116. My Buff is a Drug
116. My Buff is a Drug
The others needed to understand the Virus's nature too, so Hye-yong explained its characteristics as concisely as possible.
"Like I told you before, this isn't reality. If we take out the Aberrations, everything goes back to normal. So don't bother caring about who dies. Just look after our own people."
He glanced around to check if they understood. Both nodded, their faces serious.
"The Aberrations are often so strong that there's no way to take them down with ordinary methods. Even if all the instructors, who are far stronger than us, gathered together, they might not be able to beat them. But you don't need to be intimidated. Their strength has a kind of justification built into it. The stronger they are, the more certain it is that they have a weakness or a counter."
The explanation ran long, so he paused occasionally.
"What we need to find are clues that'll point to that weakness or counter... If you keep your eyes peeled and search around, they'll definitely be there. Two things I want to emphasize: second-year Seong Yu-ran, the black-haired girl with a sword—if you see her, avoid her until I give the command. Stay clear of her, and if you spot anything suspicious that doesn't feel like reality, report it to me via Resonance."
Resonance was structured so that the two of them could only respond once Hye-yong made contact first.
However, once Hye-yong reached out, he could also keep the channel open so they could reply.
'This is the first time Master has seemed so serious and sharp. Was he like this last time, too? He really has been fighting things like this all along. I'm embarrassed I didn't know.'
Lanfang thought.
'Seong Yu-ran... so the Aberration got her. Even someone with such a strong and upright spirit can't do anything against an Aberration. If I can help save her...'
Kwon Jin-ah thought.
They each answered, holding these thoughts inside.
"Yes!"
"Understood."
The two scattered in opposite directions.
This was the convenient thing about holy relics.
Since they could receive his blessings even when Hye-yong wasn't around, they didn't have to stick right behind him and could spread out to move independently.
He had also given Kwon Jin-ah an exclusive buff ring, so unless she faced a Virus host directly, there shouldn't be any problems.
'Phew, trying to project authority really wore me out.'
Hye-yong also needed to head in a direction the other two hadn't taken and search for something that could serve as a clue.
Honestly, it felt hopelessly vast, but as always, he had to give it a shot, right?
"Creator-nim!"
Ah, it's Mina.
Where is she?
He looked around but couldn't see her.
"What?"
"Up here!"
"?"
He looked up as Mina said, and saw her plummeting from the sky.
"Huh? Huhhh? Huhhhh?"
He caught her falling body with both arms.
Cradled in his embrace, Mina beamed brightly.
"Creator-nim, nice catch!"
"Why the hell are you falling out of the sky?"
"I might have messed up the coordinates?"
Jesus fucking christ. She's supposed to be a god and she screws up coordinates?
Well, fine. She said she wasn't born that long ago, so he'd let it slide.
Having mentally downgraded Mina to something like a premature infant, Hye-yong magnanimously set her down on the ground.
"So, what do you think about this situation?"
"What do I think? Isn't it just a Virus invasion?"
Truthfully, he hadn't expected much even when he asked.
It looked like she was only good for throwing at the enemy and running away if anything dangerous happened, like running into a Virus.
Still, she wasn't completely useless, so she was worth dragging around.
"Then let's go look for clues..."
He didn't even get to finish the sentence.
The sight of the stone crevice right next to Mina's foot rattling and shifting as if waking up caught Hye-yong's eye, and he cut himself off to watch it carefully.
Then, with a fwoosh, a skeletal hand shot out and tried to snatch Mina's ankle.
"Hey, Mina. Watch out..."
He tried to grab Mina's arm and pull her away, but the hand clamped onto her ankle and yanked her faster.
"Wuh?"
The instant she lost her balance, Mina let out a questioning noise and toppled flat onto the ground.
Thud!
"Heeeng!"
It was almost the kind of fall where her face hit first.
She'd struck her face against the stone floor hard enough to make a thudding sound, so she was a mess.
He glanced at Mina's face as she struggled with her ankle caught.
A double nosebleed was the least of it; half her front teeth were smashed, and she was spitting out fragments.
'Ugh, that's gotta hurt.'
Meanwhile, the skeletal hand kept trying to drag Mina somewhere.
Mina clawed desperately at the ground and cried out pitifully.
"Waaaah! Creator-nim! Please save me!"
It seemed like she had something the Viruses prioritized targeting...
'Well, even if I were a Virus, I'd pick her off.'
Still, leaving her like that would be pitiful, so he'd at least throw a Shield on her.
'Huh.'
But even after he cast the Shield, the hand wasn't repelled.
"If it's not my inner world, shields don't work on me!"
"Ah, is that so. Then I guess it can't be helped. Bye, then."
"Eeeeng! That's so mean! When reality gets encroached on, I only have one life!"
So that's how it was.
No wonder she hadn't shown up again after being killed by the Executioner last time.
"I wanted to watch a little lon..."
Crumblesh!
Just then, another sound came, like a mound of dirt collapsing.
'Don't tell me it's me this time?'
Just in case, Hye-yong cast a Shield on himself and scanned his surroundings, but it didn't seem to be around him.
Hye-yong looked behind Mina.
"Shit."
Another arm had emerged at some point.
This time, it was holding a rusted sword that looked like it'd give you tetanus just from a graze, and it was trying to stab Mina.
Hye-yong couldn't just stand by and watch this one. He drew his Burst Wolf and aimed, but because he'd been checking his surroundings, he'd spotted it too late and couldn't stop it.
Shunk!
"Gahk!"
Mina's body shuddered as her heart was pierced through. She spat out the remaining blood and tooth fragments in her mouth, then smiled faintly.
"Keh, Creator-nim, carry on my share for me... do your best..."
And with that, she faded away smoothly, like a comrade sacrificing themselves right before the final boss fight.
No matter how you looked at it, it was an utterly pointless death, though.
Rrrrrumble!
There was no time to mourn Mina's death. The ground where she had died began to shake violently.
Bursting through the stone crevices and destroying the surrounding space, the skeletons that emerged were the obvious owners of those arms from before.
Three of them leaped out.
They were wearing rusted armor and helmets that looked like they belonged in the medieval era.
Each one carried a sword and advanced on Hye-yong.
Hye-yong cast a buff that simultaneously raised both his firearm's power and his shooting proficiency, then aimed the Burst Wolf at the enemies.
Bang!— Bang!— Bang!—
He plugged one round into each of their heads. Two of them were knocked right off their feet and slammed into the ground.
The helmets kept their skulls from shattering, but the impact feedback from the shots felt incredibly satisfying.
'Raising the power really makes these shots feel worth it.'
The skeletons started trying to get back up.
Since they were a nuisance, he aimed to finish them off quickly, but oddly, voices could be heard coming from them.
— Must... go.
— To the battlefield.
— Must go... to the general.
'Battlefield? General? Must go?'
Words like that couldn't be meaningless.
On the chance there might be a clue, Hye-yong tried to analyze the skeletons' words.
'A general... So that sword-wielding Virus is a general who served in a war?'
And these skeletons are saying they have to go because they're that general's subordinates.
'That alone doesn't seem to give much of a clue...'
He wanted to learn more, but unfortunately, he couldn't.
— Kill any enemy you meet.
— Kill.
— Reduce the enemy by even one, and survive...
Because after saying that, they clutched their swords and charged at him.
'You're already dead, what do you mean survive?'
Bang!—
— Guaaah.
The helmets couldn't block bullets forever.
The moment the last skeleton died, the remains of all three vanished simultaneously.
'There's something here.'
Something foreign remained above the spot where they disappeared.
Scraps of leather branded with a pattern, as if seared by a branding iron.
The pattern looked like a sword piercing through a lion's head.
[Crest]
A crest indicating a soldier's affiliation.
Roughly, that was the item description he got from the system message.
What do you do with this?
First, let's stash it.
'Hm?'
But from the moment he held three of them in his hand at once, he started to feel something strange.
A sensory intuition, like he could grasp the direction of something.
What he felt right now was...
'It feels like if I go this way, the Virus will be there.'
It was the same direction Hye-yong had fled from earlier.
'Hm. So it's an item that lets you know the Virus's location.'
It was useful, but it didn't seem like something that would flip the board.
'I'll keep them for now.'
No harm in having them.
And it seemed like he should kill a few more of these skeletons.
Just in case gathering more of these could become a clue.
[Leader, skeletal corpses are rising from the ground.]
Right on cue, Kwon Jin-ah seemed to have discovered them too.
[When you take those things out, it looks like some kind of leather scrap appears.]
[Collect them.]
[Understood.]
Not long after, a message came from Lanfang as well.
[Master! The surroundings are chaos!]
[Things like corpses are rising... and they're attacking people indiscriminately.]
So it seemed to be happening simultaneously in other places, too.
Apparently, this Virus's structure included a lot of trash mobs on top of the major ones.
[For now, be careful. And when those things die, they leave behind some kind of leather scrap, right?]
[Pick that up and hold onto it carefully.]
[Yes, Master!]
Having comrades really put his mind at ease.
'Then I guess I'll move around and stomp a few more out myself.'
Hye-yong moved with his gun in hand.
-
Crunch!
A man in an instructor's uniform was busily swinging his mana-infused fists to destroy the skeletons, then he shouted loudly.
"Evacuate! All students outside! Get inside the dormitories! Students who don't normally stay in these dorms, stand by inside the dormitory buildings for now! This instructor will defend the area in front of the dorm!"
As expected of an instructor.
They might not get much involved in fights between students, but when it came to outside invasions, they were expected to properly protect the students.
His upright demeanor made him seem trustworthy.
"Hey, student! I said get inside the dormitory!"
Hye-yong had been about to inspect the spot where a skeleton was killed, and the instructor spotted him and snapped at him.
Hye-yong reluctantly answered.
"Ah, I thought maybe I could be of some help."
"An instructor is not so weak as to need help from a student."
Hye-yong casually glanced at the name tag on the instructor's chest.
'Name, Kang Ho-jin.'
He looked like a Martial Fighter, so giving him a buff similar to Park Yuri's would do the trick.
[Martial Artist's Tenacity] Strength stat increased by 12 levels Agility stat increased by 12 levels Stamina stat increased by 12 levels Combat Proficiency increased by 15 levels Exclusive to Kang Ho-jin
A buff into which he'd poured the full cost.
Normally, he wouldn't casually put an exclusive buff on an instructor, but once the Virus invasion was over, everyone except those with bloomed Seeds of Recognition and Virus hosts would lose their memories. So he could freely give it out with no worries.
Something of this level would certainly be useful to an instructor.
If he talked to him and cast it at the same time, the guy's mind might change.
Hye-yong cast the buff toward Kang Ho-jin.
"I'm a student in the Blessing Dormitory class. I can use shields as well as enhancements. If I just provide backup from the rear... wouldn't that work somehow? It's not just these skeletons showing up—the situation could get much more serious."
Kang Ho-jin's attitude changed instantly.
"Ahem, if it's only support from the rear."
For now, he planned to stay put and bolt if things went south.
Hye-yong once again looked at the spot where the skeletons had vanished.
'That leather scrap. I don't see it.'
Apparently, when regular characters killed them, the crests didn't appear.
At least in Lanfang's and Kwon Jin-ah's cases, there was reason to be optimistic.
Since things might be different once their Seeds of Recognition were in proper bloom.
While he was thinking that, new skeletons appeared.
Were they popping up mainly where people were gathered?
"Stay behind me."
Kang Ho-jin, under the buff's effect, charged in and swung his fists. The skeletons were shattered in one blow, scattering into dust.
Wondering if a crest would drop if he provided a buff assist, Hye-yong examined the spot where Kang Ho-jin had killed the enemy once more.
'Ah, now that I do this, there it is. A crest.'
It seemed like they didn't appear when characters killed them unaided, but they did appear if Hye-yong assisted.
It felt similar to how a monster killed by a player who hadn't accepted a quest wouldn't drop the quest material item.
Kang Ho-jin had annihilated a total of five skeletons in an instant.
Hye-yong acquired five new crests.
However, the crests had different patterns engraved on them.
While the earlier ones had a pattern of a sword piercing a lion's head, these had what looked like two crossed swords.
'What's the difference?'
Hye-yong stacked the five together and held them in his hand.
Then, just like when he held the lion head crests, he sensed a specific direction.
It was a sensation of being guided somewhere.
'This direction... it's different from before.'
It could simply be that the direction the Virus was moving had changed.
But something about it nagged at him if that were the case.
Hye-yong separated the differently patterned leather scraps into his left and right hands and held them.
'Huh?'
He began to feel two directions at once.
The direction guided by the lion head pattern and the direction guided by the crossed swords pattern were different.
It seemed he had found a clue.