Chapter 118 - Encounter (2)

Hecate had brought her favorites.

Wolves the size of compact cars, with strange, humanlike limbs. The shapeshifting slimes Riccardo had faced in the colosseum. Mineral folk that looked like nothing more than enormous boulders at first glance.

They were generally loyal creatures, easy to control en masse. Slimes had virtually no will of their own, while wolves and mineral folk lived in groups. That meant they could be controlled all at once. When war broke out, the empire's troops would take creatures like these onto the battlefield.

Their ranks had the orderliness unique to creatures under someone's control. Hecate walked at their head, using a shapeshifting slime as a shield.

Gunfire rained down.

"You know her?"

Yun pulled the trigger with swift precision, bursting the translucent slime. Impressed that he had picked off a shapeshifter that was barely even visible, I nodded.

"Yes."

"Anything worth noting?"

"She was one of the empire's great generals."

She stopped in the middle of the road and raised her head to look straight at me.

Her gaze hurt. Contempt and hatred seethed in her amber-orange eyes.

"A knight of great dignity, too."

"Can you kill her?"

Gunfire and explosions, the sounds of muscle and bone tearing apart, my seniors screaming, "Fuck, she looks exactly like a human!"

Even through all that, Yun's low voice reached me clearly. At first, his question might have sounded considerate. But I could hear the boredom in it.

"Or should I set things up so you can kill her yourself?"

"I'd prefer the latter."

Not that I was confident I could beat her alone right now.

"If you'd be so kind, then absolutely..."

"And you're sure you can beat her one-on-one?"

"Uh, no."

My senior, who hadn't taken his eyes off the creatures until then, turned his head. His visor hid his face, but I could all too easily imagine his expression.

But I couldn't lie, could I?

"What am I supposed to do with that?"

Yun spoke after a brief silence.

"What exactly do you want to do?"

"For now, I'll do my best to help us win, as a rookie should."

I fired away as I answered.

I wasn't really sure where my bullets were going.

I wanted to use a sword. I wanted to jump down and charge toward Hecate. But leaping down into that barrage of bullets and explosives didn't seem wise...

After debating whether to hide my true feelings, I decided to be honest.

"I'm not going to get carried away and rush out just because I've met an old acquaintance. But I'd like to land the final blow."

"I've spoiled you rotten."

My training officer clicked his tongue.

"When we get back..."

THUD

A heavy sound came from behind us.

THUD. THUD.

My eardrums, numbed by the explosions, vibrated so painfully they felt about to tear.

My worked-up seniors all stopped moving at once. The creatures, which had been steadily closing the distance despite leaving mountains of corpses behind them, halted too. Even Hecate stopped her silent advance and turned her gaze.

I turned as well, taking in the thing that filled the background.

"Aaaagh!"

Jerry Jones's scream echoed.

"What is that?!"

A giant.

More precisely, a necromancer inhabited by a giant's wraith. It blotted out the moonlight, casting darkness over the buildings.

It stood three stories tall.

It approached with ponderous steps. The asphalt heaved with every footfall. Its enormous armor clanked with a sound like the air being torn apart, the rusted chains of the helmet covering its head swaying to and fro.

So it had been lying on the ground in this decaying city. Buried beneath the accumulating dust, not even breathing. It must have lain forgotten by everyone until Hecate came here and woke it with her call.

Something most of my kind could awaken, but could not control. Yet merely waking one was certain to bring great chaos to the battlefield.

The necromancer held a sword as tall as a two-story building in its right hand. The tip of that sword, which no human could ever lift, scraped along the road.

The giant closed the distance in an instant. The earth shook.

THOOM!

Screams rang through the building.

"Aaaagh! It's coming!"

"What is it?! What the hell is that?!"

"Hey."

Yun stepped onto the rooftop railing and gave an order.

"Jump."

No sooner had he spoken than the necromancer stopped in front of the building.

SHING

Then the building was sliced diagonally in two.

The sword's path began at the fourth floor and ended at the first. Yun and I leaped toward the neighboring building at the same time. I felt the ground drop away beneath my feet, but we weren't too late.

We landed on the next building's roof.

The building we'd left collapsed along the sword's path. Like a skull cut diagonally open, its cross section lay exposed before my eyes.

"Aaaagh!"

So did the cross section of a human lower body.

"Aagh! Fuck! Fuck!"

"Massu Sarin is dead."

While Gale Dawson recoiled in horror, Yun delivered a cold report.

"Massu Sarin, Area 7. Killed in action."

Massu Sarin's body had been cut apart along with the building.

Death must have been instantaneous. Not even a Badger could survive an injury like that. The cut was smooth. The severed upper body was nowhere to be seen. It was probably buried in the rubble.

The remaining lower half slumped to the floor, spilling blood and organs.

The giant raised its sword again.

"Aaaaaagh!"

Jerry Jones let out a piercing scream and bolted out of the building. Isaac raced down the stairs too, leaving the hysterical Dawson behind. Lucia Kwon and Joe McDonald merely stared up stupidly at the enormous sword.

With everyone's attention diverted, Hecate charged toward the Badgers. Sylvia and Leonard, who must have escaped the building at the same time I had, sprinted toward her.

I stepped onto the rooftop railing and leaped too.

"Hecate!"

I slid my hand down a pipe on the building as I descended and landed. I couldn't stop the wolves attacking the Badgers from the first floor, but I could draw Hecate's attention.

"I—"

THOOOM!

My vision went white. I couldn't breathe. White-hot pain engulfed my entire body.

Ah.

It hurt.

I released the breath trapped in my lungs.

Right. She'd been this fast.

Blood burst from my mouth with a cough. I smiled bitterly as I frantically coughed up bloody phlegm.

If I hadn't blunted the force of her sword strike with my dagger, I would never have woken up.

Panting, I cracked my eyes open.

I could make out people through my blurred vision. I was embedded in a building, and two people now stood in front of me. One was glaring at me murderously; the other had their back to me.

Hecate, ready to deliver her third strike.

Choi Yun, who had blocked her second.

Perhaps sensing her opponent's skill, Hecate didn't move rashly. The sociopathic man and woman who had been charging her were busy shooting the creatures that had come between them.

"Rookie."

My training officer called to me. I forced my voice past the blood clogging my throat.

"Yes."

"I'll grant your wish."

Yun held a bizarrely shaped gun in his right hand. Keeping its muzzle trained on Hecate, he lifted his left hand and tapped his ear.

"We're splitting up."

His voice came through the communicator in my ear.

"Leonard, you're taking the giant with me."

["Great!"]

An excited voice answered.

["What an utterly enchanting mission!"]

"Sylvia, take the level nine with Hilde."

Sylvia turned from where she'd been slaughtering wolves beside the rubble as though dancing. Silver hair fanned out amid sprays of blood.

THOOM!

The giant's enormous sword split the asphalt in two. The other seniors fired wildly as they fled from it. With wolves, slimes, and the giant all mixed together, it was a chaotic melee.

Standing amid that chaos, Sylvia removed her helmet with a white smile. She was drenched in scarlet blood.

["Good."]

She answered with a smile.

["The more human they are, the better I like them."]

"Thank you."

I ought to express my gratitude for the orders too.

I discarded my shattered dagger and slowly got to my feet. After brushing the chunks of cement off my body, I pulled off my helmet and tossed it aside. The blood I'd coughed up had soaked the inside, making it unpleasant to wear.

My field of view opened up in every direction.

"Good luck out there, sir."

I offered my farewell, but Yun barely seemed to hear me as he continued saying his piece.

"The rest of you, mop up the small fry."

["Request air support! Call in air support!"]

["Fuck, fuuuck!"]

["When's the portal opening?"]

Lucia's voice came through. The voice that had sounded so vacant until now was thick with fear.

["I want to go back..."]

The transmission cut off.

Yun lowered his left hand. Silence fell in an instant. We were twenty paces from the melee raging near the collapsed building. Despite being only that far away, it was strangely quiet here.

Hecate stood utterly still. Sylvia was extricating herself from the melee, shooting down creatures one by one.

My training officer's right hand remained uncannily motionless.

His left hand moved to his waist.

"Here."

I caught the sword he tossed me.

"Yours."

It was Nol's sword. I'd used it at every training session since receiving it from Seunghyeon. I hadn't been allowed a personal weapon yet, so I hadn't been able to bring it.

Or so I'd thought.

I gripped the hilt and smiled.

"Thank you."

"They say the personnel from Area 5 are heading here."

Yun explained without taking his eyes off Hecate.

"Just hold out until reinforcements arrive."

Actually, I wanted to finish this before reinforcements arrived.

I didn't want to see her caught by my highly skilled seniors and torn apart by lead bullets. Hecate was a great general, but she couldn't absorb the energy of living things the way Ray and I could.

She couldn't keep coming back to life.

What's more, Badgers born for combat had been deployed on this operation. If reinforcements comparable to Yun in skill arrived, Hecate would have no chance of surviving.

So I would somehow settle things before the seniors got here.

I made that resolve as I twirled Nol's dagger into a fresh grip.

I knew it was more than I had any right to want, but I wanted to end it with my own hands. To cross swords without interference, as she had longed to do, and end our lives on each other's blades.

But such sentiment would never be tolerated on a battlefield.

It was an utterly cowardly thing to say. I knew that very well. I knew. I had no right to desire anything at all.

But I just.

I just...

"I'm going."

With those words, my training officer vanished from sight.

RATATATAT!

He moved away, deftly slaughtering creatures.

With him gone, Hecate came into sharper view. The once-great general stared at me with hatred in her eyes.

I swallowed my emotions, keeping the memories that welled up from tearing my heart apart.

「It's been a long time.」

Until Hecate spoke to me in that ancient language, just as she had in the old days.