Ubermensch – Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Unlike the hand from the restaurant a while ago, a giant, thick hand gripped Eun Yuri’s hand.

“Be brave, miss. No one else needs to be brave but us.”

“…That’s not a very reassuring consolation.”

“Is that so?”

Mason wore an awkward expression.

“Then… How about this?”

“What?”

“I’ll protect you, miss. As long as I can move.”

“That’s a little better…”

Eun Yuri let out a giggle, and the trembling in her hand noticeably decreased.

Mason was the kind of person who gave people confidence.

He made you feel safe when you needed to be safe, and courageous when you needed to be courageous.

He was the kind of person who would push you from behind and offer you a hand.

How could such a rough and thick hand be so warm?

Eun Yuri realized anew.

That Mason was the same kind of person as Sung Kijun…

It was then.

“Mason, come here.”

Sung Kijun called Mason, and Mason approached Sung Kijun.

“Have you figured out the operation plan?”

“Yes.”

Sung Kijun spoke directly.

“Can you jump from 300 meters without a parachute?”

“Yes. My legs will break, but just give me 10 seconds.”

“Good. Then the tankers will jump immediately, and the rest will land at a suitable location and follow. Yoojin-ah!”

The woman called Yoojin-ah rose from her seat.

She was wearing healer clothes with the Holy Knights’ mark on it.

“Yoojin-ah, you lead the dealers and healers. Don’t come in too quickly. Once you see that we’ve grabbed aggro, enter a beat later. Got it?”

“Yes, honey.”

Sung Kijun patted Mason on the back.

“Come on, big guy.”

Before they knew it, the sound of bombardment was coming from afar. Armed helicopters in the vicinity were also opening fire.

It was to provide a safe landing zone.

Three tankers of the Holy Knights and Mason prepared to jump.

Sung Kijun closed his eyes and prayed.

“Give me the wisdom to defeat injustice and the courage to defeat weakness.”

The other two also prayed in their own way.

When Mason stood there blankly, they stared at him.

“Uh… For humanity?”

Sung Kijun chuckled.

As the door opened, the giant figure of the Elder Worm was revealed before their eyes.

A long, gigantic monster covering a part of the horizon.

“Let’s go!”

The three tankers, including Sung Kijun, crouched down, using all the skills and stances that could reduce fall damage, and Mason, on the contrary, spread his body as wide as possible to reduce his falling speed even a little.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The three Holy Knights landed first and ran towards the Elder Worm at the same time.

Thump!

Mason fell a little later.

“Ugh…”

Both his legs were crushed.

But it was only for a moment.

“This much!”

The crushed bones from his toes began to reattach themselves.

Mason charged with his two-handed sword.

“Hold it! Hold it no matter what!”

Sung Kijun shouted.

Tankers had the ability to provoke and attract monsters. While firepower could be supplemented with modern weapons, the ability to attract and hold monsters was irreplaceable.

“Woooooorgh!”

As soon as Mason jumped into the front line, he thrust his two-handed sword.

However, it was nothing more than a pinprick on the giant Elder Worm.

Rather, modern firearms poured by armed helicopters were a much greater threat.

Grrrrrrr…

A strange roar resonated from within the Elder Worm’s belly. It was a vibration filled with discomfort.

At the same time, tentacles resembling earthworms began to grow from the ground.

They were the Elder Worm’s minions, the Worms.

Sung Kijun glanced at the battlefield.

“Mason!”

“Got it!”

All four people deployed on the battlefield were skilled heavy warriors. It was unlikely that the Worms would be able to inflict any significant damage.

However, as long as the Worms were covering the battlefield, there was not enough space for the second wave to enter.

Mason’s role was to slaughter them.

“If it’s these guys…!”

The Worms were also monsters with bodies as thick as a human.

But Mason was enraged, and in front of an enraged superhuman…

“Uwaaaaah!”

They were just sliced up like noodles.

As Mason opened the path, the second wave began to enter.

However, instead of fighting the main body of the Elder Worm, the second wave had to struggle against the Worms.

Yoojin-ah shouted in a panic.

“We have to move forward!”

The Holy Knights’ tankers were excellent. They were holding out well, reducing and blocking damage. However, there was a limit to defense. They would surely break without healing.

‘I need to get rid of the Worms somehow…!’

Mason was rampaging like a mad lion, slaughtering everything he touched, but they were growing back faster than he could eliminate them.

He couldn’t request covering fire from the armed helicopters either.

‘The helicopter’s armament has too wide a range!’

It was the same whether it was a machine gun or a missile. If they tried to shoot the Worms instead of the main body of the Elder Worm, there was a high chance that the players would be hit.

“Wizard! We need a wizard!”

They needed a wide-area attack. One that could be finely controlled.

The problem was that the wizards here were average, or even below average.

“It’s impossible to wipe out the Worms with our magic!”

Then, Yoojin-ah thought for a moment and shouted.

“There is!”

“What?!”

“An archmage level wizard!”

Yoojin-ah pointed to the hole from which the Worms emerged.

“The investigators who entered the abandoned mine! The investigators who investigated the Elder Worm are Seo Yeonhee and Deroa!”

“What?!”

Mason clenched his teeth.

“Are they alive?”

“At least they were alive until 2 hours ago. I don’t know now.”

“Good.”

Mason adjusted his grip on the two-handed sword.

“I’ll go in!”

Mason slaughtered and crushed the Worms, heading towards the abandoned mine.

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The abandoned mine was filled with sticky mucus and humid air that gave off a terrible stench. It must have been the Elder Worm’s bodily fluids.

It was full of Worms, and every step Mason took, he had to slaughter them to make room for his feet.

‘Please be alive. Please…’

He had been digging for a long time.

“…!”

A turquoise light was shining faintly.

Along with the phosphorescence unique to magic.

“Deroa!”

Ah… Ah… Ah… Ah…

The shout echoed, shaking the cave.

Mason ran.

A fork in the road, off the main vein. Deroa and Seo Yeonhee were in that small crevice.

Deroa’s head was bleeding, and Seo Yeonhee was unconscious.

“Are you alright?!”

“Do I look alright?”

Deroa’s blonde hair was soaked with blood, and Seo Yeonhee was bleeding black blood from her mouth. It seemed she had suffered serious internal injuries.

“Let’s get out of here!”

“You crazy bastard, stop yelling!”

“Why?”

“Did you think we were staying here because we liked it?”

It was then.

Thump… Thump…

Something was approaching from deep within the mine shaft, accompanied by heavy footsteps.

“Ah, damn it.”

Deroa gritted her teeth.

“Hey, you like beetles?”

“Beetles? What’s that?”

Something bigger than a bull was blocking the mine shaft. It was covered in black, shiny chitin armor, and its bizarre mouth was dripping with mucus.

It wasn’t its own, but the bodily fluids of the Worms.

A giant beetle clad in armor, an Armor Beetle, was blocking their path.

“Your enemy.”

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Armor Beetle.

It was an insect-type monster with a chitin exoskeleton.

It was equipped with a sonic breath, a basic skill of subterranean monsters, as well as a shell that was impossible to penetrate with physical attacks.

It was a natural enemy of the Worms, the basic form of subterranean monsters, and was a troublesome opponent even for humans.

Of course, it wasn’t a monster that Mason couldn’t handle. He could win, but…

‘This place is crawling with Worms…’

The problem was that he couldn’t waste time, as he had to get Deroa out of there as soon as possible.

“Catch! Big guy!”

Then, Deroa took something from Seo Yeonhee’s belt and threw it.

“Use it on its weak point!”

It was a grenade.

“Good!”

Mason pulled the pin of the grenade and threw a punch.

“…Huh?”

Deroa made a bewildered expression.

Wham!

The fist pierced through the Armor Beetle’s mouth.

Boom!

A familiar explosion was heard from within the Armor Beetle’s body.

He had detonated the grenade inside the Armor Beetle’s body.

With his own hand.

Mason pulled his hand out of the Armor Beetle, whose insides were now mush.

The part below his wrist was completely blown off, but it was already entering regeneration mode and slowly growing back.

Mason turned around and shouted.

“Done. Let’s go!”

“Uh… um… yeah…”

Deroa made a bewildered expression.

‘I meant for him to throw it under the Armor Beetle’s belly…’

The Armor Beetle’s shell was extremely hard, but its belly was not. She meant for him to roll the grenade in there. Not to detonate it with his hand.

‘…Well, if the result is good, it’s all good.’

Mason put Seo Yeonhee on his side and Deroa on his shoulder.

“Uwaaaaah!”

As he threw it with force, the two-handed sword rotated like a boomerang, slicing through the Worms blocking their path as if harvesting them.

Mason ran out of the cave.

Yoojin-ah, who spotted them, shouted.

“Deroa! Wide-area attack!”

Deroa grasped the situation at once.

“Big guy! Stay still for a second!”

“Got it!”

Deroa swung her staff, surveying the surroundings.

After finishing her calculations while chanting a spell, she jumped off Mason’s shoulder and slammed her staff on the ground.

“Enhanced Skill: Wide-Area Wave of Fire!”

At that moment, a wave of fire surged from the ground where the staff had struck. It was a level of firepower that would burn only the Worms to death, covering the entire battlefield, neither too much nor too little.

Except for the terrain where the second wave players were stationed.

A wizard’s ability was not just about firepower. It was an all-purpose card that could change the situation on the battlefield.

“As expected of ‘Battle Mage’ Deroa…”

There might be wizards with a higher level than Deroa, but there was no wizard more proficient in combat than her.

Deroa shouted.

“Alright! Let’s go!”

Mason slung Deroa over his shoulder again and leaped into the air.

Thump!

With a single jump, Mason joined the second wave.

“Critically injured here.”

“Yes!”

As the healers rushed to Seo Yeonhee, Deroa lifted her staff and began firing off small spells in rapid succession.

Mason protected the second wave from the Worms that had begun to surge up again.

Thanks to Deroa and Mason, the second wave was close enough to where Sung Kijun and his party were, and dealing and healing began to be supplied smoothly.

“Alright!”

Unlike the people cheering, Sung Kijun had an anxious expression on his face.

‘Not enough!’

It was a stable fight. Stable, but…

‘Not enough DPS!’

The chronic weakness of the Holy Knights, whose only strength was their tankers: lack of DPS.

At that moment, a communication came in from the combat helicopter.

Sung Kijun looked around the battlefield.

He shook his head.

“This is Paladin 1. Missile use is prohibited. We hope you will resupply quickly and return.”

If they fired missiles, the ground could collapse. If they lost the Elder Worm by any chance, the result could be worse than self-destruction.

“This is Paladin 1. Missile use is prohibited.”

After a moment of silence, a low voice came from the communicator.

<...Seraphim 4 will stay with Armageddon.>

Armageddon. The codename for the nuclear backpack. It was a tool for self-destruction when the worst-case scenario came.

“…Understood.”

The helicopters were turning back. Sung Kijun gritted his teeth and shouted.

“Everyone, increase DPS!”