Chapter 174
Chapter 174
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 174
Chapter Title: Typhoon Hunt
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A tiny Munk in my heart screamed.
‘Go Yo-ri? Why? Why, Go Yo-ri?’
For reference, excluding the illegal squatter Go Yo-ri who had arbitrarily nested in my unconscious world, this was the first reunion with the real ‘present-day’ Go Yo-ri in over thousands of years.
Precisely 2,112 years.
In 2,112 years, Silla would have fallen twice over. Even the Egyptians would gaze at the pyramids they themselves built and wonder, ‘Wow, what amazing people must have constructed such a mysterious building?’
Just controlling my facial muscles to remain composed deserved praise for reaching a superhuman level of patience.
“Ah, Guild Leader. Your lips are trembling.”
“…I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I immediately slipped into method acting.
Go Yo-ri? Who was Go Yo-ri? I was merely a self-employed café owner operating a small shop in the Inunaki Tunnel. Plus, Yoo Ji-won’s guardian spirit was protecting me.
“Miss Go Yo-ri. I hear you mainly operate out of Daejeon as your base, so what brings you to Busan? And without any prior notice, at that.”
“Ah. Um…….”
“Since we’ve crossed paths often on SG Net, I’d like to accommodate you as much as possible, but the timing and place aren’t ideal right now. If no proper explanation is provided, we’ll have no choice but to respond according to our rules. I hope you understand.”
Go Yo-ri’s eyes stared straight at me.
She started to extend her left hand toward me.
“Ah, I see.”
Then she hesitated.
I had no desire to know what ‘Ah, I see’ meant. Nor could I know.
In any case, all the knowledge I believed I had realized on my own would merely be brainwashing induced by Go Yo-ri.
“I’m sorry. Guild Leader Undertaker.”
“…….”
Go Yo-ri withdrew her hand.
She bowed her head toward me, who was desperately running double-think.
A troubled smile hung on Go Yo-ri’s lips, like wisteria in the shade.
“To be honest, I had no intention of visiting so rudely.”
“Then why…….”
“I’m not sure if you’ll believe me, but I opened my eyes and suddenly I was here.”
“…….”
“I was pretty shocked at first too. I was working hard for all the refugees coming up from Busan in droves, and then one day I was suddenly moved here.”
A retort of ‘What nonsense is that?’ didn’t come easily.
It wasn’t just because Go Yo-ri’s expression and lines exuded overwhelming trustworthiness, making me want to believe her right away.
It was because I knew from the start that uncovering the truth was impossible.
Unlike the relatively friendly ‘Go Yo-ri in my unconscious’ who was kind to me, the ‘real-world Go Yo-ri’ sitting before me felt somewhat different.
Rougher, somehow.
I couldn’t confidently answer exactly what was rougher. It was just the intuition of a regressor who had lived far too long.
“So, you’re saying your visit has no purpose? In that case, we’ll make arrangements for you to stay here until the Great Monsoon is subjugated. It may be somewhat uncomfortable, but I ask for your understanding of our precarious situation.”
“Ah. No. That’s not it.”
Go Yo-ri waved her hand with a broad smile.
“Really, Guild Leader, you speak so quickly. Do you always want to jump straight to conclusions like that?”
“…….”
“You’re right, Guild Leader. This isn’t the right time or place. But, um. I feel a bit wronged.”
“Wronged?”
“Yes. Because I’m not the only ‘element that shouldn’t be here’ at this time and place, right?”
Saliva silently slid down my esophagus.
The Great Monsoon怪異 that wasn’t originally supposed to land on the Korean Peninsula.
The ‘toilet bathtub effect’ that shouldn’t have occurred, but which I had triggered.
The ark that shouldn’t have been here. The plan to bind the typhoon using puppet strings.
Nearly every condition forming the current situation was an ‘element that shouldn’t be.’
Was Go Yo-ri pointing that out?
“I don’t know why I ended up here. But isn’t that the same for humans? You don’t know why you were born into the world, yet you still strive to find the purpose of your life.”
“That’s overly abstract.”
“I know what I need to do here. I realized it the moment I arrived.”
Squirm-.
A water strider wriggled on Go Yo-ri’s long index finger.
The bug’s tail stroke created tiny bubbles, which rose to near her lips before popping.
Go Yo-ri cherished the water strider on her finger as if a small bird had perched there.
Even with it sitting in her palm, her voice showed no disturbance, her hair remained neat. Her posture didn’t waver amid the ark’s real-time rocking in the typhoon. It was proof her aura control had reached an exceedingly refined level.
Or was it really thanks to aura? I was suspicious.
“Guild Leader, you plan to hunt the dragon, don’t you?”
Dragon (龍).
A term I’d never heard before.
I could instinctively sense it was Go Yo-ri’s personal way of referring to the ‘Great Monsoon’怪異.
“When you go to hunt the dragon, take me with you. I’ll definitely be helpful to you, Guild Leader.”
“…What if I say we can’t suddenly insert an outsider into the subjugation operation meticulously prepared in Busan?”
“Oh? Then I might just become a Busan citizen.”
“…….”
“I’ve been a Lotte fan since way back!”
It was an offer impossible to refuse.
10
The Great Monsoon subjugation, Operation Name ‘Typhoon Hunt,’ proceeded as follows.
First, National Highway Management Corps agents ran around explaining the operation plan.
“In one hour, the arks will begin shaking violently!”
“Please sit in your assigned seats and fasten your belts! Even awakeners must not unfasten their belts carelessly!”
The ark’s quarantine zones had seats prepared from the start to withstand intense ocean currents.
Think of them as upgraded airplane seats.
Unfortunately, it didn’t mean quality upgraded from economy to business.
Waist belts, chest belts, leg belts, and so on. An SM-style upgrade meant to securely restrain limbs no matter what happened.
“Awakeners, please make sure to hold onto the strings!”
“Commands will be issued in real-time through the strings! If instructions are given, inject aura into the strings only to the extent you won’t exhaust yourselves!”
Puppet strings from Lee Ha-yul were distributed a few strands each to the passengers seated in the torture chairs.
These puppet strings ran along the bulkheads of Ark 1 to the bow statue, then extended from there to the bow statues of the other arks.
The fleet of 12 arks.
All the awakeners aboard were now connected via ‘Khalas.’
Readers familiar with StarCraft would sense through this description of the arks and Khalas that ‘autumn’ was approaching.
“Your Excellency. All awakeners are seated.”
Yoo Ji-won reported from the operation control room.
On the [Minimap] Yoo Ji-won had brought, thousands of awakeners were still marked even now.
Too many for standard chess pieces, so most were indicated by 2cm micro chess pieces.
Even the Saintess’s [Clairvoyance] had become nearly useless.
For commanding this large-scale operation, they had no choice but to rely on Yoo Ji-won’s [Minimap].
“The arks’ positions?”
“They’re spaced sufficiently apart. Even if the currents rage, the probability of arks colliding is extremely low. Your Excellency.”
“Good.”
I looked around.
No Do-ha. Dang Seo-rin. Sim A-ryeon. Lee Ha-yul. Yoo Ji-won. Even the uninvited guest Go Yo-ri.
Excluding the final illegal immigrant, everyone was mentally and physically exhausted.
Yet their eyes still burned with life.
To succeed in ‘Typhoon Hunt,’ not a single one of the people here could be spared.
“Then, let’s begin.”
“…You sure about this? Undertaker?”
Dang Seo-rin looked at me with worried eyes.
“The Great Monsoon will quietly disappear if we just hold out another 30 days or so. You don’t need to push this hard—we could just wait it out…….”
“Then next summer, another Great Monsoon will come. And we’ll have to board the arks just like now every time.”
“…….”
“Don’t worry, Dang Seo-rin. I know these words won’t comfort you, but I’ve already lost limbs several times.”
“Seriously. That’s zero comfort.”
Dang Seo-rin shook her head. Her face said she was truly helpless.
It was also an expression I liked.
“Got it. Then……. Shall I sing?”
“Please.”
Gently. Dang Seo-rin pressed the puppet string and parted her lips.
“Ah――.”
A song flowed from her mouth. Song Enchantment.
The first and second verses, as always, were ‘Repetition’ and ‘Regeneration.’ Pre-laid songs automatically repeated and replayed—a foundation for Dang Seo-rin’s grand magic.
The magic that followed was unusual.
――Ah―Ah―Aah――.
Sensory Maximization.
This magic amplified human senses to the extreme.
You often see in comics how bullets flying toward you appear in slow motion. ‘Sensory Maximization’ was the magic to induce exactly that state.
However, there was the side effect of vividly feeling your heart’s throbbing, blood flow, and the pulsing of internal organs.
Naturally, the debuff outweighed the buff. Applying it to ordinary awakeners would drive them straight to nervous breakdown.
Dang Seo-rin cast ‘Sensory Maximization’ only on me.
“…….”
Thump.
My senses toward the world amplified endlessly.
My five senses were already honed to superhuman levels.
With Dang Seo-rin’s support added, I could even finely sense each wave crashing against the ark’s bulkheads.
It felt exactly like waves pounding directly on my heart.
“Good……. Ji-won.”
“Yes.”
“Cut off the fingers.”
“Pardon the intrusion, Your Excellency.”
Slice-.
Yoo Ji-won drew her sword without a hint of hesitation and severed the fingers.
Of course, they weren’t her own fingers—the embodiment of self-love.
They were mine.
Ten fingers in total, left and right hands combined, neatly amputated.
Intense pain surged momentarily, but I expertly suppressed it.
‘What if I screamed like Brother Guan Yu here?’
A flash of intense curiosity hit me, but the honor drop from it worried me more. I’d satisfy it next regression.
Without a single groan, I calmly said,
“Corps Commander. Now.”
“Haa…….”
No Do-ha sighed as if the ship’s bottom would cave in. Yet she approached me and immediately began work, revealing her pro spirit.
The cross-sections of the severed fingers.
No Do-ha began fitting ‘prosthetics’ onto them one by one. All modeled after my own fingers.
Thanks to No Do-ha’s awakening ability, these ‘fingers’ felt vividly as if they’d always been part of my body.
I moved the fingers freely, without any sense of loss.
――And these fingers were connected to ‘puppet strings.’
Designed that way from creation. Like Spider-Man’s fingers.
The puppet strings from Lee Ha-yul at each fingertip were, as mentioned, connected to Ark 1.
And from there, to the 12-ark fleet swimming through the massive Great Monsoon typhoon.
“I, I’ll heal you! Guild Leader!”
Sim A-ryeon hurried over and cast healing on me. The prosthetic fingers perfectly adhered to my flesh cross-sections.
The moment the puppet strings attached to my nerves.
My ‘eyes’ opened.
“……!”
How to describe this sensation.
I saw the sea. Heard it. Felt it.
My body’s nerves extended through the puppet strings to every corner of the ark.
The nerve lines extending outside pierced through the aura, defying currents and waves in one go.
Thus, the locations of all 12 vessels, their directions, how fiercely they cleaved through the currents.
All of it was sensed without omission.
‘Ahh.’
They say a rider trained in horsemanship since childhood savors the human-horse unity.
Then, my current sensation could only be described as human-ship unity.
As a test, I sent aura through the puppet strings. The ark surged forward—thrum-.
-Wh-what’s that?
-Must’ve been a wave.
-Wave. Occurring. Wave. Occurring.
The sudden movement startled various people aboard, their voices ‘reaching’ me.
The aura of an awakener hastily tapping Morse code transmitted transparently.
Everything lay in my grasp.
A touch of omnipotence.
Easily manipulating objects vastly larger than myself like finger movements brought a certain thrill.
“…….”
Go Yo-ri quietly watched me with a beaming smile.
Her gaze licked at me like eating ice cream with her eyes, not her tongue.
Normally, I’d freak out at that look, but now I had to focus entirely on controlling the arks.
I looked around the operation control room and said,
“We’ve succeeded in controlling the arks.”
Exclamations rose here and there. Especially No Do-ha, who chuckled in disbelief, muttering, “Crazy bastard…….”
I smiled too.
“Now, let’s hunt the typhoon.”
It was time to end the summer.