Chapter 118
Chapter 118
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 118
Chapter Title: Encounter (2)
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Hecate had brought the things she favored.
A wolf the size of a mid-sized car, with what strangely looked like human limbs attached.
The form-shifting slime Ricardo had faced in the Colosseum.
A mineral race that, at a glance, appeared to be just a massive rock.
They were creatures that were generally loyal and easy to control in groups.
The slime had virtually no will of its own, while the wolf and the mineral race lived in packs.
Meaning they could be controlled simultaneously. When war broke out, the Empire's forces would lead such creatures into battle.
The neat formation unique to controlled creatures.
Hecate stood before them, using one form-shifting slime as a shield as she advanced.
A hail of fire poured down.
“Are you acquainted?”
Yoon pulled the trigger swiftly and precisely, bursting the translucent slime.
He nodded in admiration at the sight of nailing a shapeshifter that was barely visible.
“Yes.”
“Any peculiarities?”
“She was an Imperial master smith.”
She halted in the middle of the road.
And lifted her head to look straight at me.
Her gaze hurt.
Contempt and hatred boiled in her orange eyes, reminiscent of amber.
“She was a noble knight as well.”
“Can you kill her?”
Gunfire and explosions, the sounds of muscles tearing and bones shattering, and the seniors' screams of “Fuck, it looks exactly like a human!”
Even amid that, Yoon's low voice rang clear.
It might sound at first like a question out of consideration for me.
But I read boredom in that low tone.
“Or should I clear the way for you to kill her with your own hands?”
“The latter, please.”
I wasn't confident I could beat her one-on-one right now.
“If you're willing to accommodate...”
“Are you confident you can definitely win one-on-one?”
“Uh, no.”
The senior, who hadn't taken his eyes off the creatures, whipped his head around.
His face was hidden by the badger mask, but I could too easily imagine his expression.
But I couldn't lie.
“What do you want me to do?”
Yoon said after a brief silence.
“What do you want to do?”
“I'll contribute as hard as a rookie can to securing the win.”
I replied while firing diligently.
I had no idea where the bullets I shot were flying.
I wanted to use my sword. I wanted to jump down and charge at Hecate.
But leaping to the ground under a barrage of bullets and bombs didn't seem wise….
I debated hiding my true feelings but decided to be honest.
“I have no intention of charging out in excitement at meeting an old acquaintance. But I want to deliver the finishing blow.”
“I've spoiled you too much.”
My master clicked his tongue.
“When we get back…”
Thud.
A heavy sound came from behind me.
Thud. Thud.
My eardrums, numb from the bombs, throbbed with pain as if they might burst.
The excited seniors froze in place all at once. Even the creatures steadily closing the distance while piling up corpses halted their steps.
Hecate herself stopped her quiet advance and turned her gaze.
I turned my head as well, taking in the thing that filled the background.
“Uwaaak!”
Jerry Jones's scream echoed.
“What the hell is that?!”
A giant.
To be precise, a necromancer possessed by a giant's specter. It cast darkness over the building, blotting out the moonlight.
It stood three stories tall.
It approached with heavy footsteps. The asphalt heaved with each step.
The massive armor clanked, producing a sound like it was tearing the air. The rusted chains on the helmet covering its head swayed wildly.
You'd been lying forgotten on the decayed city floor.
Covered in accumulating dust, not even breathing. Forgotten by all until Hecate's call summoned you here.
Things that could be awakened but which most of their kind could not control.
Yet once awakened, they inevitably brought great chaos to the battlefield.
In the necromancer's right hand was a sword as tall as a two-story building.
The tip of the sword, which no human could ever lift, scraped the road.
The giant closed the distance in a single bound.
The quaking earth.
Boom!
Screams erupted from the building.
“Uwaaak! It's coming!”
“What is that thing?!”
“Hey.”
Yoon stepped on the rooftop railing and gave orders.
“Jump.”
No sooner had he spoken than the necromancer stopped in front of the building.
Slash.
And the building was bisected diagonally.
The sword's path began at the fourth floor and ended at the first. Yoon and I jumped to the adjacent building simultaneously. I felt the ground give way beneath me, but we weren't too late.
We landed on the next rooftop.
The original building collapsed along the sword's trajectory.
Like a skull sliced diagonally, the building's cross-section lay exposed before us.
“Uwaaak!”
A human's lower body's cross-section.
“Aaak! Fuck! Fuck!”
“Mashu Sarin, deceased.”
As Gale Dawson stared in shock, Yoon reported coldly.
“Mashu Sarin, killed in action in Sector 7.”
Mashu Sarin's body had been severed along with the building.
Instant death, no doubt. Even a badger couldn't survive such a wound. The cut was clean. The severed upper body was nowhere to be seen.
Probably buried in the building rubble.
The remaining lower half toppled limply to the ground.
Blood and organs spilling out.
The giant raised its sword again.
“Aaahhh!”
Jerry Jones let out a final scream and leaped from the building. Isaac abandoned the convulsing Dawson and raced down the stairs. Lucia Kwon and Jo McDonald stupidly gawked up at the massive sword.
Seizing that moment when attention was diverted, Hecate dashed toward the badgers.
Sylvia and Leonard, who had escaped the building at the same timing as me, charged at her.
I too vaulted the rooftop railing and jumped.
“Hecate!”
I slid down a building pipe and landed.
I couldn't stop the wolf from pouncing on the badgers on the first floor, but I could at least draw Hecate's gaze.
“I—”
Boom!
Everything ahead turned white.
My breath caught.
My entire body was engulfed in searing white pain.
Ah.
It hurts.
I exhaled the breath I'd been holding.
It had been this fast.
Blood burst from me along with coughs. I spat out bloody phlegm frantically and gave a bitter smile.
If I hadn't parried the sword strike with my dagger, I wouldn't have woken up.
Panting, I narrowed my eyes.
People appeared in my blurry vision. Two figures now stood before me, embedded in the building. One glared at me as if to kill, the other had their back to me.
Hecate, preparing her third strike.
Choi Yoon, who had blocked her second strike.
Sensing her opponent's skill, Hecate didn't move rashly.
The sociopathic pair who had been charging at her were now slaying the intervening creatures.
“Rookie.”
My master called me.
I forced out a voice clogged with blood.
“Yes.”
“I'll grant your wish.”
Yoon held a grotesquely shaped gun in his right hand.
Aiming it at Hecate, the man raised his left hand and tapped his ear.
“Split up.”
Yoon's voice came through the comm in my ear.
“Leonard, you and I take the giant.”
[Got it!]
An excited voice replied.
[What a delightful mission!]
“Sylvia, you and Hilde take down phase nine.”
Sylvia, who had been butchering wolves amid the rubble like a dancer, twisted her body.
Silver hair scattering amid the spraying blood.
Boom!
The giant's massive sword split the asphalt in two. The other seniors fled the giant while firing wildly. The area where wolves, slimes, and the giant mixed was total chaos.
Amid the mayhem, Sylvia stood with a white smile as she removed her helmet.
The senior was drenched in crimson blood.
[Got it.]
Sylvia replied with a laugh.
[I prefer them closer to human anyway.]
“Thank you.”
I should express thanks for the orders too.
I discarded my crushed dagger and slowly rose. After brushing off the cement fragments covering me, I tossed my helmet aside.
The inside was damp and unpleasant from the blood I'd vomited.
My field of vision opened up all around.
“Farewell.”
I gave my regards, but Yoon barely acknowledged it as he issued his next orders.
“The rest of you, mop up the small fry.”
[Request air support! Request air support!]
[Fuck, fuuuck!]
[When's the portal opening?]
Lucia's voice leaked through.
Her previously fierce tone was thick with fear.
[I want to go back….]
The comms cut off.
Yoon lowered his left hand. Silence fell in an instant. Just twenty paces from the melee near the collapsed building. Despite being only that short distance away, this spot felt eerily quiet.
Hecate, not twitching a muscle, and Sylvia extracting herself from the melee by picking off creatures one by one.
My master, whose right hand moved with ghostly precision.
Yoon's left hand went to his waist.
“Here.”
I jawed the incoming sword.
“Yours.”
It was Noll's sword.
I'd swung it every training session since Seung-hyun gave it to me. I hadn't been permitted my own weapon yet, so I hadn't brought it.
Or so I'd thought.
I gripped the hilt and grinned.
“Thank you.”
“Sector 5 reinforcements are en route here.”
Yoon explained without taking his eyes off Hecate.
“Hold out until backup arrives.”
Truth be told, I wanted to finish it before reinforcements came.
I didn't want to see her caught by those elite seniors and torn apart by lead. Hecate was a master smith, but unlike Reina or me, she couldn't absorb the life energy of living beings.
She couldn't keep regenerating indefinitely.
Moreover, this operation included badgers born for battle. By the time seniors of Yoon's caliber arrived as support, Hecate's survival chances would be nil.
So I had to wrap this up before the seniors arrived.
I gripped Noll's dagger firmly and resolved myself.
I knew it was presumptuous greed, but I wanted to end it with my own hands. Just as she had longed, to cross swords without interference, and meet our ends on each other's blades.
But such sentimentality had no place on the battlefield.
This was truly a coward's wish.
I knew that full well. I knew it all too well. I had no right to desire anything.
But still.
I just….
“Going.”
My master tossed those words and vanished from sight.
Rat-tat-tat!
The senior deftly slaughtered creatures as he moved away.
With him gone, Hecate came into sharper focus.
The old master smith staring at me with eyes full of hatred.
I swallowed my emotions to keep my heart from tearing at the surging memories.
「Long time no see.」
Until Hecate spoke to me in that ancient tongue, just as she had back then.
「My captain.」