Steel-Eating Player - Chapter 35
35. Rain falling on the waves – 2
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Seo Eun-ha felt a strange sense of heterogeneity the moment Lee Hyun-wook appeared.
‘······Did he always feel like this?’
When the person named Lee Hyun-wook was first imprinted in Seo Eun-ha’s mind, the emotion she felt was ‘suspicion.’ I thought that a mere F-rank soldier was receiving an opportunity and evaluation beyond the subject.
But in the meantime, a lot of things have happened, and now…
‘······I feel safe and secure.’
Yes, she had no choice but to admit it.
I could feel that from Lee Hyun-wook.
The moment he appeared, it felt like reliable reinforcements had appeared.
And one of the hilts that Lee Hyun-wook floated into the air was held out to Seo Eun-ha.
“It may not be as good as what the platoon commander normally uses, but it is a weapon filled with divine power.”
Seo Eun-ha accepted it.
“The skeletons from the gate are heading toward the barracks.”
“Yes, I saw it.”
“Platoon leader, please go and secure the weapons and rescue the soldiers.”
At that time, the vampire who had backed away started walking towards me.
Tap- tap-
The dozen or so bullets lodged in his body crawled out like bugs and fell to the floor.
“What is this bastard… suddenly appearing and daring to hold a strategy meeting in front of me- 100,000!”
But he couldn’t finish talking.
This is because an iron ball flew from somewhere and crushed the bullet-ridden shin of the guy.
“evil! Shit! I will really kill you…! Aaaaaa!”
But since it was a regular iron ball, the guy would quickly recover and stand up.
“Don’t worry about this, go ahead. There are more lives at stake than mine.”
“······okay. be careful.”
Seo Eun-ha looked at Lee Hyun-wook and nodded.
She also knew that it was most reasonable to do as Lee Hyun-wook said.
However, even though he was bare-chested, he was a B-rank paladin and was entrusting an opponent who was too daunting to an F-rank soldier… It was usual, but in fact it meant to buy time with death.
‘But if it’s Lee Hyun-wook…’
Seo Eun-ha decided to believe it this time and ran towards the barracks.
“hey! Where! hey! hey!”
The vampire desperately called for Seo Eun-ha, but Lee Hyun-wook blocked his path.
“Hey, this dog! I missed you! How long do I have for that smooth nape…?”
The guy was so excited that he started yelling and suddenly stopped talking.
Then he wiped his face and began to breathe slowly.
“Okay, okay, I can’t help it, but I think it would be fun to play hide and seek…”
Then, I laughed to myself.
No matter how he looked at it, he seemed insane.
Well, if he was in his right mind, he wouldn’t have done something crazy like sucking people’s blood.
“Anyway, your abilities are so unique and awesome. Are you using telekinesis or something?”
“······.”
“But what? No matter how much you hit me with something like that, it won’t help? That thing you just gave that woman is a weapon filled with divine power, right? You idiot, why are you giving that to me? Tsk tsk…”
He rolled up his whip and hung it around his waist.
And stretched out both hands.
Then, blade-like nails sprouted.
“Without that sword from earlier, you can’t do anything to me. It’s just being torn apart unilaterally. know? Why don’t you call me back soon?”
“······.”
“Um really? Then from now on…”
He smiled and started approaching Lee Hyun-wook.
“…Feel it once, the exhilarating helplessness of being torn to death, piece by piece, by a being that you cannot defeat no matter how much you resist.”
It was then.
Clink-!
There was the sound of a window breaking somewhere.
It was the window of dormitory 5 on the second floor of barracks 1 behind Lee Hyun-wook.
And from there, something started pouring out.
Hung- Hung- Hung- Hung- Hung-
Those were multiple iron balls.
However, it was quite different from what Hyunwook Lee had just used.
“······What is it?”
The guy must have felt that power as expected and stopped with a puzzled expression.
Yes. A total of 13 iron beads, all of which contained divine power.
“I mean, I have a lot of weapons. Wouldn’t it be against the law to bring out a new weapon?”
Over the past few days, Lee Hyun-wook’s arsenal has increased tremendously.
Of course, I couldn’t take out 30 iron stakes and the other KG19 now.
It was because they were all stored in the ‘battalion armory’ in the basement of the barracks.
However, since this iron ball was not classified as a weapon, it could be kept privately.
They flew in and started spinning around Lee Hyun-wook’s body.
Then the vampire involuntarily took a backward step.
To his eyes, the iron beads seemed to emit an eerie bluish light.
It had a gloomy feeling, like a ‘wisp’ or ‘fox fire’.
It was a kind of visceral warning. It means that if you touch that thing, you can disappear.
“Where on earth did all that stuff come from?”
Holy power was not a very common power.
It was a special power that could be granted through a very difficult method. As it was rare for people to come out in droves like that, he couldn’t help but be embarrassed.
“Your dirty way of thinking… I will cleanse it from now on.”
With those words, 13 iron beads were scattered in all directions.
Shh – shh – shh – shh – shh – shh –
Then they surrounded him in all directions and were soon shot at high speed.
“Tsk!”
He jumped backwards as if doing acrobatics and avoided the iron ball attack with great movements.
“Suck damn it!”
However, it was impossible to continuously outrun 13 objects whose orbits were modified in real time.
Oops-billion!
“-Kwaaak!”
In the end, an iron ball hit him in the mouth.
Five or six teeth fell off my larynx and bloody blood poured out.
“Ugh…”
From then on, Nome changed his strategy.
I gave up on dodging and lowered my stance with both feet on the floor.
And the flying iron ball…
widely! widely! widely! widely!
He started grabbing it with quick movements.
He took five in each hand and stopped the other one by stepping on it with his foot.
It was a move close to a feat.
“Hey, this dog! hahaha! The ball game is over!”
I grabbed all the iron balls with both hands so tightly that I couldn’t control them.
Chiyiyi…
Smoke billowed from his grip. It was melting the skin.
He gritted his teeth and endured the pain.
“I shouldn’t catch that carelessly, right?”
“It’s a bluff. “What do you think you can do with me with this kind of divine power?”
In fact, it was not given directly by a high-ranking priest, but rather a kind of industrial product that transferred divine power from somewhere else using a blacksmith’s enchantment technology, so it was not very powerful.
however······.
“Well that’s not what I meant.”
“what? “Then what is it?”
“If you don’t like playing ball, how about quitting and playing with fireworks from now on?”
“What kind of point is that-”
“-shredding.”
Oops-billion!
Some of the iron balls exploded in its grasp.
Both of his hands, up to his forearms, were blown off by the impact.
“······.”
The guy had a blank expression for a moment, then looked at both the severed arms and slowly opened his mouth.
“······K-Aaaah!”
Whoosh –
at that moment, a silver ray of light shot out from Lee Hyun-wook’s waist.
Pale Note
Its destination was the guy’s left eyeball.
Sigh!
“Oh, billion…”
It seemed like he was already in a groggy state and couldn’t even think about avoiding the attack.
Lee Hyun-wook then pulled out the cloud sword.
– The weapon is given ‘Auror (Saint)’.
Using the newly acquired skill, I filled the Cloud Sword with divine power.
Then, he approached quickly and swung towards the stumbling leg of the guy.
Char-evil!
The man’s right ankle was cut off and he fell forward.
“So how do you feel? Have you become a little saintly?”
“Off…”
“But I have one question. Heo Youngtae, why are you here?”
“······Sigh, do you know me?”
Vampire Heo Young-tae was crying, completely devastated.
‘Are you afraid I’ll forget your faces every time I know?’
Lee Hyun-wook thought like that and looked down at the guy.
Heo Young-tae was one of the villain’s ‘assassination team’ called the ‘Five Butchers’.
‘Evil villains who slaughter all the players who set out to attack the dungeon…’
So, he gets the achievement ‘Butcher’ and is granted ‘special power’ through the villain quest.
That was the ability of monsters like ‘vampires’ that normal players couldn’t have.
‘But they aren’t the ones who were supposed to be here today.’
It was unexpected.
Originally, only two out of five butchers come here.
Lee Hyun-wook in his past life may not have known, but he was not as aware as Heo Young-tae. Lee Hyun-wook remembered that this guy had massacred civilians elsewhere and ‘turned them into undead’.
‘They started to take a different path by killing the black tentacle Yang Joo-seop at Seoul Station.’
It seemed that they were anxiously searching for the ‘key’ they had obtained at that time.
However, this too could be said to be Lee Hyun-wook’s prediction in a wide range.
‘Of course, you can’t grow while completely distancing yourself from them.’
There was no need to move away from the villains just because the surveillance network was narrowing.
Rather, you have to stick close to the lamp near them.
‘Only then can I intercept their luck as my own…’
While making them worse, Lee Hyun-wook himself grows.
And that formula still applies today.
Whoosh –
something flew towards Lee Hyun-wook’s hand.
It was Heo Young-tae’s flying finger.
It was precisely the ring that was put there.
– Acquired ‘Mana Tank (Level 3)’.
“······It’s like this.”
It was a fairly expensive item.
True to its name, the mana tank, this small ring was able to store a huge amount of mana and draw it out in real time. And since the higher the total mana amount, the better the stat, most players, including wizards, tended to purchase one of these mana tanks.
In other words, it was an item with a high transaction volume and a high selling price due to its versatility.
‘If it’s a 3rd grade… I’ll ask for at least 1 billion.’
Of course, it was only a bite away from Lee Hyun-wook.
Gulp –
Digesting this increases the total amount of mana to the same level as swallowing several tons of mana stones.
In this way, the villains grow in size by eating their plans one after another.
That was Lee Hyun-wook’s plan.
“Buy it big and save it…”
Lee Hyeon-wook stopped Heo Young-tae’s breath without hesitation.
***
Sporadic gunshots were ringing out here and there on Namsan Mountain.
Among them, the most noisy place was definitely near the guardhouse.
Two gun barrels were firing into the darkness.
Ta-da-da-da-dang!
Dozens of figures were shaken and knocked down by the attack.
“Now, let’s load!”
But they got up again and started coming towards us.
Even if you get hit by dozens of bullets and your whole body is destroyed…
“They won’t die!”
They were, to put it simply, ‘zombies’, an undead type of monster so called the inhabitants of hell.
“oh! I’m out of bullets!”
The two female guards of the 2nd Company eventually had no choice but to step back.
The guardsman, who was assisting them from behind, also put down his bowstring.
“Guys, come inside now!”
It was Sergeant Choi Seon-ah, a guard sergeant, who said that.
As a support player, she was providing buffs from the back.
“But if we hide here, won’t they go down into the city?”
“But you have to avoid us first! “The 5-minute standby will come soon!”
Choi Seon-ah’s judgment was reasonable. It was not a situation that could be handled with only 4 people.
But at the same time, I felt something was wrong.
That 5-minute standby… It should have come a long time ago.
She went inside the guardhouse and communicated with the guardhouse again through the ‘hotline’.
“JiTongsil! Jitongsil! This is the front gate guard! This is the front gate guard! Respond! Respond! ah······.”
But there was no response from the command and control room.
“Why on earth is no one coming?”
“······.”
They had no way of knowing, but they were in a state of chaos right now.
Woooooo- Before I knew
it, about thirty ‘inhabitants of hell’ had reached the vicinity of the guard post.
They were slow but unpreventable disasters.
“Lieutenant Commander! Zombies are entering the territory!”
However, no matter how they thought about it, there was no way they could stop it any longer.
It was then.
Whoops!
A line of flashes of light erupted from somewhere and sent the three inhabitants of Hell flying into the distance.
“······Has the 5-minute standby team arrived?”
However, there were no lights visible from the vehicle that the 5-minute waiting group might arrive in.
However, three beams of very faint light, or flashlights, approached.
puck!
One of the soldiers holding the lead shield rushed forward without hesitation and hit the lead zombie.
Then, swinging the one-handed sword left and right, he accurately cut the zombie’s nape.
“uh······.”
An arrow fired from somewhere behind his back slowly but surely took down the zombie.
Then, lightning magic was fired again, sending a couple of zombies flying.
“······Three three people?”
Yes, there were only three reinforcements who showed up.
However, they steadily cut down the rather slow and stupid ‘inhabitants of the other world’ – and completely ‘retired’ those who did not die easily, and approached the guard post.
“Deputy commander! Are you okay?”
Choi Seon-ah realized that the voice was Corporal Ahn Min-tae of the 5th squad of the 1st company.
“······How are you? “Where are you from now?”
“For now, we will block the front, so we would appreciate it if you could provide support fire from behind!”
“Ah Okay!”
Ahn Min-tae raised his shield and moved forward again.
Choi Seon-ah immediately cast a ‘haste’ and ‘power-up’ magic on Ahn Min-tae.
“Sigh! Oh… you’re suddenly full of energy!”
The three members of the 5th squad advancing with Ahn Min-tae at the center had the power to completely defeat the zombies, and with the support fire from the guards, they were able to wipe out about 20 of them in just a few minutes.
“It’s okay, guys! “We did it on our own!”
“Huh… Sergeant Lee Hyun-wook had to see this!”
Strangely enough, at this moment, they were feeling happy.
I was scared and nervous, but I was more confident that I could do it.
They were the ones who overcame being surrounded by over 60 gnolls.
As long as I had a holy weapon, I was no match for zombies that moved recklessly without intelligence.
Meanwhile, Choi Seon-ah couldn’t help but wonder as she watched the scene.
“What the hell…”
1st Company 5th Squad They were Choi Seon-ah’s squad.
In other words, they were the soldiers who knew the best.
However, Lee Hyun-wook has recently shown overwhelming progress, and now he is growing so fast that not even his squad members can understand… or, in fact, he is showing signs of evolution.
‘Does this make sense?’
It was all strange in many ways, but…
‘Okay, if we keep it like this, we can stop it.’
I was so, so, so fortunate.
She grabbed his trembling thighs.
It looked like she was going to collapse at any moment, but she bit her lip and held on.
‘I am no longer a child. And I’m a soldier.’
She caught her breath and checked her mana and skill cooldowns.
Then, the battle situation was assessed and a ‘buff’ was applied to the most appropriate player.
Her buffs could increase a player’s abilities by up to 20%.
Whoosh- Whoosh- Whoosh-
After receiving the buff, Taeyong Choi’s firing speed rapidly increased.
Choi Seon-ah was also doing her part.
however······.
“Ha- what is this? Is this a completely unexpected scene?”
A strange voice was heard from somewhere.
Choi Seon-ah lifted her head in the direction from which the voice was heard.
Someone unfamiliar was sitting on top of the guardhouse building.
It was a slim woman in a black suit.
But the look in her eyes…
‘······Red?’
Choi Seon-ah somehow felt that he didn’t seem human.
And strangely enough, when I made eye contact with her, I felt like my body stiffened.
“who are you?”
At that moment, the woman jumped out of there.
and······.
Char-evil!
He swung his hand and slit the throat of one of the guards.
She collapsed.
A pool of blood formed on the floor.
“······.”
It was so fast that Choi Seon-ah could only stare blankly at the scene.
“ah?”
And by the time I realized that the next target of those claws was myself, it was already too late.
But in a split second, someone blocked Choi Seon-ah’s path.
Whoops!
“Tsk!”
It was Ahn Min-tae. He blocked the woman’s claws with his shield.
And instead, he used more force and pushed her away.
“every! “Retreat inside!”
When Ahn Min-tae shouted and swung his sword, the unidentified woman laughed and took a step back.
But after just scratching the shield, smoke was rising from the woman’s fingers.
Cheeeee…
“Hmm… You’re holding an expensive shield? “AMT soldiers and such don’t fit the theme, huh?”
He blew away the smoke rising from his fingernails.
“hey! What are you? “What is this all of a sudden?”
Mintae Ahn discovered that the zombies were just passing by her without attacking her.
“I’ll forget when I die, so why should I say something that hurts your mouth?”
She kicked the ground and threw a front kick at Min-tae Ahn.
In response, Min-tae Ahn strengthened his legs and shifted his weight forward.
Oops-billion!
But I couldn’t hold on.
Ahn Min-tae’s body was lifted up and flew about 5 meters before landing on a sidewalk block.
At that moment, Taeyong Choi and Junmo Park fired arrows and lightning attacks, but the woman easily dodged them.
“eww······.”
Ahn Min-tae felt the night sky turning yellow and noticed it right away.
Even if everyone here attacks her, she can’t be her opponent…
But I couldn’t give up.
He immediately got up and walked to the front.
“Ah, Corporal Ahn Min-tae?”
“Tsk! We have to hold on until Sergeant Lee Hyun-wook comes…”
Looking at him, the woman smiled.
Then he pulled out a long sword from behind.
I knocked Ahn Min-tae away with my bare body, but it was a weapon…
Soon, she lightly swung her left hand.
Chang –
With just that small movement, the tip of the shield An Min-tae was holding was cut off.
Even the one-handed sword holding divine power in his right hand was cut in half.
“I don’t plan on sparing you for the next attack, so what should I do?”
“······.”
But Ahn Min-tae did not get out of the way.
I wanted to run away, but I couldn’t.
‘If I step back, everyone will die.’
Until recently, I had never felt a sense of duty while serving as an AMT soldier.
It had to be that way.
A sense of duty was also an emotion that could only be achieved by feeling a sense of belonging and accomplishment.
But things had changed now.
‘Sergeant Lee Hyun-wook entrusted this place to me.’
And Ahn Min-tae himself decided to become a great tank and senior from now on.
That’s why I couldn’t back down.
“Haha, you idiot cut off my lifeline?”
The woman raised her long sword high.
Ba-ang!
At that very moment,
a bright light burst in from somewhere as the klaxon rang out.
It was a road outside the base.
Puff-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-buck!
An SUV raced toward the guard post, hitting zombies with its twin lights on.
Because of the barricade, he moved in a zigzag motion, but as if he was performing a stunt, he came in without a hitch.
“What the fuck is this?”
Just before he hit the woman, the woman jumped to avoid it.
Kiyi-ik!
The car stopped exactly in front of the guard post.
“······Huh? Isn’t that the company commander’s car?”
Taeyong Choi said.
Yes, that was definitely Captain Yongjun Kwak’s SUV.
However, the passenger door opened before the driver’s door.
And someone got off there.
In the light of the car headlights, someone dressed in black… AMT combat uniform walked out
.
Slowly the outline became clear.
Half-undone combat boots, completely open combat uniform, sergeant rank insignia, rimless glasses…
Everyone looked at his face.
But was it because it was such an unexpected appearance?
In the moment of silence where no one could easily speak, only the sound of the SUV’s engine sounded.
Soon, Min-tae Ahn opened his mouth and called his name.
“······Sergeant Youngjun Choi?”
It was an unexpected return from vacation for a man
who was said to be the strongest among all AMT soldiers
and who would later be called a sword saint .