Phoenix of the Flame – Chapter 9

〈 Episode 9 〉 Part 1, Chapter 1 (8)
Incheon International Airport.
Once the largest airport in Korea, it had become a massive dungeon, a haven for Monsters.
After the Pyongyang Incident, the military and the Association tried their best to stop the Monsters coming down from the north.
But people grew weary of the relentless tide of Monsters, and eventually, the capital itself was moved, leaving the islands off the coast of Incheon and the northern part of Gyeonggi Province utterly ‘abandoned’.
The old airport, now untouched by human hands. This place was now the Monsters’ domain. A demonic realm where even S-class Heroes hesitated to tread.
That place was now being ravaged by a single predator.
Kyakyaooo!
A Monster resembling an eagle lunged forward, its claws gleaming. Its talons, spread wide as if to snatch prey, aimed to seize the opponent’s head, but,
Kkaang!
They were deflected by a veil of verdant green. The girl swung the veil, binding the Monster’s claws, and the eagle Monster couldn’t tear through it. Rather, the Monster’s ankle was caught by the girl’s dainty hand.
Kwaaang!
“Kyaaaak?!”
The eagle was slammed to the ground, its ankle held fast. The eagle Monster lost consciousness for a moment from the pain of being smashed into the ground hard enough to dent the asphalt.
Seogeok.
That was the eagle Monster’s last memory. The opponent sliced off the eagle’s head with a sharply grown fingernail on her index finger.
“…Keung.”
Purple blood from the Monster splattered on her cheek. The girl, Phoenix, wiped the blood away with a flick of her veil. The veil absorbed the blood like a sponge but didn’t lose its original color.
Poouk!
Phoenix plunged her fingernails into the eagle’s corpse. The flames that bloomed from her fingertips incinerated the twitching blood and flesh, still stiff from rigor mortis, in the blink of an eye, leaving behind only a Core the size of a baseball.
“Twelfth one.”
Phoenix dropped the orb into a sports crossbody bag she had placed on the ground. Inside, it was already filled with things of similar size to the Monster Core she had just put in.
‘Is it still not enough?’
Phoenix, with the crossbody bag slung over her shoulder, stepped inside the building, crunching on broken glass.
One of Korea’s seven major dungeons. This dungeon, centered around the international airport, was the highest difficulty dungeon in Incheon, even in the original story.
“I told Seohae Weapons to occupy Yeongjong Island, but….”
Phoenix clasped her hands together and shook them out. Already, inside the building, Monsters were beginning to show themselves, their mouths watering in response to the faint Mana Phoenix was emitting.
“There’s no problem if I do a little farming on the way, right?”
‘I’m their owner, what can they do about it.’
Phoenix swallowed the words in her heart and brought her hands together, then pulled them apart.
Wuoowoong-
Blue flames bloomed from her hands, enveloping Phoenix’s fists.
It looked as if she was wearing gauntlets of blazing fire.
Kiaaaaaak!
The closest Monster, sensing an ominous Mana from the flames, leaped forward with a start.
“Heup!”
Just before the tiger-like Monster could swing its massive forepaw, Phoenix ducked down and slipped beneath the tiger Monster, then shot upward, thrusting her fist into the sky.
Barely avoiding the forepaw, her fist reached the Monster’s chest, piercing its tough hide and reaching its innards.
Kkeueueueueong?!
The Monster thrashed in the air from the tremendous impact felt in its chest, but Phoenix wiggled her fingers, snatching the Core hidden within its ribs.
“Thirteen.”
Phoenix gripped the Core tightly and slammed her remaining fist straight into the Monster. The Monster, its Core torn out, flew through the air and crashed through a window, falling outside.
“Ew. It got on me.”
Purple Monster blood splattered on her clothes. Phoenix pulled at her veil and rubbed it over her clothes, and the veil greedily sucked up the Monster’s blood.
“It’s a gift, so I shouldn’t get it dirty.”
She had swallowed her pride and somehow managed to wear it, but she planned to buy new clothes as soon as she entered Seoul. Until then, she had to make do with this one outfit.
“So, why don’t we fight like gentlemen?”
Phoenix smiled sweetly, but the Monsters still showed hostility. At that sight, Phoenix wore an even deeper smile, not at all intimidated.
‘As expected, this output is just right.’
If she revealed too much, the whole world would be put on alert, and if she hid too much, she would be eaten by Seohae Weapons.
So, she adjusted her output to emit just the right amount of Mana.
B-class Monster Phoenix. Since Monsters didn’t exist in this world, she would be called B-class Villain Phoenix. Anyway, considering the actions she would be taking in the future, she was a million light-years away from being a Hero.
‘I’m one of the executives of an evil organization anyway, so what.’
In response to the Monsters, who bared their teeth and claws and lunged at her, Phoenix clenched her fists.
“I’m in a bad mood today, you know?”
Phoenix shouted, throwing off the veil she had been wearing like a scarf.
“So, I want to relieve a little stress…!”
Honestly, she hadn’t been able to properly gauge her strength against the tutorial boss. Therefore, she needed to figure out the ‘right amount to control her strength’ while living in this world.
Phoenix unleashed her surging Mana.
“Come on, you combat power measuring devices! I’m going to strip your flesh and blood and build a building in Seoul with my name on it!”
The Monsters charged all at once.
Kuoowoong!
A massive pillar of blue flame erupted in Incheon Airport.
* * *
Even though Incheon had been occupied by Monsters, its infrastructure was still functioning.
The long front line stretched from Wolmido to Gimpo Airport. In the past, the 38th parallel was the front line with North Korea, but now, northern Incheon had become the front line with the Monsters.
As a result, most of those living in Incheon and the Seoul metropolitan area packed their bags and fled to the safer south. What drove the final nail into the coffin of this exodus was the relocation of the capital to New Seoul.
In the end, those who remained in Incheon were either those who had not yet been able to flee, or the hunters who came to hunt the Monsters that appeared in Incheon.
“Madam! Get your luggage down!”
“Please, let me! I can’t go without that!”
“Then get off! Other people are waiting!”
A quarrel between a terminal employee and a passenger was in full swing. Despite its small size of only 28 seats, people were scrambling to get tickets for the bus to New Seoul, which ran only twice a day.
“It’s really a mess. Really.”
“Everyone’s just trying to survive, what can you say.”
The ticket office employees sipped on vending machine coffee in paper cups with bitter faces. The woman, who stubbornly clung to her bundle, was eventually forcibly removed by the security guard the employee had called.
“No, no! My daughter is waiting! I promised to go down today!”
“Take a new number! Next! Is number 1925 here!”
“Here!”
As soon as his number was called, a man with a haggard face pulled out his ticket and ran towards the bus. The woman, with superhuman strength, pushed past the security guard and clung to the man’s pants leg.
“Please! I’ll leave my luggage! So please!”
“Let go! It’s overweight! You had the slowest number, you should have left your luggage and boarded!”
The man kicked at the woman’s hands and boarded the bus. He tried to hide his flushed face and avoid the gazes of others.
“No, no! No!”
While the woman was gathering the bundles that had rolled onto the floor, the bus doors closed. The hand that tried to catch the bus was blocked by the security guard, and the woman stared blankly at the departing bus before collapsing on the spot.
“Euheoheo, euheoeoheo.”
Leaving the woman crying as if the world had ended, those gathered at the terminal platform scattered one by one. No one comforted the woman.
The world was too harsh to even talk about compassion. The ticket office employee clicked his tongue at the bitterness of the overly sweet sugar coffee.
“I wonder how the world is going to turn out now….”
“We have to trust the Heroes. Thanks to them, this neighborhood is still safe, right?”
“Yeongjong Island got wrecked, though.”
Although the military had retreated from the front line, the Hero Association was maintaining it to the end.
In the case of Incheon, they had long since given up the Gimpo area and Yeongjong Island, and solidified the defense line by cutting off the Yeongjong Bridge and the Incheon Bridge.
“Who would have known that the Han River would become the border between humans and Monsters.”
It was absurd to use the expression ‘border’ to describe the boundary with the Monsters, but that was how much South Korea was at ‘war’ with the Monsters coming down from the north.
“Anyway, it’s all because of those North Korean bastards. If they hadn’t stupidly detonated that nuke….”
“Seonbae, do you believe the government’s announcement?”
The Hubae employee lowered his voice.
“North Korea accidentally detonated a nuke while handling it? And as a result, the Monsters are fleeing from the effects of the radiation? …Seonbae, you must have heard something, right.”
“Hey. Watch your mouth. I’m letting it slide because it’s me, but if you get caught by the ‘Pine Tree Unit’, you could disappear without a trace.”
“I don’t own a car. And I don’t eat ramen.”
The Seonbae employee sighed, watching the Hubae employee jokingly zip his lips.
“…Hey. Honestly, you want me to believe the story that they sent Heroes to assassinate the North Korean leadership, and Kim Jong-il detonated the nuke to survive?”
“Oh. Seonbae, do you support the assassination theory? I think the North Koreans were trying to raise Monsters, and the government sent a special forces unit, and that Monster went berserk.”
“Either way.”
Officially, the government attributed the cause of the Pyongyang Incident to ‘North Korea’s self-destruction due to failure to manage its nukes’, but there were all sorts of gossip about the real cause.
“Anyway, stop talking nonsense and get to work. Don’t let strange rumors spread and get you taken away. You need to leave Incheon too, right?”
“Hehe. That’s true.”
The two employees stopped talking as they saw a user approaching the window.
“…….”
A girl with blue hair wearing a translucent turquoise scarf. The beautiful girl, who even exuded a mysterious atmosphere, was staring at the bus schedule with her arms crossed without saying a word.
“Uh, um? Student? Do you need something?”
At the Seonbae employee’s words, the girl quietly turned her gaze and sighed.
If the Hubae employee’s memory was correct, the clothes the girl was wearing were definitely the uniform of a high school on the outskirts of Incheon.
“…I’m trying to go to Seoul.”
At the girl’s words, the employees looked at each other with an expression that said, ‘Here it comes,’ and pointed to a corner of the terminal.
“If you want to go to New Seoul, you have to get a number over there.”
In the direction the employee pointed, the middle-aged woman who had been causing a ruckus earlier was walking listlessly, looking as if she had lost the world, and receiving a number ticket.
Number of people waiting: 4930.
“…I’m sure you know that there are only six buses a day to New Seoul, right? That’s why the government ordered us to sell bus tickets on a numbered basis.”
Considering that an average of about 200 people could leave Incheon for New Seoul per day, it was an absurd number of people waiting, but there was nothing they could do.
“The maximum amount of luggage you can bring per person is 15kg. If you don’t board 30 minutes before your turn’s departure time, your turn will be passed on to the next person…. There are a few other regulations, but the details are listed at the number ticket issuing place, so please go and check there.”
It was too much of a hassle to explain the regulations one by one now. The employee pointed to the number ticket machine and lowered his head again.
“……Seonbae, Seonbae!”
When the Hubae called out in a small voice, the Seonbae employee raised his head with a frustrated expression.
“…….”
The blue-haired girl was tilting her head with a puzzled expression. The employee preemptively pulled out the second countermeasure out of the five countermeasures for such cases.
“If you’re looking for a bus to a nearby regional city, there aren’t any. All the intercity and express buses have been destroyed, so the buses that are currently running are barely moving with Heroes on board….”
“No.”
The girl shook her head, interrupting the employee’s words.
“Seoul.”
“So, the bus to New Seoul is… huh?”
The employee asked back with a dumbfounded voice. The girl pointed to a faded spot on the map in front of the window and said.
“I’m trying to go to Seoul.”
The employee was momentarily speechless. Where did she say she was going? Seoul? A place more like hell than Incheon, where Monsters appeared more often than homeless people?
When the Seonbae employee lost his words, the Hubae employee approached and answered with an awkward smile.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
The employee shook his head.
“There are no buses to Seoul. You could all die on the way.”