Black Badger

Unfortunately, night had already begun to settle over us.

We had leapt an enormous distance in one jump through the portal, and then flown quite a while in the high-speed transport aircraft. A time difference was inevitable.

But of all possibilities, did it really have to be this time difference? Darkness disadvantaged us in every way. I could see well at night, but the squad members couldn’t.

They would use combat goggles for night vision, but I’d heard those had limits. Meanwhile, the Creatures swarming this place were generally able to move freely even in darkness.

We would have to enter with extra caution.

I cleaned up my parachute and approached the building.

A barrier was stretched across it.

They put it up nicely and tight.

I clicked my tongue and moved my hand to draw my greatsword, but Walker—who had finished packing up his parachute ahead of me—was already walking straight toward the barrier.

“Senior.”

“Captain. The mage hid the Sarlap-gui’s presence with magic.”

The moment he spoke, Kairos came up and reported.

As expected.

I sighed and stared at the barrier, blue light rippling and fading.

“You be careful too.”

When I muttered that, the handler snorted a small laugh.

“Sure.”

PAAANG!

A tremendous sound stabbed into my ears.

It was like the air itself had burst.

The noise was so loud it was surprising my eardrums didn’t tear. Reflexively I snapped my body around, and saw Walker’s fist—smoke rising around it.

Did he just... punch the barrier?

Startled, Kairos and I dashed to him on instinct.

“Senior! This thing doesn’t break unless you—”

...use absurd power...

.......

?

“If something doesn’t work with strength,”

Walker turned his head and looked at me.

“it means the strength is insufficient.”

“How did this even break?”

I stared blankly at the barrier, now cracked and shedding fragments.

“Is it even possible to break this with physical force?”

“Good lord.”

Kairos couldn’t tear his eyes away either.

“I’ve never seen a barrier break to physical strength.”

Walker wasn’t particularly surprised.

This must be a regular occurrence for him.

But Kairos and I couldn’t pull ourselves together. Understandable—this was a first for us. And he had done it with his bare fist. Not with a cannon, not some special weapon.

What in the world?

“Ah~... that raw smell....”

Ricardo slipped casually into the broken barrier with a crooked grin.

“Crawling with them~.”

“So we’re going in the honest way through the front door?”

The others didn’t seem surprised at all.

The human Badgers stepped neatly inside the barrier. Yun, Sophia, and Kai entered one after another.

Walker glanced toward the collapsed village spread outside the boundary, then followed the seniors in.

I came back to my senses and went after them.

“Can enhanced bodies be that strong?”

I muttered, and Kairos—walking behind me—replied in a voice low enough the seniors wouldn’t hear.

“He could be mixed-blood.”

My eyes widened.

“I don’t sense him as one, but... from the third generation onward, the instinct faded. So it’s sufficiently plausible.”

A convincing hypothesis.

Walker had apparently seemed so powerful the moment he appeared at Yehyeon’s house that people mistook him for an illegal enhanced-body transplant case.

Kairos had told me many of our kin who dissolved into Earth society had lost contact. They lived lives indistinguishable from humans, died naturally, and even Yoow no longer knew what happened to all of them.

Meaning William Walker could be a third-generation descendant.

It was baseless speculation, but still.

“With such a strong junior, work gets easy~...”

The seniors moved briskly on their own.

Walker dragged over a dump truck lying somewhere in the yard. He pulled it like a baby stroller and propped it against the steps leading to the school’s front entrance.

An instant, effective shield wall.

Walker didn’t even dust off his hands as he looked at me.

“Squad leader.”

I gave him a wry smile.

“Yes.”

“If you think you can’t handle something, report it.”

As if he had never said such words in his life.

“It’s your first time in S-Zone.”

Well then.

I was beginning to understand why the Personnel Director had brought him along and somehow gotten Yehyeon to forgive him.

I gave a faint smile and nodded.

We immediately began the operation. While Ricardo, Sophia, and Walker took their positions, I received Ami’s report that she’d landed the transport properly.

Once I confirmed there would be no issues returning home, I turned my eyes to the school’s main entrance.

One half of the glass doors had been blown away.

“Let’s begin.”

Kairos gave a light grin, tilted his head, and walked off somewhere.

I memorized his retreating back and walked to the entrance.

I would take point, Yun would follow, and Kai would guard the rear.

Clinging to the remaining half of the glass door was a giant starfish-like thing.

The starfish’s writhing mouth.

I placed my hand on the glass door and spoke.

“The enemy’s mage hid the Sarlap-gui’s presence. If you hear dragging footsteps, give the signal.”

The two seniors tapped their gun barrels—our agreed signal.

I stabbed the starfish through the throat with my dagger and stepped inside.

Thus began the task: draw the enemy’s attention, survive the rain of attacks, and break free of the Sarlap-gui’s sight.

***

We had to eliminate the High Lich on the second floor.

If we encountered it and the Sarlap-gui simultaneously, someone would die.

I examined the possible routes to the second floor.

There were three options.

The central ramp staircase. The east staircase. The west staircase.

I immediately ruled out the central ramp staircase. Too many monsters were clustered there—their presences blurred into one mass.

In high-density areas, we might fail to detect the Sarlap-gui.

And between east and west, the east side was quieter.

We headed for the east staircase.

The staircase was ripped diagonally, and the surviving steps were coated with sticky green ooze.

If we climbed, we would find a curled-up Condemner Creature.

“Medium Creature at the top of the stairs.”

After giving a quiet report, I stepped onto the sticky stair.

The seniors silently trailed behind me.

I climbed on all fours, almost crawling.

It would’ve been nice to slip up to it quietly and stab it through the neck while it slept.

BANG, TATATAT!

That won’t work.

Kai at the rear had fired at incoming targets.

The gunshots woke the Condemner.

With a clack, the creature unfolded its body. I forced my shoes off the sticky step and accelerated.

Surrk.

The moment I reached the top, I drew and swung, severing its neck.

The Condemner’s goat-head rolled down to the first floor.

Yun swatted the goat head aside with his arm. Then he stepped onto the second floor and sliced off a tentacle aiming for my crown. I tossed the headless body over to the first floor, then turned and sprinted up the remaining half of the torn stairs.

A dark hallway spread before my eyes.

“Clearing once.”

Moonlight streamed through the windows on the left wall, illuminating the horde filling the corridor.

They rushed toward us at different speeds.

Among them, I sensed one presence that stood out.

The Lich was inside Class 2-2.

KWAGWAGWAGWAGWANG!

I unleashed a sword slash narrower than the hallway’s width.

A white arc flew down the corridor. The approaching Creatures split in half, spraying organs and fluids. The wet grinding sound of bodies being shaved away faded into the distance.

Then silence.

The movement filling the corridor vanished.

Drip, drip, drip—blood hitting the floor.

I hadn’t cleared the ones stuck to the walls and ceiling, but removing this many made breathing easier.

Kai would be watching the rear.

“I’ll take care of the Lich.”

I pricked my ears and walked down the corridor.

“It’s in Class 2-2. I’ll go in alone—please cover the front and back doors.”

The men tapped their guns.

They didn’t say they were coming in with me.

I appreciated the trust.

Keeping our footsteps silent, we passed a classroom with its sign missing. Meat chunks and pools of blood littered the floor, yet almost no sound came from us.

These men could move terrifyingly quietly.

Especially Yun—his ability to hide his presence was chilling. If I didn’t consciously look for him, I could not feel him. Only when he swung his sword and killed something did he emerge to my senses.

Even now, the senior silently stabbed something. I didn’t hear his breathing—only the wet crunch as something was crushed. A fist-sized eyeball popped out and rolled down the corridor.

Good thing it wasn’t an enemy aimed at me.

With that thought, I stopped at the door of Class 2-2.

This classroom alone still had intact windows and doors.

“I’m going in.”

Yun moved to the back door, crouched, and pressed his back to it.

Kai flattened himself to the wall beside the front door where I stood, aiming his barrel down the corridor.

I followed the sharp, vivid sense of the Lich and pushed the door open.

BANG!

The moment I stepped in, I shut the door behind me.

Srrrng.

I drew my sword.

Floating in front of the window, a robed skeleton slowly twisted its body toward me.

A shabby skeleton visible through its tattered robe.

In its right hand, a wand tipped with a red sphere.

Crackle—crrk.

The moment its empty eye sockets fixed on me, sparks danced from the sphere.

I watched the red lines extending from within the translucent sphere.

The dark robe fluttered in the breeze from the window. Beneath it, a crimson circle expanded outward.

Here it comes.

KWA-AAAAANG!

The growing circle at its feet surged over the classroom toward me.

At the same time, crimson spikes shot from the sphere.

I kicked off the floor, leapt onto a desk, and swung.

KAGAGAGANG!

As expected of a High Lich. Its strength was incomparable to that of a low-grade Lich. My sword vibrated violently as it deflected the spikes.

With an ordinary sword, the blade would have snapped instantly.

I cut down all the spikes and used the desk as a stepping stone to close the distance.

Black-stained floorboards sprouted crimson thorns.

Crackle, crackle.

PAAANG!

As I got closer, a burst of spike-flowers shot from the wand.

Red dots filled my vision.

I crouched on the desk and swung upward.

After drawing a straight line, I lowered the blade diagonally right, then sliced horizontally at precisely half that ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ distance.

KUUNG!

I pushed the incoming spikes aside.

A low-tier Lich would’ve been skewered by its own spikes into a hedgehog.

This Lich melted its own spikes like red wax simply by swinging its wand.

Light radiating from its body deepened. Red light seeped from the sockets where darkness had coiled.

A circular halo of crimson crosses formed behind it.

Woom!

A shockwave slammed past me.

I braced my legs, lifted my eyelids, and saw a translucent red circle surrounding the Lich.

A shield.

Very much like a Core.

KAANG!

I closed in and slashed—but nothing.

Incredible durability. Even this blade could not cut through it. Despite containing the heartwood of the Sacred Tree, the sword lacked enough holy power to break a High Lich’s shield.

If Deltei were here, she would melt something like this as easily as a soap bubble.

The Lich could attack from inside its shield.

The small crosses forming its halo unraveled, lining up behind it in a straight row.

KWAGWAGWAGWANG!

Crimson crosses fired like cannons.

I swung horizontally.

KWAANG!

A desk exploded from the shockwave.

Again my body was thrown back. Desk fragments scattered, wedged between the floor’s rising spikes. Having lost footing, I slid my boot between two thorns and landed.

The spikes were so dense it was impossible not to get scratched.

Thankfully, military boots were very tough.

At least my soles weren’t punctured yet. If all I did was defend, that wouldn’t last long.

So I had to break the shield.

If Yun or other humans were here, they might know some chemical method I didn’t. But I had my own way.

“O Holy Tree.”

You may no longer reach me.

But creatures born from your countless branches remained here, and so some of your power must linger on Earth.

“Dissolve me, renew me, fill me with yourself, and use me as your instrument.”

I looked down at the sword held in both hands.

“Look upon your young branch.”

I memorized the blood sticking to the blade.

If I were a Saint as powerful as Deltei, this alone would have been enough. But I could not consecrate with only this. Though I was raised in a temple, I had never become a priest.

But I had become the World Tree’s parricide.

So I only had to add something to the prayer.

The sword containing the Sacred Tree’s faint resonance—

I let a single tear fall onto it.

Ching!

A sound like shattering ice rang out for an instant.

“Phase 2.”

Gripping the sword again with one hand, I swung once, adjusted my stance, and smiled.

“Ready?”

The Lich flooded the classroom with an even deeper red light.

Holding a blade that reflected that light, I charged toward the superior monster.