Chapter 263
Chapter 263
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 263
Chapter Title: Traces
-----------------------------------------------------------------
BOOM!
An explosion pounded against their eardrums.
A ferocious shockwave rocked the vehicle from the inside.
“Ugh—”
The armored truck teetered as if it might flip over, but Yeom Cheolmin twisted the wheel just right and somehow steadied it.
“Fire! Open fire!”
Kwak Daeyong’s shout into the radio. He must have been talking to the gunners in the cargo hold on top of the truck.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
The chatter of the machine gun firing wildly.
But the old men darted from tree to tree at speeds too fast for the eye to follow, scattering in all directions. Only dizzying zigzag afterimages flickered into view now and then.
“Ugh—these are veteran solvers who’ve been active since the Great Collapse, huh?”
Kwak Daeyong vented his frustration.
“Hyut—Swallow takes flight!”
An Hyeonggu pulled out a joystick and fiddled with something, and from the launch tube at the back of the armored truck came a buzzing sound as several combat drones manufactured by Yeonam Electronics lifted off.
Buzzz—
The drones flew into the woods between the trees, firing small-caliber rounds—tat-tat-tat-tat—that packed enough punch to kill a man.
BAAAAAM!!
A horn blared from the second armored truck following behind. What was that signal?
“They’re coming!”
Choi Mina’s cry.
A magic stone bomb slung from a slingshot? An arrow nocked and loosed from a bow?
No—this time, what came flying was a group of old men in fluorescent hiking gear!
Several of the old men, moving at high speed, jammed their hiking sticks into ancient tree trunks with a crunch. Using those as pivots, they grabbed the hands of other old men, spun them around, and flung them forward using centrifugal force.
Whoosh!
Even as they hurtled toward the truck, those old men had the leisure to kick An Hyeonggu’s combat drones out of the sky, smashing them to bits.
“Eek—my Swallow!”
Thud!
A dull thump came from overhead. They’d climbed onto the truck’s roof.
“I’m going!”
Choi Mina shouted, raising her military knife.
“Hey, don’t!”
It meant she’d be no use even if she went, but Choi Mina misunderstood and—
“Don’t worry, cute wizard!”
She winked at me and slipped out the window onto the roof. Ah, listen to me!
At the same time, Kwak Daeyong yelled at me.
“Professor Kim! Professor Kim! Do something with magic!”
“Ma—gic? Ma—gic? How dare you! Make such profane demands? The [Herald of Dawn] will rip out your tongue……. Ah, damn it, get out of the way!”
Even if I couldn’t use that profane, blasphemous thing called ma—gic anymore, that didn’t make me helpless.
Plus, the truck’s cargo hold was loaded to capacity with necromantic golems. Human-level—no way I’d lose to average ability users in a fight.
Thud! Thud-thud—grrr—
Footsteps sounded from above.
I expanded my detection range, probing the situation overhead.
Choi Mina moved fiercely, but the old men in hiking gear exuded the effortless poise of true masters—
“Hahaha! Still green as grass!”
They swung their hiking sticks to push her back. Choi Mina was relentlessly driven to the corner of the truck’s roof. Oh no, she’s going to fall.
I stretched my hand toward the roof and unleashed my mana.
“Urk!”
The more sensitive old men flipped in midair to dodge my gesture, but did they really think a little jump would save them? I expanded the mana’s reach to ensnare them all—
“Get off this truck right now!”
—and flung them toward the road.
KABOOM!
“Argh!”
Despite falling from a speeding vehicle, the old men rolled impossibly flexibly across the pavement, then sprang up in an instant and vanished into the woods. Those elders were no joke.
But no matter how fast they were, it’d be hard for them to regroup right away.
Was it because I couldn’t use specific ma—gic? My detection somehow felt more precise, covering a wider area in finer detail.
Within that vastly expanded detection—
I realized what I needed to do to resolve this situation.
Clack-clack-clack.
I shoved the bolts and nails I’d been playing with into the [Toy Gun] and stuck it out the window.
It looked like a toy gun on the surface, but with three magic stones precisely linked for focus, conversion, amplification—
[System: The ‘Precision Aim’ trait activates.]
A shooting assist trait I’d had since starting this game.
Even if I wasn’t a sharpshooter, it helped when casting projectile-based spells.
Anyway—fire with amplified mana!
Bang!
An ignition sound no normal gun would make, and dozens of bolts shot out in bizarre trajectories.
Crack-crack-crack!
Infused with penetration and explosive power, the bolts rained down on the trees in the old men’s path, toppling them with a barrage of crashes—crack-crack-crack.
As the Evergreen Mountain Association’s old men hesitated with their path blocked—
“Achilles! And Red! Scatter them!”
“Kreeee!”
Kree-ree-rik—
A white shadow launched from the same tube that had sent An Hyeonggu’s Swallow—a tiny owl-shaped Red that ballooned in midair, swooping toward the rashly leaping old men.
And
“Whyyyyyyyyy!!!”
“Whyaaaaaaa!!!”
Whoosh!
The fire vampires unleashed by Achilles moved in trajectories no drone could match, freely restricting the Evergreen Mountain Association’s movements.
“We’re clear!”
The armored truck barreled down the road unimpeded. As the Evergreen Mountain Association halted, their figures vanished behind in an instant.
On this twisting, steeply sloped [Misil Pass Old Road], Yeom Cheolmin deserved the MVP assist award for keeping up speed without slowing down.
“This should be safe for now.”
Kwak Daeyong let out a sigh.
Everyone instantly relaxed.
‘These guys just won’t cut it.’
At least the fight had let me gauge the team’s capabilities and my current state pretty accurately.
It might not be my place to say, as a former no-life gamer until recently, but this team lacked real combat experience.
They had cutting-edge gear that other solvers envied, thanks to their budget, but it wouldn’t stand up to battle-hardened veterans like that.
We soon arrived at our destination.
A spot where the Evergreen Mountain Association could catch up in ten minutes if they wanted.
Next time, we might have to face them in a fixed location with no escape. Moving with these guys without magic? What a headache.
* * *
“Nice one, Professor Kim! That was some amazing magic!”
“No. That, that……. Wasn’t ma—gic. Such impure techniques destroy humanity and corrupt the soul……. The [Herald of Dawn] draws near. Even speaking the word ma—gic is dangerous!”
My mouth moved on its own. Ah, this is maddening.
To repeat: the [Herald of Dawn] was just my delusion, not appearing in this game or the original [Cthulhu World] source material, the [Cthulhu Mythos].
Or was it really a delusion?
What was this symptom where nonsense poured out uncontrollably? A tic? Alien hand syndrome?
But Kwak Daeyong laughed it off with a kahahaha.
“That’s pretty decent for a wizard. At least you can talk.”
“Haah—yeah.”
There had been three ambushes total during the drive from Paju to Sokcho—specifically, the northeastern slopes of Seoraksan at Misil Pass.
The first two were random encounters in the lawless zone near the Great Wall, but this one was likely a greeting from the Evergreen Mountain Association we’d keep running into on Seoraksan.
“Evergreen Mountain Association……. I’ve heard the name, but they were no joke. The moment our blades crossed……. I knew right away I couldn’t win.”
Choi Mina’s assessment of the Evergreen Mountain Association.
Yeah.
I wasn’t at full strength either.
I could handle them to some extent with the necromantic golems packed in the truck’s hold—but protecting these guys while fighting would be tough.
Plus, the enemies in this game weren’t just humans with superpowers. Once real monsters showed up, even I wasn’t sure how far I could hold out.
“Ugh—twenty-six monster old men popping out like that. H-how’d they afford to hire so many of those expensive geezers?”
An Hyeonggu’s take.
He mumbled multi-digit numbers over and over, calculating their opponents’ budget.
That was a valid point too.
The Evergreen Mountain Association was a powerhouse solver team with many members registered with the Hunter Guild. Hiring them cost a fortune, naturally.
‘Where’d the money come from?’
The [Great Origin] was an abyssal entity whose fame didn’t match its power. Its doctrines were vague, and it rarely granted proper blessings no matter how devotees begged.
That meant few followers in Korea—no, on Earth. Few followers meant limits on influence and funds.
‘Anyway, they’re solvers, not cultists.’
Their involvement meant someone paid up—and from the looks of it, maybe the whole team.
But seriously, where’d the cash come from?
I was used to the [Feast’s Offering] trait increasing the number of cultists or monsters, but did it boost their available wealth too?
‘Well, I’ll find out deeper in.’
As I organized my thoughts, Yeom Cheolmin’s voice leaked out, laced with bewilderment.
“B-boss……. L-look, look ahead…….”
A few kilometers along the temporary road stretching south from the end of [Misil Pass Old Road] along [Misil Valley], toward Ulsan Rock.
Relative to the sheer cliff of Ulsan Rock, this was a very low construction site built by Yeonam Construction.
We’d reached it now, but the sight before us was…….
* * *
“W-what……. What happened here?”
“The wall’s collapsed.”
The first thing we confirmed was the outer wall of the construction site. Or rather, what was left of it—completely crumbled.
Beyond the fallen wall stretched utter devastation.
We parked the trucks outside the ruins and cautiously approached the wrecked site.
“L-look over there…….”
Was that even something humans could do?
Yeonam Construction’s armored trucks—virtually mobile fortresses reinforced with thick, sturdy plating—were crumpled and piled into a massive mound.
Nine in total?
With our three trucks, that meant at least three times our manpower had been guarding this place.
A human hand protruded limply from the wreckage of the crushed armored trucks.
“Wiped out?”
“By, by the Evergreen Mountain Association? Those old men did this?”
Murmurs erupted among Kwak Daeyong’s subordinates.
The initial shock subsided, only for terror to rear its head.
“E-everyone, calm down! Contact HQ first! Radio them, now!”
Kwak Daeyong tried to soothe them, but the fear spread like a contagion.
“W-what do I even say?!”
“What else? Tell ’em we got totally wiped by the Evergreen Mountain Association bastards! Hurry up!”
“Hey, Team Leader Kwak Daeyong.”
“Huh? Huh? P-Professor Kim? What? What?”
Kwak Daeyong’s dazed response.
“Get your head straight first. And it wasn’t the Evergreen Mountain Association.”
“What?”
“Look at the destroyed equipment and the collapse patterns.”
“Ah—what good’s looking gonna do?”
“This wasn’t those old men. They’re strong, sure, but they don’t have this kind of power. Plus, the destruction started over there—and moved from inside out.”
There—
A bizarre hole caught the eye amid a deep crater. A deep hole punched regardless of the construction purpose.
No, less a hole than the gaping mouth of a cave large enough for several people to pass through.
“T-that—that—that’s?”
Even to Kwak Daeyong’s eyes, it must have looked ominous.
Like the greedily gaping maw of a monster, traces of something crawling out from the pitch-black, foreboding cave lingered even now.
“They said they found a cave during blasting? That must be it.”
More precisely, a ruin.
An ancient ruin steeped in the [Great Origin]’s malevolent mana and the stale will of ages past.
Something had crawled out from there.