Chapter 35
Chapter 35
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 35
Chapter Title: The Shaman's Influence
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This is what happened.
Upon entering the black cloud, Do-jae dispatched the Red Orcs, who, unlike before, were wreathed in black smoke.
Though the enthralled creatures were faster and stronger, they couldn't get within five meters of Do-jae, let alone touch him.
After advancing for some time, he spotted Kim Hwan-soo circling a fixed area, with Kang Young-chan sprawled on the ground.
They were inside a transparent, donut-shaped barrier of mana, but they seemed completely unaware of its existence.
If it hadn't been for his senses, sharpened by the Nerves of the Golem, Do-jae would have thought they were just foolishly spinning in circles.
Do-jae approached the mana barrier and placed his palm against it.
Shatter-!
"Captain!"
"Section Chief Lee?"
The moment the mana barrier broke, it dissipated into thin air.
"What are you doing here?"
"What about you, Section Chief Lee? I thought I told you to rejoin the main force."
Do-jae's heart skipped a beat.
He now remembered the radio call that had come while he was meeting Altein for the main quest.
"My radio is broken."
"Broken?"
"Yes. Not just the radio, but this too."
Do-jae showed his smartphone screen to Kim Hwan-soo.
Only after taking out and checking his own phone did Kim Hwan-soo understand.
"I see. Head back now. This place is beyond your capabilities."
"Haaah… Wait. Something feels off."
Just as Kim Hwan-soo was about to send Do-jae away, Kang Young-chan stopped him.
Then.
"Hey, you! What are you?"
Kang Young-chan shouted, his voice thick with anger.
He shot to his feet and demanded.
"How did you get so strong? In just a few hours?"
Thud, thud—.
Clench—.
"Hey, what the hell are you?"
Without warning, Kang Young-chan grabbed Do-jae by the collar.
Do-jae shoved his arm away.
Rrrrip—.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Do-jae's shirt tore, revealing his pale collarbone.
Fortunately, the torn fabric stopped just above the Heart of the Golem.
Flick—.
Kang Young-chan tossed the scrap of cloth aside.
Then he spoke with a grin.
"Hehehe. You overcame my arm strength? See? You did get stronger."
"..."
Do-jae didn't answer.
There was no need to.
Besides, he had no desire to respond to someone so rude.
"Young… Section Chief Kang! What do you think you're doing!"
Kim Hwan-soo roared, angered by the sudden turn of events.
But Kang Young-chan, whose only interest was in Do-jae's newfound strength, didn't even bother to reply.
"If you won't talk, I'll make you talk. Heheh."
Whoosh-!
Kang Young-chan's fist flew toward Do-jae's face.
Swish—.
Do-jae twisted his entire body, narrowly avoiding the blow.
But the attack wasn't over.
‘Fast!’
If the first punch was a jab, the second was a straight.
A large, hard fist aimed for the space between his nose and upper lip.
Clang-!
The fist and sword met with a loud clash, sending sparks flying.
Do-jae had thought that blocking with the Harpy Queen's Plume would stop the punch.
But the fist and sword collided head-on, and it was Do-jae's arm that tingled from the impact.
"So you blocked it?"
Kang Young-chan's eyebrow twitched.
The corners of his upturned mouth slowly began to lower.
But it wasn't because he had stopped smiling.
His canines grew thick.
It was his fangs that forced his smile to relax.
‘This is disgusting.’
As Kang Young-chan’s form began to change, the emotion Do-jae felt was revulsion.
He felt a wave of nausea, an unsettling discomfort.
It certainly wasn't due to his appearance alone.
The sludgy, sticky mana emanating from Kang Young-chan was what made Do-jae uneasy.
Crack—.
A sound came from Kang Young-chan's body as bones erupted like thorns from his arms, legs, and back.
His waist elongated, his skeleton twisting.
His pelvis widened and his spine lengthened, bending vertically until he stood on all fours.
"Hehe. Hahahaha."
Kang Young-chan burst out laughing.
Then, with no preparatory motion, he accelerated!
Klang-!
"Ptui."
Kang Young-chan spat out a long, blue piece of metal.
Do-jae's sword, the Harpy Queen's Plume, was snapped in half, with only a bite mark remaining.
"That was my favorite sword…"
A vein bulged on Do-jae's forehead.
Even if they were colleagues, he couldn't tolerate someone crossing the line like this.
"You started this fight."
"Just what I wanted. Hehehe."
Rumble—.
Stones began to creep up Do-jae's legs.
At the same instant, Kang Young-chan lunged at him.
His fangs were strong enough to shatter the Harpy Queen's Plume, his maw gaping wide.
Wham-!
Do-jae's right hand struck Kang Young-chan squarely in the face.
The fist of his completed Golem Armor slammed Kang Young-chan's head into the ground.
"Keheheh."
But Kang Young-chan's strength was formidable.
Just five centimeters from the ground, he held firm.
Bracing his trapezius muscles, Kang Young-chan withstood the punch.
Then, he sprang up as if on a spring and bit into Do-jae's shoulder.
Crunch—.
"Ugh."
His shoulder was exposed, red blood flowing.
The shattered stone fragments quickly regenerated, but blood soaked into the Golem Armor.
‘He's fast and strong. I need to create distance.’
Do-jae extended both arms toward Kang Young-chan.
Stones shot from his palms, ensnaring Kang Young-chan's legs.
Kang Young-chan immediately broke free of the stone restraints, but in that brief moment, Do-jae was able to put significant distance between them.
"You can do that too?"
Do-jae coolly ignored Kang Young-chan's question, focusing on manipulating the mana tendrils.
He formed fist-sized stone spheres and launched them at Kang Young-chan.
Dozens of stone spheres moved swiftly and erratically, closing in from every blind spot.
Boom—.
Boom, boom-!
But Kang Young-chan didn't let a single attack through.
He swatted them away with his arms and shattered them into dust with his hind legs.
The spheres flying at his back were split in two by the thorns on his spine.
"Enough with these pathetic attacks! Let's fight properly!"
Kang Young-chan sensed that the aura Do-jae emitted was similar to his own.
Once a mediocre Awakened, he had gained the immense power of an S-class Hunter through a secret project by the Suppression Corps' intelligence division.
In the process, he had become slightly unhinged, developing an abnormal personality that pursued only strength.
Until now, the closed environment of the Suppression Corps and the restraining presence of Kim Hwan-soo had kept him from causing any major incidents, but the moment he saw Do-jae, his suppressed fighting spirit erupted like a volcano.
He wanted to find out how Do-jae had grown strong so quickly, and feeling a sense of kinship with the similar aura he projected, he was overcome with the desire to fight him.
Thwack—.
Thwack, thwack—.
Kang Young-chan now advanced with an annoyed expression, ignoring the stone spheres.
Realizing this method wouldn't land a significant blow, Do-jae severed the mana tendrils.
The disconnected spheres could no longer maintain their form and rained down like stones.
"That's more like it! A real man fights up close."
With those words, Kang Young-chan closed the distance and dove into Do-jae's personal space.
A brawl of flurrying attacks and defenses!
But as time went on, it was Do-jae who was at a disadvantage.
‘S-class is on another level…’
At a glance, it might have seemed like he was holding his own against Kang Young-chan's attacks, but the reality was completely different.
His mana was rapidly draining to repair the Golem Armor, while his own attacks had little to no effect.
He had only managed to inflict three or four scratches, each no bigger than a fingernail.
Screeeech-!
Kang Young-chan clawed at Do-jae's chest.
With a brilliant shower of sparks, a piece of the armor broke away.
Not only that, but four distinct claw marks were left on Do-jae's chest.
"Hoh. Is that it? Is that what made you so strong so fast?"
Kang Young-chan's eyes fixed on the large mana stone on Do-jae's chest.
It was the first time he had revealed the Heart of the Golem to another person.
Though it was usually hidden by just a single layer of clothing, seeing it exposed like this filled him with a sense of dread.
The thought that someone could target it directly made it seem like a fatal weakness.
Shhhk—.
Do-jae restored the torn Golem Armor and took a defensive stance.
Kang Young-chan couldn't possibly know the details about the Heart of the Golem, but it was clear he would target it from now on.
For Do-jae, who would lose everything if he lost the Heart of the Golem, there was no choice but to become more passive.
It was then.
Flick—.
Suddenly, Kang Young-chan turned his head and, for some reason, straightened his upper body.
"The fun's over."
***
Kim Hwan-soo was speechless.
To his eyes, it looked like two boss monsters were fighting.
‘Is Section Chief Lee really that skilled?’
It went without saying that Kang Young-chan was one of the Suppression Corps' top combatants, but he was baffled that Do-jae could fight him on equal footing.
He had been just another examinee, no different from the others in the test Kim Hwan-soo had supervised, but now he displayed a level of strength comparable to his own.
‘I have to stop them…’
They were comrades, fighting in the middle of enemy territory.
And for no reason other than one man's whim.
They had already exhausted themselves fighting alone for hours.
They needed to stop immediately and prepare for what was to come, but Kim Hwan-soo could only watch.
‘I'm curious.’
He was far too curious about Do-jae's abilities to stop the fight.
Having a strong ally by his side was always welcome.
He wanted to gauge Do-jae's skills a bit more, thinking he could be as useful as Kang Young-chan when they returned to headquarters.
‘Hmm? Why did they suddenly stop?’
In the midst of their fierce exchange, Kang Young-chan suddenly turned his head.
Soon after, Do-jae also looked in the same direction.
And finally, Kim Hwan-soo too realized it.
Something was coming.
"Hmph! Hmph!"
Red Orcs advanced, snorting violently.
But that wasn't all.
Ogres, Trolls, Drakes, Ashmen.
All sorts of monsters were approaching in a single mass.
"How?"
Why were these monsters, who should be fighting each other, together?
Kim Hwan-soo quickly found the common thread among them.
‘The black cloud…’
A dark energy swirled around them.
The black cloud, spread out like a fog, was uniting and controlling these different species of monsters.
"Krararara!"
"Kyaooo!"
The sound of their roars grew closer.
Finally, when they were about thirty meters away, their movements ceased in unison.
Rumble, rumble, rumble—.
As the ground trembled, a single Red Orc rose up from behind them.
Atop the head of a Sand Worm two or three times its normal size, a Red Orc Shaman stood with a dignified posture.
"Grrrr…"
At that moment, an animalistic growl came from beside him.
"Section Chief Kang?"
Kang Young-chan's eyes had turned black.
Sensing something was wrong, Kim Hwan-soo reached for Kang Young-chan's shoulder.
Slap-!
"Grrrrk… Get away!"
Kang Young-chan, his face flushed red, slapped Kim Hwan-soo's arm away.
Then, he began to writhe in pain.
The thorns that had sprouted from his body retracted, and his swollen muscles began to shrink.
"Young-chan, what's wrong?"
Soon, Kang Young-chan collapsed to the ground, trembling violently.
He was drenched in a cold sweat, so agonized he could barely stay conscious.
"Captain."
Just then, Do-jae spoke.
In his hand was a glass bottle filled with a blue liquid.
"Have Section Chief Kang drink this. Then take him and get out of here."
"What?"
"Over there, I sense a creature with an aura similar to Section Chief Kang's. I think it's because of him."
Kim Hwan-soo looked where Do-jae was pointing.
The Red Orc Shaman on the Sand Worm.
"Hah… I understand."
He felt sorry for Do-jae, but Kim Hwan-soo had to choose Kang Young-chan.
‘Losing an S-class is too great a risk.’
Kim Hwan-soo hoisted the trembling Kang Young-chan over his shoulder.
He didn't know what was happening, but he knew he had to get out of there.
"I'll be back soon."
Kim Hwan-soo immediately fled the scene.