Kwaaaang!
An explosion pounding my eardrums.
A brutal shockwave rattling the interior of the vehicle.
“Ugh—”
The armored truck lurched as if it might topple, but Yeom Cheolmin twisted the wheel and barely stabilized it.
“Return fire! Return fire!”
Gwak Daeyong yelled into the radio—surely addressing the gunners in the cargo area atop the truck.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat!
The staccato roar of the machine guns.
But the old people scattered, leaping tree to tree at such speed they were almost invisible—a dizzying afterimage flickering in zigzags.
“Ughhh—These are the veteran troubleshooters from the Great Collapse, right?”
Gwak Daeyong vented his frustration.
“Heh—swallows are flying!”
Ahn Hyeonggu pulled out a joystick, manipulated controls, and from the ejection port at the rear of the truck came a buzzing—several combat drones built by Yeonam Electronics took flight.
Bzzzzzz—
They darted between trees, firing small-caliber rounds with enough force to be lethal.
Braaang!!
A horn blared from the second armored truck following us. What signal was that?
“They’re coming!”
Choi Mina shouted.
Magic-crystal bombs launched from slingshots? Arrows fired from bows? No—the attackers this time were old people in fluorescent mountaineering gear!
A few high-speed climbers drove their trekking poles into ancient trunks with a crack, gripped them, spun by centrifugal force, and flung themselves toward us.
Whirrrrik!
They even kicked and destroyed the combat drones piloted by Ahn Hyeonggu as they flew at us.
“Ughk—my swallow!”
Thud!
A dull sound overhead—one of them had mounted the truck roof.
“I’m going up!”
Choi Mina cried, raising a military knife.
“Hey, don’t!”
Though intended as a warning of futility, Choi Mina misunderstood—
“Don’t worry, cute mage!”
She winked at me, climbed out the window, and ran up onto the roof. Oh, would she just listen!
At the same time, Gwak Daeyong shouted to me.
“Kim Pro! Kim Pro! Do something with magic!”
“Magic? Magic? How dare you make such a sordid demand! [Guide of Dawn] will rip out your tongue and... Ah, damn it, move aside!”
Even if using magic had become difficult, I was not completely incapable.
Besides, we had loaded the maximum number of Command Golems into the cargo hold. I could hold my own against most psychics.
Thud! Rum-rum—grr—
Footsteps overhead.
I widened my detection range to sense the situation above.
Choi Mina moved fiercely, but the mountaineers displayed a masterful nonchalance—
“Ha-ha-hal! You’re still a novice!”
They swung trekking poles to shove Choi Mina back, sending her skidding to the edge of the roof—it looked like she might fall.
I reached up and unleashed magic.
“Ughrah!”
Some sensitive old people tried backflips in midair to evade my gesture, but that wasn’t nearly enough. I expanded the range of my magic, snared them all—
“Get off this vehicle immediately!”
—and hurled them toward the road.
Kwaaaang!
“Kraaagh!”
Though thrown from a speeding vehicle, they tumbled with absurd flexibility and leapt back into the forest. Those elders were no joke.
But even with their speed, they couldn’t catch up so quickly.
Perhaps because I couldn’t cast a defined spell, my detection felt more precise than usual across a wider range.
Within that extremely expanded perception, I realized how to end this.
Klararararang.
I loaded the bolts and nails I’d been fiddling with into the Toy Gun and extended it out the window.
It looked like a mere toy, but I had precisely linked three magic crystals for focus, conversion, and amplification—
[System: ‘Precision Aim’ trait activates.]
A shooting-assist trait I’d had since starting the game. Not just for gunslingers—useful whenever I launched projectile magic.
With amplified magic, I fired!
Pfwoong!
A blast sound no ordinary firearm could make—and dozens of bolts shot out in bizarre trajectories.
Pgagagak!
The bolts, imbued with penetration and explosive force, rained down on the trees in the mountaineers’ path. With cracking crashes, the trees fell.
While the Evergreen Mountaineering Club elders hesitated—
“Achilles! And Red! Scatter them!”
“Kreeeek!”
Kriririk—
From Ahn Hyeonggu’s drone ejection port emerged a white shadow. Red, the small owl, rapidly grew in the air and dove at the leaping elders.
And
“Whyyyyyyyyy!!!”
“Whyaaaaaaa!!!”
Flare—flare—flarrr!
The fire vampires Achilles summoned darted along trajectories no drone could mimic, constraining the mountaineers’ movements.
“We’ve broken free!”
The armored truck surged down the road. As the mountaineers ceased pursuit, they vanished behind us in an instant.
Yeom Cheolmin’s skill driving through the winding, steep Old Misiryeong Road without slowing down deserved today’s MVP.
“We can breathe easier for now.”
Gwak Daeyong exhaled.
Everyone’s tension unraveled in an instant.
‘As I thought, these guys just won’t do.’
At least this fight allowed me to gauge the team’s combat ability against my current state.
Until recently, I was just a lifelong gamer, but this team lacked real-world experience.
They’d spent budget on top-notch equipment that other troubleshooters would envy, but they couldn’t match seasoned pros like us.
We’ll soon reach our destination.
Close enough that the Evergreen Mountaineering Club could catch us in ten minutes if they chose. Next time, we may need to face them in a fixed location with no escape. Using magic-disabled, how can I handle those guys? Headache.
“All right, Kim Pro! That magic was amazing!”
“No. That— that wasn’t magic. Such unholy techniques destroy one’s character and corrupt the soul... [Guide of Dawn] approaches us. Even saying the word magic is dangerous!”
My mouth moved on its own. This is driving me insane.
Again, [Guide of Dawn] doesn’t exist in this game or the original Cthulhu Mythos—it’s {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} my hallucination.
Or perhaps not merely a hallucination?
What is this symptom of bizarre babbling? A tic? Alien tongue syndrome?
Regardless, Gwak Daeyong laughed heartily.
“For a mage, you did pretty well. At least we can communicate.”
“Ha—yeah.”
From Paju to Sokcho—more precisely, Misiryeong northeast of Seoraksan—we endured three ambushes.
The first two were random encounters in lawless zones near the Great Wall, but this third was from the Evergreen Mountaineering Club we’d keep meeting on Seoraksan.
“Evergreen Mountaineering Club... I’d heard the name, but they’re insane. The moment blades cross... I felt immediately I couldn’t beat them.”
Choi Mina’s assessment of the Club.
Yes.
I’m not entirely myself either.
Though I brought Command Golems in the truck bed, I could handle a certain degree—but protecting others while fighting them is tough.
And the enemies in this game aren’t merely psychics. When true monsters appear, I can’t predict how far I can withstand them.
“Ugh—twenty-six monster old people sprang out at us. How—how did they hire so many high-priced experts?”
Ahn Hyeonggu’s evaluation.
He mumbled multi-digit numbers to estimate how much budget the opposition invested.
A valid point.
The Evergreen Mountaineering Club boasts many powerful troubleshooters from the Hunter Guild. Hiring them surely costs a fortune.
‘Where did the money come from?’
[The Great Source] is an Abyssal entity lacking fame relative to its power. Its doctrine is unclear, and even fervent supplicants receive no true blessing.
Therefore, believers on Earth are few—limited influence and funds.
‘But the Evergreen Club are professionals, not cultists.’
Their movement means someone paid them—and judging by how many, they may have hired the entire team.
But where did that money come from?
I thought as much, but before I could ponder more, Yeom Cheolmin spoke, his voice trembling with shock.
“Ca-Captain... look ahead...”
A few kilometers along the provisional road running south along the Misiryeong Valley from the Old Misiryeong Road’s end toward Ulsanbawi.
Using the precipitous Ulsanbawi as reference, far below sits the construction site built by Yeonam Construction.
We’d arrived, yet the sight before us was...
“What... what happened here?”
“The wall’s collapsed.”
The first thing we saw was the construction site’s outer wall—completely destroyed.
Beyond the fallen wall lay utter ruin.
We parked outside the ruins and cautiously approached the ruined site.
“Look—look over there...”
Could that have been done by human hands?
The armored trucks of Yeonam Construction, living fortresses reinforced with thick armor plating—were crushed, piled into a massive mound.
Nine of them?
Since we’d brought three, at least triple our number had guarded this place.
Among the wreckage, a hand protruded.
“Were they all wiped out?”
“By the Evergreen Club? Did those old people do this?”
Murmurs of disbelief rippled among Gwak Daeyong’s subordinates.
As shock subsided, fear took hold like a contagion.
“Everyone, calm down! Contact headquarters first—do it now!”
Gwak Daeyong tried to steady them, but fear once born spread among them like a plague.
“Whhat do we say?!”
“What—obvious, no? We got annihilated by the Evergreen Club! Say something!”
“Um, Team Leader Gwak Daeyong.”
“Huh? Uh? Kim Pro? What’s—what’s going on?”
Gwak Daeyong’s befuddled reply.
“First, get a grip. And it wasn’t the Evergreen Club.”
“What?”
“Look at the destruction’s pattern.”
“Oh—look for what?”
“This wasn’t done by those elders. They’re strong, but not like this. And the wreckage starts from over there—inside moving outward.”
Over there—
Amid deep pits lay a peculiar hole. Not related to the construction’s purpose, a deep opening as if carved out.
No, more like a cave entrance large enough for people to enter.
“What is—that?”
Even to Gwak Daeyong’s eyes, it must have looked sinister.
Like the gaping maw of a greedy monster, traces of something crawling from that black, ominous cave still remained.
“You said you discovered a cave during blasting? So this is it.”
Precisely, it was ruins.
An ancient site where evil Abyssal power tied to [The Great Source] and ancient will had pooled.
And something had crawled out from there.
