Chapter 6 – Guardian of the Mansion (2)

The group was able to meet Michael in the corridor of the mansion’s third floor. He was running away from a bear.

“Damn! Help me out! No matter how much I shoot, it doesn’t budge!”

Of course it didn’t budge. The bear chasing him was the taxidermy they had seen in the exhibition room. Since he was shooting bullets at taxidermy, he couldn’t inflict any harm.

Now not only armor but also taxidermy was moving.

Fortunately, the taxidermy was easier to deal with than the armor. Daniel used <Physical Enhancement> to block the front while Nan-seol burst the taxidermy with her secret technique <Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Method>.

The taxidermy, made only of cloth and cotton without bones, collapsed in form as cotton and cloth pieces all burst out when the leather was pierced.

“Phew, it would be difficult to pierce the leather with ordinary sword strikes.”

She spoke in a tired voice, as it was still not easy for her to use secret techniques. The taxidermy leather seemed to have been strengthened by telekinesis.

“God damn! What is this? This is taxidermy? What kind of ghost nonsense is this!”

Michael couldn’t help but be bewildered. After gorillas followed by green dwarves, now he was fighting taxidermy.

“Don’t tell me this isn’t even contaminated creatures or whatever? Did I mess up again?”

Sparks flew from Michael’s eyes. He seemed really angry.

But they had to check.

“We didn’t see any contamination source coming up this far. Did you happen to see any on your side?”

“There wasn’t any! I swept down from above and except for meeting that taxidermy, everything was just covered in dust!”

Michael growled at Daniel who had asked the question.

In the end, the group had not found a contamination source inside this building.

“Should we search once more?”

At Nan-seol’s question, Daniel looked at Sun-woo. Under Daniel’s gaze, Sun-woo organized his thoughts and asked Hayden a question.

“If it’s a noble with a mansion of this size, would it be safe to think they’re a powerful psychic?”

“If they’re on the civil official side, they might not have abilities, but looking at the exhibition room, they seem to be quite capable.”

While responding to Sun-woo’s words, Hayden had an expression that he couldn’t understand. Even if they were powerful psychics, they were people who had died long ago.

But Sun-woo decided to stop thinking conventionally.

“Let’s go outside and head to the back of the mansion. Since it’s not inside this house, the only place to look is outside.”

“There should only be graves there though?”

Hayden raised a question, but the group decided to go outside. They would have to search through the garden and surrounding trees anyway.

The group tried to go down through the stairs but couldn’t.

The sound of a bookshelf bursting was heard from the lower floor. It seemed the bookshelf that had been pressing down the armor could no longer hold up.

The group hurried, but the armor was faster. They blocked the stairs before the group could go down.

“Oh no, there’s nothing like a bookshelf here.”

Daniel made a troubled expression looking at the armor coming up.

Michael had a deflated expression. Moving armor after taxidermy. Zombies would have been more realistic.

The group returned to the corridor. They would have to find another route. That’s when Sun-woo pointed to a window blocked with planks.

“Let’s go out through the window!”

“Is the height okay?”

Daniel asked Sun-woo with concern.

“I also have a way to get down.”

At his words, Daniel smashed the window with his greatsword and activated <Physical Enhancement>.

Daniel was the first to throw himself out the window. Rotating his body in mid-air, he scraped the wall with his greatsword as he fell down.

Following him, Nan-seol and Hayden also jumped out the window.

Nan-seol used wall-running techniques to slide down the wall, and Hayden used his telekinesis to fall slowly.

“No, how am I supposed to get down?”

Michael shouted with a bewildered expression. Unlike the others, he didn’t have the ability to climb walls.

Sun-woo stood at the window and looked down. The ground was visible far below.

He took a deep breath and lowered his hands. The distance was quite far, but the Three Talents Mind Method he had raised to 3 stars would not betray him.

Sun-woo drew up his qigong to the fullest and deployed <Spirit of the Earth>.

Rumble rumble rumble.

Dust began to rise from the ground below, and then the earth began to shoot upward. The earth kept rising straight up.

Shortly after, when the dust cleared, an earth pillar that had risen to the third floor came into view. Sun-woo immediately jumped over the window sill and stepped onto the earth pillar. The pillar was solid.

“You can step on here.”

Michael looked at Sun-woo with incredulous eyes.

“What kind of person are you?”

“Pardon?”

“This is definitely the technique that contamination source, the goblin shaman, was using.”

“That’s right. I got the skill by delivering the finishing blow.”

Sun-woo confessed coolly. Everyone had seen Sun-woo learn Nan-seol’s skills anyway. There was no reason to hide that he could also obtain contamination source skills.

At Sun-woo’s words, Michael looked at him as if looking at some curious object, but soon had no choice but to climb onto the earth pillar Sun-woo had made. Armor had appeared in the corridor.

When Michael climbed on, the earth pillar descended at a rapid pace. Shortly after, the two were able to get down to the ground, and the group looked at Sun-woo with amazed expressions.

“I obtained a contamination source skill from the previous mission.”

Sun-woo finished his explanation in one sentence and began crossing the garden with the group. They couldn’t delay here.

Continuous sounds of things breaking came from inside the mansion. It was probably the sound of the armor chasing them down.

Fortunately, there was no interference in the garden. The group went around the mansion and entered the back of the mansion.

Behind the mansion was a small warehouse and beyond that, a large cemetery enclosed with iron bars. And in the center of the cemetery stood a large stone chamber.

“It’s a cemetery for the territory’s people and the lord’s family graves.”

Listening to Hayden’s explanation, the group entered the cemetery and encountered skeletons and corpses that had risen from the graves.

All the corpses that had been sleeping underground had risen. Skeletons and corpses that had crawled out through the earth began approaching the group.

“You definitely said they weren’t ghosts, right?”

Nan-seol, who had turned pale, asked Sun-woo again. She was checking again to escape her fear.

“Yes, they’re definitely moving by telekinesis.”

Although he said that, the expressions of the other people, including Sun-woo, weren’t good either. Facing corpses and skeletons in a foggy cemetery was quite a frightening experience.

“No matter how I look at it, that stone chamber seems to be the target.”

Obviously, the corpses and skeletons were blocking the group from approaching the stone chamber. The group, agreeing with Daniel’s opinion, immediately entered battle.

Thud! Thud!

Corpses scattered and skeletons burst. As Daniel’s greatsword and Nan-seol’s sword swept through, the skeletons with only bones remaining and corpses with rotted flesh couldn’t withstand it.

But the group’s expressions weren’t good.

“Oh no! They’re just like the armor!”

The skeletons and corpses had reassembled and blocked the group. They were much easier to deal with than the armor, but their numbers were considerable.

“Michael, what are you doing?”

Daniel shouted toward Michael, who had retreated to the back.

“I’ve already used more than half my bullets! If I waste them here, I’ll lose all my points again!”

“Crazy!”

The group’s expressions twisted. Even Hayden, whose telekinesis didn’t work, was throwing stones to smash skeletons, but he wasn’t thinking of helping.

“There’s one more person not working besides me. If you want to pick a fight, pick it with them.”

Michael shifted the group’s dissatisfaction to Sun-woo, who was frowning beside him. Everyone was incredulous at his words, but it was also puzzling that Sun-woo, who had been fighting with them all along, wasn’t moving.

That’s when Sun-woo shouted to everyone.

“When I signal, everyone run to the stone chamber!”

Sun-woo hadn’t been idle. The internal energy that had been consumed making the earth pillar up to the third floor had just now been fully replenished. Sun-woo’s hands spread forward.

“Three, two, one, now!”

Thump thump thump thump!

The sound of ground collapsing continued to echo throughout the entire cemetery, and at the same time, countless corpses and skeletons rolled on the ground.

They had all fallen due to the pits that had formed under their feet.

Although Sun-woo had raised the Three Talents Mind Method to 3 stars, the sorcery he used couldn’t be more powerful or faster than a goblin shaman who had trained for decades.

Instead, he had natural talent and control abilities he had steadily trained. He had grasped the positions of all the corpses and skeletons that had gathered in front of the group and simultaneously created pits under their feet.

They weren’t deep pits, but they were sufficient to make everyone fall for a moment.

A clear path to the stone chamber opened up.

“Nice!”

Michael had the fastest instantaneous judgment. He was the first to run toward the stone chamber.

The group followed behind him. Sun-woo and Hayden ran first, and Nan-seol and Daniel followed while smashing the skeletons trying to get up.

***

Inside the stone chamber, several coffins made of marble were enshrined.

Michael, who had rushed into the stone chamber first, aimed his gun in all directions but had no idea where to shoot.

While Michael was hesitating, the other group members entered the stone chamber.

Daniel, who entered last, blocked the entrance.

“I won’t be able to block for long! Please hurry!”

At Daniel’s shout, the group hurriedly looked around. But except for the coffins, there didn’t seem to be any contamination source anywhere else.

“Those coffin lids can’t be lifted by one or two people!”

As Hayden said, the coffin lids made of marble had fearsome thickness. There was no telling how long it would take if they all rushed to open them one by one.

But there was one way to check. Sun-woo took out his phone and swept it across the coffins. And he was able to find the contamination source.

“Found it! It’s the large coffin in front!”

Skills had appeared on his phone when he passed the frontmost coffin. But the group didn’t immediately run toward the coffin.

They didn’t know what would happen if they approached thoughtlessly.

“I’ll try opening it!”

Hayden stepped forward. If it was an object not dominated by other telekinesis, he could move it.

Screech!

Blood vessels bulged on Hayden’s face and the stone coffin’s lid began moving to the side.

Everyone looked at the stone coffin beginning to open with tense faces. Sun-woo also circulated his qigong to the maximum and gripped his sword tightly.

Thump!

But before the stone coffin was fully opened, the lid shot up into the air.

“As expected! Everyone be careful!”

From inside the stone coffin, a corpse, no, a skeleton wearing a splendid uniform, raised its body.

The skeleton that had raised its body glared at the group with empty eye sockets, and soon after, all the other stone coffin lids also shot up into the air.

Skeletons raised their bodies one by one from inside the stone coffins.

“The contamination source is the jewel hanging on the corpse’s neck! We need to destroy that jewel!”

Sun-woo pointed to the neck of the skeleton that had risen first. There was a jewel emitting dark red light hanging there.

“An amplification stone?”

Hayden recognized the jewel hanging on the skeleton’s neck.

<Contamination Source Level 2 Possessed Amplification Stone>

<Telekinesis: Modified>

It was the contamination source displayed on the phone. For some reason, that jewel was the culprit behind everything.

“Hurry! It’s hard to block any more!”

Daniel, who was blocking the entrance, shouted loudly. He was being continuously pushed by the skeletons and the entrance was about to break through.

But the group also couldn’t approach the contamination source. The skeletons that had risen from the coffins were approaching the group, and the stone coffins that had shot up into the sky were floating in the air, threatening the group.