Chapter 79: Solo-Quad. Surrounded on All Sides
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 79: Solo-Quad. Surrounded on All Sides
Seo-un read the unspoken hesitation in Jin Long’s expression and explained calmly.
“As I mentioned before, our greatest strength is mobility. We’re short on numbers compared to the other squads, and to make matters worse, our main force consists of martial artists. Both you and I are weak when it comes to magic.”
Seo-un was a 4th Circle Mage in name only. It was embarrassing to even claim the title when his repertoire consisted of a mere two 1st Circle spells and a single 4th Circle spell. Jin Long, who had only learned a single 3rd Circle Barrier, had no grounds to argue.
“That may be true, but with so many players bound to swarm the buff monsters, is there really a need to move In-Circle with our competitors? We’ve just managed to pull back to the rear. We’re already quite close to our target destination; moving back In-Circle doesn’t seem very efficient.”
Jin Long’s point was valid in its own way.
They had spent half a day risking their lives to move Out-Circle by predicting the movements of other players. Moving back In-Circle now could easily look like they were just being jerked around by circumstances.
“Think of it as flexible play. We aren’t being swayed by variables; we’re utilizing our mobility to exploit them.”
Seo-un was quite skilled in the art of persuasion, and the naive Jin Long was quickly won over.
The idea that they weren't being dragged around by new variables, but rather moving proactively and taking a challenging approach to use those variables, made Seo-un’s words sound appealing. It wasn't just because Jin Long was gullible.
“Then will the Out-Circle movement be the same as the In-Circle one?”
“Of course not. Unlike when we were pulling back, we’ll have to be cautious. Most players won’t even dream of approaching an Epic Monster with a terrifying difficulty level like the Nascent Soul. It seems safest to take a detour and approach the Epic Monster while staying as far away from the buff monsters as possible.”
Once the decision was made, they acted quickly.
After rapidly farming consumables and useful items, the two began to move, adjusting their route.
For several days, they continued their journey, moving by night and camping during the day in spots with clear visibility to minimize the chance of encountering other players. The strategy worked well; they didn't run into a single player for the past few days.
While they took turns resting during the day, Seo-un always kept the map open, watching the Nascent Soul’s movement path and trying to find a pattern.
Three days after the seal had been broken, not a single player had been hunted by the Nascent Soul.
They must have realized by now that the Nascent Soul is an unkillable mob.
It was pathetic that it took them three days to figure that out, but he predicted that no one would dare linger near the Nascent Soul from now on.
From now on, we just need to hold out near it as long as possible without causing an Add.
If they continued at this pace for another week, they would reach their destination where the Epic Monster would be within sight.
At midday, Seo-un was standing watch and observing the Nascent Soul’s behavioral patterns while Jin Long took a nap after finishing his energy circulation. Suddenly, something moving in the distance caught his eye.
Jin Long sprang up and scanned the surroundings.
In a forest about a kilometer away, two players dressed in black were moving cautiously, keeping a sharp eye on their surroundings.
Jin Long, who now habitually relied on Seo-un for all orders, asked. Seo-un made a quick judgment and replied.
Two hundred paces would put them at the edge of the forest where they were currently resting. Seo-un pulled out a monocular and carefully observed the two players. His eyes narrowed.
Black clothes, black combat boots, tactical helmets, and black rifles that looked like they belonged in the modern world—it was clear to anyone that these were players from Earth.
The two scouters scanned the area for a long time before slowly advancing. Behind them, eight more players began to emerge from the forest, maintaining their distance.
Jin Long narrowed his eyes as he looked through the monocular Seo-un had handed him.
Seo-un shook his head. Jin Long looked at him with surprise. Usually, Seo-un seemed obsessed with racking up kills whenever he saw an enemy.
Jin Long nodded, a look of slight admiration on his face.
Jin Long spoke his mind bluntly. He had been thinking about how Seo-un always analyzed objective situations calmly and made quick decisions.
If it were him, he would have first looked for a way to attack, fueled by the grudge against enemies who had ambushed them once before. But in Seo-un’s judgment, profit, loss, and advantage came before emotion.
After confirming the enemy squad had moved away, the two returned to their original spot and took turns resting.
‘Survivors.’
1098/2000
.
.
.
Zhou Ren --> Xing-hats (Kill by Fist Qi.)
After finishing his rest and starting to move, Seo-un tilted his head as he checked the survivor list.
The number of players hasn't decreased as much as I expected.
The buff monsters weren't being hunted, and strangely, the player count wasn't dropping.
Nam Sa-gwang was blinded by the buff mobs and rushed toward them like a madman...
The fact that the player count wasn't decreasing meant that fights weren't breaking out. In a situation where the force field was shrinking every day, a lack of combat was not a natural phenomenon. Furthermore, it was strange that the overconfident Nam Sa-gwang was still waiting around the buff mobs.
Has the variable known as the Nascent Soul made the players shrink back?
He settled his thoughts there and continued moving.
It was only after ten days of avoiding enemies that Jin Long and Seo-un were finally able to see the Nascent Soul from a distance.
Through the monocular, the Nascent Soul appeared as an elderly man with a long beard reaching down to his Dantian. His form was human, but he emitted a blue light that made it hard to believe he was actually a person.
The fly-whisk in his hand and the clothes he wore were made of a blue light so brilliant they were indistinguishable from his skin, as if a human shape had been carved out of pure light.
“They said he was made of Immortal Qi. Seeing him in person, he truly lives up to the reputation.”
The figure walked aimlessly with his hands behind his back, sometimes looking up at the sky or sitting on the ground staring blankly at the earth. He looked so relaxed that he almost seemed like an old man out for a stroll.
Seo-un turned his head at the ripple of mana. Through his monocular, he saw a full squad charging toward them like madmen from not too far away.
Mages and knights gliding on air boards, and enemies using lightness skills while kicking up dust—Seo-un tucked away his monocular as he watched them approach.
“How did they find us?”
“Probably Carmen’s Eye. It’s a troublesome spell.”
The two, remaining calm even in the face of the charging players, curled their lips and ran toward the Nascent Soul. The pursuing squad stiffened and skidded to a halt.
The Nascent Soul’s range, as confirmed on the map, was roughly 800 meters. When the two stopped about a kilometer away from the Nascent Soul, the players chasing them glared, appearing to hesitate.
“What do you think of their mobility?”
Realizing the intent behind the question, Jin Long smiled.
“I’m confident I can outrun them easily with my lightness skill.”
Seeing them hesitate for a long while, Seo-un began to fire Pyeonjeon at them.
He had only ten magic-infused Pyeonjeon left. By the time he fired the third one, the enemies were forced to choose to retreat. With the Nascent Soul right behind them, the pressure of the Epic Monster was too much to risk approaching just to catch two people.
Half a day after the two began playing near the Nascent Soul, other players started to imitate them.
It began with a lone survivor who had been camping; he boldly took up a position far away in the exact opposite direction of the two. Following that, a three-man squad and a duo joined in, occupying the four cardinal directions around the Nascent Soul.
Seo-un curled his lips as he watched the players resting without much suspicion, perhaps feeling a false sense of camaraderie from being in the same situation despite being wary of each other.
“I didn't expect it to turn out like this.”
“Indeed.”
The two moved first toward the two-man squad nearby. When they suddenly charged with hostile intent, the enemies, who had been resting comfortably, sprang up in alarm.
It was no surprise that those two players were eliminated without being able to put up much resistance.
They forgot that being unable to enter the Nascent Soul’s range is a condition we all share. Idiots.
Once the sense of camaraderie was shattered, the remaining two squads watched each other tensely. The Solo-Quad and the Triple-Quad watched the two men leisurely farming, not knowing what to do.
Now moving clockwise, the two headed toward the lone enemy.
The lone mage, caught between the Triple-Quad if he fled one way and unable to outrun the two if he left the area entirely, was eliminated in an instant. At that moment, the three-man squad immediately turned their backs on the Nascent Soul and began to flee.
They had belatedly realized that they couldn't handle the strength of those two.
The three men running toward the distant forest were intercepted and eliminated by a squad that jumped out from the trees. It was the full squad that had first pursued Seo-un and Jin Long.
After killing the three-man squad, they began to approach Seo-un and Jin Long with relaxed expressions.
Jin Long nodded, his face hardening as he watched them approach. Seo-un clenched his fists as he watched the twenty players drawing closer.
A little more... just a little more.
A knight, who appeared to be the leader, stepped forward with a smirk when the distance closed to 30 meters.
“Thinking about it, it was simple. You guys can’t get near that Epic Monster either.”
The moment the enemies, who had approached confidently after seeing the two kill the other players, prepared to attack, Seo-un and Jin Long relaxed their stiff expressions and smiled. Then, they began to run in different directions.
— Shuaaaak! Clang!
In the midst of it, the Fist Qi Seo-un fired struck the resting Nascent Soul. It was more than enough to make the squad approaching them freeze in horror.
As Jin Long fled in one direction and Seo-un ran straight toward the enemies, everyone was momentarily paralyzed with confusion. Seo-un, too, was quite flustered. The Nascent Soul’s movement as it closed the distance was much faster than he had anticipated.
— Boom!
Seo-un, without slowing down his Gale Step, collided with the knight in the lead, swinging his Blood Bone Claw. He didn't slow down even as he defended against magic and attacks flying from all sides.
He could feel a terrifying aura, 180 degrees different from the creature's previous peaceful state, rapidly approaching from behind. If he got caught in it, he was as good as dead.
He felt sharp, burning pain in his side and back, but he finally succeeded in breaking through the squad. As he accelerated like a madman, panicked voices drifted from behind him.
“F-first, hold the formation!”
“Mages, what are you doing! Pour it on!”
— Kabaam! Whoosh!
— Slash! Argh!
The sounds of violent combat erupted, but Seo-un didn't dare look back.
Quickly escaping the scene of brutal fighting and desperate screams, Seo-un met up with Jin Long. When they focused their gaze back on the Nascent Soul, all they saw was the monster’s terrifying might as he swung his fly-whisk, splitting the last remaining mage in half.
“I-I’m glad the aggro reset.”
To be honest, he had formulated the plan with the worry that the aggro might not reset from the first attacker. It was a gamble he could take because he had experienced while fighting Kutrapa that the aggro resets once you move far enough away to leave the Epic Monster’s range on the map.
The two let out sighs of relief and watched the Nascent Soul, who had sat back down and was staring up at the sky.
Now, move already.
Whether he knew Seo-un’s heart or not, the Nascent Soul, staring idly at the sky, showed no intention of moving.
Several days passed as they lived near the Nascent Soul. Two more squads had targeted them since then, but the result was always a gruesome massacre by the Nascent Soul.
By now, they had become so accustomed to living with the Nascent Soul that they enjoyed a leisurely playstyle—one person would set up a tent further away to rest comfortably while they took turns watching the monster.
Then, a new variable appeared before them.
Thinking the Nascent Soul had suddenly started another walk like yesterday, Seo-un dashed out of the tent and turned it back into a Cube. His gaze shifted from the Nascent Soul to the players appearing in the distance.
There were so many players it was hard to count, and their numbers were steadily growing. Jin Long approached his side as they watched the players, whose numbers easily reached into the triple digits.
“Are they...?”
“I think so.”
Seo-un answered Jin Long’s question prematurely with a look of absurdity. Using his monocular, Seo-un observed them as they stirred up mana waves and drank various potions to boost their momentum. His expression hardened.
“It’s the guild bastards who were chasing us.”
Jin Long’s expression also hardened as he saw the identical tattoos on their hands, forearms, and wrists. Just then, another group of players began to appear a short distance away from them.
Seo-un’s face contorted in rage as he identified the boy standing at the very front of the massive group.
“Nam Sa-gwang!”