[brrrrrrrrt!!]
A Gatling gun spinning like mad and spewing fire.
“Wooooooo!! Grrrrrr!”
A beast’s howl.
[kwaaaang!]
“Hee-hee-heee-heee-hiiiing!”
A horse’s scream riding the shock.
“Woaahhhhh! Is that even possible!?”
Jang Hyundeok’s awestruck exclamation, half horror, half wonder.
“What? What did he do?”
“The shaggy cowboy grandpa tucked the horse under his arm and is sprinting all over!”
He sounded resentful, but if he’d given up riding to start doing acrobatics, the enemy’s marksmanship had to be exquisite.
“If he’s going to do that, why does that grandpa even bother riding a horse?”
Kid had an ability that let him take on a half-beast form.
Transformed, he could move far more nimbly than the black stallion he rode—and if he wanted, he could pick that massive horse up and leap with it at any time.
So why insist on riding anyway?
“For the same reason I keep wearing a mask.”
The opponent was a fixer who’d worked a very long time.
In this lunatic world, anyone who carries the label [Veteran] deserves caution.
They’re tremendous at what they do and, with high probability, severely mentally ill.
“Right, that makes sense—uwaaah!!”
I cracked one eye and watched Jang Hyundeok work the Call Van’s controls.
[clack-clack! chunk! skreee!]
With pro-gamer hands he ran a tangle of levers and wheels at once.
‘Impressive.’
Most people couldn’t even attempt this.
He’s driving off-road at 200 km/h—
countering attacks from enemies bounding in three dimensions—
while manning three Gatling guns bolted onto the van by force.
“Hyah!”
A very textbook ninja shout.
The ninja, who’d shown up with three ninja dogs, had earlier gone all “konnichiwa~” while introducing himself (Inukaze or something?)—and insisted he was more than a mere dog trainer.
[fyuu-rii-rii-rii-rik!]
Shuriken whistled in.
“Magus!”
“It’s already up!”
[Distortion Field]
Right now, Jang Hyundeok was even serving as a certain mage’s eyes.
“That way?”
[whirr-rii-rii-rik!]
I shifted the distortion field and sent the shuriken back toward the presence I felt—Inukaze’s—but—
“He dodged!”
“Damn it, figured as much.”
My phobia had my eyes shut, and I was suppressing my detection too. No way to expect precision casting.
“Got you! Hrrraaaap!”
With a strange shout, Jang Hyundeok’s hands and feet moved in a blur.
[clatter— chunk! skreeee!]
The chassis lurched, seemed to slow—
[bwAAAAAANG!]
Then he kicked the mana-stone booster and we rocketed forward.
[kwaang!]
“Guh-hauk!”
Vibration.
Not an incoming hit. He rammed someone with the van!
“Hee-hee-hiiing!”
Kid’s grunt—and the horse’s cry shrank fast behind us.
“Whoa! He’s running off with the horse again!”
Without stopping, Jang Hyundeok barked the next order.
“Magus! Smoke—now!”
“Where? How?”
“Outside the van, a lot!”
“Oh, wow—what a crisp, unambiguous order!”
Damn it. How did I end up taking orders from Jang Hyundeok?
“Woof-woof-woof!” “Woof-woof!” “Woof-woof-woof!”
Aagh!
Howls had crept right up on us.
Finally grasping what he wanted, I hurried a cast.
[fooooom!]
I flooded the outside with a choking, tear-gas smoke—lethal to keen-nosed species.
“How’s that? This much—”
[ssshyaaaaaa!]
A sinister noise sliced my voice clean off.
“Waaah!”
Screaming, Jang Hyundeok slammed the throttle.
[thud-thud-thud— rattle-rattle-rattle!!]
The Call Van, barreling where there was no road, shook to pieces—I watched my tongue so I wouldn’t bite it and yelled a question.
“What now!?”
“Grandma! The grandma! She cut the fog with her knives!”
“Ah. That grandma’s vicious.”
Chair of the Sangnok Mountaineering Club, a bounty hunter for the Hunter Mutual Aid Association, the [Conqueror].
For ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) the record, her surname is Jeong and her given name is Bokja.
Her surreal twin-blade technique is so strong and sharp it can sever a spell’s very structure.
“Hell with it, then I’ll flood the place!”
[Exploding Smoke]
[Mist of R’lyeh]
[Spell Boost: Multi-Cast]
No aiming possible anyway.
I made smoke loaded with explosive force and a mist that sealed detection—radiating in every direction.
[fwooooom— KWAaaaaaaaa!]
But a shout came from a completely different vector.
“Receive the power of the sea!”
Oh, right. Yongsu was here too.
[kwarrrrrrrrrrum!!]
A gigantic wave slammed us broadside.
“Ucharaaa!!”
[skreee!]
Thanks to some trick by Jang Hyundeok, the van didn’t flip, but we definitely tilted close to forty degrees.
“Hyundeok, this won’t work! I’ll just—”
This line of play was shot. These weren’t enemies you could ditch on driving technique alone.
“No! He says we can!”
[bwAAAAAANG!]
“Attack magic, seven-o’clock direction!”
He was adamant.
Nnngh... fine. Let’s see how far we can push this.
I shut my eyes again and drew circles outside the vehicle.
[Chain Lightning]
[Burning Rage]
[Ghastly Scream]
[Wraith’s Grasp]
[kwarrrrrrum! fwooooosh! skreeeeee! wooooooo!]
Area spells that diffuse wide even without a target—or home in on enemies on their own.
Wait—what did Jang Hyundeok say a moment ago? “He says”? Not “I say,” but “he says”? That sounds like...
“Woof-woof-woof-woof!”
“Uwah!?”
Barking at the window cut off my thought.
[kwarrrrum! bang!] Something detonated.
[slash-slash!] The sound of magic being cut.
“Awooooo!!” “Kim Sinhwaaa!” “Hee-hee-hiiing!” “Woof-woof-woof!”
A cacophony without end.
I’m going to lose it.
Truly.
I’m running, eyes closed, under Jang Hyundeok’s protection.
Even the frenzy that was primed to explode any moment ago has eased a lot.
‘What is this feeling?’
To anchor myself in the violently shuddering van, I stirred mana—cracked my eyes the slightest bit, and...
[System: You are moved by your companion’s heroic action. Reason score slightly recovers.]
My eyes flew open.
“Me? Because of Jang Hyundeok!?”
“Huh?? Magus, what?”
“N-no!” “Grorororooo!”
A colossal octopus arm surged head-on.
“That octopus! That thing!”
I snapped my focus and cast.
[Crown of the Earth]
[kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwang!]
Massive stone spires speared up from the ground, shredding the tentacle as they grew.
“Graaah! Kim Sinhwaaa!”
The others were clearly deployed with purpose, but why was that squid-octopus-shark even in this lineup?
No...
The theme is lopsided, sure, but nothing here is truly out of context.
“Yeah. All of it’s on me.”
“Should’ve behaved—ack!”
[skreeeee!]
Jang Hyundeok jerked the wheel hard as he quipped.
Thanks to the sudden change of course, it wasn’t our front but the driver’s side that now faced a blur of white fur—so that was—
“Buy it—aaah—Magus! Close your eyes!”
A ninja dog charging with a katana clenched in its teeth!
“Grrrrrr!”
Jang Hyundeok thrust his right hand out the window.
“Gomo-niiiim!!”
To control mana, he let in the wraith of Heo Jihyeon—Heo Sanghyun’s aunt, a puppeteer long dead.
— Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!
An eerie laugh echoed from inside him.
[shra-ra-ra-ra-rak—]
Mana poured from his hand.
Thanks to that, he could at least emit his mana as threads—barely a trick, really. As [The One Who Laughs] once pointed out, it’s hardly “magic,” more like a piddling rank-zero ability you’d credit to someone who just learned rudimentary mana control.
But—
[shra-ra-ra-ra-rak!]
Golden blossoms bloomed at his fingertips, and a storm of gold threads.
A cloying sweetness drifted through the van.
“Yip!”
Wrapped in golden mana, the ninja dog staggered and collapsed. Dead?
No—this state was...
‘Forced sleep.’
A chill prickled down my back.
“Gomo-nim! Help me one more time!”
— Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!
Golden mana-flowers blossomed along his shoulder and forearm.
With them, he loosed another fusillade of golden mana threads.
[shla-la-la-la-lak!]
The golden threads of mana twined around the stone spires I’d raised. And then he—
[skreeeeee—]
Without warning, Jang Hyundeok changed direction.
Black smoke geysered from the tires. An insane drift you’d struggle to pull off even on proper pavement.
[brrrrrrrrt!]
The Gatlings raked fire in impossible arcs.
“Choco! Back!”
“Geh-huk!”
The Conqueror, wrong-footed by the irregular handling, fell back.
‘This driving...?’
Jang Hyundeok was a capable pro behind the wheel, yes—but not this superhuman.
Did he level up while I wasn’t looking? Or did something from the Ansan incident change him?
“Hyun... hey, that way?”
He muttered low, as if answering someone.
“Hey, who are you talking to—”
“Aaaaaaah!”
Veins stood out on his temple as he bore down.
[kwarung!]
A spire shattered—its fragments whipped straight toward Kid, who’d closed the distance.
“Wooooo!”
He backstepped, dodging the shards.
[bwAAAAAANG!]
The mana-stone booster roared again.
The tachometer’s needle surged to its limit. My gut lurched backward as the Call Van leapt into another blistering sprint.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
[gwarrrrrrum!]
Yongsu’s scream tore out like a curse.
He hadn’t expected this move.
Because the direction Jang Hyundeok chose... was the cliff?
“Huh?”
A sudden feeling of weightlessness.
The inertia from the booster hurled the van a long way, but then we dropped—straight for the ravine below!
“Ha! See? Magus!”
He shot me a cocky grin that said “just as planned.”
What the hell are you doing, you lunatic!
“Do that ice thing from last time—babababak!”
Make a road of ice?
“You tell me that—beforehand, idiot!”
“Oh? You can’t?”
“There’s no water here! And this van is under an anti-magic barrier, so—”
We were already falling.
A few seconds ago he’d looked halfway competent; now his voice went back to the usual air-headed tone.
“Mm... Magus, did I maybe make a huge mistake?”
The ground rushed up, helplessly close.
“No! I can do this!”
Yeah, is that the issue right now?
If it gets us out of that hell, there’s nothing I won’t do.
“Uaaaaaah!”
[Creation: Generate Clear Water]
[Ice Road]
[Glacial Wall]
[Chains of Dominion]
[Giant’s Grasp]
[kwarrrrrrrrrrum!]
The barrier device installed in this van is strong enough to detain even Dok Go-gyeom.
Careful not to wreck the mana-repelling barrier, I seized the van, settled it onto a road of ice—
“You’re not getting away!”
“Hee-hee-hiiing!”
Kid charged bravely down the ice.
“Good. I figured someone would jump in.”
I reshaped the ice we’d just passed—
[kwa-d-d-d-d-duk!]
[Forced Phase Change]
[foooooooom!]
I forced the solid ice into vapor. Kid, rashly charging in, screamed “Uwaaaah!” and plummeted into the ravine.
“Kim Sinhwa! It isn’t over!”
Yongsu’s dogged voice clawed after us.
“It’s over, idiot!”
I spun up a swarm of circles—then fed new power into the vast billows of cloud rising on every side.
[Thundercloud]
[rumble-rumble-rumble!!!]
The path behind us turned, in an instant, into a mass of storming thunderclouds rearing up—
[Lightning Barrage]
[Spell Boost: Maximize]
[Spell Boost: Multi-Cast]
[kwarrrrum! KWA-AAAAAANG!]
I hammered lightning at the enemies racing up to the cliff edge.
They aren’t the sort to be neutralized by something like this, but with this much distance...
“Waaah, you did it!”
Jang Hyundeok let out a delighted cry.
Yeah. We did it.
We pulled off the escape.
“See? Sometimes I’m worth trusting.”
“Hey, that’s not the issue. Back there, you—”
Something about him was off.
“C’mon, trust me a little!”
He grumbled, sulky.
“I did trust you.”
I stayed in the van, kept my eyes shut, and fired spells as ordered, didn’t I? But he still muttered, dissatisfied.
“I was Super Magical Jang Hyundeok, right? Trustworthy? Admit it? Amazing?”
“Mm—yeah. Trustworthy... I’ll give you that. You were amazing.”
“Ha-ha!”
“...”
Right. We don’t have time to diagnose him thoroughly right now.
“Okay, no time—let’s head for Busan.”
“Got it!”
