Chapter 38 – LV.Five Priest Seo Yun – [Three]

It seemed they had indeed been high-level opponents. The sense of fulfillment that filled her mind didn’t fade for a long time. And it wasn’t just the feeling of fulfillment; the rewards for Leveling Up were also granted.

Seo Yun closed her eyes for a moment and looked inward. Shining characters in her heart.

They were the second-tier Spells she could now use upon reaching Level 3. Heroism… Intermediate Healing…

After selecting a few Spells to use immediately, Seo Yun opened her eyes.

An eyeball was floating ahead.

It was an eyeball with bat-like membranous wings. The eyeball was slowly flapping its wings, hovering in the air. What on earth was that?

Seo Yun remembered an illustration like that in the Rulebook.

‘A Mage’s Scout Spell?’

She also recalled that the eyeball shared its vision with the Mage. It seemed the Centaurs’ Mage had sent it here to control Skeletons from a distance.

Now that one of the Warriors who had been confidently charging was dead, were they checking what had happened? It was unsettling, but she couldn’t afford to worry about it right now.

Seo Yun turned her head away, pretending not to see it. A voice pierced her ears.

“Are you okay?”

Kim Ak was looking at her.

“My Health is 11. What about you, Team Leader? Should I help you up?”

It must have been absurd to say that right after being kicked by a horse. Kim Ak’s expression was bewildered as he trailed off.

“I got a Heal, so I’m fine.”

“Then…”

Seo Yun observed her surroundings for a moment. Would it be okay to leave this cover now?

It seemed fine. There were no bullets flying around immediately.

Trusting her Health Stat, Seo Yun cautiously peeked her face over the Barricade.

Skeletons were visible, but they weren’t charging. They were just hiding behind cover, staring blankly this way, taking no action.

It was incomprehensible. Wasn’t this the perfect situation to pursue retreating soldiers and expand their gains? Why would they suddenly halt their offensive in the midst of this?

Anyway, if they wanted to escape, there was no better opportunity than now.

“Team Leader!”

Seong Juri quickly approached and helped Kim Ak up. With Seo Yun covering the rear, the three of them ran back the way they had come.

The soldiers had already retreated far away, so even after running for a full minute, they were nowhere in sight. Also, no bullets were flying from behind.

While still running, they stopped in their tracks. A voice was heard.

“Me, me too…”

The voice came from the ground. Kim Ak, who turned his head toward it, widened his eyes.

A boy was looking this way, pleading with a desperate expression. Blood was flowing from his severed leg.

Beside the boy, a soldier was leaning his back against the Barricade, staring blankly this way, with something like a coiled sausage spilling from his abdomen.

It seemed like a situation that required a Priest. Seo Yun thought so and looked at Kim Ak’s face.

Kim Ak’s expression now looked complicated, as if he was debating whether abandoning a dying kid was the responsible action of an adult or the act of a scumbag.

Admittedly, distinguishing between the two wasn’t easy. It was an urgent situation, but no bullets were flying at the moment. So, it was unclear whether this situation allowed enough leeway to tend to other wounded.

There was no time to debate which it was. To save time, Seo Yun acted first.

Kneeling before the boy, she healed his severed leg and wrapped it with bandages.

Up to this point, Seong Juri seemed to have no intention of stopping her and just watched. However, she didn’t watch as Seo Yun stuffed the soldier’s intestines back in and wrapped them with bandages.

Seong Juri finally asked in a voice full of dissatisfaction.

“Why this bastard?”

Hostility toward the soldier seeped into her voice. That hostility was justified.

It was embarrassing to answer that she just couldn’t leave only this guy behind. So, Seo Yun gave another reason.

“The soldiers will come to retrieve the wounded, right? If word gets out that we left only this guy behind, we’d be screwed.”

In the end, it seemed like the right choice.

Everyone must have noticed that no bullets were flying. Soldiers were also approaching from over there. Two soldiers discovered the situation.

“Over there, need help?”

Seo Yun shouted for them to bring a stretcher.

A short while later, the three, including Seo Yun, along with the soldiers who had approached, loaded the wounded onto stretchers and joined the other soldiers in the rear.

“To the Medical Corps!”

Even then, the Priest got no rest. Seo Yun was busy healing the wounded scattered everywhere.

While disinfecting a soldier’s wound, some soldiers approached.

“Hey, are you the one who saved Platoon Leader Kim Dae-sik and came back?”

In response to the question, Seo Yun asked back.

“Who is Platoon Leader Kim Dae-sik?”

“You know, earlier…”

“The one spilling sausages? Then yes, I treated him.”

They seemed to be members of the platoon of the soldier she had saved. Words of gratitude flowed from the soldiers’ mouths. Seo Yun listened to the praise with an indifferent expression and sent them away.

After that, similar incidents kept happening. The return of a Priest who had rushed onto the battlefield to save the wounded seemed to have spread as a kind of feat.

When Seo Yun went to tend to other wounded, a group of soldiers had gathered. Their gazes focused on her.

The soldiers all rose from their seats and approached Seo Yun. As she stood bewildered, they began clapping and shouting.

“Bravo.”

“Huh?”

“Bravo!”

Suddenly surrounded by soldiers, she received cheers and applause. Seo Yun was flustered, but understanding the situation itself wasn’t difficult.

She had saved one of their comrades and, in the process, even taken down a horse-bodied monster. That was worthy of praise. And with her appearance standing out in the midst of it all, they probably decided to treat her as a hero.

Hero treatment…

At that moment, Seo Yun thought of an idea.

It was a way to escape this horrible place—not just from this battlefield, but from among these soldiers.

The soldiers kept approaching Seo Yun to offer praise.

Maybe they wanted to make a fuss in the midst of their gloom to lift their spirits. Or perhaps they were trying to get their faces remembered so they could receive this Priest’s help if they got wounded.

Anyway, it would be a lie to say she wasn’t in a good mood from all this praise. Seo Yun was certainly enjoying the situation in her own way.

But that feeling didn’t last long.The eight boys from the neighboring village also came to express their gratitude for saving one of their comrades. Five boys were bowing their heads.

“Thank you so much…”

They were using formal speech, perhaps mindful that our Level was higher.

“You don’t need to use formal speech, guys. But why are there only five of you? One should be resting because he was injured, but did two more get hurt?”

When I asked the reason, this answer came back.

“Two, they died.”

Still formal speech, but I couldn’t care about that now.

“They died?”

“Yes. Something fell from up there…”

As if they didn’t even want to recall the situation, the boys’ faces turned pale.

After the boys left, Seo Yun pondered over what had happened today. Two kids, seventeen years old or maybe younger, had died. They were dragged here and died.

In the meantime, another soldier approached. He also acted familiar with Seo Yun.

“Hey, Priest? I said I’d cover for you, but seeing you now, I guess there’s no need. You’re crazy popular…”

Seo Yun saw it was a familiar face. Someone she knew from the rear Medical Corps, the guy who had said he’d look out for her and all that. His name was Park Jong-il or something like that.

That guy definitely had goodwill toward her, so it seemed okay to ask him a slightly sensitive question.

“About the soldiers.”

“Huh?”

“Why on earth did you capture low-Level Players?”

At Seo Yun’s question, Park Jong-il seemed flustered.

“Why did we capture them? To fight together here…”

“I thought you captured them to fight together, but seeing things now, that’s not it either. What’s the point of putting Armor on them and giving them swords and shields against guys with guns?”

“Even if they’re weak now, if they’re lucky and kill an enemy, they earn Experience Points, so they’ll grow and become excellent combat power…”

“Spare me the Political Training content. The teaching that we can defeat the demonic Anglo-Americans with bamboo spears sounds more worth listening to.”

When Seo Yun pressed a few more times, Park Jong-il reluctantly answered.

“Monsters use guns against guys with guns. They fight barehanded against guys with swords.”

“Right. So what?”

“So sometimes, when Monsters are charging with guns and see Players in Armor with Cold Weapons, they suddenly put down their guns.”

“That didn’t happen this time.”

“Skeletons, well, they just do what they’re told without intelligence. They can’t even distinguish whether someone is a Player or not. But sometimes, when Centaurs charge and encounter Players… there are cases where they put down their modern weapons. That helps a lot. And as I said, if Players are lucky and actually kill mobs, they can Level Up too…”

The last part sounded like an excuse. Seo Yun muttered.

“So you captured them to roughly use them as human totems.”

Park Jong-il frowned and said.

“It’s necessary.”

“Do you really believe that?”

This time, no answer came. Only his lips moved.

And Seo Yun thought again what she had thought many times before.

We have to escape. Preferably with the other captured Players. To do that, she began organizing the idea that had come to mind earlier.

The day was growing dark.

Two-and-a-Half-Ton Truck vehicles transported the wounded. According to what Seo Yun had grasped while working in the Medical Corps, the Dawn Corps had the few Priests they had barely keep the wounded alive. The incompletely healed wounded were loaded onto the Two-and-a-Half-Ton Trucks and sent to the rear main force to be healed slowly. It was a policy to keep as many lives as possible.

Since Kim Ak was also not completely healed, he was loaded onto a Two-and-a-Half-Ton Truck. Seo Yun wanted to fake that Seong Juri was also somewhat injured and send her to the rear, but couldn’t. Because Seong Juri refused.

“I said I’d protect you, didn’t I?”

Seong Juri seemed to think it was shameful to return to a safe place alone, leaving Seo Yun, who was dragged here because of her.

Seo Yun considered teasing her again, calling her a piece of shit, but stopped.

“They say there’ll be another attack tonight.”

“So?”

“Then I’m going to act recklessly as hell.”

“Why?”

“There’s a plan. I don’t know if it’ll work, but anyway, it’s a plan that would benefit us. But if you follow me around saying you’ll protect me, it’ll be a huge burden and annoying. Like a nuisance heroine in a manga who gets captured because she doesn’t run away when the protagonist tells her to.”

“So, you’re telling me not to follow you around saying I’ll protect you?”

“Yeah.”

Seong Juri stared blankly at Seo Yun for a moment, then suddenly asked.

“What’s this plan of yours?”

Seo Yun roughly explained what she had been thinking.

After hearing it all, Seong Juri didn’t praise it as a good plan. Nor did she scold it as a terrible plan, but asked.

“Will it work?”

“Gotta try.”

Seo Yun looked up at the sky. The sky, which had been gray, was already stained black.

A sign of another impending attack.

Night is the time of monsters. The time of Vampires, the time of predators accustomed to the dark.

The most dangerous attacks were said to usually occur at night.

In preparation for the night attack, the soldiers of the Dawn Corps moved busily. They prepared new Machine Gun positions and rechecked the already dug trenches.

A Priest who had been sleeping after taking medicine at the Medical Corps also walked out and did his job.

“O Sun…”

In response to the Priest’s prayer, a golden sphere rose into the sky. The light emanating from the sphere burned away the vast darkness and provided illumination.

The Sun Priest’s Small Sun. A Spell used for Farming in Happy Village, but here it was being used as a night guard light.

Seeing that, Seo Yun suddenly thought.

Come to think of it, I’ve never seen soldiers Farming here. The number of soldiers here doesn’t seem small, so even if they somehow use stockpiled bullets, how are Provisions supplied? She couldn’t know.

Anyway, preparations for the night attack were complete.

And sure enough, the Monsters attacked, and the fact that they would was something all the soldiers had anticipated.

Only the method of this attack was unique.