Chapter 134
Chapter 134
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 134
Chapter Title: Deceive, Burn, and Plunder (3)
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Flames blazed fiercely.
Lee Joo-ha's foxfire roared to life, engulfing the school.
"Kyaaahhh!!!!"
"Sh-shit... fire!!!"
They had fallen completely for Lee Joo-ha's foxfire. The inferno swallowing the building was nothing more than a temporary illusion. It didn't actually set the structure ablaze. It was a spell she had cast.
"Everyone, stop!!! This is fake!!!"
"Sh-shit...! They're not listening!!"
"D-damn it...! Block them!! If they get out of the school building, it'll be a massacre!! Don't let them escape!!"
"There are wolves outside!!! Stop!!!"
Those who had snapped out of it shouted desperately, trying to hold back the people rushing for the exits. The fortress-like building, fortified by engineers, was lined with high-performance turrets that targeted anyone deemed an enemy.
Letting the enemies come inside made fighting them far easier. But as the invaders' assault grew uncontrollable, the people inside believed the spell mimicking Lee Joo-ha's flames was real and fell into panic. In their frenzy, they bolted out of the building.
Most of them were ordinary folk without mana. Non-awakened with low resistance, they were all thoroughly deceived, convinced the building was truly on fire. Those who escaped the school then cowered at the sight of monsters rampaging through and smashing the trees grown by the Plant Farmer.
On the sports field stood two massive wolves summoned by Seong Ha-rin, alongside Kim Ye-won's summons and the Ebony Cockroach scurrying about. The Dullahan trampled the Hyoseon Girls' High players atop its skeletal steed, while Merhere, wings unfurled, obliterated the turrets on the perimeter walls, sowing destruction.
"What the hell are those bastards..."
"Sh-shouldn't we go save the people who ran outside...?"
"No... how do we fight things like that... This is... already..."
The awakened ones watching from inside the school screamed in confusion, while the female students trapped indoors wailed in panic at the sight of their teachers and seniors being slaughtered mercilessly.
At that moment, one man who had been watching clenched his teeth and stepped forward.
"Weapons. Give me weapons!"
"Huh...?"
"I'll go!! Hurry!! You gonna let them all die like that!!?"
"Wha—wait!! Mister!!"
The man who charged out of the school building was Lee Sun-jae, leader of the earnest strategy team. He snatched a sword from a high school girl who had been designated as his party member via Yoo Hye-ji's skill, then bolted outside without looking back.
"You fucking bastards... how dare you..."
Having fled only to run into Jang Jojun's group again, he sensed their fates were inevitably opposed. And with Hyoseon Girls' High students dying horribly before his eyes, a burning sense of justice ignited within him.
In this shattered world, righteousness, compassion, mercy, and humanity were the greatest poisons threatening survival... yet he remained a fool.
"Wait! I'll go with you!!"
"Ki-seong!!"
"Hyung!!"
"Ji-tae!! And... Ji-ho, you've finally come to your senses."
"Yeah, let's go. We can't just sit here taking this. If we leave it like this, it's over. We have to snap out of it and fight."
And there were three more fools like him. The earnest strategy team reunited. After their truce with Se-tae, they had been living quietly like mice, but they could never forgive Jang Jojun's crew for invading their final sanctuary.
'You've tugged the whiskers of a sleeping lion... For the crime of killing the innocent... I'll slaughter you all...!'
Moreover, Lee Sun-jae and his crew wanted to protect the people of Hyoseon Girls' High who had accepted them without discrimination. In an era where law and morality had become cheap jokes, they sought to uphold righteousness and maintain peace.
If they could fight for those people... even if it meant death, they wanted to defy their cruel fate.
"Let's go. Kill those bitches."
"Ooh!!"
"You fucking whores!!!"
Reaffirming their resolve, they charged toward Seong Ha-rin, who was in the midst of beating down Hyoseon teachers and students swinging swords and spears at her. Her back was wide open at that moment.
This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Not wanting to miss it, Lee Sun-jae and his crew stealthily approached through the trees sprouting across the field, aiming to take out Seong Ha-rin first.
And then.
—Boom!!!
"Gaaahhhh!!!!"
A chakram hurled from the rooftop by Lee Eun-ji slammed into Lee Sun-jae's back.
It half-crushed his spine, smashing him into the ground. Lee Sun-jae, who had been creeping forward dreaming of ambushing Seong Ha-rin, fell into critical condition and lost consciousness.
"Unnie took care of it?"
"Yeah. They thought they were hidden when it was all in plain sight. Pathetic."
"Right? We've felt them since they came out of the building."
"Ha-rin probably sensed something approaching too."
"Of course. Ha-rin has the best instincts out of all of us."
Gang Hwa-young and Lee Eun-ji had scaled the walls and entered the school the moment they saw Lee Joo-ha's illusory flames rise.
Thanks to Seong Ha-rin and the Dullahan's flashy rampage through the back gate, they slipped in undetected. From the rooftop, they had knocked out and bound two high school girls firing arrows madly at Han A-ram.
"Alright, then. Shall we head inside and clean up the school?"
"Ah, Eun-ji unnie. Those bastards. Can I catch them?"
"Huh? Sure. Don't kill them. Oppa loves collecting weird slaves."
"I know that much!"
Snapping back at Lee Eun-ji, who always acted like she knew more about Jojun, Gang Hwa-young leaped down from the rooftop.
She trampled the cleric Cha Ji-tae, who had been frantically trying to heal the dying Lee Sun-jae. Cha Ji-tae collapsed unconscious atop Lee Sun-jae without even a scream.
"Y-you crazy bitch!!!"
Kim Ki-seong, a blood warrior of the vampire lineage, roared and charged at Gang Hwa-young for crushing Cha Ji-tae. He had caught her blood scent while fleeing from Jojun's group before, triggering his kin-slaying instinct.
As the half-maddened Kim Ki-seong rushed in recklessly, Gang Hwa-young drew her blood-red dagger and clashed with him in a furious exchange of blows.
Kim Ki-seong, with his exceptional physical prowess, held his own in the melee. But he couldn't overwhelm Gang Hwa-young, who was geared to the teeth.
The more blood flowed from Kim Ki-seong's body, the more Gang Hwa-young's vitality surged via her Florence Bloodstone Ring, rapidly healing her wounds and buffing her physical stats even higher.
In the end, armed with vampire gear and draining his blood, she proved unbeatable. And when she unleashed blood arts like Bloodstain Burst on top of their matched physicality, Kim Ki-seong's hands exploded, and he collapsed.
As a vampire, he wouldn't die easily, but left like that, he was surely done for.
"Hey! Hwa-young!"
In the meantime, Kang Hee-sun called out to Gang Hwa-young after crushing the curse shaman Yoon Ji-ho, who had tried to cast spells, with tree roots.
"Hee-sun unnie! Oppa! What do we do with these guys? If we mess up, they might die..."
Jang Jojun approached leisurely, eyeing Lee Sun-jae foaming at the mouth on the ground and Kim Ki-seong bleeding profusely from every inch of his body.
"These bastards... it's them."
"Huh?"
"Back then. The ones who ditched Gu Gyohan and ran from us."
"Oh...? You're right! Wow..."
Gang Hwa-young let out an exclamation upon finally recognizing them. Her mind was filled with thoughts of her master Jang Jojun—half wanting his affection, half craving his blood endlessly. Extras like these had long faded from memory.
But Jojun, with his vindictive streak, remembered them perfectly.
"Heh... I wondered where you'd gone since I didn't see you on the streets. Thought you'd croaked somewhere. Turns out you're recuperating in a nice spot with fresh air and water? With all these tender high school girls? Must've been fun, huh? Answer me, punk."
Jojun stabbed a ritual dagger into the shoulder of Kim Ki-seong, the vampire on the verge of death from blood loss.
"Guh... pl-please... spare... me..."
Shivering from blood shortage, Kim Ki-seong begged endlessly, too pained to think.
"Hey. Look up."
"Ugh... kuhk..."
Kim Ki-seong barely lifted his half-closed eyes. Through the Memory Alteration Ring, Jojun's face blurred in his vision, appearing as indescribable terror.
"F-fuck... I thought I'd finally escaped..."
"Hey, you don't wanna live."
"I-I do... please... spare me..."
"Then be my subordinate? Looks like you're a vampire."
"S-sub... ordinate...? Kuhk..."
"Yeah. Better than dying. Kill when I say kill, die when I say die."
"O-okay... I'll... be your subordinate..."
Jojun dismissed the familiar notification window before his eyes and stamped a slave seal on the broken-willed Kim Ki-seong's forehead.
—Sizzle!!!
"Gaaahhh!!!"
"This doesn't even hurt, so shut up."
He soon issued basic commands—no self-harm, no team-killing, no betrayal—then used Rising Flesh to heal Kim Ki-seong's mangled body.
"Gaaahhh!!! Stop!!! Stoooop!!!!"
With his high natural regeneration handling minor wounds automatically and Cha Ji-tae's clean heals for anything worse, Kim Ki-seong writhed under the unprecedented agony of Rising Flesh.
"Haa... one down."
Jang Jojun branded Lee Sun-jae and Cha Ji-tae with the Slave Brand too. Lee Sun-jae's shattered spine had healed via Rising Flesh, sapping his will to fight. Seeing his brothers submit helplessly crushed Cha Ji-tae's hopes.
Only curse shaman Yoon Ji-ho resisted to the end, but after having his arms severed and reattached three times, he broke. Most humans abandon resistance the moment they realize their foe can torture them infinitely, accepting their fate.
"Ha-rin! Got 'em all?"
Having subdued the earnest strategy team, Jang Jojun shouted to Seong Ha-rin, who was gathering the unconscious players with her summons.
"Yes!! Sports field secured!! Just need to sweep the school building!!"
Seong Ha-rin shouted back, wagging her tail happily. Lee Eun-ji poked her head out from the school building and yelled in response.
"Oppa!! Engineer secured!! Campus is safe!!"
Jojun and his crew had spotted the perimeter turrets from the mountainside and decided to capture their operators first.
Thus, stealthy Lee Eun-ji and human-sensor Gang Hwa-young went in via the rooftop, taking out archers Lee Soo-kyung and Kim Ji-seon first. Though Gang Hwa-young detoured to snag the earnest stratgy team, Lee Eun-ji alone could handle finding the engineer.
"Okay. Then Hwa-young and Joo-ha, head inside and kill or subdue the awakened as you see fit."
"Yes!"
"Got it."
"Hee-sun noona, wrap up the survivors on the field with tree roots. Ye-won, stay here and watch these humans with noona and Ha-rin so they don't escape."
"Okay!"
"Yes...!"
After issuing orders, Jojun shouted to the Han sisters dragging the unconscious Yoo Hye-ji from near the main gate.
"Hey! A-reum! You okay? Weren't you hurt!!"
"Yes!! No problem!! Just a scraped elbow!!"
"Want oppa to heal you!!?"
"No!!!"
Han A-reum had already tasted Hitomi's warm healing skill. She could never go back to Jojun's excruciating Rising Flesh.
Jojun felt a twinge of sadness. Like a doctor whose patient had been stolen.
"Then A-ram and A-reum, sweep the building interior too!!"
"Yes!!"
"Got it!!"
Merhere had already joined Gang Hwa-young and entered the main school building where people were gathered, before Jojun even gave the order.
This raid by Jojun's crew ended smoothly once more.
The survivors of Hyoseon Girls' High, who had been sucking honey thanks to a few blessed-class players, now forfeited all their happiness and became Jojun's slaves.
The school they had diligently maintained while Jojun's group tanked the zombie wave at the mart was taken from them too.
It was karmic retribution for neglecting scouts and ignoring external threats.
The end for those who grew complacent and arrogant.
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