As a result, the Combat Truck did not stop even once, and the party was able to keep racing straight ahead.
-Mr. Park Il-sang. You have an even more impressive summon than I had heard.
Beside them, the Skeleton Beast Lord Kitty was still running.
That thing was as fast as the Combat Truck!
“Well… Is it not forbidden to reveal every card one has?”
Hunters did not show all of their abilities.
They never knew when someone might stab them in the back and kill them.
-However, if you are going to show it during combat anyway, please tell us in advance. It changes our tactics. You may keep hidden what absolutely must be hidden, of course.
“Then allow me to ask in return. How wide is the range of your Stealth Ability, Team Leader, and how long can it be maintained?”
-A radius of one hundred meters. The duration is thirty minutes.
‘One hundred meters. That is quite wide, is it not? In that case…’
Park Il-sang calculated inwardly. Undead, by nature, did not grow tired, so as long as their speed matched, there would be no problem with traveling around while forming an escort force.
They were not even what one could call consumables.
As long as there were corpses, he could make as many as he wanted.
A corpse became a necromancer’s Necro Mana, became troops, and became material for items. What a wonderful Job this was!
That was why, even in his previous life, until the world came to an end, the ones who had exerted the greatest power and contributed to the protection of the world had been the necromancers.
Although, despite that, the world had ultimately been destroyed.
‘Tsk. Thinking about my previous life makes me feel a little uneasy. This world will still be all right, will it not?’
They said the world was half-ruined, but the economy was still functioning, and according to a recent newsletter from the city government, the population was apparently on the rise.
Frankly, he could not understand the idea that the population was increasing.
‘My thoughts wandered somewhere else… First of all, there is enough space, so shall I try it?’
“Team Leader. Have we shaken off the Gablk Swarm?”
-Shin-woo, how is it?
-They are not currently within detection range.
“Then if you would stop the truck for a moment, I will take out a few things that should help with this commission.”
-Let us do that. Stop!
The Combat Truck came to a halt.
Then everyone looked at Park Il-sang. They watched him with expressions that seemed to ask what else he intended to show them now, but Park Il-sang made a gesture and gave an order to the Necro Guards that had been hanging on.
Clack. Clack, clack, clack.
The Necro Guards dropped to the ground.
Then the bag-shaped [Corpse Boxes] hanging from their backs opened, and corpses poured out from within.
He did not pour out all of them.
After leaving behind enough to generate Necro Mana.
He poured out a usable number of corpses.
Their number was a full two hundred.
Since ten [Corpse Boxes] could store one hundred corpses each, about one hundred corpses’ worth, including Kitty, spilled out from the one thousand corpses.
That was only natural, since Kitty took up one hundred corpses’ worth.
“Corpse Processing.”
Then, in front of his companions, Park Il-sang used his Skill. He still had plenty of Necro Mana, so this much was not difficult.
CRACK! CRRRUNCH!
The forms of one hundred Skeleton Soldiers began to change.
They transformed into quadrupedal beasts, and four long bone whips, or perhaps things that could be called tentacles, sprouted from their backs and swayed.
“Soul Processing.”
At the same time, he processed their souls. He made them not human or bipedal souls, but souls like those of quadrupedal beasts.
That way, the undead’s movements would become more natural and savage, allowing them to fight better.
In an instant, the one hundred Frogman Skeletons had become beast-shaped skeletons.
“Incredible. Is a necromancer not far too overpowered?”
Kim Ye-rin’s expression filled with astonishment. It was understandable. The number one hundred was overwhelming in itself, but the sight of all of them changing form together was nothing short of spectacular.
In some ways, it was even eerie.
The Team Leader also stared blankly for a moment after seeing it, then opened his mouth.
“You mean to use these as guards?”
“Yes. It is not as though I am overexerting myself. As long as I have corpses, I can make as many of these as I want. I mainly supplied myself with corpses from the Frog Nest.”
The fact that Park Il-sang had entered and cleared the Frog Nest several times a day had already spread as a rumor, and the team members knew it well too.
“I see. That Dungeon is low in difficulty, so it is indeed an appropriate place to collect corpses. I appreciate that you are going this far for us.”
“Not at all. Then let us set off again.”
“Yes.”
The party set off again.
Around the Combat Truck, one hundred Skeleton Beasts raced alongside it.
***
They said that, in the old days, it had taken only two to three hours to travel from Seoul to Daebudo.
Now, however, it easily took eight hours.
The roads were not properly maintained, the paths were ruined here and there, and Monsters continued to spring out.
The number of Monsters capable of keeping up with the Combat Truck’s speed was limited, but there were also times when, like the Gablk, an entire swarm lay in wait and then attacked.
That was why it took eight hours.
Under such circumstances, the Team Leader’s Skill, ‘Veil of Concealment,’ could not be kept active at all times.
Apparently, the limit was around one hour a day.
That was why they carried out missions by breaking through anything they could, such as the Gablk, while only using ‘Veil of Concealment’ when something difficult to deal with appeared.
As it turned out, the Team Leader was a specialist in this field.
And about two hours after they had broken through the Gablk Swarm.
Orcs appeared.
And they did not simply appear.
They were blocking the road!
‘No, what kind of orc blocks the road and demands a toll?’
Looking from a distance, he saw something that resembled a banner hanging there as well.
[Stop First! Pay Money and Go!]
The crookedly written words made his mind go blank for a moment.
‘No. Orcs are… collecting tolls?’
Posts like this occasionally appeared on the [Hunter Board], but seeing it in person made his head ache.
Are these bastards some kind of mountain bandits? Are they running the Eighteen Orc Strongholds instead of the Eighteen Green Forest Strongholds?
The Combat Truck stopped at a distance.
The Team Leader spoke over the comms.
-Those bastards collect an enormous toll. I believe we will have to force our way through.
-How long will it take if we detour?
-Then we will have to go around for at least five hours… As you know, night will fall by then.
Night.
It would be troublesome if night fell.
At night, nocturnal Monsters ran rampant, and undead roamed as well.
Park Il-sang himself was a Necromancer, but he still had to be wary of Wild Undead. There were plenty of powerful Wild Undead over which his control had no effect.
At least in Korea, one could still arrive in another city while the sun was up.
If one departed the moment the sun rose, then with some luck, one could somehow make it as far as Busan.
Of course, that was far too tight a schedule, and there were many variables along the way, so they supposedly used places like Gwangju or Daejeon as intermediate stops.
-First, while Ms. Kim Ye-rin draws them out with long-range sniping, Mr. Kim Dong-su can break the barricade as appropriate, and then we will charge straight through—
“Wait a moment.”
Park Il-sang stepped forward.
“Let us change the plan. I will take care of them.”
***
Orcs were basically Monsters evaluated as E-Grade. However, it was hard to regard them as that powerful.
After all, they were the sort of creatures that were shredded by bullets.
However, the special individuals who commanded orc groups were a little different.
Starting with individuals known as Orc Warriors, they became D-Grade. Bullets could lodge in them, but they could not completely pierce their skin.
Since they could only be killed with large-caliber bullets, they became troublesome from that point onward.
Naturally, there were also ones stronger than Orc Warriors.
There was a creature called an Orc Warrior Captain, and ordinary rifle bullets could not so much as scratch its skin, while even large-caliber bullets could not inflict a fatal wound.
It even used Aura.
If it wrapped Aura around its entire body, even large-caliber bullets could not harm it until the Aura disappeared. At that point, one had to fire something on the level of a heavy autocannon to kill it.
There was also a stage above that.
The Orc Chieftain. And there was also the Orc Shaman, which held the mage position.
They said that an Orc Chieftain had endured tank fire. Its danger level could therefore be considered A-Grade. An Orc Shaman was treated as roughly B-Grade, but if one succeeded in sniping it, it could be killed easily.
No matter where one went, those in the mage position were physically fragile.
According to Han Shin-woo, the detection Supporter, there were at least no individuals at the level of a chieftain or warrior captain.
If so, the task became fairly easy.
The Combat Truck was fundamentally equipped with turrets that fired rifle bullets and an autocannon that fired large-caliber bullets, so fighting hundreds of orcs was not particularly difficult.
The only problem would be if a higher-tier orc appeared in the middle of it.
And.
Winning was not the problem.
If they used this many bullets, the cost would not be trivial either.
Nor would it be easy to slaughter the orcs en masse and collect the spoils.
As mentioned, if an Orc Warrior Captain or Chieftain appeared while they were collecting the spoils, things would become thoroughly wretched.
In one way or another.
It was better to break through at once and flee.
And Park Il-sang currently had an ability perfectly suited to doing just that.
“Then I will begin.”
He flicked a finger.
Then.
The Skeleton Beasts began racing forward at a terrifying speed.
Since the Combat Truck was parked in a place that could not be seen from the road occupied by the orcs, from the orcs’ perspective, it must have looked as though skeletal beasts had suddenly leaped out.
“Snrrrk!”
“Gruoooh! Grakarag!”
While the orcs shouted something.
A Skeleton Beast hurled itself toward the crudely made barricade the orcs had built.
And then.
KABOOM!
It exploded right then and there.
The force was considerable, and part of the multilayered barricade was reduced to powder.
“Snrrk!? Waaaaaaaah!”