Chapter 300
Chapter 300
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 300
Chapter Title: 119. Tool (7)
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Avoid engaging unknown types in combat.
That's the ironclad rule for hunters.
The honor of fighting unidentified new monster types falls only to the most experienced and seasoned hunter teams.
Back in my active days, dealing with new monster types was always our job.
But time has passed. I've lost my old edge, and the brilliant comrades who used to guard my side have vanished somewhere.
I'm not trying to belittle Defender.
He's better suited for anti-personnel combat than taking on big monsters.
The biggest problem is that this Yeopo type is a combat variant.
Combat types live up to their name—they're specialized for battle.
They don't use minions, but they make up for it with overwhelming personal combat prowess, inflicting devastating damage on their enemies, especially humans.
The new breed I faced on Jeju might have been a combat type too.
The real issue is how a combat type—not even an infiltrator—survives in this hostile Earth environment without getting wiped out. But honestly, the whole situation defies common sense from the start.
Right in front of me, my supposedly dead mentor is zombified and tinkering with bizarre contraptions. A psychopath like Defender is risking his life to protect me. And monsters—humanity's enemies—are being used as human tools.
The most absurd part? That I went along with my deranged mentor's stubborn whims.
The old me—the Professor that Jang Gi-young remembered—wouldn't have given it a 1% chance.
But in this dreamlike reality of a midsummer night, anything can happen.
So for now, I'll ignore why that combat type is obeying the fanatic.
Thud!
The monster approaches.
Unlike its name borrowed from the historical figure Lu Bu, it doesn't resemble a human at all.
It supports a disc-shaped body with sixteen long legs, each with three or four joints.
Why this Herbert George Wells Martian-lookalike is called Yeopo is a question for the now-vanished Chinese who named it.
Well, they loved giving names.
They even slapped their own labels on existing monsters already discovered and named in America.
I still vividly remember one being called the Guan Yu type.
The key point is that all I know about this type is its appearance and role.
I have no idea how it attacks or kills humans.
I'll find out soon enough. It's launching something.
A grayish-white disc.
I don't know the principle, but it's hovering on its own.
"SKELTON."
"I see it."
Maybe I should have gotten intel from my residents.
No, that wouldn't have worked.
I couldn't have anticipated this situation back then.
This is a risk I brought on myself.
Vrrrrm—
The monster launches another disc.
Two, three, then five.
They take position in the air beneath its sixteen radially spread legs, one after another.
This doesn't feel good.
"Threat incoming!"
Following protocol, I alert my teammate and unleash Intimidation.
Bang!
Just close enough to graze.
My question gets the answer I expected.
Thud!
Shockwave.
And then.
Whizz—
The chilling sensation of a bullet whizzing past my head.
Clang!
The bullet ricochets off Jang Gi-young's scrap heap.
As metal plates reminiscent of cymbals scatter inside the warehouse, the discs move.
Vrrrrm—
The discs fly toward us.
In a single-file formation.
"Drones?!"
I agree with Defender.
Those are drones.
Nothing else comes to mind.
"Fall back!"
"Uh, yeah!"
"Threat incoming!"
I unleash Intimidation at the discs.
Bang!
No reaction.
But in that split second, the discs close the distance at terrifying speed.
The moment I see them swarming toward me, a familiar drowsiness tugs at my eyelids.
Is this it? Am I finally heading there?
To where my friends, comrades, and the people I let die are waiting.
"......"
No, not yet.
Not yet.
I still have things to do.
Things I must do.
Gulp!
I watch the approaching discs.
Vrrrrm—
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Full auto.
The discs drop one by one, but one slams straight at me.
I swing my axe and knock it away.
Crack!
Holding my breath, I glare at the one I struck with the axe.
"......"
No explosion.
And my axe worked.
The struck disc writhes with its multiple sharp maws—meant to kill me—before scattering into golden particles.
"......"
This isn't the end.
No, it hasn't even started.
If that's a "combat type."
And sure enough.
Vrrrrm—
The sixteen-legged monster had already spat out over ten discs from beneath its body.
"Defender."
I call out to him.
"Yeah."
"Can you Intimidate?"
"Uh, well."
He doesn't sound confident.
As expected, he's not the man for monster fights.
"Then can you intercept the discs?"
"That I can do."
"Be careful. Don't shoot the monster. You might punch a hole in yourself with an unintended reflex field if you're unlucky."
"What are you planning?"
"I have an idea."
Warehouse structures are all pretty similar.
I'll settle this on the roof.
It's an extremely dangerous tactic—even the great Jang Gi-young forbade it.
But it looks like the only way.
I leave my back to Defender and dash for the roof.
"Park Gyu!"
A dark shadow blocks my path.
Jang Gi-young.
Blocking me at the most critical moment.
Clutching his mystery junk like a sacred relic.
"Take it! It's done! I've completed the secret weapon that will give you wings!"
I try to push past him.
He blocks me again.
"Try it now. Come on, try it. See that monster? Perfect fit! Here! Use my new weapon, Icarus!"
"......Instructor."
No time for jokes.
I'm not humoring fragments of a dead man anymore.
I might have thought about it once, but with my life on the line, my selfishness screams louder inside me.
"Park Gyu. Use it."
"Enough!"
I shout without thinking.
Loud enough to make the whole warehouse ring.
But the echo of my yell is drowned out by.
Rat-tat-tat! Bang! Bang!
Urgent gunfire.
Bang!
I add one shot to the barrage.
I drop the second wave of discs.
I look at my mentor.
"......"
The zombie—zombie of all things, in my mentor's form—wears a baffled, shocked expression.
I squeeze my eyes shut and push past him.
"Just look at this......"
Jang Gi-young pulls the lever I assume is the switch.
Psssh—
The device lets out a pathetic wheeze like a deflating accordion and flops to the floor.
I ignore him and press forward.
The rooftop.
A sea-scented wind brushes my hair and cheeks.
I sprint up the steeply sloped broad gable roof and lock eyes on the monster.
Vrrrrm—
The plot thickens.
That's the phrase for this.
The monster now deploys an uncountable swarm of discs.
Roughly thirty, by my estimate.
"There! He's there! The heretic!"
The fanatic hasn't spotted me yet, but the monster has.
They possess most of an Awakened's abilities innately.
Detection is one of them.
The discs take flight.
Most heading my way—meaning the monster sees me as a prime threat.
I switch to semi-auto,
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
and open fire.
One shot, one disc.
They plummet helplessly.
Even so, five remain and dive at me, but
Shing—
my moonlit axe blade punishes them one by one.
"SKELTON!"
Defender's voice echoes from below the warehouse.
"Cover me!"
"Cover?"
"Not the monster—the humans!"
Click—
I eject the empty mag, slap in a fresh one, and glare at the monster braced on its sixteen legs below me.
Since bona fide monsters with reflex fields appeared, countless veteran hunters tested every method to kill them.
Like pioneers who risked death for humanity's leap forward, they even tried extreme tactics now mocked as foolish.
The tactic I'm about to use is one of them.
Dead Man's Waltz.
It's based on the simple idea that the energy a monster spends on a reflex field is the same whether blocking 100 bullets or one—and their energy is finite.
The method resembles a waltz, per the name.
Bang!
Threat.
Bang!
Threat with a slight interval.
Bang!
Another spaced threat.
Whizz— Whizz— Whizz—
Each threat prompts bullets from the field to graze my head perilously.
Repeat this three-beat Intimidation twice.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
And then.
Rat-tat-tat!
Full barrage on the body.
The bullets embed precisely in its torso.
Hunting a monster from range with six Intimidations followed by one solid hit.
That's the Dead Man's Waltz.
But this alone won't cut it.
Normally, a heavy sniper with punchy rounds lands the final blow.
And six isn't a hard-verified number.
Sometimes, even after six waltzes, the monster still deploys the field.
Hence the "dead man" in the name.
Moreover.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Monsters learn too.
Three Intimidations, but it only reacted to the first.
To dance the true dance of death, I have to risk my life too.
Bang!
Change aim points.
Monster's lower left.
Field deploys.
Whizz—
Feeling the chill of a bullet grazing my head, I pull the trigger again.
Bang!
Upper right.
Whizz—
Bang!
Slightly off-center from dead ahead.
Whizz—
Pain flares.
Drip—
Blood flows.
Inadvertently scalped, it seems.
I ignore the pain and rapid-fire three more varied points.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three Intimidations, three fields.
Instantly switch to full auto,
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
and deliver crushing blows.
The monster staggers.
"SKELTON!"
Defender shouts from below.
"You human? No, how are you taking that thing down with just a gun?!"
Click—
I swap mags and brace for counterattack.
Discs fly in.
I drop all the monster's spawn with gunfire and axe, preparing for the next waltz.
One, no, two solid hits might finish it.
But then.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Gunfire from the fanatics.
Machine gun.
I see a straight line of death traced by bullets across the roof.
"Kill the one on the roof!"
"Hunter! A real hunter!"
I bite my lip and tilt my head.
"......"
So close.
I could have ended it alone.
My impulsive rage is erased by gunfire echoing from all sides.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Now the fanatics throw caution to the wind.
To protect their "god," they charge from everywhere, guns blazing, ignoring the zombies around them.
"Defender!"
I yell to him below.
"Get out first."
"What? What are you saying?"
"I'll hold them off. Use the gap to escape via the back route."
"No, why?"
"I have a favor to ask Valentine."
"Valentine......?"
"Yeah. Very important. Extremely important."
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Machine gun rounds rake the roof again.
But then.
Thud!
My foot catches in a deep crack where the roofing is broken.
Deep.
Can't pull free right away.
"......"
To make matters worse, bullets track me.
No dodging.
Death.
As I unconsciously smirk at fate, a sound shatters the laws of this world from right behind me.
Thud!
The monster's roar.
And I see it.
The hail of bullets about to cleave me in half as it pierces the roof suddenly swallowed by a faint veil, vanishing like magic.
"Aaaah!!"
Reflex field.
Someone deployed it over me.
I look back.
A gaunt zombie stands on the roof.
Clutching crude metal devices in both hands, its eyes glow even in the darkness.
"......Instructor."
"Park Gyu."
Jang Gi-young approaches me.
"Take this. It's truly useful."
"Instructor."
"The device itself might be worthless. But you—my one beloved disciple—will understand what I meant to put into it."
In our brief exchange, we flash back over a decade.
A high-ceilinged auditorium.
Students duck-walking laps, sweating buckets; a younger Jang Gi-young; and my awkward younger self standing before him.
There, he was my mentor.
"I know you tried hard to become an Awakened."
Yeah.
That's right.
Even before becoming Awakened—when I was ordinary—his eyes shone. Or so it seemed.
"That was the wrong way."
"......"
"I know because I became one. You hear their voices—the same as them. Many voices, but some you can't defy. And that one."
Jang Gi-young glances at the monster.
"Looks a bit like me. But it won't last."
"Instructor."
"......Something controls them. Yeah. The one you saw."
Jang Gi-young offers his crude device.
"The one you named General."
I had no choice.
Refusing it would mean.
In this bizarre space, Jang Gi-young is my mentor in his prime, and I'm the powerless boy from back then.
"Only you can kill it. Not Kang Han-min or Na Hye-in. They can't. They're like them. So the Professor who ignores their voices. No, my disciple. Park Gyu. Only you can kill it."
Thud!
The illusion shatters in the shockwave Jang Gi-young unleashes.
"Go."
"......"
"Take care of the junior too."
"Yes, Instructor."
I'm Jang Gi-young's prized disciple.
I always obeyed him.
Clutching the crude device, I head for the ladder.
A chilling sound approaches from behind.
Vrrrrm—
Discs incoming.
But that sound is.
"Don't touch my disciple!"
Buried under Jang Gi-young's roar.
What followed can only be summed up as chaos.
Relentless shockwaves, scattering gunfire, disc assaults, mad dashes, the bulky, cumbersome device from my mentor, zombies, zombies, zombies—and my mentor Jang Gi-young suddenly standing atop the roof under the waxing full moon.
"......Farewell."
My polite bow to him is one of the few clear memories amid that day's frenzy.
*
"What the hell is this thing?"
Ha Tae-hoon stares at Jang Gi-young's tool with a perplexed face.
"No clue what it's for. The principle is dead simple. Primitive. It's a crude imitation of a monster device's separable propellant rapid-fire system."
No one grasped the tool's true purpose.
Everyone dismissed it as junk.
"Made by a zombie? Man. Heard of jiangshi in stories, but a real zombie craftsman?"
Some fixated on the zombie maker.
I turn away with a faint smile.
Beneath the full moon, my established domain spreads impressively: multiple bunkers, outer walls, Madam Bang Jae-hyeok's vegetable garden, defensive installations everywhere, and Ha Tae-hoon's latest project, the Taehoon House.
"Whew."
I let out a contented sigh, gazing at the full moon.
Is my mentor still alive?
Who knows.
That's not the point.
I know the true meaning hidden in Jang Gi-young's crude tool.
Because I'm not just anyone—I'm the disciple he loved most.
I hope my mentor lives.