#30 The Dragon's Wasteland
#30 The Dragon's Wasteland
"Why are you here?"
"Why are you so late?"
Hong Yuri answered a question with a question. Gu Jin-ha had to suppress a sigh when he saw her planted shamelessly in his chair.
'I'm exhausted.'
The Night of the Great Battle in Daejeon. Given the sheer scale of that disaster, there was no escaping the fallout. The Clan Leader had told him to pursue Alpha, but there simply hadn't been the time.
'Well, she's in the same shape.'
Gu Jin-ha stole a glance at Hong Yuri. She looked fine on the surface, but bandages were surely still wrapped beneath that hoodie. Chasing Alpha now was out of the question. With every passing day, its trail would only grow colder. Not that sending other personnel would help — they'd already proven they couldn't track the thing.
'The Gowon Clan is catching heat, but...'
If Hong Yuri was out of commission, Gwanghwi could step in. That much was true. An archer of Gwanghwi's caliber could certainly track down not just Alpha, but far worse.
'Whether they'll actually move is another question.'
Would the Gowon Clan genuinely act? They'd go through the motions, of course. Whether they had the will to truly hunt was another matter entirely.
"Move it, dumbass."
He shelved the headache and shoved Hong Yuri — chair and all — aside.
'It's been a while since I've been this worn out.'
He'd always thought of himself as something of a workaholic, but apparently he still had a long way to go.
Eun Ja-rim suddenly crossed his mind, and Gu Jin-ha grimaced. The Representative Clan Leader of Daejeon. The man was holding press conferences all day on top of getting hammered from every direction, inside and out. And on top of that, Alpha's footage had now been exposed to the public...
'He's got a long road of suffering ahead.'
"Hey."
Instead of answering, Gu Jin-ha gave her a look that said get on with it. Hong Yuri propped her chin on her hands, sitting cross-legged on the chair.
"Ugh, this clueless little shit."
It was less grumbling and more a pointed remark meant to be heard. He answered with a flat "What?"
"You heading to Daejeon tomorrow?"
"Who knows... I'd like to rest, but I'll probably have to go."
"Then take me with you."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Are you seriously asking? Don't be ridiculous."
"You know as well as I do. I'm the only one who can track it."
Gu Jin-ha's stance was firm.
"Even so. No."
"Oh, so you think I'm some useless cripple who can't even move?"
When Hong Yuri demanded to know if she was in any condition for it, Gu Jin-ha answered flatly.
"Fine. We need you. But that doesn't mean we have zero options."
Hong Yuri's head tilted at that.
"Options? What options?"
"The footage."
"Footage? That stuff circulating on NewTube?"
"Yeah. That."
Even through the deep dark circles, Gu Jin-ha's eyes sharpened.
"A Stealth skill has been confirmed. But it isn't invisibility. If we comb through CCTV footage across the city, we can track Alpha."
The legwork would be brutal, of course. Hong Yuri mulled that over for a moment, then hugged her knees.
"Hey. Gu Jin-ha."
"What?"
"Those sons of bitches I saw in Busan — they'd be those shits calling themselves Prodigals or whatever, right?"
"Almost certainly."
Dawn had dispatched Hong Yuri to Busan once. They had assumed an organized trafficking ring was behind the string of disappearances, but months passed without a single lead. Then she'd accidentally sensed signs of a fight in the sewers and discovered a hidden location below.
'...That must have been the Prodigal Sons too.'
Alpha's route from Jirisan to Gyeongsan. It was possible the thing had stopped in Busan before that. Meaning the presence Hong Yuri had felt could very well have been Alpha.
"......"
Hong Yuri seemed to be chewing on her own thoughts.
'Either way, we can't just leave those bastards alone.'
An organization that had been allied with the Blind Spot. Their identity and purpose were still shrouded in mystery, but there was a thread.
'The Representative Clans.'
The War Shrine. Hermit's Forest. Clans that effectively spoke for their regions. No confirmation yet, but if moles had truly been seeded that way...
'Follow the informants planted in the Representative Clans.'
They could trace the Prodigal Sons. And that trail would eventually lead to Alpha. Once they managed to capture the thing...
'Every unanswered question finally resolves.'
***
"Last one. We'll be entering the dungeon soon."
"Alright."
How long had they been at this? Just as the tension was beginning to fray at the edges, a somewhat weary-looking Baekrok launched the mana rounds.
"Huh."
The Wolf dodged every single one of the countless mana rounds — so flawlessly that even Baekrok was taken aback.
'The outcome is the same, but...'
Over these three days, the Wolf had changed. In a direction entirely different from what Baekrok had intended to teach. What he'd been trying to instill — to awaken — was instinct. The flinch when you touch something hot. The reflexive blink when an object suddenly appears before your eyes. Those natural responses. Baekrok called it intuition.
'For some reason, he lacked intuition.'
Because his body felt no pain? No, that wasn't it.
'As if he'd stepped into someone else's body.'
An awkwardness, like mind and flesh weren't quite aligned. Was it an aftereffect of evolution? He wasn't lacking combat sense so much as the fundamental instincts of a living creature. So Baekrok had tried to awaken that intuition, that instinct.
'I never imagined he'd devise his own method.'
Yes. The result was the same, of course. Dodging attacks through intuitive reaction...
***
'Incoming.'
It wasn't just sight anymore. I had to feel it, the way Baekrok had told me.
'I can do this.'
Four from the front. Five from the rear. I dodged the incoming mana rounds and evaded the attack sweeping upward from the 7 o'clock direction.
'Next.'
Three from the left. I twisted my body to avoid them, snapped back into position with Elasticity, and slipped past four more rounds hurtling up from below. At first I'd thought it was impossible. But Baekrok had been right.
'It's doable!'
The habit Baekrok had told me to correct. Minimal movement bought me the fractions of a second I'd been missing. The repetitive drills made that difference tangible in my body.
Dodge. Dodge. Dodge again.
'Good. What's left?'
Twenty-seven from the front. I dodged seven with Perception, then felt the next wave with Detection. And then.
'Layer Intuition on top.'
The vague sense of the mana rounds' positions sharpened dramatically. It was like when Intuition had given concrete form to what Perception read — now it was doing the same for Detection.
'—There!'
Eight mana rounds. Twelve remaining.
[Excellent Intuition (D) Lv.5 proficiency at maximum. Excellent Intuition (D) Lv.5 → Excellent Intuition (D) Lv.6]
I still couldn't sustain it for long. The moment my concentration wavered even slightly, the linkage between the two skills broke.
'Now!'
I twisted my head. Two mana rounds grazed past my skull from the front. In that instant, a round slipped between the empty eye sockets — and when I snapped my head back with Elasticity, the round that had entered the skull's interior shot straight out the opposite eye socket. I let out a ragged breath and readied for the next sequence.
'Nine from the front.'
Nothing was coming from the direction I was facing. Which meant—
'Behind!'
I whirled, dodged two, twisted, and lifted a forepaw. A mana round embedded itself beneath it. I contorted my body and dodged five more. That left just one more...?
"Ah."
A disappointed sound escaped me. The final round had pierced straight through my hind paw.
"...261st failure."
It stung. I'd thought I could dodge them all, but I'd been a split second too slow. Why?
'If I hadn't used Elasticity?'
I wouldn't have dodged them at all. Even rethinking it now, I was certain I'd made the best possible move in the optimal moment.
'Still failed.'
Where? What was missing? As I turned it over in my mind, the fairy dragon — apparently sensing the training was done — fluttered over.
"Kyururuk~."
The little thing seemed tired; it coiled up on my head and covered itself with its wings. Baekrok, meanwhile, looked impressed.
"Beyond anything I imagined."
"I failed."
At the Wolf's sullen reply, Baekrok let out a soft laugh.
"It's a stretch to call that a failure. Dodging every single mana round at your current level is impossible."
"...Impossible?"
If it had been impossible, he wouldn't have made me try in the first place. Who was it who'd said that? At the pointed look, Baekrok answered without batting an eye.
"I never told you to dodge them all. Didn't I ask you to recall the purpose of the training?"
The Wolf let out a hollow laugh. Sure, he'd said that, but in that context anyone would have taken it as "It's not impossible to fix your habits even if you can't dodge everything," not "It's impossible, so just try harder." One thing was becoming clearer by the day: Baekrok was shameless.
'I got played.'
In the meantime, Baekrok glanced at the Wolf's pierced paw. Regeneration was already sealing the wound.
'A read-ahead approach, preparing the next move in advance.'
Not intuition, but prediction. A trick a human might use rather than a phantom beast's method — though calling it a trick undersold how sophisticated it was.
'It didn't go as I intended, but...'
The habit had been corrected. He'd privately considered it a success if the Wolf dodged even half. The result had blown past his initial expectations entirely.
'I never expected him to keep pace to this degree.'
In just three days, the Wolf had forged an entirely new approach, a style all his own. There was no room for complaint that he hadn't mastered intuition.
"Shall we get moving?"
Baekrok took the lead. The Wolf walked as carefully as possible so as not to wake the softly dozing fairy dragon, and at last they reached their destination.
"Here?"
"Yes."
They were supposed to be heading to Seoul, where the Academy was — but here they were, back down in Gyeongsangnam-do. It made no practical difference; a determined sprint could cover the distance in an hour or two.
'Been a while since I was last here.'
A place I'd visited as a kid. I never imagined it would still be standing all the way into this future. Just then, the fairy dragon yawned and blinked awake.
"Kyuruk?"
It lifted its half-lidded eyes toward the archway — and its gaze lit up.
[Goseong Dinosaur Museum]
We passed beneath the arch, followed the path upward, and finally the museum's main entrance came into view.
'Came here as a kid.'
Even in 2069, it hadn't changed much. The moment Baekrok pushed open the museum doors, the fairy dragon darted inside as if it had been waiting.
The instant I stepped through after it... the museum's interior transformed.
"...Incredible."
An endless wasteland. A place bleaker than any desert, where not a single blade of grass grew. If this weren't a dungeon, I never would have believed anything could live here.
"The Dragon's Wasteland. Even among the Phantom Realms, a truly ancient place."
"Dragon's Wasteland?"
"Indeed. Named because most of the monsters here are sub-dragon species — birds and serpents."
Birds and serpents. The word sauropsid — the clade uniting avians and reptiles — surfaced first in my mind.
"The dungeon's level is so high that channeling its mana into the Reality Realm took considerable time."
"And today's the day?"
"It is."
Just then, I spotted a long serpent with bird-like wings striding through the open sky and activated Observation.
[Coatl]
[Length 7.64m] [Height 72.1cm] [Weight 453kg]
[STR 324] [AGI 288] [VIT 311] [MP 271]
Light for its size — likely an adaptation for flight. The Coatl must have noticed us too, because it let out a harsh caw and began threatening us.
"It's coming."
After circling in place two or three times, the thing decided we were prey and started its descent. I say descent, but it was less a controlled glide and more a plummet. I was already preparing Gust and Ghost Flame (C) to meet it head-on when—
"Kiii-yaaaak!"
The Coatl screamed. Its neck twisted slowly around... and then it was dead.
"......?!"
My eyes flew wide.
Dragon-like, but with vestigial forelegs. In one instant, the creature had snatched the Coatl from the sky, crushed its throat with its hind talons, and roared. Its wings beat once, and then it was gone, vanishing beyond the open sky.
"A Wyvern... That isn't the boss?"
From what I'd glimpsed with Observation, the thing's stats could devour Aranea whole. It rivaled the Swamp Dragon, if anything. A Wyvern is unambiguously a dragon subspecies. And the fact that it ruled the air made it an infinitely trickier opponent — yet that wasn't the boss?
"I thought the same at first. But if it were the boss, there would have been no need to call for you."
"......"
"I told you, didn't I? The Earth Serpent. Look over there."
In the distance, something coiled around a rocky mountain writhed, kicking up clouds of dust like volcanic ash.
"Kyurururuk!"
The fairy dragon startled violently and dove into my eye socket to hide.
"......"
The words are you out of your mind? surged up to the tip of my tongue. This was grimmer than I'd imagined. A giant serpent. An old movie called Anaconda came to mind — the one where people gather to search for a fountain of youth, only to find themselves fleeing from an anaconda grown monstrous by the very thing they sought.
'This thing is way bigger than that.'
Several times larger than that fictional anaconda. Its skin, which looked like fused slabs of rock, practically explained why "Earth" was in its name.
"Are you serious?"
"Why do you think it can't be done?"
I frowned at Baekrok's quizzical tone. My expression must have asked the obvious: how the hell are we supposed to kill something like that? Baekrok nodded.
"In a head-on fight, yes. But do we have any obligation to give it one?"
"......?"
"What I lack is firepower. I have no means to kill the great serpent."
Baekrok struck the wasteland floor with a hoof.
"What matters is that it can't catch me, either."
Only then did I begin to grasp what he was getting at.
"If your flames keep burning it, keep spreading across it...?"
"You're saying you'll carry me and run?"
"Exactly. That's why I didn't summon other phantom beasts. They aren't necessary."
If anything, they'd be a hindrance — unless every last one of them was as fast as Baekrok. And without the firepower to kill the Earth Serpent, numbers were meaningless anyway.
"You have the firepower I lack, and I have the legs you lack. What's the problem?"
I turned the operation over in my head, running a mental simulation.
'......'
Baekrok carries me and runs from the Earth Serpent. I burn the thing to death with Ghost Flame (C)...
'Isn't this just a complete free ride?'
"You seem to have made up your mind."
I swallowed hard. Walking away from this would be the stupid move. Together, we began to cross the Dragon's Wasteland at a measured pace.
***
'Three days, and she's already got it.'
All seven pieces of chalk lay shattered. For good measure, Hong Yuri threw an eighth, then a ninth — same result.
'The number doesn't matter.'
Unless someone was deliberately trying to hit her, no piece of chalk would touch the girl now. No, not just chalk — anything thrown would end the same way. She had taken that heightened intuition unique to the talented and honed it further, grasping the knack in this short span of time.
'Hayun only needed two days.'
But that was back when Hayun was preparing for C-Class — no, B-Class. Eun-ha was a fresh hatchling, barely registered as a hunter. Comparing the two was meaningless.
'At this rate.'
Steady training to build up her stamina, and C-Class was practically guaranteed. Watching Eun-ha, still deep in concentration, Hong Yuri muttered under her breath.
"Tch. She's barely learned to crawl."
"You call this crawling?"
"What else? You think it's normal that she hasn't even hit C-Class yet?"
"...Eun-ha isn't an Academy graduate."
"So? You think monsters give a shit about that?"
It was a blunt statement, but impossible to refute. Woo-taek had only played a supporting role in Eun-ha's training, yet he was beginning to grasp Hong Yuri's mindset.
'So this is how it felt.'
Cutting a rough stone and polishing it into a gem. At the same time, he bit down on his lip.
'If she'd come out of the Academy...'
If she'd learned about mana just a little sooner. If she'd spent the years she wasted in the Administrative Department honing herself as a hunter instead?
'Pointless thinking.'
He forced the thoughts aside. But the lingering regret must have shown, because Hong Yuri snorted as if she'd read his mind.
"Don't get ahead of yourself. This is just the start."
"Magic. Are you going to teach her?"
"Why? Want to send her to the Square?"
His expression stiffened belatedly. For someone not from the Square, the permitted limit was a 2nd Verse incantation. A select few were granted permission up to the 3rd Verse — no more. That was how dangerous magic itself was.
'Eun-ha could certainly reach the 5th Verse.'
It would take time, but he had no doubt she could master it. Yet no matter how skilled Hong Yuri was, she couldn't teach magic beyond the 4th Verse to anyone outside the Square.
'...Maybe sending her to the Square would be...'
As long as she came back to Dawn afterward, wouldn't it be fine? With Eun-ha's talent, it surely wouldn't take long.
"Wake up. I'm not sending her."
"Then you can't possibly mean to leave her as she is."
"Idiot. Didn't I say not to get ahead of yourself?"
"......"
"I'll handle it. Go do your damn job."
Her tone brooked no argument, and he accepted it. No mage in Dawn surpassed her. Whether it was getting permission or sending Eun-ha to the Square, Hong Yuri would manage it on her own terms. It wasn't his place to interfere.
'Come to think of it.'
A few days ago, hadn't she muttered to herself that she wasn't a mage? What exactly was going through Hong Yuri's head?