Baekho... I'm Counting on You
Miniature bulbs flickered precariously along the frame of a signpost, its arrow pointing left. Twinblade raised his bladed hands with total confidence.
"Even the shopkeep's welcomin' us!"
He stomped off down the left-hand path.
"Hey! What're y'all doin'? Get over here already."
Baek Seoha hurriedly laid a hand on Twinblade's shoulder.
"Wait a moment!"
"Huh? What's the matter?"
Twinblade's thick Busan drawl tickled her ears. A scoff leaked out from beneath Shadow Assassin's mask.
"Simple-minded as always. How did a brain like that even make A-Class?"
"Hah? You little—! What'd you just say?! Simple-minded?!"
Their killing intent carved through the air. Baek Seoha waved her hands in a frantic appeal for peace.
"Please, calm down! This isn't the time for us to be fighting each other!"
She let out a short breath.
"...If anything, infighting is exactly what Mesath would want."
The two A-Class heroes folded their arms and turned their faces away from each other. Baek Seoha secretly wiped the cold sweat from her brow.
This raid party... is it going to be okay...?
She swept a dazed gaze across the forty-seven heroes assembled behind them.
But without them, we can't clear this dungeon.
Drawing a deep breath, Baek Seoha cast a wary look at the signpost.
"That sign... doesn't it seem a little too suspicious?"
Twinblade asked, unimpressed.
"What, you spot a booby trap or somethin'?"
"Haa..."
A sigh resonated from inside Shadow Assassin's mask.
"Try using your head for once. What Baekho means is, what kind of lunatic would kindly guide dungeon invaders? And put up a signpost to do it, no less."
Twinblade clashed his hand-blades together with a gasp of admiration.
Clang!
"Whoa! That's our Baekho! You're seriously smart, y'know that? Never even crossed my mind!"
A handsome man with swaying golden hair stepped forward.
"I agree with Baekho. There's no need to walk into an obvious trap of our own free will."
Every eye turned toward the center path and the one on the right. Baek Seoha's gaze darted from one to the other.
"One option's been eliminated... so now it's a choice between the remaining two."
"Hmm... do we really need to choose just one?"
Blooming Adonis smiled brightly and lifted a finger.
"Why waste time? We take both paths at once."
Shadow Assassin stroked the mask he had pulled up to his nose.
"Makes sense. Then we split the assault force into two large units."
Blooming Adonis immediately snatched Baek Seoha's wrist.
"Our Full Bloom team will be enough on our own. But since we're short on numbers, I'd like to take Baekho with us."
Twinblade's eyes slid toward Blooming Adonis with open distaste. Arguing, however, looked like more trouble than it was worth, and he gave a halfhearted nod.
"Like you'd listen even if I said no. Ugh..."
Shadow Assassin twirled a dagger ring around his finger.
"We've got more firepower on our side, so it shouldn't be a problem. Once a route is secured, we'll rendezvous then."
The raid party split in two. The center path went to the Full Bloom team; the right, to the unit led by Twinblade and Shadow Assassin.
Between walls of crushed wrecks, Baek Seoha's eyes moved rapidly.
He's definitely watching us.
A red light flickered between an old car hood — then vanished just as quickly.
Come if you want. I won't go down easy!
But contrary to all her vigilance, the path was surprisingly peaceful. Rustling in the dark. The clatter of metal. Something was clearly there — and yet no attack came.
Ugh... what's he plotting? If you're going to attack, just do it already, Mesath!
In that uneasy calm, Blooming Adonis pressed himself close to Baek Seoha's side, fidgeting with the plant seeds in his pocket.
Unbelievable. She actually turned me down when I made the offer? This bitch...
Refusing, of course, would not matter in the end.
My Gift is plant manipulation...
Plant a single seed in her body, and it would be over. Once her brain and spine were under his control, Baekho would become Blooming Adonis's puppet. His hand slid quietly onto her shoulder.
"Hehe... well? Doesn't it feel safer, being with Full Bloom?"
Baek Seoha frowned at his touch.
"Ah... yes..."
A split-second opening. A seed slipped from Blooming Adonis's pocket, aimed at the nape of Baekho's neck.
Tsk! A new addition to the collection is always welcome. Hehehe! Baekho... you're mine now!
But in that instant—
"Wait—! Baekho!!"
A female hero's urgent cry from behind made Baek Seoha turn.
"Yes?"
Blooming Adonis hid his hand in a flash, palming the seed back into his pocket. His brow furrowed.
"Watch out! He's...!!"
Veins stood out along the woman's neck and forehead. Her lips trembled, but no words would come.
"Khuhk... th-that's..."
Blooming Adonis stepped shamelessly between them.
"That's right! We have to be careful. This is the dungeon of a raving mad scientist, after all! We can never let our guard down."
He tossed Baekho a wink.
"That's Full Bloom's motto, you know. Never let your guard down — anytime, anywhere. Haha!"
"...I see."
She offered an awkward smile.
And then—
Whizz—!
A sharp sound cut the air. Something punched clean through Blooming Adonis's knee.
"...Huh?"
His balance crumbled. He pitched forward and slammed face-first into the ground, and only then did the pain arrive.
"AAAAAARGH! My leg! My leeeeg!!"
Baek Seoha threw herself in front of him at once.
"Enemy attack! Everyone, defensive formation, please!"
Drones poured from the sky, a rising mechanical howl filling the corridor. The coilguns mounted on their undersides glowed a cold, electric blue.
"That's impossible. There wasn't even a gunshot..."
Cold sweat ran down Baek Seoha's hands. It had pierced his knee without a sound — which meant that if it had wanted to, it could have put a hole through his skull just as easily.
...That's why it didn't attack until now.
Peaceful silence, used as bait to make them drop their guard.
Mesath... you calculating... khh.
Blooming Adonis exploded. Tears streamed from his reddened eyes as he dumped every last seed from his pocket.
"You son of a bitch!! You dare lay a hand on this perfect, peerless body?!"
The moment the cascading seeds hit the ground, they burst.
Crack! Crack! Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—!
Explosive, violent growth. Vines and tree roots coiled and surged upward like living rope, monstrous plants scaling the scrap-metal walls in seconds.
"Fuck. Fuck! Fuuuuck!! How are you going to take responsibility for this?! My injury is a national loss, you hear me?!"
Giant trees shot toward the sky. Enormous man-eating flowers bloomed in the sudden jungle, spreading their maws wide and spitting thorns into the air.
Thwip-thwip-thwip-thwip!
"Mesath! You picked the wrong person to mess with — because I am about to become an S-Class hero!"
But the obstacles hampered allies just as much as enemies. Drones slipped between the giant trunks and vanished from sight. Baek Seoha's eyes swept the battlefield in a rapid assessment.
This... isn't good.
Blooming Adonis had taken anti-air, but he had not considered coordination at all. If she leaped up to intercept now, she might hit her own people with stray fire. She tested a light hop on her toes.
My body feels light.
As if gravity itself had been cut in half.
I can do this...
Sinnyeo's gift, Heavenly Step, wrapped around her ankles.
"...I'll hunt the drones."
Blooming Adonis turned his head.
"You...?"
"Yes. Please reorganize Full Bloom in the meantime."
He was still soaked in rage, but if he regained his composure, they might actually be able to work together. Baek Seoha kicked off a giant trunk as if defying gravity and soared upward.
"Hyaaah!"
She shattered a drone hidden among the branches with an upward kick.
BOOM!!
Another drone swung its coilgun toward her from dead ahead, a laser pointer glowing red on her chest.
You can do this! You're Baekho! Just do it like you trained!
She hooked a falling drone with her heel, spun it on centrifugal force, and hurled it.
"Gooo!"
BOOM!
The drones collided and detonated. Baekho prowled the treetops like an apex predator, and every place she brushed past erupted in wreckage.
"Yes! Keep it going just like this!"
Boom! Babababoom!
At last the remaining drones climbed higher and began to retreat.
"Where do you think you're going!"
Baek Seoha's feet kicked off the treetop and shot into the open sky. She leaped from drone to drone, using their chassis as stepping stones, and the air filled with successive detonations.
BOOOOM! Bababababoom!
Blooming Adonis stared up at her in a daze.
"That's impossible..."
Power that was unreal for a B-Class hero. The radiance of an A-Class — no, even an S-Class — flickered faintly around her.
...That just makes me want her even more, Baekho! Hehehe!
The instant Baekho finished destroying every last drone, a flash of light burst across those greed-soaked eyes.
"Huh?!"
A bolt of lightning crashed down out of nowhere.
KRA-KOOM!
Baek Seoha landed lightly on a branch, her eyes gone wide.
"Lightning...?"
Something was wrong. They were beneath the dungeon's crimson veil. There was no reason for lightning to strike here at all.
"What... is that...?"
The drones that had just crashed were moving. They sucked in the surrounding scrap metal, their bodies swelling larger and larger — reshaping themselves into turret-type robots on five splayed legs.
Wiiiiing— Clank!
A full thirty-one tank robots rose to their feet at once. Cold sweat trickled down in the sudden silence. Blooming Adonis's eyes flew wide as he seized the tree roots and wrenched them into motion.
"And here I thought you were clever! Ha! You think a mere Main can defeat Mother Nature on this earth?!"
Thick roots bound the robots in place.
"Now! Swarm them!!"
At his command the heroes charged as one.
"WAAAAAH!"
For all their imposing entrance, the robots began to go down in seconds. Explosions ripped through the corridor. Baek Seoha smiled, certain of victory.
That's Blooming Adonis for you. Amazing!
But then lightning crashed down from the sky once more — a flash twice as bright as the last. Sixty-two tank robots rose again like something that refused to die.
"Huh...?"
They were not even zombies. No matter how many times the heroes killed them, the robots kept coming back.
"AAAAAGH!"
Pitch-black nets fired from the gun barrels. Zap! Zzzzzzt! Heroes convulsed under the violent current. A woman caught in the mesh screamed through clenched teeth.
"Baekho! Run!!"
Baek Seoha crushed a robot's cannon barrel with a downward strike as she landed.
KRA-BOOM!
"No! I'll fight to the end too!"
The captured hero cried out through her tears.
"At this rate we'll be wiped out without accomplishing anything! Go get Twinblade and Shadow Assassin — they're A-Class! Hurry!!"
She was right. Rescuing all of them alone was impossible. They needed reinforcements.
"Khh!"
Baek Seoha looked around. Heroes were being scooped up in the nets one after another. Blooming Adonis had long since been electrocuted unconscious.
Resistance this fierce means...
Mesath was definitely beyond this path.
The center path was the right one after all!
She clenched her teeth. There was no time.
"I'll be back soon... Please hold on until then!"
Baek Seoha turned, holding back her tears. The moment she kicked off the ground with the Heavenly Step Sinnyeo had given her —
Whizz—!
A rush of wind, and Baekho was gone.