Terran in Neorust (2)
-Waaah!
-Bang!
Kang Shin-hyuk fired off a bullet without hesitation towards the zombie falling towards him from the sky with his mouth wide open. It was live ammunition, so the effect of the light and blessing was reduced, but it hit the target in an instant. The zombie couldn’t overcome the power of light contained in the bullet and turned to dust. Thanks to the gun’s special abilities, the bullets continued to seek out other zombies.
-Kaaahk!
-Kaaah!
Surprisingly, the bullet reduced the second zombie to dust as well before piercing a third. After that, it began to lose its strength and fell after hitting a few more zombies. It wasn’t two birds with one stone, but seven zombies with one bullet!
“That’s so cool…! The best!” Claire had followed up after him, closing the hatch.
“I struggled to harmonize my abilities.”
“It’s not something that you can do just because you want to.” It was still a bit unstable, but the effects were great enough. He had to be careful of the possibility it might damage his allies, though. Fortunately, in this case, its ability to pursue unclean entities was properly applied to the reflected bullets.
I suppose most monsters are unclean’ Basically, it had the effect of tracking monsters.
“Aren’t you going to use the other one?”
“It’s a bit too much against the undead.”
“Sheesh.” Claire loved the idea of Kang Shin-hyuk dualwielding pistols. Perhaps that was why she had been friendly with Juno Valentine before. No, he was sure that was the reason.
-Bang, bang!
He fired off several more bullets at the zombies falling from the sky. The luminous .550 magnum bullets zigzagged across the sky in bursts of lightning, blasting through the zombies. Meanwhile, Claire released the drone and began to fire upon the zombies crawling up from under the building.
“They’re like fans coming up on the stage at an idol concert.”
“Stop, all idol fans are good people who know their manners!” While the two joked, their hands continued to move in a blur as they continued to fire upon the zombies. The level of the zombies wasn’t that high, with the strongest being C-rank at the highest, but dozens of them were pouring out of the woodwork every second
“They’re weak.”
“If they were stronger than this, the locals wouldn’t have survived so far.” Claire was right. Kang Shin-hyuk agreed with her as he spread a shield around them with the Godslayer sword to stop the fragments of the decayed corpses from raining on them.
“If this is a common occurrence, I should build a simple defensive position to deal with them here.”
“Please be careful of the roof. The smell of rotten blood is hard to get rid of.” After grasping the enemies’ level, Claire took out two more drones and had them patrol the corners of the roof. They were cleaning up the zombies that flocked to them.
“How is it going?”
“It’s not pouring down, thankfully.” The bodies were raining down, but the density was thankfully sparse. Most of where it was concentrated were on them, as well. Even half of those falling elsewhere were moving towards them. Undead liked humans full of vitality, and fortunately for the residents of this street, Kang Shinhyuk and Claire were like beacons to them.
“It shouldn’t be an issue if it’s only this much.”
“Huh… should I incinerate the bodies?” Claire produced a red potion bottle from her bosom and threw it under the roof. All at once, a purple flame began to burn around the house in a circle. It had considerable destructive power since it was backed by her spiritual power.
“It’s a special bartender grenade.” Seeing his look of surprise, Claire grabbed a second grenade and raised her hands to flash him the victory sign. Indeed, she was the Alchemist. He had only known her for half a year, so more and more strange things were popping up about her. However, he couldn’t erase the feeling that the weapon would fit a cutting-edge mercenary more than an Alchemist.
“Does it not interfere with the shield around our house?” The blazing flames seemed to be ignoring the building entirely, and it didn’t seem to hurt the shield either. Strangely, however, Claire hesitated upon hearing that and jabbed him.
“Say that again.”
“The shield and flames aren’t interacting with each other?”
“No, well, that’s…” In response to her dissatisfaction, he quickly realized what she meant.”
“Our house?”
“Oh, ah..!” Claire’s face brightened in an instant then turned very red. She grew angry, slapping his shoulder.
“You! If you keep making fun of your noona like that, I’ll be very upset!”
“You told me not to call you noona anymore?”
“Oh, bigger things are falling from the sky.”
“You… huh?” Kang Shin-hyuk wouldn’t be fooled by her but looking up, he noticed she was telling the truth. A lump of something black was falling down.
“That’s a bit serious looking. Can you destroy it?” Kang Shin-hyuk let out a short sigh. He fired off a light bullet, which streaked through the sky and exploded upon impact with the mass.
-You have subdued one that is harmful to the order of things! Bonus based on membership level! You received 3,000,000HP! As a VIP bonus, you received an additional amount of HP equivalent to 50% of the reward, for a total of 4,500,000HP!
“It must’ve been quite powerful since the bullet was consumed.”
“I just got the HP bonus.”
“Ah, yes, as expected.” HP bonus didn’t come just from killing any monster. If it weren’t an entity that harmed the order of things and upset the social system or threatened a large number of humans, you wouldn’t receive any-killing monsters that belonged to Jormungand almost always ensured some.
“What is that? I’m not familiar with the undead.”
“The world has been thoroughly defensive against the undead, so they tend to appear less… that’s probably an undead core.” Core. Whether a strong monster would awaken from it, or it attracted zombies to it, he guessed it would be that kind of monster.
“But it’ll be okay because I broke it.”
“If it only fell here.”
“…” Kang Shin-hyuk looked around. He noticed that their neighbors were peeking through the windows, firing at the zombies approaching their homes with crude weapons that were made from the same parts they had traded to them for cocktails.
“Somehow, I thought it was just junk they were giving us. Good thing I saved it up.”
“Give it to me later. We’ll need it.” Even from a distance, they could tell the craftsmanship of their guns was crude. The fact that it worked well at all meant there was some hidden design in those pieces of scrap they were firing.
“Oh, surely.” While confirming the power of those firearms, his eyes continued to sweep around the fights breaking out. Claire spoke up at that point, pointing upwards to three cores lumped together above them. Kang Shin-hyuk fired at it, but a translucent dark shield emerged around it to block the bullet
“The moment you destroy one, they begin to stick together. It seems like there’s a network.”
“A network.” It would be odd not to think of the monitor that controlled this city after hearing that. Kang Shin-hyuk lifted himself up into the air with the power of the wind at that; he needed to see what was happening in the downtown area right now. With the corpses raining down and the thick fog, however, he couldn’t confirm it entirely, but it seemed like there were fewer zombies there.
“Is it a controlled disaster?”
“Fear is the best way to dominate. The power of the Gaia system that dominates this world is quite distorted.” He nodded in agreement with Claire. But what mattered now was what would be born from that core. He tried firing off a few more bullets as a test, but it wouldn’t work. Rather, it seemed to be absorbing energy, much like the Great Heavenly Spirit could.
“I know it well because I’ve faced an undead core before. During creation, the shield becomes extremely hard and will absorb energy. Let’s wait until it’s complete.”
“Oh, that’s a common pattern.” Anyway, they could afford to wait. Instead, they neatly burned away the zombies around them. It wasn’t possible for them to take care of all the zombies, however, and the large core gradually compressed as it attracted more zombies to it.
“Ms. Claire, what type of undead do you think will pop out?”
“Well, Kang Shin-hyuk, I’ve seen a case where one core becomes a flesh golem after devouring a hundred zombies. Maybe that was A-rank?”
“Seeing it compressed like that, I don’t think that’s the case.”
“Huh…?” Claire narrowed her eyes and glared at it. Kang Shin-hyuk soon found out why, as a strong magical wave spread out from its center. A strong ringing sound filled his ears, but it was soon blocked out after a message from the administrator appeared before him.
-The power of the Gaia system just tried to come into contact with you.
“What is it?”
-It is called the Evil Android.
“What?”
-It seems like it wanted to imitate the original Gaia system’s warning of the boss’s appearance.
“How kind.” Eventually, the sphere shrunk down to the size of a human. As the dark light vanished, they saw a naked woman with gray eyes kneeling down. It looked at them before standing up and sprinting towards them with its arms wide.
“What to do? I really like it here.” Claire revealed her true heart.
Kang Shin-hyuk silently agreed with her, recalling the movies he watched as a child.