Grains of Sand (3)
“Hrk······!”
The one most shocked by the necromancer boss’s appearance was neither Junil nor Hae-il.
“Sh······ Shit, right.”
It was Ram.
Yes, a story was like fine sand. No matter how tightly you clenched your fist, it would slip through your fingers.
But this time, the shape of the fist itself had been wrong from the start.
Wasn’t it as if he had tried to grab it with his foot?
“This is coming out now?”
When Julian had slaughtered all the necromancers and completed the elf’s quest, Ram had been so furious that he summoned the necromancer boss.
He had given the boss precise clues about who had killed his subordinates and where the culprit was.
The necromancer boss wasn’t a particularly high-profile figure yet, so that level of intervention had been child’s play.
“I-I didn’t expect him to be this proactive······.”
Ram muttered in panic.
The moment the necromancer boss realized his hideout had been raided, Ram hadn’t expected him to track Julian so immediately.
Let alone that he would confront Julian while Kang Hae-il was still with him.
This was an entirely unintended development.
“What do we do, Lord Ram? That guy is definitely going to try to kill him······.”
Yes, he would try to kill him.
That was why Ram had called him in the first place.
Kill Julian!
“No, but why the hell is that bastard dragging Kang Hae-il into this too!?”
The message had clearly stated it was the work of a single person.
“When he saw the ‘single person’ report, he didn’t seem to believe it······ It was too extreme for one person to have done. Since the two of them are together, he probably assumed they did it together.”
“D-Damn it! Damn it!”
This was all because of the flashback energy.
Because of it, Julian had spent far too much time with Kang Hae-il.
They had become far too entangled.
In this moment, Julian had completely merged into the main stream.
Countless Constellations watching only the main stream were showing interest.
“What’s that guy’s current level?”
“He’s Level 37 right now.”
“And Hae-il?”
“21.”
The gap was enormous.
No matter how much of an S-rank he was, this level difference was too much to overcome.
“This······ If we mess up······.”
Ram couldn’t even bring himself to say “he might die.”
If that happened, everything would be over.
If Kang Hae-il died, the story board would be shut down.
After the headquarters had invested so much, an early cancellation? He might even be ordered to stop writing altogether.
“The level gap is big, but nothing will go wrong. The boss won’t step in personally.”
“Huh?”
“Of course not. Did you forget who that boss is? He has a role in the next main quest, remember?”
“Ah!”
Ram clapped his hands.
“He won’t reveal himself right now. Julian probably planned to handle it the same way. He’ll only send his subordinates. That’s actually Kang Hae-il’s specialty. They’re all weak to fire anyway.”
Subordinates made from corpses were weak to fire. Unlike Julian, Hae-il was also strong in one-versus-many fights.
This situation was only troublesome for Julian.
“This might actually turn into an experience point event!”
It could even be beneficial for Kang Hae-il.
“Ooh?”
Ram latched onto Sam’s hopeful train of thought.
“You’re right?”
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
No matter what, Kang Hae-il was still S-rank, and the enemies were all mindless summons.
“Even if Kang Hae-il has no brains, the enemies have no brains either!”
“Lord Ram!? Hae-il isn’t brainless, he just lacks experience!”
“Exactly!”
“?”
Anyway, Ram had found hope again.
“Yeah. What’s the point of killing Julian! This is an experience point event for our Hae-il! Kiriri!”
* * *
“So you’re the rats who raided my hideout?”
The moment that chilling voice echoed,
Whoosh!
Kang Hae-il and Moon Junil both spun around, instantly on guard.
Both had instinctively sensed it.
‘This is an enemy.’
‘The boss bastard.’
The appearance of a new enemy—or rather, the necromancer boss.
“Huh······?”
Yet when they turned, there was no one there.
Only a fading soul remained.
“So it was you······.”
The soul left those words and vanished.
Once again, the graveyard was empty.
The Constellations, who had been on edge, now looked dumbfounded.
Kang Hae-il felt the same.
“What the hell. Was that an illusion? I think I just saw a ghost······.”
Even in an era where goblins popped out of nowhere,
ghosts and spirits were still hard to believe in.
But Junil was different.
‘That was a scouting Ghost.’
He already knew that high-ranking necromancers could also control “spirits.”
The soul just now had no attack capability and belonged to the “Ghost” class, which specialized in reconnaissance.
High-ranking necromancers never revealed their true bodies.
There was no need.
‘They just send their subordinates.’
Thud thud thud······!
Several graves split open and corpses rose.
“Grr······.”
“Grrr······.”
[Ghoul Lv.11]
Ghouls.
It seemed the boss intended to use whatever corpses remained on site.
‘There were still this many left?’
Junil had thought they took all the corpses here.
Quite a few remained—enough to surround both Hae-il and Junil.
“Crazy. What is this?”
Kang Hae-il hesitated as the corpses slowly approached.
‘He used to be scared of corpses.’
Even during the Champion Goblin raid, he hadn’t been able to move the bodies.
This was going to be tricky.
He couldn’t show his full strength here.
But then—
“Krrraaah!”
As the corpses began charging in earnest, Kang Hae-il made his decision.
“Get behind me. Porter.”
“?”
Fwoosh!
His upper body ignited, and pillars of flame erupted forward in an instant.
Boom!
The corpses caught fire and collapsed one after another.
“Kk······!”
“Kuh······!”
Dozens of ghouls that had seemed ready to swarm them were wiped out in seconds.
Junil would have had to snap their necks one by one.
‘Did he overcome his fear of corpses?’
Judging by his earlier reaction, it couldn’t have been easy.
As expected of the protagonist—his growth was fast.
‘And that’s a new skill?’
Kang Hae-il was now summoning pillars of flame from the ground without even throwing a punch.
He had a ranged skill.
Boom!
“Kuh······!”
“Kraaah!”
Every time a pillar rose, the ghouls nearby turned to ash.
It was practically an area-of-effect fire spell, with almost no casting time.
Junil tried to read the flow of mana but couldn’t figure out the principle.
‘They must have put quite a bit of effort into the S-rank.’
This might even be an original skill Ram created.
‘Ghouls are nothing to him.’
Just as Junil thought the current Kang Hae-il could handle this easily—
Sss······!
The Ghost appeared again.
“So it was you?”
The Ghost spoke while looking at Kang Hae-il.
“You burned all my subordinates to death.”
“······?”
Kang Hae-il tilted his head, not understanding.
“No need to argue. I’ll get the orb back once I kill you anyway.”
Huhuhuhu.
With a sinister laugh, the Ghost leisurely vanished again.
Kang Hae-il was dumbfounded, and so was Junil.
‘The one who burned them was you, with the mark you left······.’
Because Junil had burned the necromancers at the end, the boss had firmly mistaken Kang Hae-il for the culprit.
Seemingly having gauged Kang Hae-il’s abilities, the opponent changed tactics.
Clatter—
From the charnel house atop the graveyard,
that sound began echoing loudly.
[Skeleton Soldier Lv.17]
Skeleton soldiers started charging.
The sight of them rushing down the hill was straight out of a war movie.
‘This······.’
Skeleton soldiers were generally ice-attribute.
A bone-chilling cold permeated them.
Fire-attribute damage barely affected them.
“Where are you! Come out!”
Kang Hae-il shouted and tried to summon the same pillars of flame as before.
Boom!
The skeleton soldiers only stumbled for a moment before rising again and charging.
So Kang Hae-il threw a punch instead.
Bang!
One punch shattered a skeleton into pieces.
Bang bang!
Kang Hae-il’s punches carried tremendous destructive power even without flames.
The skeleton soldiers swung their swords fiercely, but—
Whoosh!
This was different from before.
[Flash Step]
Flash!
Using the Flash Step Junil had given him, he dodged and got behind them.
“Die.”
Boom!!!
He slammed the ground and unleashed flames in all directions.
The skeleton soldiers that had endured the earlier pillars couldn’t withstand this and melted.
“Whoa~”
Clap clap.
Junil simply stepped back and applauded.
“Hae-il, you’re the best! So cool, so cool!”
Helping would risk exposing his own strength, and necromancer subordinates didn’t give much experience anyway.
They were already dead corpses.
Kang Hae-il’s Constellations flooded in and hurled insults, but—
“Ugh. This kind of thing is too much for a porter. Way too much.”
Junil muttered as if to provoke them further.
“S-ranks should pay more taxes~”
Ignoring the flood of extreme reactions, Junil focused on observing the flow of magi.
‘Where is he? Is he really far from here?’
The magi flowed in multiple branches.
This was a method to avoid being tracked in the first place.
‘Is this guy really a modern person?’
For someone who had been a modern person until recently, he was far too skilled.
The boss was probably like that elf earlier—an “entity that crossed over.”
‘Over there?’
After Junil pinpointed where a large amount of magi was gathering,
he observed that direction.
Whoong!
He poured mana into his eyes to zoom in, but
there was no need.
‘Huh?’
Thud!
A heavy footstep echoed from the forest.
Birds flew up in alarm as something enormous rose.
Several times taller than the trees, wider than a royal tomb—
[Patchwork Flesh Golem]
[Lv.30]
A massive golem made from countless corpses.
Rated at a whopping Level 30.
“······.”
Only then did he realize.
All the corpses collected at the hideout were there.
Creak······!
The Patchwork Golem approached with a spine-chilling sound.
“What······ is that?”
Kang Hae-il swallowed dryly, tense.
“They’re calling it a Patchwork Flesh Golem.”
“I can see that.”
Whoosh!
A massive arm made of corpses swung.
“It’s still just a corpse.”
Without dodging, Kang Hae-il thrust his fist forward.
Kang Hae-il’s fist and the Patchwork Golem’s fist collided.
Boom!
Flames and magi clashed.
A tremendous shockwave spread outward.
The remaining skeleton soldiers collapsed, and even Junil, who had been watching, staggered for a moment.
It was truly a magnificent battle.
It seemed like the perfect stage to showcase the strengthened Kang Hae-il.
‘Let’s just calculate when to land the finishing blow.’
For Sagosul, it looked like an extremely simple situation where he only needed to worry about when to steal the kill.
But then—
“!”
Kang Hae-il suddenly stopped.
He froze as if he had lagged.
In that state, the Patchwork Golem naturally swung its fist.
Kang Hae-il couldn’t dodge at all.
Boom!
Kang Hae-il was sent flying over twenty meters and crashed to the ground.
“What?”
Junil pressed a hand to his forehead in genuine disbelief.
Why did he get hit?
That blow looked dangerous.
“No, damn it. Hae-il hyung! There’s a limit to being bad at this······.”
Muttering this, he ran toward him.
If Kang Hae-il died like this, wouldn’t it be the end?
Junil ran forward, clearing the skeleton soldiers in his path with Mana Punches, whether they noticed or not.
Bang, bang······!
“Ha, damn······.”
Junil bit his lip.
What exactly was a first-life hero?
How could someone be this incompetent?
‘This is dangerous.’
Thud—
The Patchwork Golem was about to pound the fallen Kang Hae-il.
“Dodge! What are you doing! I said dodge!!”
Why was he acting like this?
Why was he lying there muttering blankly?
Was he actually lagging?
Just as that thought crossed his mind,
as he got closer, he finally heard the reason.
“······Father.”
“!”
That was it.
At the very center of the Patchwork Golem,
as if by fate, was embedded the face of one man.
The face of a man glaring with rage, trying to kill Kang Hae-il.
“Ah······ Father······.”
It was Hae-il’s father.