*
Once the teammates who had slipped behind the yeti were all in position, Baek Ho-seung adjusted his grip on his sleekly modified hatchet.
All five of them were seasoned hunters who had worked together for a long time. After signaling to one another that they were ready, they were about to move at once.
But Baek Ho-seung raised a hand and stopped them.
“Wait. Let’s attack in a bit.”
“What the hell are you suddenly talking about? We need to take it down fast while those things have its aggro!”
That’s right! Impatient urging broke out from all sides.
“You idiots. Think for a second. That so-called pinch hitter—doesn’t he seem way too suspicious? Did any of you sense him?”
“……”
A chilly silence settled among the team members.
‘I knew it.’
That guy was a dangerous element. If even a team of all B-ranks couldn’t notice him, he might be A-rank.
Baek Ho-seung made a quick judgment.
“Let’s kill him. If we ambush him while he’s distracted by the boss, we can take him out without any trouble.”
“But if we kill them and the aggro happens to jump over here……”
It would be a hassle. But it was better than leaving them alive and letting them become the seed of needless trouble.
“Then what are you going to do? You want them to get out of here alive?”
What if they reported them to the Administration Bureau?
Not just this incident, but everything they had done until now might be dragged into the light, and their lives could be over.
Just then, the pinch hitter was moving toward the yeti’s Achilles tendon.
Baek Ho-seung pointed at the pinch hitter and waved two fingers.
With the signal to aim for his back, the team members moved all at once.
*
‘I need to draw its aggro first.’
The yeti’s gaze was fixed on Geuru to a strange degree.
There were three people who could become the yeti’s targets, but under normal circumstances, it should have gone for the closest one among them—Gidan.
Even when Gidan stuck close to its leg, the boss did not look at him, and he frowned.
‘This feels unpleasant.’
Unable to simply watch a threat directed at the youngest, Gidan severed the Achilles tendon with one blow. For now, he intended to stop its movement.
For an instant, the yeti’s center of gravity wavered, but the severed Achilles tendon began recovering at an astonishing speed.
The yeti twisted its upper body and looked back. Receiving the boss’s gaze, Gidan curved his eyes in satisfaction.
“That’s right. You should be looking at me, not our Geuru.”
With its upper body twisted toward Gidan, the yeti roared.
“Grruuuaaaaargh!”
Boom!
The yeti’s smashing skill struck the snowfield.
The attack narrowly missed Gidan, and debris from the building flew in every direction.
Gidan tilted his head slightly to avoid the debris.
To finish a boss raid as quickly as possible, one had to destroy its core.
However, the yeti’s entire body was covered in thick fur, so a dagger would likely lack reach.
Gidan lightly flicked the dagger in his hand.
[Biat’s Longing (S)]
The sword of the guardian House of Biat. It freely changes form according to the user’s will.
*This item is bound to the user.
Before he knew it, the dagger had transformed into a long sword.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The extremely excited yeti fired off skills indiscriminately.
But Gidan’s form vanished like an illusion, and the yeti’s skills repeatedly struck empty space.
While dodging the attacks with ease, Gidan spotted something on the yeti as it bent forward, and his eyes gleamed.
‘Found it. The core.’
He took his stance to activate a skill.
But then, someone leaped from behind him and raised a weapon overhead.
It was Baek Ho-seung.
[Activating skill “Skilled Plunge.”]
Just as the blade of the hatchet was about to come down toward his head, Gidan turned around, and their eyes met.
The blue glow in Gidan’s eyes stretched long with the motion of his head.
‘Gidan?!’
A chill ran through Baek Ho-seung’s stomach.
But Baek Ho-seung could no longer stop.
In the split second his hatchet came plunging down, Gidan curled his thumb and middle finger as if swatting away an annoying fly and struck Baek Ho-seung in the solar plexus.
Tap—
“Pffft!”
Craaaack—!
Baek Ho-seung was helplessly sent sliding back, carving a long path through the snowfield.
“Kugh!”
Baek Ho-seung’s body trembled faintly as he clutched his solar plexus.
It was not a skill. This was a pure difference in strength.
What struck him in that instant was not pain, but fear.
“Fuck, it’s Gidan! Run!”
No sooner had Baek Ho-seung shouted than Gidan, already in stance, activated his skill.
[Activating skill “Breath of the Dead.”]
Crack!
The ground where Gidan stood caved in.
Wooooong—
“Huh?!”
Everything within a two-meter radius was sucked toward Gidan.
“Wh-what!”
Baek Ho-seung suddenly lost all strength and collapsed. The same went for the other team members.
Their mana had been drained.
All the mana within range was flowing into Gidan. They tried to resist, but they could not move, as if they had sunk into a sticky swamp.
‘At this rate! I can’t dodge!’
While Baek Ho-seung and his team members were gripped by despair, the yeti, having fully restored its Achilles tendon and straightened its body, activated a skill toward them.
Sssshk!
A massive hand began to fall toward the heads of Gidan and the others huddled together.
Whoooosh!
“Uaaaaagh!”
“Gaaaaagh!”
“Aaaaagh!”
Baek Ho-seung and his team members screamed and squeezed their eyes shut.
Lurch—
But contrary to their expectation that the enormous hand would crush them, the fur-covered giant’s body tilted to the side.
Thud!
Gidan, who had driven his sword into the top of the yeti’s head, rose to his feet.
He pulled out the sword and wiped the blood off on the yeti’s fur.
‘Blood is a bit much.’
Not exactly something to show a four-year-old. Having cleaned the sword, Gidan stood up with satisfaction.
Now it was time to go pick up Geuru, whom he had left in someone else’s care.
Woooong—
“Hm?”
Gidan frowned and looked down at his sword, “Biat’s Longing.”
The sword, black as pitch from tip to hilt, was vibrating as if resonating with something.
*
“Gidan? Really?”
“I’m telling you, it really is……”
An S-rank they had only ever seen in videos or newspapers had appeared like some knight on a white horse?
As the sisters, still finding it hard to believe, spoke in dazed voices, Geuru, who was in her arms, tapped So-young with the hand holding the magnifying glass.
- Hunter, if it is all right with you, I would like you to put me down.
“Ah, uh, yes……!”
Son So-young hurriedly set Geuru down.
- Thank you.
After landing on the floor on both feet, Geuru toddled forward and stood at the front of Son A-young’s team.
‘Hup!’
Geuru curled both arms round as if showing off his muscles and stood there triumphantly. Debris from the building that came flying in clattered against the shield and bounced away. It was thanks to the defensive items Hyeonak had packed for him in abundance.
In truth, Son A-young’s team were hunters in their own right, so even if they were hit by this much, it probably would not hurt.
‘As expected, Geuru is S-rank too. He’s so cool!’
Unaware of that fact, Geuru was wholly absorbed in playing the role of the shield protecting them.
Son A-young’s team let out a short sigh as they watched a shield worth hundreds of millions wear down its durability by bouncing off a few stones.
‘Hmph!’
At this, Geuru gave them a thumbs-up as if telling them not to worry about this place. For some reason, his aggravatingly arched eyebrows twitched up and down.
“Something about this is kind of……”
“Cute……?”
“Cute……”
Just as the three of them were thrown into confusion by the cuteness and money-burning extravagance of the unidentified teddy bear—
- Hm?
Geuru rubbed the back of his neck.
‘It’s burning.’
A mosquito? Geuru spun around while touching the back of his neck, then equipped the magnifying glass to check whether it might be because of the boss’s skill.
[Scanning target……]
[White-Browed Yeti (Boss)]
Gatherable items: eyebrows, fur, teeth, mana stone
Skill: Skilled Flattening Slam!
‘I don’t know!’
It seemed stronger than “Flattening Thud!” but it did not appear to have much to do with the burning at the back of his neck.
Geuru tilted his head and was about to look back.
Crackle—
‘Wuuung?’
The sound of something breaking. And then, for some reason, an energy that felt familiar began to spread.
Behind Geuru, “it” was tearing a long rift through space.
Beyond the lens of the magnifying glass, Geuru’s eyes widened.
[Scanning target……]
[Malikian (S)]
One of the eight fallen guardians belonging to the Hesed Knights. The last descendant of the House of Biat, which once ruled the great ocean.
Gatherable items: largely unknown, demonic sword “Biat’s Void”
Skills: Biat Swordsmanship, Twelve Forms; Subjugation of Cursed Blood
Two hands attached to his body, and two hands floating around him.
A total of four hands struggled to open the narrow space.
Soon, a massive body wearing an old hood emerged from within the gap.