Chapter 802

Slide.

Sand slipped slowly down the hillside. The day was sweltering, without a breath of wind. Beneath the blazing sun, the shadows of flying beasts passed over everyone’s heads.

Kreeeaaak!

A dozen or so eagles glided through the sky, their cries almost like screams.

Their enormous wings, spanning several meters,¹ were nothing but bare white bones. The eyes gazing down from far above were not made of flesh and blood. They burned with a vivid blue light.

The gaze of something returned from the edge of death.

Something caught between life and death.

“Undead…”

The word escaped someone’s lips like a sigh.

Yet none of the people watching the eagles fly overhead and on toward the horizon looked afraid. They already knew the undead monsters weren’t their enemies.

More precisely, they knew the creatures’ master was on their side.

And at least one of them thought of him as more than an ally. He was a friend.

“Hey.”

“What? Don’t talk to me. I’m concentrating.”

“How’s it going?”

“I said don’t talk to me. I’m sharing my vision.”

“Still? You’re damn slow.”

“Fuck it. I’m done.”

“Sorry.”

“Then shut your mouth, you lunatic. Do you think this is some cheap Familiar like the ones humans use?”

His voice was curt. The human and the monster spoke as casually as old friends while staring into the heat haze shimmering over the desert.

Beneath them, vibrations slowly crumbled the sand dunes.

“Anything yet?”

“No. Actually, I finished a little while ago.”

“What? Why didn’t you say so?”

“To build suspense.”

“You’re a nutcase.”

“I’m kidding. I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”

“…There are that many?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“At least ten thousand. After that, there were too many, so I gave up counting.”

At the Skeleton King’s answer, Jin Taekyung fell silent.

Ten thousand.

An enormous army.

And that was only how many the Skeleton King had confirmed. The true number might be far higher.

“Fuck. They really went all out.”

“They had a reason for drawing us all the way here.”

“What about him?”

The Skeleton King knew who Jin meant by him. He shook his head.

“I still don’t know. From above, there are about three that look like serious threats, but whether one of them is The Prophet… Hmm.”

The Skeleton King let out a low groan. His expression stiffened as he continued.

“There was one in the air, too.”

“All S-rank?”

“Probably. My servants were taken out before they could do a thing.”

Three on the ground. One in the air.

The news that four S-rank monsters had led an army of tens of thousands right to their doorstep shook the nearly one thousand Hunters. However carefully selected and battle-hardened they were, they couldn’t simply stop fearing death.

Thud. Rumble, rumble.

The vibrations grew stronger. The Hunters’ gazes trembled as they watched the sand shift beneath their feet.

They could almost see the countless monsters about to surge toward them like a wave.

And amid the monsters’ roars and the fierce fighting, they could see their comrades—or themselves—dying in sprays of blood.

Then a calm voice reached them.

“So, want to retreat now?”

One by one, those who’d been staring at the ground raised their heads. Jin Taekyung stood on the hill, watching them with a steady, solemn gaze.

“No. I guess we should call it running away, not retreating. Right?”

“…!”

“Honestly, whether you call it a strategic retreat or running away, I can’t blame you. Everyone wants to survive. Everyone has a reason to keep living, even if they have to run like hell to do it.”

That was true of everyone.

People had family bound to them by blood, and friends who were family in all but blood. Even those who had neither still had reasons to go on living.

But…

“I don’t know where it came from, but there’s a saying: There’s no paradise at the end of the road when you run away.”

It was strange.

The sun overhead was hot enough to set them on fire, yet the moment they heard Jin Taekyung’s voice, a chill went through them as though they’d been doused in cold water.

He was right.

There was no paradise at the end of the road when you ran away. They lived in a time like that.

“Run, and run, and keep running… Then one day, after doing everything you can to stay alive, you look around. Will there be anything left for you to protect?”

It had been some thirty years.

Humanity had rebuilt bigger, grander cities on the ruins left by the Great Cataclysm. The disaster’s traces remained only in records and scars.

Those who survived the war, or were born after peace arrived, didn’t know what war was like.

But Jin Taekyung was different.

“Once you start backing down, it’s over.”

A battle was not a war. A Gate was not the real world.

In the Gates they’d faced until now, they could retreat to avoid a fight. But the place where they stood now was the world where they’d been born and raised.

A world with something they had to protect.

A world they had to protect, no matter what.

Jin Taekyung had known that since the day he survived alone, leaving behind someone who’d been like an older brother. He knew it still, now that he’d come to know another world.

“If there’s something you want to protect, put your life on the line and fight. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Everyone wondered, but no one knew why the cursed monsters had invaded this world—or how humans had come to possess such incredible power.

But they all had some inkling.

The power that had come to them one day like a stroke of luck had been given to them to protect this world from monsters.

“And for that one reason…”

Whoosh.

Sand whipped around Jin Taekyung. A hot wind blew in from somewhere and swept over the people.

It thawed their hands and feet, frozen despite the scorching sun, and set the red blood in their veins boiling—blood unlike that of the monsters now emerging in the distance through a vast sandstorm.

“That’s why people—why this world—calls us Hunters.”

Fwoosh!

An immense wave of qi jolted everyone alert. Heat haze rose around Jin Taekyung as he slowly turned.

The heat was so intense that the space around him seemed to warp.

His spearhead caught the sunlight and blazed like a blue-white sun.

“Get into formation.”

Clang, clang, clang!

Countless weapons came free at once, as if on cue.

Magic Johnson raised his staff, and dozens of transport vehicles, each weighing several metric tons,² moved across their front to form a barricade.

Behind them, nearly a hundred tanks drove tower shields larger than their own bodies deep into the sand.

Boom. Rumble!

A wall of steel took shape amid heavy thuds.

And then…

Rumble…

A wave of monsters raced across the boundless desert, throwing up a vast cloud of sand.

Jin Taekyung watched them come. His next words were so matter-of-fact that they took everyone by surprise.

“Fuck. Hang in there, everyone. Killing all those bastards is going to be a real pain in the ass.”

Someone burst out laughing. A Hunter who’d been staring at the comrade beside him as if he’d gone mad let out a short laugh, too. Soon everyone’s shoulders were shaking.

Kill them all? Every last one of those monsters?

Ordinarily, they’d have thought it was ridiculous nonsense.

If anyone else had said it, no matter how great a Hunter they were, they’d have cursed them under their breath.

But that startlingly young Asian man was Jin Taekyung, the new Alliance Leader of the World Hunter Federation.

A hero who had proven himself.

The only person writing a new legend after Cheon Taemin.

They couldn’t help believing in him. Jin Taekyung had always fought at the very front, harder than anyone else.

That alone was reason enough to fight.

Boom. Rumble, rumble!

Graaaar!

Even as the rumbling and roars swelled until their eardrums throbbed, the Hunters couldn’t stop laughing.

From the sand dune, where he stood as solid as a mountain, Jin Taekyung swung his spear.

Crunch!

Blood shot up like a fountain and evaporated before it touched the ground. Torn bodies and entrails scattered in every direction.

It was the opening moment of the great battle that would later be called the Desert Storm.

Chuck Hagel stared silently at the cigar in his hand.

The cigar he’d taken—or rather, acquired—from the French President not long ago was still burning down.

He’d since heard it had been a gift from Michael Silbert himself. Given where it came from, it was obviously worth a fortune.

Cuban cigars made before the Great Cataclysm were impossible to find now, no matter how much money you had.

Why?

Simple. Cuba had been destroyed.

The Monster Wave that began in the center of Cuba’s capital had grown beyond control. It ended only after sinking three island nations in the Cayman Islands deep beneath the sea.

Perhaps that was when it started.

When a certain middle-aged man who’d never touched tobacco began smoking cigars out of habit.

His mother had been in Cuba.

Crackle.

Ash that had been burning for a long time dropped with a soft tap.

After watching it in silence for a long while, Chuck Hagel abruptly spoke.

“Any request for backup?”

His aide waved away the thick cigar smoke before answering.

“Not yet.”

“Goddamn it.”

“You don’t need to worry so much, boss.”

“Worry? About that punk?”

He’s too strong to call a punk. And he’s your superior, too.

The aide barely kept the words from slipping out. He clicked his tongue instead.

“We’re fully prepared and standing by. We have the rear of the Rub’ al Khali Desert covered.”

“Damn it. That’s all well and good, but that goddamn satellite surveillance still doesn’t work. Why are the drones down? Did some defense contractor take a kickback?”

“Come on, boss. You know why. The concentration of magical power is too high.”

“I don’t know a damn thing about that. What I do know is that if anything happens to the others with that punk who ran off on his own… the bastards who made those fucking paper airplanes will die by my hand.”

“…”

The aide was profoundly grateful that there was no one from a defense contractor around at that moment.

He was grateful, too, that his short-tempered superior was still guarding the main force.

Unfortunately, his relief didn’t last long.

Beep. Beep-beep.

“…Huh?”

An emergency alarm sounded without warning, and red warning lights flashed on. Urgent shouts broke out across the command center.

“Identify the sender and the coordinates!”

“Damn it! Hurry!”

A moment later, Chuck Hagel saw his aide’s face stiffen as he read the report.

“What is it?”

“…We’re under attack. Part of the search party outside has been hit.”

“What?”

“And…”

The aide paused for breath, then let it out.

“The enemy isn’t a monster.”