The Battle
The leader's roar to chase him down finally got them moving, inch by inch — and another man dropped. Not everyone was carrying a shield, and the sniper seemed to be picking off the unprotected first.
"H-hide behind the shields!"
At someone's shout, two or three people ducked behind the ones holding wooden shields.
A man with a shield took a pellet in the leg and went down. There was a moment of milling chaos before someone behind him snatched the shield up. But they already knew it wouldn't stop a bullet. What if they got hit in the leg too? Should they just curl up and hide where they stood? Then they'd never advance.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The leader emptied his pistol toward where the sniper ought to be. Everyone knew those shots weren't going to hit a thing.
A man who'd torn a wardrobe door off its hinges took the lead. The door was big enough to cover most of a body, and five or six people filed in behind it, using it as cover.
They'd been advancing for some time when they stopped. A pellet from a diagonal angle had dropped someone in the back row. Of course — unless you were an idiot, all you had to do was shift your angle a little and everyone behind the shield was wide open. There was a reason great shields had never beaten guns in history.
Then a noise came from the rear.
Five or six people could be seen running off somewhere. Everyone knew those men had been close from the start. Now that the group was in danger, they were saving their own.
The sight of them fleeing sent another three sprinting off in a different direction.
"Th-those bastards! I'll shoot anyone who runs myself!"
Bang!
The pistol cracked and one of the fleeing men went down. But at the same moment another air-gun pellet came in, and someone else dropped.
The leader shooting from behind them, pellets flying in from the front. Cold sweat poured off them. They had no idea what to do. It was enough to drive a person insane.
"Run! I said run, you bastards! That's how you get close to him!"
The leader bellowed at the top of his lungs. People were moving, but they were only walking, and slowly at that. It was a tactic that made no sense to begin with. And these weren't even soldiers — they were all just ordinary civilians.
"I said run!! You morons— ghk, gahhk!"
The leader's scream tore out of him. People whipped around in shock — someone was driving a knife into his back. One of his own inner circle. A man who'd appointed himself a bodyguard.
He stabbed again and again to make certain, then snatched the pistol off the fallen leader and took off running.
"P-Park Seung-chan is dead!"
The cry rang out, and another man went down to an air-gun pellet.
It was over. You couldn't beat a man with a gun when all you had were knives. And that man's stamina and tactics weren't even in the same league as a Standard Human.
The organization began to come apart. People poured away in every direction, fleeing for their lives.
"Run!!"
"D-don't push!"
Their belongings and food were still in the Residential-Commercial Apartment, but staying alive came first. They had to get out of sight and get away as fast as they could.
Even as they fled, people were still going down to the air gun. They had to run with everything they had.
While everyone else scattered, Hyeon-gyeong started running into the Residential-Commercial Apartment.
I have to free the women they're holding.
She knew they'd lost the moment Leader Park Seung-chan died, but she couldn't let the women being kept as sex slaves get dragged off by someone else. There was no one but her left to set them free.
But the moment she plunged through the commercial entrance, someone spoke from behind her.
"That's far enough."
Deputy leader Kim Hyeok-su was hidden behind a pillar, a pistol leveled at her.
"W-what are you doing... Everyone's running away."
"I'm going to land one last counterattack on that guy. Dig a trap. I need you to cooperate."
"You know we can't win."
"That's because that bastard Park Seung-chan was an idiot. Do as I say. Take your clothes off."
"What? W-what are you..."
"Your body and face are way better than any of the women we brought in here. I really regretted never getting to have you. That guy won't just walk past you naked either. Don't worry. If he's a man, he won't just kill you."
"So I'm supposed to distract him while you shoot?"
"That's right. I'm confident I'll pull it off. If you don't cooperate, a bullet goes through your forehead. After that I'll just leave your naked corpse out to draw his attention anyway."
Hyeon-gyeong trembled, her fists clenched, but there was nothing she could do in front of a man with a gun.
Just as Kim Hyeok-su had said, she had the kind of striking looks that had made her a talking point as a model in her university weekly. Still, it had been fortunate that she'd come into this group in a protected position as a pharmacist.
When the long-haired woman pulled off her top, her figure was immediately on full display. You could tell her full, heavy breasts had actually been hidden by her clothes.
"Bra and pants too."
"This is enough, isn't it?"
"What kind of sex slave wears an outfit like that? Didn't you see the women we're holding inside?"
She gritted her teeth and stripped off her bra and pants as well. Round breasts that would fill a hand and then some. A wide-hipped ass, lifted into a perfect apple shape, and a pair of panties with a teddy bear printed on them.
Looking her over, Kim Hyeok-su let a lewd grin slide across his face. The urge to rip those panties off and shove himself into her right then and there hit him hard — but right now he had to focus on killing that man.
Once he killed him, he'd make this woman his too. Then he'd gather the scattered members back together and climb into the position of the new leader.
After putting another air-gun pellet into a guy pretty far off, I reloaded fast. He'd taken it in the thigh — he clutched his leg, staggered, and went down.
I wasn't about to let a single one of them walk. They'd attacked me, and now they were nothing but experience points.
I came up to the front of the Residential-Commercial Apartment and looked at the dead leader lying on the ground. The pistol he'd been carrying seemed to have already been taken by someone.
It had ended more easily than I'd expected. I'd been prepared for the fighting to drag on until tomorrow or the day after, but they hadn't been able to hold out against a night of guerrilla attacks.
Even if it was just an air gun, a gun with that kind of range was still powerful. No — maybe the quieter air gun had actually been more terrifying.
I put pellets into the heads of the men lying on the ground, finishing them off one by one. A small hole opened in each skull, and the lumps of meat gave a brief shudder before going still.
The number I'd killed overnight was around thirty. I'd actually hit more than that with the air gun, but those ones didn't seem to be dead yet. Besides that, a considerable number had fled. Roughly half of them, I'd guess.
They'd probably figured there was no chance of winning if they kept fighting, so they ran fast. They weren't soldiers to begin with, so their morale was never going to be high.
Now that Super Regeneration had passed 100, I could feel my regenerative power had climbed considerably. Every little wound on my body had already vanished completely. I was clean.
I walked slowly into the commercial entrance of the Residential-Commercial Apartment. Had they all completely fled by now?
The moment I stepped inside, some woman was standing there naked. More precisely, she was covering her breasts slightly with her hands, wearing nothing but a pair of panties. They had a teddy bear printed on them, which didn't match her sexy body at all.
"P-please help me."
I snapped the air gun up and aimed it at her. But she was naked, and she had no weapon of any kind.
"Who are you? One of the women they captured?"
"Yes, that's right... I've been held here this whole time."
She was quite a beauty. Her figure was model-tier too. But something was off. For someone who'd been held as a sex slave, she was pretty clean. Almost no visible injuries. And she was naked but wearing panties? In movies they wear panties because of the censors, but in reality...
Then I saw her pupils shift toward something behind me. It was the kind of eye movement that happens instinctively when your gaze is drawn to something, even if you don't mean it to. I spun around fast.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A pistol cracked, and I threw myself aside. A man was hidden behind a large pillar, emptying a pistol at me.
I moved my feet, opening the distance, and the guy came out from behind the pillar and charged.
I fired the air gun immediately. He dumped his pistol in rapid fire.
The pellet punched into his stomach. But he didn't go down. He was holding on.
He clicked the empty pistol a few times, then pulled out a round and started reloading.
Rather than reload the air gun, I ripped a knife from my thigh and hurled it at him with everything I had. His pupils blew wide at the blade coming for his face. A heartbeat later it was buried dead-center between his eyes, and he went over backward.
The speed of that throw, the accuracy — both were beyond anything I could have imagined back when I was just myself.
I felt blood running on my body and checked myself. Two shots in the stomach, one in the arm. I pulled out tape and slapped it over the bleeding holes to stop the flow.
The guy's shooting. His judgment. Both had been excellent. If I'd been a Standard Human, I might have gone down and died first.
I felt a gaze on me and looked over. The naked woman was staring at me with horrified eyes. Well. A normal human would have a hard time plugging bullet holes this calmly.
I walked over to the fallen man. He was dead with his eyes wide open. I took the pistol and rummaged through his clothes, turning up the ammunition. At least several dozen rounds.
I swung out the revolver's cylinder and fed the rounds in one by one. Six shots, all told.
"A p-person... how... why are you fine?"
The naked woman stared at me with shocked eyes and found her voice.
"I am a person. I've just got a high pain tolerance."
"Y-you definitely got shot... Kyaah!"
I walked up to her and seized her by the hair.
"Yeah, I did. So I'm going to collect the price for getting shot. I'm going to rape you and cut off your arms and legs one by one. No — you'd die too fast that way, so I'll start by cutting off your ears and nose. After that I'll gouge out your eyes."
"S-spare me... Ahh!"
I dragged her to a long table nearby, laid her down, and tore her panties off.
I shoved both her arms up over her head, pinned them with one hand, and spread her legs.
Her pink pussy, laid completely bare.