LV.1 Guildmaster Ryu Si-beom [3]

The ogres had reached the front at last. Behind them, High Elves charged in as one.

Against the enemies pouring in, Gaon fought with perfect efficiency — and yet he could not be satisfied with himself.

The din of the battlefield made it impossible to locate the enemy by sound alone. It didn't matter.

He eased his face just over the lip of the trench, the muzzle of his rifle just as slightly, and fired in a rapid, unbroken stream. A single round of ammunition guaranteed a single enemy's death. He had emptied more than twelve magazines. By that count, Gaon had killed well over a hundred by himself.

It was a feat worthy of a war hero — but on a modern battlefield, heroes do not stand out easily. When thousands of rifles are firing at once, there is no way to tally who killed whom. And with bullets raining down overhead, nobody is going to poke their head out of a trench to watch the enemy die and cheer.

"That's one hundred and twelve kills!"

Since nobody else was going to acknowledge his score, he tried advertising it himself. There was no response. Jijonmussang and Lee Bok-dong were both too busy shooting to hear a word.

The Goddess spoke, as if she found him pitiful.

As her Glorious Great Warrior, Gaon was able to grasp the lofty meaning: she was mortified, so he should please keep his mouth shut and fight. In truth, even Gaon had to admit it was pretty embarrassing, so from then on he fought in silence. With an exceedingly gloomy face.

Level 20, now. Even among players who had fought until they were sick of fighting, it was a level that ranked among the very highest. But even this latest growth failed to stir any excitement in him.

There was something better than the joy of growth: glory.

Gaon wanted glory. He wanted the spotlight — the kind that made everyone look.

When what he wanted failed to come, he went on with his tedious, mechanical gunfire. And that was when a massive beast howled.

It was a dragon's roar — a sound of ancient pedigree, dating back to the day the first persimmon ripened in the orchards of heaven. The infrasound packed into that enormous howl briefly locked every body on the field.

Ugh…

Gaon, whose hearing was painfully acute, nearly went paralyzed outright. Even then, he did not panic. He had been through this about a hundred years ago. The primitive dragons imprisoned in that place had howled just like this, and each time Gaon had had to scrape past the brink of death.

Sound, of course, did not distinguish between friend and foe. The battlefield seemed to pause. Ogres, High Elves, humans — all of them frozen solid. The only thing still alive and moving in this place was that arrogant beast.

Even the players equipped with anti-tank weapons couldn't use their gear. They wanted to do something about the dragon flying straight at them, but they couldn't even move their hands.

While everyone's bodies were still tingling, the incoming dragon slammed into the trench wall. Its massive bulk crushed everything that had been hiding inside.

A thunderous crash. Dust billowing up. Cutting through that filth, a jet of fire more vivid than anything else erupted from the dust as if it had exploded into being.

An entire trench line was annihilated in an instant. The long, connected line of earthworks was reduced to a pit of hell that vomited nothing but smoke without end.

The dragon's body, veiled in smoke, was visible only as one enormous silhouette. A formless giant of a beast writhed ferociously within the haze. Then it beat its wings to take flight again. A dragon's wingbeat is a storm — and that is not a metaphor. The storm scattered the smoke in all directions, and the smoke hung before them like a screen.

In that moment of confusion among the artillerymen, the dragon began flying in once more. Even on this vast battlefield where no single person could easily draw the eye, its presence was the stuff of myth.

With every gaze locked on that dragon, the paralysis finally left Gaon's body.

"I'm going after that trophy. Cover me, will you?"

Lee Bok-dong nodded without thinking. Gaon smiled. And he ran.

In the history of As, dragons were a symbol of power comparable to a Swordmaster. Giants who cast enormous shadows upon the earth from an unreachable sky. To the people of As, they were as the manifestation of a god.

To the people of Earth, they were not.

A dragon's massive body was a convenient target for projected firepower. Its thick scales were sturdy enough to bounce arrows, but they peeled easily before an 88mm anti-aircraft gun. Their flight speed was slower than a biplane from the First World War, and their turning ability did not even bear comparison. So the sortie of a dragon squadron never once cost the great powers' armies their command of the sky. The exploits of ace pilots who shot down dragons were nothing more than newspaper copy proving the superiority of Earth's civilization.

There were, however, occasional exceptions: dragons whose scales were thick enough not to be punched through by machine-gun fire — dragons who had lived long enough for their scales to grow that thick.

Those aged dragons were armies unto themselves, and they had a habit of fighting Earth's militaries in open war. The armies of Earth's great powers could have rolled over As's forces and kept advancing with nothing more than eighteenth-century line infantry tactics — but because of the Ancient Dragons they were forced into tedious trench warfare, and forced to keep the battlefield wide. Otherwise thousands of soldiers would be crushed all at once beneath those enormous bodies.

One trench line had just been annihilated, but in practice the trenches were of some use against a dragon. At least if you were inside one, you didn't have to worry about being flattened by that bulk right away.

Hiding in the trench, Kim Jong-il thought as much. Step outside and there was a real risk of being rammed to death by that huge body. The dragon was flying far too close to the ground — low-altitude flight, to protect its belly, the most vulnerable part, the one not sheathed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in thick scale. In the open sky a dragon would only be surrounded by fighter planes far too fast for it to handle, and the dragons had, however humiliatingly, accepted this during the Great War: it was better to fight close to the earth.

Wingbeats that raised a storm. The wind pressure sweeping around the dragon made everyone flinch and duck. The dragon punched through layer after layer of trench line, flying for the rear artillery batteries.

This was allied ground, and allied ground meant the bombardment range of allied guns. The White Skull Unit's artillerymen, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tempered by dozens of real battles, boasted the finest skill. The artillery net tightened in an instant. Shells came in from far away and burst around the dragon.

A bang — and there was even a direct hit. The dragon had come to the field with protective spells layered over its thick scales, but it could not ignore artillery. The hits landed with real force. Scales went flying in all directions.

Even so, the dragon kept coming. The bombardment had only made it flinch for a moment. The distance between the dragon and the rear guns was closing fast. It looked as if they would not be able to stop it. At this rate—

In an era when anti-tank weapons were pitifully inadequate, the loss of the artillery was the end. Infantry alone could not deal sufficient damage to an Ancient Dragon.

Terror took hold of Ryu Si-beom. Nearby, close to the oncoming dragon, Kim Jong-il saw it: someone was running toward the beast.

What was he trying to do? Die faster? Or…

Climb onto the dragon's body?

It was a thought that would occur to anyone. But to Kim Jong-il, who had plenty of dragon-fighting experience, it was the act of a complete idiot. If a train hits you, you die. Even a graze will kill you. Likewise, if you try to climb onto a violently moving dragon, you die. That much is obvious.

Which is why Kim Jong-il could not understand what happened next.

The man who had slid toward the dragon did something. And a roar rang out.

It was the dragon. This one was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tremendous too, but it was different from before.

This was a scream. A scream of pain it could no longer bear.

Gaon looked at the dragon and took stock of what he had: a rifle, and a few swords of adamantium. He couldn't use Sword Qi in front of other people. That was fine. He'd killed dragons even in the days when he couldn't send Sword Qi spraying from his blade. Those dragons hadn't known magic, and they'd been halfwits without a scrap of reason, true. Regardless, he knew how to fight them. That was enough.

Gaon slid forward, straight toward the dragon. Right in front of it, he drove a sword into the ground with the blade facing up. As the dragon flew over it, a massive line of blood was drawn across the sky.

Given a dragon's size, he had only torn the hide of the belly a little. He hadn't managed to spill the guts inside. That was fine too. Exactly as he'd expected. The agony had made that body flinch.

The moment the wingbeats stopped, Gaon sprang. His feet touched the dragon's scales.

A dragon's scales are slick, packed so tightly together that the gaps between them barely exist. But Gaon stepped on those scales as if they were a staircase, step after step. In an instant he was on the dragon's back.

"Oh."

Apparently the dragon had prepared a defense of its own for the back its eyes could not see. The patterns carved into the scales along its spine flared, then scattered ice shards across its own back — like a Claymore mine.

And in all of recorded history, no Swordmaster has ever been killed by a landmine.

In a spray of fragments that seemed to leave no gap at all, Gaon found the gaps and ran. He reached the neck in an instant, held his sword downward, and swung.

Anyone with an eye for swordsmanship would have said that swing was not swordsmanship. It was merely work performed with a sword. But it was work more effective than swordsmanship. The enormous scales, made even sturdier by magic, peeled off at once and went sailing into the sky. Explanations involving the principle of the lever, or the precise distribution of force, would serve far better here than any lecture on the principles of the blade.

Into the gap where the scale had come away, Gaon stuffed the TNT he had brought with him, and detonated it.

The dragon was in pain, and its movement had stopped, if only for a moment. Thanks to that, people could see what was happening on its back. Those who saw it reported what they had seen. The reports reached the commander.

"What the hell is that… I think he might actually be a Swordmaster…"

At his adjutant's words, Ryu Si-beom snapped.

"That's what I said, you little shit. You didn't believe me?"

"No, I just…"

"We'll talk later."

To stay faithful to his role as commander, Ryu Si-beom started glaring at the radio again. But he could not concentrate on command. With shells bursting everywhere, his mind wandered.

Who the hell was that Swordmaster who had started butchering the dragon?

He was a Swordmaster — that much was certain. Someone of that caliber would have a reason to play this game, after all. Swordmaster Charmmahwang was excessively old, and wasn't that a problem this game's rewards could solve?

Some people claimed that the gods hanging such an absurd prize on a mere game was itself for Charmmahwang's sake. There was supposedly a special law in the heavens forbidding any god from transforming a specific human into a long-lived other race — a measure to keep the earth from overflowing with elves who had once been human heroes. And offering a race change as a game reward, while it might appear at first glance not to single out any particular human, was actually a scheme to circumvent that special law and turn Charmmahwang into an elf.

As evidence, they pointed to Gaon — who hadn't even fought in the Second World War — being inserted into the game, historical authenticity be damned, to stop anyone other than Charmmahwang from reaching the final objective and snatching the reward. Really, Gaon would have been the most suitable person imaginable as a guardian of the final prize. Wasn't he a Swordmaster with extremely limited methods of being dealt with even in the modern era? Facing Gaon with Second World War equipment was virtually impossible.

So how would you take Gaon down in this era?

You needed a Swordmaster. Only a Swordmaster could defeat Gaon, who was single-handedly holding back a nation's army, and claim the final reward. And the only one who could mobilize a Swordmaster for a mere game was Charmmahwang — whether by playing it himself, or by having some other Swordmaster who hoped Charmmahwang wouldn't die of old age play it in his place.

Thinking about it, it wouldn't be Charmmahwang himself. He already said he was an elf, and more than anything that man would be busy performing his presidential duties. He doesn't need to play the game himself as long as he's got the guildmaster title, so he'd have asked some other Swordmaster with time to spare. Then who?

Ryu Si-beom had a deep interest in this question. He let the thought run on.

Looking at the personality, it wouldn't be Gaon… and it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wouldn't be Hago either. That bastard wouldn't be able to use Gaon as an alias. It could be a Death Knight of Swordmaster origin sent by the commie skulls — but given that he said he was close with Koreans, it's probably one of the three Wood Elf Swordmasters, isn't it?