Chapter 42
My stamina was filling back up.
Mental fatigue lingered, but my body had returned to peak condition.
Ching! Slash!
Kyaaahhh!
The fiercer the battle raged behind my back, the better my sustained combat ability became.
'Ugh!'
I repeated the same method as before.
The tree towering eight stories high like an apartment building was gradually being devoured by red shadows.
'Its area is shrinking too.'
It was starting to wither away, bit by bit.
The peak wasn't far off. Gritting my teeth, I relentlessly hacked at the tree.
Groooaaarrr!
Even as the tree's screams shook my brain to its core, I pressed on.
That whole process...
"No... what the..."
The North Ocean Guild members watched in bewilderment. While Han Biyeol and Jeong Hamin fought desperately, they couldn't even keep up.
Namgung Hyunil had already merged his true self with his doppelganger.
"That Hunter... he's going that far for us, right...?"
"Y-yeah... looks like it..."
It was a fresh shock for North Ocean Guild, who were always scamming others.
Worn-out scumbags they might be, they were still Hunters at heart.
Seo Wonseok's rescue efforts weren't just selfless charity.
Letting a rotten guild like North Ocean Guild slide would make him no better than them.
They needed to face society's judgment. And Namgung Hyunil would bear tenfold the responsibility.
It had started from that grudge, flowing from short-selling to the Greenbelt Gate.
But the North Ocean Guild Hunters had no idea what was really driving Seo Wonseok.
"For complete strangers like us..."
Ripples stirred in their hearts.
And moreover.
"......"
"......"
Their guild master, who had thrown them into the meat grinder while scheming only for his own survival.
The contrast couldn't have been starker.
Namgung Hyunil started to snap at his guild members' reactions but soon lowered his gaze.
He sensed it instinctively.
'North Ocean Guild is done for.'
Guilds could limp along without credits or cash.
The true assets were the Hunters.
And those human resources were turning their backs on the guild master in real time. North Ocean Guild's fate was sealed.
It ended today.
"Damn it!"
Namgung Hyunil slammed his eyepatch with his fist in lament.
"Of all times."
The timing couldn't have been worse.
His funds for recruiting Hunters—credits, stocks—were all exposed.
'I joined Greenbelt to escape this crisis.'
Now even his last bastion, his affiliated Hunters, was slipping away.
"Fuck this, I have to do something."
The North Ocean Guild Hunters gripped their weapons. Not out of sudden righteousness.
If they bailed now, the media would crucify them. Transfers were already in mind—they had to defend their market value here!
"Raaahhh!"
Money-mad Hunters charged forward with renewed courage.
They formed a human barricade behind Seo Wonseok, handling the assaults with their bodies.
The roots themselves weren't much threat to these elite guild Hunters.
What wore them down was the sheer numbers, aggression, and speed of the roots.
Kaboom!
Roots burst out wildly with sonic booms.
Whips lashed from all directions at matching speeds, leaving them scrambling just to defend.
Topple the host, and these endlessly spawning roots would quiet down. Veteran Hunters knew it from experience.
"Seo Hunter!"
Han Biyeol called out, tilting his head to dodge an attack.
"Just kill it already! That's your power, isn't it?!"
"......"
Seo Wonseok didn't even glance his way.
No spare attention, and besides, he had no clue what the guy was on about.
'Just kill it?'
What a carefree thing to say. If I had some cheat skill like that, I'd have beheaded the guild heads ages ago! No need for this bullshit!
'Who the hell wants to grind Chaos Gates step by step?'
Wrestling this tree after tying my own feet with landmines wasn't exactly fun.
"......!!"
Han Biyeol recoiled at Seo Wonseok's glare. Then, without another word, he sliced through the roots with even more destructive force.
Swish!
Something had flipped his switch, turning him solo-mode.
But the same noise might come from others. Time to roughly explain why he was doing this.
"Kill it right here, and it hardens from the roots up!"
"What's that got to do with not instant-killing it?!"
Jeong Hamin asked while loading a bolt into his crossbow.
"This monster tree—ngh... anyway, we gotta uproot it! I'm weakening the tree, that's all!"
"Even weakened, how do we pull up that tree...?"
We can.
It's just not your job.
The tense standoff dragged on.
The monster tree had visibly slimmed down. In a final frenzy, it exposed every last feeder root to the surface world.
'Please, just please.'
"......!"
Then Seo Wonseok was hit by vertigo far worse than before—a thick, otherworldly dizziness.
Blood drained from him in an instant.
If his status was the same but anemia hit hard...
The red thread on his finger glowed an even deeper crimson.
This saturation symbolized a bond incomparably thicker than with Han Biyeol.
Shwaaaaa!
A comet split the night sky. Hunters in the fray reflexively jerked their heads back.
As dazed gazes converged on one point.
The light plummeted onto the great grandmother tree.
A thunderous boom.
Its echoes made the writhing roots flop like fish flung onshore.
Amid the heaving wreckage, a figure descended from the heavens and shouted at me.
"Wonseok!"
He always showed up like Superman.
And the timing was perfect.
Please write a detailed review.
The more detailed, the more helpful!
However, if you give 1 star, Punishment will be inflicted on the subordinate.
Worthless subordinates can only improve by ceasing to exist...
'Finally.'
The EXP this damn tree yielded to me had hit the target!
A rough scan showed the fairies mostly wiped out. Most beasts dead, all humans alive.
Just one final hurdle left.
Seo Wonseok bellowed to the closer who would tie off this finale.
"Uproot this crazy tree, roots and all!"
"Got it!"
Seo Boseok folded space as he dashed over. Roots lunged to grab him, but...
Couldn't touch a single hair.
In a blink, he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Seo Wonseok, embracing the colossal trunk. Veins bulged on his forearms.
Time for the baton pass. Seo Wonseok retrieved the attached Hemo.
"Stay back a bit more."
"Was gonna anyway."
"You sure take your time saying thanks."
Seo Wonseok staggered backward and finally penned the deferred 'Review Event.'
Daring to threaten the master? Worst.
Zero stars—but can't, so 1 star it is.
The master expresses regret over the subordinate's conduct.
Upon objective review, ■■ affirms the master's evaluation.
'Punishment: Weakening' applied to the disappointing subordinate.
......!
The once-vibrant feeder roots wilted like dead radish scraps, losing all vigor.
In sync.
Crack, rip rip rip!
Tearing sounds echoed.
Hunter Seo Boseok held his breath and bent at the waist.
The apartment-ten-stories-tall tree...
Rip, riiiip rip rip!
Was uprooted!
Kraaaaaaaaah!
The foul tree masquerading as a spirit wailed. Even amid the disorienting haze, Seo Boseok kept pulling with iron resolve.
Kyaaaak!
The gap between trunk and earth widened. Blood flooded out.
"Tough bastard!"
Crunch!
Seo Boseok gathered every last ounce of strength.
"Hup!"
He yanked it up like pulling a radish.
A scene perfectly suited to his patron constellation, the Herculean Deity.
Seo Boseok hurled the uprooted log straight into the inferno without pause.
The man-eating blaze devoured the fuel in seconds.
"Cleared... it...?"
Starting with the Hunters.
"Woooaaahhh!"
"We did it! We did it!"
Cheers pierced the night sky.
"Ha."
As my breath steadied, my body finally gave out.
I sprawled flat on my back.
A shadow fell over me from above.
"Good work."
"Yeah, you did great."
Bro's legs were jelly too—he plopped down.
Where wilted roots had rippled amid joy and tears, now Hemo jiggled. Only Namgung Hyunil glowered venomously from the corner.
'I've got unfinished business with that bastard.'
As I pushed off the ground to stand.
A profound silence fell.
Hunters froze mid-leap in the air.
I alone creakily shifted my gaze.
A mountain beast trudged through the time-stilled world.
'You...'
It was the white deer I'd healed.
Approaching with auspicious eyes, the white deer's form shifted.
Into human shape.
The next instant, a woman stood before me in elegant black hanbok. Her hairpin caught the eye.
"A child with a pure heart."
⟨ Baridegi ⟩
The woman stroked my battered head with wounded hands.
Instinct told me who she was.
"I have a debt to repay you, so I wish to give."
This bridge linking heaven and earth in the Greenbelt Gate.
"Will you let Baridegi return the favor?"
The true spirit.
Baridegi.
A legendary figure from Korean shamanic folklore.
The youngest of a king's seven daughters, abandoned for being a girl.
Parents discarding their child.
I felt an odd resonance with that.
Baridegi's tale stuck with me for a reason.
She alone crossed to the afterlife to fetch a miracle elixir for her ailing parents who had cast her out.
'The only living soul to journey to the underworld and return.'
A bridge between the living world and the dead.
That's why she's said to be Mujoshin—the progenitor of all shamans.
Those pitch-black eyes pierced my soul.
A pressure different from the Great King or General.
Those two overwhelmed with sheer aura, but Baridegi smiled kindly.
Yet a chill wind seemed to tug at her robe's hem.
A messenger linking this world and the next.
The original grim reaper, so to speak.
"Ah, forgive me. I sealed your lips thinking only of myself."
Baridegi chuckled sheepishly and shook her bell.
Ting-a-ling.
The oppressive sensation—like being submerged in tepid water—eased a bit.
But the eerie wrap around my body persisted.
"Now speak, child."
"......I greet you, Baridegi-nim."
"What a pure heart you have.
Speak freely, child. Freely."
Realizing the Mujoshin's presence, only a fool would speak casually.
I replied politely.
"I... didn't heal you expecting repayment, Baridegi-nim."
"An ideal answer.
Yet you chose to heal me when you could have passed by."
"That was."
I suddenly turned to my brother.
In the ash-gray world, only he seemed splashed with color—an illusion.
"Just me imitating the man I respect."