Stop the Shelter Invasion (2)

A guttural roar split the air as the troll unit charged. The lizardmen met them head-on, and the two lines crashed together with a sound like splitting timber.

Thud. Thud. Crunch.

Neither side gave an inch. A savage, no-holds-barred melee erupted across the ground.

There were barely ten trolls. And yet, surrounded by twenty lizardmen of a higher level, they were holding their own in a near-even fight.

Curious why? The effect of my Roar, stacked with Jin-hwan's buffs. By this point, those buffs fired off automatically the moment a battle started.

Slash. Slash.

Even so, the lizardmen's higher levels were making themselves felt. Their swords found the trolls' bodies with ruthless precision, carving into flesh without mercy. A heavy thud followed as several trolls took serious damage and dropped to their knees. They possessed overwhelming regenerative power, but they simply couldn't keep up with the lizardmen's blistering swordplay.

And then it went off.

A flood of white light wrapped around the trolls, and in an instant every wound they had taken closed over as if it had never been there.

"Not bad, you little punk."

"Of course it isn't."

Area Heal — the new skill Jin-hwan had picked up. He was built for wide-area buffs and heals more than single-target work, and the synergy with my skills was downright filthy.

Another roar tore out of the trolls' throats. With the heal stacked on top of their regeneration, they had become something close to immortal. They shoved themselves back to their feet and started bringing their clubs down on the lizardmen without the slightest concern for the damage they took in return.

Crunch. Crunch.

The lizardmen's numbers began to thin. They threw themselves at the trolls with everything they had, but between that monstrous regeneration and the healer working from the rear, the trolls simply would not die.

A shriek went up. Sensing the fight slipping away from them, the lizardmen bellowed and turned toward their shaman.

He nodded.

The shaman's chant rolled out — and at the same moment, several of the lizardmen flushed a violent, bursting red, their bodies swelling as if they were about to rupture from the inside.

"What the hell is that?"

The remaining lizardmen wasted no time peeling back from the line. A wet slap of scaled flesh followed as the reddening ones latched onto the trolls and clung there. The trolls thrashed and shook themselves, trying to fling the things off, but it was no use.

And then—

A colossal blast ripped the ground apart.

The lizardmen that had gone crimson detonated on the spot, an explosion so violent it erased every troll standing there. All ten of them died in an instant. That was how much force the blast packed.

"Holy crap. Was that a suicide bombing?"

The surviving lizardmen looked almost satisfied, a faint smile touching their mouths as they watched the trolls go down — never mind that it had cost them their own. Then they started walking toward us, slow and deliberate.

"Too bad for you. I've still got plenty left."

Ten more trolls materialized on the field. The lizardmen stared at them in open horror.

"And it looks like you've forgotten something. You might want to look up."

Venom Fairies wheeled through the sky overhead. The moment the lizardmen peeled off the trolls, the fairies began dusting the air with venom powder. The stuff drifted down and settled across the lizardmen's hides.

A harsh sizzle rose from their scales.

"Oh?"

Those scales were apparently tough enough that the venom couldn't chew all the way through to the skin. But that was all I needed. Weakened scales were more than enough. The trolls, freshly buffed and roaring back to full strength, started pounding those lizardmen into the dirt with their clubs.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The clubs came down without pause or pity.

The lizardmen started getting slaughtered.

"We don't even need to step in anymore, do we?"

"That one still bothers me, though. I'll go deal with him."

The Lizardman Shaman was hunkered in a corner, ringed by his remaining kin. I had no intention of giving him the chance to pull another nasty trick. Knife in hand, I closed the distance fast.

He must have spotted me coming. Lizardmen snapped into my path, throwing themselves between us. I locked both eyes on them.

Their bodies locked up solid. I left them for the trolls behind me and closed the last few steps to the shaman himself. He scrambled to start a chant. It didn't matter.

My physical stats already rivaled anyone alive. In a blink, the Lizardman Shaman's body came apart in clean, precise sections.

The shaman went down on the spot. With him gone, the trolls methodically finished off whatever lizardmen were left. In no time at all, a force fifty strong had been wiped out to the last scale.

"This side's cleaned up."

Still sharing audiovisual feed with the Venom Fairies, I checked the other sectors.

The rear gate's fine too.

The knights summoned by the guild skill were clearly a cut above. Five of them were moving through the lizardmen like a slaughterhouse crew, with our people providing support from behind. Even without the extra hands, those knights alone looked more than capable of putting the lizardmen down.

No wonder Hwang Min-soo was so desperate to get his hands on this.

Those knights looked like they were level twenty at an absolute minimum. The thought of that kind of force hitting our shelter in another raid was genuinely sickening.

"Doesn't look like we've got any real problems."

A handful of lizardmen had punched through the front and rear gates, but the numbers were small enough that everyone else was mopping them up without trouble.

How are the other shelters holding?

Two of those shelters had been handed over by Geum Bit-na-ra. In truth, they were shelters the Cheonha Tongil Guild had all but stolen at swordpoint. Shelters with no guild behind them could exercise a right of refusal when targeted for plunder — but the price was a staggering fifty thousand Coins. The shelter leaders had scraped together everything they could to hold the line, but that kind of sum was nearly impossible to gather in the early days, and you still had to keep enough Coins on hand to buy food. In the end they'd had no choice but to let Cheonha Tongil take the shelters from them.

After that, they'd been forced to pay the guild a regular fee just to keep living inside their own walls. Once I took those rights back, I returned authority over the shelters to their original leaders.

A screen bloomed in front of my eyes. I had something nobody else did — a phone of sorts. The Slimes I'd stationed at each shelter handled the job. No more trekking to the System Bulletin Board just to send a note.

Good.

This location had drawn the most dangerous monsters of the lot. Dangerous or not, we had stopped the first Shelter Invasion without a hitch. A little more time passed, and reports came in that the monsters hitting the other shelters had all been dealt with as well.

Once things had settled, Jin-hwan drifted over to my side.

"Ssaem. Aren't you gonna eat these?"

"Of course I am. What, you want some too?"

"Not raw, though. You've got that cooking skill, Ssaem. I still can't get that troll roast out of my head."

Apparently the kid was still hung up on the troll roast from earlier.

"Alright. Hang on a bit. I'll whip something up."

A fork popped out of my inventory. I stepped up to a lizardman corpse and triggered the cooking skill.

Eh. Let's try boiling it this time.

I was holding nothing but a single fork. How this was supposed to turn into a stew, I genuinely wanted to know.

A flicker of something passed in front of my eyes — a pot, maybe, with a lizardman simmering inside it. I couldn't make out the details. The cooking sequence skipped itself in a blink, and a brand-new dish sat there waiting for me.

How was that even possible?

Don't ask. Hell if I know either.

Wisdom!

Lizardman Soup raised Wisdom. Of all the possible bonuses, that one carried real weight.

"Here. Try it."

"Ah — I'm not really a soup guy, though."

"Just eat it, you brat."

Jin-hwan took the bowl. He brought it to his mouth — and both eyes went round.

"Whoa! Ssaem! This is insane! It's so damn good."

"Yeah?"

"Yes! You have to try it, hurry!"

Was it really that good? I picked up a bowl of my own and brought it to my lips.

The moment it hit my tongue, a clean brightness flooded my mouth. Lizard meat could easily have gone gamey, but there wasn't a hint of that — just a light, honest broth.

"Damn."

If I'd been dead drunk the night before, a single cup of this stuff would have blown the hangover clean off. That clean, bracing quality was outstanding.

Now where's the meat?

I lifted a piece of well-simmered lizardman flesh on the fork. It looked impossibly tender, pale and yielding, and it vanished into my mouth in a hurry. The meat melted the instant it landed on my tongue. This wasn't just hangover food — it would make a hell of a drinking snack too.

There was one disappointment, though.

Eating it as a dish still doesn't fill the Predation gauge.

A real shame. If cooked meals counted toward Predation, I could have killed a monster, cooked it, eaten it, filled the gauge, and gained the summon — the whole package, pheasant ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and egg, ditch and crayfish, all in one go.

So I picked up the fork and walked back to the lizardman corpses.

Chomp. Chomp.

A fast, unceremonious mukbang.

After that, I went straight for the Lizardman Shaman.

Bomb Drop, huh.

Even with the ally's consent, the idea of planting one of those things on somebody's body sat a little wrong with me. If the target was a monster, though, I couldn't say I particularly cared.

After that, I ate every remaining lizardman corpse. Every last one, without leaving a scrap. All of them were going to become a precious part of my fighting force, after all.

And then…

Five days had passed since ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Shelter Invasion.