Chapter 801

“We’re leaving soon. Get ready.”

At that one remark, tossed out when I came back without warning, Yamamoto Genji surprisingly nodded obediently.

“Understood.”

For a guy who’d been going on about Chōsenjin¹ when he first woke up, he was being about as polite as possible.

If Heo Jun had witnessed this astonishing change, he might have written this on the first line of the Donguibogam²:

A beating is the best medicine.

Bodily wounds called for potions. A rotten mind called for fists.

Yamamoto Genji scrambled out of bed and snapped to attention like a recruit.

“I’m ready.”

“Already?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You planning to fight in that?”

“Huh?”

Yamamoto Genji blinked. From that innocent look, he clearly hadn’t understood what I meant. Or maybe he hadn’t heard me properly.

So I kindly repeated myself.

“You planning to fight in your hospital gown?”

“……!”

A brief silence.

At last, he realized what I meant by leaving. His voice trembled.

“W-we’re going to the battlefield?”

“Where did you think we were going?”

“I’m still a patient, so I naturally assumed I’d be sent back to the main camp…”

“Sent back?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“Hmm. Right. You’re still a patient. A patient.”

Good grief. I’d forgotten something important.

Muttering to myself, I kicked open the firmly shut door.

“Hey! Anyone out there?”

A healer from the medical unit came running before the words had left my mouth.

“Yes, sir.”

“Uh, the transport vehicle going back to the main camp hasn’t left yet, right?”

“No, sir. It’s still waiting.”

“Good. Contact the team leader right away and tell him to load one more body. I’ll take care of the cleanup, so all they have to do is come pick him up.”

“I’ll pass that along.”

“……Wait.”

Yamamoto Genji had been listening. Now he looked distinctly uneasy.

“One more body? Cleanup? What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“It sounds like something I should worry about. Hey, you. Put down the phone. Who are you calling?”

The healer answered flatly, “Team Leader Jones, as the boss instructed.”

“Who’s Team Leader Jones?”

“He’s in charge of recovering the dead. He transports the fallen back to the main camp.”

“……!”

Yamamoto Genji looked from me to the healer and back. Then his expression turned resolute.

“On my honor as a samurai, I’ll give my life in battle.”

“What honor? I looked you up online. Your nickname’s ‘Swift No-Show.’”

“……”

“Quit talking bullshit. Gear up and get out here.”

“Yes, sir. But, by any chance…”

“What?”

“I’m still not feeling well. Is there really no way you could send me to the rear…”

Whack!

“Ugh!”

Even now, all he could think about was running away. A bastard like this needed a beating.

I sighed and watched him stagger to his feet.

I’d have loved to beat the hell out of him, but the fact that I needed even a piece of shit like him left a bad taste in my mouth.

“Hey.”

“W-why? What is it?”

“I’m not going to hit you, so relax. I just want to check one more time.”

My voice dropped.

“What you said he told you back then. Are you sure?”

Before Yamamoto Genji could answer, the words I’d already heard several times replayed in my ears.

“Rub’ al Khali. Come find me in the land where the black jewel sleeps, before it’s too late.”

The trailing hem of The Prophet’s long robe seemed close enough to grab.

The Arabian Desert covers most of the Middle East, stretching from Yemen through Oman and the Persian Gulf to Jordan and Iraq.

More than 2.3 million square kilometers.³ Korea’s official area, as submitted to the UN, was just over 200,000 square kilometers.⁴ By comparison, the desert was absurdly vast.

No wonder the estimated search time was so long. We were planning to comb through all this.

But we’d had no other choice.

Mana readings rose by the day, and the concentration had grown so dense that even the most advanced equipment couldn’t function properly. Covering that much ground meant sending a hundred thousand Hunters out on foot.

Then The Prophet, who’d been hiding somewhere in that vast desert, named a place himself. Whether that was good news or bad, I couldn’t say.

The Rub’ al Khali Desert.

If the Arabian Desert was the broad term for the desert regions of the Middle East, the Rub’ al Khali was the vast desert at its center, spread across the southern Arabian Peninsula.

It was the second-largest desert in the world, after the Sahara in Africa. Even so, narrowing down the area The Prophet meant wasn’t difficult.

At least, not for Team Leader Choi.

“The Empty Quarter.”

“What’s that?”

“Rub’ al Khali means ‘Empty Quarter’ in Arabic. A land where no one can live. Nothing but blazing sun and sand. That’s probably how it got such a desolate name.”

“Then the black jewel…”

“There are oil fields there. Supposedly, they were once the largest in the world. Judging by his message, that’s our likeliest destination.”

Searching was the hard part. Getting there wasn’t. Once we had a destination, we advanced at astonishing speed.

The thousand Hunters chosen for the expedition were among the best deployed to the Middle East. We took the shortest route across the Arabian Desert and reached the Rub’ al Khali.

And we immediately understood why the people of the ancient Middle East had called this place the Empty Quarter.

Desert and wilderness stretched to the horizon like a vast sea, with small villages scattered through it like reefs.

Machinery and abandoned industrial complexes stood among them. The place was so desolate that it was hard to believe the world’s largest oil field had once been here.

Even the Skeleton King blinked in confusion.

“What? Humans live here? This isn’t a Gate?”

Team Leader Choi had said once for a reason.

This land had been abandoned twice.

Once, long ago, when its inhabitants named it the Rub’ al Khali. Then again during the Great Cataclysm.

And a place didn’t get abandoned without reason.

“Spectacular.”

I wished Magic Johnson, who’d come with us, had said that. Unfortunately, it was the Skeleton King. I could feel what he meant, though.

Maybe we all did.

The concentration of magical power… It’s too dense.

At some point, the air had grown heavy. It wasn’t just the sun beating down on us.

Clunk. Psssh.

An engine died abruptly. The vehicles carrying our thousand Hunters all ground to a halt, and Magic Johnson murmured, “Here we go.”

A simple mechanical failure was out of the question.

Yamamoto Genji had been through something similar before. His face was already deathly pale.

“He’s here. He’s here. He’s here…”

The Skeleton King watched him mutter without pause, then turned to me.

“Can I kill that human?”

“No. Unfortunately, you can’t.”

“Why not? Didn’t we bring him along to put his body to use? If I have to keep looking at him like that, I might as well turn him into an undead.”

“Oh.”

Was this bastard a genius?

I barely stopped myself from nodding at his surprisingly logical argument. Then I gave Yamamoto Genji a hard kick and got out of the vehicle.

What do you mean, he’s here already?

We were still a considerable distance from the oil fields The Prophet had hinted at. Apart from the rising concentration of magical power, I hadn’t sensed anything unusual.

This was only a sign.

An ominous but unmistakable sign that something we hadn’t encountered yet was out there in the vast desert.

Then the specialist checking the magical-power distribution at regular intervals gave his report, turning my suspicion into certainty.

“We can’t get a reading. Our equipment can’t determine an accurate value.”

Not even with several precious A-rank Magic Gems fitted into the measuring device.

I licked my dry lips.

“He told us to come find him. Guess he wasn’t just talking bullshit.”

Team Leader Choi stepped quietly up beside me.

“Should we pull back and request reinforcements while we still can?”

A cautious suggestion, just like him. I shook my head without hesitation.

“No. We keep going.”

“We don’t know what kind of trap may be waiting.”

“Of course there could be a trap. We know what that bastard Prophet is like.”

“Then why…”

“Trap or not, we have to break through. We don’t have time. And…”

I lowered my voice.

“If luring us here is his goal in itself, that’s all the more reason not to call for reinforcements.”

We didn’t know the limits of The Prophet’s abilities or One God’s fighting strength. Calling S-rank Hunters here—the core of our forces—would put everyone left behind in danger.

In this desert, The Prophet was practically a pope with countless fanatics at his command.

It’d be a problem if we brought in reinforcements only to leave the rear wide open to a raid.

That didn’t mean I planned to fight recklessly.

Normally, I would’ve gone alone. The reason I’d brought a thousand Hunters was that I knew I wasn’t invincible, no matter how strong I was. Nothing was more dangerous than an enemy you didn’t understand.

And the force we had now was neither too small nor too large.

Even without me, we had two dependable powerhouses in Magic Johnson and the Skeleton King. Add the cowardly Yamamoto Genji and Team Leader Choi, and I was sure we could smash our way through whatever came.

Bring in more forces, though, and he might run.

We held the front, while Chuck Hagel, Faye Chen, Prince Felix, and several other S-rank Hunters guarded the encirclement with a considerable force to our rear.

If we added or removed even a little from either side, the balance of power would shift—and our chance to eliminate The Prophet would slip that much farther away.

“No beast attacks something that looks stronger than itself. Especially not a fox like The Prophet. Right, Jin?”

“That’s right.”

I nodded at Magic Johnson, watching the heat haze rise over the distant desert.

“Still, that’s a relief. Looks like that quick-witted fox hasn’t gotten scared and run off.”

“What do you mean—!”

His face went rigid in an instant.

Realizing what I meant, Magic Johnson hurriedly swallowed the rest of his words and shouted, pouring his mighty mana into his voice.

“Prepare for battle!”

Right.

They were coming.