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Translator: uly
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: The Second Demonkin Ambush
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Kwachijijik!
Fortunately, in the next moment, the massive black snake conjured by Paeng swallowed the demonkin's upper body in one bite.
The demonkin's two legs flailed wildly in the air outside the snake's mouth.
= My lord! Be careful!
At that moment, Ilryeong's warning echoed in Geon-woo's mind.
In that instant, a single red-glowing projectile grazed past Geon-woo as he twisted his body.
And that attack had come from...
"Alive even after getting its head chopped off?"
It was from the demonkin that had been caught in Sulryeong's spell and cleanly decapitated by Seomryeong's blade.
A blood arrow had shot out from the severed neck of the fallen demonkin.
He had let his guard down on his side, assuming it was already dead, and it had struck right at that opening.
If it weren't for Ilryeong's warning, it would have been extremely dangerous.
And right now, that demonkin was extending a blood vessel from its neck stump toward Geon-woo once more.
Puak!
But Geon-woo still had his reliable guards.
Dokryeong spread his palm open and blocked the blood vessel.
Then, the blood vessel that pierced through Dokryeong's palm turned pitch-black and surged back toward the demonkin connected by blood.
Pu-hwa-hwa-hwak!
In response, the decapitated demonkin flailed its limbs on the ground while drawing out even more blood to reinforce the vessel.
This naturally turned into a tug-of-war between Dokryeong and the demonkin through the blood line.
Geon-woo considered sending Gwonryeong or Changryeong right away to finish off the demonkin fighting Dokryeong but held back from intervening.
It was because he sensed Dokryeong absorbing large amounts of useful components from the opponent during the struggle over the blood.
On top of that.
= My lord, it would be best to capture it alive. We can turn Dokryeong into a living jiangshi this time.
Ilryeong was sharing his thoughts with Geon-woo in real time and seemed to have the same idea.
'Alright. Then the others...'
= We should capture as many demonkin alive as possible.
One demonkin swallowed by Paeng's snake, one held by Dokryeong, and one decapitated by Seomryeong.
Only three demonkin remained, and they were already under siege by the jiangshi.
Amryeong, Ssangryeong, and Seomryeong were engaging in close combat, with Gungryeong and Sulryeong providing support.
The demonkin no longer had any leeway to attack Geon-woo.
Salkeraak! Kuwaaah! Salkera! Jasaira!
But it seemed he had underestimated the demonkin's tenacity.
Even cornered by the jiangshi's assaults, the demonkin burned with the will to kill Geon-woo.
The demonkin fighting Amryeong let out a shout and charged toward Geon-woo, enduring stabs to its shoulder and neck from Amryeong's dagger.
"What the?"
And as if that shout were some kind of signal.
The demonkin held by Ssangryeong and Seomryeong also sacrificed an arm each to shake off the two jiangshi and rushed toward Geon-woo.
= Danger!
Ilryeong shouted urgently in that moment.
And blocking Geon-woo's front were Sunryeong, Gwonryeong, and Changryeong!
Right after, he felt the auras of the charging demonkin rapidly amplifying.
"Self-destruct?!"
Geon-woo, naturally thinking of self-destruction, widened his eyes in shock.
Demonkin self-destructing.
He had never even heard of such a thing.
Kwang! Kwaaang!
The three demonkin triggered massive explosions the moment they collided with Sunryeong, Gwonryeong, and Changryeong.
In that instant, Geon-woo knew Sunryeong, Gwonryeong, and Changryeong had suffered damage too severe to recover from easily.
Even wearing their magic armor, nearly half their bodies had been obliterated.
And Geon-woo, behind them, couldn't completely avoid the explosion's aftermath either.
Kwajik! Kuuk!
Fragments from the armor worn by the demonkin embedded into Geon-woo's chest and lower abdomen.
Even with his own magic armor, Geon-woo couldn't dodge the injury.
That was how powerful the demonkin's self-destruction had been.
"Urgh. Paeng, don't kill that one."
Even in that state, Geon-woo pointed at the demonkin in Paeng's snake's mouth and said that.
Changryeong, Sunryeong, and Gwonryeong had been gravely wounded.
He needed demonkin to replace those three jiangshi.
Of course, live ones were better than dead, so he said that to Paeng even as his vision blurred.
= My lord, the demonkin's attacks are no joke. This is definitely strange.
'Yeah. They're dead set on killing me no matter what. There must be something to it.'
Geon-woo now had no choice but to be certain.
* * *
In the end, Dokryeong won the struggle against the blood-manipulating demonkin and subdued it.
He had injected poison through the blood to claim victory.
Afterward, Dokryeong's paralyzing poison was also injected into the demonkin held in Paeng's black snake's mouth.
In this way, they captured two demonkin alive and secured one demonkin corpse.
What was amazing was that the blood-manipulating demonkin subdued by Dokryeong could reattach its severed head to its neck stump.
Even in its poisoned state, when the surfaces were pressed together, they fused naturally.
Then, as the battle ended and they were cleaning up, Geon-woo told Paeng that this was the second demonkin ambush and that they had strangely targeted only him.
At that...
"The alliance had something similar, I think?"
Paeng spoke as if he knew something.
"Similar?"
"Yeah. Seven years ago, there were people besides you who killed the demonkin vanguard captain, right? All native nobles."
"Yeah, most skilled people got titles."
"Anyway! They all died."
"Died?"
"Yeah. Not long after you left, they all got killed. There was a huge fuss among the natives that the demonkin were getting revenge. Talk about heroes dying and all that."
"Why didn't that get known?"
"We players were busy adapting to the 2nd Expedition Team back then, so we didn't pay attention to native affairs. And the natives didn't want to tell us."
"A matter of face, huh."
"Pretty much. At least we from the 1st Expedition Team had some native connections, so we found out."
"That Kulon lord! He should have at least told me!"
"It's been seven years? He probably forgot."
"Even so, if everyone who took the vanguard captain's head died and I'm the only one left, he should have said something..."
Geon-woo started getting angry but shut his mouth upon realizing the person to vent at wasn't here.
He resolved to go confront Kulon soon.
"Anyway, it's weird. It means they know you've started being active again. And that you're here."
"How did they know? Did they plant a tracker on me or something?"
Geon-woo muttered with an incredulous expression.
"Who knows, maybe. When the demonkin killed those native heroes, they didn't go rummaging around elsewhere."
"No way a native colluded with demonkin when they can't even communicate."
"Right. Hmm, so you're like a taunt totem that draws in demonkin?"
"What?"
"No, like, won't demonkin keep coming for you from now on? Then just sticking by you means we can catch a ton of them, right?"
"You can think of it that way right now? My life's hanging by a thread!"
"You got a hole in your chest and gut, but you're fine. You're not gonna die from just anything, so what's to worry?"
"You're changing like me right now too."
"Not as much as you yet, so I'm jealous."
"You think you'll catch up to me?"
"Someday I'll suck it all up!"
"Don't you usually not say that out loud?"
"Shut up. How much are you giving me for the demonkin I caught?"
Paeng awkwardly changed the subject.
He emphasized that he hadn't gotten any souls because they captured the demonkin alive, demanding compensation.
Even as a subordinate, they had a contract to split hunting rewards fairly.
If they had killed it, he would have gotten a decent amount of souls, but Geon-woo told him to keep it alive, so Paeng took a soul loss.
So of course he demanded compensation.
"One demonkin gives 10 to 20 souls, so I'll count it as 20. Highest buy-in since we got live specimens."
"20 souls? Nice. Not bad. But in exchange, I get to keep the demonkin's gear?"
"Yeah, yeah, take it."
"You're not complaining if I take the full share for the one I caught?"
"I'm rewarding you for following orders properly, so what's to complain? Plus we got five demonkin here too, so it's plenty."
They got soulstones from the three that exploded and the two killed by Amryeong and Ssangryeong, for four demonkin soulstones.
Plus one corpse, the one captured by Dokryeong, and the one Paeng captured, for two more.
This was truly the best hunting result.
"Alright! Back to the hideout then?"
They had no choice but to postpone the planned creature hunt anyway.
Paeng clearly knew that and was asking.
"Yeah. With the captured demonkin, hunting's off the table for a while."
"Right? Perfect timing. I need to head to Earth for a few days anyway."
At Geon-woo's words about taking a hunting break, Paeng said it worked out well and mentioned logging off.
"To Earth?"
"Yeah. Haven't been in a while."
"Isn't that dangerous?"
Geon-woo looked at Paeng with a serious expression.
"Dangerous?"
"What if concurrent users hit 400 million while you're on Earth?"
"Oh, you know about that too? Well, you were a major shareholder in Neuron Age."
"That's not the point. What are you gonna do?"
No one knew when the 400 million concurrent users would hit.
Geon-woo thought it wasn't far off.
Even when he logged in, people were saying it wouldn't be weird if it happened anytime.
"You don't need to worry about that."
"What?"
Geon-woo ended up looking dumb at Paeng's nonchalant reaction.
"I've already prepared."
"Prepared how?"
"Set up alerts. Kikiki. With the department monitoring Neuron Age's login status."
"Alerts? Those exist?"
"Of course not officially. Just privately tapped in."
"Oh, that's a way. Guess my instincts have dulled a lot."
Geon-woo guessed Paeng's method was illegal, probably involving considerable violence and coercion.
And he could have done the same if he wanted, but hadn't because he'd lost his edge.
He realized this was the result of him, who used to do all sorts of supra-legal and illegal stuff, suddenly thinking about playing by the rules.
"Yeah, so don't worry. If concurrent users get dangerously high, I'll get a call."
"Got it."
"Why? Wanna go out too? Just give me your contact, I can call you."
"Nah. No need. I've got urgent stuff to do here anyway."
Geon-woo said while looking at the stone coffins carried by his jiangshi.
Three coffins held the severely damaged Sunryeong, Changryeong, and Gwonryeong, and the other three held the demonkin.
Because of that, all jiangshi except Ilryeong were carrying one stone coffin each on their shoulders, made by Geon-woo.
"I'm curious what you're even planning. It must be related to the meds you feed me too."
Paeng muttered while following Geon-woo's gaze over the coffins.
Geon-woo said nothing while looking at Paeng.
Living together, he might learn about the jiangshi someday.
But once he turned them all into living jiangshi and finished their growth, no one would recognize them as jiangshi.
Living jiangshi were literally alive, after all.
"Well, it's not urgent right now. We can take our time figuring it out."
"Figure it out? That's a dangerous thing to say."
"Kikiki."