Chapter 25
Chapter 25
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 025
Chapter Title: Mad Hunter: ??? (9)
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14.
“How are you gonna handle this now?”
I answered first with a sigh.
“I’m still thinking about it.”
Jeong Ha-kyeong glanced slyly toward the assault team.
“You think thinking’s gonna solve this? For real?”
“…….”
“You know what’s down there. It’s crawling with otherworlders. How do you plan to break through? Dragging two injured along?”
I closed my eyes without a word, and Jeong Ha-kyeong stated it flatly.
“We absolutely can’t go underground. We wait for the fog to clear and head aboveground.”
“I’ve considered the surface too. But.”
I looked far off at Park Ji-yeon.
Park Ji-won kept talking to her from the side, wiping away her cold sweat, but her breathing was growing fainter by the minute.
In short.
Park Ji-yeon was dying.
“Ji-yeon won’t hold out. This break is already pushing it.”
“So you’re saying we charge underground headfirst?”
“For now…… yeah.”
“We’ll all die. Trying to save one and losing everyone. At best, maybe just you or me survive, old man.”
I stayed silent.
Jeong Ha-kyeong jerked her chin toward Park Ji-yeon.
“Absolutely not. Tell the princess to tough it out somehow.”
I couldn’t argue.
Jeong Ha-kyeong’s judgment nailed the harsh reality. The one I’d been denying in my head.
What the hell do I do now……?
No Holy Dawn Sword.
Only thirty rounds of ammo left.
This is tough…… As I sighed, Jeong Ha-kyeong whispered.
“……Sorry. For always tripping you up.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“I…… I just──”
──Kwang.
That was when it happened.
The heavy sound of something crumpling.
“What was that?”
Jeong Ha-kyeong and I sprang to our feet. The assault team did the same.
“What the hell was that just now?”
Baek Hyun-jong shouted urgently.
“I-I don’t know.”
“Find it, quick!”
Flashlight beams swept wildly through the station hall’s darkness. Then another ominous metallic screech erupted.
──Kwaaang!
We rushed toward the sound, and a chill ran down my spine.
It was the entrance.
The door leading to the platform stairs.
To clarify, the opposite side from the entrance Jeong Ha-kyeong had collapsed with a grenade.
That entrance’s bulkhead…… was denting inward.
Some tremendous force.
Was right now, trying to break through that wall.
My mind froze cold.
What the……? The otherworlders didn’t have that kind of power.
The real problem wasn’t that thing.
At worst, a Hunting Zone heteromorph. The issue was the otherworlders that would pour out once the door broke.
“V-variant!”
“Focus lights on the bulkhead!”
Stalkers scrambled to obey the frantic order.
Baek Hyun-jong set up the machine gun’s tripod right in front of the bulkhead. I grabbed his shoulder.
“How many rounds you got?”
“Two, two belts. Fifty rounds.”
“You think that’ll hold it?”
Should we fight here?
Or draw its attention and let everyone else escape──
──Kwaaaang!
A fierce impact slammed the bulkhead.
The battle’s prelude. The bulkhead creaked pitifully before collapsing entirely to the floor in a cloud of dirt.
Tadadadadadada───!
Baek Hyun-jong yanked the trigger with a yell right away.
───Tidingtidingtiding!
A horrific sound answered from the dust cloud.
My god.
Nightmare Zone heteromorphs flashed in my mind.
Those transcendent bodies that batted away modern firearms like toys……
“……What the fuck, now we got ones that shoot back?”
……Huh?
I reflexively raised one hand. A signal for the stalkers to cease fire.
“Damn, that’s new. A gun-toting heteromorph. If I hadn’t worn heavy armor, we’d be swimming with the fishes right now.”
The voice echoing from the dust cloud made me blink.
This voice.
So damn familiar.
But it couldn’t be. No way.
The stalkers stared at me, their faces even more baffled.
“Wh-what’s wrong?”
As Baek Hyun-jong asked, another voice came from the dust.
“Boss. Let me handle it. Mind stepping aside a bit?”
“Sounds good. But be careful, Gye-sang.”
I clutched my surging heart and barely opened my mouth.
“Kim Gye-sang? Hong Byeong-gyu? ……That you guys?”
For a moment.
Just a brief moment.
No reply came.
Then, in the next instant.
A massive steel figure thudded out from the dust cloud.
“Lead bro?”
At first, I couldn’t see ‘his’ face.
He wore a great helm with the visor down. Plus, his whole body gleamed in alloy [Heavy Armor].
“No way…… it’s really him!”
The eyes beyond the visor locked onto my Dawn Sword.
“That badass blade? Only one in Seoul City. Everyone, weapons down. It’s Lead bro.”
‘He’ laughed heartily and raised the visor.
Round face, bushy beard.
A warm-looking middle-aged man.
……Hong Byeong-gyu.
Nightmare hunter, bonded as comrades in the Cha-Ratevil raid.
The man I’d shaken hands with at the cathedral and parted from was now grinning before me in my hour of despair.
“You…… smashed that bulkhead…… Byeong-gyu?”
“Yeah, yeah. Few smacks and it crumbled. Anyway, bro, how’s the new armor? Not as flashy as that golden sword, but pretty decent, right?”
I was too stunned, throat too tight to speak. Hong Byeong-gyu kept chattering excitedly.
“Check out these battle axes too. They’ve got my whole life story in ’em. Been maining barbarian in Diablo since I was a kid──”
“──Fuck! Time to brag about gear? Why the hell are you here?”
“Ha-kyeong’s there too! Honestly, ain’t it cool?”
Jeong Ha-kyeong’s voice was one I’d never heard before.
What was it……?
Voice cracking with emotion?
Then Hong Byeong-gyu’s crew──Yoon Geon-woo, Kim Gye-sang, Cha Seung-hyeon──stepped out one by one, chiming in.
“Man, causing trouble again.”
“Sorry. Baek-jun, Ha-kyeong. He’s been like this since getting the gear.”
“Yeah, told him not to show off in front of sis.”
They were all drenched in gore, but not human red──otherworlder blue.
“How did you guys…… get here…….”
I finally managed to speak.
“Coincidence. Coincidence! Don’t overthink it. Just bumped into you.”
Kim Gye-sang grinned at Hong Byeong-gyu’s frantic excuse.
“We followed ’cause we were worried about you, Baek-jun and Ha-kyeong.”
“Huh?”
Worried.
Why did those words make my heart tremble?
“Byeong-gyu hyung said let’s go first, and we all agreed.”
“Just wanted to check out the Hunting Zone, that’s all.”
Hong Byeong-gyu flapped his arms, but Kim Gye-sang laid it out straight.
“No need to worry too much. We took the southern gate detour to avoid that psycho’s eyes.”
Kim Gye-sang summed it up like this.
They’d overheard Park Ji-won mention DMC Station at the cathedral.
So they went to DMC Station, asked about us, and followed straight into the tunnel.
“Good thing we’re not late. Alright! Let’s go bag that psycho bastard.”
The one who said that was Cha Seung-hyeon, the youngest at 17 among our raid comrades. Jeong Ha-kyeong grumbled.
“Already over. Should’ve come sooner if you were coming.”
“Caught lying, huh…… You know? It’s been barely an hour? We ran here too.”
Hong Byeong-gyu’s whole crew gawked at us.
I nodded, and Cha Seung-hyeon finally went “Oh shit.”
“For real? Sorry, noona! You know how I feel, right? Heh.”
“Come here, you little shit.”
Jeong Ha-kyeong seemed pretty tight with Hong Byeong-gyu’s crew. Makes sense…… they’d been together the three days she guarded me.
“Hey, shithead. What about the ones below?”
Jeong Ha-kyeong asked, locking Cha Seung-hyeon in a headlock.
“Aaack, those fuckers? Wiped ’em all. Just numbers, nothing like Nightmare Zone shit. Kyaaak, mercy!”
Jeong Ha-kyeong and I exchanged looks.
It clicked immediately.
Ourselves and Shin Tae-yeop overshadowed it, but Hong Byeong-gyu alone was the third strongest nightmare hunter back then.
The others were vanguard picks too.
[Lv : 28].
[Lv : 27].
[Lv : 26].
[Lv : 26].
Breath honed since the Cha-Ratevil siege. Explosive level-ups via Muak-dong soulstones.
To them, otherworlders were probably child’s play.
Seizing Jeong Ha-kyeong’s stunned moment, Cha Seung-hyeon slipped the headlock. He teased her.
“Oh my! Was it too much for noona?”
“Fuck off, back then we were racing the clock? And protecting those folks. You guys could go all out.”
“Hmm. If noona says so. In noona’s imagination, sure.”
“You little fu──”
I clapped my hands sharply, cutting the banter.
Everyone’s eyes snapped to me in an instant.
“Thanks so much…… for coming like this. I’m thrilled, but…… can we talk on the move? We’ve got patients to transport urgently.”
I pleaded.
Hong Byeong-gyu turned dead serious when it mattered, eyes gleaming.
“Damn right! We’ll cover you. Not a single bug gets near.”
Hong Byeong-gyu clanked down the stairs, the rest right behind.
“You’re dead. Come here. Where you going.”
Jeong Ha-kyeong followed too, throttling Cha Seung-hyeon.
“Let’s go.”
I led the dazed assault team down to the platform.
Platform.
Not a single otherworlder.
Just countless soulstones scattered around.
The only traces were the splattered blue blood everywhere. The rest of their bodies had vanished into soulstones.
“Who the hell are these guys? The four of them wiped out that many otherworlders?”
Baek Hyun-jong asked in disbelief. I hesitated a beat.
“They’re.”
Who?
How to explain?
The word popped up the second I thought about it.
A word that warmed my heart just thinking it. From the lost old world……
Better word than this? So I grinned awkwardly and said it.
“My fellow hunters.”
15.
“You really brought them back.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much. I don’t even know how to…….”
We got a hero’s welcome at DMC Station.
But I.
Asked Baek Hyun-jong to clear out the station folk and left right away.
Park Ji-yeon, Park Ji-won, Yang Je-gyeom.
All three wounded were in bad shape.
Had to get to Paradise Zone ASAP for the ‘Stars’ Healing’ effect.
That was the stated reason.
Truth was, I hurried ahead for something to handle.
“Everyone.”
I stopped at the Paradise Zone gate. Jeong Ha-kyeong, walking right behind, asked puzzled.
“Why stop before going in? You were rushing so much?”
Soon Hong Byeong-gyu’s crew stopped beside her.
Behind them, the outer district knights.
Baek Hyun-jong and the other two hunters carried the three wounded on their backs.
“Wait here till I come back out.”
“What’s that mean?”
Everyone tilted their heads.
Fair enough, it sounded weird.
I took the [Shadow Exoskeleton Cloak] back from the half-unconscious Park Ji-yeon and draped it on.
“There’s a dangerous situation waiting just ahead.”
“……Old man, no way.”
“Just wait till I clear it.”
“Lead bro.”
“Give us some explanation at least.”
Why’d I forget?
Thinking from the criminals’ perspective. Trap hunter reminded me of something crucial.
“Gotta hunt the mad hunter inside here.”
Jin Dae-pyo.
Would that sly villain miss this golden chance?
No way.
He’d be waiting right ahead. The moment hunters are most vulnerable.
「Will Kim Baek-jun ever return from the Hunting Zone to the west again? Now’s our shot.」
He’d calculated that and mobilized his full force.
But this was my once-in-a-lifetime chance too. To crush the White Society.
“You’re not saying you’ll take down the White Society, are you?”
“Planning to end them this time.”
Jeong Ha-kyeong’s eyes shook hard at my declaration.
“They’re probably out waiting for us by now anyway.”
A heavy silence fell briefly.
Only the sound of everyone drawing breath.
“I’ll be back as fast as I can.”
As I turned to go.
Someone approached and grabbed my shoulder.
Jeong Ha-kyeong.
From the angle only I could see, she flashed her signature weary smile.
“Jeez, why go alone? I told you earlier.”
“……Pardon?”
“Gonna watch your dumbass stunts up close.”