Chapter 12
Chapter 12
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 12
Chapter Title: Crisis (2)
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Thud thud thud thud!
Inside the helicopter.
Seo Dae-hyun and Kim Hyun-jun rode with the agents, heading out to the granary district in a chopper.
The monster sighting was near the place where Hyun-jun's father had gone to work.
"He'll be fine."
Seo Dae-hyun placed a hand on Kim Hyun-jun's shoulder, offering words of comfort.
With such a vast landmass, the odds of running into monsters were low.
"I'm sorry."
Kyle bowed his head in apology.
The monsters that appeared in the granary district were the wolf pack Dae-hyun had taken down yesterday.
He thought he'd wiped them all out, but he hadn't.
The wolves that escaped the gate hadn't stuck together as one pack—they'd scattered into factions.
It was the Association's mistake for not investigating more thoroughly.
Kim Hyun-jun wasn't listening to Kyle.
Right now, his father's safety came first.
He prayed desperately that his father wasn't there.
Apologies could come later.
His heart might be dead, but the emotions from when he was human still lingered.
No one knew that better than Seo Dae-hyun.
With Hyun-jun's soul linked to his own, he could faintly sense his feelings.
Kim Hyun-jun wasn't some puppet moving on orders—he thought and judged for himself.
Even an Awakened could die facing a monster, but for a regular person weaker than that, survival odds were slim.
Yesterday, out of everyone who encountered monsters, only Seo Dae-hyun had survived.
Everyone else, excluding him, was dead.
"Nothing's gonna happen!"
Seo Dae-hyun raised his voice a bit.
He felt bad about the situation too.
Why think the worst already?
"I'll save him somehow, so don't even say that!"
Those words about saving him put Kim Hyun-jun at ease.
In that moment, Seo Dae-hyun felt incredibly reliable.
On the battlefield, if Dae-hyun said he'd save you, you would.
His Heal rivaled an A-Rank Healer's recovery skill.
It was even more effective than the one he'd used on the field.
That's why the Association agents had brought him along.
Healers were precious resources.
They rarely deployed for things like this, so agents usually just carried potions.
With Seo Dae-hyun on site, they could save a lot more lives.
"Don't thank me."
Among soldiers, that was an unspoken rule.
On the battlefield, thanks were only for when someone saved your life.
The comrade you saved yesterday might save you today, and tomorrow someone else saves them.
No need for sorries or thanks.
As they neared the report site, tension inside the helicopter doubled.
- We've spotted them!
It was a radio call from the cockpit.
They'd found the monsters and people.
Clunk!
Vreeee—
The rear door of the helicopter swung wide open.
Fierce wind made them squint.
Looking down, three trucks were fleeing.
A wolf pack the size of those trucks chased them.
If only a few were at the rear, it'd be lucky.
Among the tall cornstalks, gray shapes appeared.
Wolves in the cornfield leaped like roe deer, slamming into the trucks.
One truck flipped over.
Kim Hyun-jun unbuckled his seatbelt.
Protocol was to wait for full landing, but time was critical.
"It's dangerous! Sit down—"
Kyle tried to stop Hyun-jun.
He'd asked Dae-hyun for help, but he unbuckled too.
"Lend me a dagger for a sec."
"Uh... Sure!"
He borrowed two daggers from agent May beside him.
"The radio too."
"Th-that's not allowed."
"Sorry."
Seo Dae-hyun took May's radio anyway.
"Hyun-jun."
Kim Hyun-jun caught the dagger he tossed.
"Let's go."
Before the helicopter even landed, the two leaped from 700 meters up without hesitation.
The wolves relentlessly pursued the trucks.
Full of prey inside, the wolves followed their instincts.
Bang! Bang!
In the truck bed carrying people, there were a few guns, sickles, and pickaxes.
Originally loaded with grain, Kim Tae-seok had sacrificed it all at great loss.
Crops could be regrown with sweat, but people were harder to replace.
"Boss!"
People were moved by Kim Tae-seok's actions, but only briefly.
Bang! Bang!
The wolf pack interfered.
Human firearms didn't work on magical beasts.
The wolves shook off bullets like they were tickles.
To make matters worse, another wolf burst from the brush, ramming a truck.
The pack wasn't just five or six from the start.
This was all a monster trap.
Monsters weren't dumb.
They used prey's fear for herding hunts.
Wolves closed in on the overturned truck.
People fled, bleeding.
The wolves took their time.
"Argh! Run!"
"Fuck!"
Amid screams, Kim Tae-seok barely opened his eyes.
His vision was red.
Glass shards from the flip had grazed his head and face.
Luckily, none hit his eyes or ears.
Two photos wedged in the rearview caught his eye.
The woman looked early twenties.
His wife's younger self.
'...Mi-ju.'
She'd trusted him and followed to this distant foreign land.
Kim Tae-seok always felt grateful and sorry to her.
The other was a family photo after his son's birth.
Seo Dae-hyun, not in the photo, came to mind.
He felt like family now.
A wolf's snout poked under the truck, sniffing.
Kim Tae-seok couldn't move from the driver's seat.
Blood rushed to his head, dizzying him.
The beast prowled, smelling blood.
The wolf lowered its head toward the driver's seat, locking eyes with him.
Kim Tae-seok clutched the photos tight and shut his eyes.
The wolf's head forced into the cab.
"“Dad!”"
Was that his son's voice, or imagination?
BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
Krunch!
Something from the sky snapped the wolf's neck.
No—its head was cleanly severed, like beheading.
Surprise Slash × 2
Head and neck torn apart.
Head and neck shredded.
The sudden explosion drowned out the neck snap for Kim Tae-seok.
He'd closed his eyes, sensing death.
Feeling off, he cracked them open.
In the tight cab, fluids splashed from the wolf's maw as he blinked.
Only the wolf's head loomed before him.
Less than 1cm away.
He met the wolf's eyes again.
Its pupils faded like a dying bulb.
Dead eyes.
"Hah—"
He clutched his pounding chest, calming.
Kim Tae-seok was still dazed, unsure what happened.
Only the head was visible in the cramped space.
Facing it head-on, he hadn't noticed the half-severed neck.
Twitch!
The wolf convulsed and opened its eyes again!
But something felt off.
The wolf withdrew its head from the window obediently.
Monsters didn't retreat that easily.
At the window where it backed off stood Seo Dae-hyun and Kim Hyun-jun.
He hadn't imagined the voice.
Seo Dae-hyun and Kim Hyun-jun had jumped recklessly from the sky.
"Rise."
Seo Dae-hyun summoned soldiers mid-air.
A black oval formed below, soldiers emerging.
He rode a wolf, surveying from high with wide view.
Spotted the truck driven by Hyun-jun's dad.
One wolf circled it.
Dae-hyun and Hyun-jun headed straight there.
The remaining soldiers bombed the ground wolf pack, igniting on impact as ordered.
Surprise Slash
- Attack Speed 25%
- Bonus Damage 10%
With both casting together, the power doubled.
The wolf's head crumbled like torn flesh.
'Can I even revive this as a soldier?' The corpse was that mangled.
He tried anyway.
"Rise."
He expected one, but the count rose.
The wolves killed in the bombing had been conscripted too.
Military Manpower Administration-level recruitment—even cancer patients.
Head and torso two-thirds detached, but it revived at his call.
Black smoke from head and neck reconnected them.
At Seo Dae-hyun's nod, the wolf backed off, and he pulled Hyun-jun's dad from the truck.
"D... Dad."
"Hyung, heal him quick—"
Seo Dae-hyun calmed Kim Hyun-jun.
Shards embedded—he warned Heal could worsen it.
Heal wasn't omnipotent.
That's why doctors and nurses existed even with healers.
'Remove shards first.'
Good they missed vitals.
"I'll save your dad, so you rescue the others."
"...Got it!"
Kim Hyun-jun trusted him and went to save people.
Seo Dae-hyun removed shards from Kim Tae-seok's upper body one by one, then sent mana to check for internals.
No more shards under skin.
Seo Dae-hyun used Heal, treating Kim Tae-seok.
Wounds closed, skin returning to normal.
"Thank you..."
Wounds fully healed, but exhaustion had knocked him out briefly.
'Phew. He's okay.'
He ordered the wolf soldier to protect Tae-seok, then ran to save others.
The aerial bombing halved the beast numbers.
Seo Dae-hyun Healed soldiers, restoring stamina fast.
They couldn't follow complex orders but obeyed simple ones.
Thankfully, casualties were minimal.
His soldiers had intervened before full slaughter.
Same species as yesterday's attackers.
Wolves gauged them, then tucked tails.
They slunk back into the cornfield.
Seo Dae-hyun raised a fist.
No pursuit.
"Hold."
Kim Hyun-jun asked at the halt.
People's safety over killing beasts.
'Let a few follow quietly.'
He allowed five, including One-Eye, to pursue.
Beast monsters' smarts peaked at hunting.
Underestimate them as animals, and you'd regret it.
If soldiers chasing the fleeing pack fell into a trap, those left behind were at risk.
Seo Dae-hyun and Kim Hyun-jun stayed; soldiers (wolves) entered the cornfield en masse.
Too many eyes, so they waited in the field.
Necromancer powers had to stay hidden to protect him and his circle.
People eyed Seo Dae-hyun and Kim Hyun-jun suspiciously.
Kim Hyun-jun was Kim Tae-seok's son, the farm owner.
They knew the pair were Awakened but not this strong.
After overcoming monster phobia, Hyun-jun matched B-Rank hunters.
He'd endured years on the battlefield as a soldier.
"But why'd the monsters help us?"
Monsters aiding humans was unheard of.
No one thought they were Dae-hyun's summons. It defied common sense.
"Seemed like a territory dispute."
Seo Dae-hyun likened it to animal turf wars, denying any link to the "summons."
The simple rural folk bought it easily.
They equated monsters to wild beasts.
Few had fought them, and protecting humans sounded absurd.
They'd survived—that was enough.
In the chaos, they brushed it off.
Just then, Association agents arrived.
Now they could safely pursue the beasts.