-Manual Labor
* * *
The bodyguards guarding the mansion’s front gate were startled when they saw a great snake slowly slithering up along the wall.
Judging by its appearance, it could only be called a great snake, but this was something that went far beyond the name.
“Wh-what is that?”
“Isn’t it a snake? What’s a snake doing in Seoul?”
“What kind of snake is that huge? That’s not a snake.”
When its head first began to appear, the bodyguards had thought it was, in any case, just an enormous snake.
But the moment they gradually saw the body connected to that head, they realized this was not a snake, but a bizarre life-form shaped like one.
Its body was stretching and shrinking at will. Lumpy masses of flesh would suddenly swell like balloons, then sag like sticky rice cake and cling flat to the wall.
“Intruder! A bizarre life-form is intruding!”
The bodyguards hurriedly called it in over the radio and began firing at the snake.
It was no use at all. The bullets struck the snake’s body, sank into the flesh, and melted away without a trace.
“The bullets aren’t working! No, they’re being eaten by that thing’s flesh!”
“Mages! We need the mages here. This is a bizarre life-form! We can’t subdue it with guns!”
They urgently requested support from the mages at the annex.
After seeing the bullets melt away, the bodyguards began inching backward.
They had no desire whatsoever to engage in hand-to-hand combat against that enormous monster snake, which guns could not handle.
Their judgment was correct. But that did not mean they could avoid it.
The monster snake soon climbed over the wall and entered the garden, spreading its body out in long, sweeping stretches. Then it began swallowing up the troublesome bodyguards indiscriminately.
“Aaagh!”
“Help me!”
The screams did not last long. They soon entered the snake’s belly. Perhaps they were still screaming even inside, but in any case, no sound leaked out.
After swallowing the bodyguards one by one, the snake’s body grew larger and larger, until it nearly filled the garden floor.
The elven bodyguards guarding the main house fired arrows from a distance. They were arrows imbued with mana.
But even that was useless. The moment the arrows lodged in the snake’s body, they briefly shone blue as if releasing their mana, then sank in and melted away.
“Mana arrows aren’t working either!”
“H-how can a monster like that even exist?”
“Inside for now!”
The elven bodyguards helplessly retreated into the main house.
Just then, a hearty laugh rang out from behind.
“Hahaha! How is it? Quite the splendid creature, isn’t it? Elves, what do you think? That is my creation! You elves have secretly thought yourselves superior to humans, haven’t you? Don’t make me laugh. You are beings who cannot even reach the toes of my creation!”
It was Yasin, finally revealing himself.
He had sent the snake ahead first, roughly finished cleaning up, and then leisurely strolled into the garden.
“Go! Hurry up and eat more!”
The monster snake was exceedingly greedy and gluttonous. It seemed to think of nothing but devouring everything in sight. It paid no mind to the bullets or arrows raining down on its body.
A moment later, the elven bodyguards who had entered the main house appeared on the roof.
With firm expressions, the elves fired arrows without pause. As if resisting Yasin’s words that had provoked them, they kept their mouths tightly shut.
But there were some monsters that could not be faced with resolve alone.
What they were facing was none other than a snake. A creature that loved climbing onto roofs more than anything.
In the case of this monster snake, the only difference was that rather than climbing up, it simply stretched its body to the utmost and covered everything from the ground to the roof.
“Emergency! This is an emergency!”
“Why aren’t the mages coming?”
“Fall back! Fall back for now!”
Even the elves, who had been filled with determination, threw away their bows and began to flee.
Some nimbly crossed over the roof and jumped down into the rear garden of the main house. But the majority of the elves disappeared into the snake’s mouth.
“That’s enough eating for now. Go to the annex.”
Yasin languidly gave the monster snake an order.
Even then, when the snake pretended not to hear and focused only on eating the elves, Yasin raised his hand high.
Gray energy poured from his fingertips and surrounded the snake.
The monster snake, which had filled the garden and stretched its body all the way to the roof of the main house, began slithering toward the annex.
It did not scream, but perhaps because it had been harshly reprimanded, the snake was moving quickly.
“It only listens when you scold it.”
Yasin clicked his tongue and slowly followed after it.
As the snake approached the annex, arrows poured down all at once from the forest on the hill behind it. They were mana arrows unleashed by an elven unit.
Just as before, the arrows soon sank into the snake’s body, but the elves paid no heed and continued firing.
They fired arrows, and they melted. Fired arrows, and they melted. Fired arrows, and they melted……
As expected, a barrage of sheer quantity had an effect.
The snake’s entire body became engulfed in the blue glow of mana arrows, and when the speed at which it melted them could no longer keep up with the speed at which they struck, arrows finally ended up embedded all over its body.
Advancing with arrows packed densely into it, the creature no longer looked like a snake but like a gigantic hedgehog.
The snake wriggled and writhed as it crawled forward.
“Now! Everyone attack at once!”
The mages who had been hiding finally began their assault.
The mages from the hall, who had joined late, had also descended the mountain and gathered on the hill. It was for the sake of launching a simultaneous attack.
“So that’s where you were all hiding?”
Yasin watched with curiosity. As expected, the inadequate mages wildly fired off the fire magic they were most likely to favor in such a situation.
The snake, which had been engulfed in blue light, was now struck by the incoming fireballs and shone red.
Next came an oil attack.
Perhaps they had devised a plan to roast the snake whole, because the mages were applying elemental magic to pour down oil like rain.
“Oh! That’s rather impressive.”
Yasin stood at a distance, clapped his hands, and admired it.
Engulfed in flames and oil, the snake was thrashing about. Its movements were rhythmic, as if it were dancing.
But he could not simply stand by and watch while his creation suffered.
Yasin lifted one hand and swung it in a wide circle.
Dense gray energy wrapped around the area, then gathered toward the snake.
The flames were extinguished in an instant, and the oil evaporated. The burning snake’s body began to shed its skin.
As the brittle husk fell away, new skin of a pale earthen color was revealed.
“My baby, you’ve become even prettier. If you want your new skin to harden, you need to eat a lot. Hurry along and devour those bastards.”
The snake let out a strong metallic hiss. It was answering.
Having shed its skin, the monster snake soon crawled up the hill at a terrifying speed.
The forest swayed madly.
“The monster is coming up! Attack!”
“Put up barriers!”
“Bind it with magic chains!”
The mages on the hill poured out magic with all their might. The elves, too, were busy firing every arrow they had.
But it was not enough. Their true enemy was not the monster snake, but Yasin.
Before the snake could even reach the top of the hill, Yasin raised both arms high and slammed them downward with force.
Then terrifying lightning poured down upon the mages and elves.
It was lightning like steel needles. Lightning like thunderbolts from hell, striking down, piercing, burning, and sending tremors through their entire bodies.
Screams echoed throughout the area.
‘Good heavens! Yasin, that bastard……! After all the benefits I gave you. I shared every experiment with you and let you live without a single worry about money, and now you do this?’
Kim Seonho, who had been hiding and watching from the dark shadows in a corner of the garden, felt rage surge to the top of his head.
But greater than his anger was his fear.
The magic unfolding before his eyes was lethal. Just watching it made his whole body tremble.
Yasin was a black mage, and he was an ordinary person. In that moment, all other conditions had no value.
There was no way to overcome him. He had no choice but to admit it. He had to flee from here at once.
He had to leave, trusting, as Oudin had said, that the experimental subjects in the underground cave would be safe.
Kim Seonho signaled with his eyes to the mages guarding either side of him.
Covered in protective barriers, they quietly left the mansion.
“Shall I go see my creations now?”
Leaving the mages and elves collapsed on the hill from the lightning to the snake, Yasin approached the annex.
Hearing screams that seemed to come from hell put him in good spirits for the first time in a while. How bored had he been, crouching in that hermitage for so long?
How long had it been since he had killed and destroyed so wildly like today?
What Yasin wanted was precisely this exhilarating chaos. There was nothing more enjoyable than carrying out terror to his heart’s content.
Standing in front of the annex, Yasin raised both arms high. Then he slammed them down with force.
The annex building should have collapsed in a heap…… but for some reason, it did not budge and remained exactly as it was.
‘Hmm? What? What’s wrong with this?’
Yasin raised both arms once more, gathered gray energy, and struck down.
It absolutely had to collapse, didn’t it?
But the annex still stood perfectly intact.
“Right. Of course they would have put up a barrier. Since they mobilized the mages like that, naturally they would have layered barriers over the annex. But there’s a barrier that can withstand my gravity magic?”
Yasin sharpened his detection and began analyzing the barrier surrounding the annex.
Unexpectedly, it took quite some time.
He was starting to feel irritated.
The structure of the magic circuit was extremely complex. It was possible to construct such a sturdy barrier without using black magic?
Only after spending a fair amount of time analyzing it did Yasin realize whose work this was.
“Ha……! It was him again? Oudin, you were interfering with me again.”
But honestly, it was astonishing.
He had already fought the man twice, so he knew roughly how skilled he was.
Among mages, he was certainly one of the best. But not to this extent.
‘What happened to him while I was injured and lying low? How did he achieve this much progress in such a short period of time?’
It was not a rate of advancement that an ordinary mage could achieve through training. It was not a speed of this world.
He wondered if Oudin, too, had borrowed power from another dimension.
In any case, if he wanted to enter the annex, he had no choice. He had to break this barrier. Only then could he meet the precious experimental subjects.
From that moment, Yasin’s manual labor began.