Chapter 66 |
Sleepwalker IV
I could end the Ten Legs with a single strike.
Originally, I had mastered a miraculous power that was only allowed to the Sword Star in this world, the aura of starlight, known as Sword Force.
Despite this, I never ended the Ten Legs in one turn kill. Instead, I always ensured that the 'Korean Awakeners Alliance' was established and dragged them into the battlefield against the Ten Legs.
“It's been a while. How have you been, Undertaker?”
“Ah, Undertaker! How are you!”
This was because, to use a somewhat comical expression, the awakeners needed ‘awakening.’
In the battlefield, I showed them how powerful the Ten Legs were, how mistaken their arrogance was in seeing themselves as transcendent beings, without needing to lecture them.
Humans, Homo sapiens, only learn whether something is shit or soy paste by tasting it themselves.
I added one more trick to this.
“It's been a while. How have you all been?”
“Good, good!”
“Getting used to the aura?”
“Haha, well, not quite yet…”
I advertised that ‘only those who joined the alliance would receive special tutoring on advanced aura techniques for free.’
Even though civilization had collapsed, the zeal for education was engraved in the DNA of Koreans. Words like ‘advanced,’ ‘learning,’ and ‘special tutoring’ paralyzed their brains.
Many awakeners had witnessed firsthand in the battles with Ten Legs how useful aura was. The tentacles of Ten Legs were tougher than the toughest squid legs, and only blades imbued with aura could pierce them.
“Undertaker!”
“Undertaker, I’m stuck in my training…”
In a sense, the Korean Awakeners Alliance became a sect that revered me like a Grandmaster.
Originally, Old Man Scho filled this role, but he had retired…
Of course, the awakeners were all lunatics. There were countless people who treated their superiors like dogs.
Therefore, even while teaching them aura techniques, I never demanded anything in return.
Running a guild? Why should I interfere? It’s your guild, so handle it yourself. Tuition fees? Forget it, just suck the essence of the techniques from me. Sure, take this and that, take my liver and gallbladder. It’s fine. I don’t need anything.
In the apocalypse, such behavior was the perfect way to be treated like a pushover.
But what if that pushover nonchalantly walked through anomaly-infested voids, traveled from city to city, effortlessly dispatched Ten Legs, received plenty of favor from the constellations, and boasted friendships with the guild master of Samcheon World and the National Road Management Corps chief?
Even awakeners, who selectively let rationality enter their skulls, would have to reconsider the definition of ‘pushover.’
“Master, when will we ever be able to repay our debt?”
“I can collect your debt anytime, but I won’t, and I’ll continue not to. So, keep learning aura techniques that suit you. You’ll survive life-threatening situations and solidify your authority as a guild master, but you won’t give me anything in return. We all know this, you, me, Dang Seo-rin, and Noh Do-hwa.”
“Master! No, hyung! Please!”
The so-called Super Subordinate phenomenon.
To exaggerate a bit, if I came up with a suitable reason and said, ‘I heard the guild master in Incheon is stirring trouble in Korea...,’ the guild masters here would lead their entire forces to cause havoc, thinking, ‘Grandmaster wants us to crush the Incheon guild!’
Moreover, the extermination of the Meteor Shower wasn’t just any reason but one that involved the fate of the entire Korean Peninsula. The guild masters who owed me naturally had no choice but to gather.
“You’re always popular.”
After a round of intense handshakes, Dang Seo-rin greeted me with a weary face.
“You could just settle down in one city, but you always travel all over the country. Are you diligent or not…?”
“Why, I’ve settled down. All of Gangnam in Seoul is my turf. Are you underestimating the land value of Gangnam now?”
“There’s nothing in Gangnam now except your guild building.”
“It’s a low-point investment. When civilization starts to rebuild, the life of Undertaker will become a legendary real estate story.”
Dang Seo-rin chuckled.
“So, no thoughts of settling down? No thoughts of dating? I hear a lot of people like you.”
“I’m not interested in dating…”
The Meteor Shower had to arrive at dusk.
We waited for the night, holding brooms in our hands while chatting. Why did we all have brooms? Well, you’ll soon find out.
Tense air.
To ease the hardened atmosphere, light jokes and small talk flowed quietly in the camp.
Maintaining normalcy to ignore the abnormal had been a wisdom humans learned long ago.
“Why? Are you impotent?”
“I’m just not interested in dating. Honestly, my mental age is around a thousand years. No matter how it is, I can’t date kids, can I?”
“Pff. What nonsense.”
Not only Dang Seo-rin and me, but all the awakeners exchanged trivial jokes.
It was natural. The Meteor Shower was supposed to descend over Gyeongsangnam-do in the 7th year of regression.
Here in the Gimhae plains, not a single elite warrior hadn’t crossed the wall of life and death dozens of times.
They all knew how crucial it was to control their mental strength right before a battle.
“Actually, it’s hard to imagine you dating anyone.”
“Yeah, even though there’s nothing rough about you, you have the look of someone destined to be single forever. You have that kind of vibe.”
If it were after the 50th cycle, SG Man Seo Gyu and the villain Sim Ah-ryeon would have joined in the joke.
“Heh. More than anything, it’s the partner who should be worried. Seventy percent of your conversations would be about the Three Kingdoms, twenty percent about the Chu-Han Contention, and the remaining ten percent about the Water Margin. Who could endure that? Even a thousand-year love would wither.”
If it were after the 55th cycle, the National Road Management Corps chief Noh Do-hwa would have sipped her ginger tea, exhaling hot breath and equally hot sarcasm.
“Haha. I sometimes think I wish senior would stop talking about the Three Kingdoms! Honestly, I don’t even find it interesting. Well, except for the part where Dong Zhuo burns down Luoyang!”
If it were after the 109th cycle, Baekhwa Girls' High student president Cheon Yo-hwa would have added with a bright smile.
“……”
[…….]
Lee Ha-yul and the Saintess would have always been silent.
Throughout my life, spanning 1183 cycles, allies sometimes increased and sometimes decreased.
But today was the 42nd cycle.
Our blood pact was not yet complete, and thus, I would describe one of the most difficult and intense battles.
―――, ――.
―. ―――. …….
……., ……, …….”
Countless voices disappeared.
Above us, only Dang Seo-rin and I, our breath turned into white smoke and rose.
Our breaths for two people turned a reddish hue.
My companion in time muttered.
“Indeed. I’m not interested in dating either.”
The dusk descended from the sky.
A pleasant tension seeped through my body.
[――It’s coming.]
The Saintess’s low mutter.
Suddenly, the world’s crimson glow burned a bit brighter.
It was like a giant wreath of flames.
The sky’s zenith burned red, while the edges turned blue, black, pitch-black, quietly darkening.
The flames lived and moved. The crimson dusk at the center exhaled continually into the dark blue night sky, and inversely, it inhaled from the periphery.
The sky— the world, was breathing in the glow of dusk and starlight.
“Dang Seo-rin.”
“Yes. I know.”
Dang Seo-rin had already started chanting.
How long had it been since the song flowed from her lips?
Suddenly, the darkness at the edge of the sky swallowed the entire celestial dome. The world darkened as if dusk had never existed.
Night sky.
It wasn’t a physical or astronomical change. It was as if a mother quietly covered her child’s eyes with her palm, the entire world was momentarily shrouded by something.
“It’s here.”
“Damn. It’s real.”
Murmurs.
Some awakeners stirred at the incomprehensible phenomenon. The tension they had carefully suppressed with thorough strategy meetings, tactics, and witty banter suddenly surged to the surface.
Some clenched their fists at the arrival of the anomaly that had been foretold for six years.
In an era where power poles and streetlights had closed their eyes, only the elite warriors’ eyes dimly glowed. They stared at the night sky, arranged in meticulously planned formations.
[The Saintess of National Salvation announces that...]
[A top-class anomaly ‘Meteor Shower’ has appeared over the Korean Peninsula.]
Whirr—
The night sky’s darkness vomited out the highly condensed starlight. It was as if a giant playfully poked the sky’s balloon with a scale.
But the result was no joke.
“Starlight!”
“The strategy was right…?”
“My God. That’s not just a meteor. It’s an anomaly controlling the entire sky.
Normally, from this point, the Meteor Shower would stay in the sky for six hours.
But as observed through many cycles, during those six hours, the Meteor Shower wasn’t merely showing off how beautiful its starlight was, doing a runway walk, or rather a Milky Way walk, in the night sky.
In fact, it was casting a ‘spell’ on the humans on the ground over those six hours.
It could be called hypnosis or brainwashing. The key was, the more people who looked up at the starlight in the night sky, the stronger the Meteor Shower became.
[The Saintess of National Salvation advises non-combatants not to look at the night sky.]
Thus, in this boss battle, cooperation and swift resolution were paramount.
Instead of waiting for the Meteor Shower to gather enough power to fall, we aimed for its weakest point.
In other words, striking in the early stages was my strategy.
“Ah――”
To initiate this plan, Dang Seo-rin opened the first movement.
First melody, repeat. Second melody, expansion.
The song, often used in large-scale battles, filled the plains.
This alone was enough to back up the allies within the range of her magic. However, we were fully prepared for this battle.
“……Bzz, ……Ah…….”
Each combatant had a radio attached to their chest or waist. These items were prepared specifically for this battle. There was even a base station built nearby.
It was a tactic only possible because I, as a regressor, knew the exact location of the battlefield.
It was evidence that we had concentrated all the remnants and dregs of civilization for this critical battle.
Simply spreading Dang Seo-rin’s song through the radios would have been convenient, but such a convenient cheat didn’t occur. Thus, an additional melody was necessary.
“Ah――ah, ah――”
Third melody, Medium.
A pre-designated substance resonated with Dang Seo-rin’s song like a kind of mirror, thanks to magic.
Naturally, all the radios distributed to the awakeners were designated as ‘mediums.’ Since this designation required another layer of magic, Dang Seo-rin had been pre-enchanting the radios whenever she had spare time.
The total time spent on this task was three years.
Moreover, the equipment designated as ‘mediums’ by Dang Seo-rin wasn’t just cheap radios.
The final and most important Cursed Song Incantation that we had prepared and Dang Seo-rin executed resonated.
“Ah―― Ah―――”
Fourth melody, Flight.
The fourth song wrapped around the sky once and continued in endless da capo through repetition.
Grasping.
Nine hundred awakeners gathered in the Gimhae plains, and among them, seven hundred selected for combat clenched their hands as promised.
Every one of their fists held a broom.
“It’s a bit late to point out, but… Was a broom really the best choice?”
“Yep, absolutely.”
Dang Seo-rin answered, having finished the fourth melody. She had a look as if wondering why such a thing was asked.
“A witch can only fly with a broom.”
With a tap, Dang Seo-rin kicked the dirt. Perhaps it was because she had repeated this action thousands, tens of thousands of times. The pose of the great witch was relaxed and elegant.
Frrrrrk— From her small frame, a black cloak three times her size fluttered like a flag.
I chuckled. Then, I spoke into the radio.
“All units, commence takeoff.”
That was the signal.
Seven hundred awakeners of the alliance simultaneously leaped from the plains and soared into the night sky.
Boss battle.
Continent-class threat level.
Meteor Shower.
Battle commence.
First phase, takeoff.
Footnotes:
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