Battle in the Underground Waterway (1)
After a single flash of light, what appeared before my eyes was somewhere in the pitch-black underground waterway.
The sight looked largely unchanged from the descriptions I'd read in the original novel, so it seemed I'd ended up in the right place at least. It hadn't been my intention, but even the fact that I'd come here in place of Park Hana, who'd nearly gotten caught up in the teleportation circle, was exactly the same as Seo Woojin in the original.
'A small thing, but this should carve a debt of heart into Park Hana too.'
And since I'd traveled here alone through the circle to the waterway where Jo Jin-hyun was hiding, that made two rabbits with one stone.
The moment I passed through the teleportation circle, a worried call came flying at me from Cha Eunju.
-Riiiiiing.
"...Oh, Eunju."
「S-Seonho...!! Are you okay?! Where are you right now?! I'm coming to save you right now, so just wait a little!! What if you've been dragged off somewhere strange...!!」
"I'm fine, so calm down first. The buff I put on you hasn't worn off yet, right? If it hasn't, that means you're not that far from me, so there's no need to panic like that, Eunju."
「B-But if you're all alone and suddenly that Jo Jin-hyun guy or that Bang Hwa-cheol guy shows up, what then?! Tell me quickly! Right now—」
"I said calm down, Cha Eunju. Are you going to keep only saying what you want to say?"
「...S-Sorry....」
After calming down Cha Eunju, who was too flustered by my sudden disappearance to hold a normal conversation, I walked her through the situation.
"Looking around, it seems I was teleported somewhere in the underground waterway. It's probably an escape circle the terrorists set up in advance. At least I wasn't pulled into a trap, so relax."
「That's exactly why you can't relax. If what you're saying is true, Lee Seonho, doesn't that mean there could be terrorists there too?」
"I can kill a terrorist or two just fine myself. Luckily the rifle teleported along with me, so even at my worst, I can handle five or six of them with it."
「And what if you run into someone bullets don't work on, like that Kang Kal-jin person you met earlier? What then, may I ask?」
"Then we pray there aren't any like that. A teleportation circle isn't something you can just install willy-nilly in the first place. Those terrorists wouldn't have prepared one for every single member. Honestly, I'd bet only their leader even knows they exist."
「And th-that leader is the most dangerous one of all...! Wh-what if you actually run into him...! You said underground waterway, right?! D-do I just climb down through something like a manhole cover?」
"I told you I'm fine, Eunju. Don't even think about coming down—you'll just get filthy. Focus on joining up with Park Cheonho, that twin brother of Hana's up top, first. That Bang Hwa-cheol guy looked pretty dangerous too, so we save the people closest to us first. That's the priority."
「Going by the situation alone, you're the one in the most danger, Lee Seonho, so how can you talk so calmly....」
"I know. But what can I do? Do you have any idea where in the waterway this is? Are you going to go checking every single manhole in the amusement park? The right move is for me to wander around until I find an exit and crawl out."
「...What you're saying is technically correct, Lee Seonho. B-but are you really, truly okay...?」
"I'm a Combat Support major, sure, but I'm still a Cheonmu Academy student. Getting teleported into an underground waterway isn't enough to put me in danger, so relax."
「Haah... fine. Then I'll save Park Hana's twin brother first and come straight for you. That work for you?」
"Yeah. Do that."
It would take the group upstairs maybe thirty minutes to track down Park Cheonho, I figured.
That was plenty of time. Time enough to meet Jo Jin-hyun, settle things with him, and secure the artifact in his possession.
「Y-You'll really be okay, right?」
"I told you, I'm fine."
「...I'm sorry. It's because I was running without even watching my step that you're suffering like this. I'll wrap up the situation here fast and come get you, so don't go wandering around for no reason—just wait for me.」
"Yeah. I'll be waiting for you all to come, so finish up quickly and get here."
「Y-You'd better wait quietly, you hear?! If you go wandering off and get hurt for no reason, I'll really be angry...!」
"Got it. You be careful too, Eunju. If your phone battery dies we're in real trouble, so I'll hang up soon."
「Okay....」
-Click.
"...Whew."
Being a Combat Support major really does make it hard to convince people, huh. This worry was just something I had to endure for being Lee Seonho instead of Seo Woojin.
Unlike Seo Woojin, who could at least contribute some auxiliary support with his basic physical abilities, I'd powered through the Owlbear fight and the Kang Kal-jin fight by taking hits head-on with my own body. Of course the heroines worried about me. It was only natural.
'If I want to stop making them worry, I have no choice but to get strong enough that I'm not getting beaten around by these villain bastards, at minimum.'
My awakened ability was hard to use against monsters, but it should at least be capable of pulling real weight against villains.
And the first step toward that was Jo Jin-hyun's artifact—which meant I absolutely had to get my hands on it this time, one way or another.
Unlike Seo Woojin, who grew stronger simply by being loved, Lee Seonho had a mountain of things to worry about.
"......"
Using my phone's flashlight to light up only the bare minimum of ground ahead of me, I pressed forward one silent step at a time, making as little noise as possible.
To find Jo Jin-hyun, who would be preparing his return to headquarters somewhere at the end of this waterway.
Damn it!
Damn it, goddamn it, damn it all!
-BANG!
"Nngh.... AAAAAAGH...!!"
At the far end of the underground waterway, before a mold-eaten old wall, Jo Jin-hyun howled in agony.
A massive explosion had rung out somewhere moments ago. And immediately after, Bang Hwa-cheol's receiver had gone silent.
Even the last remaining useful subordinate had been wiped out, every last one of them—and the knowledge scorched Jo Jin-hyun's chest pitch-black.
"Y-You bastards.... How? How did all of them—!"
Jeong Byeok-hyeon, who had been brilliant at whipping his rough, unruly new recruits into shape and commanding them.
Kang Kal-jin, whose hobbies were a little gross but whose combat ability had been the finest of them all.
And Bang Hwa-cheol, that pig, who could whip up a bomb like nobody's business.
They were organization members, yes—but losing the three subordinates he'd cherished most was a wound that cut Jo Jin-hyun to the bone.
...And it cut all the deeper knowing that the ones who'd done it weren't even proper hunters, just brand-new students who'd barely enrolled at the academy.
"If only those blue-haired brats hadn't popped up out of nowhere...!"
-BANG!
Park Cheonho? Park Hana? Who the hell were those bastards, and why did they have to barge in out of nowhere and wreck everything?
Thanks to them, not only had the plan to secure Kim Isabel collapsed, but so had the operation to butcher those damn brats and make an example of them.
Plans ruined, thirty organization members and three executives lost in the process—Jo Jin-hyun's head was burning so hot with rage it felt ready to burst.
"Haah... I can't let it end like this. Those damn brats—I'll make them pay, somehow...."
Securing that saintess bitch no longer interested him. Butchered in vain, his subordinates deserved a proper send-off—and he would give it to them by killing those bastards one by one, in exquisite pain.
He remembered every single one of their faces. A new goal took root in Jo Jin-hyun's heart: to torture them until they begged to be put out of their misery, until they went utterly mad.
Of course, he'd lost far too many troops to fight them now, and his ability came with all sorts of restrictions outside dungeons—so for now, he would bide his time.
"Haah... this goddamn teleportation circle takes a filthy long time to install, doesn't it...."
Thank goodness he'd installed backup circles in a few more spots. If his preparations hadn't been so thorough, he might not have even been able to flee into the waterway at all.
Lost in such thoughts, Jo Jin-hyun laid the circle leading back to headquarters onto the waterway floor and waited for it to complete.
"......"
And watching his back, having crept up on him unnoticed, was Lee Seonho.
Jo Jin-hyun, cursing up a storm as he laid a new teleportation circle on the ground, apparently trying to return to headquarters with all his subordinates lost.
With the final battle—a battle I would have to fight alone—right in front of me, my heart felt like it was beating faster.
Maybe part of it was fear, but what filled my chest even more than that was a different feeling entirely: thrill.
The excitement of watching the plan unfold exactly as I'd scripted it in advance. And the unreserved joy of the legendary-grade artifact I would soon hold in my hands.
Thinking such thoughts, I fired the first shot—the bullet in the chamber—straight at the back of Jo Jin-hyun's carelessly unguarded head. After all, who would expect an ambush in an empty underground waterway?
-TAANG!!
"Wha—?!"
The man in black spun around in a frantic panic, reacting a beat too late—only after the gunshot had already rung out.
But a rifle is not the kind of weapon you can dodge just because you see it coming. The shot I'd been holding under Suggestion—Careful Shot—flew true, aimed precisely at Jo Jin-hyun's neck.
-CLANG!!
There it is. I knew he'd have his Barrier running. This was a man who treasured his own hide above all else, even in a moment like this.
His life was never the goal in the first place, so it didn't matter. What I wanted was to temporarily neutralize his artifact.
With the Barrier triggered, he wouldn't be able to use the artifact for a while. Thinking this, I aimed the auto-reloading rifle's next shot at his right wrist.
-TAAANG!!
"AAGH, AAAAGH!!"
The instant the Barrier dropped, the round punched clean through. A penetrating wound. Apparently a rifle can't sever a limb in one blow the way a blade can.
Still, aiming for the fingers was far too risky. Hard enough to hit in the first place—and worse, a bad shot might destroy the artifact along with them.
Instead, two or three more rounds into the same spot and his forearm below the right wrist would probably come dangling off.
The magazine had held eleven rounds including the chamber; after those two shots I was down to nine. Factoring in the two I needed to save for the final moment, that left me a maximum of seven shots to work with.
"You, you goddamn bastard! How the hell did you get in here!!"
He hastily hid his bleeding wrist behind him as he screamed. From this position, even if I took aim, hitting that wrist cleanly would be difficult.
There was always the simple option—kill him and retrieve the artifact from his corpse—but that wasn't how the original story went.
If only to drag Min Ye-won and Yoon Selena out into the open, and to destabilize Black Moon from within, Jo Jin-hyun had to make it back alive.
...Granted, that meant leaving behind his right wrist and the legendary-grade artifact attached to it.
"A dead man doesn't need to worry about that. Do whatever you like."
-Clik.
"Y-You son of a bitch...!!"
With a stream of curses, Jo Jin-hyun pulled a scroll from inside his coat with his still-healthy left hand.
He bit one end in his teeth, tore the scroll apart in a fit of rage, then tossed one piece carelessly into the water flowing through the channel and the other onto the concrete floor.
And moments later, two monsters burst forth from the torn scroll fragments.
'Uuuuuu....'
'KYEEEEEEK!!'
One was a giant eel-like creature with three eyeballs; the other, a massive spider covered head to carapace in black hair. Species known respectively as the Three-Eyed Eel and the Black-Haired Spider.
The moment the two colossal monsters were summoned, they lunged for the nearest target—Jo Jin-hyun himself.
"Not me, you morons—him! Kill that bastard!"
-Splash!
「KYEEK!」
Under Jo Jin-hyun's awakened ability, Monster Dominance, the beasts wheeled around and came charging at me.
The Three-Eyed Eel. And the Black-Haired Spider.
They were considerably powerful specimens—I could feel it just from their appearance. If I'd met them inside a dungeon, I'd have put them on par with the Owlbear, roughly.
...Of course, that was strictly inside a dungeon. Out here, it was a slightly different story.
-TAANG!
「KYEEEEEEK!!」
Two legs tore off the Black-Haired Spider with a single bullet, and it shrieked in agony.
Inside a mana-rich dungeon, a rifle like this wouldn't have left so much as a scratch. But a monster summoned outside a dungeon was another matter entirely.
Outside, unlike within a dungeon, a monster's mobility and defenses inevitably degrade. As long as you attacked in the proper sequence, this Three-Eyed Eel and Black-Haired Spider were more than killable with a rifle alone.
-TAANG!
「UUUUUUU...!」
-SPLOOOSH!
...They probably wouldn't die to a single shot, so I'd have to ration my bullets and use them wisely.