episode_0490

“I’ve heard that there are some black magicians who raise corpses and use them… but I’ve never heard that it’s possible to bring back the abilities that a corpse had when it was alive.”

The words that just came out of Cheongpung’s mouth were the same as how Hayoung and I were feeling right now.

The bodies that had been swallowed up by something pitch-black and quivering that reminded them of a shadow were complaining, ‘Are they zombies again?’ as they staggered and rose to their feet.

No, well, the ones who stand up like that don’t rush in like the zombies I know, but instead summon bone spears from the air and shoot them at us.

What even sticks out like that?

It wasn’t just a spear made of bone.

To exaggerate a bit, I was rolling around on the floor to avoid being bombarded by what seemed to be hundreds of bone spears, when suddenly the floor I was standing on began to swell like mud, and strange tentacles came out of there with a pop.

Then he started flailing here and there, trying to catch me.

“Fuck, it’s not a tentacle, it’s a tentacle–!!!”

How dare these bastards try to play tentacles with me?

As soon as I heard a rustle under my feet, I thought something was wrong and quickly threw myself to the side. What if I had been just a little bit late?

I could end up like Ha-young only if my foot was caught by that tentacle.

···ok? Wait a minute, who got caught?

“Sweet…! Let go of this…!”

I thought he was just overusing his original abilities due to ignorance, but surprisingly, he still had a certain amount of intelligence left in him.

I don’t know if it was just the tentacle’s instinct, but the tentacle that succeeded in grabbing Ha-young’s ankle leapt upward.

Thanks to this, Hayoung didn’t even get a chance to get out of there and ended up getting caught in the fish hook and being thrown upwards like a fish.

The problem was that Hayoung was a martial artist.

This is not the case with any martial arts, but in the case of boxing, proper destructive power can only be unleashed when you are standing with your feet on the ground.

That’s the basics, but how much destructive power can be produced while hanging upside down like that, and in a situation where you can’t even use one leg?

There was also a compatibility issue there.

If we were to compare it to a weapon called a boxing technique, it could be said to be close to a blunt weapon, and while those tentacles wriggling all over the place look vulnerable to bladed weapons, they also seem quite immune to that type of attack.

Because of that, it must have been the moment when he quickly rushed towards that direction to help Hayoung, who seemed to have difficulty escaping.

“Both stop moving.”

With the declaration of the blue wind, a throwing star passed by the tentacle holding Hayoung’s ankle.

It was right after that that what seemed to be quite thick was suddenly cut into small pieces, like pieces of octopus used in takoyaki.

“You may get caught up, so step away. Be careful not to get cut when backing away.”

As Cheongpung was speaking, his hands were filled with rings that he had never seen before.

Be careful not to get cut? To what…?

The moment I unconsciously expressed the same question as it seemed like nothing had changed other than that, something thin sparkled through the thick smoke screen surrounding me.

It was… a thread.

A thread so thin and transparent that even I would not notice its existence unless I looked carefully with my eyes narrowed.

Before I knew it, something like that had taken over the entire passage.

What sent shivers down my spine was none other than the enormous amount of energy flowing through that thread.

As if to prove that he was not the eldest son of the Sichuan group for nothing, an enormous amount of energy was swirling around Cheongpung, to the point that the hem of his clothes fluttered violently just by releasing his energy.

The power that emanated from it was almost no different from what I had previously felt from Tang Soso’s father, Tang Teng.

“I will take care of that and the mess it caused. So you two, go to the control room as soon as possible.”

Even though Cheongpung was emitting such things from his whole body, he did not guarantee his victory.

He just said that he would buy time and that he should use that opportunity to achieve his goal.

“That was probably the gatekeeper guarding the control room. So that place is no different from Muju Gongsan now.”

Therefore, Cheongpung said that once you arrive, it will not be that difficult to achieve your goal.

“So go. Come on!”

“I’m sorry while I’m talking… but I have no intention of letting you go?”

“Right now, I can’t even move because of the thread, but if my prediction is correct, I won’t be able to hold out for long.”

“I don’t know what nonsense this is, huh? When?”

A person who was always looking for an opportunity to find something to blame was saying something like that, so I couldn’t just sit back and leave my hands like this.

Perhaps because he was bothered by Cheongpung’s seemingly solemn attitude, he almost forcibly pulled Hayoung, who could not take his feet off the spot, and quickly passed by something wearing a girl’s mask.

Even though her eyes had been closed the whole time, the girl’s head turned almost 180 degrees unnaturally, as if she had sensed our movement, and at almost the same time, her closed eyes flashed open.

A look in your eyes that seems to say you won’t miss it.

With those eyes, the black hand that grew out of the girl’s right forearm swelled greatly and stretched out towards us… but it was much more likely that the new threads that had stretched out from somewhere would wrap around it rather than touching me or Hayoung’s body. It was fast.

Thanks to this, I was able to safely enter the passage Helena told me about without getting caught in the middle.

“Huh… I thought I was caught.”

“Oppa Cheongpung… Are you okay?”

“You don’t know that.”

“Then it would be better to go back now…”

“I don’t know about that, but I know that if I get caught by an unknown monster like this and time drags on, everything will fall apart.”

What about the fog that was so thick that you couldn’t even see an inch in front of you when you first left the warehouse?

Before I knew it, the momentum had been lost.

And what that change meant… was that the temporary solution we had found was blocked by the warlocks.

If it had not been so, the whole place would have been transformed by now, like in the movie The Mist, by the very visible hand of the horn-bearing Dangsoso, and this would certainly be true.

“So, let’s start by activating that barrier or something.”

What happens after that?

The 1st Magic Corps, which is most likely unable to properly use its power against the warlocks due to the presence of hostages, will be released as a free roll.

In that case, it won’t be a problem to get rid of the unknown thing you just saw.

“You said earlier that once you enter the passageway, you can just walk straight along the passageway, right?”

“I did, but…”

“Let’s go.”

As expected, was it true that the girl-type monster that had suddenly appeared earlier and blocked our path had crawled out of here just as Tang Cheongpung had guessed?

The feel of the floor through my shoes was strange, so I looked down for a moment and could see that the metal floor was deeply dented, like a furrow swept by a tractor.

The fact that the shape appears to exactly match the outline of the black hand hanging from the girl’s body earlier… is not necessarily due to my mood.

And was it because the person who was supposed to be guarding this passage left his position like that?

Despite the sound of Hayoung and I’s footsteps echoing through the passage, no one showed up.

Thanks to this, we were able to reach the area presumed to be the control room much faster than expected.

And as soon as I reached my destination, I came across dead corpses with their hearts and brains eaten away.

“Um…!”

“Wizards… they don’t look like they are. Usually, when working, wizards wear robes with a symbol indicating which school they belong to.”

“Really?”

“Yes, that way, you can prevent cases where wizards belonging to the same alliance clash when doing external work.”

“Ah, well…”

As the name suggests, the Magic Tower Alliance is an association of magic towers.

As such, there will be some people who get along well with each other, and some who do not get along well… Imagine that in such a situation, the people belonging to each magic tower come into conflict with each other.

What if one party was seriously injured or killed in the process to the point where recovery was impossible?

It wouldn’t be surprising even if a dispute arose between the magic towers because of this.

From the perspective of running the alliance, you will want to prevent the situation from going that way at all costs.

So even if such a rule existed, it wouldn’t be that strange.

“If not a wizard… maybe a warlock?”

“Maybe the probability of that happening is high…”

“But why is it dead?”

“Probably… it was the work of that monster we saw earlier.”

Is this the so-called monster that doesn’t care about his or her opponents?

“···I need to take care of the work here quickly and join there quickly.”

“···Yes.”

I moved aside the corpses blocking the door and entered the control room.