Chapter 81
Chapter 81
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 81
Chapter Title: Harbin's Swarming Dead
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Living corpses swarmed the city like cockroaches.
Corpses here, corpses there. It was getting harder to find a spot without them.
No-hun and I crouched silently on a building rooftop, watching the procession of corpses below.
"Even if the Pope came to visit Korea, it wouldn't be this crazy."
What an impressive scene. No doubt about it—truly striking. Countless corpses staggered around, twisting their bodies like junkies high on drugs.
"But don't those things rot at all?"
"They're not just regular corpses."
In truth, if their flesh decayed like normal bodies, Harbin would probably be littered with nothing but white bone fragments rolling around by now. It doesn't take long for a corpse left at room temperature to start rotting.
"They really don't seem to have any proper reason or intelligence."
I gave a simple reply to No-hun's comment.
"Nanami's radar might not pick up every single one..."
As I trailed off, I spotted a corpse in the corner of a distant sidewalk. It shuddered violently, letting out a grating grraaaaaah!
The corpse trembled like it had been electrocuted, then exploded with a boom, spraying sharp bone shards and rotten flesh in all directions.
"It blew up."
"Yeah."
The blast wiped out everything within about five meters of the epicenter. Calling it a walking grenade seemed about right.
"If we'd just charged in blindly..."
"To put it bluntly, this place is a beehive, and we're the hornets."
I could handle thousands of these things no problem. But we'd hit a snag.
"The exploding part is the issue."
Just rushing in and having them blow up one after another would be seriously dangerous. The bone shards scattering from the blasts were bad enough, but the sticky rotten flesh spreading plague-like energy was plenty threatening too.
"We need to figure out what sets them off."
For starters, since that one had detonated on its own out of nowhere, these corpses seemed inherently unstable to begin with.
Like nitroglycerin—explodes from the slightest shock?
I said that, then casually raised my hand toward No-hun. He was about to say something but shut his mouth immediately.
I sensed mana. Dank, humid mana—the perfect kind for controlling corpses like these.
It was searching for us. Far more precise and refined than Nanami's radar.
"But fooling it isn't hard."
I analyzed the magic faster than it could locate us.
"It's tracking body heat."
Not some scholarly breakdown, of course. I'm no mage. But you don't need to understand programming to play a game, right?
I instantly wrapped Paradox Flame around my body and No-hun's, burning away the heat radiating from us.
At the same time, I traced the magic's flow back to its source.
"Underground."
I muttered it while staring at the ground. Whoever it was, they were operating from below.
No idea why these corpse-puppeteering freaks always loved sewers and graveyards—places dripping with gloom.
If you're slinging dark magic anyway, at least do it somewhere bright and cheery. Might keep you from going insane.
Summoning undead in a luxury hotel suite wouldn't make them disobey, after all.
"Good thing it's getting careless."
I'd noticed it before, back when dealing with whatever had possessed So-hwi's body. Any of these monsters with a shred of intelligence tended to underestimate humanity.
They figured our mana comprehension was low.
And they weren't entirely wrong. Hell, I'd compared the shield generator I hauled across Siberia to some ancient pottery pattern.
But the guy standing here now had spent ages in a dog-eat-dog world, relying solely on mana to bulldoze through every mess imaginable.
I'd bet my life that my mana knowledge outstripped most intelligent monsters—higher, not lower. I turned to No-hun.
"So, you're sure about that gear's performance?"
He glanced at his bracelet and nodded.
"It's reliable. Saved my ass and taken lives more times than I can count."
No-hun's bracelet granted him a top-down overview, like a minimap. Even if enemies hid behind cover, he could spot them clearly through the bird's-eye view it provided.
"You're the key this time."
Stationed at Harbin's Longta Tower, No-hun would use his sharp eyes and the bracelet to serve as our overwatch tower.
"Got it. They won't spot me."
"It'll be tough, but give it your best."
If the enemy wasn't an idiot, they'd eventually notice our movements were too coordinated.
No telling how smart the thing lurking underground was, but if it sensed something off, it might scour Harbin for intruders.
With that, we started moving again. The roads were clogged with zombies like arteries hardened by atherosclerosis, so we leaped between buildings.
"Looks like a brute-force type."
No elaborate undead in sight—just disposable cannon fodder, made for one use and tossed.
Probably exceptions were the ones guarding its underground lair.
"Chan-seok. What do you think the thing controlling them is?"
"How should I know?"
"You know everything."
"That's the problem."
Knowing a lot meant a lot of possibilities to consider.
Could be a lich, or just a necromancer. Demon, maybe...
"Sometimes I think it's wild... but curiosity's got nothing on cash, so here I am."
Sang-ah just wasn't big on other people. I'd picked my travel buddies well.
Once the underground lurker failed to detect us with magic, it didn't make another move. No-hun and I reached our target—Harbin's Longta Tower—without issue.
"Tall one."
At the summit, I scanned the surroundings. Even I had a great view from up here.
With No-hun's eyesight and bracelet, there'd be no blind spots in Harbin.
"If all these undead are controlled by something..."
While he drew eyes from outside, we could slip underground fast and take out the controller. High chance of success.
Of course, killing the puppet master wouldn't turn the swarming undead to ash.
But they'd lose coordination. No matter the numbers, they were shoddy rush jobs. Without orders, mowing them down would be easy.
Then we could set up the outpost to Jaun Valley as planned.
"Reinforcements arrive tomorrow. Hold out till then, hidden cam."
"What kinda nickname is that?"
We couldn't get spotted. Hidden cam fit. No-hun started camouflaging immediately. He'd probably go days without sleep.
I coated him with Paradox Flame to mask his presence, then hurried to prep my exit from Harbin.
—Finally found you. Knew something was off.
After distancing myself from Longta Tower, crossing a bridge over the river on Harbin's outskirts, I heard that voice.
I whipped around to see a massive arm swinging at me. I leaned back, dodging, and retreated a step.
"What the hell? Some kinda fiddler crab?"
The attacking corpse had one grotesquely oversized right arm—bigger than its own height.
Reminded me of a fiddler crab, famous for one enormous claw.
"Not the main body, huh."
—No need to take risks.
I snorted. Risks or not...
The undead was sloppy. If this was its best effort, the controller wasn't that strong.
Very encouraging. Meant no real threats in Harbin proper—at least none to tense up over.
—I study the end of life.
"Sure you do."
Not at a high level, though. Quantity of undead didn't mean skill.
I'd seen plenty of mana-rich idiots. This one yapping through a corpse's mouth was the same breed.
Researcher? More like a hack scholar padding with footnotes scavenged from dumpsters—no real thesis.
The fiddler crab ragdoll in front of me was exactly that caliber. But no point fighting hard here and alerting it.
Reinforcements would hit Harbin soon enough. We could go all-out then.
So...
"Nice weather. Think I'll head out."
Time to bail. I gave a parting wave and bolted. Not full sprint—just enough to barely outpace the shoddy ragdoll.
I escaped leisurely, and as expected, it couldn't keep up. Conquering Harbin seemed easier than I'd thought.
"This'll make things safer for No-hun too."
I updated him via in-ear comms with the rundown.
—Sounds good. It'll think it chased off the suspicious guy for good.
"Yeah. Comfort yourself with that if you want. You're the one who'll die if it goes south."
—Such sweet talk. Gonna make me swoon, you bastard.
No-hun cut the line. He'd report his status to the Gull Team periodically from now on.
Back with the advance group near Harbin, I turned to Sang-ah.
"Reinforcements?"
"Joining before dawn tomorrow."
"Good. Let's wrap this up quick."
Nanami replied.
"Seems easier than expected?"
I nodded at her.
"Tons of undead, and they explode—but they're pathetically crude."
With reinforcements, we could sweep them clean like tossing brush into a bonfire.
"What if there's a wildcard?"
I nodded again. Fights always had variables.
"Unless it's external, no wildcards in our current hand."
"External factors. Like what?"
Only one came to mind.
"Immortal Legion."
Nanami made a vague face.
"I know they're prowling the area, but... China's a big place."
Not super likely. But not impossible.
"Truth is, we still don't know why the Immortal Legion—supposed to be napping in Beijing—is roaming around here."
If Harbin was part of the reason? Then we'd inevitably crash into them—not by bad luck like getting hit by a truck, but guaranteed.
"So, secure escape routes for contingencies."
Finishing a winnable war is easy. Escaping a losing one with minimal losses? Brutally hard.
If the Immortal Legion showed, only a few could handle them: me, Sang-ah, No-hun... maybe Nanami's long-range barrages on top.