hotmtlnovel Chapter 376: Gale Ironwood (1)
Chapter 376: Gale Ironwood (1)
If Swarm Queen was a humanoid hybrid of spider and bee, Gale Ironwood was a mixed form of tree and carnivorous plant.
For that reason, it had several traits, and the most threatening was that it had a huge mouth.
So it usually charged like lightning and chewed and swallowed its target with that mouth.
Not only did it have countless teeth, it also had a mouth large enough to easily fit an adult man inside.
Once it bit down on you, there was no way to escape. You were sucked into its mouth and digested at once, dying instantly.
On top of that, its lower body had the form of two legs like a human, so it excelled at sudden sharp turns and full-speed sprints.
It was basically like an ordinary tree you’d see anywhere, but instead of roots it had two legs and ran around.
“The corpse is completely useless. But the tongue, if cut off while it’s still alive, becomes a rare material.”
“Is a tongue cut off after it’s dead no good, Master?”“The moment it dies, it dries up without a trace and shrivels away. It’s tied to the fundamental life force Gale Ironwood has.”“Are you going to make some sort of elixir out of the tongue, Master?”
“I’ll tell you after I’ve obtained one and made it. It’s no fun if I tell you beforehand, is it?”
He thought it would still be plenty fun even if he was told beforehand, but since it was his master’s little way of teasing him, he decided to play along.
“Then before we go in, I’ll just do one last round of final prep.”
“Fine. To pick out a few more traits of Gale Ironwood that matter in a fight......”
While Celestial Assassin explained the traits of Gale Ironwood that were important in battle, Kang-hoo summoned Mumyeong.
He had used it in the fight with the Kashimar Guild hunters, but only briefly as a shield before finishing up.
This time, he intended to assign it the role of a combat-focused underling, one that would buy time until it dissipated.
He first equipped items on it.
Since it had a tangible body, it was possible to register and equip items by body part.
All of those would apply as stats for Mumyeong, so the better and the more items he wore, the better it would be.
However, if Mumyeong dissipated, he would lose his master and all his items would drop.
He needed to plan for post-dissipation management. In other words, he could not just load it up with overly expensive items.
He checked the detailed tooltip more closely.
From here on, Mumyeong had virtually limitless potential for growth and use, so he could not afford to miss anything.
【When acting within a 500 m radius of the master, it does not consume any additional Dark Energy. However, outside that range it consumes 1 Dark Energy per second and dissipates once all is exhausted.】
So he could not send it infinitely far away, it seemed.
However, since the 500 m mark on the tooltip was highlighted separately, it looked like the range would expand as its level rose.
【Strategic dissolution by the master’s command requires 7.13 seconds, during which all items are compressed with a 99.9% preservation rate and disappear together.
However, if it dies and dissipates, it drops all items, and resummoning requires 500 Dark Energy and 10 minutes.】
‘So no cheesy dissipation tricks. If I want to prevent death-triggered dissipation and recall it first... 7.13 seconds is quite long.’
Previously, when he ordered a Corrupted Demon or Corrupted Beast to dissipate, they had simply scattered like smoke and vanished naturally.
But since Mumyeong was a Corrupted with a solid body, it felt like it needed time to disappear into a separate “space.”
【This summoned being has levels and can grow; each time it levels up, its stats increase automatically according to its “orientation.”
It can take a portion of the experience the master gains, with the range settable from a minimum of 0% to a maximum of 33%.】
‘So I can choose whether to center growth on myself or on the underling. Orientation means direction.’
When he pressed the orientation button that had activated above Mumyeong’s head upon summoning, several options appeared.
If he wanted it to act as a swift swordsman fighting as his partner, agility orientation would be appropriate.
But Kang-hoo chose “stamina orientation.”
He might have some degree of tanking ability himself, but he was not really specialized in it.
If Mumyeong could play a solid shield role like Ma Jinho from Groo Guild, battles would become much easier.
Since orientation could be changed at any time, he could always adjust the direction later while watching its growth trend.
Even while doing all that, he still listened to his master’s explanation in full.
No matter how he thought about it, Gale Ironwood felt like it was one tier above Swarm Queen as a being.
More aggressive, more threatening, and with more varied offensive options—that was its trait. It was an enemy he could not afford to take lightly.
“You’ve got an interesting underling.”
“Yes, please call him Mumyeong.”
“Does he understand my words as well?”
“Try calling him once, Master.”
“Mumyeong.”
“Yes.”
“Who do you fight for?”
“I fight for my lord.”
The moment he finished speaking, Mumyeong dropped to one knee and bowed his head, making for quite a cool scene.
It even made Kang-hoo think it looked like a shot from a drama. Was he designed that way from the beginning?
“Heh-heh. He speaks quite well too. I’ve handled something like this before, but I couldn’t control its madness.”
“You mean it went berserk, Master?”
“Mmm, to be precise, I treated it too much like a tool. I didn’t let it learn anything except killing. I deliberately shut everything else out.”
“By that, you mean......”
“If I were to give you one piece of advice—don’t think of Mumyeong as an underling. Think of him as a comrade and keep sharing emotions with him.”
“Sharing emotions.”
“What would be a good comparison... Ah, a puppy. You don’t just think of a puppy as simply an animal, do you?”
“Of course not.”
“Just as a master and pet share their feelings, try doing the same with him. Then this fellow’s personal and behavioral spectrum will broaden.”
It was an unexpected piece of advice.
Kang-hoo did not find it awkward or unpleasant to talk with Mumyeong and watch his reactions.
But he still had a question mark about treating him like a person. In the end, he had thought of underlings as “tools.”
And yet his master was telling him to take the exact opposite approach. To treat him like a person.
Just when he had finished equipping Mumyeong with his last item, the trees to the north suddenly shook.
They were only just crossing into the border of Hoeyang County, and there was still some distance left to the city center.
Yet something was already making its presence known.
There was only one reason something would show itself in a place like this: the appearance of a monster or a hybrid species.
-Kreeee.......
-Uhuhuhu.......
The being that soon pushed through branches and bushes to appear looked like a hybrid species that had once been human.
From the fatigues and tattered clothes it was wearing, it seemed to be a North Korean soldier or resident who had lived in Hoeyang County.
It did not look particularly threatening.
Its movements were slow to begin with, and it was not holding any useful weapon.
Hybrids like that usually fought with their bodies.
Clinging on and biting pieces off, or clawing and tearing with their hands—primitive attacks like that were their only options.
“Mumyeong. Just take the heads off. Don’t bother putting strength anywhere else. Go fight.”
“Yes my lord.”
“Just say ‘Yes’ in one syllable. What’s with the long words....?”
“Yes.”
Tatatat!
Mumyeong charged.
Whether that archaic way of speaking was ingrained from birth or just a devotion to his “concept,” Kang-hoo did not know, but it still felt unfamiliar.
It seemed he would need to coach him in various ways for a while. He also wanted to get rid of that cheesy “my lord” form of address.
Meanwhile—
Swaak! Swaaak!
Mumyeong slipped between the hybrids and swung his sword horizontally with force, cutting off their necks in a single stroke.
“Whether it’s a soul that has ‘possessed’ him or he was born that way, I don’t know, but his swordsmanship is decent.”
“I think so too.”
“Maybe a fellow whose level fits his master’s rank has found his way to you. Good. The seedling is promising.”
Celestial Assassin looked even more satisfied than Kang-hoo.
If the underling of a skilled disciple was anything, a proactive “intelligent being” was better than a passive “tool,” was it not? Mumyeong looked like the former.
Guuuu.......
As Mumyeong’s active offensive spread in all directions, additional hybrids that had been hiding showed themselves.
They gradually formed an encirclement centered on Mumyeong. There was no better moment for a corral-and-slaughter hunt than now.
‘Collapse. And Thunderstrike Tremor.’
A suitable massacre combo surfaced in his mind.
If he drove all the hybrids into a single pit and then burned them with Flame of Annihilation, it would be a large-scale execution by fire.
A nice setup picture that Mumyeong had created for him.
Now it was time for the “lord” to step in.Around that time—
Across the sea in Japan—
A man with more piercings in his ears, eyes, and under his lips than it was worth counting was drinking a beverage made by mixing pig’s blood with carbonated water.
“Ah, this tastes fucking awful.”
Maybe because it was a drink he had to consume out of obligation, it felt terrible going down from first sip to last.
No matter how special the treatment, pig’s blood was still pig’s blood. There was no getting rid of that unique metallic reek.
“Tch.”
The man clicked his tongue.
No matter how much fresh human blood he drank, it never tasted fishy; if anything, it felt like sweet honey water.
But for a man who, for certain reasons, had to avoid drinking human blood, pig’s blood was an unavoidable substitute.
Just then—
Bang! Bang-bang-bang!
From the basement of the house where the man was staying came the sound of iron bars rattling.
Not an iron door, but bars. The sort of harsh metallic noise you heard only from a space where someone was being locked up.
With an annoyed expression, the man painfully gulped down the rest of the pig’s blood and headed for the basement.
There, a hunter wearing a Touishi Guild insignia glared at him with eyes burning with anger and shouted,
“Gosuke, you bastard! Is this any way to treat a client? Are you doing this even though you know I’m from Touishi Guild?”
The man the hunter was shouting at was Nakanishi Kosuke.
He was a black-mage hunter, a well-known eccentric in Japan.
He was the very one who had given Ishihara Yuji emergency treatment back when Yuji had taken an unexpected hit from Kang-hoo.
In a way, he should have been a lifesaving benefactor to Yuji.
But Yuji, who had gained odd-colored eyes as an aftereffect of treatment using black magic, had resented Kosuke.
Blinded by the desire for revenge, he had gone to Korea and ended up dying pathetically at Kang-hoo’s hands.
From Kosuke’s perspective, all the effort he had spent to save one hunter had ended up being for nothing.
To top it off, in order to save Yuji, the life of another hunter had been sacrificed as an offering, so the final loss was two lives.
Keeping some distance from the bars, Kosuke tilted his head at an angle and asked the hunter,
“Just answer what I ask. What kind of constellation is it that you all serve?”
“What changes if you know? What are you planning to do once you find out?”
“I just want to know.”
“Gosuke. Do you really think we’d reveal our heavy mission to a light, pathetic enemy like you?”
At the man’s answer, Kosuke shrugged his shoulders and hands with a “can’t understand you” expression.
When the man’s face wavered slightly at Kosuke’s reaction, which was different from what he had expected, Kosuke laughed and said,
“Who said I was an enemy? I’m just interested in the constellation you serve. I might even be able to check if I can pull a number ticket for you guys, you know?”
If he was not an enemy, did that mean he wanted to be on the same side?
The man’s expression grew even more complicated as he struggled to guess what lay inside Kosuke’s mind. Just how much did this bastard know?