Chapter 117 – Sungjin’s Nightmare

Demon King’s Castle Raid

Objective – hunt the Demon King ‘Chadnezzar’

Time Limit 5 hours

The hunters reached the gates in previously arranged formation. Sungjin embraced Blood Vengeance as he took a look around.

Hildebrandt and Illich were having a discussion in the front.

“The information sheet mentioned this, but the thing we should watch out for....”

“Yes... If a mage appears, I will mark it. I’ll leave the rest to you.”

Ryushin and Umkhuba were stretching on the 3rd row.

“Hou Hou”

Umkhuba was making strange noises as he hopped lightly in place. Ryushin stretched his neck side to side, then tapped on Umkhuba’s six pack as he said

“Watch me, Umkhuba; I’ll get a lot more contribution than you this time.”

Umkhuba opened his mouth wide in a grin

“Haha, we shall see about that.”

“What? You wanna mess with me?”

“Operator will judge fairly.”

“Fine... Let us see who’s better once and for all.”

Fourth row was Araujo and Edward’s spot. Araujo who was in his 40s was always complaining to Ed who was in his 20s.

“Hey Edward, please listen to me this time. You’re good and all but you’re always doing your own thing.”

“I am the strongest when I do what I want.”

“That’s what I mean, that’s the problem.”

The last row was Shunsuke and Mustafa’s spot. Both men were silent. Shunsuke was checking his crossbow rails, and Mustafa was reading some sort of book. Sungjin looked over them as he thought

‘This... is humanity’s final expedition...’

But a set of large boobs suddenly came into view.

“Sungjin, looking forward to working with you again.”

Sungjin was startled and took a step back. The person sharing his row was Nada, the dual wielder who wielded both the dagger and staff.

“I’ll be in your care, Nada.”

Sungjin had become friendly with Nada after running into each other often in raids. She was a little intimidating to approach at first due to her merciless use of daggers and zombies in combat, but she was a kind and warm woman at heart.

“I hope this Raid is the last one. Demon Kings are usually the final bosses in stories or games, right?”

“Well, I guess...”

“I’ll go take a trip to Korea once I’m done, Sungjin. I’m curious how you lived your life in the real world.”

“I...well...”

Sungjin couldn’t give her a straight answer. He was orphaned since infancy and had lived the most difficult of childhood and was barely scraping together a living. She continued to ask

“What do you want to do when you go back?”

“Hmm... Actually... There isn’t anything that I want to do in particular...”

That was when Edward jumped into the conversation.

“You’ll probably find tons of things you want to do if you make it back”

Sungjin and Nada turned to look at him. He was always full of energy and often invited himself into other people’s conversations.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean what do I mean? It should be obvious, right? Once the raids are over, we will become rich. Unimaginably so.”

When Sungjin tilted his head, he explained

“What do you think will happen once the raids are over?”

Nada gave an ordinary answer.

“Hmm... I’ll meet my family and speak to them again.”

But Sungjin couldn’t say anything. He had no family. Edward said

“Yes, you’ll go visit your family... and then?”

“Hmm... I told Sungjin that I’ll visit Korea as well.”

“You can go to Korea... but you should also go see the whole world.”

“The whole world?”

Edward nodded as if it was something obvious.

“Of course we have to go on a world trip. Even if we don’t intend to, we’ll probably have to. As the final 10 members who saved the entire human race.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Edward replied with his arms spread apart.

“It’s obvious, right? We’ll become heroes of humanity once the raids are over.”

Nada and Sungjin said at the same time

“He-ro?”

Ed once again nodded as if this was common sense.

“Of course, hero.”

“How?”

“It is because we are the final ten. We would have saved every country, as the final ten heroes who brought salvation to mankind. Don’t you think we’ll get a hero’s welcome?”

Sungjin narrowed his eyes.

“And exactly who will know this?”

“Well.. wouldn’t Operator let everyone know? Like, announce the names of the final 10 or something.”

Nada also shook her head.

“I don’t know...”

Edward remained optimistic.

“Well, if not we can just go around saying that we were. If all of us can tell the exactly the same story, they can’t help but believe us. And people that died along the way can provide witness testimony. If we put down our memories and experiences into memoirs and autobiographies, I bet they’ll sell like crazy. It’ll probably become worldwide best sellers. And if that happens, wouldn’t we be fabulously rich?”

“Will we?”

“Of course we will. And we aren’t just any heroes; we will be the saviors of the world! It wouldn’t be strange if we become superstars with companies begging us to appear in their commercials. It might be to a point where we no longer need money in our lives.”

“Hmm... is that so? I’ve never really thought of it too much.”

“Well, me neither...”

“What? I bet other people think the same way I do. Isn’t that right Hildebrandt?”

The Operator gave an announcement at that point.

[Raid will begin in 1 minute.]

Hildebrandt said from the front

“World famous, fabulously rich, heroes of humanities, all good. But let’s discuss this after this raid.”

Illich added

“Go back to your spot Edward. It’s about to start.”

Edward then shut his mouth and returned to his spot. There was only one more minute left. It was for just a moment, but Sungjin had a pleasant daydream.

‘I never thought of it... it could be true...’

Becoming famous worldwide and live as a VIP. If so, he would finally be free from money problems that plagued him his whole life. Just thinking about it made him happy. Meanwhile

[10... 3, 2, 1, 0]

[Raid has begun.]

The gates of the Demon King’s castle opened along with the Operator’s announcements.

*

The skeleton mage recited a spell using the staff he held out in front of him.

“Eternal...”

Everyone knew the spells by the incantations at this point. All the hunters immediately split up.

“Flames of hell. Inferno”

The flames came flying towards the hunters, but thanks to splitting up ahead of time, no one was hurt by the spell. The hunters quickly reformed formation and continued to attack. But

“Edward! Mustafa!”

Illich bellowed loudly, but it was too late

“Eternal flames of hell, Inferno”

“Eternal flames of hell, Inferno”

Staffs of two additional skeleton mages launched flames from their staves.

“Anti-Magic Shield”

Edward and Mustafa each cast their Anti-Magic Shield to protect the hunters, but those who didn’t manage to run into the protected areas were burnt by the fires.

“Ahh!”

Sungjin who happened to be within the area of the shield ran out brandishing his sword.

“Baptism of Blood”

Blood Vengeance began to glow bright red as he attacked one of the Skeletal mages. It was a very risky attack.

If another mage were to hit Sungjin with a spell few seconds after the Baptism of blood was used, it could mean instant death. But Sungjin believed in his teammates.

Luckily, while he was confronting the skeletal mage, the hunters who weren’t hit by the spell had already launched their attacks and kept the other two busy.

“Whew...”

Once the battle was over, the hunters checked each other’s conditions.

“Are you okay?”

Luckily no one had died. But Illich began to bellow.

“Damn it!”

Everyone turned to face him.

“I’ve told you to cast protection on the tanks in case of danger!”

His voice was meant for Edward and Mustafa. Hildebrandt was defending them.

“I got mine... it appeared around me.”

Mustafa shrugged and answered

“Well... It looked like it might be bad if Sungjin and Shunsuke were to be hit, so I protected them instead.”

Illich frowned deeply as he said

“Damn it, if you were going to make your own decisions on the fly why are we even planning ahead of time? Did your God tell you to do that too?”

“Are you in contempt of God?”

Complaints began from another side as well.

“Why didn’t you use it for me? If you can protect me, I could have finished it in a blink of an eye. You all know I am the best. Focus me. Haa... I couldn’t swing my spear because I was too busy dodging fire...”

It was Ryushin.

“Stop uttering nonsense. We have to respond to what is happening. How can you be so self-centered?”

Araujo scolded him. Shunsuke also joined in.

“He’s right. You have to think of the team.”

Ryushin then got mad at Shunsuke and said,

“Don’t give me that crap. Mind your own business.”

Sungjin grasped his forehead. Several raids were ruined because of fights like these. And even until the end, everyone was still bickering among themselves. Sungjin shook his head.

Then he noticed that Edward, who was always full of energy had an incredibly foul expression. It was then that Sungjin felt a premonition of something going wrong.

*

The raid continued after the argument. After four hours passed out of the five hour time limit, the group finally reached the gates to the Raid boss Demon King ‘Chadnezzer’.

Nobody had spoken, but as Nada had said

‘Demon Kings are usually the final bosses, right?”

Similar thoughts ran through their heads, so they were more tense than usual. Even Sungjin, who didn’t think much of the situation, felt elevated expectations.

‘If we kill him... we might really have done it...’

The Demon King had a monstrous appearance suitable for his name. His skin was red with black runes tattooed all over his body. He had horns growing out of his head and a third eye on his forehead. He had six arms, and the hands held a sword, hammer, staff, spear, and two shields.

His entire body was shrouded by an unidentifiable black material, and whenever he moved, the material moved with him.

“Haa... you dare intrude upon my castle... Do you not value your life?”

He unfurled his robe as he stood up.

“Come, my subjects, kill these intruders!”

Three portals appeared at his command, and monsters poured out of them.

“Everybody to their positions”

Sungjin who was in charge of the portal in the back ran towards it as promised. The plan was for him to kill enemies for a while, and then join the team up front when the signal was given for the final confrontation against the Demon King.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

But the battle was far more difficult than they had expected. It was a given that seven hunters facing off against the Demon King would have trouble, but Nada and Ryushin weren’t able to properly deal with the portals they were assigned to and were being pushed back.

“Hey! Heal!”

“Please help me here”

Sungjin also gave it his best to hold them back, but the monsters poured out of the portal endlessly. So eventually he was being overrun. As prearranged, Sungjin requested help from Edward

“Edward, support fire here!”

He soon heard Edward chant an incantation.

“Divine spear of destruction, Spear of God”

But strangely the spell did not come flying his way.

“Kaaa!”

“Ahhh!”

Instead, he heard cries of agony coming from the hunters’ side. Sungjin looked back in shock, and then he was surprised a second time. Instead of helping Sungjin, Edward had fired the spell onto the hunters. Sungjin thought for a moment

‘What’s going on? Mind control?’

But that wasn’t it. Edward’s body which began to glow red was a definitive proof.

‘Troll?’

Sungjin couldn’t believe his eyes, but this was without a doubt the proof of a troll. The hunters’ formation which was barely holding on against the Demon King quickly crumbled due to Edward’s surprise attack.

The six other hunters who were facing the Demon King were first.

“Infighting in my presence? What a joke. Die.”

While the formation was broken, the hunters were wiped out in a single strike. Sungjin thought

‘Why?’

“Ahh!’

Meanwhile, Ryushin was slain. Nada also took few steps back, and Sungjin watched as holes appeared on her body. Sungjin shouted at Ed.

“Why!”

Ed did not say anything. He smiled faintly, and shortly after, his entire body disappeared from the Demon King’s attack. The monsters now converged on Sungjin.

“Kiii!”

Blood Vengeance cried. It meant that his HP had reached 1. The 1 second of invulnerability had begun. And another second later, Sungjin died, as the final human to fall.