A Spectacular Fireworks Display in the Valley
Hunting Abysses is never easy.
Though each specimen differed in its particulars, they all shared one trait in common: senses sharpened to a terrifying degree. They could feel a human's killing intent, catch the scent of blood from friend and foe alike, and react with hair-trigger sensitivity to the slightest provocation.
And the moment they detected that stimulus, they charged their target like a stampeding herd of mad bulls, the fear of death utterly forgotten.
For that reason, even when only a handful of Abysses stood before you, striking them carelessly was generally regarded as an extremely dangerous act. Attempt a hunt with inadequate force, and you risked being annihilated by the endless waves of reinforcements that would come pouring in.
That same hypersensitivity and aggression made Abysses terrifyingly effective at rapid force concentration and total war. Hunters and the adjutants who commanded them therefore made caution a standing principle of every hunt, conducting engagements with the absolute minimum of stimulus. Provoke the Abysses too far, and you could be swept away without mercy by a tide of berserkers that never stopped coming.
And yet—
That keen instinct and explosive aggression, for all their strength, could at times become a fatal weakness that dragged the Abysses themselves straight into hell.
Exactly as they were doing right now, before my eyes.
"Thud-thud-thud-thud!"
A thunderous pounding of footsteps shook the earth. And with that as the signal, countless Abysses began pouring out of the forest like a river of black tar.
"KRAAAAH!!"
"KUEEEEK!!"
"KYAAAAH!!"
Twisted bestial howls rose as the Abysses swarmed in like a plague of ants. Their numbers had to be in the hundreds at the very least, and their momentum looked fierce enough to topple a mountain. A horde like that closing in from every direction was more than enough to awaken a human's instinctive terror—
And yet the thirty hunters who stood as their targets wore, in that moment, not fear but deep smiles. Smiles thick with anticipation and exhilaration for what was about to unfold.
"All units, ready to fire!"
At Are's command, the hunters leveled their guns forward from their positions. But the weapons they held were not the kind that fired ordinary rounds.
What was loaded inside them was—
"Fire!"
—Crack! Crack! Crack!
Rounds that left the barrels with a sound distinctly different from normal bullets. And unlike invisible ordinary rounds, the moment these projectiles neared the ground they began spewing brilliant streams of flame, as if someone had set off a fireworks display.
Then—
—BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!!
In the next instant the rounds detonated all at once, looking for all the world like high explosives. Those tiny shells transformed in a flash into active volcanoes spanning several meters in radius, and the vanguard of Abysses that had nearly reached the base of the hill was reduced to ash on the spot.
Even at a safe distance the heat rolled over them in a wave. The hunters felt the full measure of that power, and reloaded for another round of this spectacular fireworks of death.
Incendiary rounds. Mass-killing munitions capable of turning an entire area into a sea of fire with a single shot. Under ordinary circumstances they were nearly unusable for fear of friendly fire—but from a high ground position of absolute unilateral advantage, you could blaze away without a care in the world. Especially when the things in front of you were monsters that deserved not a shred of remorse.
"Ready to fire!"
At Are's second command the hunters leveled their muzzles once more. In that moment, three categories of targets filled their sights: Abysses already reduced to ash in the sea of fire; Abysses melting down as they died; and the countless others still charging endlessly toward them in a berserk frenzy, utterly indifferent to the deaths of their own kind.
Toward those cursed creatures, the hunters prepared once more to deliver hell.
"Fire!"
—Crack! Crack! Crack!
At Are's order the fireworks of hell began again. A not-insubstantial stream of valley water ran nearby, and the Abysses engulfed in flame instinctively rolled toward it—but that only made things worse. The materials in the incendiary rounds were mostly highly reactive metals like aluminum and magnesium. Put simply, once they hit water the fire didn't go out—it burned even more fiercely, by the very nature of the fuel.
"KREEEEK!!"
"KUOOOARGH!!"
Abysses that leapt into the water without knowing any of this melted away in even more horrific fashion. Watching them, Kwon Soon reloaded another incendiary round in high spirits.
"This feels amazing. Yeah—combat's supposed to be this hot! A thousand times, ten thousand times better than wandering around the woods for days doing nothing!"
"Exactement! Couldn't agree more, Jogs!"
Glass shouted with the same exhilaration. Ordinarily she was as languid as a cat dozing under spring sunlight—but in this moment she looked less like a house cat and more like a wildcat. With every volley of incendiary rounds under Are's command, the thrill in her only deepened. And it wasn't just Glass. Every hunter present felt the same. Even Are herself, who wasn't firing directly because she was busy commanding, was caught in a similar rush.
Then—
"Team Three hunters! All of you, shift aim to three o'clock!"
Jinhyun's sudden order came over the channel. The hunters of Team Three didn't know exactly why, but they turned their eyes that way as ordered.
"From there—concentrated fire on the low ground fifty meters ahead!"
"F-Fire!"
They still didn't understand the reason, but they launched their incendiary rounds as ordered. The shells that slammed into the Abyss-choked ground detonated with terrifying force and turned the entire area into a sea of fire.
Even then, the hunters still had no idea what their action had meant. They had simply followed the clear voice of their commander. Why the slight shift in firing direction had been necessary was beyond them.
But a moment later—
"KWEEEEEEEEK!!!!"
"Huh?"
"Th-That's…"
In the next instant, a single Abyss filled their vision. The moment they recognized what it was, the hunters of Team Three felt simultaneous shock and relief.
An Upper-class Abyss Lycan.
A bipedal wolf-shaped creature, classified as a variant of the Abyss Wolf—yet in combat power it belonged to an entirely different league. It overwhelmed Lower-class Abyss Wolves in both speed and strength, and the truly terrifying part was its leaping ability: it could clear the rocky hill they were standing on in a single bound.
Given that this was a B-class mission, something like that should never have appeared. Either the intelligence had been off, or the thing had drifted in from somewhere in the meantime. But none of that mattered now. The Lycan had taken a full barrage of incendiary rounds dead-on, and for all its infamous reputation as an Upper-class Abyss it was dying with a wretched scream. The only difference was that, being Upper-class, it lasted a few seconds longer than the others before it went down.
If they had spotted it even a little later—if they had allowed it to close the distance—there was no telling what might have happened next. Are was on watch with Trapezo rather than a firearm, true, but depending on how things played out, friendly casualties could easily have occurred.
And so, relieved that they had passed through a crisis they hadn't even known they were in without major incident, the hunters once again found themselves sincerely marveling at Jinhyun's ability.