Phase 3 (6)

The Moving Fortress skill had activated out of nowhere.

Caught off guard by a change he had never anticipated, Hanseong stared blankly at the bike. A new notification surfaced before his eyes.

An offer to make the bike his Moving Fortress.

Hanseong very nearly chose Yes. He caught himself at the last moment. There were things he still needed to learn, beyond the conditions for activating the skill.

First, the ether cost.

For all he knew, the mileage would be abysmal. And even if the efficiency proved excellent, he had no intention of settling on this as his Moving Fortress. The reason was simple. A Moving Fortress only mattered if he rode it himself, and the bike in front of him was a poor choice for that.

A sedan, or an SUV, would be better.

Or, if he let himself be a little greedy, a helicopter. Assuming any of it was even possible.

Still turning it over, Hanseong returned his focus to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠controlling Phantom. He studied Subin, tension written plainly across her face, and put the question to her.

"There's something I want to ask."

"Ah, yes! What is it?"

"Could you modify a van, a tank, or even a helicopter the same way you did the bike?"

"Hmm. I've never tried, but it should be possible. The larger the subject, the more stamina the conversion takes, so as long as I have enough stamina..."

That was no obstacle. One of the mid-grade energy recovery potions Jihye brewed would settle it. If the work was possible, that was enough. Hanseong smiled, satisfied.

"Good."

"Sorry?"

"I'll accept your proposal."

"...! Y-you really mean it?"

Her eyes went round, her face dazed, the look of someone who had never believed he would actually say yes. Jihun and the vanguard were no different.

Hanseong, for his part, had already judged Subin worth well over five hundred thousand. The Moving Fortress was only the start. She had too many other skills that would prove useful.

To think a raw gem like this was hiding here.

An unexpected coup. Having accepted her proposal, he addressed Oh Jeongho, leader of the Busan Alliance, in the tone of a man delivering notice.

"We'll call the five hundred thousand settled with this."

"Uh..."

"So lower the guns."

The line that followed was ice. Jeongho and his crew, still staring, flinched and dropped their muzzles. Subin came back to herself and looked up at Phantom.

"Then... could my brother come too..."

"Fine. I don't mind."

Her face brightened at once. Her brother, it seemed, mattered more to her than anything else. Watching that, the vanguard began, carefully, to speak up one by one.

"Um, Mage...?"

"Might we come along as well?"

"You've seen it for yourself, sir. Nothing good is waiting for us if we stay here."

He understood at once. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Jeongho had been ready to dispose of the vanguard if that was what it took to scrape together coins. Hanseong weighed it for a moment, then set the doubt aside.

Taking them won't hurt.

If anything, it was better. They were fighters above level 25. Fold the lot of them into the Special Mission Battalion and its strength would rise by just that much, and the burden on Jihye and Haeun would ease with it. Hanseong nodded without hesitation.

"Fine. You come too."

"R-really? Thank you!"

"Thank you, Mage!"

The vanguard bowed their heads. Jihun lowered his as well, silent, then asked as if the question had only just occurred to him.

"Where are we going, then?"

"The Suwon provisional government."

Every eye widened. Subin looked the most startled of all.

"What? B-but that's a puppet government..."

"Nonsense from the politicians gathered in Sejong. In practice, it's a far better place to live than Sejong."

Hanseong added the rest of what he thought, for the stunned girl's sake. Suwon's policies looked after its citizens better than Sejong's ever had.

"If there's anything you need before we move, go get it. We leave in ten minutes."

"Ah, yes! Understood."

The vanguard scattered in every direction. Hanseong left Phantom standing in the middle of the street and fixed his gaze on Oh Jeongho.

He used Mark at once. One thing about the man nagged at him. Mouth shut tight, Hanseong's eyes flashed, keen and cold.

Meanwhile, at that same moment, Oh Jeongho's face twisted.

It was a relief that the trouble with the Fire-Lightning Mage had been settled cleanly. This, however, was not the ending he had wanted.

The others, I can write off. But...

He had never thought the man would walk off with the mechanic.

Seo Subin was useful. Rifles and vehicles converted to run on energy instead of magazines and fuel, and she could build and modify drones besides. Through her, Jeongho had done handsomely hunting zombies and monsters. All the more reason he could not swallow the loss.

Handing her over for nothing really does sting.

Proposing another deal, though, felt like a fine way to earn the mage's anger. He was turning over whether some other path existed when a familiar voice brushed his ear.

"Boss."

The newcomer had a face every bit as rough as Jeongho's own. Bae Yeonghun, a level-27 fighter, a close younger brother he had met in prison. Yeonghun drew in tight and pointed toward the distant Phantom, dropping his voice to a whisper.

"The Fire-Lightning Mage. Looking at him like this, doesn't he seem a little unguarded to you?"

"...Hmm."

Jeongho had been thinking something similar. He knew the man was strong, of course. A wave of the hand had brought a building down, and he had shown the power to clear a rift in no time at all. Separate from that, his toughness looked no different from an ordinary human's. After a moment's thought, Jeongho turned and whispered back.

"So what are you getting at?"

"Hit him with a volley all at once, and we could finish him, couldn't we? We'll keep our own feet clear, just in case."

Not a bad proposal. If they stirred up the expendable pawns—men they could use and throw away, not Jeongho and his inner circle—and egged them into shooting the mage, then even if the thing went wrong they could still slip clear of his anger. Jeongho, sunk in thought, soon grinned.

"Good. Tell everyone."

"Heh heh. Understood."

Yeonghun slipped away. Setting the inner circle aside, he carried the plan to the rest: kill the mage, and split the coins he was holding. Whether because the man looked so unguarded, more than half of them agreed. Jeongho never took his eyes off Phantom.

Hasn't looked back once.

Was that confidence, or carelessness? Either way, he would know soon enough. A thin, unpleasant smile touched his mouth.

At last, when every piece was in place, Yeonghun sent the signal: a slight lift of the toe, three taps on the ground, the sort of sign you would miss unless you were watching for it.

And in that instant—

"Now! Everybody shoot!"

At the shout of the man playing decoy, some thirty subordinates who had signed on to the plan leveled their guns at Phantom. Fire burst from a host of muzzles at once.

Bang! Rat-tat-tat-tat!

A volley poured down on Phantom. Subin startled at the sudden attack and dropped where she stood, and the vanguard could not hide their shock. Jihun, grasping what was happening, twisted his face.

"Oh Jeongho! What the hell do you think you're—"

"Hey, don't pin this on an innocent man. As you can see, I haven't so much as lifted a finger."

Jeongho shrugged. His hands were, in fact, empty. Jihun was not naive enough to believe it, and he was about to roar, unable to hold the anger down, when—

"...!"

Jeongho's face went rigid. He was not the only one. Yeonghun, who had proposed the plan, and the men who had poured out the volley—every one of their faces hardened.

"Tsk. They never do stray from what I expect."

Phantom's voice came low. A moment later, what entered their sight was Phantom's body, perfectly intact, and hundreds of rounds stopped dead, as if driven into the empty air. The attackers jolted.

"Wh-what is that?"

"How in the world...?!"

Because he had known from the start. With Mark already in place, he had grasped every detail of the plan Jeongho's crew had hatched. And the reason he had set Mark on Jeongho was simple: earlier, while reading Subin's information with Detection, he had glanced at Jeongho's as well.

Oh Jeongho.

A level-29 Guard Captain. The other piece worth noting was his alignment. Chaotic Evil—the same alignment as Kim Tae-min, the necromancer Hanseong had fought in the past. On the off chance, he had used Mark, and thanks to that he had caught their conspiracy before it began.

The rest of them, too...

Most were Chaotic, which meant their hands were steeped in blood. The vanguard, Jihun and Subin included, either showed no alignment at all or leaned Lawful.

Then—

"You monster bastard!"

"Shoot every last one of them! Keep pouring it on!"

Faces gone ashen, the attackers hauled on their triggers again. Not one round pierced Phantom's body. The other way around was a different matter.

The bullets spun at terrible speed. Turned about, each round went looking for its owner.

Thud! Thwack! Crunch!

Aimed precisely at the head. Without a single exception, the attackers dropped with a hole in the forehead. Thirty corpses, made in the blink of an eye. Silence wrapped the street all at once.

Watching it, Jeongho swallowed dryly, startled.

Th-this is insane...!

He had ordered the ambush because the man looked unguarded, and there had been a card up his sleeve after all. Not pulling a trigger himself had been the one clever thing he had done. Jeongho forced his feelings down, looked over the corpses, and began to play at calm.

"Haa. Idiots. I told them not to, and they wouldn't listen. I knew it would end like this."

He needed them to believe the ambush had nothing to do with him. Sighing, Jeongho walked up to Phantom and bowed his head.

"Sorry. I'll apologize in their place."

"..."

Phantom did not answer. Uneasy, Jeongho was lifting his gaze when the reply came.

"...What?"

"Leave men like you alive and you're only storing up trouble for later. Annoying as it is, better to clear all of you out while I'm at it."

Blades of wind sprang into being in an instant. The moment he saw them, Jeongho understood that something had gone badly wrong. He flung his hands out and shouted.

"W-wait, just a—"

Hanseong did not wait. The wind blades crossed the air faster than a voice and took Jeongho's neck.

Shhk!

Twenty percent of their full strength, and still more than enough to cut a man's head off. The headless body spouted blood and toppled. That was only the beginning. The hour of a brutal purge had come.

Shhk! Shhk! Crack!

The wind blades sheared the heads from everyone who had joined the ambush, without mercy. In the blink of an eye, Jeongho's crew was slaughtered to the last.

A little later, the street had gone quiet enough to raise the hair on one's neck. Finished with the purge, Hanseong turned Phantom's head and looked around.

"If anyone else wants to try me, step forward now."

Unsurprisingly, no one did. The bystanders who had never belonged to Jeongho's crew each held their breath, and the vanguard, Subin and Jihun among them, kept their mouths shut tight. The silence stretched on. Hanseong moved Phantom and approached Subin.

"Are you ready?"

"...What? Ah, yes! We're ready."

"Good. Then everyone, come in close."

There was a way to move them all at once. At that, those who had agreed to go gathered around. Once everything was in order, Hanseong fixed a point on the map: the Suwon Air Wing, the coordinates of the Special Mission Battalion headquarters. Then he used the skill.

A vast magic circle etched itself into the ground. When ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the thirty seconds of casting time had passed, every body was wrapped in pure white light.

And in that moment—

Flash! A blaze of white!

An explosion of light swallowed them all. A moment later, Phantom and the vanguard who had stood around it were gone without a trace.

The survivors of the Busan Alliance had lived by standing aside, and they had not been chosen. They could only stare blankly at the place where the vanguard had been.