafnir were destroyed, the Life Force Vessel could bring him back; those two, though, were finished the moment they broke even once. Recover so much as a bone fragment and restoration was still possible. But if Eye-Patch came barreling in, even that hope was gone.

‘Even so, I can’t give up the Necropolis now.’

Shielding the Black Herb farm from the monsters made the Necropolis’s defensive strength essential. He might lose the two undead, but for now that was a risk he had to swallow. If he meant to build his faction up in earnest, there was no choice but to shoulder it.

Kronos’s gloating laughter circled idly through Yujin’s mind.

His business in the borderlands wrapped up, he headed back to Seoul. At the Yongsan Hunter Market the Scraps offloaded, in one clean sweep, the byproducts and mana stones they’d gathered over the past several days of hunting, and Yujin picked up a few catalysts of his own, the kind that went into undead procedures.

“Nothing worth using.”
“There’s no place in the country like the Hunter Market, though.”

To Yujin, measured against the future he remembered, none of it came close.

Once the small resupply was done, the group crossed over to the Phoenix Guild’s headquarters.

“You’re the Scraps, correct? Allow me to show you in.”

A man and woman in jet-black suits welcomed the group as they stepped into the headquarters building.

“The Scraps?”
“That’s the team that crushed that Song Myeongseok, isn’t it.”
“Arahan’s Supernova?!”
“The Hunter business has been in an uproar over that team as it is.”
“Especially the Priest-line Hunter — they say his summons is monstrously strong.”

The eyes of the Phoenix Hunters passing by fixed on the group. Astonishment, jealousy, envy: a muddy torrent of feeling, good and ill alike, surged up as though to swallow them whole.

‘I know those looks well.’

Yujin stood there composed, sweeping a haughty gaze around the room. Whenever his eyes settled on someone, the Hunters glanced away and pretended they’d seen nothing. The higher one climbed toward the summit, the more such looks became as ordinary as drawing breath.

And what would you do if I didn’t seem heroic?

He nearly fired off a retort, then held it in.

‘Hm. That’s not boldness — they just don’t have the wits to spare to mind it.’

Yujin furrowed his brow.

“I didn’t expect to be received by the Phoenix Guild.”
“Wow! This is amazing!”
“I’ll never forget today!”

Like country mice fresh off the bus and gawking at the big city, the Scraps were too busy gaping around at the guild’s facilities, eyes shining with eagerness.

‘Why is the embarrassment mine to bear?’

— Haa.

He vented the sigh rising from the pit of his chest, careful not to let it show. The group was shown through to the guild’s executive conference room.

“If there’s anything you need, please say so. We’ll wait outside.”

The escorts took up their posts at the door; past it, only those granted permission could go any further.

When he pushed the door open and stepped in without hesitation, a familiar woman seated inside threw her arm up in a broad wave.

“Over here!”

The future of the Phoenix Guild, the next Sword Saint, a Hunter who answered to a handful of other titles besides: Jang Miseon greeted the group with a bright face.

The Scraps ducked their heads, looking awkward, while Yujin, for his part, dropped into the seat across from her with a sullen face.

“Quite a flashy welcome you laid on.”
“That’s the guildmaster’s doing. He says he’d love to bring the four of you into Phoenix.”
“This capture. Since the guildmaster’s taking part, you’re not going to name some outrageous condition, are you?”
“Oh, come on. If that were it, I wouldn’t have asked you in the first place.”

Jang Miseon waved her hands in protest.

“But say, didn’t Master come along?”
“You’re being serious right now?”
“The only one who gave me a realization on that level was Master Fafnir, you know.”

Yujin furrowed his brow.

“If the Phoenix Guild instructors heard that, they’d be hurt.”
“What can you do. There’s no star instructor like Master in our guild.”
“The country’s number-two pride is going to weep.”
“Heh. Owning up to what isn’t so is the cooler thing to do.”

Maybe it was a blessing that Phoenix Guildmaster Kim Yeongsu was running late. Good-natured as he was, he didn’t seem the sort to sit quietly through that kind of talk to his face.

“He’s busy for a while, so he can’t come.”
“Master Yujin. Then what about the gate capture?”
“The Scraps and you. The five of us will have to do it.”

True, Fafnir was Yujin’s single greatest asset. With every buff stacked and the Dragon-Scale Armor on, he matched the very peak of the 5th Rank, and with cheat-tier traits like Eye of the War God and Martial-Mage layered over Fafnir’s own innate skill, his combat power reached clear into 6th-Rank territory.

‘Even without Fafnir, a capture’s well within doing.’

There was Jo Seungcheol, the quasi-5th-Rank magic-line undead. Beyond him stood holy spells that punched above their grade, even if a few screws rattled loose up there. And at the core, a Necromancer’s bread and butter: necromancy itself. His forces were more than abundant.

“This gate capture. Did Phoenix propose it, by any chance?”
“The opposite. Arahan brought it up.”
“You lost to Song Myeongseok, didn’t you.”
“You didn’t know? I got a chance three days ago and we had a rematch — I won.”

Jang Miseon threw out a ta-da and flashed a V with her right hand.

‘So that’s why a double gate appeared.’

‘Yeah. To be precise, you’d have to call it House Romanov’s scheming.’

The Sorcerer King Dmitri was an absolute being who bent the world’s rules, its providence, even its very foundations, by sheer will. Odin, his patron Constellation, had handed down to him countless fragments of knowledge and secret arts.

‘The method to artificially fuse two gates is one of them.’

One thing had become clear: in this timeline too, the Arahan Guild had joined hands with House Romanov.

‘If history had run its original course, Jang Miseon overtaking Song Myeongseok would have happened quite a bit later.’

And yet a ‘history’ existed in which Jang Miseon had died in that double gate. If the same situation was taking shape now despite the timing being different, then the natural conclusion was that someone was steering the variable.

He was still turning it all over in his mind.

— Creeeak.

Through the open door stepped a solidly built middle-aged man, a little under 170 centimeters by the look of him.

“Thank you for accepting the invitation. Scraps.”
“Ph-Phoenix Guildmaster! It’s an honor to meet you!”

As if on cue, the three of them shot to their feet and bent at a full ninety degrees, while Yujin, by contrast, did no more than dip his head a touch.

“No need to stand on so much ceremony. A friend of Miseon’s is like a nephew to me.”
“A friend… you say?”
“What’s the matter. We agreed to be friends while we sparred, didn’t we.”

At Kang Minho’s nonplussed look, Jang Miseon kicked up a fuss and steamrolled the rest of his words.

Ah.

So she got us into the capture by introducing us as her friends?

’…Kim Yeongsu. You actually went along with such a ridiculous excuse.’

Even before his regression they’d fought side by side to bring down the Arahan Guild, so Yujin knew at least that Kim Yeongsu was a decent man. But still. He’d actually gone along with Jang Miseon’s claim that they were friends and slotted them onto the gate-capture team.

‘He wouldn’t have done it without some calculation, though.’

Word that the Scraps had beaten Song Myeongseok had already made the rounds of the Hunter business. Folding the group into the capture was, in its own way, a kind of insurance.

“Hahaha! Look after Miseon well. Tomorrow’s capture — coming out safe matters more than winning, so don’t push yourselves too hard!”

An astonishing volume of sound, for a frame that small. Maybe the man wasn’t so much good-natured as simply an idiot.

Yujin pressed his fingers hard against his temple.