Chapter 81
There was no running from Raba. We had no choice but to take it down. Its snarls vibrated through my chest. I could hear the scrape of its lower body dragging as it planted its feet and hauled itself along. The shock it had taken moments earlier had forced it to circle the area, recovering its strength.
For all we knew, it was watching us from beyond the shadows. Ichie spoke up.
"So what do we do now?"
Yujeong-sunbae answered.
"Like I said a second ago—we can't run. The moment we start fleeing, that thing will decide we're weak and come after us again. The only reason it backed off just now is because the gauntlet hit harder than it expected."
As she spoke, she rested her face against my chest. I stroked her hair while keeping watch on our surroundings. For the moment, there was no sign of Raba nearby. Yujeong-sunbae pulled out her radio and muttered under her breath.
"Must be interference from contact with the mana stone. I should've turned the radio off. My mistake."
She pressed the transmit button and called the gate team.
"This is the subjugation unit. Gate team. Gate team. Respond."
"Receiving you loud and clear."
A short reply came back from the gate team. Yujeong-sunbae continued.
"Gate team. We've secured the mana stone from the boss and are currently being pursued by Raba. What's the status on high-rank hunter dispatch?"
"Nearest hunters are thirty minutes out. Two C-rank hunters en route."
Yujeong-sunbae let out a long sigh.
"I was hoping maybe an A-rank would show up. No point counting on that. We won't last that long."
She sighed again. All that seemed left was despair. Ichie spoke.
"If we hit it one more time, can we kill it?"
She pointed at the gauntlet in Yujeong-sunbae's hand. Yujeong-sunbae shook her head.
"Not by myself. If I could drive this in deeper, maybe—but that means punching clean through the hide."
At those words I looked at Ichie. She turned her sword over in her hands, then looked back at me. With an unreadable expression she studied my arm and said,
"Su-hyeon-ssi. When your arm takes an impact, it stores the force, right?"
"Yeah. That's right."
Ichie nodded, then looked at her blade again. A strange unease prickled through me. She gave the edge a sharp gleam and said,
"Su-hyeon-ssi. I have a plan."
"A plan?"
"But for this to work, you have to trust me."
"Of course I trust you. Ichie. What is it?"
When I said that, she hesitated, then opened her mouth. The moment I heard the plan, I completely lost control of my expression. It was persuasive—but it was also savage. Yujeong-sunbae heard it too and looked at Ichie.
"Ichie. If you're going to do that, wouldn't it be better if I just did it myself?"
"More firepower is better, even if it's just one extra person. So Su-hyeon-ssi does it, and the two of us charge up together."
"It's fine, sunbae. In a situation like this we have to try something."
I shook my head at Yujeong-sunbae's attempt to stop me. She had already burned through a lot of strength firing the gauntlet twice. This was the moment for me—the healthy guy—to step up and show something. Something manly. I held out my left arm to Ichie.
"All right! Ichie! Do it!"
Ichie drew her sword and stepped toward me. Raba still hadn't closed in on us.
"Mmmph! Mmmmmph!"
Yujeong-sunbae was looking at me with pity in her eyes. I had my mouth clamped shut, straining not to look at my own arm. Ichie carefully set the blade against my left arm and pressed down with steady force. As the left arm split open, damage accumulated in my right arm, and at the same time blood was steadily drawn into Ichie's blade.
As if determined not to let me die from blood loss or shock, she poured potions over the wound at the same time. Every time the potion touched it, the cut arm began to knit back together—and the moment it closed, the blade went in again. Ichie kept talking to me the whole time.
"Su-hyeon-ssi. Are you okay? Does it hurt too much? If you're about to pass out, I'll stop."
"I-I'm fine! I'm fiiiiine—aaagh! Mmmph!"
I was not fine. My head spun and my eyes kept rolling back. Sweat poured down my forehead; the world tilted. Ichie's voice reached me like an echo. Then, at some point, the pain stopped and everything went white.
The world was silent. I clutched my arm and caught my breath.
"Ugh! Ha… huff… huff… I-is it over? Ichie?"
I hurriedly looked around. The Omnipotent Empress was sitting in a chair, watching me. She said,
"What a ridiculous creature you are. All that swagger, and you fainted?"
She snickered as she said it. I jerked in alarm.
"I have to get back right now! There's a C-rank monster outside—we need every person we can get!"
"You finally made it in here. Why not stay a little longer? Time spent talking with you like this, instead of meditating, is extremely precious."
"Omnipotent Empress!"
At my urgent voice she grinned and said,
"I'm joking. I'll send you back at once."
She flicked her fingers, and the world snapped back into place. Ichie and Yujeong-sunbae were staring at me with round eyes. I shook my head once and said,
"I-I didn't faint! I'm fine! Keep going!"
"I-it's finished, Su-hyeon-ssi."
She spoke with eyes burning bright as lanterns. I looked down at my right arm. It was glowing. Yujeong-sunbae gripped the gauntlet tightly and stared past the trees. Raba's white legs gleamed even in the shadows, catching the sunlight.
Raba was tossing its head with renewed arrogance as it came back for us. The spot the gauntlet had struck earlier was swollen an angry red. Its jaw was still ragged, yet the creature looked otherwise intact. It fixed us with a blazing glare and opened its maw wide.
"Kuaaaaaaah!"
With that roar, Raba charged at us in a furious rush. Without needing a signal we split left and right. Yujeong-sunbae threw herself the opposite way from us. Like Moses parting the sea, the dense undergrowth shot skyward and split apart. Wherever Raba passed, a deep furrow of bare earth remained.
Raba, which had buried its head in a mound of dirt, lifted it again, then twisted its waist sideways at a grotesque angle and locked onto us. We had to dive aside once more. Even though we moved the instant we saw it, the shield was scraped by Raba's torso. Iron and flesh collided, and one corner of the shield twisted into a bizarre shape again.
As if to prove it could repeat the maneuver as many times as it liked, the moment it lost us Raba used its own arm as a brake and spun its body in a great arc. That massive bulk of pure muscle completed a full turn and flattened every tree around it. On the right side of its huge frame, the swollen red mark stood out clearly. It looked exactly like a bullseye.
Yujeong-sunbae swung wide, trying to target the wound.
But the thing was simply too fast. We were fully occupied just dodging. It charged forward with nothing but brute force—yet that brute force was so overwhelming we couldn't even think of stopping it. Without a hint of fatigue it came at us again, and once more we had to throw ourselves clear.
"Huh?"
A rough hand seized Ichie's shoulder. Raba, mid-charge, had suddenly stretched out an arm and snagged us as we dove aside. The bastard could think. Ichie was being dragged helplessly toward it.
"Ichie!"
Startled, I gripped my spear and prepared to rush in. Yujeong-sunbae was equally shocked, already charging with the gauntlet on. Raba's jaws yawned open. Ichie, face tight with alarm, drew her sword. Her eyes blazed—and in the instant Raba's hand was about to close over her like a net—
A shadow appeared above Raba's head. A thin, straight shadow that grew larger and larger until it became a massive cylindrical silhouette. Raba, about to tear Ichie's head off, lifted its gaze to the sky.
Boom!
A steel drum dropped from the heavens and crushed Raba's skull. The pressure of a drum falling from hundreds of meters up sent Raba thrashing, arms flailing in every direction. The impact flung Ichie backward.
A gate instability phenomenon. Luck that would never come twice. Ichie pushed herself up from the ground.
I started to run to her—but Yujeong-sunbae's shout snapped me back to focus. Raba was still reeling, unable to recover, and the wound on its belly was fully exposed.
"Now!"
Ichie set her stance and swung her sword in a great arc. A crimson trail followed the path of the blade and shot forward like a bolt. With every ounce of strength I had, I hurled the spear gripped in my right arm. The spear, wreathed in white light, flew straight for the wound.
"Kuaaaaaaaargh!"
The two lights struck the wound at the same time, and Raba began to scream in agony. The sound of hide tearing filled the air. Blood sprayed in every direction; the air itself seemed to burst as Raba's belly caved inward from the impact. A single thin membrane of flesh was all that still protected the entrails behind the tattered hide.
Dirt and branches flew everywhere. Through that chaos, Yujeong-sunbae ran. She clenched her teeth, drew her arm far back, and with the roar of an engine explosion drove her fist forward. As if the punch itself were pulling her, she launched herself into Raba's belly.
The thin membrane gave way without resistance, and the heavy mechanical device buried itself deep among the organs. Blood gushed from beneath the pure-white skin. Fresh pain sent Raba thrashing even harder. We sprinted with everything we had toward the direction Yujeong-sunbae would be flung.
The click of a button reached us clearly. Immediately after, a compressed explosion thundered from inside Raba's gut.
Thoom!
At a speed that made the dull boom feel almost leisurely, Yujeong-sunbae was blasted free. I leapt with all my strength toward her.
I caught her by a hair's breadth and we tumbled across the ground. Sprawled on our backs, we stared up at the sky and gasped for air. Ichie came running, still catching her breath.
"Kuuuuh…!"
Raba's voice reached us. This was no time to rest. Realizing that, we forced ourselves upright and faced it again.
Raba's belly swelled like a queen ant's, then collapsed in on itself. Blood fountained from the hole Yujeong-sunbae had made. Chunks of organ spilled out with the thick flow. Having shoved aside the drum that had crushed its head, Raba waved its arms in the air like an insect—then went limp.
Yujeong-sunbae gave us a thumbs-up. Ichie and I, still sitting on the ground, raised our thumbs in return.
And then we started laughing like idiots. A rush of triumph hit us—and with it, every last drop of strength drained away.