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105
Thud—!
The troll’s head falling to the ground, and the leg Hanbit had cut off.
Unable to maintain its form, the creature collapsed where it stood.
“The gold bracelet wasn’t for show, then.”
Jinuk shook the blood off his sword and tossed out the remark bluntly.
The tone of someone who had no choice but to acknowledge the other.
Thud—
Landing lightly on the ground, he shifted his gaze around.
“So — what is this? Why did the monsters come swarming all at once?”
“The monster anomaly around Ifrit has broken the surface. There were signs, weren’t there?”
“What signs? You could search all of Ifrit’s history and find none.”
Jinuk furrowing his brow with evident annoyance.
His words were not entirely wrong.
It would certainly have been difficult to predict the wave through ordinary investigation.
But this man was someone who, even after going through this, would turn a blind eye to the second wave.
Perhaps he was just not particularly bright.
“Either way, we’ll handle the rest ourselves, so the outsider can step back. You’ll be compensated for your work so far.”
“I don’t think that would be wise.”
“What? Just because of the bracelet you’re again——”
Crash—!
Suddenly, a tremendous sound rang out from behind Jinuk.
He wheeled around, and in his line of sight was the carcass of the troll they had just brought down.
“…What is that?”
Jinuk doubted his own eyes.
The creature that had lost its head had driven both fists into the wall.
On the ground beneath it, an unconscious soldier lay crumpled.
Crash—!
Boom—!
“You absolute madman!”
Jinuk kicked off the ground and closed on it rapidly.
Slash—!
A swing of his sword severed both of the troll’s arms.
But the creature continued its assault on the wall even in that state.
Thump—!
Jinuk pulled the soldier clear and quickly returned to position.
Bang—!
Boom—!
The impacts on the wall kept coming even as he did.
By coincidence, the crack left by the soldier’s collision with the wall was right in that spot.
On top of that.
Thud thud thud—!
Other trolls still in their berserk state began converging.
“Tch.”
Jinuk clicked his tongue and made an immediate call.
The only immediately available option was swift subjugation.
Nothing else.
Shhk—!
Slash—!
Jinuk kicked off and rapidly cut down heads and limbs.
But the situation did not improve.
Sensing the crisis by instinct, he raised his voice.
“Mages! Everyone over here!”
“What? There are still areas that need to be cleared!”
“Shut up and get over here! We need to burn them or whatever it takes!”
Instructions poured out as he swung his sword.
Hanbit, who had also been carrying out his own subjugation with his sword, came to a stop.
At that moment.
Craaack—
A sound that should never have come from the wall reached his ears.
“Son of a——”
Jinuk, drenched in monster blood, also registered the anomaly.
Crack—
Craaack—
The glass wall was a structure assembled using special materials and techniques.
A crack formed like that was more than sufficient to bring down at least one section.
Crack—!
The sound that followed rang sharply in the ears.
And when the troll clinging to the wall launched one more assault—
Crash—!
At last, one section of the wall shattered and came down.
“It, it broke!”
“Get away from there!”
The flustered subjugation team quickly distanced themselves from the wall.
Countless shards of glass came pouring down right after.
Boom boom boom—!
The completely collapsed wall piled up like a hill.
The carpet of glass shards beneath was nothing more than a foothold.
“Jinuk-hyungnim! What do we——”
The flustered subjugation team turned their eyes to the guild master.
But the one hit hardest was the man himself.
“Everyone get out.”
Hanbit, having chosen the right moment, stepped forward.
The pale blue-white sword in his hand as he settled into his stance.
A fierce gale imbued with flame was surging powerfully around it.
Thump—!
Hanbit kicked off the ground and leaped high.
Launching it from ground level would affect the inside of the breached wall as well.
The best angle would be——
‘Now.’
Whoosh—!
Having taken his position in midair, Hanbit swung his sword.
A massive blade of wind launched along that arc.
Having been gathered over a long time, the force was considerable.
Swoosh—!
Boom boom boom—!
The monsters struck dead-on were split apart, crushed, and reached their end simultaneously.
A single attack.
That was all it took to clear every creature that had been moving toward the gap in the wall.
-Insane. Lol.
-Is this even right?
-We’re the same level;
-The monsters must be absolutely baffled.
[Goblin has donated 1,000 won.]
[Developers. Balance patch urgently needed.]
“Wh, what was that?”
“What just happened?”
“He swung a sword and it did that?”
The subjugation team who had witnessed the annihilation gaped in open-mouthed shock.
Even the frozen Jinuk had his eyes wide open.
Whoosh—!
The blazing flame was still hot.
Hanbit landed on the ground and kicked off toward an area clear of the subjugation team.
Fwoom—!
The massive column of flame that erupted swept a whole side of monsters away in one go.
Hanbit gave his sword a light shake and looked at the subjugation team, still in shock.
“What are you doing? Hurry up and clear the rest.”
***
The subsequent wave cleanup concluded without much difficulty.
Jinuk and the rest of the subjugation team, having pulled themselves together, performed capably.
It also helped that the enhancement drug’s effect on the trolls had worn off.
Swoosh—!
Jinuk cut down the last goblin with his sword and stayed where he was.
The sword hanging limply toward the ground conveyed his state of mind.
‘Came down clean.’
The moment things were settled, every eye turned to the collapsed wall.
A crisis Ifrit had never once faced.
Even the defensive measure they had firmly believed to be safe had been breached for the first time — a natural reaction.
‘Well, the first step went well.’
Hanbit’s purpose was to instill a clear sense of crisis.
And not just that — to deal the city damage severe enough to deliver an unprecedented shock.
The result of having targeted the wall had come out satisfyingly.
“Hey!”
Just then, an angry voice rang out from a distance.
He turned his head to see Jinuk fuming as he approached.
“What?”
“You know something, don’t you? Speak plainly!”
His posture, sword hanging loose and shouting, was full of anxiety.
The bluster being thrown out was not genuinely sincere.
He simply wanted to blame someone right now.
‘The ability is certain, though.’
Jinuk, still only twenty — his strength and growth potential were beyond question.
But perhaps because of that exceptional talent, he had grown into someone utterly self-centered.
The saving grace was that unlike Mayor Pirnen, his younger brother was someone with room for reform.
For that, failure, limitation, and the powerless face of reality would need to be driven into his head.
“Know what? I was being harassed by monsters just as much.”
“Don’t make me laugh! And yet you moved that calmly? With a D-rank adventurer designation?”
It seemed he had done a quiet background check — Jinuk brought up the adventurer rank.
But it was not a fair measure for Hanbit, who had little activity as a registered adventurer.
“You shouldn’t judge by rank alone. A gold bracelet would hardly be ordinary.”
“You probably pulled some political strings somewhere! Whoever you’ve got backing you, it won’t work on me!”
“If you have time to throw a tantrum, use it to think about what to do for the next wave. It might be worse than this one.”
“What? That’s the most absurd——”
“What happened here?”
Just as the argument was about to draw on.
A voice reached them from the direction of the breached wall.
“…Sister.”
Jinuk turned to find Mayor Pirnen.
His head drooped limply in no time at all.
Sigh—
Pirnen let out a breath and stepped outside the wall, her expression uneasy.
The aides following behind her had wide eyes, looking all around in bewilderment.
“I had heard something of it, but it seems you lent your hand in this attack. As mayor, I offer my thanks.”
Pirnen, coming to a stop before Hanbit, said while straightening her collar.
A courtesy just sufficient and no more.
“It was coincidence. I happened to be in conversation with the dwarf village at the time.”
“…The state of the village can’t be good — have they all perished?”
“Their lives should be intact. The village itself will be difficult to rebuild, however.”
“Is that so.”
A response delivered without a trace of feeling.
The attitude of someone dealing with a genuinely bothersome burden.
She did not turn her eyes toward the north where the dwarf village lay even once.
“Rather than that, I’d like a detailed account of the situation. How did it come to the wall collapsing?”
“…I’ll explain.”
Under his sister’s sharp gaze, Jinuk shuffled and opened his mouth.
He spoke somewhat slowly, but delivered the situation accurately and as it was.
“Trolls? Something as trivial as that broke the wall?”
“They were not ordinary trolls! They were more tenacious and stronger than undead monsters!”
“Trolls are trolls. Disappointing, guild master, that you struggled with monsters.”
“…I’m sorry.”
An exchange far too bleak for family.
What came through was pure hierarchy.
“Then you, Black Dragon — you were the first to discover it?”
“That’s correct. Though ‘discover’ is a stretch — they emerged from all over the forest at once.”
“…Is that so.”
She gave a nod and turned her eyes back to the wall.
Watching that, Hanbit quietly spoke up.
“An attack of that form could appear any number of times again. Wouldn’t it be wise to properly reinforce the wall?”
“The suggestion is appreciated, but Ifrit is best understood by myself and our specialists. There is no chance of falling for the same method twice.”
Pirnen answered with a faint smile, but her eyes were not smiling at all.
A warning to the outsider not to overstep.
“Jinuk.”
She called her brother’s name and issued some kind of instruction.
Even without hearing it, the content was well known.
‘As if she’ll find anything with a search.’
What filled Pirnen’s mind was the monster anomaly in the area around Ifrit.
Her conclusion for resolving it was to cut off the root.
It seemed a natural progression — but what was causing the waves was not purely a natural selection.
“Are you done speaking?”
Having waited briefly while the two talked, Hanbit slipped closer and spoke.
Pirnen, composure restored, was back in her businesslike manner.
“The necessary conversation is finished. Ah, now that I think of it — I should speak with you about compensation.”
“That compensation — could it be replaced with a proposal?”
“A proposal… is it?”
She narrowed her eyes slightly as she asked back.
A strangely unpleasant sensation of wariness and probing mixed together.
“You intend to repair that wall, correct?”
“Of course. It may not be possible immediately, but reinforcement should be manageable.”
Pirnen nodded as though it were obvious.
Watching her, Hanbit immediately followed with the words he had planned.
“Then — how about entrusting that repair to the dwarves?”
