Chapter 60 1. Hidden Achievement
Hidden Achievement
Episode 61
Kkkkkkkkiiiiieeeeeee!
Uwaaaaaah!!
The living and the dead clashed violently, tangled in a fierce struggle.
The girl who had been leisurely observing from above finally spoke.
"Still not enough to bring him doooown..."
Her drawn-out murmur marked the end of her musings.
Her lifeless eyes rolled to one side.
Even for someone who had lived countless ages, the sight of a man beautiful enough to make her eyes gleam was rare.
There he was, at the heart of the battlefield, tearing through the corpses with kickboxing.
She had thought this army would be enough to wear him down over time. Unlike the dead, humans inevitably tire.
But he showed no sign of exhaustion.
In fact, the more zombies he slaughtered, the more vitality he seemed to gain.
'He must possess an extraordinary ability...'
Though the corpses under her command dwindled, her smile deepened.
She wanted to see more. Even if only to witness his true end this time.
'If he dies here, that'll be the end of it, won't it?'
The Lord of Corpses raised her index finger.
『"Mana Operation (Rare)" is active.』
『"Amplified Holy Power (Rare)" is active.』
『"Optimal Progression" is in effect.』
"Hhhuup!"
He had already Read how the zombies would move with his eyes.
All that remained was to take the most optimal action through Optimal Progression. No—everything was already aligning exactly as Park Si-hyun desired.
Holy power, converted from mana, erupted from his fist like a bomb.
Because he had willed it through Optimal Progression—"Let the holy power explode as widely as possible."—this was the result.
The jaw of the struck zombie vanished without a trace.
The remaining force blasted outward, scattering zombies in a fan-shaped explosion, turning them to ash.
He had already repeated this process hundreds of times. Yet, neither his stamina nor his willpower showed any sign of faltering.
『Seizing stats [Strength +2][Agility +1][Stamina +1] from the zombie.』
『Seizing elements necessary for survival—stamina, mental strength, mana, etc.—from the zombie.』
"Seize."
The ability that was practically the foundation of Park Si-hyun's existence supported him unshakably.
And so, without pause, he kept obliterating zombies.
Then—
『"Read" detects danger.』
Faint but unmistakable, the Lord of Corpses curled her lips into a grotesque smile and raised her finger.
"Zombies alone aren't exciting enough, are they...?"
The ashes falling from her fingertips grew vivid.
Kuuuung!
The world, already dyed in gray, darkened further.
"Gooo. Go and stir my excitement..."
The walls of the chapel trembled where the ashes touched them.
"!"
He had known from the moment he felt their ivory-like texture—but he never imagined he'd see this.
The truth was, this pristine white tower itself—
『<Lord of Corpses> activates "Model White Bone Tower."』
—was a sculpture made of bone dust.
The believers, unaware, had offered their prayers here.
『Shaping "Skeletons."』
Skeletons rose from the walls like half-melted wax.
The whiter the skeletons became outside the walls, the more the walls themselves withered away.
"Sk-Skeletons?!"
Countless holes formed across the tower.
Through them, the ashen sky poured down.
Kugugugung!
In the blink of an eye, the chapel's original form was gone.
In place of the white tower, only mottled skeletons now loomed in the sky.
"......!"
An army of skeletons—tens of thousands strong—blotted out the heavens.
『"Model White Bone Tower" transforms into "Skeletons."』
Empty-eyed skulls stared down at Park Si-hyun, ghostly flames flickering within their sockets.
Then, like puppets with their strings cut, they began falling from the sky—one by one.
"!"
A mountain of bones cascaded from above.
Park Si-hyun clenched his fist, his expression hardening.
Suddenly, skeletal hands burst from the ground. A chilling grip seized his ankles.
Kwaaaaang!
He stomped down, shattering the skeleton—and the ground beneath it—in one motion.
Immediately, he looked up at the approaching wave of bones. The sheer numbers were staggering.
But...
They were still just tutorial-level mobs.
『Seizing stats from the Skeletons.』
In other words—nothing more than cannon fodder.
"Hhhuup!"
Drawing in a sharp breath, he leaped upward.
「Park Si-hyun's Stats」
[Strength G-][Agility G-][Stamina G-][Mana G-]
The strength he had seized from the Skeletons was now concentrated in this single punch.
Kwaaaaang!
The front line of Skeletons that collided with Park Si-hyun crumbled as if swept away by a storm.
Shattered bone fragments scattered in all directions. Bone dust swirled chaotically through the air.
Meanwhile, Skeletons that had landed safely lunged at him from the side.
Park Si-hyun's elbow moved.
Kwang!
Human flesh and bare bone clashed violently. But the skeleton, unable to withstand the force of his elbow, lost its balance—its skull sent flying. Yet, even headless, it twisted at the waist and swung its arm in a sneak attack.
A tenacious, relentless aggression—one that disregarded life itself.
『"Half-Spirit Body" activated.』
Conscious of the skeletons swarming from all directions, I activated my Semi-Spirit Form. A sharply extended knuckle barely grazed past my chest.
I materialized only my arm and smashed the spine with the back of my hand.
The shattered bone fragments flew elsewhere, merging with other skeletons. The more skeletons I destroyed, the denser the bones of the remaining ones became.
Was this what it meant for the undead to never dwindle and for a human to never tire?
Even Park Si-hyun himself felt like he had transcended humanity.
But that was as far as his stray thoughts went.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
From above, an endless stream of skulls rained down, unleashing their assault.
From the undulating ground, zombies and skeletons surged upward in masses.
"Kyaaaaah!"
Terrified people scrambled away from what had once been the chapel.
The zombies stored underground had broken through the earth.
The floor had literally become a squirming mass of zombies. Fighting atop it was nearly impossible.
Everyone thought so.
KWAANG!
Yet amidst it all, someone dashed forward, stepping on zombie heads.
The Holy Sword of Judgment in their grasp blazed with light, aimed at the cult leader.
The priestess's dress was already stained red from slaughtering the zombies that blocked her path.
Still, the silver-haired beauty, like Park Si-hyun, refused to stop atop the sea of corpses.
Her breath was ragged, her mana nearly depleted.
—I won't forgive you...!
But Park Se-eun swung her sword through the horde of corpses, driven by sheer will alone.
#
"Twist."
An abrupt distortion wrenched the cult leader's shoulder.
"GGRRAAAHH!"
A spiraling void swallowed his shoulder whole. But the monarch's power regenerated his arm, turning it blackened and charred.
"You damn lizard bastard!"
Park Se-eun unleashed the swordsmanship she had honed at the Striking Sword Way dojo alongside Park Si-hyun—without restraint.
Her slashing stance was flawless.
The cult leader snarled and swung his arm.
"Do you truly intend to resist to this extent, Saintess?"
"Don't call me Saintess, you disgusting creep! Why the hell would I marry you, you pedophilic freak?!"
Zombies erupted between Park Se-eun and the cult leader—a wall of undead.
But as her blue eyes flashed, spatial pressure shredded them apart. Amidst the spray of blood, she lunged through the gap, closing in on the cult leader.
"And you—"
The Holy Sword raised high above her head blazed brilliantly with her will.
"—dared to target children too—"
Her sapphire eyes burned just as fiercely.
"—I won't forgive you!"
The slashed space erupted in golden light before collapsing inward like a black hole. The cult leader barely escaped, sneering.
"I thought only your face had transcended humanity, but it seems your mind is still stuck in infancy. Do you really think you can win? No—once our Mother descends, no one on this Earth can defeat us. Look at your brother, writhing under her power. You can't even see him beneath the corpses, can you? Beg me. Beg, and I'll spare him at least. Gghhk—?!"
Instead of an answer, a furious golden arc sliced through the air. The cult leader's torso split horizontally. Darkness mended the wound.
But the relentless slashes didn't stop, carving into his body without pause.
"You keep spouting nonsense like you're hot shit—what the hell makes you so special?! Acting all high and mighty—!"
"GGRRKKH—?!"
Every strike of the Holy Sword seared him like the sun's fury. Yet, even as his face twisted into a demonic grimace, the cult leader endured.
His eyes darted, assessing his forces.
The advisor was nowhere in sight.
The lawkeeper—was being overwhelmed.
"GGRRAAAHH!"
The lawkeeper's severed left arm flew into the air, cut by the Holy Sword of Sacrifice. His glasses shattered, his slicked-back hair disheveled.
Panicked, he turned to flee—only to plunge into the swamp of zombies like a drowning man.
But Kim Seon-hwa's Holy Sword pierced his throat without mercy.
"Huh... uh..."
The light faded from the lawkeeper's pupils. With his last strength, he barely turned his gaze toward the cult leader.
'L-Leader...'
That plea never reached him. His head was severed before it could.
"Haa..."
Kim Seon-hwa, panting heavily, let the bloodless Holy Sword of Sacrifice hang limply.
She had exhausted herself forcibly drawing mana to aid Park Si-hyun.
"Not even a cockroach... just had to scurry around like a damn rat... fucking bastard."
Wiping the sweat from her chin, she took a deep breath.
Then—
FWOOOOM!
A flash erupted.
From above—where the Zombie Swarm loomed.
The arm of the Zombie Swarm, locked in battle with Kang So-eun, exploded.
"Huh? Huh?"
The ever-growing chunk of flesh hurtled straight toward Kim Seon-hwa.
"Kyaaaaah!"
KWA-BOOOOOM!
"Huff... huff... huuuuk..."
Kim Seon-hwa stood dumbfounded, barely registering the zombies gnashing their teeth against the soles of her shoes.
—GRROOOOOAAAR!
A building-sized forearm came crashing down, pulverizing the zombie floor before skidding to a halt beside her like a downed airplane.
Eyes wide as hatchets, Kim Seon-hwa glared in the direction the arm had come from.
KWAANG! KWAANG!
Amid the storm raging between the titans, Kang So-eun floated untouched in the sky. Every swing of her arm made the Zombie Swarm detonate into bursts of light.
"That bitch...? ...Get a grip."
She was fighting hard too—letting personal feelings interfere would be reckless. But why did she sense such malice from Kang So-eun...?
'This isn't my fight to jump into...'
Getting between those giants would take more than one or two lives. She'd have to leave it to Kang So-eun.
Just as Kim Seon-hwa relaxed her shoulders—
"!"
Ash suddenly swirled through the air.
Zombies touched by the ash began tinged with viscous darkness.
"What the—?"
But the anomaly didn't stop there.
Their flesh started merging repulsively, squirming and swelling as if stitching together.
...The zombies were being converted into darkness. Compressed into a single mass.
Kim Seon-hwa's freeze lasted only a moment.
"Kyaaak!"
The zombie platform beneath her feet was sinking in real time.
She backstepped frantically, escaping the zombie-made floor just as the creatures below were devoured.
GRIIIND.
The underground hollowed out as zombies compacted, leaving only dozens of dark voids in their wake.
The viscous darkness that had swallowed countless skeletons and zombies now burned like will-o'-the-wisps.
Just as Kim Seon-hwa stared in shock—
<Hmm... poor materials... efficiency... utterly... but quality over quantity... will have to do>
The Lord of Corpses muttered in disappointment.
Then the grotesquely squirming mass took new shape.
A zombie form sculpted by the Lord herself.
[Plague Supplier]
Blue ghost flames flickered to life across the darkness-streaked ground.
Mutant zombies that had no place in the Tutorial began rising.
#
Every zombie trapped underground had been consumed by darkness.
That swelling darkness now regurgitated its creations.
[Explosive Zombie]
A mutant even necromancers of the Tower couldn't craft from such shoddy materials. No ordinary tutorial zombie could mutate to this degree.
The corpses of powerless humans were worthless to begin with—lacking both the natural properties for mutation and the diversity of traits needed for such variants.
But the Lord of Corpses didn't care.
[Poison Bell Zombie]
[Bulky Zombie]
[Spore Zombie]
[Proliferating Zombie]
[Twin Zombie]
[Pursuit Zombie]
[Smokescreen Zombie]
In moments, zombies with diverse traits materialized.
The end product of grinding down Seoul's entire horde.
These were qualitatively different from any zombie faced before.
Their mere presence cast a gloom that pressed down on the surroundings.
The mutant zombies turned their rotting eyes toward Park Si-hyun.
There was barely any intellect in those gazes. Which is why—
—GRROOOOAR!
The Bulky Zombie charged.
"Park Si-hyun!"
Kim Seon-hwa burst through the skeletons.
"Si-hyun!"
Hayase also cleaved through skeletons, trying to intercept the Bulky Zombie.
But.
"I don't share my cannonballs even with girlfriends!"
Park Si-hyun overtook Hayase and roundhouse-kicked the zombie's gut.
"!"
The Bulky Zombie's belly jiggled from the impact before it went flying—spectacularly exploding amidst the other mutants.
"......"
"......"
Kim Seon-hwa and Hayase stood frozen in awkward silence.
Park Si-hyun turned and gave them a thumbs-up.
『You have stolen [Strength+5][Stamina+7] from the Bulky Zombie.』
'It's working.'
The Lord of Corpses floated upside-down in the ashen sky, apparently fond of her dramatic suicide-by-jumping aesthetic.
Her wicked smile deepened, as if to say this was nothing.
Behind her, dark clouds gathered.
『「Read」 has deciphered a clue for the hidden achievement 「Eraser of Calamity」.』
Park Si-hyun clenched his fist as he stared at the storm-choked sky.
Not from fear—from exhilaration.
'As expected... when she goes all out, she really goes all out.'
Why had Park Si-hyun been provoking the Lord of Corpses all along?
To evolve weak zombies into mutants and steal their stats.
And beyond that—to obtain a hidden achievement only available during the Tower's Tutorial.
「Eraser of Calamity」
That was his goal.
Awarded for eradicating every calamity befalling the world during the Tutorial.
'An achievement I'd given up on because zombies had already spread worldwide.'
『The title 「Hunter of the Wild」 reacts to 「Eraser of Calamity」.』
『「Hunter of the Wild」 prepares for transformation.』
It was now within reach.