Chapter 4-4. No Days Off for Hunters (3)
Twaang—
A Polygot that had been charging around like a madman toppled over the edge of the cliff.
That one had been number fifty. Which left just fifty more to catch before the raid could be called a success — and it had taken a mere forty minutes to get this far. Which meant that for the remaining twenty-three hours and twenty minutes…
"Alright. Time to do this on foot."
They would have to descend that cliff themselves. Before that, Lee Jun handed Seo Yoon and Choi Jeong-hyeon a few pieces of equipment: harnesses made from chimera leather, and rope spun from minotaur tendon. They would use them to link their bodies together.
"The rope's eighty meters in total. It should be plenty, but just in case — don't stray far enough to pull it taut."
Lee Jun fastened a lump of metal to the rope's end and hurled it out past the gate's edge. It would no doubt come slamming down somewhere in the lava of the third floor. Minotaur tendon didn't burn in lava, so the line would anchor itself solidly against the hardening volcanic rock.
"Now then — shall we head down?"
With that, he sent the two of them over the cliff first. Lee Jun planned to follow last, in case anything unexpected happened. His Styx's Shard had gained quite a bit of output this time around, so catching one falling person should be within its power.
Granted, it cost the raid some efficiency. It pulled Lee Jun — the one among the three most familiar with the Ant Nest — away from the front line. Even so, he'd chosen this arrangement, for the simple reason that it suited the true purpose of this raid better than anything else.
Today, Lee Jun was an instructor. Exactly that, no more and no less.
'Not like I expect them to clear this place today anyway.'
Success would be nice, of course. He hadn't folded that hope away entirely — it was why he'd prepared so thoroughly. But the odds were markedly against it, and he knew it. If they'd been dead set on conquering the place, they would have brought the Technology Bureau Chief in for support.
Lee Jun watched Seo Yoon and Choi Jeong-hyeon descend, ropes binding the three of them together. Today's purpose was to teach the two of them to improvise when the unexpected hit — and to teach them about failure itself, the experience of a raid going under. That was why he'd chosen the fourth floor of the Ant Nest, where the danger was kept to a minimum.
"That first part I'll grant you, but do they really need lessons on failing a raid?"
The answer to Silhouette's question was a simple obviously.
Granted, knowing how a failed gate raid unfolded wasn't knowledge you'd get much practical use out of. Under normal circumstances, it would never come up. Because when a raid failed, the people inside it mostly died.
"Then what's the point? It's useless."
I said mostly. There were exceptions.
"Like when?"
For instance — Lee Jun, one lifetime ago. His raid had failed, and he'd still walked out in one piece. Not a single casualty, either. He'd managed it because he'd abandoned the raid fast, before the team took any losses. Even giving up had its timing. Back then, too, had he been just a little slower, he would have been staring down a future in which the entire raid team was wiped out.
So when a situation demanded that a raid be abandoned, what enabled a person to reach that decision quickly?
Having failed before. Knowing that when you were headed for collapse no matter how long you dragged things out, the wise move was to withdraw with as little damage as possible. And that knowledge came only from experience.
"Hmmm. I suppose."
In the end, if you were going to fail regardless, what mattered was failing well — failing with the least harm done.
"'Failing well.' That's a funny one."
It worked because hunters really only had to worry about two things. First: clearing the gate and keeping the citizens safe. Second: preserving their own lives and their comrades'. Simply escaping the gate in time and handing what they'd learned to the next raid team was enough. In the end, anything a hunter did that contributed to conquering a gate counted as victory.
Which left exactly one thing for Lee Jun to confirm from here on out.
The Ant Nest's respawn time was midnight. Let's call that moment the gate break. He had already drilled into them that they should be somewhere as safe as possible when the reset hit.
Roughly twenty-three hours remained. All the groundwork was laid.
Now, then — let's see what the two of them did with it.
Hup—
Still hanging from her rope, Seo Yoon dove out over the drop. Her body floated free in the open air — she savored that weightlessness for barely a moment before wrenching the rope hard and flying back to press herself against the rock face. Her position… a little to the right of where she'd jumped from. Directly in front of a goat.
"Choi Jeong-hyeon!"
"Yes!"
The Polygot that had been idly strolling the cliff caught sight of a human abruptly appearing in its vision and spun around in a panic. But Choi Jeong-hyeon was already waiting there, too. Its escape was cut off — front and back both. And so, while the goat's eyes were locked on her—
Swish—
Seo Yoon's dagger opened the back of its neck in an instant.
"Baaaah—"
The goat's legs buckled, and unable to hold its footing on the narrow cliff path, it dropped away below. That made nine. It had already been four hours since they'd begun hunting the frisking Polygots.
"Oh? You two are really finding your rhythm now."
Lee Jun was busy with a Polygot of his own, a little farther up the cliff. …No. Was "busy with" the right phrase? No matter how you looked at it, the man was feeding the thing.
"…Boss?"
"They're pretty cute, aren't they? Don't you think?"
"…"
Seo Yoon and Choi Jeong-hyeon stared at him for a while, still dangling from the cliff. Then they traded a brief glance. Roughly speaking… they grasped the situation now.
"…I believe you intend to see how far we can manage on our own."
"It… does kind of seem that way…."
The two of them traded impressions as they watched Lee Jun in his scene of utter pastoral bliss. Yes — he really did mean for them to handle it alone. Watching the man serenely feed hay to a monster even now made that abundantly clear. There could be no more emphatic a statement of intent.
"Still, don't worry. If it gets even slightly dangerous, I'll pull you right back up."
"Baaaah~"
"There we go. Good, keep eating."
Stroking the Polygot's head, Lee Jun turned his gaze across the canyon. Roughly a hundred and twenty meters of empty air. An interval no ordinary hunter would even dream of crossing — which was why he'd dealt with the fifty on the far side first, picking them off with sniper fire.
"Hold on… there are a few showing up on the far side, though?"
Of course there were. These things could clear a hundred and twenty meters in a single leap.
"What?"
Exactly what it sounded like. They jumped the gap. Take a kick from those hind legs and a person might well be sent flying to a messy death. By that measure, Polygots ought to be rated C-Class at least. Grading them in the same bracket as slimes was an insult to goats everywhere.
Fweee~
Idle musings ended there. With a light whistle, Lee Jun dusted himself off and rose. Even so, sitting on his hands and spectating the whole time would set a poor example for the hunters under his name. Giving up, after all, was a choice available only to those who could still see hope. If there was no answer from the very start, that wasn't a choice at all — that was forces beyond anyone's control.
"You know, you're a lucky one."
Lee Jun tied a red ribbon around the ankle of the Polygot he'd been petting. He'd taken a liking to the thing, so he'd reserve it as his hundredth prey. The odds of the raid succeeding today were practically nil, which meant the goat would almost certainly survive. What would become of it once the respawn came around, of course, was anyone's guess.
"This way, at least nothing hurts. Right?"
"Baaaah~"
Ribbon secured, Lee Jun gave the Polygot a gentle pat on the rump — a signal to run along now, as far as it liked. The goat licked his hand a couple of times, then bounded away along the cliff.
"Honestly. How do they scamper around ledges that narrow like it's nothing?"
Watching it go with evident enjoyment, Lee Jun drew a pistol from his Pocket. Now then — time for this side to get serious as well.
The sun was still hanging at its peak. Ah — not that time had failed to pass. Twenty hours had already gone by since the hunt began. Good grief. Only four hours remained until the respawn.
"…You say that so shamelessly."
It's called staging.
"Uh-huh. So? How were the results? Happy?"
Results, hm. The results were… well, he couldn't exactly call them decent with a straight face. Of the fifty that remained after the sniping, Seo Yoon and Choi Jeong-hyeon had caught twelve in total. And Lee Jun, lounging about, had accounted for nine.
"Haah… haah…."
"Haaaah…."
The two of them, having hauled themselves back up the cliff, lay face-down on the ground, chests heaving. Lacking the tricks, they'd tried to cover the gap with stamina — and the result was stamina spent to the dregs, with nothing to show for it. He'd had a feeling it would end like this.
"How are we feeling? Think you've got more in the tank?"
"I can… haaa…."
Choi Jeong-hyeon mumbled into the dirt. Was it the exhaustion, or shock at the results? Probably a healthy serving of both. Lee Jun rolled her gently onto her back and brushed the soil from her face.
"The process itself wasn't bad, though. The two of you found your rhythm at a genuinely impressive pace."
"But… in the end, we failed…." It was Seo Yoon who spoke — comparatively less flattened than her junior. And she was right. Judged on results alone, it had been a failure. Which was exactly what Lee Jun had wanted.
"So what do you do now? Only four hours left until the respawn."
Four hours. Factoring in the descent back to the first floor, a decision had to be made this instant. Lee Jun looked from Seo Yoon to Choi Jeong-hyeon and back. Both faces were torn. They'd accomplished something today, after all — letting it go would sting. Everything would be reset by the time they returned. The heart that didn't want to quit would be at war with the head trying to think it through.
"But in cases like this, don't people usually pick the safe option?"
No. Most picked the opposite.
"Eh? Why?"
Because emotion isn't something reason can simply crush. "Hmmmm. Fascinating."
Hunters deep in a gate raid all think remarkably similar thoughts when this moment comes. It's a waste to pull out now. The boss room is right there. We've come this far — surely we can manage. If we could just clear this one gate, somehow… Those feelings pile up, and together they breed a reckless decision. The comfortable conviction that it'll probably be fine. And in the end, that conviction is what kills them.
'If every hunter could simply make the rational call, the mortality rate wouldn't be anywhere near that high.'
Gate raids were where A-Class and S-Class alike died at the drop of a hat. Why would veterans — rich in experience, superb in skill — meet such ends? Because not one of them could bring themselves to give up.
"Time to decide."
Checking his watch, Lee Jun pressed the two of them. Bodies exhausted to the bone. Psychological pressure. A closing time limit bearing down on top of it all. It wasn't a perfect reproduction, but he'd assembled a situation close enough to a live gate raid. Now, then. What choice would they make?
"…I believe we should turn back."
"We should… probably go back."
Seo Yoon and Choi Jeong-hyeon answered at the same time.
"No regrets? It's really just a sliver left now."
"But… if it turns dangerous, we'd gain nothing. This isn't the kind of place where a gate break happens. Once we've grown further… I believe we should challenge it again."
"Right… And even if we stayed, I don't think we'd clear it… It's frustrating, but for now it's just beyond us."
Good. That was a passing grade. He hadn't taught them for nothing, then.
"Good. Then we'll put the raid off until next time."
At those words, the two dragged their worn-out bodies upright. Their expressions were grim with resolve — the look of soldiers steeling themselves on the eve of battle.
"Hmm…."
It felt a little cruel to trample on a mood like that. But some things simply had to be said.
"In that case, have a seat and rest up."
"I'm… sorry?"
"You just said we had to hurry down…."
"Ah — the respawn's already come around once anyway, hasn't it? Whether you go down now or in four hours, it's all the same. I'm about to start dinner. Anything in particular you two are craving?"
"…"
"…"
Whatever tension they'd been holding onto dissolved on the spot, and both of them flopped straight back onto the ground. What — had they genuinely believed they'd be descending for every one of the remaining four hours?
"Honestly, you…."
What? Come on. Tell them it's not cruelty — it's raising them strong.
"…You know yourself so well."
Well, you know how it is. A little 'surprise'? Something like that. If all a hunter ever did was grind through raids, they'd wear down to nothing. And without a sense of crisis, training efficiency dropped like a stone.
"Hmm…."
Still, watching the two of them sprawled boneless on the ground… maybe he'd pushed past efficiency straight into burning them out. People working this hard for him — had he ground them too fine?
'Then again, judging by what they showed today… they should be able to handle something a step below a Liberation cadre.'
The leader of the mob of lackeys that Jeanne had swept away like a harvest at the auction house had been about that level. Since Dolores had marked him anyway, Lee Jun had to assume his agency and Liberation would collide as organizations sooner or later. Even if he took the executives himself… he couldn't shield everyone else from the rest. And rare as it was, there were times when two executives moved together. The auction house incident, after all, had brought Kaufman and Dolores side by side. In the worst case… those two might one day be facing a Liberator.
The silver lining was that both of them moved better the tighter time got. The type who thrived under fire, perhaps. Backed into a corner, their real abilities seemed to surface — and thanks to that, Lee Jun knew exactly what his next task was. Raising that cornered-beast performance to their everyday standard. He'd make it his top priority.
Having settled on that, Lee Jun pulled an assortment of ingredients out of his Pocket and spoke up.
"Then how about meat for dinner?"
"Waaah…!"
"Meat… sounds good."
Even utterly spent, the two of them lit up at the word meat. Smiling at the sight, Lee Jun set about preparing the meal.
'So… that leaves just one thing to do right away, then.'
Tomorrow they would leave this place and begin preparing in earnest. HIM's A-Class gate raid. He could vaguely recall, now, what kind of gate it was.