Chapter 139
[Title: Spooky Rift Size...jpg]
(GIF of a rift that swallowed half a village)
I went there after steeling myself for the worst,
but I never imagined it would be this huge.
You can see the rift from an absurd distance away.
I know because I've been dispatched to Rondel Village several times to check on it, but this is where there should've been a forest and buildings.
(GIF of a dirt road that has completely vanished)
The rift just appeared and swallowed everything.
[Upvotes 8950] [Downvotes 12]
- It's the end of the world, yeah.
- I was going to make a joke, but this is serious.
- Isn't this, objectively speaking, the scale of a Great War?
ㄴ If that many fiends come out when the wave breaks, then yeah, it's possible.
ㄴ Fuck, my life has already had two Great Wars in it lol.
It was a post uploaded by a knight order dispatched from Adrian to investigate the incident.
By then, the rift had already swallowed half the village.
They had even observed the fiends that emerged first transforming the surrounding area to suit the rift's environment.
Terraforming had begun.
[Title: Seriously, Can This Be Stopped?]
(GIF of four stones completed in Omok)
Fuck, I was in the middle of a game. What the hell is this?
If this had been before the Great War, maybe, but with Adrian's current military strength, it's 100% impossible.
No, even if we stop it, the empire is obviously going to be reduced to ruins. What are we supposed to do?
[Upvotes 410] [Downvotes 2]
- Aren't there any nearby countries that can help?
ㄴ The Kingdom of Kellierton and the Republic of Frontia.
ㄴ Both of them are pretty reliable.
ㄴ Head Mod made them into superpowers, remember?
ㄴ But aren't they on bad terms? Would they actually gather and cooperate?
- But this is something everyone needs to come together for without worrying about measuring the odds.
ㄴ Yeah, if we start calculating angles like before, this time it'll really be the end of the world.
ㄴ You fucking elf bastards, don't sit this one out.
ㄴ (Reading the room... elf emote)
ㄴ It'd be hard even if everyone gathered to stop it now.
The mood of the post naturally turned serious.
There had never been anything like this before.
Judging from what I knew of the situation in each country, if a wave broke from a rift that size...
“Adrian's going to get shut down.”
This wasn't a joke. It looked like the empire would be destroyed.
If we just watched, the entire village of Rondel might undergo externalization.
Unlike usual, when I opened the market first, I decided to bring out my hidden card immediately.
The being I'd promised help to in exchange for sharing blood,
and one of the joker cards I could play in a crisis.
Head Mod*: Hey.
Vampire Till I Die: Yeah.
Vampire Till I Die: I'm already here.
Vampire Till I Die: (GIF of the ruined Rondel Forest)
Head Mod*: Nice.
It was the sub-moderator, Vampire Till I Die.
*
A massive rift had appeared on the outskirts of Adrian.
Normally, a rift would erupt into a wave only after a long time had passed since its creation.
But this rift had drawn every fiend in the area to it the moment it appeared.
As if they were guarding the rift.
-Slash!
A fiend's head flew through the air.
The blood splattered across Erzsébet's body and stuck wetly to her clothes.
“Disgusting.”
Though she was a vampire who went crazy for blood, her palate was a little—no, very—picky.
She dealt in nothing but Head Mod's blood.
She had become so refined that she didn't even look twice at the blood of fiends like these anymore.
“I want to finish quickly and get my reward.”
That way, she could restore her image with Head Mod.
Hadn't she once lost her reason after being entranced by the scent of Head Mod's blood, then kidnapped and imprisoned him?
She needed to build up her affinity stacks while she had the chance.
“Then... I can...”
You never knew.
Maybe she could live in Head Mod's house with him, like that succubus or demon.
-Slash!
Another head flew into the sky.
One head with every swing of her scythe.
She had no special area-of-effect skills or magic, but her abilities were specialized for one-on-one combat.
With overwhelming attack power and regenerative ability, it was difficult for anyone to defeat her one-on-one.
The problem was that there were too many fiends here.
“Kieeeek!”
“Kyaaah!”
Her strength had immediately become her weakness.
The fiends swarmed Erzsébet from every direction in sheer numbers.
-Wham!
A fiend's long, blade-like claw pierced through Erzsébet's shoulder.
Her scythe stopped for a moment, and her body swayed violently.
Just as the fiends were about to grin broadly, certain of their victory,
“Wak!”
“Kiek?!”
“Surprised?”
Erzsébet suddenly turned around, her face expressionless.
The fiend whose claw had snapped off in the recoil saw it.
The inside of Erzsébet's mouth, gaping wide as it came toward its face.
-Crunch!
“Ptooey! Tastes awful...”
She wouldn't die even if her body was pierced, even if her heart was pierced.
She was practically immortal.
She had successfully suppressed the fiends' influence by herself, but that was all.
“...There are too many.”
There were simply too many of them.
No matter how many she killed, enough to bathe in blood, they never seemed to end.
At this rate, they would only be locked in an endless standoff.
Erzsébet was looking around at the fiends with a troubled expression and wondering what to do when—
-Bang!
With a refreshing gunshot, one of the fiends charging at her went flying.
“Huh?”
She tilted her head at the sudden gunshot and turned around.
Somehow, hulking figures dressed as crows had approached from behind her.
“Hello, blue scab.”
“Gallery Doctors?”
Weren't they the doctors who had once saved a city from a plague under Head Mod's command?
Erzsébet tilted her head, then realized.
There were bombs at the Gallery Doctors' waists, shotguns in their hands, and all sorts of market-bought weapons as well.
“Could it be...”
“That's right. I became a full-time employee. My salary is stable.”
They had gone beyond being performance-based Gallery Doctor temps and had officially been hired by Head Mod.
“And I also love Head Mod.”
The Gallery Doctors had become full-time employees.
*
It was something I'd thought about every day.
“Creating a unit armed with modern weapons.”
Honestly, it was something I'd wanted to try at least once in a medieval world.
The problem was controlling them.
I needed people I could command and handle like units, people who wouldn't betray me.
But people were selfish.
Where could there possibly be an individual—or, for that matter, a group—that would follow and devote itself so thoroughly for someone else's sake...
“Could such a thing exist?”
There was.
Aside from the cathedral and the Head Mod devotees who worshiped me as a god.
Someone who would believe in me and follow me without being fanatical...
Excellentdoc: Mr. Head Mod, did you call me?
The Gallery Doctors.
“Firepower? Plenty.”
To qualify as Gallery Doctors, most of them were former knights or skilled mercenary captains.
“And they'll follow my orders.”
I only added a base wage according to the minimum hourly rate and a performance bonus system, but they followed my orders as if their lives depended on it.
On top of that, I had a perfect safety device.
Dragon Dragon Will Die: This is the scroll you asked for. It takes effect the moment you sign it.
Dragon Dragon Will Die: It's difficult to make anything stronger than this, but...
Head Mod*: Thanks, this is enough.
[Scroll of the Dragon Queen]
It possesses an effect more powerful than any other scroll.
Only an entity more powerful than the Dragon Queen can ignore the contract.
I even had solid insurance.
Of course, the problem was who would willingly sign a contract that put their life up as collateral.
Head Mod*: A base pay of 5,000 gyeongdan and—
Excellentdoc: What do you require? I will perform anything.
Head Mod*: I haven't finished speaking yet.
He accepted the full-time contract before I could even finish speaking.
That was how I acquired five Gallery Doctors.
“Is that too few?”
But things were different if they were armed with modern weapons.
Of course, with so few of them, I couldn't use them recklessly...
[Title: Head Mod, Please Save Me!]
(GIF of a pig-human chasing someone)
Please save me, I don't want to die yet, seriously, please.
[Upvotes 2] [Downvotes 0]
- Isn't that far from Rondel?
- Are there no hunters nearby?
ㄴ Author) Everyone's busy stopping what came out of the rifts.
ㄴ Author) They're so busy right now that—ah.
ㄴ ㄴㄴ Stop replying and just run for now;
ㄴ Seriously, you need to survive to leave replies.
“They're more than enough to clean up a rift.”
An armored soldier from the medieval era was like a god.
Of course, that was only a hypothesis.
It was time to test whether it was actually true.
*
-Bang!
“Squeee!”
The hulking pig-human fiend that had charged at them became a pig/man right where it stood.
Medieval armored soldiers really were gods.
The moment they joined Vampire Till I Die, who had been struggling because of the numbers, the front line tilted dramatically.
- Wow lol, what a relief.
- This isn't a war, it's just a massacre game lol.
- Wow, they really look like knights of God.
ㄴ Seriously, ten out of ten for style.
Covered from head to toe in thick steel plates and wearing crow masks, they advanced.
With a single twitch of a finger, they took several lives.
“Squeee...”
Even emotionless fiends could do nothing but flee in fear.
[Title: Upvote If Head Mod's Knights Are Fucking Reliable lol]
(GIF of pig fiends ambushing after lying in wait)
(GIF of fiends attacking in overwhelming numbers)
We have to win!!!!!
(GIF of a Gallery Doctor clicking one finger)
(GIF of what used to be a pig fiend)
Lmaooooo
[Upvotes 8591] [Downvotes 1]
- I hit upvote 100 times.
- I'm a pig fiend, and this is true.
ㄴ Pig fiends don't talk like that.
- Darian) ...
ㄴ An unchosen dragon bro gets an upvote.
ㄴ Come to think of it, couldn't we just send a hero?
ㄴ If we send Hero Man, he'll start a massacre and Head Mod will be screaming, yeah.
ㄴ If we send this bastard, the fiends won't even be the problem lol. I'd be scared too if I were Head Mod.
Vampire Till I Die: I'll help too.
A chat came from Vampire Till I Die at that moment.
Looking through the screen, I could see Vampire Till I Die fidgeting as she watched the Gallery Doctors.
She looked anxious, or perhaps disappointed.
“Do you want to hunt fiends that badly?”
I couldn't understand why she kept glancing at the screen, but I shook my head.
“But do you really need to?”
Gunpowder had entered a war fought with cold weapons.
There was nothing left for Vampire Till I Die to do.
Besides, though she never even blinked, it was true that she still got wounded here and there.
“If a one-on-one fight opens up, you can step in then.”
Stepping in front of the guns might only get in their way.
Head Mod*: No, it's fine.
Vampire Till I Die: R-Really? But...
Head Mod*: If you get hurt fighting for no reason, it'll hurt. You've worked hard all this time, so rest in the back.
I phrased “You aren't needed right now, so go sit on the bench” as politely as possible.
Vampire Till I Die's body seemed to twitch slightly, and then her eyes began to shine brightly.
I turned my gaze away and watched the standoff—or rather, the one-sided massacre.
“This is refreshing.”
“One-person army” was exactly the right phrase.
Living sheets of steel.
Massive barricades carrying guns continued advancing at a steady pace.
It was impossible to imagine the tide turning here.
- Come on~ bring out the fiends~
- We deserve a reward for destroying the village, right?
- How the hell are they going to stop that? Lmao.
- But what if a fiend gets Head Mod's grand magic and a gun? What happens then?
ㄴ Huh?
ㄴ ???
That was when one bizarre comment caught my eye.
“A fiend with a gun?”
Intelligent fiends had begun appearing recently, but I'd never really thought about it.
Still, spending time on pointless hypotheticals like that was exactly what gallery browsing was about.
It was like arguing over vomit-flavored tomatoes versus tomato-flavored vomit.
“Hmm...”
What if fiends, which were physically superior to humans by nature, started using modern weapons?
“Then they'd probably lose, right?”
I didn't know for sure, but I couldn't imagine them winning easily.
Maybe the atmosphere would change completely from what it was now.
But it was only a delusion.
Just as I was about to dismiss it as a ridiculous hypothetical, I suddenly remembered the shotgun I'd given an established user.
“Right, I need to find that too.”
Part of deploying the Gallery Doctors was finding the shotgun whose owner had disappeared.
Modern weapons were like Excalibur in a medieval world—except they weren't stuck in a stone.
It would be better to eliminate even the slightest threat.
Head Mod*: Ah, while you're restoring the village, if the shotgun is nearby, find that too.
I was just about to mention it to Excellentdoc once more when—
-Bang!
Another gunshot rang out.
“...Huh?”
The strange part was that it hadn't come from the Gallery Doctors, but from directly behind them.
‘There shouldn't be a Gallery Doctor behind them.’
Just as I began to think something was wrong,
Excellentdoc, who had been responding to my chat, suddenly staggered violently.