Crunch.
Tae-ha chewed and swallowed the guiding pill, then slowly closed his eyes.
“Dead again.”
His senses were linked to the duplicates he'd scattered in every direction, so each time one of them died, he felt the same pain. The more duplicates he created, the weaker each one became, which was why most of them died while taking down the S-rank monsters.
Still, there weren't many S-ranks left now. They were down to a level the upper-tier guilds could handle well enough without him stepping in.
Just three more hours. Let's do three more.
He minced the corpse of the S-rank monster he was standing on into small pieces to make disposal easier, then descended below ground. Another duplicate must have died in the meantime; Tae-ha swallowed a sigh and squeezed his eyes shut.
This one had failed to dodge the monster's attack and been chewed up alive. He'd prepared for exactly this by planting poison in his duplicates' bodies.
The monster that had so happily swallowed Tae-ha's duplicate would soon find its limbs paralyzed, its organs melting from the inside out. Tae-ha had set up plenty of mechanisms so that even in death he'd remain useful.
Only two usable duplicates were left now. Creating any more from this point risked draining the strength of his main body.
A single bead of cold sweat slid down beneath bright golden hair that hadn't gathered so much as a speck of dust.
Tae-ha lightly rubbed his sweat-beaded forehead and checked his pulse. His stamina was slowly running out too.
Three more hours. Just three. Then I'll go see him.
He swallowed another guiding pill, picturing the face he'd lay eyes on the moment his work was done. He was waiting for the medicine to seep through his body when an urgent voice suddenly broke in.
“Guildmaster Ryu Tae-ha!”
A teleport Esper appeared out of thin air, his face grim. He'd circled through nearly every zone searching for Tae-ha, whose pager had gone dead.
“You need to come, right now! Esper Go Yeo-ul is-”
“Let's go.”
Tae-ha cut off the panting Esper and jerked his chin. There was no need to hear the rest.
Yeo-ul's caused trouble again. Or there were signs he was about to.
“I definitely heard nine of them breathing. I'm certain.”
The supporter had explained to Yeo-ul that he was an auditory ability user. He hadn't been able to gauge the monsters' ranks correctly, but the breathing sounds, at least, he'd heard for sure.
Yet only eight corpses remained at the site. One had vanished. So fast, with no trace at all, that not even Guildmaster Ryu Tae-ha had noticed.
It was something utterly impossible for anything below S-rank.
“So?”
“What...?”
The supporter, who'd been gravely laying out the situation, was struck dumb for a moment.
“What am I supposed to do about it?”
At the utterly indifferent look on Yeo-ul's face as he muttered the words, the supporter lost his voice and just kept pointing at the pile of corpses.
Whether there were eight corpses or nine had nothing to do with Yeo-ul. It wasn't his assigned zone, and it wasn't something he'd missed.
The role Yeo-ul had been given was simply to guard his assigned zone and respond to support requests that came through his pager. He didn't have to concern himself with anything beyond those two things.
“No, I, p-please, find it...! I'm begging you!”
The supporter clung to Yeo-ul desperately, insisting it had to be an extremely dangerous high-rank monster. But Yeo-ul, a single-ability user, had no talent for tracking down a vanished monster. And even less will to do so.
“Tell the person who lost it to catch it.”
“We can't reach Guildmaster Ryu Tae-ha...!”
The supporter explained that Ryu Tae-ha's pager had gone dead and support requests had been cut off, but Yeo-ul remained listless.
His head was filled with nothing but the thought of quickly filling his quota and going to see Da-woon. Just picturing his hyung, who'd still be asleep, made him want to head straight back to the lodgings.
Beep beep! Beep beep-!
Just then Yeo-ul's pager went off loudly. From the intensity of the vibration, it seemed an S-rank-level monster had appeared.
“I-is it nearby?!”
Yeo-ul pinpointed the location and nodded. At the sight of the teleport Esper who'd come at once to fetch him, the supporter let out a breath of relief. If it was in this vicinity, there was a high chance the vanished monster had reappeared.
If Esper Go Yeo-ul goes, I can feel at ease. Though I mustn't let my guard down.
“P-please, be careful! This one seems different from the S-ranks that have shown up so far!”
The mere fact that Guildmaster Ryu Tae-ha had missed it proved it was no ordinary being. That was why the supporter kept warning Yeo-ul, even knowing he wasn't someone who'd be easily taken down.
Of course, Yeo-ul didn't take in a word of it.
And so, as always, he reluctantly set foot at the next site, where he was given news he never could have expected.
“What?”
A name that had no business being in this place pierced into Yeo-ul's ear.
“E-Esper Da-woon! He's been taken and vanished!”
The supporter, clutching the first-aid kit to his chest, screamed himself hoarse. He relayed exactly what he'd witnessed just minutes ago, tears pouring down his face.
“I, I should have st-stopped him! But I just, my f-feet wouldn't move...!”
He'd been on his way back from the tent to restock the painkillers Da-woon had asked for. Since the monster cleanup was already finished, he'd judged it would be fine to leave Da-woon alone.
But as he grabbed the medicine and came rushing back, he'd read an ominous energy. He'd sensed the wavelength of an S-rank monster.
He'd immediately sent a support signal to Guildmaster Ryu Tae-ha, but no response came. The instant he sent an emergency signal to the nearby upper-tier guilds as well, an unfamiliar figure entered the supporter's trembling field of vision, seen from behind.
At first he thought a pure white light had fallen from the sky.
It took him a few seconds to register that the being, white enough to look like radiant light, was a person.
It clearly had the same physical structure and the ordinary skin of a human, yet something was different.
The man, whose entire body was made of flawless white, had the largest, most solid frame of anyone the supporter had ever seen. So overwhelmed was he by the man's back, a figure for which the word colossal fit, that he didn't even register the S-rank monster standing before it.
N-no...!
The supporter spotted the monster belatedly unfurling its tentacles, and just as he tried to warn of the danger-
Without a trace, the monster lunged, its black maw gaping wide, and its tentacle touched the crown of the man's head. It happened in an instant, with no chance for the supporter to intervene.
Just as he thought, He's going to be hit-
What... is that...?
The monster's tentacle that had touched the man's snow-white head turned to sand and vanished on the spot.
Not just the tentacle but its entire body turned to bone-dry sand and dissolved in an instant. An S-rank monster, no less, not some low-rank creature.
Stunned senseless by the unbelievable sight, the supporter dropped to the ground. Even after seeing Da-woon, hidden behind the man's enormous body, he couldn't bring himself to move and only trembled all over.
D-Da-woon... Esper...!
The moment he barely managed to make a sound, the giant of a man slowly turned and looked down at the supporter. Da-woon, cradled in his arms, hung limp and motionless, as if he'd lost consciousness.
When his eyes met the man's, the supporter flinched, his throat going dry with tension. He felt as though his soul would be sucked into the giant man's whitely glowing eyes. The mysterious light was beyond merely beautiful; one slip and it looked dangerous enough to devour him.
In the end, the supporter couldn't utter a single sound. Without even daring to attempt to stop the man, he could only watch blankly as the figure vanished, carrying Da-woon away.
Hearing all of it, Yeo-ul snapped.
“G-Go, Esper Go Yeo-ul! Calm down!”
Worked into a frenzy, he couldn't control his ability. At the news that Da-woon had vanished, his wavelength surged violently, beginning to freeze everything around him.
“Da-woon-hyung....”
He rampaged recklessly in search of Da-woon. Freezing everything that entered his sight, he thought of nothing but how to kill the being who'd abducted Da-woon.
If they'd left so much as a scratch on his hyung's body, he'd make them live their whole life wishing only for death instead. Every last one connected to them, too.
“Yeo-ul.”
Boom-!
In that instant Tae-ha appeared, seized the back of the rampaging Yeo-ul's neck and slammed him down into the ground, murmuring in a gentle voice.
“I'm busy enough as it is. Why are you acting up too?”
Yeo-ul had frozen everything on the ground without distinguishing monster from human. The site, which had been swirling with searing heat, was now wrapped in a flesh-biting cold.
“Throw your fit later. When I'm not busy.”
Ice spikes sprouted in Tae-ha's hand where it gripped Yeo-ul's neck with brute force. Red blood dripped from the holes punched through Tae-ha's hand.
“Leader....”
Yeo-ul's voice, which Tae-ha had expected to come thrashing back, leaked out unexpectedly small. Perhaps the ice spikes had been a reflexive attack; he didn't lunge at Tae-ha any further.
“What's wrong. What happened.”
Tae-ha released the back of Yeo-ul's neck and instead grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up. Yeo-ul's unfocused eyes were bloodshot crimson.
“Did you not take your medicine today?”
Tae-ha asked how much he'd slept and pressed his fingers to Yeo-ul's wrist, then froze at the words that followed.
“Da-woon-hyung is gone.”
“...What?”
“Find him.”
Yeo-ul's pupils trembled, his agitation so great he couldn't control his power. His wavelength, vibrating even more fiercely, began to spike to dangerous levels.
“The bastard who took hyung. Put him in front of me.”
