Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 119.7: Tool (7)

Avoid combat with unknown types.

This is the golden rule for hunters.

The honor of fighting against an unseen new monster is reserved only for the most experienced and seasoned hunter teams.

In my active days, dealing with new monsters was always our responsibility.

But now, time has passed, and I’ve lost the sharp instincts I once had, and the outstanding teammates who stood by me have disappeared.

I'm not belittling Defender.

He is better suited for dealing with humans than monsters.

The biggest problem is that the type he's facing is a combat type.

Combat types, as the name suggests, are specialized in combat.

They don’t use minions but instead rely on their overwhelming combat skills to deliver severe damage to their enemies, especially humans.

It’s possible that the new type I faced in Jeju was also one of these combat types.

The problem is how a combat type, not an infiltrator, can survive in a hostile environment like Earth without being destroyed. The situation itself is far beyond my comprehension.

Right now, in front of me, my late mentor has turned into a zombie and is crafting grotesque objects, while the psychopathic Defender is risking his life to guard me, and monsters, the enemies of humanity, are being used as human tools.

The strangest fact is that I somehow complied with my crazy mentor's stubbornness.

In the past, if asked, the Professor I remembered from my days with Jang Ki-young would have never entertained such an idea.

But in this surreal, midsummer night’s dream of a reality, anything can happen.

So, let’s ignore why this combat type listens to the fanatic’s orders for now.

Boom!

The monster approaches.

Unlike the character it is named after, it doesn’t resemble a human at all.

Its body, resembling a disc, is supported by long legs with three or four joints, numbering sixteen in total.

Why it’s called ‘Leopard’ is a question I’d have to ask the now-gone Chinese.

Well, they liked giving things names.

They even gave names to monsters that had already been discovered in the US.

One of them was the Guan Yu type, and that one is still vivid in my memory.

The important thing is that the only things I know about this type are its appearance and role.

I don’t know how it attacks or harms humans.

But I’ll find out soon enough. It shot something.

It was a grayish-white disc.

I don’t know how, but it was hovering on its own.

“Skeleton.”

“I see.”

Maybe I should have gathered information from my residents.

No, that would have been hard.

I never expected a situation like this to arise back then.

It’s a danger of my own making.

Whoosh---

The monster shot another disc.

Two, three, and then five.

They positioned themselves in the air beneath the sixteen legs, spreading in a radial pattern.

This doesn’t feel right.

“Threat!”

I signaled my team, following the training manual, and initiated intimidation.

Bang!

It barely grazed.

My question was answered with an answer I already knew.

Boom!

Shockwave.

And then.

Swish—

I felt the cold sensation of a bullet brushing past my head.

Ping!

The bullet bounced off the scrap near Jang Ki-young.

The clattering of metal plates from the debris echoed, reminding me of cymbals, as the discs moved.

Whoosh---

The discs are coming.

They form a line.

“Drones?!”

I agree with Defender’s words.

That’s a drone.

Nothing else comes to mind.

“Fall back!”

“Ah, okay!”

“Threat!”

I initiated intimidation against the discs.

Bang!

There’s no response.

But in that split second, the discs close in with terrifying speed.

As I see the discs flying towards me, the familiar sleepiness pulls my eyelids down.

Is this it? Am I finally going to that place?

The place where my friends and teammates, the people I left to die, are waiting for me?

“······.”

No, not yet.

Not yet.

I still have things to do.

Things I must do.

Swallow!

I watched the incoming discs.

Whoosh---

Ratatatat! fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

Rapid fire.

One by one, the discs fall, but one of them crashes into me head-on.

I swung my axe and knocked the disc away.

Crack!

I stopped breathing and stared down the disc I had hit with my axe.

“······.”

It didn’t explode.

And then my axe got stuck.

The disc, pierced by the axe, began to twitch and scatter golden particles as it desperately moved its sharp prongs, likely aiming to kill me.

“······.”

This isn’t the end.

No, it hasn’t even begun.

If that thing is a “combat type.”

Just as I thought.

Vroom-vroom---

The monster with sixteen legs had already ejected more than ten discs from beneath its body.

“Defender.”

I spoke to Defender.

“Yeah.”

“Can you intimidate it?”

“I-I’m not sure.”

He didn’t seem confident.

As expected, he’s not a competent person when it comes to dealing with monsters.

“Then, can you intercept the discs?”

“That’s possible.”

“Be careful. Don’t shoot towards the monster. If we’re unlucky, a stray ricochet might cause a hole in your body.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“I have an idea.”

The structure of the warehouse is similar.

I’ll settle this on the roof.

There’s an extremely dangerous tactic, even Jang Ki-young once forbade it.

But there doesn’t seem to be another choice.

I entrusted my back to Defender and ran toward the roof.

“Park Gyu!”

A dark figure blocks my way.

It’s Jang Ki-young.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

At the most crucial moment, he’s blocking me.

Holding some useless junk as if it were a treasure.

“Take it! It’s finished! I’ve completed the ultimate weapon that will give you wings!”

I tried to pass him.

He blocked me again.

“Hurry up and try it! Try it! See, there’s a monster right there? Perfect timing! Here! Try my new weapon, Icarus!”

“······Instructor.”

There’s no time for jokes.

I don’t plan to entertain his broken fragments, either.

I might have entertained those thoughts once, but now, with my life on the line, my selfishness, which I’ve delayed, is screaming louder inside me.

“Park Gyu. Try it.”

“Enough already!”

I yelled without realizing.

The whole warehouse echoed.

But the echo of my shout was drowned out by the urgent gunshots.

Bang!

I added my shot to the line of fire.

The second disc fell.

I looked at my mentor.

“······.”

Even as a zombie, in the form of a zombie, the fragments of my mentor wore a bewildered and shocked expression.

I squinted my eyes and passed him by.

“Look at this······.”

Jang Ki-young pulled a lever, presumably the switch for the device.

Whoosh-

The equipment made a ridiculous sound, like a wind instrument with no air, before it fell powerless to the floor.

Ignoring him, I walked forward.

The roof.

The sea breeze brushed against my hair and cheek.

I ran across the steep, wide gable roof, bringing the monster into view.

Vroom-vroom---

It’s getting worse.

This is the word to describe the situation.

The monster now spreads an uncountable number of discs.

Around thirty, give or take.

“There! There! The heretics /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ are over there!”

The fanatics haven’t spotted me yet, but the monster has.

They have most of the abilities of an Awakened.

Including detection ability.

The discs fly.

Most of them head towards me, meaning the monster sees me as a dangerous target.

Switching to semi-auto,

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

I engage in rapid fire.

One shot for each disc.

The discs fall helplessly.

Even so, five of them remain and rush towards me, but,

Swish-

The moonlit axe blades strike them one by one.

“Skeleton!”

I heard Defender’s voice from below.

“Provide cover!”

“Cover?”

“Not the monster, the humans!”

Clink-

I dropped the empty magazine and replaced it with a new one, staring down the monster, which was standing with sixteen legs beneath me.

Since the emergence of monsters using reflection shields, countless veteran hunters have tested various ways to kill them.

Just like the pioneers who risked their lives for the advancement of human civilization, they even tried extreme methods that are now mocked as foolish.

The tactic I plan to use is one of them.

The Dead Man’s Waltz.

The energy it takes for a monster to deploy a reflection shield is the same whether it blocks 100 bullets or just one. And the energy a monster can use has limits, which is the basic idea behind the tactic.

The method is similar to a waltz, as the name suggests.

Bang!

Threat.

Bang!

A slight pause before the intimidation.

Bang!

Another slight pause before the intimidation.

Swish—swish—swish—

Every time I initiate intimidation, the bullets ejected from the shield barely graze my head.

I repeat the three-beat intimidation twice.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

And then.

Tatatatang!

A shot at the monster's body.

The bullet hits its torso with precision.

After six intimidations, a single direct hit from a distance to hunt the monster.

This is the Dead Man's Waltz.

But this may not be enough.

Normally, a sniper with a powerful, high-caliber rifle would deliver the final blow.

But the number six is not always reliable.

Sometimes, even after six waltz attempts, the monster will deploy its reflection shield.

That's why the tactic is called the Dead Man's Waltz.

Furthermore,

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The monster also learns.

I applied three intimidations, but the monster only reacted to the first.

To truly execute the Dance of Death, I must risk my own life.

Bang!

I change my aim.

The monster’s lower left.

The shield deploys.

Swish—

I feel the cold sensation of a bullet skimming past my head as I pull the trigger again.

Bang!

The upper right of the monster.

Swish—

Bang!

A slight deviation from the monster’s front.

Swish—

I feel the pain.

Blood trickles.

I seem to have scalped it unintentionally.

Ignoring the pain, I quickly aim for three different points with rapid-fire.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three intimidations, three reflection shields.

I immediately switch to rapid fire,

Tatatatatatang!

A powerful blow.

The monster staggers.

“Skeleton!”

I hear Defender’s shout from below.

“Are you human? No, how are you killing it with just a gun?!”

Clink—

I replace the magazine and prepare for the counterattack.

A disc flies.

I shoot down the monster’s creations with my gun and axe, preparing for the next battle.

One or two effective hits could kill it.

But then.

Tatatatatang!

The fanatics open fire.

It’s a machine gun.

I can see the deathly trajectory of the bullets forming a straight line across the roof.

“Kill the one on the roof!”

“It’s a hunter! A real hunter!”

I clench my teeth and tilt my head.

“······.”

I almost had it.

I could have ended this alone.

But my childish anger was drowned out by the sound of gunfire all around me.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Now the fanatics are using any means necessary.

To protect the monster they worship as their god, they’ve started attacking from all directions with firearms, ignoring the zombies around them.

“Defender!”

I shouted to Defender below.

“Get out of here first.”

“What? What are you saying?”

“I’ll hold them off. Use the gap to escape through the back.”

“Why?”

“I asked Ballantine for something.”

“Ballantine······?”

“Yeah. It’s very important. It’s a very important thing.”

Tatatatatang!

The machine gun bullets start sweeping across the roof again.

But then.

Thud!

My foot sinks into a crack.

It’s deep.

I can’t pull it out immediately.

“······.”

To make matters worse, the trajectory of the bullets follows me.

I can’t dodge it.

It’s death.

As I silently watch fate, smiling bitterly at myself,

Boom!

A deafening sound of destruction fills the air from behind.

It’s the monster’s heartbeat.

And then I saw it.

The rain of bullets, aimed at me, piercing the roof, suddenly vanishing into a faint barrier like magic, swallowed up.

“Ahhh!!”

It’s the reflection shield.

Someone deployed the reflection shield towards me.

I turned around.

On the roof stood a zombie, stark and dry.

In its hands were crude metallic devices, and its eyes shone even in the dark.

“······Instructor.”

“Park Gyu.”

Jang Ki-young approached me.

“Take this. It has real value.”

“Instructor.”

“This thing itself may be useless. But if it’s you, my one and only disciple, you’ll understand the meaning I’ve embedded in it.”

In that brief exchange, we had returned to the past, over ten years ago.

Inside a high-ceilinged auditorium.

Sweating, I was doing duck-walks around the auditorium, while a younger Jang Ki-young stood before me, the naive me back then.

Back then, Jang Ki-young was my teacher.

“I know you tried to become an Awakened.”

Yes.

I did.

Before becoming Awakened, even as an ordinary person, his eyes had always shone. They seemed to shine.

“That was the wrong way.”

“······.”

“I know because I’ve been there. When you become like them, you hear their voices. There are many voices, but some of them are voices you can’t ignore. And that one.”

Jang Ki-young looked down at the monster.

“It looks like me. But it won’t last long.”

“Instructor.”

“······There’s someone who controls them. Yes, the one you saw.”

Jang Ki-young handed me the crude device he made.

“The one you named the General.”

It was inevitable.

Refusing it was.

In this strange space, Jang Ki-young was my mentor at his peak, and I was once the powerless boy from the past.

“You are the only one who can kill it. Not Kang Han-min, not Na Hye-in. They can’t do it. They’re like them. So don’t listen to their voices, Professor. No, my disciple. Park Gyu. You are the only one who can kill it.”

Boom!

The illusion shattered from the shockwave Jang Ki-young created.

“Go.”

“······.”

“Take care of the junior too.”

“Okay. Instructor.”

I am Jang Ki-young’s disciple.

I’ve always followed his words.

Clutching the crude device, I headed towards the ladder.

From behind, I heard a chilling sound.

Vroom-vroom---

It’s the sound of discs flying.

But that sound was.

“Don’t touch my disciple!”

It was drowned out by Jang Ki-young’s roar.

What followed was chaos.

Unrelenting shockwaves, scattered gunfire, disc attacks, running, the cumbersome and oversized equipment my instructor had made, zombies, zombies, zombies, and finally, under the full moon, my mentor Jang Ki-young, standing alone on the roof.

“······Goodbye.”

That was the only clear memory from that chaotic day, where I respectfully greeted him.

*

“What the hell is this?”

Ha Tae-ho looked at Jang Ki-young’s device with a confused face.

“Who knows what it’s supposed to be used for? The principle is simple. Primitive. It’s a crude imitation of the monster equipment’s disintegration loading system.”

No one understood the true purpose of the device.

Everyone interpreted it simply as crude junk.

“They say a zombie made this? My goodness. I’ve heard of a ghoul, but I never imagined such a zombie would exist.”

There were opinions focused only on the fact that the maker was a zombie.

I smiled faintly and turned away.

Now, under the full moon, my domain has taken shape.

Several bunkers, outer walls, Mother Bang Jae-hyuk’s garden, defensive facilities installed all over, and the recently constructed Taehoon House by Ha Tae-ho.

“Phew.”

I sighed contentedly and looked at the full moon.

I wonder if my mentor is still alive.

Well.

That’s not important.

What matters is that I know the true meaning hidden in the crude tool Jang Ki-young made.

Because I am his most beloved disciple.

I hope my mentor is alive.