Dragon Slayer (2)

Hong Si-yu and Su Seong-min ran like people out of their minds. Field agents clung to their flanks, flustered and falling over themselves.

"A massive explosion just went off in the center! It looks like the Jill-o'-Lantern detonated."

"I told you at OT not to enter the red zone! Who went in there!?"

"It seems Awakener Jang Yeong-jun started acting strange, and Awakener Jeong Jae-ha was driven in after him..."

"Damn it!"

The nearer they drew to the heart of the gate, the thicker the mana grew, and their phone screens dropped out more and more often. In the end the two abandoned the feed outright and simply ran with the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠phones clenched in their fists.

A roar came through the speaker then: a demonic beast that could not possibly have been an orc.

"Huh?"

"What?"

It was not a sound they could ignore. Even mid-sprint, Hong Si-yu and Su Seong-min lifted their phones to check.

"Insane."

Whether from the Jill-o'-Lantern's blast or not, the earth had been scoured clean, and across that bare ground a wounded Pumpkin Drake was crawling. Jeong Jae-ha stood before it with an estoc in his hand.

Has he lost his mind? That's a C+!

Fencer or not, a Pumpkin Drake is too much.

Hong Si-yu and Su Seong-min felt their chests seize shut. Demonic beasts were strong. Even an F-rank goblin boasted the strength to tear a person apart.

He may have been caught in the Jill-o'-Lantern's explosion, but this is not a beast an awakener of one month can kill!

From C-rank upward, they endured modern heavy weapons.

"I'm going ahead!"

Flame burst from beneath Hong Si-yu's feet, and she shot forward.

"I was going first."

Su Seong-min spread wings wrought of ice and launched herself into the sky.

I can't lose him like this. I have to get there and save him myself.

She set her teeth hard. Two feelings raced across her face at once: the duty of refusing to let an awakener who had both character and skill die a dog's death to a Pumpkin Drake in a place like this, and the greed that swore she would drag him into Saetbyeol Guild no matter what.

Why did I have to say a thing like that! There's no helping it. If I want to keep him out of the National Police Agency and the big corporations, unless I put a life-debt on him... huh?

A shriek rang out from far away.

The Pumpkin Drake.

Su Seong-min drove her ice wings larger still. But the sound was wrong.

Why does it sound like it's in pain?

Even if the thing was only a runt, it was dragonkin — king of demonic beasts. What she heard now was closer to a scream than a roar.

No way.

"Sorry? Sorry for what?"

At my question, Lee Hae-il flicked a glance toward Jang Yeong-jun, collapsed far off, and answered.

"It's all because of me. Kim Gang-oh picking fights with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you, Hyung-nim, Jang Yeong-jun calling the beasts to kill you — all of it was to take me."

Her eyes were red to the rims with guilt.

"Popular, aren't you. Fine. Apology accepted."

I let it pass with a thin smile. From the moment I'd decided to look after her sword, I'd meant to help her out of that pack of thugs, so retaliation had been a given. I'd been confident I could stamp them flat, and I had. Kim Gang-oh would be dying in a black guild, and Jang Yeong-jun had, in the end, been half-roasted alive. Fallout I'd already braced for was not going to move me.

"What did you even do, to have trash like that trailing after you? Bury a gold bar somewhere?"

I tossed it out as a joke, meaning to settle her.

"Huh? How did you know?"

She nodded, eyes gone round.

"What?"

That, I had not expected.

"I used to stream, Hyung-nim. Things got tangled up real ugly, and my broadcast turned into a money-laundering window for a bunch of gambling gangster bastards. They scared me by saying they'd drag me in too, so I kept at it."

She actually buried a gold bar?

"They needed me there to get at the money, so that bastard Kim Gang-oh kept following me around. I'm really sorry you got hurt because of me, Hyung-nim."

Lee Hae-il poured it out like a confession.

"I wanted to tell you before I died. I've never met anyone like you, Hyung-nim."

"No."

"I didn't know there was anyone who lives at full power the way you do. Someone who throws everything in and lives sunk all the way under. I really respect you."

Eyes burning red, she looked at me, drew her cavalry sabre, and turned her back.

"Go, Hyung-nim. I'll draw its eyes if nothing else."

And she planted herself between me and Pumpkin Drake Everor.

"Ha."

A faint laugh escaped me. People really did have to live doing everything they wanted to do. Even if they paid for it. Because then someone who wanted the same thing I did would end up on my side. She'd spoken too fast for me to catch even half ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of it properly, but one thing was certain.

"Why are you dying?"

"What?"

"Move."

She'd been a good medic in this match. She could have run while the Pumpkin Drake's attention was fixed on me, and she hadn't. A good comrade. With things broken open this far, the hunters who were supposedly monitoring us would move. Stall long enough, and we might even live. Not that I had the slightest intention of raising a sword with that in mind.

"H-Hyung-nim!"

"Watch closely."

I left Lee Hae-il behind and advanced on the Pumpkin Drake.

"I'll be making you do this later."

"What!?"

The Pumpkin Drake shrieked at the sight of me.

The inside of its throat flushed crimson, and a ferocious beam of heat lanced out.

FWOOOOM!

The instant I saw that throat begin to glow, I leapt as far left as my body would carry me.

I cleared it by a sheet of paper at the shoulder.

"Hah!"

Hunting orcs and goblins had lifted my overall physical ability past what it had been when I entered. Thanks to Lee Hae-il, my right leg was moving properly now. The enemy was still overwhelming, but I had recovered enough not to resent the fact.

Pat-pat-pat!

I drove in on the Pumpkin Drake on a chain of advancing steps. One look at that enormous body and vicious maw, and a hollow laugh rose on its own. A dragon. An absurd monster. When had I ever been this much of an underdog?

WHOOM!

The Pumpkin Drake swung its massive tail to sweep me away. Enough force lived in that muscular bulk to tear an arm off even if I blocked. The power was a wonder, and so was I, standing against it. Deciding to become a hunter had been the right call after all.

As if binding an opponent's sword with my own and holding it there, I set my blade to that tail and kicked off the ground on my toes.

"Kh!"

Of course I was flung back as if launched, but the direction was mine to command. My body turned a full circle in the air and faced forward again. I used the Pumpkin Drake's own strength to charge straight at it.

And I unleashed a continuous assault on its head.

Thuk!

Once. I drove hard into its glistening eye. A nictitating membrane with the texture of reinforced plastic held, but I had killed more than ten orcs, and my body was strengthened past any comparison with the flesh that had entered this gate.

Crash!

The membrane shattered. My blade sank to the hilt in the eye and came back out, white brain matter smeared along the point.

Thuk!

Twice. Before the beast could even loose a scream, I stabbed the opposite eye and ripped the blade free.

Thuk!

Three times. Infrasound detonated and locked my body, and still I drove the point into the jaw joint whose carapace the Jill-o'-Lantern's blast had cracked.

Thuk!

Four times. I stabbed the left eye again — the first one — and stirred. My right leg burned as if it had caught fire. The fingers on the hilt trembled, ready to give out at any moment. This was the limit of what my body could do now. But I was wearing the status-window ring. The way a hand on a keyboard orders a character inside a game, the ring let me call the technique no matter what state I was in.

Five times. With the blade still buried in that eye, I locked my grip on the hilt and leapt again. My sword was seated in the brain connected to the eye. Leaping with it already driven home, I hammered that impact through and churned the brain to ruin.

The Pumpkin Drake flung its head up and shrieked. I hung from the sword and was hauled dangling several meters into the air, then dropped straight toward the ground. I hadn't lost my hold. The beast had simply let its neck go slack.

BOOM!

The earth shook, and its head slammed down flat.

"H-Hyung-nim!"

I heard Lee Hae-il running. I couldn't even think to look back. I dragged in a ragged breath and stared at the Pumpkin Drake before me. A dragon, easily past ten meters, had fallen to my sword.

Coach.

At this rate, I may truly have become the finest blade beneath heaven.

I didn't have the strength left to move a finger, and I had never felt more clear.

"Watch out!"

"What?"

Which was why I was late.

Rat-tat-tat!

The bark of a submachine gun.

"Huh?"

Thud!

My side throbbed. A red stain spread across the tactical combat suit.

"J-Jeong Jae-ha!"

Jang Yeong-jun stood far off on a hill still smoldering with residual fire. His whole body was already a mass of burns.

"You monster! You monster bastard!"

The combat suit was in complete tatters. One arm hung limp, as if it had come out of the socket, and one leg was braced awkwardly, unwilling to bear him. But his eyes glittered with madness and killing intent.

"This is your fault! Why — why did you have to cover for that bastard!"

They had said the guns locked automatically ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the moment a muzzle pointed at a person, so I couldn't understand how he was firing at all. I could only guess that the sensor which recognized a person was mounted on each individual gun. I had emptied my own submachine gun earlier and left it where it lay. Damn it.

Memories from four years ago rose, fresh as yesterday.

The memory of losing everything to a single shot from a revolver.

Rat-tat-tat!

Jang Yeong-jun pulled the trigger again.

For a moment, silence fell over the situation room.

"He really killed the Pumpkin Drake? For real? A raw rookie who just ran his first live op?"

The scouters stared blankly at the screen.

"Training or whatever, he only awakened about a month ago, didn't he? What were we hunting a month after we awakened?"

"Hunting? Weren't we just crawling around the grocery floor at B-Mart, dodging zombies?"

"Does that even count as a dragon slayer?"

"Oh, come on! Last-hitting something the explosion already left half-dead isn't slaying."

"Why not? Use your head and kill it, and you're still a slayer. Back when we took the Lava Earth Dragon, we lured it in and dropped building rubble on it."

"You think he meant to? Killed it on purpose so he could absorb the Pumpkin Drake's mana?"

The superintendent of the National Police Agency's Ability Special Forces shook his head.

"Does that make sense? Does that actually make sense? Does that look like a call he could make in a moment like that?"

The HR section chief from the major corporation GL Hunters was left gaping.

"Mana will shoot up the more he hunts from here, and if that sense of his stays alive... I'm looking forward to this. Too good to waste guarding a warehouse."

A scout from the top-ten guild Iron Blood frowned.

"Right. Really too good, so hands off. He fits us perfectly. He breaches, and our people lay down the fire support."

A scout from the top-ten guild Murim let out a theatrical sigh.

"Oh-ho. How magnificent. The catfish who marched into a pumpkin grove with guns and got annihilated now mean to steal the talent who actually cleared that grove."

"You're still talking about something from years ago! You didn't know a damn thing back then either!"

"And if a thousand years pass, will the crow turn white?"

Thud!

The Iron Blood scout shot out a mechanical arm and seized the Murim scout by the collar.

"The bastards who charged the Demon of the Earth with swords and drowned in a swamp in a heap want to talk about catfish!"

"Kah—!"

The Murim scout raised a leg in taekkyeon fashion and kicked the Iron Blood scout across the cheek.

Rat-tat-tat!

Then gunfire came through the speaker.

There's still some bastard shooting? After taking a beating like that?

Athlete Jeong's impact was so strong I wasn't sure, but is this class actually a bit inferior?

Or maybe they fired on purpose, to lure things off to one side?

The scouters didn't spare it much thought.

Not until Jeong Jae-ha appeared on that screen again.

"Fuck! What the hell is that bastard doing?"

"What happened to the sensor lock?"

"Athlete Jeong isn't holding a gun. It won't register him!"

"He can take that, can't he? It's only nine mil."

"Nine mil punches through a brick wall! Athlete Jeong hasn't even been awakened a month!"

Every scout kicked their chair back and stood.

Bang! Bang-bang! Bang!

The gunfire rang as if mocking them. The distance was so great that most of the shots went wide, but plenty of bullets still buried themselves in Jeong Jae-ha's body. His body swayed this way and that.

"No!"

"He was going to be a great hunter... huh?"

But the swaying gradually settled.

"I think he's holding."