Chapter 1: E Between D And F - New Face (4)

As the crack in the door opened, Baek Ho frowned sharply.

“You bastard…”

A horrific stench wafted through the gap in the iron door.

The first whiff was just a mundane foul smell.

Then it quickly became distinct.

The scent of blood. Not just fresh blood, but blood rotten to the core.

Like cutting open fish entrails and slicing a finger, blood pooling on a metal sheet and rotting as it rolled with other animals’ guts.

It was a nauseating metallic stench of blood.

What followed was a stench any Underheaven citizen would recognize.

The rancid oil smell of prosthetics long overdue for maintenance.

The bitter tang of rusted metal.

On top of that, the acrid odor of burning carbon fiber was tangled into every corner.

Rotten blood and oxidized machinery.

When the two combined, the smell was more than violent, it was cruel.

The scent alone tore at Baek Ho’s nostrils and dragged out a memory deeply embedded in his mind.

Corpses of Reapers whose vessels had been destroyed and dissolved by a demonic being’s venom.

A young Baek Ho left alive in the middle of them.

It had smelled much the same back then.

“No… no… don’t!”

It was one of the traumas branded onto Baek Ho.

“Huff.”

Baek Ho exhaled and moved his familiar.

“Smash them.”

Frank kicked his right leg up high.

He struck the iron door with the magic-charged sole of his foot.

Kwang!

The door tore open with a powerful impact.

It flew backward, sweeping the people ambushing inside.

With heavy screams, Frank charged inside.

“Ughahk!”

The Surgeon’s severed head in Baek Ho’s hand burst into laughter.

It laughed loudly as if to boast that this was its plan.

“Ukakakak…”

Baek Ho swung the head at the wall.

With the sound of a melon splitting, the Surgeon’s laughter stopped.

“Crazy bastard.”

He tossed the crushed head aside.

As he drew a revolver from his pocket to go in, Mujin blocked his way.

“The necromancer is here. It’s dangerous.” (regional rough speech)

Mujin tied his hair up and followed Frank inside.

It was the start of a massacre.

Crack! Grind-

Smashing, splitting, crushing.

In the pitch-black darkness, the magic-charged change arm and axe blades swung every which way.

Like a bear and wolves in a pigsty at dead of night, they bit and tore enemy heads apart.

“Gyaaak!”

“Hit them all at once!”

Beyond the dark blue light, the enemies were visible.

A white skull pattern painted like a mask over their faces.

Bright red lenses sat where eyes should be, and mechanical bones protruded from their bodies.

“Tsk tsk.”

Baek Ho recalled the old necromancer necromancy he learned at school.

The summoned minion called the ‘skeleton,’ which is no longer used due to efficiency issues.

No.

The interior was spacious and the number of enemies was large.

About forty human skeletons fired guns and swung swords.

But they were no match for the Reapers.

Without even a proper scream, their heads burst and necks were cut.

“Hmm…”

Baek Ho furrowed his brow and focused into the darkness.

Something felt off.

The White Bone Society wasn’t some vagrant stepmother’s meeting; they were a fairly notorious gang.

They wouldn’t be this sloppy in preparing.

“There.”

In Baek Ho’s eyes, a crouched dark-blue aura was visible in the corner.

A Reaper of the White Bone Society was watching for the chance to strike.

He informed Mujin immediately.

Mujin’s axe blade halted.

He pulled another hand axe from his waist and threw it toward the direction Baek Ho indicated.

Thud!

It plunged exactly into the Reaper’s heart.

“…Oh.”

The interior was quickly cleared.

Baek Ho pulled a purification mask from his pocket and put it on.

Just as they were about to go inside.

A guest arrived outside the building.

---

Mujin’s thrown hand axe sliced the charging Undead’s neck.

Its vessel wasn’t destroyed so it wouldn’t die completely, but that didn’t matter much.

Unless a Necromancer showed up, it wouldn’t get back up.

Tat-tat-tat-

Bullets suddenly rained down and Mujin flung his body to the side.

Bullets that had lost their original target turned the backs of enemies in their path into honeycombs.

“Phew.”

Mujin had no Necroshell on his body.

There was a time when his body was covered in them, but he returned them all when he was discharged.

Now he only had basic prosthetics, so he ducked the bullets for the time being.

“Hurah!”

Frank came into Mujin’s sight.

He had turned his change arm into a broad shield and was charging fiercely from one end of the warehouse to the other.

He paid no heed to the flying bullets.

Like a bulldozer with a broken steering wheel.

It felt like brute force rather than technique.

“We don’t sync well.”

He didn’t have good coordination with Frank.

In this short time, their paths overlapped and it almost caused trouble more than once.

He’d rather fight alone.

Mujin shook off distractions and resumed fighting the enemies.

Just as the magic-charged axe blade split a White Bone Society member skull in two.

Bang!

A gunshot rang in his ear.

Not inside the warehouse, but outside.

Where Baek Ho stood.

“Damn it!”

Mujin turned his head quickly.

He pushed off the ground and ran.

He ran, cleaving the White Bone Society necks that blocked his path in half.

Sophia’s repeated pleadings came to mind.

‘Your mission is to protect the necromancer.’

‘Yes, understood.’

‘Remember. If you want to get paid by me, protect the necromancer at all costs. Got it?’

Money! My money!

Mujin arrived at Baek Ho’s location, out of breath.

He aimed a revolver up the stairs, wearing a scowl.

“What’s going on!”

“It’s a necromancer.”

“Yes?”

“There’s a Necromancer outside.”

Mujin followed Baek Ho’s gaze and looked up the stairs.

The building entrance leading up from the basement.

A corpse with a hole through its brow hung over the stair railing, and three people stood beside it.

Two men wearing the White Bone Society’s distinctive makeup.

A woman wearing a skull mask on her face.

“The woman is the necromancer; the two beside her are Reapers.”

“Damn…”

Having spent long years on battlefields, Mujin knew how significant the presence of a necromancer was.

It turned annoying tasks into dangerous ones.

Sure enough.

A White Bone Society corpse lying nearby creaked and stood up.

Its snapped neck returned to its original position and focus returned to its lens.

It was the necromantic core — ‘resurrection.’

“Fall back for now.”

Baek Ho and Mujin slowly stepped back.

A few steps later, an Undead lying on the floor sprang up and charged at Baek Ho.

Crack!

Mujin’s axe cleaved its brow exactly in two.

Earlier he had focused on quickly neutralizing them; now he concentrated on destroying their vessels.

“Hurah!”

Inside, Frank’s slaughter was in full swing.

Whether they revived with black magic power or not, he just smashed them.

He crushed anything in sight like mashing potatoes.

He wasn’t aiming for vessels, but with such wide damage, vessels were naturally crushed too.

“Careful!”

Mujin swung his axe behind Baek Ho.

A dagger got caught on the axe blade.

It was the doing of a Reaper who had had its heart pierced by the axe Mujin threw earlier.

“This just got damn complicated.”

Frank also approached and stood beside Baek Ho.

“What is it? A necromancer’s outside?”

“Yes.”

The dead Undead grotesquely resurrected and surrounded the three.

The arrival of the Necromancer instantly turned the tide.

The Necromancer wearing a white mask descended to the warehouse entrance.

She waved her hand briskly.

She spat out a sharp voice, acting as if she didn’t want to enter because of the smell.

“Who are you to make a scene in someone else’s place of business?”

“We’re looking for someone.”

The Necromancer snorted at Baek Ho’s matter-of-fact words.

She hadn’t yet realized Baek Ho was the necromancer.

“For a Reaper, your tone’s pretty cocky. Want me to pull your tongue out and plant balls in its place?”

“…This is why I hate talking to necromancers. They’re all psychos.”

“How dare you!”

At the Necromancer’s shout, the Undead moved.

They grabbed weapons and charged.

Perhaps ordered not to shoot, they ran in wielding only blades.

Frank stepped in front of the group.

He swung his limbs and they were swept away in a wave.

Mujin was about to start chopping when Baek Ho called him to a stop.

“Catch them for now. I’ll take care of it later.”

Baek Ho reached out his hand to Mujin.

Black magic power flowed out, touched a vessel, and immediately a notification popped up before Mujin’s eyes.

“…Baek?”

Mujin’s pupils trembled.

The only necromancers who bear the surname ‘Baek’ are them.

The bloodline of the first hero who left a mark on human history.

One of the seven necromancer families and the owners of the mega-corporation ‘Yeomra.’

Also known as the Baek family.

‘I heard Commander Baek had a son…’

Whatever the case, he knew that to resolve this situation he had to become a familiar.

The difference between a Reaper being under a necromancer’s control or not was significant.

Baek Ho’s black magic power was absorbed into his vessel.

The half-empty vessel filled with black magic power and connected him mentally to Baek Ho.

At the same time.

The trauma of the necromancer, the source of the black magic power, seeped in.

Crrrackle-

An indescribable, terrible sound echoed in his ears,

And Baek Ho’s usually expressionless scream rang out chillingly.

“Stop! Just kill me! Kill me!”

A scene flashed in his mind of Baek Ho holding a dagger, weeping tears of blood.

“Gasp!”

Mujin swallowed a sob.

A sharp pain struck his heart.

He had experienced bonding phenomena before when contracting with various commanders.

But he’d never encountered trauma shock of such intensity.

‘What sort of training did they undergo to become a necromancer…’

All of this experience passed in an instant.

The negative emotions of Baek Ho that had touched Mujin quickly faded, leaving only the deepest feelings.

A single tear rolled down Mujin’s cheek.

…What is this?

“What are you doing!”

Frank crushed the head of a charging Undead and shouted.

Baek Ho’s voice reached Mujin’s now-clear ears.

“Handle them.”

A short command, but its systematic intent was conveyed precisely.

‘The target is the Reaper looping around to Frank’s right.’

‘Use the gap between Frank’s arm and torso.’

‘The exact vessel location is 4 centimeters beneath the crown.’

‘Take advantage of their lapse in attention and finish it quickly.’

Mujin moved accordingly.

He hid his body behind Frank’s large frame.

He wrapped his hand around the axe handle.

He saw a Reaper sprinting around beyond Frank’s shoulder.

The moment the bastard aimed his sword at Frank’s ribs and reached out.

Mujin swung his axe through Frank’s armpit.

Crack!

The axe drove straight into the Reaper’s crown.

“Ha.”

Mujin was dumbfounded.

He had just thought it would be good if Frank lifted his arm to that degree, and Frank moved exactly like that.

Thanks to Baek Ho’s bond.

Considering how they had been getting in each other’s way in the warehouse earlier, it was absurd.

And that wasn’t all.

Baek Ho even had the wide field of view, one of a necromancer’s important virtues.

He could see the Reaper looping around in the chaos.

For a moment, he remembered Frank’s demeanor at the Undeadog factory.

Despite that clumsy bulk, he hadn’t missed a single Mad eater.

He must have been watched over by Baek Ho from afar, receiving one instruction after another.

Swoosh-

Mujin’s shoulder was cut by the sword the Reaper swung.

Because he’d glanced away for a moment.

The wound throbbed painfully, burning hot as it bubbled and seethed.

It was quickly covered with new flesh.

‘Regeneration is this fast too…’

Baek Ho’s necromancy was astonishing.

Bonding power, command ability, and even recovery.

It was so excellent that it was hard to believe he was in Underheaven, not ‘outside.’

And at such a young age.

‘Really… Is he Commander Baek’s son?’