Bait for the Siren
Oh, fuck. He was completely pulverized. Dropped from a kilometer up, Yohan had been reduced to an unrecognizable lump of meat. The Siren loosed a sinister cry, then, with a powerful beat of its wings, settled softly before the heap of what had been Yohan.
"That... that crazy bird-brained son of a bitch!"
The blond chili's face had gone deathly white. Having already killed people in the Solari World, I wasn't all that shaken. Of course, my mental state aside, the situation itself was extremely dire.
"Stick together! Don't let that thing snatch anyone else!"
Lina made the right call. Even the monster encyclopedia said the most effective way to avoid a Siren's attack was to cluster up. Unfortunately, we'd arrived at that solution a little too late. And the price had been steep. We'd lost our tank.
Kiiiiiiek!
Having let out a vigorous shriek, the Siren pecked at Yohan's pancake-flat corpse with its beak and began to feed. Sujin doubled over at the sight, clamping a hand over her mouth in anguish. The blond chili looked ready to faint outright. Lina, at least, was holding on, biting down on her lip.
"This is insane... A Siren, all of a sudden? That doesn't even make sense!"
The blond chili was having a fit. Fuck, like anyone here doesn't know that. This isn't the time to be falling over in shock. We need to deal with that monster first.
"A Siren... It's threateningly fast, but it supposedly won't attack easily if we stay bunched up. And aside from its speed, everything else about it is actually below average."
Lina calmly recited the Siren's specs, but it wasn't much comfort. The whole reason a Siren is dangerous in the first place is that it can fly and it has that insane speed.
Even if the rest of its stats are lacking, that alone more than makes up the difference. There's a reason low-rank hunters get wrecked without even landing a hit. When something that fast is maneuvering in the air, you can't even connect an attack.
Kiiiiiiek!
The Siren, which had been tearing into Yohan's flesh, suddenly spread both wings wide and shot into the sky. Then, like a crow circling a carcass, it began to wheel above us.
"It's targeting us! Eek! Stick together!"
The blond chili yelped in panic. This bastard's combat style was close-quarters brawling, so he was probably going to be useless.
Fortunately, the Siren didn't attack right away. It could only hunt one human at a time. It already seemed to know that getting greedy could snap its own wings. Pretty smart for a bird-brain.
"It's too high. I don't think our attacks will even reach. And with it circling like that..."
Lina clicked her tongue.
"It's probably waiting for an opening."
Lina nodded at my words. This was bad. If a flock of harpies hit us while we were stuck like this, we were dead. That Siren was highly intelligent — it would just sit up there in the sky, watching at its leisure as we and the harpies wore each other down and dropped. Then, once a winner was decided, it would pick off the survivors and take everything.
Fuck. We were completely screwed.
"If harpies show up while we're like this, we're finished. We don't have a choice. We have to strike first."
"S-strike first? How?"
Sujin's voice was shaking badly. I was barely keeping my own from doing the same.
"One of us has to act as bait and draw it down. To hit that thing, we have to get it on the ground somehow."
"B-bait!? What are you talking about?"
The chili clearly didn't like my plan. Maybe "bait" was a little too blunt. Either way, this was our only shot. As long as that bird-brain was floating in the air, we couldn't attack it anyway.
"There's no other way. Chili... I mean, Hwang. Your ability is acceleration, right?"
Grasping my intent, he waved both hands frantically.
"No, no, no, no! That's impossible! You saw how it moved just now! Even with my acceleration, I'll get snatched in an instant!"
Fuck, if you can't do anything else, at least be the bait! What a piece of shit. His reach was so short he couldn't do anything but be bait. For everyone to live, someone had to be sacrificed. And that someone should be this chili. Sujin and Lina were beautiful women, and I was me.
"You're not going to die. The moment it comes down, we'll attack."
"If it fails, I die!"
"If it fails, we ALL die!"
"I don't want to! I can't! I can't! Fuck! I don't want to die! I just became a Dungeon Hunter! Waaah!"
In the end, the chili burst into tears. Fuck. Yeah, I should've known better than to hope. This was the obvious outcome, if anything. Honestly, I never expected him to go, "Yes, I'll do it!" with some grim, heroic smile. Piece of shit.
"Th-then I'll be the bait..."
"No. I'll do it."
Sujin volunteered, but I cut her off.
"What? No! Just let me do it!"
"No. You and Lina have to attack the Siren. You're the damage dealers. You both got better DPS training than I did."
"But..."
Leaving her worried protests behind, I sprinted forward. My heart was pounding. The crushing weight of knowing I could die squeezed my chest. Every human fears death. Living things are designed that way.
But another feeling hammered at my heart alongside the fear. The source of that pulse was the hunger for a challenge. My heart — bold enough to step into unknown worlds without flinching — was afraid of this situation, and savoring it at the same time.
I smiled. The elite always smile when things get hard. Once I became a Dungeon Hunter, I would face this kind of thing countless times. So I couldn't fold here.
Kiiiiiiek!
The Siren, watching the ground from above, saw my movement and plunged toward the earth like a thunderbolt. The speed was truly staggering. If the blond chili had gone out there, he would have been snatched up like a lamb by an eagle and fallen to his death in an instant. Surprisingly wise of him. Guys like that tend to have long lives.
"Jaeseong!"
Sujin's scream, closer to a shriek, rang out behind me. I focused every ounce of my mind and pulled out my hidden trump card.
Time Acceleration
Time Acceleration — one of the skills in my arsenal. It burned stamina and mental power to double my personal time for twenty seconds. In simple terms, it was almost identical to that blond chili's ability, Acceleration.
"Kh!"
Thoom!
An instant stretched into a long, drawn-out moment. The Siren, which had been flying at tremendous speed, seemed trapped in slow motion. Of course, even that "slowed" speed was still as fast as a speeding car — but with over 100 Agility, I could just barely read its movement.
I planted both legs firmly in the earth, then seized the Siren's ankles with both arms.
"URAAAAAAH!"
Crack!
A pain like my hands had shattered shot through me. It was like trying to stop a monster falling at lightning speed with my bare hands. The enormous kinetic energy felt like it was pulverizing my grip to pieces. But I refused to yield to the pain, and hauled the Siren even harder toward me.
Chain Drain
The instant I grabbed it, Lina's chains shot toward the creature. Eight of them — the maximum number she could summon. Two chains seized its wings, two bound its legs, and the remaining four coiled around its neck.
"HAAAAAH!"
With Lina's battle cry, I felt the Siren's strength drain away. Chain Drain was a powerful boss-killer technique that absorbed mana from a bound target.
Water Arrow
Sujin didn't miss the opening. A condensed arrow of water shot toward the Siren, its movement sealed by the eight chains. The water arrow, reminiscent of an industrial water jet, punched through the Siren's wing.
Kiiiiiiek!
The Siren's voice shifted from a delighted cackle to a piercing scream. We had the upper hand. Now we had to lock it in.
Holy Arrow
At point-blank range, I loaded a Holy Arrow aimed at the creature's weak point. The weak point was, of course, the crotch. I wasn't sure if it was male or female, but either way, that was a vital spot for every living thing.
Pshhhk!
My Holy Arrow struck its weak point dead-on. In that instant, the Siren's scream turned into a pitiful wail. But it wasn't dead yet.
"It's not over! Keep attacking! Until this bastard dies!"
Sujin and Lina unleashed every last bit of power they'd been holding in reserve. The chains tightened hard enough to crush the Siren's bones, and five Water Arrows cut through the air. The blond chili just stood there, zoning out. For that idiot, standing still was the most help he could give.
Kieeek! Keeek!
It beat its wings, trying to take off again. Not a chance. The moment you came down to the ground, you were already dead.
You bird-brained son of a bitch! You dare kill our tank!? He was an unlucky bastard, sure, but he didn't deserve to die. If you were going to kill someone, you should've killed that useless blond chili.
Kiiiiiiiek!
The struggle between the three of us and the Siren ended in our victory. The Siren, its strength completely spent, let out a single death cry and collapsed. Its last words sounded like the hiss of a deflated soccer ball. Even after it went down, I couldn't let go of the leg I'd been holding.
"Jaeseong!"
It was only when I heard Sujin's warm voice as she ran to me that my hands finally came loose. I just aged ten years. Fuck.