Chapter 22
A sharp whistle tore through the air and struck his ears.
The things bursting out from the sticky mana that filled the surroundings weren’t just pointed spearheads.
“Above us! Dodge!”
Along with Jung Woojin’s urgent shout, the enormous tower shield was raised toward the front.
Bang! B-B-Boom!
Heavy impacts crashed against it one after another.
The Lizardman warriors lying in ambush ahead had brought their spears down all at once.
Woojin planted his feet firmly into the muddy ground and endured the assault with bulging veins, but the real danger came from somewhere else.
Shhhhhk!
From atop the dark stone pillars, Lizardman archers revealed themselves through the fog.
Arrowheads shot from their bowstrings, pouring down toward the party’s blind spots.
The area behind the shield was completely exposed because Woojin was focused on blocking the attacks from the front.
“Ugh!”
Han Seoyoon, positioned in the rear, quickly lowered herself and threw her body behind a rock.
The moment she abandoned her position, their formation became distorted.
With their covering fire interrupted, the Lizardmen at the front became even more aggressive and pressed down harder against Woojin’s shield.
Dangerous.
Lee Chaeho adjusted his grip on his sword and rapidly swept his gaze across the battlefield.
This was the moment the weakness of a small three-person party became painfully clear.
Once the balance between defense and support fell apart, they simply didn’t have enough people to deal with attacks coming from multiple directions.
Before Seoyoon could completely hide behind the rock, an arrow shot in from the side, racing directly toward her chest.
At the same time, another vicious arrowhead slipped toward the right side of Woojin’s waist, an area his shield couldn’t cover.
Time Slow.
Chaeho’s eyes turned cold.
At that instant, the explosions and whistles striking his ears stretched out sluggishly, as though they had fallen into thick mud.
The entire world slowed down in an eerie way.
Chaeho turned his head and surveyed the battlefield.
The arrows hanging in the air crawled forward ever so slightly, their trajectories perfectly visible.
The opening exposed to the right of Woojin’s shield.
The desperate expression on Seoyoon’s face as she threw herself behind the rock.
Even the movements of the Lizardman warriors contracting their muscles and pulling back their spears for another strike.
Every variable on the battlefield became clear information reflected in Chaeho’s eyes.
Seoyoon first. Then Woojin’s right side. The archers are on the rocks at eleven o’clock.
After making his decision, Chaeho inhaled.
He immediately released the skill and kicked off the ground with explosive force.
The muddy floor sank deeply beneath his foot as his body shot through the air.
The first place he reached was directly in front of Seoyoon.
Just before the incoming arrowhead could touch her clothes, the back of Chaeho’s sword smoothly swept upward.
Clang!
With a cold metallic sound, the arrow lost its trajectory and slammed into the ground.
But Chaeho didn’t stop there.
Using the recoil from knocking the arrow away, he spun his body halfway around.
He immediately rushed toward Woojin’s right side and extended his blade.
Clang!
The arrow aimed at Woojin’s waist was knocked aside as well.
“Ch-Chaeho?”
Seoyoon, who had practically thrown herself onto the ground, raised her head with wide eyes.
But Chaeho had no time to answer.
He was already rushing toward his next target.
He needed to eliminate the ranged attackers that were causing the formation to collapse.
“Woojin! Hold the front!”
Leaving behind that short command, Chaeho stepped onto a mud-covered rock and leaped upward in a single motion.
Eleven o’clock.
Two Lizardman archers were already nocking their next arrows.
“Kieeeek!”
Startled by his sudden approach, one of the Lizardmen abandoned its bow and drew a short dagger from its waist.
But before it could fully extend its arm, Chaeho’s sword had already cut through the air.
Slash!
With a sickening sound, the Lizardman’s wrist dropped to the ground.
Just as a scream was about to burst from its throat, Chaeho twisted his wrist and changed the sword’s trajectory horizontally.
A silver line carved deeply into the creature’s neck.
Pshk.
Dark red blood sprayed through the fog.
The other archer beside it hurriedly tried to fire an arrow, but Chaeho kicked off the bloodstained rock and twisted his body upward once more.
Without hesitation, his sword pierced straight through the enemy’s exposed chest.
Both archers tumbled from the rocks almost instantly.
“The archers are down! Restore the formation!”
Chaeho shouted as he landed.
His companions quickly recovered and moved into position.
“Understood!”
Jung Woojin forcefully shoved his shield forward, disrupting the balance of the Lizardman warriors.
Taking advantage of the opening, Han Seoyoon quickly corrected her stance and pulled back her bowstring.
Ping! P-Ping!
Two arrows flew over Woojin’s shield with light snapping sounds.
They struck the knee and shoulder of a Lizardman warrior that had been trying to create distance.
“Kieeek!”
As the monster staggered after losing its balance, Chaeho rushed forward.
This time, he didn’t charge out alone.
He deliberately stayed within the range covered by Woojin’s shield.
The instant an enemy spear struck the shield and bounced away, Chaeho’s sword slipped cleanly through the opening and severed the monster’s vital point.
Thud! Pshk!
One precise attack after another ended the monsters’ lives without a single wasted movement.
Seoyoon’s supporting fire pinned the enemies down.
Woojin absorbed their heavy attacks.
And Chaeho attacked the openings they created, finishing the enemies with certainty.
The three gears of their party began turning together perfectly once again.
One by one, Lizardman corpses piled up on the muddy ground.
The final surviving warrior desperately swung its spear, but Chaeho lightly pulled himself back and let the attack pass by.
Seoyoon’s arrow immediately followed.
It pierced straight through the center of the creature’s forehead.
Splash.
The monster’s heavy body collapsed into the mud.
With that sound, a deep silence settled over the cave.
“Haa.”
Chaeho lightly exhaled with his sword pointed toward the ground.
Drops of blood ran down the hilt before falling onto the mud.
“Is everyone all right? Anyone hurt?”
When Chaeho turned around and asked, Woojin and Seoyoon were standing there with blank expressions.
“...Hunter Lee Chaeho.”
Woojin lowered his shield and swallowed dryly.
His gaze alternated between the corpses of the archers that had fallen from the rocks and the marks left by the arrows that had nearly struck him and Seoyoon.
“How did you do that just now?”
“Hm?”
“Those arrows came from our blind spots. Even I thought there was no time to block them and that we were done for, but suddenly you were already there knocking them away. The same thing happened with Seoyoon.”
Woojin’s voice was filled with unconcealed amazement.
It had already been difficult enough to endure the attacks coming from the front.
Yet in the middle of that chaotic battle, Chaeho had identified his allies’ weaknesses, read the trajectories of the incoming arrows, blocked them, and then destroyed the enemy’s rear formation.
It was hard to believe all of that had happened within just a few seconds.
“Exactly. I seriously thought I was in trouble. The arrow was already right in front of me, and then Chaeho suddenly appeared and knocked it away. Just how good are your reflexes?”
Seoyoon joined in, still looking stunned as she brushed the mud from her clothes.
Faced with the two of them bombarding him with reactions, Chaeho lightly shrugged.
“I was lucky. I noticed the signs that they were about to fire, so I moved ahead of time. Thankfully, I wasn’t too late.”
He casually brushed it off with a smile, but inside, his emotions were surging.
Chaeho quietly felt the fist he had clenched behind his back.
A heavy sense of exhilaration coursed through his veins and sent a pleasant thrill through his entire body.
It works.
He had used his skill before to cover his allies’ openings and prevent dangerous situations.
But the feeling was completely different from when he had mainly supported the party from behind.
Now, he had personally stood on the front line and directed the movements of all three members.
He had read the threats facing the entire party.
He had identified the openings in his allies’ defenses.
Then, before the enemy’s coordinated attacks could connect, he had intervened at the most optimal moment and changed the flow of the entire battlefield.
Within that extremely stretched-out perception of time, Chaeho could control the situation more clearly than anyone else.
This wasn’t simply about improving his individual combat ability.
Even in battles involving many opponents, he now had a clear tactical perspective that allowed him to seize control of the flow.
As he became more accustomed to this ability, the amount of synergy he could create with a party would continue to expand.
“Calling that luck is... kind of hard to believe.”
Woojin still looked dazed.
“You really just became C-rank, right? You didn’t spend years working as some kind of mercenary somewhere?”
“I did spend years working as a porter.”
At Chaeho’s honest answer, Woojin and Seoyoon looked at each other before letting out awkward laughs.
The competition among porters might have become fierce these days, but it was difficult to believe that someone with such extraordinary battlefield awareness had spent all that time simply picking up mana stones dropped by other people.
“Anyway, thank you for saving me. If you hadn’t been there, our formation would've collapsed, and we really could’ve been in serious trouble.”
Seoyoon lowered her head with a relieved sigh.
Woojin also looked at Chaeho with a much more dependable expression.
“If our frontliner is looking after us this well, I can’t afford to leave any openings in the back. I’ll stay focused too.”
“Good work. Let’s quickly collect anything useful and move on to the next area. We still have a long way to go.”
Chaeho skillfully drew his dagger and approached the Lizardman corpses.
As Woojin and Seoyoon watched his back, there was far more trust in their eyes than before.
A faint smile appeared on Chaeho’s lips as he expertly removed the scales and mana stones.
The ability to divide and use his limited time.
The new possibilities he had discovered within it.
A pleasant strength entered his hands as he peeled away the monster hide.
Our teamwork isn’t bad.
Let’s keep this up until the end.
Chaeho picked up his mud-covered bag and slung it over his shoulder.
Then he looked deeper into the cave, where an even denser concentration of mana was rippling through the darkness.
The thought of whatever new variables might be waiting for them inside that damp fog was beginning to excite him instead.
He stepped back into the darkness without the slightest hesitation.
