The Charge
“A demon, you say? A Demonic Species?”
“That's right.”
“It can't actually be one, though.”
“Among horned monsters, nothing short of a Demonic Species has this kind of power.”
“Then...... could it be deliberately wearing this appearance?”
“That's a possibility too.”
“Hmm...... your information has never been wrong, Director Gong, but this one's a little hard to swallow.”
It wasn't just Yang Jin-seon — the other info brokers gathered behind her shared the same thought.
“As far as I know, that's the case. Vincent?”
“Yes.”
“You can draw more, can't you?”
“Well......”
“I'll pay your daily rate in full, so let's have you draw some more. This time, go into more detail.”
“I will.”
Vincent nodded and answered.
With that, Won-goo stepped out of the tent. As he emerged, he organized the information he hadn't shared with Yang Jin-seon — namely, the details about the Arctic Giant.
Just as he had suspected, it was entirely possible that a Demonic Species had disguised itself in the form of an Arctic Giant. Demonic Species were the most cunning of all monster breeds — more than capable of pulling off such a trick.
But another possibility had also occurred to Won-goo: a hybrid. A crossbreed between demon and giant kind. It wasn't an impossible story. As the apocalypse progressed, hybrids inheriting only the most horrifying traits of their dreadful parent species had a habit of appearing.
“Director Gong.”
Mu Beob-sa approached Won-goo, who was smoking a cigarette outside the tent. Pacific was with him.
“What?”
“You've had another thought, haven't you?”
“Have you achieved enlightenment on the Art of Mind Reading?”
“Your expression was exactly the one you make when you're withholding information, that's the part of it.”
“Only because I'm not certain.”
“It's not a Demonic Species, then?”
“Honestly, I don't know. But if it's a demon and not a giant, we'll need different preparations.”
Demonic Species came in all varieties. Among the weaker ones were creatures like imps. Their individual variance was so extreme that you couldn't judge them rashly based on existing data.
However, they shared one common weakness: they were vulnerable to weapons with the Blessing attribute applied.
Blessing. It produced an effect similar to Enhancement, but was an entirely different concept. And because it was a different concept, it could be layered even onto weapons that had already undergone substantial Enhancement. What's more, unlike Enhancement, which brought permanent modification, some Blessings had a limited duration.
“Was there anyone nearby who could grant buffs?” Pacific asked.
“There's someone Fresh knows, and another who works this area.”
“None in Sabbath?”
“They do drop by Sabbath now and then.”
“How are your relations with them?”
“No issue with me. Why do you ask?”
“You're not exactly the sociable type, so I'm just checking whether you'd hesitate over the relationship.”
“You looking to get cursed at? I told you to adjust to it.”
“Already did.”
“Then why aren't you sleeping?”
“Turns out there's a loophole.”
“......?”
“If I wear it for less than a minute, I don't get forced into the nightmare.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“When you put the mask on, a timer appears. So I took it off right before the one-minute mark, and the effect never triggered. I guess that's the condition for the forced sleep.”
“Then couldn't you just keep using it without ever having the nightmare?”
“Nope. When I put it back on, the number was right where it had left off.”
“So the part about wearing it for fifty-nine seconds and removing it is not possible, that part of it.”
Mu Beob-sa chimed in.
“But here's the fun part. That fifty-nine seconds actually regenerates.”
“......?”
“If I wear it for fifty-nine seconds and then leave it alone for about a day, I can wear it again for another fifty-nine seconds without falling asleep.”
“Has anything changed about it? The way I see it, that's no ordinary item. That's a cursed item. A very powerful curse.”
“I think so too. It might even be a Named.”
“That's a Named?”
Named referred to cursed items bearing a name, like Huang Zhiheng's Chinese Cleaver or Cullen's Syringe.
“That's not a Named.”
“Could it not be a Named that hasn't been made public yet, that part of it?”
“It's possible, but cursed Named items don't get names like that. They're named after people.”
“Either way, I'm planning to get it reappraised if the chance comes up.”
“Do that out of your own emergency fund. Looks like no Named to me.”
“I'm telling you, who knows. Apparently it has an indestructible option or something.”
“What's that?”
“Yeah. I tried hitting it with some force, and not a single scratch.”
“Hmm......”
At that, the expressions of both Won-goo and Mu Beob-sa hardened.
“Could that have been a mis-delivery, that part of it? If Cheon handed the item over deliberately, then......”
“Now you're going too far, Mage. We signed a contract. It's written right there in the fine print that everything must be properly explained. If there's something they failed to explain, then it's a function even Cheon doesn't know about.”
“Perhaps the level of that nightmare is extremely harsh, then?”
Pacific said with a smirk.
“Even knowing it's a dream, it won't be easy. Let's just plan on not entering the nightmare at all.”
“I'm a horror movie junkie. A nightmare is nothing I can't handle.”
“You think horror movies and nightmares are the same thing?”
“Trust me. Director Gong, back in my day, I......”
Won-goo didn't even wait to hear the rest of Pacific's words. He flicked his cigarette to the ground and started moving.
Nothing had been confirmed yet, but if the boss mob was either a Demonic Species or a hybrid carrying demonic attributes, they would need a buffer capable of granting the Blessing attribute.
“Fresh!”
There was no need to head for the Fresh crew's tent. Fresh was right on the path, grilling meat.
With such a diverse group gathered, feeding themselves was the rule of the day. As long as everyone did their assigned job, nobody complained about anything.
“Well, if it isn't the Director.”
“What's with the meat? I could smell it from way over there.”
“Want some?”
“I'll take it if you're offering. Though we're a lot of mouths.”
“There's plenty of meat. Come and eat.”
“How come there's no one around, though?”
“Yeongyeong's joining before the big wave hits.”
“Adding more people again?”
“Apparently?”
“Just how many orphans has that woman dragged in and raised over the years?”
“A hell of a lot, apparently. Some of them still haven't come back yet. Why, you need something from Yeongyeong?”
“No. From you.”
With that, Gong Won-goo explained about the Demonic Species.
“A giant could get mixed up with a Demonic Species?”
“There are a few possibilities. It could have received a baptism. Or the blood could have been mingled.”
“Which scenario's the worst?”
“All of them, you idiot. Why even ask that? Fresh.”
Pacific, who had sidled up beside them, answered in his place.
“That's right. All of them are the worst, Fresh.”
“Well, that's a mess of an answer. So if it's a demon...... Blessing?”
“Right. You know a buffer, don't you?”
“I do. Want me to hire them?”
“Call them in for now. Just in case.”
“But one alone can't cover this whole crew, can they?”
“Then call more. Buffers are rare, but it's not like there are none.”
With that, Fresh scooped a spoonful of honey and plopped it on top of the meat. His sweet tooth hadn't changed one bit.
“Watching you eat, I swear you're insane. You seriously want to dip perfectly good meat in honey?”
“Try it. It's a delicacy. A delicacy, I'm telling you.”
“You can eat all you want. Hyun-sung!”
“Yes, boss.”
“We're eating the normal way. Set it up. Salt paste for me.”
“You got it, boss!”
Two days passed. In that time, the info broker Vincent produced many more drawings of the boss mob. Several of the sketches now clearly showed horns.
The good news was that the Blessing-granter Fresh had hired had arrived on schedule and was busy applying blessings to the allies' weapons.
“Less than twelve hours until the next big wave. We won't get anything more out before it anyway. Let's advance.”
Inside the enormous tent, the heads of each crew were gathered, listening to Won-goo.
Fresh, Montage, Dr. Woo, Sapiens, Potion. Along with the Yang sisters and the pathfinders, all lying in wait. Gu-sik and Yeong Chi-soo too.
Every crew with any real muscle in the area had assembled — and with the Fishers added on top of that, the sheer numbers made it just about fair to call it a war. Every single one of them was elite, hand-picked and held in reserve.
“I said this before, but our operation is exactly one thing. Cut off the boss mob's head. As you all know, with incidents of this kind, the moment the head dies, the incident is over. So it doesn't matter how many of them there are. We look at one thing only, go in, and kill it.”
And so the survivors' counterattack began.
Just as they'd expected, the cold grew fiercer the deeper they went. And they got to see with their own eyes what the Arctic Giant had actually built.
Until now they had only heard about it through the info brokers, but seeing it in person, the tension that welled up was on another level.
“Cheol-su. Bring out Dulla.”
The monsters had pitched tents and were living in them, just like the survivors did. Very similar to the humans, really — the difference being the corpses hanging here and there. Some monsters were roasting meat as if over a grill, and one was outright smoking it.
But aside from a few survivors with weak stomachs, there was little reaction. These were survivors who had adapted to the apocalypse and lived on. They'd seen more than their share of such things by now.
Most monsters loved humans. As high-quality food.
At that moment, Dulla burst out astride an enormous horse and charged in first. The rest of the crew moved right after — starting with those capable of long-range attacks. Among them was Hye-ji.
She climbed atop the Trailer and took aim from a prone position. The gun in her hands had already elongated into a full sniper rifle without anyone noticing.
The moment the attack began, monsters came boiling out of the tents. The first to spill out were goblins and kobolds.
Goblins and kobolds were natural enemies by origin, and their territories rarely overlapped. Yet they were sometimes seen together — whenever, like now, they were both under the dominion of a powerful being.
The swarming goblins and kobolds poured out and hurled spears at the charging Dulla. But the spears they carried were shoddy beyond description.
“DUUULLAAAA!”
A three-meter Dullahan galloping forward on horseback. And he wasn't even holding a sword and shield. He was wielding the massive crescent blade — a Fisher-exclusive weapon.
He charged alone, but the pressure he exuded was anything but ordinary.
Won-goo watched through A-One's Tinted Glasses and called out to Hye-ji.
“Hye-ji. A kobold knight's about to pop out at your eleven o'clock, seven hundred meters. It's planning to strike Dulla from the side.”
“The one squirming around among those kobolds?”
“That's the one. Can you handle it?”
“I'll try.”
Won-goo then glanced casually at Montage nearby. Montage was looking up at Won-goo atop the Trailer. When Won-goo nodded, Joce, who had already moved up front, blasted his whistle with everything he had.
Montage followed suit, blowing toward the allies as well.
The supporting fire rang out just before the monsters threw themselves at Dulla in a frenzy. Naturally, since Dulla was out in front, he couldn't escape the sound either.
And yet Dulla was entirely unaffected by it.
“The earplugs seem to be working, Director.”
“Looks that way.”
Inner earplugs topped with thick over-ear covers — that much was enough to hold up. Then again, the whistle Joce blew was powerful enough to shake you even through all that.
That Dulla still moved flawlessly was because Cheol-su had given him a thorough briefing beforehand.
PANG!
The head of the kobold knight lunging at Dulla's flank went flying.
Other monsters of larger-than-normal size appeared as well, but they were no match for the momentum-driven Dullahan already crashing through their ranks.
On paper, Dullahan was only a slightly-above-lower-tier summon. But there was a reason Won-goo had judged him worth investing in — precisely for situations like this one.
By his very design, Dullahan was a knight who was already dead. Modeled after the dullahan, yet a monster of entirely different origin. And so he had not the slightest fear of death.
Even a suicide-charge order, tantamount to throwing his life away, he executed without a hint of hesitation. Thanks to that, an extraordinarily favorable situation had been created.
From horseback, the Dullahan swung his crescent blade like a madman, and the monsters caught in its sweep went flying off in every direction.