Splitting the Spoils
Won-goo had clearly been the one to set the whole affair in motion, but that didn't mean a strict chain of command had been established. So he said nothing to the other teams. They weren't inexperienced rookies—they were veterans who knew how to read a battlefield on their own.
Without anyone spelling things out for them, they were already fighting. And in the process, a stage had been created where Won-goo's crew could face Kim Yang-cheon, the boss of the anglers, all on their own.
Won-goo drew his warhammer—his main weapon—with one hand, intending to use it to wear Kim Yang-cheon down. But events refused to flow that way. A situation emerged where Won-goo didn't need to step forward at all.
Kim Yang-cheon's strength was dangerous, true. But looked at another way, that meant as long as you were careful about that one thing, he was an opponent you could handle. And so everyone was handling him very well indeed.
Lee Hyun-sung held the front line, with Geum Chul-soo supporting at his side. Behind them came Suwon. Behind Suwon, Jo Mu-sa. Then Jeon Hye-ji's support fire—and Mu Beop-sa standing over Jeon Hye-ji with his shield raised. As for Rafael, she couldn't quite weave herself into that formation and was left circling, hunting for an opening.
Kim Yang-cheon's durability wasn't bad, but he was no monster like Ralph. As attacks landed and damage piled up, his reactions slowed noticeably. Won-goo swapped the warhammer for a gun and provided covering fire.
Bang!
Kim Yang-cheon, trying to grab and grind down Lee Hyun-sung, had his timing ruined by a shield shove from Geum Chul-soo. Chul-soo was clever about it—bumped him with the shield, then scrambled back fast—and Jo Mu-sa didn't miss the gap.
Zzzza-crack!
The stun baton's voltage slowed Kim Yang-cheon further. Suwon's blade followed immediately, carving a deep gash across his thigh. Then came Lee Hyun-sung's attack. Kim Yang-cheon raised an arm to block it and tried to wrench the weapon from his grip—actually managing to seize the Chinese cleaver.
BOOM!
What followed was a blow powerful enough that even Kim Yang-cheon couldn't absorb it. Rafael, who had been watching the whole exchange in silence, finally intervened—swinging her massive hammer in a full arc straight into Kim Yang-cheon's face.
Hammered between the eyes, his gaze collapsed inward to a single point, and for an instant, he lost consciousness. But that instant was very, very short.
"You…!"
Kim Yang-cheon snapped back and tried to spit out words, but Won-goo's crew showed no hesitation. Against a weakened enemy, they poured on the attacks without holding anything back.
"Yang-seok! YANG-SEOK!"
Kim Yang-cheon roared at the top of his lungs. No answer came. In that brief window, the tide had already turned completely.
The result: an overwhelming victory for the survivors. Even if the anglers had doubled their numbers, the gap in anti-personnel combat ability was stark. The anglers were a unit where only a handful of true veterans carried real weight—the rest were little more than bait. The survivors gathered on Won-goo's side, by contrast, were all Named. People with the skill to survive alone or in small units without any trouble. This was a fight that had never been a fight to begin with.
Won-goo knew that perfectly well. He had accepted the anglers' proposal anyway. Had he been anyone else—a man less devoted to appearances—he could have shoved the deal away on sight and no one could have blamed him. But loot from human beings was a remarkably rich source of income. Especially the gear the anglers hauled around—it was seriously expensive stuff, the kind that stirred up greed in plenty of people.
"So what did you eat wrong? When they said they'd take care of you, you should've just taken it. Why make me do unplanned exercise?"
"Um… Director Gong, sir?"
Kim Yang-cheon lay prone on the ground, bound tight. There was no strength left to use. His arms and legs were already gone.
"What."
"I made a mistake."
"Don't tell me you're about to beg for your life with a straight face?"
"……"
"Or is it just your men down below you want spared? You know how it works. When a fight breaks out in the Field, it comes down to one of three things. You die. You kill. Or you run. You've already burned through two of those, so that leaves exactly one."
"No—!"
Kim Yang-cheon never got the rest out. Lee Hyun-sung brought the blade down on his neck. However superhuman his strength had become, it couldn't stop a severed head. In fact, verifying his durability in the Trailer beforehand had been done for precisely that reason—there were occasionally cases where durability was so drastically enhanced that bone density far exceeded a normal human's, and those people were famously hard to cut with blades.
Kim Yang-cheon had not been one of those cases. His style was to bulldoze every situation with raw strength and combat skills alone—and that was exactly why he had died wretchedly. Wretched, too, was the end of the anglers who had followed him out.
"Hyun-sung. Roll this bastard's head and body up nice and tight in plastic sheeting."
"Yes, Hyeong-nim!"
Won-goo's face scrunched in distaste. Fucking hell… a slaughter nobody planned for.
"What can you do? This line of work's always crawling with his kind."
The voice belonged to Montage.
"It just pisses me off, is all."
"Still, you closed it out well. How's the arm?"
"I'm looking for it now, so it'll be fine. If it doesn't turn up, might as well fit me a nice new one while I'm at it."
"Yeul-na?"
"What's the big deal? Long as I'm breathing, I'm fine."
"That's right. And mind you, you're known around here as quite the pretty boy, but you were too much of a romantic about it. A little tuning's what gives a man his style, you know."
"Director Gong, you're always so relaxed. It suits you well."
"Relaxed, my ass. It ended well before I ran into these bastards… right now it's hard to call anything ended. A fight could still break out."
"A fight?"
"A lot of extra loot came out of this, didn't it?"
"You mean they'd scrap over that?"
"The rookies don't matter, but the veterans' gear—everyone'll be clawing for that."
"Isn't the rule that the one who did the killin' takes it? That's a mite different, idn't it?"
"How would it be different? And—"
Right on cue, loud voices were already rising.
"There, look at that. They're starting to fight over who killed what."
Head aching, Won-goo pressed hard on his temple with one hand.
"Director! Found the arm!"
Geum Chul-soo hoisted the severed arm aloft with a beaming face.
"Well, there it is. And here I was thinking I'd upgrade to something better while I had the chance."
Montage snorted a laugh. Won-goo started walking toward where the quarrel had broken out.
"This is my final mediation. Either the two of you split it exactly fifty-fifty, or you see this through to a real end. As the organizer of this whole incident, that's as far as I go. Everyone will understand."
The survivors gathered around all nodded. Only the two teams glaring at each other, murder in their eyes, gave no answer.
"Whew…."
Just as Won-goo heaved a long sigh and turned to leave, without anyone moving first the two sides shook hands. It meant they accepted the fifty-fifty split of the spoils.
"Good. Should've done that from the start. Hyun-sung."
"Yes, Hyeong-nim."
"Gather the loot here. Keep it all separated. Everyone saw that, right? This loot gets liquidated back home, then split precisely in half. Observers welcome at the liquidation."
As he spoke, Won-goo kept kneading the arm that had been cut off. It had reattached cleanly without a single scar, but there was pain—a pins-and-needles numbness, like a cramp that wouldn't quit. Not unbearable, but hardly ignorable either.
He looked around the field once more. Nothing but angler corpses as far as the eye could see. Zero casualties on their side. There had been a fair number of wounded, but not a single death—and even those wounds came from facing the veteran anglers. The rookies hadn't managed to leave so much as a scratch on the survivors.
It had been a battle lopsided to the point of cruelty, but nobody dwelt on it. In the Field, whatever happened, the blame belonged to whichever side was less prepared.
With the anglers cleaned up, next came the Siamese Frog. The colossal corpse sat motionless where it had fallen, like a statue.
"Director Gong. Word is we're dismissed?"
Fresh asked.
"Yeah. Go ahead and clear out. We'll handle this one as seen by the Shelter."
The Siamese Frog had received an order from the Shelter Director, which meant there was a separate procedure for moving it. No help from the other survivors was needed.
"Then that's what I'll pass along."
"Yeah. And you—stick around a bit."
"Me?"
"Yeah. You said Yeongyeong is a first-rate pathfinder, didn't you?"
Yeongyeong was a fairly well-known survivor. But as with everyone famous in this world, she didn't go around flaunting every ability she had. She'd made her name through exceptional combat ability—and on top of that, she was an extremely capable pathfinder.
"When'd you even dig that up? In that little window of time?"
"Info on the Named comes out the moment you flash money at it."
"Scanning for intel in the middle of all that chaos… honestly gives me the chills."
"Anyway, stay. With Yeongyeong along, there'd be other routes to the Shelter too, no?"
"Other routes?"
"That's right."
Only then did Fresh grasp what Won-goo was after.
"Tell Montage-hyeong's crew to stay on too."
"Got it. I'll pass it along."
Next came the Transfer Document he'd received from Kane. Disposing of a Large Species after killing it had always been a serious headache. No matter how good a Subspace Backpack a survivor carried, none of them had room enough to fit a Siamese Frog. That meant dissecting the thing thoroughly and hauling out the pieces—which usually knocked the market value down by more than half. And even packed with obsessive care, it would take an enormous number of backpacks.
That was why anglers normally operated under contract with the Shelter. Once you signed, the Shelter issued you Transfer Documents.
Slap!
Won-goo pressed the Transfer Document against the Siamese Frog's body.
Wooong!
Blue light bloomed, tracing an outline exactly the size of the frog's bulk. Then, without a trace, the Siamese Frog vanished. Where it had stood, only the Transfer Document remained, fluttering down—and Won-goo snatched it out of the air before it could hit the ground.
"All wrapped up?"
Fresh asked.
"Yeah. Did everyone head out?"
"They're gone. Moved fast."
"Then let's go too."
"Want me to lead us to where the other anglers showed up?"
"Yeah."
Aboard the Trailer, Won-goo praised his crew one by one. The teamwork they'd shown this time more than deserved it.
"Everyone worked hard. This is exactly why running these combined drills with the crew matters so much. And Jo Mu-sa."
"Yes, sir!"
"Your technique's come a long way. This one attached clean."
"Heh. Honestly, I think it helped a lot that I got practice attaching Director Mu's arm—"
Mu Beop-sa's gaze sharpened, and Jo Mu-sa clamped his mouth shut at once.
"Old man, why're you killing the mood with that killing intent of yours?"
"No, it's…."
"Can't even hand out a compliment in peace."
"……"
In the middle of that exchange, the Trailer arrived at its destination. When Fresh's crew stopped first, everyone else stopped too. The place where they halted was lined with yet more angler corpses.
"Hyeong-nim. Have a look at this."
Montage stepped out and swept the scene with his eyes.
"What're we supposed to be findin'?"
"Nothing to find, really—more that I want to reconstruct what happened here."
"I don't see anythin' odd?"
"That's just it—there is something odd. These men engaged once, then fell back. Which means this was never going to be a fight that ended this fast. At minimum, they had the strength to go toe-to-toe with that bastard Kim Yang-cheon, don't you think?"
"Now that you mention it… aye."
Fresh chimed in.
"Huh. Yeah, something IS odd here."
Montage said, moving deeper into the scene. Among the stripped corpses, he found a familiar face.
Wang-ko. One of the anglers he'd seen alongside the Shelter Director.
"He took hits from all directions. Five blows at minimum."
The scene of the fight replayed in Montage's head like a simulation.
"But the man himself was impressive too. Took a blindside betrayal like that and still put up one hell of a fight. Then again, he started the exchange already badly hurt, so it was over from the beginning."
"Wait—you dragged us all the way out here just to confirm this? Over something already finished?"
To Fresh's question, Won-goo answered with a wry smile.
"If there's something I don't know about an incident involving me, it eats at me. You confirm what needs confirming. Let's head back."