The Millennium Ancient City
Everyone mourned the fallen hunters and swore vengeance. Frankly, I only understood their grief on an intellectual level. They were strangers to me, and in the Other World, such tragedies were a daily occurrence.
The hunters from the Daehyeon Guild gathered the gear and identification tags of the deceased, and the raid party resumed their march toward the castle. The raid itself was going smoothly, but a closer look at the combat revealed a growing roughness. Their once-delicate coordination had vanished, replaced by crude, simple, and destructive strikes. It seemed they couldn't suppress their emotions. I wanted to advise them to keep a cool head, but... since it wasn't causing any actual problems in battle, it was an awkward thing to bring up.
"Tsk, everyone's playing rough."
"Well, they're angry."
Was my sister feeling the same way?
"Are you angry too?"
"A little? If they had just attacked us normally, I probably wouldn't have cared, but..."
She said she was furious at how the monsters had manipulated, deceived, and desecrated the dead. Well, hearing her put it that way made it easier to understand. There were bastards like that among the demons too—scum who turned fallen comrades into spectacles or used them to provoke us...
In those situations, there were usually two outcomes. Either you lose your mind to rage and ruin yourself, or you awaken through that anger and get your revenge.
"I see."
Well, nothing could be done. If I told them to calm down, I'd probably look like a heartless bitch, so I decided to keep quiet. For now, there were no issues, so it should be fine.
When we reached the castle gates, the hunters prepared to smash them open. But the gates swung open from the inside first.
This presence... a True Blood. Unlike before, this one felt like the real body.
"Foolish humans, why do you persecute us? We desired peace and even showed our intent to negotiate."
It was definitely a True Blood.
"Looks like a named monster," someone muttered.
However, the True Blood's words were only comprehensible to me.
"Ha, the Goddess's doll. Negotiation was impossible from the start."
Oh? True to its status as a True Blood, it seemed to have noticed my presence. But it was too late. The already enraged hunters had no intention of talking to a monster whose language they couldn't even understand, and they immediately charged into battle. The True Blood trembled with rage and summoned its thralls.
"I will kill you all!"
As the battle dragged on, Tuwang's aura grew increasingly savage.
"Berserk...?"
I could see a glimpse of the madness used by Berserkers.
"Yeah, that's probably it. One of Tuwang's skills is Madness Control."
So Tuwang wasn't a normal warrior, but a Berserker! A Berserker who could control his madness with a Madness Control skill... That was certainly an ability worthy of an S-class.
Tuwang swung his giant axe wildly, completely ignoring his surroundings, intent on slaughtering every subspecies in sight. Sensing the danger, the monsters tried to suppress him with magic, but... the tank's taunt rendered their efforts useless, while the archers and mages in the rear blocked any counterattacks. Meanwhile, the other hunters weren't just standing idle. They actively created an environment where Tuwang could run wild.
Namgung Min was facing the True Blood alone. Unleashing his full power as if he had been hiding it all along, Namgung Min was incredibly strong. He deflected magic with his sword, slashed through defenses, and even launched ranged attacks with his blade... There was literally nothing he couldn't do with a sword. The Hero used to do things like that occasionally, but the Hero could also use magic, so it was a bit different.
"Should I step in now...?"
"Sister?"
Normally, I would have used a weapon, but I had to keep that hidden... So, I cast Holy Light on both of my hands. Then, I dashed toward the True Blood. Defeating the True Blood leading the subspecies first would make the battle much easier.
"What?!"
Some of the hunters looked shocked by my unilateral action. But honestly, I was getting a bit impatient. They were highly skilled, but at this rate, when would we ever finish the raid? The True Blood gasped in horror upon seeing me and tried to escape by turning its body into mist. However, that was a terrible move.
"O holy light, bind my enemy."
I fashioned a net using Divine Magic.
"Aaargh!"
The True Blood, which had dispersed into mist, was caught in the net and dragged down.
"What is it you are doing?"
"Catching a monster."
Namgung Min seemed displeased that I had suddenly jumped in. Regardless, I dragged the netted True Blood over and stomped on it with my foot.
"Fufu."
The monster's terror-stricken face was a true delicacy.
"The Goddess's doll! Argh!"
I slammed my fist right into its face. Perhaps because of the Holy Light, its skin began to sizzle and melt away.
"As expected, this is the best way to handle you True Blood bastards."
Since I spoke in Korean instead of the language of the Other World, the True Blood couldn't understand me. I continued to pummel the True Blood, using it as a punching bag. Namgung Min watched the spectacle with a blank, dumbfounded expression.
"My word..."
"What? Why? Is this your first time seeing someone beat up a monster?"
"It is my first time seeing a healer fight in such a manner..."
I let out a chuckle and tossed the True Blood toward Namgung Min. Seeing it fly toward him, he reacted instantly.
*Slash.*
He cut it down. Bound by my holy power, the True Blood could neither escape nor regenerate, dying on the spot.
"That's one."
Next, I threw Sacred Fire at the subspecies hovering in the distance. The subspecies screamed in agony under the intense fury of the holy flames. This was what you called a natural counter.
"The effect is remarkably potent."
"Since they're vampires, they seem weak to holy power."
"Holy power?"
I whispered in a voice only Namgung Min could hear.
"It's a skill of mine."
Namgung Min looked at me as if wondering why I was sharing this information with him. I smirked and headed toward the subspecies burning in the Sacred Fire. Then, with fists enveloped in Holy Light, I shattered the heads of the subspecies.
"Whew, how refreshing."
Blowing off about twenty heads really cleared my mind.
After defeating one True Blood and dozens of subspecies, the raid party took a short break. During that time, I recalled the past.
Back when I raided the Millennium Ancient City with the Holy Church... How many True Bloods were there? The number of subspecies was too vast to count, but the True Bloods were few, so their numbers mattered. We had tried to wipe them out completely without leaving a single survivor, but we failed. A few True Bloods had fled the battlefield back then. Excluding those who escaped, the number of True Bloods we defeated was... about thirty?
"Hmm, if we keep going like this, the raid itself should end easily."
"But we don't know who the boss is."
"Since it's a castle, wouldn't it be a king?"
The King of the True Bloods... Calling him a king made sense. But he had fled back then, so what would he do this time? If he kept running away, clearing the Gate would become incredibly annoying. Granted, the space inside a Gate is limited, so there weren't many places to hide. But to close the Gate, we had to defeat the boss, so we couldn't just leave him be. On top of that, the forests of the Millennium Ancient City were filled with countless traps... searching them would inevitably result in casualties.
"If there is a king, he must be incredibly incompetent."
To do absolutely nothing while his castle was being raided like this—either he was completely fearless, or he thought the True Blood from earlier would be enough. Whichever it was, it was a foolish way to act.
"Haha, that is true. To not even think of sending proper troops when the castle gates have been breached is the height of incompetence."
The Daehyeon hunters who had joined late cleared the battlefield, extracting mana stones and distributing snacks to the raid party. I was handed some bread and milk.
"Snacks on the field... how luxurious."
"Is it? This is normal for us."
Right... I suppose this place couldn't be exactly like a real battlefield. On the battlefield, things like this were a luxury. More often than not, we couldn't even think of putting anything in our mouths until the battle was completely over, and supply shortages were common due to difficult logistics. At least my party and the Hero's party were deemed critical, so we received priority supplies, but even then, it was hard to actually enjoy them. We felt self-conscious... though the frontline commanders insisted they would give us as many supplies as we wanted if we just lent them our strength. Well, our Hero could never turn a blind eye to those in need, so he always helped whenever he had the time.
"By the way, it seems this castle isn't all there is to it."
"I suspect it's divided into an outer castle and an inner castle."
"Is that why there are no troops here?"
After fighting so passionately, it seemed they had finally cooled their heads a bit.
"I have a good plan."
It was the great mage of the Daehyeon Guild who stepped forward.
"A plan? What is it?"
"Since things have turned out this way, how about we bring down the castle with one massive strike?"
Hmm...? What was this crude yet incredibly entertaining-sounding method?
"Bring down the castle? That sounds fun."
"At this rate, we'll end up fighting inside the castle. But isn't the palace the enemy's home turf? Fighting them there seems foolish."
In other words, he was suggesting we demolish the castle with magic to draw the enemies out.
"The plan itself seems decent, but..."
"If we do that, we don't know how many enemies we'll have to face at once."
They seemed worried because they didn't know the exact number of monsters inside the castle.
"If we collapse the castle, won't dozens of them be killed or injured, no matter how sturdy those monsters are?"
I supported the Daehyeon Guild's proposal. Everyone had a serious expression. Some tried to calculate the feasibility while looking at the castle, while others seemed to have empty minds.
"Fighting our way through step-by-step is also an option."
But we didn't know how long the battle would drag on. That was the catch.
"Besides, if there is a king, he won't just stand by and watch us destroy his castle."
Normally, yes... but from what I remembered, that king was the type of coward who would just run away.
In the end, we decided to go with the Daehyeon Guild's plan. Frankly, the other hunters didn't really have anything resembling a strategy. They just charged in and fought whatever attacked them. Since no one else could think of an alternative, Daehyeon's proposal naturally became the most plausible plan.
"So, do you actually have a spell that can bring that down?"
Since the core and starting point of the plan was collapsing the castle, we needed a spell capable of destroying such a massive structure. If it were Liselotte, the mage from the Hero's party, she could probably summon a meteor if given enough preparation time... but I didn't know the exact capabilities of the mages here.
"It would be best if I could cast Meteor, but..."
As expected, he couldn't.
"However, I can cast a similar spell."
A spell that required a long casting time and was similar to Meteor, though not quite the same. He explained it was a cryomancy spell that created a massive block of ice and dropped it from the sky.
"It will take some time to prepare, but once it's complete, it should easily destroy a castle of that size."
When asked if it was his trump card...
"Not really. It's just for the romance of it," he said with a laugh.
The romance of magic, huh...
We decided to prepare the spell right where we stood instead of moving closer to the castle. It was deemed more advantageous for buying time.
"This should be fun."
I genuinely wanted to see the castle crumble. When the Holy Church raided it, they argued that the castle itself was worth investigating or that destroying it would be a waste, so we couldn't tear it down... This time, we could demolish it without any hesitation.
Filled with anticipation, I cast a buff on Kim Young-chol, the mage from the Daehyeon Guild.