Chapter 127
Chapter 127
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 127
Chapter Title: Bug Hunt (4)
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The words the 13th Squad Leader had left behind about the monster's spawn.
Gunter wasn't the only one who vaguely grasped who that referred to.
"...Monster?"
"No way, he's talking about that guy?"
Nelly, Ivan, and Pana's faces hardened in an instant.
At that moment, Gunter stepped forward.
"From now on, we'll advance while maintaining formation. I'll take point. And right behind me..."
Gunter smoothly assigned positions to the others, forming up the squad.
Those who sensed the odd shift in the mood followed his orders without complaint.
Soon, a diamond-shaped formation took shape.
"Move out."
With Squad Leader Gunter at the front, Squad 7 swiftly dashed through the forest path.
How long had they run like that?
Zzzip-.
The squad halted in response to Gunter's hand signal.
Ahead of them appeared another squad in a similar state to the 13th Squad they'd encountered earlier.
On their armbands was the number 21.
'Squad 21.'
As Gunter examined them closely, it wasn't just their disheveled appearance that matched the 13th Squad.
Like the previous group, Squad 21 had also lost their squad leader's armband and been wiped out.
Squad 21's members glanced at Gunter's squad blocking their path, then passed by without a word.
Philip tried to grab one, but he pulled his hand back due to the heavy gloom they exuded.
Gunter's squad let Squad 21 go in silence.
Realizing once more that the atmosphere was far from normal, their movements grew even more cautious.
As they pushed deeper into the forest, Squad 7 encountered a few more squads.
They all looked like battered remnants of defeated forces.
Their faces were blank, as if in deep shock, making it hard to even strike up a conversation.
Even when they mustered the courage to ask, the responses were just like the 13th Squad Leader's—warnings to beware the monster.
Philip swallowed dryly.
'W-What's going on here?'
As he nervously scanned the surroundings, Gunter's mutter reached his ears.
"Five so far."
No one missed that the five Gunter mentioned were the wiped-out squads they'd run into.
That meant 20% of the 25 squads had already been eliminated.
But more pressing than that was the time.
'We've only met five squads in barely 40 minutes. And there might be even more wiped-out squads we haven't seen.'
If he back-calculated their positions based on the timing and direction these defeated squads had appeared from?
Gunter's mind raced, and he arrived at the answer.
"...It means each squad was wiped out in less than five minutes."
Hearing that, Philip muttered with a stiff expression.
"What's... what's happening?"
Pana answered his soliloquy.
"Can't you tell just by looking? A monster's on a rampage."
"Monster this, monster that! What the hell is this monster?!"
"What else? Yuri Holland."
"Huh? Yuri Holland?"
Pana smirked at Philip, who snorted in disbelief.
"You saw their faces earlier, right? Totally shell-shocked."
"...Yeah."
"I bet you'll be wearing that look soon enough."
"What?"
"Get your soul stripped bare by a guy you secretly looked down on. You can't help but make that face."
"You...!"
As Philip bristled, Gunter raised a hand in signal.
A group approaching from the front—stay alert.
Pana and Philip stopped bickering and stared ahead.
'No way, another wiped-out squad?'
But the group that appeared this time had a different vibe from the ones before.
No signs of injury, no gloomy faces.
They even had their squad leader's armband.
Not a wiped-out squad.
Leading them was Clarice Ban, wearing the 9-1 armband.
As he approached, he scanned Gunter's group and spoke.
"You guys the last ones?"
Gunter stepped forward in response.
"If you mean the last squad to enter the forest battlefield, then yeah, we're it."
"Then follow us."
"Follow you? Where to?"
"We're gathering forces right now."
"Forces?"
At those words, the Squad 7 members exchanged blank looks, while Gunter fixed Clarice with a steady gaze.
"I'd like to hear the situation."
"You didn't see them on the way? The wiped-out squads?"
"We did. That's why I'm asking."
"It's exactly as you saw. They're getting picked off one by one. That's why we're forming up."
"Of course..."
Gunter nodded gravely, his face showing he'd already suspected as much.
Philip, on the other hand, shouted in surprise.
"You're saying all those squads got taken down by just one squad?"
Clarice shook his head at the question.
"No, not one squad."
"What?! Then you mean Squad 1 has other squads allied with them?"
"That's not it either."
"Then what do you mean? If it's not this or that, what is it?"
Clarice regarded Gunter calmly amid Philip's slightly irritated tone.
But instead of answering Philip's question, something unexpected came from Clarice's mouth.
"Gunter Irons, what place did you get in the Hundred Steps Ritual? How many steps did you take?"
"Second."
"And the most steps... was Yuri Holland, right?"
"......"
"Looks that way."
Gunter didn't reply, but no one mistook his silence for anything but confirmation.
Clarice pressed on.
"Gunter, up to the point you remember, how many steps had Yuri Holland taken?"
"......"
Gunter remained silent under Clarice's probing gaze.
In the ensuing quiet, all eyes turned to Gunter.
Dozens of intense stares demanding an answer finally drew a sigh-tinged response from him.
"Sigh... The Yuri Holland I remember had taken... eight steps."
Everyone's eyes widened in shock, but Gunter wasn't done.
"And according to the intel I got..."
After the January end-of-month evaluation, Gunter had reunited with Yuri.
Stunned by Yuri's explosive growth, he'd immediately sought out his seniors.
In exchange for a few points, he'd obtained info on the Hundred Steps Ritual.
Shocking info, at that.
And now it was being relayed to his peers through Gunter.
"...Yuri Holland took fifteen steps that day."
Gunter recalled Yuri stubbornly rising again and again.
He was certain Yuri had made at least a ninth step.
Even so, the record of fifteen steps shocked Gunter to his core.
One could only imagine the impact on the others.
Amid the stunned silence following Gunter's words, someone murmured in a daze.
"The Hundred Steps Ritual... fifteen steps?"
The Hundred Steps Ritual.
Even those who argued end-of-month scores didn't reflect true skill would agree that the steps taken in the ritual correlated with ability.
Clarice spoke up with a knowing look.
"It was one person."
Eyes that had been on Gunter now shifted to Clarice at this out-of-left-field statement.
"Putting together the stories from all the wiped-out squads so far, they all said it was Yuri Holland alone."
"...?!"
Philip's face went slack with disbelief at the ear-ringing claim.
Pana jeered at the sight.
"Told you. You'll be looking like that soon."
As she snickered, Clarice turned away.
"Enough talk. Let's move."
Leaving those words, Clarice's squad took the lead.
Gunter's squad followed quietly behind.
It wasn't long before they arrived at a spot where dozens of people had gathered.
At least a dozen squads, by the look of it.
At the center was someone wearing the 2-1 armband.
"Shuleman Hans?"
"Judging by the vibe... looks like he's the boss here?"
The others nodded in agreement with Nelly's words.
Shuleman Hans.
He'd placed in the top ten in February's end-of-month evaluation and was the first to propose an alliance before the quest began.
Shuleman approached Gunter and Nelly's group with a welcoming smile.
"Wow, all the useful people are here. Come on in."
Shuleman extended a hand to Gunter with a grin.
Gunter shook it lightly and glanced around.
"All these people here—you gathered them?"
"Yeah, something like that."
Shuleman shrugged it off casually.
But gathering this many squads while they'd been charging after Yuri like angry bulls was no small feat.
And that fact couldn't help but raise questions for Gunter.
He eyed Shuleman steadily.
"...This is weird."
"Weird how?"
"Most of the people here are stragglers. Not many from the frontrunners who chased Squad 1."
"......"
"And you're handling the situation way too smoothly. Like you knew it'd play out this way. Or like you planned to meet here from the start."
"Is that so?"
Shuleman shrugged lightly again.
That reaction confirmed it for Gunter.
"You proposed the alliance planning this from the beginning."
Gunter's convinced gaze met Shuleman's.
Shuleman let out a chuckle.
"Fine, sure. You were the one who told me Yuri Holland's the Black Dragon Overlord, so I'll be straight with you this time."
"......"
"Yeah, exactly. I proposed the alliance with this in mind. The ones gathered here are the squads I tipped off to hang back. Oh! Not all of them—some are squads that survived against that monster."
"Monster... Calling him that means you've looked into Yuri Holland?"
"Isn't that obvious? Some unheard-of guy tops the end-of-month eval, and he's the Black Dragon Overlord? Ignoring that would be weirder. Plenty of others probably dug into it too."
At his words, the 'plenty who knew but ignored it' flinched inwardly.
"And what I found out? Yuri Holland's a real monster. Fifteen steps in the Hundred Steps Ritual? Is that even possible? Well, he had to be that good for this alliance to make sense."
Nelly cut in as Shuleman quipped.
"The squads you didn't tip off... they were sacrificial lambs?"
"Not quite sacrifices—just bait to gauge Squad 1's strength."
"Isn't that what a sacrifice is?"
"Sure, call it that. If those strength-testing lambs take out Squad 1, great. If they just inflict some damage, even better. Two birds with one stone."
And at that moment.
The smile on Shuleman's lips turned bitter.
"But turns out Yuri Holland's an even bigger monster than expected. Who'd have thought he'd cut down all the frontrunners in that short time. Honestly, when I proposed this alliance, I worried it might be overkill for just three people... but it wasn't enough."
Shuleman's ever-grinning face hardened briefly.
But he quickly recovered his smile and waved to Gunter's squad.
"Anyway, glad you made it. We'll go over the details later—looks like the rest of the squads will trickle in soon."
With that, Shuleman walked off smiling.
Watching his back, Pana muttered.
"That guy's... scary. Planning something like this in such a short time."
Nelly nodded gravely.
"Scary. And shameless too."
"Shameless?"
As Pana tilted her head, Nelly asked Gunter.
"Gunter, he didn't tip us off to hang back, right?"
"Nope."
"See? That bastard was gonna throw us to the wolves too."
Pana's eyes widened.
"What? Us? Why?"
"Because after Yuri Holland's squad, we're the next most dangerous."
"Oh, no way... he was gonna take us out too?"
"Probably. Whether it's us or Squad 1, he wanted one of us gone in a head-on clash."
"Wow, and he still greeted us all smiley like that?"
"He had to. Yuri Holland's stronger than expected, so he sees our current forces as short-handed. We're just enough to fill the gap."
At Nelly's explanation, Pana and Philip glared in the direction Shuleman had gone and shouted in unison.
"That shameless bastard!"
"That shameless bastard!"
* * *
In the quiet forest depths.
Yuri stood atop a tree branch, eyes closed.
Around him, threads of mana extended out dozens of meters like a spider's web.
A moment later, Yuri's eyes slid open.
The corner of his mouth twisted.
"Hah?"
Yuri had planned to keep ambushing and carving up the incoming squads.
But at some point, no more squads had swarmed in.
Sensing something off, he'd followed the flow and soon spotted dozens gathered in one place.
And that fact grated on Yuri's nerves.
'Well, well? They're adapting faster than I thought.'
The squads had formed up quicker than he'd anticipated.
The implication was simple.
"So they've got someone with a brain over there too."
Convinced, Yuri smacked his lips.
Tsk-.
'Tch, coulda eaten more.'
With a thinker on their side, they'd likely establish a chain of command soon.
Once that happened, picking them off solo would be impossible.
"Well, disappointing, but time to pull back for now?"
It was time to retreat for the next phase.
Regretfully turning away, Yuri's pocket held eleven severed armbands.