Chapter 54: Busy, So Busy (2)

Chapter 54: Busy, So Busy (2) At the same time that the Lord Subjugation Team engaged the monsters, the Altar Destruction Team also began their battle. The subgroup led by Kim Ki-Rok was first to encounter enemies. However, there was something... a bit different about his team compared to the others. Swooooosh! An arrow pierced through the head of a gnoll[1]that had been patrolling through the area ahead. "So you're even able to use a bow and arrow, Guildmaster." "That's the result of hard work." Kim Ki-Rok chuckled. Over the course of his past seventy-six Attempts, Kim Ki-Rok had trained with various weapons in order to find one that he had the talent to master. What was the result? He had absolutely no talent. Despite training like his life depended on it, his highest weapon skill was A-Class at best. He couldn't reach S-Class with a single weapon. Still, thanks to all that effort, he was now able to handle all sorts of weapons with great skill. He wasn't a true master, but at least he was well-practiced. After spotting the surrounding monsters rushing over toward the gnoll's corpse, Kim Ki-Rok fired another arrow. Kim Ki-Rok shouted, "Let's break!" Whooosh! Splat! A second monster was struck clean in the head, dropping in a single hit. Simultaneously, three out of the four guild members by his side lunged forward. The last one stayed back to prepare an ability called Earth Control, which allowed him to manipulate earth itself. Spears formed out of the earth trailed after the three who charged, sneak-attacking the monsters from their blind spots. Startled, four monsters collapsed in a flash. Watching all of them fall, Kim Ki-Rok drew back his bowstring again. Swiiiiish! Splat! Yiipe! A black wolf perched on a rooftop to their right got skewered through the head quite accurately. From the same stance in which he had released the arrow, Kim Ki-Rok swiftly discarded the bow, drew the sword at his waist, and swung it, all in one fluid motion. In what looked like a swordsmanship demonstration, he smoothly slashed the head of a wolf that had been aiming for the throat of the guild member who was still focused on directing his Earth Control. Yiiiiipe! "Ugh! Th-thank you very much." Just realizing how close he had come to dying, the earth user broke out in a cold sweat. "Just doing my job." Kim Ki-Rok waved it off with his free hand as if it was no big deal, then pulled out a dagger from his belt and threw it. Another wolf, dashing in from an alley, got a blade right between the eyes, flipping midair from its own momentum and falling as though it had been shot in a movie. Kim Ki-Rok identified the monsters. "These are contaminated Bloody Wolves. Is there anyone wounded here?" The guild members had gathered back up after eliminating all the monsters, looking perplexed at his question. "Wounded...?" one of them asked. "It doesn't matter if it's just a very small wound. Is anyone bleeding even a little?" Kim Ki-Rok asked once more. "U-uh, earlier I bit my lip. Does that count as a wound?" asked a sword-wielding guild member, who frowned worriedly. "Yes, it does. Bloody Wolves have an extraordinary sense of smell that is dozens of times stronger than a normal wolf's, five times that of other wolf-type monsters. Their senses must have become even stronger after being contaminated by dark mana. Hmmm..." Kim Ki-Rok looked around and let out a sigh. Thump, thump, thump, thump! Those were not human footsteps, but animal footsteps. It may have been too late, but still better late than never. Kim Ki-Rok took a wound recovery potion from his subspace pocket and held it out to the guild member. "Drink half and apply the other half to the wound." The guild member weakly protested, "But isn't this an intermediate potion?" "The monsters will keep rushing over after smelling your blood. If we can deter some of the monsters from acting with just an intermediate potion, it will be worth it. So go ahead and take it." "R-right." The guild member quickly downed half the potion and dabbed the rest on his lip. The faintly red tinge of blood instantly vanished. However, the stampede of the wolves was still approaching without any pause. A guild member frowned. "Why can we still hear the footsteps of the wolves, even though we've already treated the wound?" A Hunter covered in wolf blood raised his hand and spoke, "Uhh... could it be that they're getting drawn in after smelling the blood of their own kind?" Glancing between the ground stained a dark red-brown and the Earth Control user spattered by wolf blood, Kim Ki-Rok quickly ran to one of the buildings behind them. Boooom! Kim Ki-Rok kicked the door open and entered the building, giving instructions to the guild members who had quickly followed him in. "Based on the situation, I'm guessing that the only monsters still left in this area are the Bloody Wolves who are able to use their sense of smell to stalk their prey. So let's quickly clean them up and go destroy the altar." "Yes, sir." His guild members all nodded in agreement. Kim Ki-Rok had chosen to enter the building as part of a tactic to restrict the enemy's line of attack to one point, allowing them to deal with incoming monsters one by one. The guild members immediately grasped the plan, taking up positions around the entrance. From those distant dark alleyways, dozens of Bloody Wolves emerged, accompanied by bursts of flame from the traps[2] that the Hunters had left in their wake. Boooom! Kim Ki-Rok and the four members of his group got ready to intercept the pack of wolves that came charging at them with furious howls. *** A minor oversight had now grown into a big hassle. Yet ironically, it helped the other squads immensely. The Bloody Wolves vanished from the rest of the region. With no top-tier sniffing monsters left, the other squads found it far easier to reach each altar. The Magus Fief was surrounded by the Forest of Monsters in every direction, aside from the road to the north. Naturally, this meant that the Hunters had to venture into the forest if they wanted to reach the altars. There were two to the east, one to the west, and one to the south. Kim Ki-Rok's group had moved south while Lee Ji-Yeon's group moved west. Sumihara Shina and Jessica led their groups to the east. "It might be because the Bloody Wolves were drawn off, but this is easier than I thought it would be," Lee Ji-Yeon said optimistically. The other groups had already heard over the radio that Kim Ki-Rok's group had been surrounded by the Bloody Wolves. "Excuse me, but shouldn't we go and help the Guildmaster?" Sumihara tentatively raised the question as they moved east. Jessica gave her a puzzled look. "Help the Guildmaster? Why?" "Because... numbers matter, right? A big swarm can overwhelm even the best..." Jessica, seeming puzzled by something, asked just in case, "Haven't you ever sparred with the Guildmaster, Shina?" "Sparred? I haven't..." "Ah." Jessica gave a knowing nod. The rest of their squad, excluding Sumihara, all agreed with her. "Our Guildmaster isn't exceptionally skilled in anything, but..." Jessica hesitated, unsure how to explain it. Sumihara gasped. "Which means we should definitely help him—" "But he's good at everything." "Huh...?" "I said, he's good at everything," Jessica repeated herself. "The Guildmaster said during our spar that while he's not a master of anything in particular, he's at least proficient at every weapon." The Hunters who had sparred with Kim Ki-Rok nodded vigorously. "I managed to push him back with my sword, but then he suddenly switched to a spear and defeated me easily." "He fought me with a spear before switching back to dual wielding." "We were having a sword duel and I was suddenly on the ground from his shoulder throw. Totally caught me off guard." "I thought that I was fighting against an actual assassin. Just, whoa! Two daggers slicing in from my blind spot... I had zero time to react." A series of vivid testimonies poured forth, spoken with obvious exasperation. Patting Sumihara on her shoulder, Jessica took the lead once more. "There you have it. Don't worry about him. If it's the Guildmaster, he'll be able to handle it easily. We should focus on destroying the altar instead, before it's too late." *** Thunk! Yipe! Kim Ki-Rok rammed his spear right through one Bloody Wolf's jaws. Letting the spear go, he pulled three daggers out of his subspace and held them between the fingers of one hand. He flung them all at once, targeting wolves that had smashed through the building's window.Two of the blades managed to find their targets, each slamming into a wolf's eye and lodging deep into their brains. Having defeated two Bloody Wolves in an instant, Kim Ki-Rok reached into his subspace pocket once more. His hand came back gloved, and when mana was infused into it, a glowing blade popped out from the back of his hand. "Look, I'm Adun Toridas[3]," Kim Ki-Rok said, striking a pose. "No, Guildmaster, you look nothing like him," a guild member complained, holding back laughter. Kim Ki-Rok just raised a brow. "Oh, I don't?" "No, definitely not," the guild member insisted, shaking his head. They were joking around even though the Bloody Wolves had them surrounded. Oddly enough, it helped the guild members shake off their feelings of despair. A measure of calm replaced their fear, letting them stay composed in the fight. After observing his guild members' renewed focus, Kim Ki-Rok manifested a potent mana blade that, while high in mana consumption, boasted cutting power and durability in equal measure. As he charged back into the fight, Kim Ki-Rok suddenly shouted, "Ah, I remember now!" Remember what? Kim Ki-Rok called out in a corny voice, "Issho Kyurangers![4]" "Puhahaha!" Even though a seemingly endless number of Bloody Wolves were closing in on them, the guild members couldn't help but laugh. Being too tense could hamper their performance, but being too relaxed might make them prone to simple mistakes, so Kim Ki-Rok warned, "All right, everyone. Eyes front, let's concentrate!" "Roger that!" "Fighting!" Seizing a brief lull in the wolves' advance, Kim Ki-Rok took a step back and pulled out another weapon from his subspace pocket—a pair of crossbows, one for each hand. He aimed at the left and right windows, then pulled both triggers. The Bloody Wolves that had just shattered those windows in an attempt to break in, but were impaled by the bolts as they lunged. They tumbled mid-jump and slid across the floor with the leftover momentum. Kim Ki-Rok kicked the corpse of a Bloody Wolf that had come to a stop at his feet. Although the corpse was much larger than that of a normal wolf, it flew through the air like a soccer ball and slammed into another wolf attempting to leap through the broken window. This bought him a bit of time, but it wasn't enough time for him to reload his crossbows. The crossbow was both easy to use and powerful, but reloading it was incredibly slow. However, such a drawback did not pose any problems to Kim Ki-Rok. He simply stored the fired crossbows back into his subspace pocket and took out another pair of loaded ones, surveying the situation outside the building. "Twenty-two Bloody Wolves left." A brief lull washed over the fight, but perhaps it was just the calm before the storm. Kraaaargh! A deafening crash echoed out as the rear wall collapsed. As expected of these wolves that possessed innate hunting skills, they had clearly identified the structural weakness. Like tidal waves, the Bloody Wolves surged in through the front door, the breach in the wall behind them, and the broken windows. If things continued at this rate, there would be no way for them to escape. Holding up inside the building might have seemed like a fatal mistake, but Kim Ki-Rok already had another plan in place. Dashing to one corner of the room, he called out, "Mr. Ji-Tae!" At once, Han Ji-Tae used Earth Control just as Kim Ki-Rok had previously instructed him to.Hundreds of short and slender thorns made of earth erupted from the floor. The five Bloody Wolves leading the charge toppled, run through by multiple thorns each. They lay there unmoving, having already suffered fatal wounds. Sensing something strange, the rest halted in alarm. However, hungry wolves rarely gave up with their prey right in front of them. More leaped into the air with their fangs bared, aiming for the Hunters' throats. By this point, Kim Ki-Rok had already pulled out the safety pin of a grenade from his subspace pocket. He threw it into the air and infused mana into an artifact on his left arm. He activated the artifact with a shout. "Shield!" Voooosh! Outside of the dome-shaped shield that was now protecting Kim Ki-Rok and his group, the grenade detonated, engulfing the entire building with flames and shrapnel. 1. A hyena-like humanoid known for its aggressive and unpredictable nature. ☜ 2. The original text doesn't explain where these flames come from, and none of the guild members in Kim Ki-Rok's party are described as having fire-based abilities, so it is assumed that they come from Hunters' traps. ☜ 3. A character from the Starcraft franchise who wields a green power claw as his weapon. ☜ 4. In the "Kyurangers" generation of Power Rangers, their transformation item comes in the form of a gauntlet, which Kim Ki-Rok's glove somewhat resembles. ☜