Chapter 299
Chapter 299
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 299
Chapter Title: 119. Tools (6)
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The bold, raucous footsteps that had been approaching suddenly halted just in front of the warehouse, then resumed in a cautious, stealthy manner.
That brief pause and shift were good news for us.
It meant one of them had detection abilities.
They'd been informed of our position in advance and planned to swarm us all at once.
The stealthy footsteps soon underwent another variation.
Explosive, violent sprinting sounds.
Tak-tak-tak-tak-tak!
Just one person.
Probably the boldest among them, some kind of charge leader.
"You bastards!"
He stopped right before the wall we were hiding behind, posturing as if he might leap out at any moment to intimidate us.
Maybe he was trying to check our armament.
In an era where everyone was armed with at least a gun or a crossbow, it made sense.
As discussed beforehand, we held back on using firearms and took a few steps back.
A split-second silence fell again.
And then.
Thud!
Shockwave.
The Awakener cultist unleashed his power.
A flawless over level 5 shockwave.
"Go. Go. Little by little. Little by little."
A faint North Korean accent seeped into his speech.
Thud... thud...
Hesitant footsteps aligned and approached right in front of us.
"Here we go."
The footsteps split into two here.
The leading steps echoed from behind, while the following ones closed in on us from right ahead.
Like someone chanting the verse and the rest singing the chorus.
"......"
I signaled Defender.
No guns.
I'd read the Awakener's mind.
He was advancing bit by bit with his comrades inside the maximum range of his reflective barrier, planning to push in forces armed with melee weapons under its protection.
It was a tactic worth trying if an Awakener was on the team.
But they'd picked the wrong opponents.
Lurking in the warehouse were two beasts.
Beasts well-versed in close-quarters combat against countless humans.
"Hey there, cuties?"
A cultist emerged under the barrier's protection.
A tall man with broad shoulders radiating raw power grinned, revealing a gaping black hole where his front teeth should have been.
We charged.
From both sides.
The man raised his arms, baring his teeth, but he held no weapon.
Just brass knuckles.
He'd probably beaten countless people to death with them, building his confidence.
Squelch!
"Aaaargh!!!!!!"
A human fist is weak.
What makes humans strong isn't the fist—it's the grip and the shoulder strength connected to it.
I buried an axe in one of the man's arms, then swung the other at his screaming throat.
Squelch!
I looked beyond the collapsing man.
Defender had stabbed a dagger into another cultist's neck.
He shoved the already-dead cultist aside and lunged at the one following.
Crack!
I caught a glimpse of Defender taking down his second cultist with a slight time lag.
One problem remained.
I faced forward.
The level 5 Awakener had drawn dual pistols and was aiming at us.
Bang! Bang-bang-bang!
Retaliatory gunfire rang out the moment we ducked behind the warehouse cover.
His accuracy didn't seem great.
From the way bullets ricocheted in absurd directions.
But someone with a gun always had the edge over those without.
Relying on their mistakes and charging in bare-handed was a desperate last resort.
"Y-you bastards?!"
That didn't mean I'd let him walk away.
I gestured to Defender, who was taking cover behind the wall across the entrance.
Defender nodded and poked his body out the entrance.
Bang-bang!
Instant retaliation, but Defender had only peeked briefly.
"Hey! Hey! Hurry up!"
The Awakener called for backup.
Beneath his frantic scream, I heard hesitant footsteps retreating.
Click—
I readied my gun and stepped out this time.
"Argh!"
In the dim light, I clearly spotted the man aiming his gun.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
What I was waiting for was the sound after the gunfire.
Click-click—
His magazine was empty.
Defender grabbed a corpse from behind the wall and hurled it out the door.
Bang!
That was the last shot.
Both pistols were out of ammo.
Hearing the futile click of empty triggers, I burst out the door.
Thud!
The man's face turned pale as he tried to unleash a shockwave, but my eyes measured the distance between us.
5 meters.
The minimum range for the Awakener's reflective barrier.
It could shrink a bit more, but never converge to zero.
Even the monster he'd mimicked was bound by that minimum range barrier.
"Stay back!"
I closed to within 4 meters and opened fire.
The cultist pulled his trigger, but only my gun barked.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three rapid shots.
Beyond the falling man, I saw cultists surrounding us from all sides.
Fortunately, only a few had automatic weapons.
Most were armed with melee gear.
Sensible in zombie-infested areas, but here it played to my advantage.
I retreated leisurely into the warehouse in full view of them.
I glanced at Jang Gi-yeong.
The brief but fierce commotion hadn't affected him at all.
Under the rusty lamp's glow, he worked tirelessly on his "secret weapon."
I exchanged looks with Defender.
We kicked the corpses on the floor, piling them conspicuously at the entrance.
A barricade meant for shock value.
There were at least thirty cultists outside.
If they charged en masse, prepared to lose a couple, even we would have a tough time.
But that rarely happened.
Everyone has only one life, and it was an equal condition for them and us.
Who'd want to die, after all?
I could feel the desired effect spreading among them.
No response.
With the Awakener included, we'd wiped them out in seconds—must've crushed their morale.
But they wouldn't retreat.
Too many for that.
They'd probably deliberate and try something else.
"Instructor."
I called out to Jang Gi-yeong.
"What is it, Park Gyu."
"We're short on time."
"Got it! Got it! I'll make it quick! Almost done! Damn it! I have to make one for Daram too! Where's Daram? Off gossiping about U Min-hee, Jang Su-ji, Ko Jeong-ah, Han Yeo-ul, Na Hye-in, and who knows who else?"
Jang Gi-yeong sighed.
"Why does she live like that? Why compare herself to others over pointless things? Even with a body blessed by the gods, that nasty temperament keeps her from rising up!"
Whatever else, my mentor had Kim Daram's true nature nailed down.
Even in this brief lull, the cultists were busily plotting their next attack.
"Call more brothers! We need more brothers!"
A woman who seemed like the commander shouted orders from behind a vehicle.
I confirmed her through the mirror.
The cult leader wore flowing white robes covering her body, adorned with elegant calligraphy reading "All Streams Return to the Source, Unifying the Chaotic World" in blood-like hanja.
"Is that the Heo Jun you've been chasing?"
I asked Defender.
"No, Heo Jun's a man, for starters."
Defender's gaze shifted to Jang Gi-yeong.
In the end, the root of this mess was Jang Gi-yeong.
With the detector dead, escaping via the back route would be much easier now.
Every second we dragged this out hurt us.
"Can't we just grab the principal and go?"
"......I'll talk to him."
Then Jang Gi-yeong yelled.
"It's done! All done!"
He snatched up the object on the table.
"......"
It looked no different from before.
Two metal cylinders joined together—an inexplicable contraption.
Grinning broadly at me while holding the worthless thing.
"Professor. Look. This is it. This."
"What...... is this?"
"A General-type specialized weapon."
"I see."
"That's right. With this, Generals or whatever—no problem. We real hunters can take them down! With this!"
I had no idea what it was.
How could that crude junk slay a monster never once hunted?
Against the monster among monsters that drove an 11th-level North American hunter mad on an attempt.
More horrifying than Jang Gi-yeong's noseless, zombified face were his thoughts.
As I stared in dismay, he straightened up and bellowed like a drunk.
"Hey, you punk! Park Gyu! Everything I taught you was solid knowledge. I know what you're thinking!"
"......"
"You think I'm wrong again, huh? Yeah, I know. You think you're right and I'm wrong. Treating me like a con artist. Huh! You think I don't know you inside out?"
"......Instructor."
He knew.
He'd known and pretended otherwise.
Despite knowing my cynicism, he'd welcomed me warmly at that rented apartment and left me his notebook on the brink of death.
Vehicle engines rumbled from outside.
Cultist reinforcements had arrived.
Defender's magazine change clicked clearly in the silence.
"Watch closely."
Breaking the shackle-like silence, Jang Gi-yeong spoke.
"I'll show you. The real-world power of the new tool I invented!"
"Instructor."
"Ah! Just wait! It'll be quick! Just pour in the fuel here!"
The man who'd been roaring like the warehouse would collapse now beamed innocently.
"You'll be shocked. Haha! Yeah! Even the great Professor will be!"
Thud—
Something dropped behind me.
Reflexively, I identified the object on the floor.
A grenade.
Without hesitation, I lunged forward, snatched it, and hurled it out the door.
Boom!
The grenade exploded mid-air.
"SKELTON."
Defender stared at me with faint alarm.
I nodded and raised my gun.
"Let's hold out a bit longer."
The dead man's stubbornness wouldn't last forever.
Just a little more.
Just a little.
"Waaaaah!!!!"
A roaring cheer accompanied the cultists' mass charge.
They weren't fools; no straightforward assault.
Thud— thud— thud—
Several lethal objects landed inside the warehouse.
We abandoned cover at the entrance and retreated deeper inside.
Boom! Boom!
Grenades detonated in sequence, one spewing thick smoke everywhere.
Smoke grenade.
Through the haze, shadowy figures with various weapons loomed.
"Cease fire!"
I yelled to Defender and fired.
Bang!
Aim point: the distant ceiling through the smoke.
No shockwave triggered.
"Fire!"
Rat-tat-tat!
Rat-tat-tat!
Our guns blazed in unison.
The merciless automatic fire mowed down the cultists in the smoke.
"Uwaaaah!!"
A few burst out of the smoke.
Bang!
One bullet silenced them.
We repelled the second wave.
As the thick smoke cleared, piles of corpses and writhing wounded appeared.
A leg-wounded cultist glared with bloodshot eyes, trying to say something.
Bang!
Defender finished him with a pistol shot.
"About twelve down."
Counting bodies quickly, Defender reloaded his rifle.
I checked outside.
Dead silent.
Through the mirror, I saw cultists shrinking back.
They'd finally realized who we were.
But these cultists had an ace up their sleeve.
"Brother Heo Jun! Call Brother Heo Jun!"
The cultists began chanting a bizarre incantation in unison.
It sounded like Chinese; even if Korean, I wouldn't have understood.
Ting-a-ling—
With a bell chime, a grayish-white monster emerged from the darkness.
A monster.
Its grayish body covered in indecipherable hanja, led by the cultists toward us.
"What the hell is that?"
Defender muttered at the monster.
I didn't know either.
Unfamiliar type.
But if my memory served, it was first discovered in China.
A new breed right before my retirement.
Lǚ Bù in Chinese pronunciation. Lü Bu in Korean.
Small type. Combat form.
Not infiltration type.