Huitzilopochtli's Assault (Part 2)
“This crazy bastard!”
*Thud. Thud.*
“You’re going to die? Fine, I’ll kill you, okay?!”
*Thud. Thud.*
“St...stop! Team Leader Han Sia, stop!”
“Damn it! Sia! Ugh! I’m dying, stop!”
“Si...Sia! Jihun, please help!”
“Even if it’s for Kim’s face...!”
*Heavy breathing*
Han Sia’s face was as red as a ripe tomato, her eyes bloodshot like a rabbit’s. She was barely catching her breath, gritting her teeth as if the anger hadn’t subsided yet. And Jihun, sprawled on the ground beneath her feet, continued to get kicked. Noticing that the storm had passed, he cautiously lifted his head.
“This crazy woman...! Why the hell again?! Thanks to me, everyone survived! How much gratitude do I deserve?”
“Wait, no... Did she worry because of me? Han Sia, did you... did you...”
“...worry that I’d overthrow the command system? Without consulting your own opinion as the overall team leader, I made my own plans? That I’d topple the command structure and cause chaos?”
“Even so, would you hit someone like this? You crazy Sia! Argh!”
The incident began just five minutes ago, when we were fleeing to the forest to escape Huitzilopochtli. Following Jihun’s signal, the entire raid team scattered into the woods. The monster froze for a moment, confused, but soon realized their intent and let out a deafening roar. Fortunately, the hunters who had already overcome the intimidation from Huitzilopochtli’s earlier roar managed to reach the forest safely.
Jihun started sprinting toward the forest as well, when a chill—killing intent—suddenly hit his back. With only a few steps left to the forest, he had to decide whether to keep running or trust his instincts.
“Hah!”
Jihun twisted his body sideways. At that exact moment, a piercing whistle cut through the air as a blue spear, like a snake’s head, grazed his left shoulder and buried itself in the ground with a wet thud.
“It wasn’t just any spear.”
Jihun realized in that instant. He had thought it was a simple triangular snake-head tip, but up close it had an open maw and vicious fangs, like a living serpent. If it had been his protective suit...
The left shoulder of his jumpsuit sizzled and crackled as the snake’s fangs bit into it, neutralizing the poison damage. The sound faded, and a gray stain appeared on the sleeve, signaling that the protective function had been lost.
Then Yoonju’s words echoed in his mind.
“Oppa, even if I work my whole life, I can’t buy this.”
“...Oppa... I can’t buy it even if I work my whole life.”
“...I can’t buy it.”
Those words reverberated in his head like an echo. ‘I was going to wear it carefully...! What do I do now?! This is bad!’
The suit, a gift that cost more than his entire fortune, had broken. A wave of weakness washed over him as if all his blood was draining away, mixed with regret for not dodging earlier. His rationality slipped for a moment.
Soon after, the only memory he had was shouting, “Kyaa! (How much did this suit cost?!) My (suit) arm! Aigoo, my (jumpsuit) arm’s (protection is) gone!” as he ran into the forest. Somehow, he grabbed Sia’s arm, which looked dazed while staring at him, and dashed deeper into the woods. That was the end of it.
“We’ve been through worse dust storms before. Thanks to Cheol-uk and the Kim uncles helping us from the side, we’re still alive. I thought we were done for.”
Breathing heavily, Han Sia’s expression softened as Jihun dusted himself off and stood up.
“But the dodge just now was life-threatening.”
In combat, you had to gather information on your opponent. That was basic. However, hunters relying on the system often skipped the habit of self-collecting information, depending only on the monster info window. Over a lifetime of depending on it, even sharp hunters grew dull.
They rushed to analyze the info window’s monster details and let the real juicy bits slip by. But hunters who lived without the system for their entire lives developed an almost instinctual analytical sense or, as you might call it, a sixth sense.
The pieces Jihun had gathered during that dodge began swirling in his head like a puzzle, coming together.
“Sorry, but I need you to follow my plan one more time, Team Leader Han Sia!”
Han Sia’s face, which had been turning red again, flushed even deeper at Jihun’s words. It was clear his “sixth sense” worked only against monsters.
2.
Jihun gathered the twenty raid members and spoke.
“First, that guy’s spear attacks are extremely powerful.”
“...Yeah. I heard the sound of the spear sticking into the ground too, Deputy Team Leader Jihun. Hmph.”
Han Sia coughed as if to say it was obvious.
“Indeed, but that spear isn’t just thrown with strength. It’s not telekinesis either. Telekinesis is incredibly rare, and if we could use it, we’d all be at the mercy of an invisible hand.”
She cleared her throat.
“It’s the Flying Sword Technique. Instead, it can only be used on that blue spear, and its functions seem limited to throwing and retrieving. You can’t freely swing it around. It’s like the god and hammer in the movie ‘God of the Hammer.’”
“Ah! Jihun, your words are good! But what’s the basis for that?”
“Exactly, interesting, but I don’t know what you saw to think that.”
Mr. Kim and Mr. Lee looked cautious.
“It’s the sound. I heard it, uncles. The spear’s speed was faster than the arm swinging speed. Normally, the arm swing speed should match the spear’s max speed, but it was much faster.”
The raid members’ eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“Y...yes!!! I saw it too! It wasn’t slow when swinging the arm, but the movement to throw a spear of that weight that fast... I didn’t think it was possible!”
Fortunately, a hunter who had played baseball since childhood and awakened relatively recently supported Jihun’s words.
“And that’s not the end. The blade of that spear, the snake-headed part made of metal, was actually moving earlier. With its strong fangs, you must be careful.”
“Wait a minute, Jihun. So, you figured this out after hearing or seeing it?”
“Yes, Team Leader Han Sia.”
“Haa... Since it’s not in the info window, how did you know? But how reliable is it? Just now, in the worst situation, everyone was panicked, so I followed Jihun’s words. But this time too, if I follow Jihun’s words...”
“Apologies for the interruption, Team Leader. As you know, I can’t use the status window or info window. Instead, I collect information through my senses, direct experience, and judgment. If it’s the reliability of my senses trained for 10 years... I’d say it’s 100%. Everything I’ve seen is reliable.”
Jihun’s confident eyes made Han Sia unable to argue. Seeing that, Cheol-uk smiled, thinking ‘I wasn’t crazy to be convinced by that bastard’s persuasion after all.’
“If there’s nothing more to say, let’s move on to the second point. That guy doesn’t like close combat. So, we should fight as close as possible to gain the advantage.”
This time, the raid members’ eyes widened. No matter how you look at it, fighting a 2+ meter half-bird monster up close is impossible for anyone to take on.
“The best would be to lure them into the forest, but that seems to have failed. It keeps circling above us.”
Jihun looked up at the sky. Through the dense forest canopy, he saw Huitzilopochtli flying, searching for them.
“So, we’ll lure it into the canyon. Of course, I’ll be the bait.”
“Min Jihun! You again!”
Cheol-uk stepped forward, saying it was absolutely impossible.
Jihun placed his hand gently on Cheol-uk’s chest.
“To do that, we need Team Leader Han Sia’s help. And Team Leader Lee Cheol-uk too. If Team Leader Jihun and I take the monster down to the canyon, the rest of you should first escape the gate, request support.”
“Why not spend the night in this forest? The support team will come when the raid is delayed.”
One raid member raised his hand.
“Good idea. But since earlier, haven’t you felt it’s strange that no monster has appeared in the forest?”
“Yes... It’s a bit strange.”
“I don’t know the exact method, but that bird guy is definitely hunting in the forest. Right now, we’re on high alert, so he’ll watch from afar, but when night comes and vigilance lowers, he’ll pick off one by one. Definitely.”
The atmosphere became uneasy after Jihun’s words.
“On the bright side, this dungeon has a cylindrical structure. Does anyone remember which direction we ran from the altar?”
No one raised their hand, not even Han Sia.
“You’re all fine. Raise your heads and look at this.”
Jihun showed a clock pointing to the gate location signal.
“Actually, the direction we ran from was the opposite side of the gate. But we had no choice, because Huitzilopochtli was watching that side.”
Jihun paused and asked if anyone in the raid team had writing utensils.
“I thought we’d run out and come back around, but looking at this, the gate is right ahead in our direction. No need to go back.”
Jihun drew on borrowed paper and pen and showed it.
The hunters understood what he meant.
One glance at Jihun’s drawing, and the dungeon’s structure was like a scroll of toilet paper. It exists three-dimensionally as a cylindrical shape, but to the person walking on it, it feels like a flat map. It’s not that it’s the end of spaces mixing 2D and 3D, but a structure that defies that.
Jihun explained to the raid members that going straight forward would lead to the canyon again, and on the other side of the canyon would be the gate.
“If there are no more objections, from now on, I will tell you what Team Leader Han Sia must do.”
Jihun’s eyes sparkled.