Chapter 042
They'd threatened over the radio as if they might open fire at any moment, but just as I'd expected, nothing actually happened. The helicopter I was riding continued to rattle its way steadily toward Hamburg.
And perhaps because they knew further threats were pointless, no more radio calls came our way.
"By now, Hamburg's probably in complete chaos."
— Um, Hunter sir. We'll be arriving in Hamburg soon. But, uh… what about my safety?
The pilot, who was flying the helicopter, asked me in an uneasy voice.
"You'll be fine. There's no need to be that scared."
— Understood.
To be honest, the thought did cross my mind—do I really need to protect this guy? After all, this pilot was also affiliated with Mazurka, and like the rest of them, he made a living squeezing blood out of other people.
Who am I to judge?
But that didn't mean it was okay to just abandon him. One way or another, he had risked his life to fly this helicopter all the way here.
And besides, I'm not some omnipotent god. I don't have the right to decide who deserves to live or die.
Just as the pilot had said, we soon arrived over the skies of Hamburg. I picked up the radio, adjusted the channel, and spoke.
"How about some landing guidance? We've come all this way."
— …Fine. Watch for the flare.
A red flare shot up into the sky. The helicopter headed toward where it had risen. Below, there was a helipad with blinking lights…
"Well, would you look at that."
There were countless people surrounding the helipad.
— Is this really, truly okay?
"Just land it. If you're thinking of turning back now, I'll just jump out from here."
That was more or less what I meant, and the pilot seemed to understand.
Helplessly, he set the helicopter down on the pad.
"Hey."
Gripping my spear, I stepped out of the helicopter and gave a casual wave. Immediately, one of the men standing there fired a crossbow bolt at me.
I caught the bolt midair with my hand and instantly hurled it back at the guy who'd fired it. With a sharp tearing sound, the bolt pierced into his shoulder.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, shooting at someone without warning?"
I deliberately planted the tip of my spear into the ground and dragged it along as I walked forward at a leisurely pace. The sound of metal scraping against asphalt echoed through the area.
Out of the gathered crowd, twenty were hunters. The rest were armed civilians.
"You're the hunter Yoo Chan-seok, right?"
"That's me. And you are?"
At my words, the men holding guns stiffened, while those who looked like hunters showed little reaction. He seemed to be the leader of this warlord group called Kaiser.
He was dressed quite neatly in a military uniform, and for someone like him, he even had what looked like medals pinned to his chest—no idea what he'd supposedly done to earn them.
"I'm Daniel Reuss of Kaiser."
The man's expression was anything but friendly.
"State your purpose for trespassing on our land."
"I sent an official request asking you to let a train crossing Siberia pass through, but I never got a response."
Instead of replying, he placed his hand on his holster.
"We have our own circumstances. I don't want bloodshed, so turn around and leave."
I grinned as I answered.
"According to who? I didn't fly all the way here by helicopter just to go back empty-handed."
"I've heard you made quite an impression back in Korea. Looks like early success has bred excessive arrogance."
As Daniel slightly tilted his head in a signal, the hunters who'd been on standby slowly began to approach me.
"You're not the only hunter in this world. Leave while we're still being polite."
One of them threw out the threat.
"Of course I'm not the only hunter. But there aren't that many who are better than me."
And among that small number, none of the hunters gathered here were included.
"Your mouth seems sharper than your skills."
"Everyone runs their mouth like that before they see what I can do."
Using the mana reinforced throughout my body, I kicked off the ground. In an instant, I was right in front of the guy who'd been talking trash just moments ago.
"Guh—?!"
In a blink, three punches slammed into his abdomen. Blood spilled from his mouth as his legs gave out and he started to collapse—right then, I drove my knee up into his jaw.
One hunter down, unconscious. The others immediately spread out and shouted.
"We'll file a formal complaint about this with the Korean Hunters Association!"
"Go ahead."
Up until now, I'd been trying to play the role of a model citizen, but after seeing how things turned out back in Warsaw, I adjusted my goals—and my mindset—just a bit.
From now on, I don't care whether people see me as a mad dog or a perfect gentleman. I'll do what I believe needs to be done.
"Still, I wonder how many of you will even be able to keep running your mouths after this is over."
Robco and Veramin, was it? The hunters gathered here were definitely not the elites of those two companies, nor had they brought every hunter they could mobilize.
To the south of where Kaiser had settled was Ristorante, one of the Great Eight. There was no way they could pull all their hunters over here just to stop one guy.
"Come at me."
I'd already decided the moment I got on the helicopter that today would be the day I let loose.
Yoo Chan-seok's brazen confidence left the hunters feeling more baffled than anything else. The so-called Korean rookie was facing twenty hunters.
For him to act that confident meant either he had something solid to rely on—or he was just brainless.
The hunters quietly exchanged glances.
There was no doubt his skill surpassed that of anyone gathered here. The rumor that he'd soloed a Grade-2 Corrosion Zone had already spread far and wide among hunters. Still, it wasn't a hopeless fight.
No—if anything, their chances were good.
Use the numerical advantage and minimize losses.
A rotation battle would solve this easily.
There's a limit to how much mana one person can draw out.
No matter how exceptional someone is, if eighty people stall them long enough, their mana will eventually run dry. And a hunter without mana is no different from a car that's run out of fuel.
Besides, who's to say he really did all that in Korea and truly soloed a Grade-2 zone?
His mana pool doesn't look that impressive.
The amount of mana contained in Yoo Chan-seok's body wasn't anything extraordinary.
"I don't like ganging up on a junior who makes a living doing the same work we do," Yoo Chan-seok said.
"Try not to cry when you get beaten down instead."
As soon as he finished speaking, Yoo Chan-seok didn't wait for the others to move first. With a sound like air exploding, he burst forward, gripping his spear in reverse and swinging it like a baseball bat straight into one hunter's shin.
Crack—
With a horrifying sound, shattered bone burst through flesh.
"A… AAAAAARGH!"
One man was completely neutralized by the very first attack. That strike had poured all of Yoo Chan-seok's mana into a single blow.
There were still nineteen hunters left to face. No one expected him to go all-out right from the start. If he didn't take one out immediately, he'd be beaten to death—that was the only explanation.
"No, no—this is actually good…!"
The hunter who was about to say this is good fell silent at what followed.
Because Yoo Chan-seok smashed another hunter's leg with the same speed and destructive power as before.
That was impossible.
"His mana should've been completely drained after that last attack!"
"It didn't decrease at all!"
One of the observing hunters finally realized it and shouted in disbelief. The total amount of mana they sensed from Yoo Chan-seok hadn't dropped in the slightest.
"Wheelchairs for everyone today, seniors."
The spear spun lightly in Yoo Chan-seok's hand. His trademark was well known—black flames burning at the spear's tip. But now, there wasn't even a spark.
"Charge him! Overwhelm him with numbers!"
At that shout, the hunters rushed in. And after only a few minutes, they began to experience something deeply unsettling.
What kind of attack is this?
The spear Yoo Chan-seok swung didn't feel like it was aiming for them. It felt as if they were moving into the space where the spear already was.
"Damn it! It's not like we've never fought someone at this level!"
At the same time, the way Yoo Chan-seok avoided their attacks was just as strange. They thought they'd hit him—but then realized they hadn't.
This had never happened before. It wasn't that they couldn't track his movements. They saw the hit, believed it landed, and only afterward realized it hadn't. None of them had ever experienced anything this bizarre.
The hunters couldn't understand what was happening in this fight.
They move, and I move my spear accordingly. Before they even realize their own situation, my spear has already claimed the spot they're about to move into.
By the time they finally understand what's going on, it feels like they've thrown themselves straight into my weapon—and they're struck down and incapacitated.
All thanks to a nervous system rebuilt through mana.
"Don't tell me… delayed first strike?"
"Bullshit. He hasn't even been using mana that long—no way he's reached that level already."
"But he's not overpowering us with specs!"
They're talking nonsense among themselves again. In gaming terms, this is just a difference in input response speed. Latency—ping.
They're all playing an FPS at 120 ms, while I'm playing alone at about 20 ms.
You know that garbage experience where you definitely shot first, definitely hit, but the enemy doesn't die and you do instead? That exact thing is happening here right now.
"You guys aren't enough. I've got plenty of experience massacring mobs."
Even if our total mana looks the same, I don't have a concept of mana depletion. For them to keep up with the output of my continuous attacks and movement, they'd have to accept running themselves dry.
"HAHAHAHA! Whirl—zip—bang!"
Weapons collide. The ground flips over. Bodies that can't withstand the shock are flung into the air.
I kicked off the ground, grabbed the head of a man suspended midair, and smashed it straight into a building's outer wall. Cracks spider-webbed across the concrete as he foamed at the mouth and passed out.
"What, you sleeping? Get up and fight, you bastards!"
Let's see who dies first today.
"Damn it, kill him! Just kill that bastard already!"
Lightning fell from the sky. A hunter drenched in red charged at me. A black-swirling arrow flew toward me, telekinesis crushed down on my body.
A white frost-laden fog rolled in, blocking my vision, and an invisible man lunged from behind with a dagger.
"See? You can do it if you try."
I rolled across the ground, dodging the lightning crashing toward my head, caught the incoming arrow, and hurled it at the hunter using telekinesis to pin me down. The arrow pierced his shoulder.
"Ghk…!"
The telekinesis broke.
I swung my spear wide at the encroaching fog. The wind pressure bursting from the spear blew the freezing mist aside, redirecting it straight into the hunter whose body was glowing red as he charged at me.
The sudden cold and obscured vision made him falter mid-dash. In that instant, I was already in front of him, driving my fist up into his abdomen.
As his body lifted slightly into the air, I followed up with a brutal kick, slamming into his stomach again.
After that, I kept on wrecking them—one after another.