Chapter 43: Hellscape Island (8)
Jack and Elliott, who had been unconscious, rushed in from behind.
Naturally, the Viper gang panicked, breaking their encirclement and scattering.
“How’re they already awake?”
The sedative used to knock out the cadets was strong enough to subdue most monsters.
They’d used it specifically to capture the cadets quietly and lure me in.
That was the problem.
Jack and Elliott were still under the effects of the Elixir, and with their nerves on edge, the noisy surroundings woke them quickly.
“Young master!”
“You bastards!”
The quick-witted pair immediately flanked me.
Of course, their appearance didn’t change much.
At least, that’s what Kasion thought.
“Stay calm. They’re just two cadets. Lina.”
Lina began drawing a magic circle to cast a spell.
At the same time, a button shot through the blue circle, breaking her middle finger.
“Aaagh!”
The chant was interrupted, and the magic circle vanished.
“Damn! Rauf! Protect Lina!”
Kasion realized too late they were too spread out.
Their usual hunting formation, sticking close to protect each other, was broken.
“Got it!”
Before Rauf could move, I charged at Lina.
Instinctively, she drew a dagger from her bosom and swung.
But a non-combatant like Lina couldn’t hope to graze me with a dagger.
Instead, I struck her hand precisely with my fist, making her drop it.
I snatched the dagger and was about to stab her neck when—
‘Hm, rather than ending it like this, that’d be better.’
A better idea struck me. I threw the dagger backward and twisted Lina’s arm.
―Crack.
“Aaaagh!!!”
Then, stepping on her shoulders to leap away from the approaching Rauf and Kasion, I jumped.
―Tap!
I landed lightly, picked up the fallen dagger, and rejoined Jack and Elliott.
“Hey, listen up. If you two can take down that mage and the big guy on your own, I’ll exempt you from training for the rest of the day, plus lunch. Don’t worry, I’ve got the authority for that.”
“What about you, young master?”
“I’m going for the guy in the middle. He looks too dangerous for you to handle.”
I handed the dagger to Elliott.
“Take it. Jack uses barehanded combat anyway.”
“What about you?”
“Me? I’ve got this.”
I picked up a stone from the ground.
Meanwhile, Kasion checked Lina’s condition, realigning her arm.
“Can you move?”
“Not at all. This arm’s useless. That damn kid…!”
“We got hit hard. And he’s using us as training dummies.”
I was treating these assassins as practice for the cadets.
That alone was absurd, but the cadets’ reactions were even funnier.
“Young master, you better keep that promise.”
“Yeah, if you don’t, we’ll kill you first!”
They genuinely believed they could beat these so-called monster hunters.
Naturally, this provoked the Viper gang.
“I was only going to take you out. But you’re dragging everyone into this?”
“Dragging? Aren’t you overrating yourselves? I think they can take you down easily. If they can’t handle this, they deserve to die here.”
“Hah! Such arrogance!”
As we talked, Rauf stepped forward with his iron club.
“I’ll crush your skulls to mush, you cocky brats!”
I kicked the ground, stirring up a cloud of dust.
“Ugh!”
Taking advantage of the obscured vision, something flew at Rauf.
“Haa!”
It was Jack.
Elliott and I passed by his side.
“You brats! Where do you think you’re going!”
“You deal with me, old man!”
While Jack stalled, Elliott targeted Lina, and I faced Kasion.
Naturally, the distance between them widened again.
―Clang!
“You think you can take me with just a stone?”
Kasion swung his sword.
I countered with the stone.
―Clang!
“A guy who can’t even cut a stone thinks he can take me?”
“Shut up!”
Kasion shouted, but he sensed something off.
A sword striking a stone should at least chip it, if not cut it.
But the stone I held was intact, and that meant one thing.
‘He’s coating the stone with Qi? This guy’s more dangerous than we heard.’
From then on, Kasion felt a chill.
‘Damn, Lina’s injury is a big problem. I need to deal with him fast.’
Kasion wasn’t an ordinary swordsman.
He made a living hunting monsters, and for that reason, he carried various tools.
Like a small hand crossbow he could wear at his waist.
―Click.
He drew the crossbow and pulled the trigger simultaneously.
‘It’s loaded with one emergency shot. There’s no way you can dodge this.’
But my reaction made his prediction moot.
The moment the crossbow was raised, I extended my foot, and before Kasion could finish his thought, I hooked my toes into the space between the bow and string, flicking it upward.
―Twang!
The crossbow fired into the sky.
‘He reacted to that…?’
Despite his trump card being thwarted, Kasion calmly swung his sword, and I met it head-on with the stone.
“Shooting arrows? That’s cheap.”
“You’re… pretty good. But how long do you think you can last?”
“Last? Are you sure about that? Take a good look.”
At my words, Kasion glanced around.
Lina, unable to cast properly, was one thing, but Rauf wasn’t winning easily either.
“You brat!”
Jack, dodging Rauf’s heavy iron club, was surprisingly agile.
―Thud! Thud!
The club looked like it could kill in one hit.
But Jack moved with the mindset that as long as he didn’t get hit, he was fine.
“Grr! You pest!”
Unable to hold back, Rauf planted his club in the ground and started throwing punches.
―Whoosh! Whoosh!
Each punch was near-lethal.
The old Jack would’ve been too scared to approach.
But after a series of events, especially training with the Dean, Jack no longer feared such things.
‘The Dean’s punches were faster and heavier. Compared to that, these are just crude!’
Jack zigzagged, closing in.
“You rat!”
After swinging wildly, Rauf finally grabbed Jack’s collar.
“You’re dead!”
He threw a punch, predicting Jack’s next move to dodge.
‘If you duck, you’re done!’
But Jack didn’t dodge. He met the punch with his own.
―Bam!
The fists collided.
Contrary to expectations that Jack’s fist would break, Rauf pulled back first.
“You!”
On closer inspection, Rauf’s fingers were bent backward.
Jack had angled his fist downward, precisely striking Rauf’s fingers.
Enraged, Rauf grabbed Jack’s shoulder, pressing down.
“I’ll snap your spine.”
“Ugh!”
Jack resisted with all his strength.
Against the force of a giant two heads taller than him.
Now, Rauf was the one panicking.
So was Lina, watching from the other side.
“Hey! Stop holding back!”
At Lina’s shout, Rauf cursed inwardly.
‘I’m not holding back, you idiot! He’s resisting!’
A strength equal to his own.
That power came from deep within Jack’s core.
“Your spirit’s impressive for a kid!”
“You’re the pathetic one. Can’t even live up to your size!”
“Cocky brat! No matter how spirited, you can’t overcome natural limits with Qi!”
Rauf pressed Jack down.
Jack bit his lip until it bled, drawing up every ounce of Qi.
“Who decided those limits!”
Jack slowly lifted Rauf’s arm.
“What?”
Letting the lifted arm slide, Jack grabbed Rauf’s collar.
Then, with all his strength, he headbutted Rauf’s face.
―Crack!
“Argh!”
With no thick muscles on his face, Rauf felt excruciating pain.
Seizing the moment, Jack headbutted again.
―Crack! Crack!
As Rauf staggered back, Jack raised his fists and pummeled Rauf’s face.
―Thud! Thud! Thud!
Thinking any hesitation would mean his death.
When Rauf’s face was bloodied and motionless, Jack collapsed.
“Haa… haa… I won.”
On the other side, Elliott had just knocked Lina down.
Having subdued her, he was about to slit her throat with the dagger.
“You bastard, if my arm was fine, you’d be dead!”
“What? If I had my weapon, you’d be long gone, you wench.”
He raised the dagger to slit her throat.
Then, from the side, I shouted while observing.
“No! Keep her alive!”
At that, Elliott snorted in frustration.
“Count yourself lucky.”
He knocked Lina out with a punch.
―Bam!
Witnessing Rauf’s death and Lina’s defeat, Kasion panicked.
“This is absurd…”
“What’s absurd? They’re kids chosen to become Executors. Don’t worry, I’ll handle you alone.”
“You…”
In normal conditions, with their usual fighting style, Jack and Elliott would’ve struggled to win.
But the Viper gang was exhausted from fighting monsters, and this wasn’t a coordinated attack but individual duels, tipping the scales.
Still, Kasion, consistently belittled by me, drew another short sword.
“From now on, it’ll be different. I’ll pour everything—”
I had already stepped back.
I held the crossbow, with an arrow loaded.
“Sorry, I’d love to keep going, but dragging this out might get me scolded by the other instructors.”
“How?”
Without hesitation, I pulled the trigger.
―Twang!
Kasion twisted his head, dodging the arrow by a hair’s breadth.
But that was a feint.
The real attack was the stone that followed.
“Ugh!”
The stone I threw hit Kasion’s left eye directly.
As he lost his sense of distance, I closed in, striking his vitals barehanded.
Each blow twisted his organs, and he dropped his sword.
‘It wasn’t that Evan Lafard had allies. He himself is the threat. Now I understand why that man let us go.’
Before coming here, they’d met Anton, a royal guard knight.
Now Kasion understood why Anton let them go despite being able to kill them.
‘He knew we’d all die by this guy’s hands…’
But he wasn’t one to give up.
Kasion pulled a small, spherical smoke bomb from his pocket.
―Poof!
“What?”
White smoke filled the area with fog.
As someone from an older era, I didn’t know about smoke bombs and was briefly startled.
“What’s this? Where’d this magic come from?”
As the smoke cleared, Kasion was gone.
Judging by the blood trail, he’d fled outside the barrier.
“Ah, I was told not to cross the barrier. Can’t let him escape.”
I picked up Kasion’s dropped sword.
Holding it horizontally to my face, I threw it in the direction Kasion had vanished.
―Whoosh!
The sword disappeared.
No scream or sound of it hitting anything.
Still, I turned back without lingering.
“Let’s go.”
***
The thrown sword pierced Kasion’s heart precisely.
“Guh, where’d such a monster come from…”
He’d faced countless monsters he couldn’t handle.
So he was confident in escaping.
But this opponent didn’t even allow the freedom to flee.
“I need to escape…”
Kasion collapsed forward.
…
As his blood seeped into the ground, a Wyvern soaring in the sky snatched his corpse.
“Keeek!”
Thrilled to catch a human, the Wyvern flew joyfully.
It headed toward its habitat in the island’s central area.
But perhaps it was too elated.
It was caught off guard by a liquid shooting up from below.
“Keeek!”
The yellowish liquid melted the Wyvern upon contact.
Its claws, holding Kasion, melted first, dropping him.
As the corpse fell rapidly, a massive snake head emerged from the forest.
“Saaak!”
The snake aimed to snatch the falling corpse.
But the corpse passed through the barrier by a hair’s breadth.
―Thud!
The Hydra, hitting the barrier, raged.
“Saaaak!!”
Meanwhile, the corpse that crossed the barrier fell into the fortress at the central area.
―Thud!
Inside the central fortress, as if struck by a meteor,
Kasion’s blood dripped into a hole in the floor.
―Drip, drip.
A tiny amount of that blood reached deep underground,
falling onto a mysterious, massive iron stake.