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Baek Ho had already scouted the surroundings in advance.
Thanks to that, a rough map formed in his head, and he could estimate the sniper’s position from the direction the bullets were raining in.
About 900 meters away, the tallest building around.
Or somewhere near it.
Because he’d chosen what he thought was a safe zone, pinpointing it wasn’t difficult.
Bang!
Another bullet thudded in.
Judging by the impact, it was an anti-personnel round, not for demonic beings.
From the finely crafted bullet on the ground, it was clearly a top-tier product made by Hades.
“Here!”
Frank stomped the ground upon spotting Baek Ho.
He flew over and stood by his side in a burst.
“W-what is this! Where are we!”
Frank’s eyes went wide as he looked around.
The bright pouring sunlight made it clear they were outside.
But his head spun with confusion—what was Baek Ho’s urgent expression about, what was the large shield-like shell, and why were people crying behind them?
“What the hell is going on…”
“We’re outside.”
“I know… that’s why this is ridiculous.”
“I’ll explain later, fight first.”
“Understood. Brief me.”
“Wait a moment.”
Baek Ho brought up his Smartbone screen.
He opened the spell catalog he had received from X.
He rechecked the spells related to the Calamity Bird.
There weren’t many usable at his current level, but fortunately he could use the spells necessary for this situation.
He cleared the screen and conjured the image of the Calamity Bird.
The terror etched from their first meeting.
The helplessness felt before an awe-inspiring being.
He used his black magic power as a medium to open a channel connected to the spirit realm.
“Open Point.”
His right hand, turned pitch black, reached out beyond the building.
He formed the Calamity Bird’s seal and demanded a summon.
“Descend,”
He poured black magic into the channel.
Announcing the location aloud, he drew the Calamity Bird’s power into the present world.
『Calamity Bird’s Dark Gaze.』
A small hole opened in the air.
A faint metallic scent of blood wafted out, and a crow slipped through and shot into the sky.
Caw—
When he closed his eyes, his gaze connected with the crow.
Its vision was several times sharper than a human’s and its field of view wider; for a moment he felt dizzy.
The crow, given his will, flew higher.
The ruined city spread out beneath it.
It detected movements racing toward this place.
About twenty humans with white skulls painted on their faces.
Among them, four moved like Reapers.
There was likely a necromancer nearby too.
‘Where are they…’
He ordered the crow.
He sent it toward the expected spot.
Soon a low-rise, fifteen-story building appeared.
Near the broken wall on the roof, two people—one man and one woman—were visible.
The woman had her eye on a sniper scope; the man sat relaxed.
Seeing an Agony Drink in the man’s hand, he deduced that the guy was the necromancer.
He quickly explained the enemy size and entry routes to Frank.
As he used the spell and shared his thoughts with his familiar, his black magic melted away like snow.
“You got that?”
“The problem’s the sniper. Those rounds hurt.”
“Even if you can’t eliminate him, I’ll distract him.”
“Understood. Start when you give the signal.”
Baek Ho dispelled the spell and looked at Frank.
He gave a fist bump as a way to say, ‘Be careful.’
Frank’s bumped expression was awkward.
He could understand.
Waking up to find himself outside and being ordered straight into combat would be disorienting.
He might be startled and upset.
And Baek Ho knew a perfect way to resolve that.
“Frank, you’re fighting right now to protect I_Vu.”
“…What are you talking about? Have you been drugged?“
“Look over there.”
Baek Ho pointed at the large scale beside them.
Frank, unusually, frowned.
I_Vu, all of a sudden?
It was out of the blue, but Baek Ho wasn’t the type to joke about things like this.
“Don’t tease or I’ll get mad.”
Frank trudged over to the scale.
Thanks to his big size, he didn’t even need to tiptoe—he stuck his head beyond the scale.
He saw Nana in the chaos, terrified and crying.
A brief silence.
A sudden tremor.
The hallway in front of the office.
The meeting with Nana that he’d thought was a dream.
Baek Ho’s voice followed.
“I received a request to take Nana outside.”
“……“
Just then a sniper round flew in.
Kwaaang-!
This time it didn’t hit the scale.
Instead, it exploded in Frank’s grip.
“You crazy—you’re catching that?”
“…Yeah. Crazy.“
Through the smoke of the magical blast, Frank’s head slowly turned.
His eyes wide, nostrils flaring.
With a demon-like face he glared toward where the bullet had come from.
Like a locomotive about to go berserk.
No, like a nuclear warhead about to detonate.
“…I’ll kill them. I kill for I_Vu.“
A deep blue glow ran along his King Kong legs.
When he bent his knees, the ground dented.
He launched forward like a shell.
With penetration came a notification window flashing before Baek Ho’s eyes.
{Familiar ‘Friend’s’ magic output is reaching maximum.}
Frank barreled forward.
A bullet flew at him, and this time he rolled forward to dodge it.
He resembled a gorilla escaping a zoo.
“Nice effect.”
Baek Ho closed his eyes again.
He linked with the crow’s sight.
Just as the sniper who had spotted Frank was about to pull the trigger.
He sent the crow to the sniper’s face.
- Kyaa! What is this!
- What, what is it!
While the Reapers and the necromancer panicked.
Frank reached the attackers.
He opened his mouth wide and shouted.
Roughly, a string of curses.
He mercilessly swung two Necroshells at the startled attackers.
Heads were torn off, waists severed.
They were crushed and smashed like garlic in a mortar.
- Get that crow away!
- W-wait a moment!
The crow dodged the sniper’s dagger this way and that.
It’d be ideal if it stayed stuck like this until Frank’s massacre finished.
The problem was Baek Ho’s black magic power.
{61% remaining.}
Baek Ho lit a black cigarette.
He inhaled deeply and turned over plans in his head.
Frank had the advantage in the fierce battle happening in front of the building.
Not only at max Necroshell output, but his whole body was filled with conviction.
But the sniper’s presence was dangerous.
If he was hit in a vital spot in a blink, even Frank could be fatally wounded.
So they had to eliminate him.
They had to use their own sniper.
“Chicken!”
He shouted at the scale beside him.
As expected, there was no response.
“Damn…”
He dismissed the Calamity Bird’s Dark Gaze.
He went around the scale and entered inside.
It was still pandemonium.
Nana sat in a corner sobbing, the Chicken Mask and Pig Mask were frantically tending to Cow Mask’s wounds.
Baek Ho grabbed Chicken Mask by the arm and pulled him up.
“Didn’t you hear me?”
“Let go of me!”
When Chicken Mask tried to wriggle free, Baek Ho clutched his collar hard.
“Listen properly. If this goes on, you’ll all die.”
“Fuck… We could’ve stopped it… You have something, right…?”
“Snap out of it!”
Chicken Mask fell silent at Baek Ho’s shout.
“Grab your gun quickly and follow me.”
He pushed Chicken Mask backward.
Then he looked down.
Blood was streaming down from under the Cow Mask they’d been wearing.
He reached out and removed the mask.
A face covered in burns was revealed.
Nana, who had been sobbing, flinched in surprise, and Baek Ho spoke softly to her.
“Do what you can. At least pray for him.”
This time he looked at Pig Mask.
After a moment’s hesitation, Pig Mask spoke.
“It might be kinder to end his pain quickly.”
Baek Ho left them with a ripple of meaning and stepped out from under the scale.
Chicken Mask stood waiting with a sniper rifle.
“Follow me.”
Baek Ho and Chicken Mask ducked into the same cover.
“From now on I’m going to kill the bastard who shot your comrade.”
“…Yes.“
He formed the seal, summoned a new crow, and sent it flying back to the building.
The sniper remained, but the necromancer was nowhere to be seen.
The sniper was attacking Frank.
He seemed flustered and overexcited, perhaps because things weren’t going his way.
“Two o’clock. The tallest building.”
“……“
Chicken Mask shifted his muzzle following Baek Ho’s command.
He pulled the trigger at the sniper.
Bang—
The shot whizzed past the sniper’s face.
Baek Ho frowned and glanced sideways.
Chicken Mask’s finger on the trigger trembled.
He still hadn’t recovered from the shock.
“I’ll do whatever I can to save him. So you take the revenge.”
“…Yes.“
Baek Ho closed his eyes again.
The opposing sniper turned his muzzle and aimed this way.
Perhaps surprised to be under attack, he tried to move to another cover.
Baek Ho didn’t let him.
He sent the crow to interfere.
- Oh now!
“Now.”
Chicken Mask pulled the trigger.
This time he hit the head dead-on.
“Done. The vessel is cracked.”
“……“
“You help Frank here. I’m going to your comrade.”
“…Sir, necromancer.“
“Why?”
Chicken Mask shrugged and knelt before Baek Ho.
“Please… don’t turn him into Undead…”
“So you want me to leave him to die?”
“Bakado… He would want that…”
The Liberation Army is a group formed by Awakened who fled because they didn’t want to become Reapers.
They don’t necessarily hate the Undead, but they hate the idea of becoming Undead themselves more than death.
“…Alright.“
Baek Ho roughly understood what they meant.
“Then there’s nothing I can do for him.”
“Kuh…”
“But I won’t give up.”
A necromancer is human too.
Unlike the Undead, they can die easily, so the academy teaches first aid and emergency surgery.
For themselves and for other commanders.
That didn’t mean he was confident.
Black magic is poisonous to ordinary humans, unlike necromancers.
“Necromancer…”
“You do your job.”
He handed the sniper rifle to Chicken Mask and turned away.
He took a portable flask from his pocket and opened the lid.
He gulped down the poison and went back under the scale.
And for a moment he couldn’t move at the scene that unfolded before him.
“What is this…”
Pig Mask stood frozen, dagger in both hands.
Nana had her hands clasped together in prayer.
“…Wrap him in your light, and in that warm light let him be fully restored…“
A dark radiance flowed from Nana’s body and seeped into Cow Mask.
The wounds healed very slowly.
“Huh…”
Slow as it was, the wounds were definitely closing.
It wasn’t coating like an emergency potion, nor stitching like LifeGuard’s nanomachines.
It was regenerating the cells themselves.
As if a necromancer were healing an Undead.
“…Your shining… kuh…“
Nana spat blood.
A symptom caused by insufficient black magic stored in the vessel.
Baek Ho quickly approached her.
He didn’t fully understand the situation, but he knew it had to continue.
He decided to do what he could.
Namely, lending his black magic power.
He couldn’t directly touch the vessel in a Reaper’s body with a separate administrator, but he could do so indirectly.
“Keep going.”
He placed his hand over Nana’s hand.
He funneled his black magic into her body, not the vessel.
“…With your merciful touch, soothe his pain…“
The dimming darkness regained its strength.
The murky glow deepened, and a faint radiant cross appeared behind her head.
This time Pig Mask could see it too; he dropped his dagger.
“…Shine your light on the wandering, that they return into your glorious embrace…“
The more the rhythmic prayer continued, the more powerful darkness poured from Nana’s body.
It absorbed Baek Ho’s black magic faster, and Baek Ho pumped in more to match it.
“Damn…”
It wasn’t enough.
Because he was sending it into the body, not the vessel, consumption was too rapid.
In the end he had to pull up even the musty core black magic buried deep in his heart.
{!Warning!}
{Minimum reserve level not met!}
{Recommend cease of use!}
{19%… 18.9%… 18.8%}
Not mist-like black magic but thick, muddy black magic bled out.
It reached Nana through his hands.
“Aah…”
Nana’s eyes widened.
Receiving directly what she’d only felt indirectly made her heart pound more fiercely.
It was ecstasy, like smelling sweet food and finally putting it in her mouth.
“Focus.”
At Baek Ho’s words, Nana closed her eyes again.
Sinking deep into the black magic, she parted her lips.
The murky glow intensified so much that it seemed as if only around her had turned to night.
The faint radiant cross grew clearer.
“…Shine your light upon the places eaten by disease, wash all pain away with bright life…“
Nana felt comfort and warmth.
She’d prayed countless times before, but she’d never felt this.
If before it felt like echoes into the void, now it felt like an answer from a god.
She sank deeper and deeper.
She was intoxicated by the moment.
She immersed herself in Baek Ho’s black lake and swam.
As time passed, the luminous prayer lines filling her head blurred and evaporated.
“…that they return into your glorious embrace…“
Her recitation sped up and her self began to dance.
Her self, which had been floundering and tossed about, began to run wild.
Like a rogue filly off the leash, it started rampaging here and there.
“…be lightcasting the world anew to then vanish as…“
Her speech slurred and the old version of her consciousness collapsed.
And another version of her awoke.
Not the one who clung to piety. Not the one who fretted about losing so much. Not the one who tiptoed around others day by day.
The version lying at the bottom, observing, suddenly snapped her head up.
She climbed into the driver’s seat of the ownerless self and slammed down the accelerator.
“Shitfuck!”
“…?“
“…?“
Baek Ho and Pig Mask were startled by the sudden profanity.
Then, instead of a prayer, a soft singing voice flowed from Nana’s lips.
“I’m Undead so I don’t get fat~ Plastic surgery, fuck it~ You, go look in a mirror~”
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