Chapter 68 – Desert (7)

When Nan-seol, who had taken down the branch leader, joined in, Hwangbo Ja-gyeom could begin counterattacking.

When two peak-level masters rushed in, the bandits were instantly cut down and even the Blood Cult member kept being pushed back.

As the situation proceeded unfavorably like this, the mage’s expression darkened.

The water-made barrier was magic he took pride in, and since transforming it had never been penetrated, but it would be meaningless after all the others died.

But because of Sun-woo who kept pounding the barrier, he couldn’t release the barrier and use other magic.

Eventually, the Blood Cult’s peak-level martial artist had his neck fly off by Hwangbo Ja-gyeom’s sword, and with the bandit boss falling to Nan-seol’s sword, the bandits were also cleaned up.

“Well, now only one left?”

Hwangbo Ja-gyeom approached the barrier while swinging his arms as if his body had loosened up, and Nan-seol also shook off the blood on her sword before following him.

“Damn summoner bastards. In the end, is my side a failure?”

The silver-haired mage looked around at the party surrounding him, then began giggling.

“Since it’s come to this, let’s die together.”

He gradually raised his laughter, then accelerated the mana circulating his heart. The expanded barrier rapidly contracted and the ground began trembling.

“Escape like I said earlier!”

At that moment, Sun-woo shouted to the two.

“Really, fighting with other-world guys isn’t my preference!”

Hwangbo Ja-gyeom immediately began running toward the stairs. Nan-seol also looked back at Sun-woo before heading to the stairs.

“Tsk, how did you notice right away? But do you think you can escape?”

Along with the mage’s words, the trembling grew stronger. And from the empty waterway, a tremendous amount of water poured into the plaza.

Whoooosh!

The current covered the laughing mage’s barrier and chased after Nan-seol and Hwangbo Ja-gyeom running toward the stairs.

The current’s speed was tremendous, but the two being chased weren’t ordinary people. They entered the stairs by a hair’s breadth and shot upward while kicking off both stairway walls.

The mage frowned while looking at the violently flowing current. The mana limit was gradually approaching. He succeeded in bursting the underground waterway by running wild with mana, but now only enough mana remained to barely maintain the barrier.

Regrettably, it seemed he failed to kill the summoned, but the mage’s original goal wasn’t killing them.

His goal, unlike what he had shouted earlier, was to escape alive.

The runaway mana couldn’t be handled for quite a while, but underwater was his domain as a water system mage. He could sufficiently hold out with even a fingernail’s worth of mana.

When mana reached its limit, the rapid current that had blocked visibility also calmed down, and his barrier could no longer hold and melted into the current. Water began filling around his body.

‘Now then, shall I gradually recover mana underwater?’

Looking around to find a place to recover mana, he felt something strange about the current behind him.

He hadn’t noticed during the rapid current, but now with the current greatly reduced, he could feel all the water flow around him.

Surprised, he turned around and saw Sun-woo with his body pressed tightly to the stone floor.

‘Why is he here? How didn’t he get swept away?’

Though questions filled his head, he couldn’t ask. Because the sword shot from Sun-woo’s hand pierced through the water and stuck in his neck.

When the mage died, the current completely calmed. Sun-woo separated his body that had been stuck to the floor with sorcery, then recovered his sword from the mage’s neck floating in the water.

The guy who said let’s die together didn’t remove his protection barrier.

Naturally, Sun-woo had noticed he wouldn’t self-destruct and waited for the barrier to disappear while withstanding the current with sorcery.

And the moment Sun-woo recovered his sword, a voice rang in Sun-woo’s head.

[Skill acquired.]

Sun-woo’s eyes widened. Skills could be obtained even from summoned contaminated by pills.

Now only escaping outside remained. The ground surface was far and oxygen in his lungs wasn’t much. But he had martial arts and <Body Enhancement>.

Sun-woo, drawing up internal energy fully and applying <Body Enhancement> fully, began swimming vigorously.

Whoooosh!

Tremendous water poured into the plaza through the building corridor.

The water filled the central pond and spread throughout the city through waterways. The ruined city with water flowing through all waterways seemed to briefly regain its past appearance.

People who got drenched while escaping outside the building were looking around with bewildered expressions. Because they had no memories at all after losing memories from when they were kidnapped.

Yeon-hwa stepped forward to soothe the bewildered people. While she calmed people down, Hwangbo Ja-gyeom and Nan-seol looked worriedly at inside the building.

Sun-woo hadn’t come out yet.

Fortunately, shortly after, Sun-woo burst out from inside the building.

Nan-seol immediately ran to Sun-woo, and Sun-woo sat down on the ground coughing and pouring out water.

He had barely escaped before breath ran out.

“Are you okay?”

At Nan-seol’s worried question, Sun-woo nodded as if okay, and

“Did you get him?”

At Hwangbo Ja-gyeom’s question, he raised his hand to confirm.

Hwangbo Ja-gyeom nodded toward Yeon-hwa. Yeon-hwa, who had breathed a sigh of relief when Sun-woo escaped, opened her mouth toward the people at Hwangbo Ja-gyeom’s signal.

“Some may know, but this is a ruined city in the middle of the desert. It’s the bandits’ stronghold who kidnapped you all.”

At the words bandit stronghold, people had quite surprised expressions, but still trusting Yeon-hwa, no one in confusion was visible.

“We just eliminated the last bandit in this ruins. Bandits still remain outside, but all the bosses have been removed.”

Yeon-hwa reassured people and selected people to assign tasks.

Groups searching the ruined city to obtain food or weapons, groups helping injured or exhausted people, guard groups standing at the ruined city outskirts monitoring surroundings, etc. She had everyone except those unable to move busily working.

“She’s an impressive operator.”

Hwangbo Ja-gyeom stuck out his tongue seeing Yeon-hwa’s appearance.

“It’s fortunate the Holy Maiden doesn’t participate in fights, otherwise I might have cut her down first.”

Fortunately, the concept of total war hadn’t appeared in this world yet. Even between the hostile Divine Cult and Orthodox Faction, not touching non-combatants was their agreement.

“In the end, the mission succeeded, right?”

At Nan-seol’s words, Sun-woo nodded with a tired face. They had handled all the Blood Cult branches that were mission objectives. More bandits remained, but they were just bandits unrelated to the Blood Cult.

Contamination spreading agents weren’t recovered, but they had all sunk deep into the water anyway.

It was as Sun-woo expected.

A voice reached the party’s ears.

[Everyone worked hard. Mission completed. Settling accounts.]

[Party member Min Sun-woo performed a major role in mission success, so 500 points are awarded. Points can be exchanged for ability enhancement, equipment, or money. Awarded rewards can be used anywhere.]

Following the voice, a reward window immediately appeared before Sun-woo’s eyes.

[Min Sun-woo: 6-Star. Achievement Rate 94%]

[Additional Inventory 500p]

[Additional Skill Slot 700p]

[Basic Recovery Potion 100p]

[Basic Bottled Water 1p]

[Basic Hard Bread 2p]

[Item Enhancement Stone 100p]

[Item Transformation Stone 1,000p]

[Summoner召喚石 500p]

[100,000 won per point]

[Current Points: 520p]

Sun-woo first generously purchased bottled water and bread. Because he had clearly felt the importance of basic food supplies in this mission.

And when no more items to purchase were visible, he closed the reward window. He planned to use points to raise skills.

Hwangbo Ja-gyeom beside him looking at the same window seemed to be buying something, but Nan-seol appeared to just close the window as she always had.

And shortly after, the last voice rang out as usual.

[Dimension Delta, Taklamakan Desert. Blood Cult branch destruction mission concluded. Returning in 2 minutes.]

Sun-woo, Nan-seol, and Hwangbo Ja-gyeom who heard the voice looked at each other, then all looked at Yeon-hwa standing in front of people.

They just needed to return like this, but it appeared difficult for Yeon-hwa to leave abandoning people here.

Yeon-hwa, having heard the voice, was also looking up at the sky.

A shout burst from Yeon-hwa’s mouth after briefly looking at the sky.

“I refuse! I’ll remain here!”

At her words, people had bewildered expressions and Sun-woo’s party looked at Yeon-hwa with surprised expressions.

“I’ll keep shouting until the end. If you’ll impose sanctions, impose them!”

At her absurd stubbornness, the party’s expressions changed from surprised to gradually worrying about her, but a surprising scene still remained.

[Accepting party member Yeon-hwa’s request. Using 1 point per hour to postpone summoning. Maximum postponement period is 3 days.]

A new voice reached the party’s ears.

Yeon-hwa nodded as if natural when the voice rang out, but the party was just dumbfounded.

“Could it have been an existing function?”

At Sun-woo’s hopeful question, Hwangbo Ja-gyeom shook his head.

“First I’ve heard. Well, there probably wasn’t anyone who asked.”

Even in Sun-woo’s thinking, aside from Yeon-hwa there didn’t seem to be humans who would request by force.

“That’s fortunate.”

Nan-seol smiled slightly while looking at Yeon-hwa. Being kind-natured, Nan-seol appeared unable to hate Yeon-hwa.

Yeon-hwa, after committing fraud to people that the divine sent a voice, bowed deeply toward the party. It was gratitude expression toward the party.

Sun-woo’s party received her greeting, then sent greetings toward each other before waiting for summoning.

That was when.

Shouts of people began being heard carried by the night air.

“Bandits! Bandits are coming!”

The shouts were coming from the south. The surprised party all used qinggong to climb onto a nearby house rooftop.

Dust was approaching cutting through the distant night sky. Though not clearly visible at night, just by starlight and moonlight they could tell many people were swarming in.

Seeing that appearance, Hwangbo Ja-gyeom grinned and shouted at the sky.

“I’ll postpone summoning too!”

It seemed he still wanted to fight more. Though the numbers weren’t modest, Hwangbo Ja-gyeom didn’t care at all.

Nan-seol also looked back at Yeon-hwa and the people, then looked at the sky and opened her mouth.

“I also request postponing summoning.”

Sun-woo sighed at the two people’s appearance. With this, returning was impossible.

Sun-woo grumbled while looking at the sky and opened his mouth.

“Me too, postpone.”

[Accepting Hwangbo Ja-gyeom’s request. Time…]

[Accepting Nan-seol’s request. Time…]

[Accepting Min Sun-woo’s request. Using 1 point per hour to postpone summoning. Maximum postponement period is 3 days.]

Voices continued ringing out, and Sun-woo drew his sword and began running toward the bandits approaching raising dust.