Chapter 201
Chapter 201
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 201
Chapter Title: Chapter 37: One Day on the Battlefield (5)
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“Your weapon’s short, but does that mean your arms have to be short too? How long ago did I point that out, and you’re still doing it?”
“It’s not like bad habits disappear overnight just because you decide to fix them…”
Kim Yul muttered, his lips pouting.
Of course, he shut his mouth the moment I turned and glared at him.
“…I’ll pay more attention.”
“You’d better.”
Next up was Yang Tae-ho.
“You too, hyungnim. Your hit rate’s lower than expected. Looks like it’s under seventy percent even at a glance.”
“Erm…”
“Especially when targeting joints—the failure rate’s high there. How much has your blunt weapon skill proficiency gone up?”
“Ahem, it’s, uh, gone up by a full three percent compared to last week…”
I hadn’t just been swinging my spear and killing monsters during the fights.
Checking my party members’ combat abilities and spotting their bad habits was part of my job too.
I crossed my arms and started tapping my foot as I looked at the two, who’d suddenly gone quiet.
‘Looks like both of them got a bit complacent after hitting gold badge.’
Not hard to understand. A gold badge body is that impressive.
It can even give you that omnipotent feeling like you could do anything.
But you can’t get drunk on it.
‘Start getting satisfied like that, and you’ll fall behind in no time.’
I had no intention of letting my party members lag behind.
“Starting today, personal training during night watch shifts.”
I was already pushing hard on training to evolve my mana control—proficiency was maxed at 99.99%—into mana dominance.
Time to tighten their schedules too.
Yang Tae-ho let out a groan at my firm tone, like I wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Kim Yul, meanwhile, gaped and fired back in a panic.
“Hyung, don’t you have any conscience at all?”
“Conscience?”
“Expecting us to match your level is already heartless! We should get to rest on night watch!”
As Kim Yul yelled, Yang Tae-ho, who’d been silent until then, nodded vigorously.
I looked back and forth between them, utterly dumbfounded.
Had they gotten chummy over the past few days and decided to stage a protest?
If I’d known they’d team up like this to defy me, I’d have ignored all the relationship-building nonsense and kept things as they were.
I wasn’t about to tolerate defiance against my decisions in the party.
You have to nip that kind of disloyalty in the bud early on.
I kept my arms crossed and tilted my head slightly.
“So?”
“So what?”
“You saying you can’t do it?”
“Of cour—!”
Kim Yul flinched and trembled as my gaze met his head-on, cutting himself off mid-word.
“Of course?”
“Of… course I’ll do it. With full effort.”
Good. That was the answer I wanted.
I uncrossed my arms in satisfaction, just in time to hear Yang Tae-ho grumbling.
“Aigoo, talks a big game about trying harder behind my back… but he’s no different from me.”
Kim Yul shot him a sharp glare and whispered.
“At least I tried to fight for our freedom.”
“Such heroic effort, truly.”
“What’d you say? That a sarcasm just now?”
I let out a chuckle as the two started bickering openly.
Clearly, some backroom deal had gone down without me knowing.
But today, they’d learned it was pointless.
I was about to wrap things up and move on when a chat message popped up.
- Lily: K, we’ve got a攻略 schedule set.
My eyes widened slightly at Lily’s message.
I reviewed it against our existing plans for a moment.
“Looks like.”
“Huh?”
I turned to my still-bickering party members.
“We need to pick up the pace a bit.”
Like I said, I don’t tolerate party members going against my decisions.
* * *
Main Scenario Chapter 6, which had started about a week ago, was entirely up to the players.
The cultists hadn’t entered any contaminated areas that counted toward main scenario contribution.
Which meant more mana available for victim players to absorb than before—true enough.
But there were clear downsides too.
“Damn it all!”
Boom, boom-boom!
The ground shook so violently it was hard to even stand still, desperate shouts echoing amid the tremors.
While purifying a 6-star contaminated area, the monsters had suddenly started converging on one spot.
Down there at the base of the low hill, the number of gathering monsters easily surpassed ten thousand at a glance.
Just massed together, they were intimidating enough.
But the beasts caught their breath, sorted their ranks, and charged.
“We have to hold them!”
“Who doesn’t know that?! If we don’t, we all die here!”
“Tanks! Tanks!”
Like a tidal wave crashing in, thick clouds of dust rose up.
Anata’s face went pale at the sight unfolding before her.
‘So, purifying a 6-star contaminated area with just players really is impossible?’
4-star and 5-star areas hadn’t been too tough for players to clear.
Parties had started banding together into major clans.
Even two or three clans could handle a 5-star clear.
But the 6-star one Anata was in was way beyond what a single party or clan could manage.
MISSION
[Contaminated Area Purification ★★★★★★ (08-1633785)]
Eliminate all enemies within the designated area and destroy the Meseo.
• Meseo (2/79)
[Rewards]
Choose one of the following.
• Mana 160, Reputation 8
• Attribute Mana 80, Reputation 16
※ This contaminated area counts toward contribution for Main Scenario Act 1, Chapter 6.
Level-wise, it was an 8th-level zone—the main stage for the main scenario.
Monsters there numbered at least a million, up to several million at peaks.
Places that had been tackled with tens of thousands of cultists now fell to players alone, so worries cropped up everywhere.
That’s why the Player Association stepped in hard on the 6-star issue.
After a full day of talks, they reached a consensus and announced a simple plan.
Lower-grade contaminated areas would stay self-managed by individual parties as before, but for 6-star ones, participating parties were to assemble at designated sites by the announced dates.
攻略 order for 6-star sites across regions was set too.
Anata’s party followed suit, arriving at the scheduled western assembly point on time.
Over nine thousand players had gathered here alone.
They’d clear step by step toward the central Meseo.
Across all 6-star sites, that meant tens of thousands of players minimum.
So she’d thought the purification mission itself wouldn’t be hard.
But seeing the monster horde surging like a tsunami made her realize how naive that was.
Her mind went blank for a second as she asked herself.
‘Why am I even here?’
It had been months since she’d been suddenly dragged into this game of killing or being killed by monsters.
Until moments ago, Anata had felt a sense of duty.
To stop the disaster that could hit Earth anytime.
To keep these monsters from overrunning her family, her country, the world.
She wanted to hit gold badge in this scenario and protect Earth.
Sure, there was also the shallow desire to live luxuriously on Earth with loot from Bihar.
But none of that lingered now.
“Ah…”
The scene before her eyes had the power to paralyze such idealistic thoughts in an instant.
Anata stared blankly ahead, like a doll with its soul sucked out.
“Barrier!”
Then, with someone’s shout, massive rocks erupted from the front line in a frenzy.
Anata snapped to, looking around in a flinch.
“We’re alive!”
“Regroup in this gap! Regular players, fall back and prep for melee!”
“Wind attributes, get ready now!”
Association players shouted orders, and boom, crunch!
Chilling echoes followed as something shattered and broke.
The charging monsters had slammed into the massive barrier formed by the tanks.
That’s when Anata finally noticed something off.
The rock tanks’ barrier was irregular.
Not packed tight in a narrow zone, but spread wide like a maze.
Why cast magic like that?
She got her answer soon enough.
“Vanguards breaking through!”
Some lead monsters punched through the tanks’ sparse barriers.
“Ah.”
It was to scatter them.
So the horde beyond wouldn’t crash through if one wall fell.
Monsters emerging from or bypassing the maze-like barriers would be dispersed.
‘The Association didn’t just gather players.’
They were directing the whole battle.
Hope reignited in Anata as she gripped her sword tighter.
Unfortunately, with no attribute of her own, she had no chance to shine.
Whoosh, shwoosh—!
Wind from somewhere sliced into the monsters that had slipped past the barriers.
Multiple players linked up, unleashing spell after spell nonstop.
An insane number of monsters died.
So many corpses piled up there was barely room to step.
“Wh-what?”
But why were even more monsters still left?
Anata’s eyes trembled as she stabbed a lucky survivor that dodged the spells.
No illusion. The monsters that should’ve thinned out were multiplying.
They shoved through the tanks’ barriers relentlessly.
“Area-of-effect ready yet?”
“Hah?! Mana’s not even full!”
“You think spells are that quick?!”
Most players who’d chained those big area spells earlier were out of mana.
Even if it recovered, casting took time.
And picking them off one by one? Impossible now with the numbers.
‘At this rate, everyone’d have to kill dozens each.’
That kind of disparity made tactics useless.
Even the Association rep commanding the western site knew it, face grim as he opened his mouth.
“Fa—fall ba—gurk!”
But before he finished, something like a black worm burst through his chest.
Looking closer, something stood beside the player.
Small stature, waist-high.
Whip-like arm stretching four or five meters.
Slightly protruding monkey snout.
Thick fur hide with rough texture visible at a glance.
And finally, those red eyes unique to monsters—no pupils.
“G-General grade!”
A general-grade with eight stars overhead had appeared.
It wasn’t the only one, dropping silently from thin air.
Twenty 7-star general-grades emerged amid the swelling regular monsters.
“Th-this suddenly…?”
Detection mages should’ve been reporting the whole time.
How had no one warned about this many generals approaching?
Too panicked, Anata missed that the 7-stars were pairing up, holding something.
No room to notice anyway.
Rip—!
“Huh…?”
Right then, a tearing sound rang out.
A split-second later, the player three steps ahead of Anata split open sideways.
She blinked once, and red blood fountained from the bisected body.
“Weak. Kuruk. Hurry. Clear the path.”
The lead 8-star general spoke human tongue, but it didn’t register.
The prior sight hadn’t sunk in yet.
Sadly, the 8-star wasn’t waiting for her to catch up.
Raising its whip-like arm suggested as much.
It swung, and another rip echoed.
This time, she knew it was flesh tearing.
Anata stumbled back, collapsing to her knees.
Before such overwhelming difference, morale broken meant the outcome was set.
Then someone yelled, pulling the trigger.
“You idiots, fall back!”
Players scattered every which way.
Silver badges suddenly recalling that clashing generals was suicide.
“Block them from reaching the silvers!”
Gold badges rushed forward instead of fleeing silvers, weapons raised against the generals.
But things looked bad.
Only five or six association-marked golds stepped up directly.
The rest retreated with the silvers.
“My mana’s not full yet!”
“Spells barely work on those bastards anyway!”
“Dive in expecting hits!”
“Damn, why’d they come this way?!”
“We’re outnumbered—evade!”
Amid the shouts of blockers versus fleers.
Anata, trembling on the ground, sank back into despair.
‘Even if they each take one, victory’s not guaranteed.’
That’s when she learned what pitch-black despair felt like.
The general raised its arm again.
Anata stared blankly as it arced down toward her, pierced by the unreal sight—like watching from afar.
Which let her catch the hand entering her view.
And the player snatching the evolved beast’s arm with his own.
The player who’d wrapped the 8-star’s arm with his smirked from one side of his mouth.
“Where you off to in such a hurry?”