Quest (2)
The monsters pouring in from all sides were enough to make anyone sick at a glance.
Individually, none of them looked all that strong, but there were so many of them that I couldn’t help feeling the danger gnawing at the back of my mind.
Now I understood why Kim Hyunsung had once said this place didn’t have enough people to enter it.
No matter how strong Kim Hyunsung and Park Deokgu were, there was no way the two of them could handle this alone.
Jung Jinho’s group wore the expression of people who’d just stepped in something rotten.
They seemed to be thinking about whether they could survive here at all, but at the very least, that bastard Jung Jinho didn’t look panicked.
We can survive.
We absolutely could survive.
Holding back mana for spells was the natural thing to do.
Even as I kept chanting under my breath, I tightened both hands around my spear.
“Deokgu.”
“I know.”
The ones taking the front were Park Deokgu, Kim Hyunsung, and Jung Jinho.
Park Deokgu was plugging the center as hard as he could, keeping our formation as tight and compact as possible.
The two groups, which had been thinking different thoughts while trying to survive, were finally starting to knit together as one.
I was worried about our backs, but in a situation like this, they weren’t stupid enough to attack from behind.
Kim Hyunsung understood that too.
With nothing on his mind but escaping the reality in front of us, everyone clenched their weapons and threw themselves at the charging monsters, bodies colliding head-on.
Bang!
“Kieeeeeek!”
“Disgusting bastards!”
Two or three of them came at once as a matter of course, and Park Deokgu crouched behind his shield, bracing himself and blocking them as best he could.
There was no need to worry about the spear not finding its target.
The whole place was a target.
I could feel the wet thrust of flesh giving way, but I didn’t have the luxury of lingering on it.
Again and again, I drove my spear forward, praying that Park Deokgu and Kim Hyunsung would not be overwhelmed.
“Keep it tight! As tight as you can!”
“You two in the back, stick right behind us! If you drift off, I don’t know what’ll happen to me either.”
“O-okay.”
“Kieeeeeeek!”
We were being pushed closer and closer to the iron door, and it felt like we’d soon be shoved back completely under the strain of their relentless assault.
With his massive body, Park Deokgu swung his shield around and carved out just enough space for us to move.
Kim Hyunsung and Jung Jinho were calmly stabbing or shoving aside the monsters that lunged at them.
Strong.
They really were strong.
Of course Jung Jinho was impressive, blocking with a small shield and thrusting his sword through gaps, but Kim Hyunsung was the truly alarming one—he was still watching me and Jung Hayan even while dealing with the enemies in front of him.
He was worried we might get cut down.
Don’t worry about a damn thing, you idiot.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
“Aaaah!”
Even Jung Jinho’s underlings were fighting desperately.
It was only natural they wouldn’t have the luxury of focusing on us.
With their lips bitten bloody, they poured every ounce of strength they had into keeping the monsters from reaching their throats.
Black blood kept splattering across my spear and face.
Bits of organs and other wet body parts kept slapping onto the floor, making the ground slick.
The rancid smell made me wrinkle my nose, but because everything was moving so frantically, I couldn’t even properly register it.
“Kieeeeeeeek!”
The monsters’ earsplitting shrieks and the screams raised to steel ourselves against them fused into one.
“Hup!”
Bang!
Every time a shield swung, one of them went flying, and it was actually quite a sight.
This pig! Not bad at all.
His potential ability might not have been especially high, but Park Deokgu as he was now was the real thing.
It was a different sort of strength from Kim Hyunsung or Jung Jinho, but his durability, for a man in his late thirties, was so absurd it left me speechless.
He took glancing blows head-on without even trying to dodge.
I underestimated him.
I’d judged him too narrowly by his talent rating and underestimated him.
Right now, Park Deokgu was looking more threatening than even Kim Hyunsung or Jung Jinho.
The overwhelming presence radiating from that huge frame.
His strength stats might not be high, and he didn’t have mana either, but this shield warrior standing his ground was no mere meat shield.
He knew where to block, and where to strike.
Even while using his body to stop enemies too numerous to count, he didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable.
Is this guy even human?
I caught myself thinking that before I knew it.
Of course, Park Deokgu wasn’t fearless either.
He’d always had a soft heart, and when I’d first gone hunting with him, he’d been busy doing nothing but scrambling to avoid the monsters.
And yet, he still didn’t leave his post.
Even with a somewhat worn-out expression, even while looking scared, he still wasn’t running away like before.
It wasn’t that he’d suddenly grown confident, or that he was worried about the formation collapsing. There wasn’t a single thought like that in that muscle-packed skull of his.
This was just a guess, but it seemed to me that that pig of a man didn’t want me or Jung Hayan to get hurt or die.
“Don’t you move away from me! Mister! Don’t you move away!”
“I’m right behind you, pig. Focus.”
“You gotta stick right next to me! Right next to me!”
“Got it.”
You could tell from the fact that he kept checking on us.
That damned pig…
What worried me a little was that the monsters’ attacks were concentrating too heavily on Park Deokgu.
He didn’t seem to have any major injuries yet, but there had definitely been small and large cuts here and there.
Even setting aside the fight here, if I thought about what would happen afterward, that kind of flow wasn’t good.
It was right then that Jung Hayan’s spell flew out.
“Wind Bomb.”
Bang!
With a thunderous blast, the creatures were hurled outward.
The ones smashed into the floor or the ceiling were reduced to a pulp under the pressure sent by the wind, but that hardly made the situation pleasant.
We need to conserve it…
Jung Hayan and I had to save as much mana as possible.
Of course, Jung Hayan had more mana than I did, but even so, she couldn’t cast spells endlessly.
We couldn’t allow ourselves to run out of stamina before Jung Jinho’s group did.
While we held the monsters off as much as possible, we also had to keep our mana consumption to a minimum.
As I briefly thought about how to pass that along, watching the battlefield made me smile before I could stop myself.
Puhat.
It was probably intentional.
The answer was in where Jung Hayan’s magic had landed.
The spell had come crashing down exactly between the monsters being held back by Park Deokgu and Kim Hyunsung.
In other words, the left side—where Jung Jinho’s group was fighting—had received no help from the spell. Indirectly, that meant the pressure on Jung Jinho and his underlings on the left had grown heavier.
Watching the ones screaming themselves hoarse while trying to hold the monsters back almost made them look pitiful.
Compared to that, we’d gained a little breathing room.
Thanks to Jung Hayan’s magic, the monsters’ numbers had been cut down significantly, and though it was only for a moment, we’d managed to catch our breath.
Nice one, Jung Hayan.
Every now and then I wondered whether she was a little dense, but Jung Hayan was smarter than I gave her credit for.
Park Deokgu and Kim Hyunsung, now noticeably more relaxed, naturally had no intention of running over to support the left side.
“We’ve got to keep the formation!”
They probably couldn’t have broken formation even if they wanted to. The monsters’ sheer numbers were still hammering the left side.
“Catch your breath, Deokgu.”
“I-I was planning to. I’m alive thanks to the lady.”
By that point, it was Jung Jinho’s side that was starting to look frantic.
He could use magic too, but since he wanted to hide the fact that he was a magic swordsman, he was not going to spend mana helping his underlings.
In the end, shouts that were halfway between screams and cries began bursting from their mouths.
“Please send some support!”
“Over here too!”
“Could you use that spell from before?”
They were begging for magic to be cast for them.
Jung Hayan glanced at me, but I quietly shook my head.
If Jung Jinho was there, he could hold out just fine. They might lose an arm or get hit somewhere unpleasant, but at this level, they’d be able to endure it.
Yoo Seokwoo was also shouting toward Jung Hayan.
“Miss Hayan!”
“J-just a second. I-I’m still gathering mana….”
“Damn it… aaaaah!”
And in the middle of that, a monster managed to slash a wound across his arm—an impressive little bastard, really, enough to draw admiration from me.
Even so, the bastard didn’t stop swinging his sword.
Why?
Because he knew stopping meant death.
It was a shame I couldn’t laugh out loud, because the situation was turning out to be pretty entertaining.
“We can hold out!”
One by one, wounds began piling up on the left formation.
This is good. Very good.
Jung Jinho’s body was starting to collect injuries too.
No matter how much stronger he was than I’d expected, this place was one Kim Hyunsung himself had been reluctant to enter alone.
There was no way a mere Jung Jinho could handle everything by himself.
I shouted out again at the top of my lungs.
“You can hold out! You can do it, everyone!”
“Is Kiyoung not ready yet?”
“Just a little longer….”
“Hurry!”
“You can hold out. We’ll definitely stop them! Please wait a little longer.”
As I shouted with false urgency, thrusting my spear with newfound ease, they seemed to believe the situation really was desperate.
By now, the situation over there had become so bad they couldn’t even turn their heads to look my way.
“Aaaah! Damn it!!”
One of them got his leg bit.
If I had to guess, he’d be limping through the rest of the battle from here on out.
“For fuck’s sake, hurry! Hurry!! The magic!”
“I-it’s almost ready!”
In truth, the spell had finished casting a long time ago. I did think it would be right to fire it at least once before they were truly overrun, but helping those bastards was a little hard to stomach.
The maximum number of spells I could afford to use was two.
Three, at most, if I didn’t care what happened afterward.
I did need to help them in this situation, but at the same time, I also needed to make them suffer.
Whenever five humans got together, there was always at least one piece of trash among them.
For some reason, I had the feeling that today’s trash was going to be me.
“Fireball!”
Kwaaaang!
“Kieeeeeeeek!”
Massive fireballs began crashing down on the left formation.
The tremendous roar gave the left side a brief opening.
Not only were the monsters instantly turned into burning clumps, but the shockwave also spread to everyone caught in the debris.
Apparently, fire magic was the most useful when it came to raw firepower.
If I’d poured in that much mana and gotten any less than this, I would’ve felt a little shortchanged.
Seeing the spell land so clearly, Jung Jinho’s group looked relieved, as though they thought they could finally breathe too.
But the aftermath of the magic didn’t end there.
“Kieeeeeeeek!”
Their faces began twisting little by little.
Everything was perfect.
The spell had landed, space had opened up, and they’d gained a moment to rest.
Only—
Only one problem remained: the fire was spreading through the tightly packed monsters.
The creatures engulfed in flames tangled together, creating a brilliant little fireworks display.
For a moment, they writhed in pain.
But those bastards, who could think only of stuffing their faces, eventually started charging toward the very place they’d been headed before.
Only now they looked a little more excited than before.
“Kieeeeeeeeeek!”
Watching those screaming monsters, I couldn’t even tell whether they were in agony or exhilarated, as they came at Jung Jinho’s group with their bodies turned into living fireballs, was truly a sight.
Burning maws, you murdering bastards!
“Damn it!!”
“S-sorry! I-I had no idea something like this would happen….”
This was a type of monster that didn’t exist in this place.
They had begun facing an entirely new kind of monster.
“I’m sorry.”