Chapter 31 – Soldier – [Five]

“Fuck, what the hell!”

The soldiers attempted to subdue Seo Yun. Surrounding her from all sides, they jabbed and struck with their rifle butts.

No matter how skilled Seo Yun was, she couldn’t block everything coming at her from all directions. As the enraged soldiers’ rifle butts pounded her back and head, Seo Yun desperately parried and struck back with her inverted Longsword. It seemed like a struggle to hold back even one more soldier.

But in the end, she alone couldn’t hold them all. Some soldiers broke away from Seo Yun. As she tried to rush toward them to see if they too were trying to hold her back, she was kicked in the stomach.

It was just then that some soldiers finally approached Kim Jihyeok and his group.

From beside Kim Jihyeok, Kim Ak’s voice was heard.

“Lee Jongho, you’re the leader from now on! Take responsibility and get the kids to run. Got it!”

The moment Kim Jihyeok turned his head, Kim Ak charged out. Before pushing off the ground, Kim Ak seemed to have said this:

“Long live Happy Village.”

The soldiers approaching this side stopped. They clearly didn’t hold back even against the large-framed Kim Ak. They immediately fired their guns to stop him.

Some bullets ricocheted off his Armor, but a few finally pierced Kim Ak’s legs. Kim Jihyeok saw fire and blood spurting from those legs.

Kim Jihyeok had been shot by a bullet earlier. Recalling that pain, he momentarily closed his eyes, but when he opened them, Kim Ak was advancing again.

“Long live Happy Village!”

Finally charging, Kim Ak began to grapple with the soldiers.

Meanwhile, Seo Yun seemed to be gradually subdued. When simple beatings didn’t subdue her, the soldiers clung to her limbs. With her meager Strength, it was difficult to shake off even one of them.

Watching the captured Seo Yun, Kim Jihyeok thought. I have to save her.

Kim Jihyeok recalled when he first met that girl. Before the moth monster sitting in front of them, Kim Jihyeok had heroic thoughts just like now. A noble, self-sacrificing thought to save the girl by offering his own body.

And just like back then, his body was honest. Kim Jihyeok’s body stiffened, unable to advance or retreat, just standing there blankly.

Even if I can’t save her, at least let me get captured with her. I can use Invisibility too, right? So maybe I can do something unexpected like a joker. He tried repeating it to himself, but his feet still wouldn’t budge.

While continuously lost in thought, Lee Jongho shouted.

“What are you doing? Run!”

His wrist was pulled. When Kim Jihyeok turned his head, Lee Jongho was running while holding him and Park Taeyang. Jeon Sangguk was also running alongside them.

As Kim Jihyeok went “Uh, uh,” and ran along, before he knew it, they had grown distant from the soldiers and his two companions.

Running desperately, he glanced back.

The soldiers seemed to have given up early on chasing them. Perhaps they were satisfied with the three they had already captured?

He saw the soldiers loading the three onto the truck’s cargo bed.

Seo Yun, handcuffed and feet bound, came into Kim Jihyeok’s view. Afraid of making eye contact with that girl, Kim Jihyeok turned his head again.

The Two-and-a-Half-Ton Truck drove off. Tied up in the cargo bed, Seo Yun was the center of the soldiers’ attention.

Seo Yun had beaten and pummeled most of them. One soldier, rubbing the chin he’d been hit earlier, asked.

“You fucking bitch… Are you really a Priest? What Level are you?”

Seo Yun answered.

“I am a Priest, and I’m Level 2.”

“What’s your Strength that you’re so damn strong?”

“3. If it hurts from being hit, I’ll heal you, so don’t be too angry. I’ll heal you after treating Seong Juri first.”

“Who’s Juri…”

Seo Yun pointed to the girl lying in the cargo bed, gasping for breath.

“That girl.”

“The one in Armor? She’s a girl too?”

“Yes.”

As the soldier groaned, Seo Yun approached Seong Juri. She quickly finished a prayer. After healing the girl’s stomach wound, she let out a sigh of relief. At any rate, the critical moment seemed to have passed.

Then she made eye contact with Seong Juri. Though only her eyes were visible behind the Helm, her feelings were roughly discernible. A complex gaze mixed with shame, self-reproach, and relief.

If Seo Yun remained expressionless now, it might be interpreted as a condemning look. So, to reassure the girl, she smiled brightly, which made the soldier standing nearby scoff in disbelief.

“She’s smiling? Does she not understand the situation…”

Seo Yun half-listened to that remark and awkwardly approached Kim Ak. When she tried to heal him too, a soldier pushed Seo Yun and shouted.

“If you want to heal that bastard, heal us first.”

Seo Yun did as told. She healed the soldiers one by one, those who had been slashed by Kim Ak or beaten by her.

Then she approached Kim Ak again and said to the soldiers.

“For gunshot wounds, the bullets need to be removed first before healing. If you’re not going to remove the bullets yourselves, please remove these handcuffs.”

The soldiers seemed flustered by the fact that the captured girl was unnaturally composed. They weren’t getting angry but were gauging each other’s reactions.

“She’s a damn tough one… Is it okay to release her…”

After hesitating, the soldier removed Seo Yun’s handcuffs. The two swords had already been confiscated. Seo Yun obediently focused on healing.

Kneeling before Kim Ak, she asked.

“Are you okay?”

Kim Ak paused briefly before answering.

“Yeah, you…?”

“I’m fine. My Health is 11.”

Speaking in a calm voice, Seo Yun looked into Kim Ak’s eyes inside the Helm.

Kim Ak, shot all over, still seemed to have adrenaline coursing through him, his gaze fierce. Despite his large frame, his face usually looked unreliable, but perhaps because his face was hidden by the Helm, he now looked surprisingly like a Warrior.

She could understand the sentiment that made him charge after her. To praise him for being brave, Seo Yun patted his shoulder and smiled again this time.

“Don’t be too upset. If we return to the village like this, aren’t we heroes?”

This time too, a soldier scolded.

“You guys aren’t returning, asshole.”

After that, the Two-and-a-Half-Ton kept driving and stopped at a campsite.

Two other Two-and-a-Half-Tons were waiting there. Those two trucks were also loaded with soldiers and Players captured by them.

Among them, Seo Yun spotted familiar faces. Boys with gaunt, North Korean soldier-like appearances and one boy with an ordinary face.

‘The Warrior kids from the neighboring village… and… Han Siwoo?’Seo Yun and Han Siwoo made eye contact. Siwoo seemed to want to say something, his lips twitching, but that was all. With everyone captured, there was nothing to be done.

The soldiers gathered here began talking among themselves.

“What did you guys catch?”

“Just nine Warriors. Damn, there are so many Warriors. How about you guys?”

“We got two Warriors and one Priest.”

“Oh, a Priest? That’s a real relief…”

“Well, since we caught a Priest, we probably won’t get chewed out when we get back.”

“But why are there two runts? Doesn’t look good, does it? We should’ve caught more men to make it look better…”

Listening to the conversation, Seo Yun observed the captured Players.

She looked to see if Gaeulbi might be among them, but fortunately, she wasn’t visible. Listening to the talk, it seemed these soldiers had captured the easier Players, and they probably didn’t dare bring back any Martial Artists either. A wise choice.

“You’ll get your meals after we arrive. Stop glaring. Makes me wanna just punch you…”

The soldiers ate among themselves and then climbed back onto the Two-and-a-Half-Ton Trucks. Now three trucks were running side by side.

Then, a loud roar pierced their ears.

‘Vrooooom…’ A powerful engine sound was heard. The soldiers looked at each other.

“What’s that?”

The engine sound grew louder until the source appeared in the distance.

It was an impossibly massive bike and the rider atop it. A rider who seemed to have about four horns on his head. It looked that way due to the horn decorations on his helm and the massive tusks protruding from his mouth, large enough to seem like they could pierce his own forehead.

That rider wore armor as black as if he were a demon king. Even while mounted on the bike, he looked to be at least 2 meters 50 centimeters tall, and because the armor was so thick, he appeared even larger than he was.

And Seo Yun knew his actual size was monstrously large. She knew that Orc’s height was 2 meters 20 centimeters.

Oh Haengbok was chasing them on his monster bike.

“Chief?”

As Kim Ak’s eyes widened, the soldiers also reacted in shock.

“Shoot!”

The soldiers on the cargo bed aimed their rifles and fired. The magic placed on the guns seemed to have worn off by now, as gunshots rang out consecutively.

The simultaneous volley from the soldiers on the three Two-and-a-Half-Ton Trucks was loud enough to hurt the ears, but it had no effect whatsoever on Oh Haengbok charging toward them. The bullets that struck his black armor merely sparked and ricocheted.

Even if there were no wounds, one would expect his body to shake from the momentum carried by the bullets, but there wasn’t even a hint of that.

“What the hell is that?”

As the soldiers panicked again, Oh Haengbok grabbed the bow hanging from his bike. At a glance, it was a bow made of metal, elongated to the height of a person, making one doubt if it could even be shot.

Oh Haengbok nocked a massive iron arrow onto the string and drew it.

With a feeling of the air distorting, something flew. Even though the attack wasn’t aimed at her, Seo Yun felt a shiver.

The arrow struck the head of the soldier sitting right in front. The arrow didn’t stop flying even after hitting its target.

The arrow that pierced the soldier’s head continued flying, taking the head with it. Flesh and muscle writhed from the neck where the head had been torn off.

A fountain of blood erupted.

Screams echoed from everywhere.

The arrow’s flight, which must have traveled at least another ten meters, only stopped after embedding itself in a utility pole. The soldier’s head also ended up hanging there as if decapitated.

“Everyone, get down!”

Amidst a scream-like order, everyone flattened themselves against the cargo bed. But there were too many people, and space was insufficient.

A few couldn’t lie down and remained crouching. Then the air distorted again, and the head of one such person was struck by an arrow, torn from his neck, and flew away.

Someone uttered the identity of that monster.

“That’s Oh Haengbok. The strongest bastard on the Korean Peninsula…”

It seemed the soldiers were also well aware of the notorious reputation of that Orc Vampire, and for good reason. That Level 13 Warrior Orc was truly considered a monster among monsters.

Ability Scores up to 8 are within the human realm, but 9 and beyond are not. According to the Rulebook, 9 is the strength of a bear, and 10 is the strength of an elephant or dinosaur. And 11? It’s considered something beyond the limits of living creatures.

An Orc Vampire with Strength 11 was chasing them. It was strength that made everyday life impossible, so that Orc normally had to equip two rings that each lowered his Strength by 2 points.

To stop that pursuit, the soldiers desperately fired while lying down, but as before, it was utterly useless.

Just as a tank’s engine allows for thicker armor, a higher Strength Stat allows for wearing thicker armor. And the armor Oh Haengbok was currently wearing was armor that required a Strength Stat of 10 or higher to wear.

It was essentially like wearing armor with the mass of something an elephant would wear, compressed. How a single bike could handle that weight was something one couldn’t understand even after seeing it.

“We can’t catch that bastard with this. Anti-tank weapons, we need anti-tank weapons…”

The soldiers had such weapons too. Seo Yun roughly recognized the weapon one soldier held as a Panzerfaust 3.

That soldier desperately fumbled with the weapon and somehow managed to fire it.

Meanwhile, Oh Haengbok was famous for having Strength of 11 but never investing a single point into his Strength Stat when Leveling Up. He only raised his Agility and Dexterity Stats, or so it was said?

Thanks to that, both stats seemed high. With nimble and fluid movements, Oh Haengbok twisted his bike to evade the rocket.

The rocket exploded beside him. Even that blast pressure couldn’t shake Oh Haengbok and his bike’s forward momentum in the slightest.

And as if in retaliation, Oh Haengbok shot another arrow.

This time, two people on the adjacent Two-and-a-Half-Ton Truck became victims. The arrow pierced two heads at once and flew away, even penetrating the truck’s steel plate before disappearing into the distance.

With an expression on the verge of fainting, a soldier fired another rocket.

This time, it hit. Amidst the bike’s explosion, everyone let out a cheer.

“It hit!”

Amidst the fire and fragments scattering from the bike, Oh Haengbok, who had been riding it, didn’t even leave a trace.

Oh Haengbok’s body, along with his armor, turned into blood and scattered. As the blood mist spread, the soldiers, who had been rejoicing, suddenly turned grim.No matter how powerful a rocket might be, it couldn’t possibly turn a person into a blood mist. So that wasn’t due to the attack…

‘Vampire Mist Form.’

Exactly as Seo Yun had read in the Rulebook, Oh Haengbok was transforming into a mist of blood and flying toward them.

The mist flew as fast as the bike was speeding.

The blood mist, having closed the distance with the Two-and-a-Half-Ton Truck, transformed back into the form of an orc clad in armor. Oh Haengbok, standing once more on the Mortal Realm with both feet, was holding a spear.

The moment he regained human form, he immediately threw it.

The spear struck a Two-and-a-Half-Ton Truck. From Seo Yun’s perspective, it was the truck running alongside them. The spear embedded itself deep into its cargo bed.

The iron chain connected to the spear shaft pulled taut. It was originally a tool meant to drag down giant flying monsters, and the spearhead was hook-shaped.

The soldiers in the adjacent Two-and-a-Half-Ton Truck were sweating as they tried to pull the spear out, but it seemed utterly impossible.

Soon, the struck Two-and-a-Half-Ton Truck began to be dragged.

With each pull of the orc’s arm, the truck was dragged back several meters. The soldiers around Seo Yun watched this supernatural spectacle with expressions as if they might faint.

Even if his Strength was immense, given the weight difference, he should have been dragged too, but Oh Haengbok wasn’t pulled at all. Without even digging his feet into the ground, only the Two-and-a-Half-Ton Truck was being dragged along.

From that fact, it seemed the weight of Oh Haengbok and his Armor was greater than that of the Two-and-a-Half-Ton Truck and its passengers.

Due to that weight, despite his transcendent leg strength, he wouldn’t be particularly fast.

Finally, after dragging one Two-and-a-Half-Ton Truck before him, Oh Haengbok checked that none of his villagers were in its cargo bed and intended to pursue the other trucks.

But he had lost his vehicle. Now he couldn’t close the distance.

As the distance continued to grow, Oh Haengbok stopped in his tracks.

From far away, the orc’s roar reached them.

A roar that wasn’t words, a roar that only shook eardrums, drove everyone present out of their right minds.

Seo Yun covered her ears. Even in the village, that orc would often let out roars, but only now could she understand that until now, he had been greatly suppressing them.

Another roar followed. This time, the roar’s meaning could be understood.

“I’ll kill you! You bastards! I will definitely kill—you—all—!”

It was merely a cry meaning ‘just you wait,’ but no one present laughed.

Even Seo Yun, whose Mental Stat was as high as 9, felt dizzy to the point her head spun. The soldiers around her were trembling, their jaws chattering uncontrollably. One even vomited in the cargo bed. There wasn’t even anyone to scold him for it.

Leaving the orc, mad with rage, behind, the two Two-and-a-Half-Ton Trucks continued to race on.