Chapter 95
“That bastard... Does he think he can just say whatever he wants because his mouth's open?!”
That guy wrapped in cloth like a mummy... must be.
“Are you Do Byeong-min, the Fiber Mage?”
“... So the traitor told you everything, huh?”
“Well, yeah.”
Wasn't he the Awakened who could imbue all kinds of fibers with mana and control them like his own body?
He could use any kind of fiber, but there was a rumor that Kim Il-sung had ordered the creation of ‘vinylon,’ also known as Juche fiber, and that using it had earned him tremendous favor.
That yellowish cloth must be vinylon.
If he infused thread as tough as nylon with mana, it gained cutting power, piercing power, and even defensive strength.
He wasn't someone to take lightly.
Before the light caught them, the individual strands were nearly invisible—and they'd encircled me in an instant.
... But are you the only one with something invisible?
Tap, tatatatat!
The threads Do Byeong-min had wrapped around me snapped apart in a flurry.
Do Byeong-min gaped in surprise, then made a shield out of thread to cover himself and backed away several steps.
“Everyone, be careful. That brat isn't someone we can take lightly. We have to attack together.”
“Wasn't he supposed to be a mage? What in the world is with that defense?!”
The Illusionist was dead.
After the Poison Mage, Fiber Mage, and Spatial Mage...
The last one was probably...
A pair of swords came slicing through the air with a tremendous hiss, generating enough friction to create a vacuum in their wake.
“... What should I do about this?”
He didn't look much different from a great Hunter I knew whose specialty was ‘speed.’
Just like having one extra sword.
In fact, that wasn't even an advantage.
If you turn a two-handed sword into two one-handed swords, each blade loses power.
What knocked his incoming swords aside was...
A sword that abruptly sprang out of the armor covering my body.
As his flurry of fast sword strikes continued, a sword that had emerged from my armor's shoulder deflected them all on its own.
Athena was a golem capable of shifting into fluid forms.
When a sword suddenly shot out, not only knocking his blade off course but also flying toward his neck, he jumped back in alarm.
“... Are you some kind of People's Zephyros?”
I wonder if that guy would get angry if he heard me compare them.
He was nowhere near Zephyros's level, of course...
But their styles were similar.
I didn't even know how many times I'd sparred with Zephyros, who had the superior version of this guy's style.
Zephyros was so strong that I couldn't beat him unless I truly gave it my all.
Of course, a mage fighting a swordsman after letting him get close was already at a disadvantage...
But unlike Zephyros, who was that strong, the dual swordsman in front of me now...
was absurdly weak.
Anyway...
It was hard to fight at just the right level while going easy on him.
If I wanted to, I could activate the Kill Switch at any moment.
All I had to do was twitch a finger, and the Gluttonies would unleash the feeding they'd been holding back and tear into their bodies.
There was only one reason I was holding back.
I still hadn't seen one of them.
The Spatial Mage.
He might not be a combatant, but that didn't mean he couldn't help in a fight.
I'd heard he hid and struck when the moment was right.
I had to catch the Spatial Mage, no matter what.
That bastard was an asymmetric weapon aimed at South Korea.
He was more frightening than any of the other Hunter bastards.
He could drop a tactical nuke right in the middle of Seoul.
Right then.
The space behind the North Korean Hunters warped, and a silhouette appeared.
Finally, he was here.
But...
Beside the Spatial Mage who had appeared stood a rather large machine.
What had he brought with him?
Don't tell me that's...
“Everyone gather up and hold out for just thirty seconds! Let's see if that brat can withstand the Republic's nuclear weapon, no matter how strong he is!”
... He'd brought a nuclear weapon?
Before I could even recover from my momentary shock, the other three launched attacks at me all at once.
The Poison Mage's many kinds of toxins rode on the Fiber Mage's threads and burst around my body with a series of pops.
Unfortunately for him, though...
[Your poison resistance has been strengthened by the effect of the Elemental Guardian's Robe of Strict Balance! (+3000%)]
[You have sustained no damage.]
The robe was one of those items that could be so effective in the right circumstances that it was hard to believe it was only Legendary-grade.
At the same time...
I gave the order.
“Kill them all.”
With that command...
The four strongest Hunters in North Korea began to turn to dust and scatter.
To be precise, three of them.
“W-What in the world...”
One of them, the swordsman wielding two blades, tried to hold out as long as possible by protecting himself with an aura blade, but...
That had to be tough.
Even Zephyros couldn't last more than a few dozen seconds these days.
Just as I'd expected, his aura shattered in an instant, and he disappeared, starting from his head.
I'd vaporized the four of them. Next was the nuclear weapon.
Even a nuclear weapon couldn't explode if Gluttony completely disassembled it.
That was what I thought, just as...
Beep beep beep beep beep!
Along with a deafening blast of noise...
Only then did the words Lee Seong-hyeok had left me with come back to mind.
“... Did you say the Poison Mage had the authority to detonate it?”
He'd said it might be connected to their heartbeat.
... And I'd killed them by completely disassembling them.
“Everyone, come back!”
The moment I recalled all the tens of trillions of Gluttonies and returned them to my inventory...
“Shit...!”
In that instant...
A tremendous flash engulfed everything before my eyes.
[Spirit Form activates in response to damage far exceeding your defensive limits. (Duration: 10 seconds)]
[Using a skill while in Spirit Form will immediately end the effect. Please be careful.]
... The system message might as well have said outright that I'd nearly died for real.
Pope Alois's Circlet was an item that only activated just before death.
If it had activated, that meant I'd really have been dead without the circlet.
Still, this wasn't over yet.
I had to pull myself together.
Three seconds, two seconds, one second.
Just as Spirit Form was about to end...
Athena, having absorbed my radiation-resistant bacteria, covered my body in an instant...
Then the heat-resistant bacteria covered it, too.
And Sacrificial Offering as well.
Thinking I had everything covered...
Spirit Form ended.
As my blurred vision cleared, the world before me was nothing short of hell.
A gaping crater was bubbling and sizzling.
[Your high fire resistance is allowing you to withstand the heat, but the temperature exceeds your resistance.]
[Sacrificial Offering is blocking the excess damage.]
The problem was the yeast serving as the target of Sacrificial Offering, visibly being depleted by the second.
Hundreds of millions of bacteria were being consumed every second, almost in real time.
I had to get out of here first.
But there was a problem.
“Gasp!”
My breath caught in my throat.
I literally couldn't breathe.
... Of course.
The nuclear bomb had burned up all the oxygen, leaving this place in a temporary vacuum.
It would take quite a while for oxygen to seep back in.
Not being able to breathe was a problem, but the bigger issue was...
Breathing was the foundation of all mana.
I could absorb mana through my pores, too, but breathing accounted for the largest share.
And now that breathing had stopped...
[Natural mana recovery rate has sharply decreased.]
[Please absorb mana by breathing sufficiently.]
To me, my mana recovery rate was directly tied to my legion's strength.
But with that recovery rate dropping, my total mana was being slashed in huge chunks.
If it kept falling until it reached 0%, my entire legion could be unsummoned, and I might lose ownership of every last one of them.
That couldn't happen.
All those hours I'd spent studying bacteria were finally paying off.
I was glad one came to mind even in such a desperate situation.
“Pride. Transform into Microcoleus.”
What supplies the Earth with oxygen?
If you're thinking of the Amazon rainforest, the lungs of the world, you're wrong.
The Amazon produces a lot of oxygen, but the plants that die also release a similar amount of carbon dioxide from the methane they produce.
In other words, if you offset its oxygen production against the carbon dioxide it emits, the net production isn't that great.
The answer is...
‘Cyanobacteria.’
Even today, they supply the Earth with enormous amounts of oxygen...
They were primitive bacteria that created oxygen on the primordial Earth, once choked with carbon dioxide, making it possible for life to thrive there.
What I chose was...
a type of ‘cyanobacteria’ that could survive for long periods in filamentous form, even in extreme environments like deserts.
As it absorbed the carbon dioxide filling the atmosphere and began photosynthesizing, it rapidly produced oxygen.
“Haaaah...”
After that brief spell of suffocation, I felt oxygen entering every corner of my lungs.
Oxygen really is precious.
My mana began replenishing, too.
[Natural mana recovery rate has returned to normal.]
Even now, my precious bacteria were still being consumed.
I had to get out of here, fast.
Ah, come to think of it...
Did I... really survive a nuclear explosion?
**
The underground bunker beneath the South Korean presidential residence.
The NSC members and military personnel gathered there were glued to the screens, monitoring the situation in real time.
The reason they could watch it in real time was, of course, the spy satellites.
Of course, they didn't have anywhere near as many spy satellites as the United States, so keeping them fixed on the area without interruption meant cutting their lifespans drastically.
But President Kang Min-guk was resolute.
“We need to keep an eye on the situation without interruption, even for a moment, so we can respond if anything happens. We can launch another satellite, but we can't get another Hunter Kim Segyun.”
And so they monitored the situation with live satellite feeds.
“Hunter Kim Segyun has landed safely on the coast. The UDT submersible is withdrawing with him.”
“How long will it take him to get from there to Aoji?”
“It depends on his mode of transportation. Hunter Kim Segyun will decide what works best.”
“... I hope nothing goes wrong.”
“Yes. He's made contact with an NIS HUMINT asset at the site.”
Then Kim Segyun entered the shack.
Right at that moment...
The space around him warped, and five people appeared.
Confusion swept over the entire NSC in an instant.
“What happened? Why did they...?”
“Perhaps... the HUMINT asset betrayed him.”
Zephyros clenched his teeth and growled.
He'd tried to warn Kim Segyun using the Ansible Earring, but...
[The recipient's current sensory state is unstable.]
[Unable to send.]
“The Illusionist...”
In fact, Kim Segyun, who emerged from the shack, attacked the wrong places as if he'd fallen under an illusion.
Fortunately, it didn't seem like the enemy's attacks were landing properly on Kim Segyun's body.
President Kang Min-guk clenched his fist and said,
“Chief of Staff.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Surface the Baekbeom immediately.”
“Pardon?”
“Prepare the cruise missiles for launch. You have my authorization.”
“M-Mr. President!”
“I trust Hunter Kim Segyun, but if anything should happen to him...”
We'd take all five North Korean Hunters down with him.
“If we surface and open the vertical launch tubes, we'll be detected by radar. Are you sure?”
“I'm sure.”
And so, just as President Kang Min-guk's order was about to be relayed to the Baekbeom, a Baekbeom-class nuclear submarine...
“Please watch a little longer, Mr. President.”
“Director Ryu.”
“The Kim Segyun I know wouldn't be in danger from something like this.”
“... Let's wait a little longer.”
“Yes, sir.”
And just as Zephyros had said...
Kim Segyun took down all five Hunters in what seemed like an instant.
First the Illusionist turned to dust and disappeared, then the others followed in one fell swoop.
Waaah!
Cheers rang out throughout the bunker.
A smile spread across President Kang Min-guk's lips, too.
The five Hunters known as the North Korean regime's ‘standard-bearers’ had disappeared.
He'd believed in Kim Segyun, and even in the worst possible situation, he'd really pulled it off.
Right at that moment...
The monitors turned white.
“... What is that? Did the feed cut out?”
The first to notice...
was, surprisingly, the Korea Meteorological Administration.
“M-Mr. President... The KMA is reporting a nuclear explosion. The P-waves are clearly strong while the S-waves are weak, so they say it can't have been a natural earthquake...”
Even without the KMA, there was no way anyone could miss it.
The image on the monitor, which had flashed white just a moment ago, showed a clearly defined mushroom cloud.
Despair spread across everyone's faces.
Were they really going to lose South Korea's strongest Hunter like this?
No matter how powerful a Hunter was, no one could withstand a nuclear explosion.
No one had ever survived one, but...
... It was practically common sense.
Like the sun rising in the east.
Like an apple falling down.
“... Any signs of survival?”
“We can't confirm anything yet. We'll need to get thermal imaging data...”
The area had to cool down first.
As everyone sat frozen, their faces set in despair...
Only Zephyros wore a faint smile.
“That bastard's alive.”
“Director Ryu! Is that really...?”
“He just sent me a message with an item.”
Zephyros repeated Kim Segyun's message to the NSC members, without changing a single word.
“He's completely fine, and right now... he's heading to Aoji.”
At the same time...
Satellite footage captured Kim Segyun flying up through the mushroom cloud.
Everyone's faces... were filled with shock more than relief.
“... Someone who can survive getting hit by a nuke...”
“Can we even call him a person?”
Listening to their conversation...
Zephyros let out a soft snort and murmured under his breath,
“For us, it's just curiosity, but...”
I wonder what the United States and other countries watching this are feeling.
**
“......”
The White House in the United States.
Even Kaiser, who served as the senior adviser on Awakened affairs, was present, watching the same footage.
The image quality was incomparably better than what they were seeing in the South Korean bunker.
The live footage was so clear it looked like they were standing right next to him, and it was playing at a rather high frame rate.
After pausing and replaying the footage several times at that high frame rate, an NRO video analyst said,
“If you look here, it appears Hunter Kim Segyun made it through the explosion. And based on his flight path... he is definitely heading for the Aoji Mine.”
Breaking the deathly silence...
cautiously...
the American president voiced what no one wanted to ask.
“Did he... withstand a nuclear explosion?”
“He withstood it at ground zero, too.”
“... Good Lord.”
The president and the other senior U.S. officials squeezed their eyes shut and let out deep sighs.
But one person could not even manage a sigh. He sat rigid, staring at the monitor.
“Kaiser.”
The president's voice reached the man.
Only then did Kaiser snap out of it, shudder, and turn his gaze toward the president.
The president spoke.
“Kaiser, I will commit every resource in the United States to you. I need you to give me one clear answer.”
“......”
He knew what answer the president wanted without needing to hear the question.
“If we give you our support, can you take on Kim Segyun? You don't have to do it alone.”
Kaiser had always been brimming with confidence and spirit beyond his years.
But he couldn't bring himself to answer the president's question so easily.
No, a vulgar word beginning with F was already hovering at the edge of his lips.
A Hunter who could withstand a nuclear bomb.
If it were you, could you say you'd win?!