10회 - 빅 매그넘 (진짜임)
The shockwave born of force slamming into force didn't just shatter every window in the surrounding buildings. Even we, standing well back from her, caught the aftershock rolling over us.
Grrrrraaaaagh!
Ghhhaaaak!
We had to shield our own faces from the blast of wind and dust, which meant the Walkers clustered around those two were getting absolutely wrecked—shrimp crushed between battling whales, their rotting flesh spraying in every direction as they got caught in the collision. They were being mashed flat like someone had dropped an industrial press on them from above. It was so thoroughly satisfying I almost felt sorry for them.
Those things were already miracles of structural integrity just for holding a shape with that much rot, so watching their meat fly everywhere made a certain kind of sense. But a living human like me getting caught in the middle of that?
"Ugh."
I didn't even dare try to picture it. Leaving the two of them to slug it out—the here-knight and the Juggernaut hammering away at each other—I leaned over and muttered to the elf.
"Doesn't look like we need to shoot anything separately, does it?"
"Shoot anyway! Shoot! Why do you think I shoved this thing into your hands in the first place? Shoot the ones that look dead, too!"
"They're not dead?"
They were smashed so thoroughly they weren't even twitching.
The elf seemed to find my backtalk irritating.
"Are you a doctor? Since when does this world start handing out medical licenses to monkeys?!"
"Ah, fuck."
She just had to have the last word.
Every time the here-knight's hammer met the Juggernaut's arm, a boom rang out like a giant bell being struck, and the wind it kicked up stung my eyes. The elf was in the same boat. She'd flattened herself against the ground, using her field pack as a windbreak—except those enormous breasts of hers were getting in the way, leaving her face buried in her own cleavage in a pose that was, frankly, extremely suggestive.
"Just so we're clear, don't get the wrong idea just because she's fighting so bravely. The here-knight race isn't invincible. Who knows? One of those things might still be alive and grab her by the ankle..."
"So basically, we have to shoot that thing down before we can go home?"
"Yes, so hurry up and shoot! At least try to be useful!"
"Yesss."
BANG!
I started firing, my mind wandering to whether that Plum I'd checked on this morning might finally be dead by now. First priority: the Walkers trying to latch onto Dyna's body in the chaos. The most annoying part of any boss fight was always the trash mobs that threw themselves in the way of damage that should've been going to the boss. And sure enough, just like the elf said, some of the Walker remains were still twitching and trying to cling on even after being pulped in the melee. Covering fire was essential.
"Well, earlier was just luck, I'm sure. How well could a monkey like you possibly shoot, anyway... huh?"
THWACK!
The head of the one flailing its arms at Dyna like a wacky waving inflatable tube man exploded. The elf who'd just been ordering me to confirm-kill everything had her eyes go wide, so yeah—I'd say that was a pretty clean shot.
"They all got themselves smashed to pieces trying to squeeze in between those two, so there's barely anything left for me to deal with."
BANG BANG BANG!
I distributed a round apiece to the remaining twitching abominations, nice and fair. That same luck didn't strike as often—I didn't pop every skull cleanly—but I still managed to put them all down for good. The last of the eight-round magazine went, naturally, toward the Juggernaut locked in a contest of strength with Dyna.
PING!
A spray of rust-green blood erupted from the Juggernaut's exposed joint—the one spot left uncovered by the cars it had clumsily wrapped around its limbs in a cheap imitation of Dyna's seamless full-body armor—and the clip popped free from the open chamber.
Grrrrrr...!!
"Well struck! But steal not too much of my glory! Hahah!"
The blood geysering from the Juggernaut's joint fountained even higher the instant its fist met Dyna's head-on, and the Juggernaut's gauntlet—a car bumper, in its attempt to copy Dyna's armor—shattered like peanut brittle. I shuddered at the grotesque spectacle and was about to chamber the next round when I noticed the elf staring daggers at me for some reason.
"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Why are you such a good shot?"
"...What do you mean? I hit it because I shoot well."
"I-I've practiced dozens of times—hundreds of times—and I've never hit a single thing, and this is your first time firing live rounds...!"
"I've got military experience. And I wasn't even really aiming. It just kind of... hit? Or did it?"
The rifle cracked again as I reloaded, and this time green blood sprayed from the Juggernaut's opposite shoulder.
"A marksman, art thou! This grows easier by the moment!"
"Th-thiiiis...!!"
Unlike the elf, who was burning with jealousy in my direction, Dyna made no effort to hide her excitement as the Juggernaut's movements slowed under my fire. She swung her hammer at the fist coming toward her.
KRA-BOOM, CRASH, CRASH!
Dyna's hammer and the Juggernaut's fist collided once more. After a few more impacts, the car bumper serving as a gauntlet was already worse than scrap metal, long since reduced to fragments on the ground. The Juggernaut's fist, now essentially taking Dyna's hammer head-on, had been mashed as flat as the Walkers it had been stomping.
"Just whale on it like Whac-A-Mole!"
"What manner of game is that! Whac-A-Maiden, thou sayest?!"
"Huh?! I just meant smash it with the hammer—where'd the maiden come from?"
"Is that so! I know not what it is, but 'tis entertaining merely to hear of it! Hup!!"
CRASH CRASH CRASH!!
With the Juggernaut's arm movements dulled by accumulated damage from sustained gunfire and hammer blows, Dyna seized the opening and started pounding its arm with that massive hammer like it was a carnival mallet. A wild Juggernaut was much smaller and frailer—something even my sledgehammer could handle to a degree. But the hulking monster in front of us was a dungeon-forged guardian.
None of us let our guard down as the Juggernaut stretched its thoroughly shredded arm toward the fallen Walkers. Then the arm, resting atop those rotting hunks of meat, began to writhe hideously.
"It's absorbing them! It's trying to repair its arm with its own kind's flesh, isn't it?"
"Just shoot! Shoot!"
Watching the Juggernaut suck in the Walker corpses scattered around it and restore its shattered body, I switched targets from the joints I'd been hitting to the head alone. Even a special variant should collapse if you smash the common weak point—the head. So I kept firing at its skull, but the results were far from encouraging.
"Think you could smash that thing it's wearing on its head?"
"That shall take some doing!"
Juggernauts already had a tendency to armor their heads with a hard carapace for protection, but this one was not only huge—it had wrapped an entire payphone around its face like a mask, so none of my shots were doing any real damage.
PING!!
"The healing's outpacing the damage we're dealing... It's getting even bigger than before!"
"Iceman! Come this way... Nay! I shall come to thee! I believe I shall have need of thy aid!"
"Huh? What do you... mea...?"
Wait. When the hell did she get here?
I had no idea when she'd closed the distance. Dyna had left the Juggernaut behind—still swelling as it absorbed Walker corpses—and was suddenly right beside us. I froze mid-reload, so startled I just mechanically shoved the bolt forward, then carefully asked her:
"Is there something I can help with?"
"Naturally, a proud here-knight such as I would never fall to a monster of that ilk. Still, I find myself somewhat pressed for time. Lend me thy hand."
"No, I mean, what are you talking about... Wait, hold on, why are you grabbing my feet...?"
I'd thought she was going to hug me like a giant teddy bear, but instead she sat me on her shoulder and placed my feet onto her neatly cupped hands.
"Hold on! Who said you could just—!"
"Thou wouldst have lent it anyway! I shall simply collect in advance!"
I had no idea what she was thinking, and a sudden wave of unease hit me as Dyna ignored the elf's protests and thundered toward the Juggernaut, which was still busy regenerating.
"Don't tell me you're going to use me as bait?"
"Nay—I shall be the bait myself! In that opening, I would have thee smash its head with thine own hands. Grit thy teeth lest thou bite thy tongue!"
"What? What do you meeeeeean?!"
The instant I slung the rifle firmly across my back, my body left the ground. Dyna, who'd been cupping my feet in both hands, shoved me skyward with everything she had. I don't know how hard she launched me, but I rose high enough that the Juggernaut—now grown to nearly sixteen feet—was directly below me. Then gravity, as always, took over, and I started to fall.
"Could you maybe warn me about this kind of thing beforehand?!"
"Had I told thee, thou surely wouldst have refused! Its back is soft—drive thy blade there and cling fast! Fall not!"
"Easy for you to say!!"
I frantically yanked both knives from the sheaths strapped to my legs and jammed them into the Juggernaut's back as it filled my vision.
Grrrrr...!!
The Juggernaut's hide was supposed to be tough, but that only applied to the front.
THUNK, THUNK!
Its back, like any other Walker's, left its rotting skin fully exposed. I clung to the knives I'd driven in like climbing ice axes and just barely managed to hang onto the massive body.
"What the hell kind of job is this..."
"It has finished regenerating! I shall seize it and lock down its movements so it cannot stir! The finishing blow is thine!"
Again: easy for her to say.
I'd never been this close to a Juggernaut in my life and I was scared shitless, but Dyna—god knows what she was thinking—was actually slamming her own body into the thing with everything she had, pinning it so it couldn't swing its arms backward.
"I'll give it a shot!"
"Not 'give it a shot'—thou shalt do it, without fail! I can endure no longer..."
"?"
Since I'd already committed to using them like ice axes, I started climbing toward the summit, driving the knives in and pulling them out over and over.
THUNK-THUNK—
"Ugh, the smell..."
The reek of death was so thick it made my vision swim. It wasn't just the smell. Every time I drove a knife in, the world actually tilted. No reason to linger, so I kept climbing that massive back to get this over with as fast as possible—and then its thick neck appeared right in front of me.
The Garand I'd slung over my shoulder was long gone—must've fallen during the launch. I climbed onto its shoulders like I was getting a piggyback ride, ready to drive a blade into its skull, but—
WHAP!
Beep-beep-beep-beep!
"Ah, fuck, what now?!"
The payphone receiver coiled around the Juggernaut's neck suddenly lunged at me. I snatched at the receiver's "neck" like I was grabbing a snake, but its movements were too fast—the knives in my hands went tumbling down to the Juggernaut's feet.
"Die die die!"
Beep-beep-beep-beep, beep-beep-beep-beep!
I started pounding the receiver with the solid payphone body like I was clubbing a fish I'd just pulled from the sea. The moment I had it under control, the elf came running toward me, those enormous breasts bouncing, and hurled something at me with everything she had.
"Catch!"
"If you're going to throw something, say so before you throw it! Why do you talk AFTER you throw?! Wait—is that a .44 Magnum?"
My whole body was still wired from the receiver attack, which might explain how I snatched the gleaming white revolver out of the air. I had to admire my own reflexes—and in the split second I glimpsed the letters engraved on the barrel—Colt, Anaconda—I jammed the muzzle of the two-handed grip against the Juggernaut's unprotected nape.
"Even a dungeon variant's skull can't be tougher than a bear's!"
"Thou intendest something! Then finish it this instant!"
Grrr...?
BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!!