Chapter 45
Chapter 45
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 45
Chapter Title: Tag
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‘This guy's the last one.’
Thwack!
Kang Hyun-soo cleanly knocked out Wang Jin-pyeong as well.
He had struck him with the flat of his blade infused with plenty of mana.
Until the mana from Kang Hyun-soo permeating his body dissipated, he wouldn't regain consciousness.
‘Looks like things are wrapping up over there too.’
Kang Hyun-soo watched Song Hana and the Earth Emperor's fight.
The tide of the once-fierce battle had already shifted toward Song Hana and the Earth Emperor.
‘Scams really are scams.’
Kang Hyun-soo stroked the guardian ring on his finger.
It had lured the enemies into letting their guard down.
Then he activated the skill embedded in the guardian ring: Retaliation of the Weak.
Retaliation of the Weak reflected every attack the wearer received back at the enemies for one second.
‘The long cooldown is a drawback, but it's still a pretty useful skill.’
He deliberately hadn't used the guardian ring's first skill, Final Shield.
Final Shield blocked just a single blow.
But Retaliation of the Weak had the versatility to reflect all attacks received during one second back at the opponent.
‘Each has its pros and cons.’
Final Shield shone when blocking an overwhelmingly powerful single strike, while Retaliation of the Weak excelled against multiple foes.
Naturally, the cooldown for Retaliation of the Weak was far longer.
‘No need to use just one.’
If you combined multiple skills well in the guardian ring?
You could use defensive skills freely without worrying about cooldowns.
Boom!
“Aaaagh!”
With a massive explosion, Song Hana and the Earth Emperor's battle came to an end.
‘Time to clean up.’
Kang Hyun-soo knocked out the Zhonghua Guild players that Song Hana and the Earth Emperor had defeated, then gathered them in one spot.
“Let’s go.”
At Kang Hyun-soo's words, Song Hana and the Earth Emperor nodded.
The three left the area for a while.
Afterward, Kang Hyun-soo unsummoned his summons.
Growl!
As soon as the summons vanished, monsters drawn by the scent of blood charged at the unconscious Zhonghua Guild players.
‘They’re all dead.’
The cleanup was flawless.
Kang Hyun-soo tossed the items to the Sword of Gluttony as feed, then pocketed the skill books.
He even used Platoon Formation.
‘Nice and tidy.’
He hadn't gained any experience or achievements since he’d left the finishing blows to the monsters.
But this was still a huge gain.
A-Rank and B-Rank items and skill books.
Plus ten summons in the 600-level range.
‘Should’ve just taken the hint and left peacefully.’
Pride in the Zhonghua Guild.
Monopoly over the ownerless hunting grounds near Luzabenu.
Those two things had driven them to their deaths.
‘It won’t be smooth sailing from here on out either.’
The Zhonghua Guild considered the nearby hunting grounds their territory.
Which meant clashes with the Zhonghua Guild were likely in the future.
‘No need to avoid them, though.’
The Zhonghua Guild was a troublemaker that had caused countless conflicts with allies even during the war against the Demon King's army.
If their forces were weakened?
‘That arrogance would die down a bit.’
Kang Hyun-soo didn't think reducing the Zhonghua Guild's forces would hinder the fight against the Demon King's army.
‘They were mostly all talk anyway.’
The Zhonghua Guild boasted massive numbers of guild members.
But during the all-out war against the Demon King's army?
The number of players who could actually contribute was barely a handful.
‘The rest were just a liability.’
They had the numbers.
But their low caliber meant they fell to mental attacks and turned on allies.
Or died and revived as undead to fight for the enemy.
‘It’d actually help if they shrank to a small elite force.’
Decisively.
‘They’re underlings of the traitor anyway.’
The Sword Sovereign, who would later become the Zhonghua Guild's guild master.
He was one of the final 21 who betrayed Kang Hyun-soo.
* * *
“Missing?”
“Yes.”
Zhonghua Guild vice master Demon-Exterminating Spear Jin Gu-pyeong scowled.
“So, the guys I sent to find the missing ones went missing too?”
“Yes, that's correct.”
Whoosh!
Demon-Exterminating Spear Jin Gu-pyeong hurled the stack of documents in his hand.
Thwack!
The reporting adjutant got hit by the flying papers.
“Yes, that's correct? Yes, that's correct? You call this a report?!”
Demon-Exterminating Spear Jin Gu-pyeong flew into a rage, stomping around.
The adjutant bowed his head deeply.
No words would reach him now; they'd just sound like excuses.
The adjutant waited silently for his superior's anger to subside.
“Haa! Haa! Mobilize all of Team 7.”
After venting for a while, Demon-Exterminating Spear Jin Gu-pyeong issued a curt order.
Team 7 consisted entirely of 700-level players.
It was made up of three parties, though one was currently out on a large-scale expedition.
The Zhonghua Guild only had Teams 1 through 7.
Mobilizing Team 7 meant deploying all of the guild's top elites except the rankers.
“Understood.”
The adjutant swiftly replied and left.
“Which damn bastards...”
Once the adjutant was gone, Demon-Exterminating Spear Jin Gu-pyeong ground his teeth.
Losing Team 5 was bad enough, but Team 6 vanishing was even worse.
The Zhonghua Guild was a mega-guild with tens of thousands of members.
But over 90% were in the lower-ranked Teams 1 through 4.
From Team 5 onward, numbers dropped sharply to a few hundred, and Team 6 had just eight parties totaling only 87 members.
And now ten of them were gone.
If he couldn't resolve this?
‘My vice master position is at risk.’
How had he clawed his way up here?
Through the rankers' constant checks within the guild.
With guild master just one step away, he couldn't stain his career.
‘I’ll chew them up.’
Before the expedition ended and the guild master and rankers returned.
He had to settle this, by any means necessary.
* * *
“We should switch hunting grounds to the west for a while.”
“Sure.”
“Fine by me.”
Song Hana and the Earth Emperor readily agreed with Kang Hyun-soo.
Luzabenu was a massive metropolis.
Naturally, it had plenty of hunting grounds.
Song Hana and the Earth Emperor knew why Kang Hyun-soo wanted to move specifically to the west.
They had wiped out two Zhonghua Guild parties.
An investigation was surely coming.
Kang Hyun-soo's party had no hunting permit.
Which meant colliding with any Zhonghua Guild investigation team was inevitable.
“But do we really need to stick around Luzabenu? Why not just go somewhere else?”
Song Hana asked, puzzled.
“Yeah. I don’t want to bow to these weirdos controlling hunting grounds and get a permit either. But hunting here without one will lead to clashes no matter what. Why not head to another region?”
“We can’t right now.”
If Kang Hyun-soo's group suddenly left for another region today?
The Zhonghua Guild would suspect them.
‘And there’d be no way to dispel that suspicion.’
The Zhonghua Guild was the type to send pursuit teams over even the slightest suspicion.
Clash with a pursuit team?
And they’d make a huge fuss about attacking their hunters.
“No need to worry too much.”
The Zhonghua Guild's scariest trait was their sheer numbers.
Sure, they had rankers.
‘But most rankers are probably out on the expedition, right?’
So the ones left behind were mostly dead weight.
There might be some rankers remaining.
But put another way.
‘Just avoid their eyes, and we’re good.’
He knew the Zhonghua Guild used Pattern of Vengeance to track suspects.
As long as their identities stayed hidden?
‘No need to avoid clashes with the Zhonghua Guild.’
The only reason Kang Hyun-soo had avoided them before was simple.
He had no chance in a head-on fight.
But if he could avoid a direct confrontation, there was no need to run.
‘They’re better off gone anyway.’
Always causing incidents and clashing with allies.
Useless beyond their numbers.
And the leaders of the decent Zhonghua Guild rankers?
‘Stabbed me in the back.’
Precisely, plunged a knife in.
Why spare such scum?
‘Truth is, I want to kill them all.’
Hwang So-wook, Shin So-hee, Lee Cheol-min, Sword Sovereign, and so on.
A total of 21 traitors.
But they were executives or guild masters of major guilds now.
Kang Hyun-soo couldn't touch them with his current power.
‘But that’ll change going forward.’
He had recovered the strength earned through over ten years of grueling effort before regression, in less than a year.
‘Shortest one year, longest three from now.’
In that time?
He could gain the power to sweep away the Demon King's minions in hiding and the 21 traitors.
‘Can’t let them die easy.’
The traitors who stabbed Kang Hyun-soo in the back.
They had been key in crumbling the Demon King's army while alive.
‘I’ll use them thoroughly.’
He wouldn’t waste the traitors' deaths.
While alive, he’d pit them against the Demon King's main forces.
In death, they’d serve as his summons for eternity.
‘It’s a bit early, but should I crash the Zhonghua Guild into the Kabal Guild?’
The Kabal Guild was formed mainly by Englishmen and belonged to the Lamepazil Kingdom, bordering the Mightor Kingdom where the Zhonghua Guild was based.
Moreover.
‘It’s a guild taken over by the Demon King's minions.’
During the later all-out war.
Humanity suffered massive losses from the Kabal Guild's betrayal.
They played ally right up until the critical moment, revealing themselves and striking from behind while sowing disinformation.
Spreading false info to spark ally infighting or drive them into traps.
‘We shed so much blood because of them.’
After the Kabal Guild's true nature was exposed, the Zhonghua Guild claimed their clash with the Phoenix Guild was also due to Kabal machinations.
But the Zhonghua Guild's idiocy made the claim fall flat.
The Kabal's schemes only created minor grudges between them.
Yet the Zhonghua Guild fell for it and attacked ally Phoenix Guild mid-war against the Demon King's army.
‘Zhonghua Guild really contributed nothing to the Demon King war.’
Better to.
‘Have them clash with the Kabal Guild.’
An all-out war with the Demon King's minions.
That was how to make the Zhonghua Guild more useful.
‘It’s still a bit premature.’
Kang Hyun-soo had planned to pit them after a year.
Once the venom legion appeared and the guopi fields turned profitable.
But.
‘If you force my hand, I’ve got no choice.’
He’d delayed the clash for a year to buy growth time.
His current strength.
Wasn’t enough to intervene actively in a Zhonghua-Kabal fight.
‘But to hunt in peace, no choice.’
Hunting meant clashing with Zhonghua members.
Even if his group stayed put, they’d come picking fights.
Couldn’t keep dodging forever.
‘Long tails get stepped on.’
So he needed to swap that tail for the Kabal Guild's.
‘Frame the Kabal Guild for this incident and future ones.’
That alone, and the Zhonghua Guild would start the fight themselves.
If battle erupted between the two giants?
‘No spare manpower to manage hunting grounds.’
For Kang Hyun-soo, it pitted traitor against Demon King minion while letting him hunt in peace.
Killing two birds with one stone.