Dad.
"Dad. Should I fire a Breath?"
When the standoff refused to break, Harp asked.
"No. I'll tell you if I need one later. There's something I have to check first."
"All right. I'll wait."
Somehow, Harp looked disappointed at not getting to loose a Breath. Imagine wanting to carry out a massacre with a face that innocent.
Sorry, Harp, but I can't pass up the chance to wipe them out with magic.
He thought back to herding mobs from the air over Sourtul Forest. The thrill of blasting monsters away in a single shot had been enormous, so much like playing a game soaked in realism that it had been a genuine pleasure. Nor was that all. Watching ferocious monsters fall helpless before magic had been deeply satisfying.
And now, scum worse than beasts had gathered in one place. There was no guarantee an opportunity like this would come again, not unless he fought a final battle against the Cult. Not one of the Demon God Worshippers here was a nobody. In short, every last one of them was a rich font of experience.
Yujun prepared another Wind Bomb, the same as before. The difference this time was that he drew on his Ruler of the Wind (S) trait to swell the wind itself to a far greater size. When you held a trait bound to an element, it was almost always more efficient to shape your magic to match it. Even with the same mana, the presence or absence of an elemental trait could make the difference between heaven and earth—and this was no ordinary element. It was wind, at S-rank.
Hair and fur among the Demon God Worshippers began to lash wildly in a wind that rose without warning. It had the force of a typhoon, yet to players it amounted to little more than a severe annoyance. Yujun released his mana and began packing an explosion into that wind. Expanding the range so drastically ought to have lengthened the cast, but New-Generation Magic changed the equation. Manifested through will alone, it could skip every tedious step of the process. The drawback was an absurd spike in mana consumption, but measured against Yujun's reserves, it hardly counted as a drawback at all. He had nothing to hold him back.
Sensing something ominous, Coordination was the first to abandon the field. They did not merely open the distance. They fled so far that "abandoned the field" was the only honest description. The Demon God Worshippers, a step too slow, already had their fate sealed.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—KRAKOOM—!
Even Yujun, outside the Wind Bomb's radius, felt his ears go numb as a colossal explosion hammered the area. When the wind tore away smoke thick as storm clouds, the scene it revealed was rather shocking. Aside from Coordination and Geron, not a single soul had survived the blast, and not one corpse remained intact. Their equipment was no different.
And the astonishing part was this: so many Demon God Worshippers had died, and he had not gained a single level.
"Kind of bitter..."
"Pardon? Bitter, you say? Because of the experience...?"
Quick on the uptake, Paranet asked, and Yujun shook his head.
"I opened my mouth and got a mouthful of sand."
"..."
"Ah. So it isn't bitter. It's gritty."
"With nothing else to do, I shall simply gather the equipment... No. Nothing remains intact."
"Focus. They're coming."
Perhaps judging that the large-scale spell had burned through a considerable share of Yujun's mana, the five members of Coordination and Geron were closing in.
"Body Slam... Thousand-Pound Drop!"
Paranet slammed straight into Park Jungseok, the Coordination member arriving fastest.
KWAANG—!
Park Jungseok only grazed him, slipping past at an angle. He had anticipated the body slam. Having cut the damage as low as he could, he frowned faintly. Even a glancing blow hurt considerably. A quick check showed the point of contact—his right arm—caved inward.
Insane...
Park Jungseok had the highest defense in Coordination. He had never imagined a mere graze could do this. The arm would regenerate soon enough, but a searing heat burned through it, almost more than he could bear. Even so, he gritted through the pain and charged straight on toward Yujun.
Han Jiyun and Park Seho, weaker at close range, kept their distance. In the end, the ones closing with Yujun were three: Ban Soyeon, Cheon Sihyeon, and Park Jungseok. Geron joined them. All four had gotten past Paranet, and somewhere in the meantime Tapagol had been run through by Park Seho's arrow and forcibly unsummoned. No other obstacles remained. Four of them had him surrounded.
Yujun meant to unleash another Wind Bomb, but the moment Ban Soyeon produced some orb and shattered it, every working of mana in the area came to a dead stop.
...What?
Yujun's eyes narrowed. He could not even release mana. Forcing it brought a savage headache, and the shield that had wrapped around him was gone before he noticed. Seizing that gap, the four swung and thrust for his vitals. Yujun activated Super Concentration and beat every strike aside with his sword.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Two of the weapons, perhaps bearing an Indestructible option, merely ricocheted far away. The other two were sliced clean in half. The flustered faces of Coordination filled his vision.
His mainstays were the sword and magic, both specialties so advanced that even he sometimes lost track of which stood higher. If some scheme sealed his magic, he had only to use the sword. They would hardly be able to stop him from using a weapon as well. Chaos, unlike mana, could in fact still be used. His enemies, however, appeared able to wield their mana without restriction. The seal applied to Yujun alone.
Unbelievable. So this is what they brought, and why they were so sure of themselves.
It was certainly an effective method. Show up with a cheat of an item that shut your opponent's mana down completely while letting you slip past the effect yourself, and the other side had little choice but to take the hit. And yet, if anyone had paid the price, it was the other side. Geron and Cheon Sihyeon, stripped of cherished weapons, fell back a few paces with hollow looks on their faces.
"Don't give him time!"
Ban Soyeon shouted, urgent, but what were they supposed to do without weapons? Cheon Sihyeon and Geron pulled spares from their inventories and charged Yujun again.
Yujun turned his head toward Ban Soyeon.
Looks like she's the one playing leader right now.
The last time he had seen her, she had seemed like nothing but raw strength. Looking at her now, she appeared to have grown into some measure of leadership.
He met the attacks crashing in all at once with his Sword Barrier. And the Sword Barrier was not a skill that only defended.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
"Guhk—!"
"Hup—!"
The barrier knocked aside not only cold steel, but even magic streaking in from a distance. Ban Soyeon and Cheon Sihyeon took no harm from it, but Geron and Park Jungseok suffered wounds bordering on critical. Only by grasping the barrier's power a moment late and flinging themselves backward did they escape death.
"Hey, kids."
Yujun let his sword hang and addressed Coordination.
"As a fellow Korean, there's something I'm curious about. Mind if I ask?"
"..."
What was he asking, out of nowhere? Ban Soyeon said nothing and simply watched him.
Don't tell me he's trying to buy time.
If so, it didn't matter. Time passing would not restore his ability to use mana. That would only be possible once he left a certain range. If anything, Coordination ought to be grateful he was just standing there.
"No answer, huh. I'll just ask what I want to know. What are you thinking, playing lackeys for the Cult?"
Perhaps unable to endure those words, Ban Soyeon opened her mouth.
"Lackeys? We're not lackeys. We have the honor of belonging to the Cult."
"Same thing."
"What are you talking about? They're obviously completely different."
"So you're saying you aren't doing this because you were brainwashed?"
"Hard to say."
"Huh? You're not? So it is brainwashing?"
"It all starts that way, at first. But now, everything we do for the Cult feels worthwhile. Every time we contribute, we get a pleasure you can't even imagine. And chances to grow stronger come far more often than they ever did when we lived as ordinary players. You wouldn't understand until you joined yourself."
"...So you didn't join the Cult of your own will."
"Does that matter? Whatever the world thinks, we're satisfied. The Continent, Heaven, the Demon Realm—soon all of it will belong to our Cult anyway."
"Hmm..."
They were brainwashed quite severely. Most Demon God Worshippers were. There was no way people who followed such absurd doctrine could be in their right minds.
The one who first made the Cult is the real problem. The brainwashing must have started with him.
If he imagined himself ending up like Coordination, it was too horrific. This was not even turning into a machine. To feel happiness in belonging to the Cult and serving it.
Could that actually be better?
At least they did not feel themselves unhappy, so perhaps he needed to look at it differently. Not that he wanted to become like them.
Even so, they are a little pitiful.
If they had wanted to follow the Cult from the start, that would be one thing. But they had simply been abducted and brainwashed, the same as the players of the Koruna Kingdom. He could not help finding them pitiful, all the more so because they were fellow Koreans.
Not that I intend to spare them.
There were times for sympathy, and times when it had no place. He had no need to show mercy merely because they had been brainwashed against their will. Whatever he did, he could not return them to who they had been.
Later, if my magic improves a little more, undoing the brainwashing might be possible.
Yujun knew it was impossible for now.
"Is there not a single person in Coordination who joined the Cult of their own will?"
"Why on earth are you asking something like that?"
Ban Soyeon sounded genuinely puzzled.
"Why do you think? Because I'm curious."
"I don't feel like telling you."
"So you were all abducted, then."
Yujun clicked his tongue.
A Demon God Worshipper, once brainwashed, abducted other players so that they could be brainwashed in turn. Was the Cult, as it existed now, not simply that cycle repeated without end? Whoever cast the brainwashing was certainly formidable. It did not end with the casting. Maintaining it required a continuous drain of mana—at least, as far as Yujun knew. Which meant the Cult was controlling several thousand Demon God Worshippers at a minimum.
No. Far more than that.
But how is that even possible?
He could not help the question. He doubted even swallowing ten Dragon Hearts would be enough. Perhaps the mana that welled back up outweighed whatever the brainwashing consumed. Nothing was certain yet. All of it was speculation.
"Hey, human. How long do you plan to do nothing but talk?"
Geron's voice had sunk low.
"If that bothers you, come at me first."
"..."
Geron looked at the members of Coordination. Deias was dead, and so were hundreds of believers. In the end, it had come down to four of them against Shin Yujun.
Honestly, not a single member of Coordination had expected the situation to deteriorate so sharply. They had believed they could fight him on equal terms—no, that they would hold the advantage. They had been that confident.
Shin Yujun was a power beyond any comparison to what they had imagined.