Chapter 37
The place we headed straight to from Incheon Airport was an industrial complex on the outskirts of Paju.
A Rolls-Royce came to a stop in a large warehouse there.
Now that I’m seeing it after getting out, this is a pretty bizarre sight.
“What are you doing? Come in.”
“Yes, sir.”
If I hadn’t been told ahead of time that this was a training facility, I would’ve thought it was just a warehouse.
The doors slid open without even the usual creaking, as if they’d been well-oiled. Astonishingly, a state-of-the-art training facility lay beyond them.
“Whoa, cameras, measurement systems... Isn’t that a German Donio product? And that one’s American...”
Every single one was the latest high-end, exorbitantly expensive equipment.
How did I know?
Somehow word had gotten out, and after I became a Hunter, catalogs from companies like these started flooding in.
Even those catalogs were full of top-of-the-line models expensive enough to make my hands shake.
“How much did you spend on all this?”
“Who knows? About a hundred billion? I used it back when I was active, then left it alone for a while. I just renovated the whole place recently.”
As expected, the Hunter world was on another level.
The world they lived in, that is.
Even though I’d entered that world now, I still couldn’t get used to it.
There probably wasn’t another industry besides the Hunter industry where you could burn a hundred billion on a private training facility and get your money’s worth.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m starting to get my combat instincts back.”
“You’re still going to the hospital, right?”
I was worried.
Given his age, he might push himself too hard clearing dungeons like he did in his prime and suffer a serious injury.
“Of course. I’m getting the full treatment every day. Add in the cost of taking care of myself now, and I’m practically running a deficit. What’s the point of earning money from dungeons?”
“You’re a rich man.”
“Exactly, so I don’t complain. Heh.”
He’d made twice as much money as I had in Hawaii to begin with, and the gap had only widened now that I’d spent trillions of won.
At that point, clearing dungeons was less about making money and more about maintaining himself.
“Anyway, what brought on this sudden urge to spar? You’ve leveled up now, and got your gear set. Feeling confident?”
“That’s part of it.”
“Oh, you little punk. I’ll have to thoroughly crush you today.”
“Go easy on me.”
“You know how new drivers don’t get into accidents at first? They get into one after about a year, once the beginner sticker’s off and they start thinking they’ve got the hang of it. I need to crush that confidence so you don’t get conceited.”
“That’s not it.”
Conceited?
Honestly, I still couldn’t believe I was going up against Zephyros.
Even though I’d been seeing him almost every day lately and he felt like some middle-aged guy, he was still one of Korea’s top Hunters.
He’d even been said to have grown younger, so he was definitely not someone I could afford to let my guard down around.
“Tch, what a bore... All right. How do we conduct the spar? Surely you’re not planning to melt me with that terrifying ability and call it a win!”
“I win if I break through your Protective Aura, and Zephyros wins if he breaks through my defense.”
“Protective Aura, huh... Fine, let’s do that.”
Protective Aura was one of the strongest defensive skills in the warrior class.
As the successor to the Clearwind Swordmaster, a class in the Aura Arts line, Zephyros could naturally use it too.
“How far can I go with the attacks?”
“Use everything you’ve got.”
“You mean I should use aura? You have a way to stop even that?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to test that first.”
“Hmm. All right.”
In terms of destructive power alone, there weren’t many things that could surpass Aura Arts.
Things like my No. 1 army were an exception, though...
Anyway, if it could stop aura to a reasonable degree, it would be an absurdly overpowered skill.
“Good. I’m ready.”
“Just a moment.”
First, I decided to try prodding it with aura (?)
After that, we’d have a real spar.
“Sacrificial Offering.”
I raised my staff and said it quietly. A message appeared.
[Please select the target for Sacrificial Offering.]
(1) Perpetuus Exomodulus
(2) Caulobacter Crescentus
(3) Magmophile
(4) Deinococcus Radiodurans
(5) Clostridium Botulinum Type A
It seemed I could use it on any of my bacterial groups.
No. 1 had the largest population, but it was also my main force, so I wasn’t too keen on sacrificing it.
That left Nos. 2 through 5...
For now, I probably wouldn’t need to deal with radiation, so No. 4 seemed the best choice. I selected it.
This was better than reverse-summoning it.
[Sacrificial Offering has been used on approximately 50.3 billion Deinococcus Radiodurans.]
Once the number passed tens of billions, any remainder below a billion was omitted from the display.
It was really starting to sink in that I was leading a massive bacterial army.
“All right, try attacking me.”
“Where and how should I attack?”
“...I don’t know?”
“......”
Now that he mentioned it, how exactly was the defense supposed to work?
If it only activated when I was in mortal danger, it’d be hard to test in a spar.
“I don’t know. I’ll aim for your neck first.”
“...You’re not going to stab me, are you?”
“If you don’t trust me, we don’t have to.”
“I-I do trust you.”
I was a little nervous, though.
I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them and stared right at Zephyros.
The sword he had drawn was wreathed in a concentrated mass of blue mana.
I could see the sword aura.
Damn, even a graze from that would kill me.
“Here I come.”
“Come on.”
Before I could react, Zephyros’s sword came flying toward my neck.
“Huh?”
Then, when it was about thirty centimeters from my neck, a message appeared.
[Sacrificial Offering blocks an attack directed at you.]
[Undead units sacrificed: approximately 1 billion.]
A billion, huh?
Didn’t seem too bad.
Now that I’d completed another step-up, that number was no burden at all.
Zephyros pulled back his sword and tilted his head.
“Something feels strange.”
“What does?”
“It felt like I stabbed something incredibly dense. There was definitely nothing there, but it felt like my sword got caught on something.”
“Hmm. Then how about testing it with a punch instead of a slash?”
A slash could be fatal even if it only grazed me, but a punch wouldn’t kill me on impact.
Ah, if he put a ton of mana into it, I guess it could.
“All right.”
Zephyros sheathed his sword and sent a mana-charged fist toward my shoulder.
Even in the worst case, that attack would only break my collarbone or something.
[Sacrificial Offering blocks an attack directed at you.]
[Undead units sacrificed: approximately 300 million.]
This time, the number sacrificed was much lower.
Zephyros’s fist couldn’t break through the space, like Zeno’s paradox.
Zephyros withdrew his fist with a hollow laugh.
“What is this? It feels like I’m bewitched.”
It seemed much more effective against blunt-force attacks than slashes or thrusts.
Even so, using a billion to block one sword-aura attack was hardly bad.
No, in terms of efficiency, it was incredible.
“Then shall we move straight on to a real spar?”
I was starting to feel pretty smug.
“...This is going to be a pain.”
Zephyros, on the other hand, looked thoroughly troubled.
The reason warriors had the advantage over mages in one-on-one combat was the mage’s weak defense.
But if I had a defensive skill this good as well, it was only natural that warriors would find me extremely troublesome.
“Still, I can’t just let you win easily and make this rookie’s head swell.”
With a grin, Zephyros assumed a fighting stance.
“Your attacks are scary, so I can’t let you have the first move...”
You have to finish your sentence!
“...!”
By the time he finished speaking, Zephyros’s sword aura was already right in front of my eyes.
His sword shot out as if he no longer cared about holding back, then stopped dead right by my brow.
[Undead units sacrificed: approximately 1.8 billion.]
1.8 billion in one hit?
I came to my senses and released No. 1.
No. 1 spread in all directions in the form of mist.
Seeing that, Zephyros instantly retreated.
Offense is the best defense.
If I made my entire territory part of my attack range, Zephyros couldn’t approach me so easily.
He’d have to set up defensive measures, like raising his Protective Aura, before he could attack.
Just as I’d expected, Zephyros could sense No. 1 with his energy perception even though it was invisible. He sighed and grumbled.
“At this rate, I can’t get in, you punk.”
“You have Protective Aura.”
“You want me to just trust my Protective Aura and go in there? I’d rather crawl into a tiger’s stomach! What kind of monster are you...”
Zephyros seemed to sense things differently when my force numbered hundreds of billions instead of just tens of billions. He sighed and pondered.
“I guess I have no choice.”
Zephyros took several steps back in an instant, raised his sword, and slashed straight down from above.
At that very moment, a sword wind made of fine aura shot out.
But he wasn’t aiming at me.
[Approximately 38 billion Perpetuus Exomodulus are swept away by a powerful flow of mana and destroyed!]
[Thanks to your powerful Control, approximately 180 billion individuals successfully resist!]
He was trying to burn away the bacterial army I’d spread around with a sword wind of aura.
Zephyros, wrapped in Protective Aura, charged straight through the opening it created.
I hurriedly pulled the surrounding bacterial army together and sent it to attack Zephyros’s Protective Aura, but he moved even faster than I could think.
With only some of my bacterial army clinging to his Protective Aura, Zephyros thrust his sword straight at my neck.
The force of a lethal strike!
Even knowing it was a spar, his ferocious attack made my blood run cold, and I gritted my teeth.
[Undead units sacrificed: approximately 9.2 billion.]
[Undead units sacrificed: approximately 11.1 billion.]
That old man Zephyros.
Just how much internal energy had he poured into it? Sacrificial Offering was destroying them in chunks of ten billion in an instant.
No. 4, with nearly 50 billion units, was almost depleted.
I guess I have no choice.
“Imperial Edict! Specialize No. 1’s traits in destroying mana barriers!”
Imperial Edict, the use effect of the ring ‘Authority of the Mad Emperor,’ my only relic-grade item.
Once every 24 hours, it could grant the undead a specific performance trait.
As my experiments so far had shown, it could even do something like this.
[Imperial Edict issued to approximately 380 billion Perpetuus Exomodulus.]
[Imperial Edict: The effect of breaking down organic/inorganic matter is temporarily reduced to 10%. The effect of destroying mana barriers is increased tenfold.]
[Edict duration: 57 minutes 30 seconds (base 30 seconds, with the 215% Control effect applied).]
Once I used that too, I could see Zephyros’s Protective Aura being worn down much faster.
Well, it was ten times faster.
And the instant his Protective Aura, which had been rapidly wearing away, broke!
[Undead units sacrificed: approximately 7.2 billion.]
[The ‘Sacrificial Offering’ skill can no longer be maintained.]
The sword, no longer held back by any resistance, grazed my neck as it passed.
Fortunately, Zephyros’s sword passed by, leaving only a faint red line.
Ah, since it was a spar and he never meant to kill me, of course he’d aimed it that way.
“Huff... huff...”
So much mana had poured out of him that white steam rose from his entire body.
Same here.
Hundreds of billions of bacterial units had been sacrificed, and at the same time...
[Mana Status]
─13%/100%
Only 13% of my mana remained.
I hadn’t reached mana exhaustion, so it was slowly filling back up through natural mana recovery, but I realized Sacrificial Offering also used quite a lot of mana.
So it wasn’t just a matter of sacrificing undead and being done with it.
“Taking hits head-on is going to be tough...”
Maybe he’d heard me mutter, because Zephyros, who’d been catching his breath for a while, came over and smacked me on the back.
“You lunatic, what are you, a tank? Why are you tanking as a mage?!”
“Well... I mean, you’re right.”
“Damn, I’m exhausted.”
“Who won?”
“You did.”
“Really?”
“You think I’m lying? Watch the recording.”
The spar had been so intense I couldn’t even tell whether I’d won, yet Zephyros had noticed that his Protective Aura had broken first.
I’d won, but it didn’t feel like a victory.
Well, probably not as bad as Zephyros felt after losing.
He sighed with a deeply troubled expression and shook his head.
“If I’d been in my prime, I would’ve lost completely. And that’s even with the reflexes you’ve helped me improve.”
“Come on, you were going easy on me.”
“A mage letting a warrior get this close is practically suicide to begin with. Put another way, if you couldn’t beat a mage at this distance... you might as well be dead.”
In one-on-one combat, and close combat at that.
I’d just barely beaten Zephyros in a spar.
I still had a long way to go, but...
It felt like my fighting style was gradually coming together.
**
Chicago, Illinois, United States.
The tallest building in the city was Kaiser Tower.
The second-tallest skyscraper in the United States.
It had originally been built by the American retailer Sears, but after several rounds of bankruptcy, it ended up in Kaiser’s hands.
The top floor was where Alexander Heinrich, the unparalleled dungeon conqueror, lived and worked.
“You called for me?”
Sophia Heinrich.
The only blood relative and heir to Kaiser, she was expected to succeed him after his son and daughter-in-law died in a dungeon.
She bowed her head with a respect she showed no one else.
“You’re here.”
“Yes, Grandfather. What is it...?”
“I heard you went to Korea. Did you get results?”
“Well...”
“Russia.”
“...Excuse me?”
“I heard he took care of that troublesome Gate in Russia.”
“Oh, that one...”
Sophia Heinrich’s face clouded with discomfort.
After hesitating for a while, she spoke cautiously.
“Of course he’s impressive, but... surely he isn’t a Hunter worth you paying that much attention to...?”
“He was, until recently. Not anymore.”
“That Gate in Russia was really that...”
Kaiser cut off Sophia, who seemed about to protest, and said firmly,
“He proved himself. He showed he was far beyond the level of a rookie... when he was only in the low twenties. Neither I nor Ahmad managed that. If someone like that isn’t special, then what is?”
“B-But... he’s so arrogant...! He was rude to me, too...”
Kaiser gave her a faint smile as she spoke without even considering her own rudeness.
“Sophia.”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“If he asks for you, I’ll send you to him.”
“G-Grandfather! H-How could you say that!”
“More precisely... I want him in my family so badly that I’d send you to him.”
“N-No! I can’t...!”
“I don’t care.”
With a gaze that overpowered everything, Kaiser cut off Sophia’s protest and spoke.
“Convince him.”
After finishing her conversation with her grandfather, Sophia walked out with her shoulders completely slumped.
Looking half out of it, she covered her face with both hands and let out a deep sigh as she murmured.
“W-What should I do...”