Chapter 31: Time for the Legion to Clear the Outpost
Once again, it was time for the legion to clear the outpost.
Not only Gyetoo, but a variety of other rooster yokai warriors appeared at the entrance to the Dungeon.
They were startled when they saw Dohyun emerging from the Dungeon in his role as host, there to welcome his guests.
“A dragon?! Kko-kko! Brother Gyetoo, you really did work with a dragon.”
“Kko-kko… Gyetoo really was with a dragon…”
Was the dragon such an extraordinary presence?
The gathered warriors murmured one after another.
Six.
The rooster yokai warriors had assembled.
White feathers, red combs.
Two of them had already sunk deeply into the Yokai / Demon Beast realm.
Behind them were four apprentices whose blood and energy still had room to rise.
Three to one.
Dohyun’s eyes lowered quietly.
He measured their level in his mind.
They could be used.
“Kko-kko… Dragon, arrived.”
Gyetoo remained as impassive as ever.
Dohyun looked at that expression for a moment, then turned away.
They’re all here.
“Kko-kko, Gyeru. Gyeong.”
A brief introduction.
That was enough.
Dohyun went straight to the point.
The outpost.
One short line.
Gyeru opened his mouth.
“Kko-kko… The Gold Sun Bird clan isn’t in good shape—”
“Fine.”
Gyetoo cut him off.
Dohyun said nothing.
He merely listened.
Information accumulated.
One, two—
The outposts where the Cunsi clan appeared began to link together in his mind.
Dots gathered.
Lines were drawn.
They overlapped.
They connected.
…There.
Streams.
Though they clearly tried to hide it,
there was no way to move supplies and reinforcements without leaving traces.
Dohyun narrowed his eyes.
Found it.
“Kko-kko… Kill them.”
Gyetoo said it with a twist of his beak.
Short and simple.
At those words, the warriors laughed.
“If Brother Gyetoo said so, then we kill them. Kko-kko.”
“If you want it, Gyetoo. Kko-kko.”
The apprentice warriors joined in as well.
Dohyun lifted his head.
Move.
Behind him, a long shadow stretched out.
Geoung, the orcs, the goblin leader, the goblin warriors.
Everyone was already ready, their eyes gleaming.
...
The prepared legion swept toward the nest like a storm.
As the forest’s formation was identified, the rooster yokai surged in first.
Maintain speed.
Watching them, Dohyun adjusted the legion’s pace.
When they looked at the swamp, the expressions of the two warriors stiffened.
“Kko-kko! Brother, there are really a lot of them here?”
“Did a place like this exist? Kko-kko.”
But only for a moment.
They quickly gathered their will again as warriors.
“Apprentices, follow me.”
Gyetoo charged at the front like a streak of light.
The remaining rooster yokai warriors also became light as they took their positions.
Seven streaks of light stood at the head of the battlefield.
At that moment—
Kwaaaang-!
Geoung moved in as well.
Each time the pillar struck the swamp,
black waves roared outward.
The marsh split apart.
Writhing—
Writhing—
Moths and centipedes rained down from the swamp like black rain and attacked.
The goblin warriors raised their spears.
One, two, three...
A hundred spears rose.
A forest of spears was formed.
Thunk— thunk— thunk—
They pierced straight through the curtain of black rain.
The legion advanced without emotion.
It shoved through the earth and killed every enemy in its path.
Some buried themselves deep.
To stop that death, thick mist rose from the swamp.
Confirmed.
He had no interest in dealing with this inefficiently.
As Dohyun thought that, a single cloud drifted across the sky.
A flash cracked open.
The mist over the heavens was swept away, and sunlight pushed its way down.
Writhing— writhing—
Dealing with insects in agony under the light was far too easy.
“Kko-kko! It’s over!”
The rooster called Gyeru laughed and declared victory.
In high spirits, the rooster yokai flapped their wings and put on a victory performance.
It really was over.
Every visible thing in the swamp had met its death.
Dohyun watched the scene.
Done.
And yet.
He glanced for a moment at the lines of the formation stretched across the sky.
...It’s recovering again.
Slowly, but still recovering.
Not yet.
It was impossible to see it once and immediately imitate Choi Youngwon’s technique.
…I only scratched the surface.
He committed the image to memory.
Next.
Calmly, Dohyun acknowledged it and moved on.
Step— step—
The legion adjusted to his pace and advanced toward the next outpost.
“Geoung... food?”
...
He let Geoung have a brief meal the way he wanted.
Move.
The second nest.
The terrain was similar.
A swamp, a place thick with poisonous miasma.
Step—
Dohyun’s legion entered it.
The same environment as before.
The moment Dohyun stepped in, he sensed something amiss and hesitated slightly.
Then one of the apprentice rooster warriors sharpened his gaze and stepped onto the swamp with legs trained like steel.
Stop.
It was too late.
Dohyun shouted at the suspicious movement, but the apprentice rooster warrior seemed not to hear.
“Kko-kko!”
The apprentice wanted to earn merit as a rooster yokai warrior and receive a name.
It was reckless.
But confidence from the previous nest was already in him.
He had heard the dragon’s warning.
Still, he stepped out at the front.
“Kko-kko...?”
However, unlike before, there were no larvae.
The ground was unusually soft, giving the sensation of sinking in.
Get back, now!
The dragon’s voice rang out again.
As if that were the signal—
Crunch-!
A black centipede surged up from the mud and bit into the apprentice rooster warrior’s shoulder.
“Kko-kko-!”
A scream of pain tore through the air.
“Kko-kko, I save you.”
Gyetoo’s body became a flash and, in an instant, severed the centipede’s neck.
“Are you all right?”
“Kko... kko...”
In Gyetoo’s eyes, the apprentice’s pupils were clouded.
He looked dazed, unable to recover from the pain and shock.
...It isn’t there.
Dohyun pierced through the poisonous fog and looked straight ahead, but unlike before, he confirmed that there was no disgusting mass of larvae anywhere.
Instead,
a moth descended from the air like an assassin.
This one was different from the ones before; a sharp, tail-like organ was visible.
Like a stinger, the tail lunged at Dohyun.
Its movement was faster and far more persistent.
The goblin leader reacted reflexively, thrusting his spear to protect Dohyun.
At that moment—
From the swamp, hidden beneath the surface,
a spider larger than a big dog rose up.
Shiiik-!
A web of white silk blocked the spear.
It fired the web like a cannon shot.
When Geoung saw that and gripped his pillar as if to swing it,
thud—
A centipede with teeth like armor sank into Geoung’s leg from the swamp.
“Geoung... hurts?”
When they had dealt with the first nest,
there had been creatures with a bulk similar to the giant centipede that had survived Geoung’s first strike, and they were moving through the swamp now.
While the stinger flew in, aimed only at Dohyun,
whirl—
The goblin warrior threw away the spear tangled in the web, and with both hands he seized the stinger midair.
Drip... drip...
Blood spilled as his hands were sliced open.
Dohyun watched the scene without batting an eye.
...They read us.
He paused for a beat.
He had thought he was sorting things quickly, but the Cunsi clan seemed to have noticed and prepared thoroughly.
“Geoung-! Angry.”
Kwaaaang-!
But it didn’t matter.
Useless.
The enemy’s intentions were plain as day.
Information crossed through Dohyun’s mind.
They haven’t completely read us.
Thud—
As the goblin leader pounded his chest, cold fire burst in the eyes of the goblin warriors.
Keek-!
With the goblin leader’s cry,
spears rose.
A hundred spears rose like hedgehogs.
The tips of those spears pointed at the grotesque moths, giant spiders, and giant centipedes charging in.
The orderly wall of spears halted their movements, and in that split second—
Kwaaaang-!
“Geoung! Break!”
Geoung’s strike crushed the enemy.
They’ve grown.
As the Cunsi clan watched Dohyun’s legion engage in battle, they too regained their composure.
“Kko-kko... Kill them.”
“...Gah! Gah!”
Of course, that did not include the apprentice who had been wounded first.
The Cunsi clan had prepared fairly solidly, it seemed.
But we are stronger now.
Yokai grew by eating and being eaten.
Thump. Thump.
As the flow of qi leaked from within Dohyun’s body and his heart pounded at the rising pressure, he noticed what needed to be handled coldly.
Then his gaze stopped.
Not at the swamp.
At the forest.
Between the trees outside,
his eyes shifted.
Snap-
A breaking sound.
A black shadow flashed by.
A goblin fled backward.
From behind—
Crunch...
A centipede pounced.
His vision cut off.
Then another line of sight.
It was the moment a goblin warrior looked toward a herb-collector goblin returning from the entrance.
Crack-
...An ambush.
They were attacking only the goblins that had come completely outside the Dungeon.
Even before the goblin warrior could rush over, the goblin met his death.
The weaker goblins, weak enough to be called mere rabble, could not even resist.
A few died.
...It didn’t matter.
Within calculations.
The battlefield was already tipping in their favor.
And yet.
One more.
It was severed.
...This isn’t good.
Even in those brief moments, lives were flickering out.
Dohyun’s eyes grew colder.
Creaaaaak.
He pressed one forefoot firmly to the ground.
Five claws dug into the swamp.
A cold, damp sensation.
He clenched the earth.
…They are my legion.
Dohyun’s eyes turned slightly red.
Geoung.
“Geoung?”
I’ll divide the forces.
Between the goblin leader and Geoung, he chose to keep Geoung.
Take half the goblin warriors and fall back to protect the goblins.
He fed the map he had obtained from the System into the goblin leader’s mind.
Step—
He pounded his chest once, then withdrew immediately.
“Kko-kko... What’s wrong?”
Gyetoo asked, watching the goblins withdraw.
There was an ambush.
“Kko-kko... Understood.”
The words held a trace of regret.
I’m not withdrawing.
“Kko-kko?”
To Gyetoo, it must have looked as if half the force had been cut away.
Dohyun answered Gyetoo and then—
Wooooom—
a mist began to gather around his entire body.
He sent the goblin warriors back into the forest, but—
…Too late.
Dohyun took one step forward.
Thud—
The disgusting touch of the swamp.
He widened his eyes.
Giant armored centipedes, moths with blade-like tails, giant cannon spiders.
All of them—
were ordinary.
Dohyun’s eyes moved rapidly in all directions.
Range.
Density.
Flow.
A dragon’s brain remembered everything.
One simulation ran in his head.
At the same time,
his hand lifted.
Very slowly.
Woom— woom—
The air trembled.
Lines that had not been visible to Dohyun were revealed.
A formation.
And at the same time, an area.
How unstable.
Dohyun narrowed his eyes.
He could not see through everything.
It was not perfect.
There was risk.
But
it was enough.
Qi pulsed through Dohyun’s body.
The shadows of five fingers stretched long.
He swept his hand.
At that instant—
KWAAAAAAANG-!
With a tremendous explosion, the swamp convulsed.
Space twisted, and shockwaves began to crash in repeated bursts.
“Kko-kko-!”
Gyetoo and the rooster yokai were startled and leapt upward, but it did not affect them.
Only the Cunsi clan was caught in the trembling of space, screaming in their final moments as they fell back into the swamp.
As the sun slowly revealed itself in the sky,
it shone down on the bodies of the Cunsi clan,
and the poisonous fog covering the swamp scattered.
The rooster yokai swallowed hard.
“...”
It felt as if some great being had just stepped forward.
After a moment of silence, Gyetoo asked,
“Kko-kko... Dragon. What happened?”
There had been losses.
Dohyun spoke a single line.
Efficient cleanup.
And then, looking at Gyetoo with eyes gone cold, he said,
The cleanup... can continue, can’t it?
Gyetoo’s gaze swept across the battlefield.
Light had returned, and the formation had been broken.
The giant centipedes crawled on the ground, and the moths could no longer fly.
The transparent spiders gathered their legs and crouched low.
“Kko-kko... Enough.”
With Gyetoo’s words, Dohyun’s body was swallowed by smoke and vanished.