Daniel Inoue was Japanese American.
A former Navy SEAL, he had awakened as an A-rank Hunter at the age of thirty. After leaving the military, he joined a private military company, where he put his abilities to excellent use.
Mercenary work suited Inoue well enough. He had to spend half of every year in conflict zones across the Middle East and Africa, but the pay was enormous, and he got long stretches of time off.
He had joined the response to the Monster Wave in China for much the same reason.
“Hey, ninja. What are you thinking about?”
At his comrade’s sudden question, Inoue narrowed his eyes.
“Shut up, Sam. Aren’t you sick of that damn ninja crap yet?”
“What’s the big deal? You should be used to it by now.”
“That’s exactly why I’m sick of it. Try being called a ninja or samurai since you were seven. It’ll drive you insane.”
“Why? Sounds pretty good to me.”
“You damn Yankee bastard.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. I’m a Yankees fan.”
The small white man snickered at Inoue’s grumbling.
“Just accept it already. At this point, it’s fate. Even your abilities are totally ninja-like.”
“…Damn it.”
Inoue muttered a quiet curse.
Just as his comrade had said, the ability he had received upon awakening was perfectly suited to stealth.
Thanks to it, he had become a specialist in espionage and targeted assassinations. Unfortunately, it had also cemented his image as a ninja.
“I heard your girlfriend’s pregnant. How about naming the baby Naruto1?”
Inoue raised his middle finger at his relentlessly annoying comrade.
“If you name your son Sasuke, I’ll think about it.”
“Oh, not bad.”
Quiet snickers escaped from the people around them.
The atmosphere, stiff and tense only moments ago, began to loosen. Inoue and his comrade exchanged faint smiles.
The two had been close friends and partners for years. Their exchange had been little more than a skit meant to ease the tension before the mission began.
Too much tension only makes people commit one mistake after another.
That was true in battle, but even more so during an intelligence operation like this one.
They were entering unknown territory where neither communications nor magic could be used. Worse, their opponent was not some stupid, brutal rebel leader, but the Arch Lich that had unleashed an unprecedented Monster Wave.
No matter how favorable the war is going, we can’t afford to let our guard down.
Having reminded himself of that, Inoue addressed the twenty intelligence operatives.
“Listen up. From this point on, we’ll infiltrate in pairs. Use hand signals to communicate, and fire your signal flare in an emergency. You’ve all memorized your destinations and routes down to the last detail, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then… we meet back here in three hours. Dismissed.”
At Inoue’s words announcing the start of the operation, the intelligence operatives nodded and scattered in every direction. Watching them disappear silently and swiftly, his partner Sam jerked his chin toward the path ahead.
“Should we get moving too, ninja?”
“Yeah, you carefree Yankee bastard.”
“Don’t be like that. You’re the best at this. Three hours from now, you’ll be on your way back after finding out what color underwear the Arch Lich is wearing.”
“…I really hope so.”
Inoue let out a quiet sigh and stepped forward. The pale fog blanketing Suining City clung damply to his entire body.
The advance of the five fronts, which had seemed unstoppable, finally came to a halt.
We were two hundred kilometers2 from Suining City, where the Arch Lich was located. While we rested and reorganized, a welcome face came to visit.
“Hey, Korean friends. How have you been?”
I sensed a considerable wave of qi nearby, and sure enough, it was him. I bumped fists with Magic Johnson and answered.
“Pretty well.”
“Jin. My lovable Miracle Boy. I missed you.”
“Sorry, but could you leave out the ‘lovable’ part?”
“Then I’ll call you Crazy Boy. You did pull off something crazy, after all.”
Magic Johnson grinned and added,
“And incredibly heroic. The same goes for Choi here.”
Team Leader Choi, who had been carefully polishing Hero’s Soul, inclined his head.
“It’s good to see you again, Mr. Johnson.”
“Choi, don’t be like that. You’re making things stiff.”
“……!”
“……!”
“The atmosphere, of course.”
Magic Johnson threw back his head and laughed.
At this point, it was obvious he enjoyed watching our reactions. He was surprisingly playful for such a huge man.
Well, by now, we knew that everything was a joke whenever we met Magic Johnson.
Even Team Leader Choi, who always did Kegel exercises whenever he met him, gave a quiet laugh before asking,
“But what brings you here?”
“An emergency summons from headquarters. It’s an important matter.”
I frowned and muttered,
“This feels like déjà vu. Haven’t we seen this setup before?”
“Don’t worry, Jin. Nothing like last time will happen.”
By “last time,” he meant our main camp getting completely wrecked while the S-rank Hunters were away.
Well, the distance between the fronts had narrowed now. Even if everyone gathered together, we were practically close enough to touch noses if we fell over, so it should be fine.
If they aren’t handling this over communications, it must be that important.
As the Allied Forces continued winning and the monsters retreated, the Arch Lich’s territory had shrunk all the way back to Suining City. At our current location, both communications and magic worked smoothly.
“Do you know what we’re gathering for?”
“No. But I can guarantee it won’t be pleasant. I’ll stake my life on it.”
“……”
Please. Don’t stake your life on something like that. Give us a little more hope.
But Magic Johnson, as confident as ever, held out his hands to Team Leader Choi and me.
“Anyway, everyone else is already there. You two are the last guests.”
“Then please take us there, Mr. Johnson.”
Team Leader Choi took his hand without hesitation. Having already experienced Magic Johnson’s teleportation once, I nervously grabbed his fingers.
“Please drive safely—Gyaaaaaaaah!”
Whoooosh!
With the sensation of my entire body being crushed like a soda can, I was flung into a new space.
“Gyaaaaaaa…”
“……”
“……”
Damn it. Of all places, it had to be here.
A dozen pairs of eyes stared at me in silence. Under the dumbfounded gazes of the S-rank Hunters and senior Chinese generals, I stopped screaming and quietly slipped into an empty seat.
“Are we not starting the meeting?”
After a moment at a loss for words, Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghu finally spoke.
“…Then let us begin the meeting.”
The meeting that followed focused on a single subject: the information brought back by the intelligence team’s sole survivor.
“Daniel Inoue, who was in charge of the intelligence team, escaped from Suining City after eight hours—far beyond the scheduled operation time—and reported discovering a monster army numbering around thirty thousand.”
Thirty thousand…
It was an enormous force, but still well within the range we had expected.
The Arch Lich’s monster army had suffered its first defeat a week ago and had been retreating helplessly ever since, sustaining tremendous losses along the way.
“Judging by your expression, Minister, that isn’t all.”
Few people present could speak so casually to Minister Wei Fenghu.
Lee Jungryong was one of them. Whatever his personal feelings toward me, he had more than earned that right.
“Mr. Lee is correct. Thirty thousand is only the estimate based on what Inoue personally witnessed. The true number…”
“Could be twice that. Perhaps even more.”
“That is correct.”
“…Hmm.”
Low groans rose from around the room. We had expected the enemy to be holding forces in reserve for the final battle, but not that many.
Wei Fenghu continued solemnly.
“However, most of the monsters are likely to be mid- or low-level. That is our one small consolation.”
“The same is true of our forces, Wei Fenghu.”
At the remark from Faye Chen, who had been silently sipping from a liquor glass, Prince Felix nodded.
“She is right. More troops than expected have joined our side, but we still cannot be certain of victory.”
“Damn it. Those monsters never end, no matter how many we kill.”
I couldn’t help snorting at Wu Heixing’s grumbling.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because it’s funny, you idiot.”
“What?”
“Anyone listening would think you’d been fighting your ass off. You’re the bastard who tried to take a detour during the monster army’s attack a week ago because you thought arriving early might be dangerous.”
“……!”
His expression was a sight to behold.
He must have thought no one knew, but word of Wu Heixing’s disgrace had already spread across every front.
“I know you’ve had a rough time too, but don’t whine in front of me or anyone else. Just looking at you is starting to piss me off.”
“Iik…!”3
“What are you, self-employed? Why do you keep going iik?”
Wu Heixing’s face turned bright red. His body twitched as though he might charge at me at any moment, but that was as far as he could go.
The bitter memory of defeat lingered.
A hothouse flower that had spent its whole life being treated like royalty was bound to wither in a cold wind.
Of course, there were flowers of an entirely different sort.
Like Team Leader Choi, who was sitting beside me.
“That’s enough, both of you.”
At Team Leader Choi’s calm intervention, Wu Heixing glared at him.
“Are you ordering me around?”
“If that’s how you took it, I’m sorry to hear that, Wu Heixing.”
“You…”
Team Leader Choi did not so much as blink at Wu Heixing’s threatening aura. Wu Heixing shot to his feet.
No, he tried to.
“Sit.”
“……!”
My aura struck like an awl, and his body locked in place.
The other S-rank Hunters turned startled eyes toward me.
I glanced at Lee Jungryong’s deeply sunken gaze before continuing.
“Just so there’s no misunderstanding, yes, that was an order.”
“You, you…!”
“Sit. I won’t say it again.”
Whoooosh!
A wave of aura surged toward him, and Wu Heixing’s lower lip trembled.
Perhaps he would have counted as a genius even in Murim.
No, he definitely would have. Becoming an S-rank Hunter in his thirties would have been impossible without that level of talent.
But he was only half the package.
Awakening was an unearned windfall. Like a lottery winner, he had received extraordinary abilities and mana the moment he turned twenty.
And he was supposed to build up internal energy like a Murim practitioner and master martial arts at the Supreme Peak level?
Well…
Learning martial arts might make up for his technical shortcomings, but there was no doubt he would fall by the wayside long before he ever reached that point.
Compared to his talent, his effort and will were Third Rate.
“Enough.”
Lee Jungryong’s gentle baritone broke the tension.
The old snake, still looking like a handsome middle-aged man despite being well past sixty, watched me with a smile.
“I thought only your skills had improved, but your killing intent has grown stronger too.”
I met his eyes impassively.
“Rolling around in all sorts of places tends to put an edge on you.”
“I heard the Western Front was particularly fierce.”
“That’s not wrong. Want to come see the Western Front?”
“I must politely decline. If it was fierce enough that only three people survived, I think I’ll pass.”
“……!”
“The older I get, the more cowardly I become. Ho ho.”
The blood in my veins turned cold.
That horrific battlefield flashed before my eyes, and before I knew it, a faint smile had formed on my lips.
“What are you trying to say?”
“Let’s think about something more productive than turning on our allies. Planning for the final battle would be a good place to start. Jin Taekyung, what do you think?”
I quietly tapped the armrest of my chair.
My insides twisted, but Lee Jungryong’s words had struck at the heart of the matter.
He was right. The battle bearing down on us was practically at our doorstep. That was what we needed to deal with now.
Then one thought came to me.
“A suicide squad.”
“A suicide squad?”
Everyone’s eyes turned toward me. Some nodded in agreement, while others looked uneasy.
But both reason and instinct told me this was our best chance to win while minimizing our losses.
“We gather our very best and cut off the head.”
Once the Arch Lich is destroyed, the undead army will collapse.
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