The Cradle of Heroes (6)
I spotted the bastard hiding in the tree purely by chance. It was around the time I’d smashed nearly a hundred skeletons. When I glanced up at a distant treetop, I caught a suspicious silhouette. Strengthening my vision with aura revealed the clear outline of a human.
At this hour, the only one who would be spying on us while we fought was a black mage. Certain of it, I immediately hurled a throwing knife at him.
“Tsk. Guess there’s no choice after all.”
I clicked my tongue as the blade grazed his forearm. No matter how much my needle-threading dexterity helped, talent was still talent. The power was more than enough, but the greater the distance, the harder it became to land a clean hit.
“Kids, hold on just a little longer! I’ll finish this quick and come back!”
“Huh?”
They looked visibly flustered by my sudden announcement, but I chased after the fleeing mage anyway. Taking him out first would make cleaning up the rest that much easier. This was the right call.
Tadadak!
I shattered every bone that got in my way and sprinted toward him with everything I had.
“You fucking son of a bitch! Don’t follow me!”
The black mage cursed wildly as I closed the distance fast, trying to escape. But where did this pathetic long-range dealer think he was going, running from a bruiser like me?
The more he opened his mouth, the more the gap between us shrank. If I were still an ordinary person, the distance might have made it hard to catch up. But with aura on my side, it was only a matter of time.
Still… ‘He runs better than I expected.’
True to his title as a mage, he must have had some special trick. He kept sprinting at full speed and was surprisingly fast. But that was still only by civilian standards.
I closed in until I could reach him with one outstretched arm. Raising my sword with the intent to cut him down in a single stroke, I focused aura into my legs and leaped powerfully, aiming for his neck.
And then—
“Dark Ball!”
The black mage whipped his head around. Black energy gathered at his mouth and shot forward in an instant. If I swung my sword like this, I’d get hit by the dark ball or whatever the hell it was. I had no choice but to pull my blade back and block.
Boom!
A fairly loud explosion rang out as black smoke spread across the surface of my sword. I rotated my slightly numb wrist, thinking that magic really did have destructive power after all, and searched for the black mage.
He seemed to have decided that running was pointless. His eyes were closed, staff planted firmly in the ground as he chanted a spell with fierce concentration.
Anyone could tell that spell couldn’t be allowed to finish. I threw a knife and charged.
Whoosh!
Clang!
This time the distance was short, so the blade flew cleanly toward his head—only to be stopped by a suddenly appearing black, translucent barrier.
“Tsk!”
It was a shame I couldn’t end it easily, but at least now I knew he had a shield. By the time the knife was in flight, I had already reached him. I swung my sword in a wide arc.
Kagagagak!
The sword strike, heavy with sword energy, made the barrier scream and begin to crack. Not about to miss the chance, I rained down blows without restraint.
Pababak!
The barrier shattered, its fragments scattering everywhere. Ignoring the energy shards that didn’t even sting, I swung my sword again, determined to take his head this time while he was still focused on his chant, unaware the shield had broken.
“…Dark Ray!”
At the same moment, his spell completed. There was no time to pull my sword back.
Vrrrr.
“Fuck.”
Seeing the black energy gathering at the corner of his eye, I poured every ounce of concentration I had and thrust my sword toward his neck as fast as I could.
In the slowly stretching flow of time, I clearly felt the sensation of my blade sinking into his throat. At the same time, the black energy gathered in his eyes shot straight at me.
I twisted my whole body desperately to dodge the incoming laser while still swinging my sword to the very end, severing his neck.
But… the magic that had already been cast did not stop. It hurtled straight toward my chest. No matter how much I heightened my focus to slow my perception of time, I couldn’t dodge a laser fired from point-blank range.
Boom!
I took the mage’s spell square in the left side of my chest.
When Yoon Iseo left the battlefield to kill the black mage, the people who didn’t know any better fell into panic.
“What the hell? Where’s Senior going?!”
“Ugh! Focus! We have to work even harder now that Senior’s gone!”
“This is insane, seriously!”
Kim Yunhwan did his best to calm the remaining Hero Candidates while frantically cutting down skeletons, but—
“Hik! Save me!”
“You idiots! If you’re gonna fight, at least do it properly!”
Nine people simply couldn’t cover the wide battlefield. The villagers who had taken up weapons alongside them were steadily accumulating injuries.
Watching the scene, Kim Yunhwan finally made a decision.
“Everyone fall back to the village for now! We’ll hold them at the entrance!”
At his command, the people retreated backward as if they had been waiting for it. Kim Yunhwan stayed until the very end to make sure no one was left behind, then ran toward the village with a short pang of regret.
‘I should have pulled back the moment Senior left.’
The only reason they had spread out across such a wide battlefield in the first place was because of Yoon Iseo’s overwhelming strength. While he rampaged like a destruction tank, crushing skeletons, the other Hero Candidates only needed to handle the stragglers. That was why they could afford to fight across such a large area.
But now that he was gone, fighting the same way would only lead to annihilation. They had to narrow the battlefield by using the village fence as a choke point.
“Everyone who can still fight, hold the entrance no matter what until Senior returns! Do not retreat under any circumstances!”
Kim Yunhwan planted himself firmly at the entrance and gave strict orders. The others nodded with determined expressions.
Beyond this point was the village proper. The residents, who had already lost many loved ones, were ready to fight to the death to protect what remained of their families. The Hero Candidates, none of whom wanted to die in their first real battle, gripped their weapons tightly and thrust them at the approaching skeletons.
Crack!
Clang!
“Uaaaaaaaah!”
Everyone screamed as they held back the wave of oncoming skeletons, but the moving bones felt nothing of human spirit. Whether their bodies broke or not, they relentlessly followed their orders and charged toward the village.
Unlike before, the narrowed entrance caused a horrific traffic jam. Skeletons stepped on their fallen comrades and kept advancing. Just as the people’s faces began to darken with despair—
Kwaduduk!
“These bastards got weaker!”
At someone’s shout, everyone regained their confidence and swung their weapons again. The drastically lighter resistance made them cheer.
“These motherfuckers are all dead now!”
“Holy shit, they’re breaking so easily!”
Mordekai had kept the strengthening magic active while they were fleeing, thinking he could maintain the connection. But in the end, he had to pour every last drop of his mana into his final move. All the spells he had cast were canceled.
It had been an all-or-nothing gamble. But the moment Yoon Iseo severed his neck, that gamble ended in complete failure.
Kwagagagang!
“Senior!”
The overwhelming sound of destruction from behind made every Hero Candidate who had been smashing skeletons look up at once.
Yoon Iseo had reappeared at some point. He advanced from the rear, mercilessly pulverizing skeletons as he moved forward. The weakened skeletons couldn’t withstand him at all and crumbled back into mere bones.
“What? You guys held up better than I thought. If I’d known, I would’ve taken my time getting back.”
“What kind of thing is that to say?”
“It’s a joke. A joke.”
When Park Chan-young took the joke seriously, Yoon Iseo shook his head.
“Senior, your armor…”
“This? Something happened. I’ll explain later.”
When Kim Ga-in pointed at the torn armor and the wounded chest visible beneath it with a worried expression, Yoon Iseo brushed it off vaguely and moved on. Explaining it now would take too long, so he decided to save it for later. For now—
“Let’s clean up the rest of these bastards first.”
It was time to finish off the remaining bones.
***
“Aigoo! You’ve worked so hard, Hero!”
After finishing off all the skeletons and meeting the village chief again, my title had been upgraded from Hero Candidate to Hero. Strictly speaking, it should still be Candidate, but since Hero sounded better, I didn’t bother correcting him.
“First, please take these. To think such a wicked creature would injure even our Hero like this…”
“Well, he wasn’t much of an opponent.”
I put on the clothes the chief handed me and recalled the earlier battle. In truth, aside from that final move, he really hadn’t been much. If I had known a little more about mages, I probably could have won even more easily. All I lost was a disappointing set of armor.
Still, the leather armor I got from the tutorial had done its job well. Thanks to it absorbing most of the magic that hit me at point-blank range, I hadn’t been seriously injured.
“So, about doubling the reward?”
At my blunt question, the chief hesitated for a moment before forcing a smile.
“…Of course. We promised it, so we must give it.”
“Then we’re good.”
There weren’t any seriously injured people, and as long as I received the proper payment, my business here was finished.
“We’ll impose on you for just one more night and leave first thing tomorrow.”
“Why so hasty? Wouldn’t it be better to stay a while, rest, and tend to your wounds?”
I stared at the chief’s face and wondered for a moment why he would want to keep eleven extra mouths to feed when the village was already in bad shape. Assassination? The chief had made it very obvious he didn’t want to pay us, so it wasn’t impossible. But we had come here as official representatives of the Cradle to fulfill a request. No matter how rotten this world was, if we died while handling a simple mission, an investigation would surely follow. A mere village chief attempting assassination? The odds seemed low.
“It’s fine. We need to get back quickly.”
Feeling a vague sense of unease, I declined the chief’s offer and said we would leave early.
“I see. Then we will do our best to serve you for the remaining time. Hanna! Eli!”
The chief didn’t press the matter. He immediately called for someone.
“…Did you call for us, Chief?”
The ones who appeared were two strikingly similar women. They entered clinging closely to each other, clearly sisters. The one in front looked older than the one behind, so she was probably the older sister.
“Greet him. This is the Hero who saved our village today.”
“I’m Hanna.”
“…I’m Eli.”
The younger one seemed very shy. Only after her sister nudged her did she finally introduce herself.
“I’m Yoon Iseo.”
Since they had introduced themselves, I had no choice but to give my name as well. I glanced at the chief with a look that asked what exactly was going on. Fortunately, the chief wasn’t completely oblivious and quickly explained why the two women were here.
“Our house doesn’t have any spare rooms, so you’ll have to stay at one of their homes. That’s why I brought them to introduce you.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. These two will take good care of you while you stay. Please don’t worry and rest well for the night.”
“You can count on us, Hero.”
Hanna answered with unnecessary determination. Her enormous breasts shook heavily with the motion, stealing my gaze.
‘Holy shit, those are huge.’
They looked like the biggest I had seen among all the women in this place. Her face was also surprisingly neat and pretty for a country village girl… Ahem.
I pushed the unnecessary thoughts aside and nodded.
“Understood. I’ll be in your care.”