Chapter 21: Bakun War
There was an insect in the Demon Realm called a Bakun.
The Bakun resembled the stag beetles found on Earth, though it was much larger. Not so large that it was human-sized, but once fully grown its body length reached about twenty centimeters at minimum.
Bakun lived in groups of as few as ten and as many as thirty. Each group had a leader Bakun, and those creatures were usually about fifty percent larger than the ordinary ones.
As insects native to the Demon Realm, Bakun were fiercely combative. They hated it when anyone intruded on their territory, and they were especially wary of other Bakun of their own kind.
If another Bakun group ever tried to settle in ground already claimed by one, the two sides would fight in a mass battle until one group was wiped out completely.
While Yoon Sang-hyuk’s party was moving toward Marhalta, they stopped to set up camp and discovered a Bakun habitat. In a fairly wide area, separate groups of Bakun had claimed their own territories and were living there.
That was when Zephyr proposed that they play a little game.
It was apparently a fairly famous pastime in the Demon Realm, known as Bakun War.
The rules were very simple.
You captured a group of Bakun to fight in your place, then set them against the group chosen by someone else. You marked out a battlefield in a designated area, piled up stones to make a ring, divided the space in half with a boundary, and released the Bakun on both sides. After a set amount of time, the boundary was torn down.
From that moment on, the Bakun groups began fighting to eliminate the opposition. What was surprising, and entertaining, was that the Bakun actually had their own tactics.
Their combat ability and strategy changed noticeably depending on the temperament and capabilities of their leader.
In the great cities of the Demon Realm, Bakun War was a surprisingly popular game. Like dogfighting contests or bullfighting in Korea, people would place bets on one side before the match began. Of course, in the Demon Realm, the wager wasn’t money but dark energy.
For that reason, anyone who possessed a Bakun group led by a powerful and cunning leader could earn quite a handsome income.
On the evening they set up camp, or rather, on the previous evening, the party decided to play Bakun War to relieve the boredom of their long journey.
The team was split into three groups.
Yoon Sang-hyuk, Arin, and the Zephyr brothers formed one side, while Valender von Graus, Ibrahmut, and Merlin formed the other.
What was unexpected was that Merlin, who had gods as her parents, was taking part in Bakun War. According to her, when she was young, she had sometimes enjoyed Bakun War with her friends too.
Yoon Sang-hyuk and Arin went to the area where the Bakun lived and captured a group.
“Are these Bakun strong?”
At Arin’s question, Yoon Sang-hyuk replied, “Of course. I picked them myself.”
Before Arin and the members of the Arian Clan went to sleep, the Zephyr brothers built the battlefield for Bakun War. They couldn’t make it as large or as well equipped as the ones in the city, but they still put together a rather impressive arena.
The battlefield, with a radius of about thirty meters, was divided into three sections, and obstacles and simple traps were placed here and there. Outside each side, they built stone steps so people could stand and watch the Bakun War. From up there, the entire battlefield could be seen at a glance.
“Master Sang-hyuk.”
Zephyr approached him.
“If all we do is decide who wins and loses, it won’t be very fun, will it?”
Yoon Sang-hyuk said nothing, just looked at Zephyr. It seemed he was proposing a wager.
“You seem pretty confident.”
“Haha, confident? Not at all. I’m just leaving it to luck.”
For someone leaving it to luck, his tone and expression were full of confidence. In plain terms, he looked like someone who had spent his youth playing a fair amount of Bakun War. After thinking for a moment, Yoon Sang-hyuk gestured toward Valender von Graus.
Ibrahmut came forward as the other team’s representative.
“Zephyr wants to make a bet.”
“A bet? You want to bet?”
The moment he heard the word, Ibrahmut’s eyes gleamed with madness. Yoon Sang-hyuk had completely forgotten that Ibrahmut loved betting. Zephyr glanced at Ibrahmut, and his face clearly said that he was already regretting bringing it up.
“Excellent. A game like this needs a bet to make it interesting, doesn’t it? So, what are we wagering? You’re not planning to wager something as boring as dark energy, are you?”
“Sorry, but I don’t have any dark energy. I’ll put this up instead.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk drew a black orb from his subspace. The orb gave off a faint black glow, and just looking at it stirred the greed of every Demon Realm resident who saw it.
“Th-that is...”
Zephyr stared at the orb with trembling eyes.
“It’s the essence I obtained when I took out Amon, the seventh-ranked Demon Lord of the Demon Realm. Just by looking at it, you can tell it contains a tremendous amount of dark energy.”
The essence of Amon had originally been something Yoon Sang-hyuk had thought would make an appropriate gift, or rather, bribe, after hearing the story of the Banshee Queen Isophia. But she had surrendered on her own before he needed to use it, so it remained unused. Strictly speaking, all he had spent was the soul stone of the fifteenth-ranked Demon Lord, Eligos, as payment for answering his question.
“Now then, I’ve put up Amon’s essence. What are you going to wager?”
“I’ll put this up.”
Ibrahmut stretched a hand out into the air, and something appeared in it. What he had taken out was a sword. But the sword’s aura felt a little strange.
It seemed like divine power, but when examined closely, it wasn’t quite divine power. And yet it wasn’t dark energy either. To put it simply, the two were mixed together in just the right proportions.
“Back during the war against the demon gods, I killed the fellow called the God of War and took this from him. I’ve spent a long time corrupting it by infusing it with dark energy. Maybe not you, hyung-nim, but Zephyr, you should know the value of this sword, right?”
“O-of course. Fallen Divinity is one of the most precious treasures there is. Even if you tried to find one, you couldn’t.”
It seemed that taking a weapon once imbued with divine power and staining it with dark energy was called Fallen Divinity.
“Hyung-nim, Fallen Divinity is lethal to both demons and gods. It’s hard enough to find a useful weapon in the Demon Realm that contains divine power in the first place, but corrupting one is dozens of times harder. Most trash wouldn’t even dare try.”
“Good. Then you’ll wager that...”
Yoon Sang-hyuk looked at Zephyr. His eyes were asking what Zephyr would put up. Zephyr gave an awkward laugh and scratched his head.
“What you two have brought out is just too incredible... Honestly, I only meant to bet for fun. Among the things my brothers and I own, there isn’t anything of comparable value to what you’ve put forward.”
“What’s the most valuable thing you can put on the line?”
After thinking for a moment, Zephyr let out a sigh and shook his head.
“No matter how I think about it, nothing comes to mind.”
“From now on.”
At Yoon Sang-hyuk’s words, Zephyr’s expression turned solemn. Was he about to tell him to follow him from now on?
The brothers standing behind Zephyr also looked stiff as boards.
“Meal duty will be your brothers’ responsibility.”
“Huh?”
Zephyr asked again, wondering if he had heard wrong.
“From now on, the cooks are you and your brothers. Of course, that’s if you lose the bet.”
“A-ah, really? Is that all?”
“I’m fine with it. Ibrahmut. What do you think?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever actually prepared a meal myself, but it doesn’t sound bad.”
But if Yoon Sang-hyuk wanted meat, Ibrahmut would be put to work. Yoon Sang-hyuk shrugged and said, “Ibrahmut says it’s fine too. The bet is confirmed.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
With Arin, he climbed up onto a high mound of piled stones. He lightly sliced across the top with his sword, flattening it out, then took out two chairs and set them down.
Sitting side by side with Arin, he looked out over the battlefield where the Bakun would fight. The perimeter had been built in a circular shape with stones, and the width had been evenly divided into three sections, like the emblem of a Benz car on Earth.
In each camp, the Bakun wandered restlessly. They still seemed unable to adjust to the sudden change in environment.
The Bakun group Yoon Sang-hyuk had captured was the smallest of the three. Their leader was not even as large as the leaders of the other groups.
“There are fewer of them. Can they win?”
“Who knows? We’ll see how it goes.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk smiled and patted Arin on the head.
“The match will now begin!”
Three of the Zephyr brothers entered the battlefield and removed the obstacles blocking each section.
The Bakun realized that the space holding them prisoner had opened and began moving.
“Go left.”
“Huh?”
“The Bakun over there. After they pass that obstacle, send them left.”
Arin pointed at the Bakun in Zephyr’s camp. If they moved left, they would collide with the Bakun in Yoon Sang-hyuk’s camp.
But the Bakun still weren’t making any serious moves. Yoon Sang-hyuk glanced at Arin as she watched the battlefield. A faint golden light had gathered in her eyes.
Prophecy? Or should I call it precognition?
After Zigritria had taken up residence in her body, Arin had changed a little. No, a lot. Sometimes she would mutter to herself, “That shouldn’t happen,” or “Be careful.” Her voice was quiet, but Yoon Sang-hyuk heard her clearly. And every time Arin said those things, someone would trip over a stone or make a small mistake.
He remembered Zigritria saying that his borrowing her body would be a great help to Arin. Since that day, Arin had occasionally been able to foresee what would happen a little later, just like this.
“Left, you say? Can you see which path they’ll take too? The upper route? Or the lower one?”
“The lower one.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk smiled faintly.
The Bakun in Yoon Sang-hyuk’s camp accelerated. As though being chased by something, they moved in one direction. The Bakun crawled into a recess along the inner side of the narrow path.
It was a shadowed spot, hard to see. Yoon Sang-hyuk’s Bakun stopped there, tense and rigid, as if they were frightened of something.
A little later, the Bakun from Zephyr’s camp entered the lower route exactly as Arin had foreseen. The leader at the front passed by the place where Yoon Sang-hyuk’s Bakun were hiding. It still had no idea enemies were right beside it.
That was when about half the Bakun group had passed.
Now.
The Bakun hidden in ambush suddenly pounced on Zephyr’s Bakun. They struck at the waist, then attacked those behind them. Their huge pincers severed the opponents’ bodies cleanly at the middle. After eliminating five enemy Bakun, Yoon Sang-hyuk’s group quickly withdrew while the other side was thrown into chaos.
Gasps of admiration burst out here and there. The hit-and-run tactic was almost like watching human warfare.
Having lost numbers, the Bakun from Zephyr’s side couldn’t pursue Yoon Sang-hyuk’s group and instead fled rapidly in the opposite direction. But that direction was not a safe path. It was a trap.
The Bakun from Ibrahmut’s camp had been waiting there, having moved right as soon as the match began and approached Yoon Sang-hyuk’s side.
A fierce battle erupted between the leaders. Their subordinates fought just as hard. Even with five of them dead, Zephyr’s Bakun still had real strength.
After wiping out a third of Ibrahmut’s Bakun group, they met a glorious end. Ibrahmut’s Bakun leader had also suffered injuries all over its body.
From far away, Yoon Sang-hyuk looked at the Zephyr brothers tearing at their hair on top of a stone mound and smiled faintly.
“Congratulations. You’re the meal duty, boys.”