The Time-Limited Leader Makes the Raid a Success - Chapter 137



Only Noblemtl

Episode 137

137. Become a hero.

Kwaaaaang!

“Hahaha! You guys, stop running away and let’s have a go!”

“As expected, those peninsula guys need to be beaten with a club to get the best results.”

“You cowardly Bangtzu bastards. You’re so good at avoiding things. Come out! If you don’t come out, I’ll burn down your entire village!”

The Goryeo Federation Hunters abused their skills without waiting for a response to the threat.

The village was burning. The shacks were weeping and bleeding in place of the villagers who had fled to the rear. Crackling, the flames gradually spread as they touched the ground. The heat rose like a mist and shook the village scenery.

“You little brats! You suck up drugs like water and act all cocky! You’re not even capable of attacking me with your bare hands!”

“Damn, the basic equipment is so lacking. Everyone, save your weapons! There’s no supply!”

“How can you fight if you are sparing your weapons?”

The Prison Village Hunters were constantly being pushed back as sparks flew through the smoke.

The hunters of the Goryeo Alliance, thrilled by the sight of their opponents running away with their tails pulled out, leisurely chased them while unleashing their skills. Since the encirclement was so strong, there was nowhere to run anyway.

Then someone jumped out through the smoke.

“Is this the enemy?!”

“Can’t you even recognize your own army?”

The man who came out with his face covered in soot had the ‘Fallen Flower’ petal guild mark tattooed on his chest.

“What are you doing here?!”

The man immediately grabbed the head of the Goryeo Dohyeop party who was present at the scene by the collar.

The party leader tried to shake off his hand, but he didn’t budge. He immediately realized that his opponent was a hunter much higher up the ranks. Naturally, his tone became more polite.

“What are you doing? I was holding the Bangtzes.”

“Didn’t you get the order from above? We were supposed to meet at the center.”

“So, you’re going now. To the old Sinuiju Prison.”

“We’re going. Let’s gather in the middle of the road, not the center. We need to combine our party strength and attack in one go.”

“It’s a little different from the order I heard.”

“What kind of idiot is this kid talking about? Do you think the center is this wide open right now? Do you know how vicious these guys are? Don’t you think it’s strange that this place is being breached so easily?

“That, that is… … .”

“That’s because they’re all gathered somewhere else!”

“iced coffee…?”

“‘Ah’ is that damn ‘Ah’ that’s going to freeze to death? You idiot! What’s your name? What guild are you from?”

“Wow, it’s Wang Shuying. It’s the Black Dragon Room.”

“Black Dragon…? Hah! Don’t you know who I am?”

“yes.”

“I don’t know who you are either. Why? Because you’re a pyramid. But why don’t you know me? Because I’m such a big shot. Have you ever dared to see my face in person?”

The party leader thought something was strange, but found a reasonable explanation in the fact that his opponent was a hunter of a higher rank than him.

He knew that hunters had bad tempers because he was a hunter himself, and it was common knowledge that the higher the rank, the worse the temper. If he did something wrong, it was because his rank was low.

“What are you doing, Inma?”

“yes?”

“Now that you know, shouldn’t you crawl on your own? Move to the center quickly! Why? Should I drag you?”

“Oh, no. Then, I will go right away.”

As the party leader flinched and tried to command the members, the man called out to him.

“for a moment.”

“Why, why are you like that?”

“Where are the rest of the Black Dragon Party? We need to take them too.”

“Well, I only know the approximate location… I’ll look for it.”

“What are you looking for? You’re setting fire like this. Tsk! Do you even have a brain? Those slow-moving people are setting fire without anyone even seeing you. Tell me where the kids are. If I’m late, I’ll be the one getting beaten up by General Jang Joong-sun. Are you going to get scolded along with me?”

The party leader was terrified by the man who was talking about Jang Joong-shin.

Although Jang Joong-sun was called one of the ‘Five Heroes of Sinuiju’, he was actually the best among the Chinese hunters in Sinuiju in terms of skill and popularity, to the point that he could be called the top hunter.

It had that much influence, and it wasn’t a big deal for it to ruin the life of a small or medium-sized guild hunter.

The party leader, who had handed over the location of the rest of the party to the man, hurriedly left the place.

As the surroundings became quiet, the man turned around and walked into the flames. The heat of the flames began to change the man’s appearance like a mirage.

It was the scene of the party venue that had disappeared to the other side a moment ago.

“Oh, I’m tired. How many rounds are you going to do today? This isn’t even enough to pay for an interpreter item.”

The man whose voice had changed to match the tone of the party leader disappeared completely.

* * *

“That’s strange. The advance is slow. Is it because of the fire?”

Zhang Zhongxun, who was leisurely commanding the attack force from outside, kicked the ground with a displeased expression.

Won Hao, one of the five leaders of Sinuiju, including himself, and his confidant, was busy commanding the front line of the attack force. As a result, he had no trusted subordinates.

I thought about going in myself, but I couldn’t move recklessly because I needed to grasp the overall order. Unless I could completely destroy the village and secure a view, a clumsy intervention would only cause confusion in the overall operation.

“The complexly constructed buildings are giving me trouble. Tsk!”

The only silver lining was that the first attack force belonging to the ‘Fallen Flowers’ guild in the center was advancing smoothly.

Of course, the opponent also put up strong resistance, but it was clear as day that if the attacking forces sent to the left and right had exerted just a little more force, the balance would be broken in an instant.

‘But it’s still slow. Are the other guilds’ skills lower than I thought? Or are the North Koreans’ skills unexpectedly good? Well, it’s a matter of life or death, so I won’t back down easily.’

Zhang Zhongxun wanted to check the situation of the left and right attack forces, but there was no way to know until he sent a separate messenger.

The reason is this.

“If I had known this would happen, I should have gotten more support from above with my sound skills.”

This was due to the lack of skills that allowed direct messaging between hunters.

However, waiting for someone to figure out how to break through on their own was not Jang Joong-sun’s style. If there was a blockage, he had to break through it by force or strategy.

“Send a messenger to the 2nd Corps. Assess the situation and tell them to somehow break through to the rendezvous point within an hour.”

* * *

Kang Mu-hyeok looked down at the village map he had received from the patrol. Noh Song-rin shook her head as if she was tired of the sight.

‘What kind of courage are you talking about? Do you not have a heart in the first place? Even though we’re in the rear, I can hear explosions everywhere right now. It’s really precarious.’

Unlike Noh Song-rin, who would become alert whenever he heard a loud noise, Kang Mu-hyeok was surprisingly calm. This was because things were still going according to his plan.

‘It seems they don’t even recognize each other’s faces. It’s a hastily organized attack force. If it’s Mr. Joe’s special ability, it’s enough to confuse them.’

It’s called a union of five guilds, but their organizational power is nothing more than a grain of sand.

If they had sufficient messaging skills, it might not have mattered. If they weren’t giving orders face-to-face, most parties would have been following the initial orders.

“Chief Kang, I heard that Mr. Cho sent another party to the center. I’m asking what should we do about the others.”

“To the left. Tell them to send it to the left edge of town. As far from the center as possible.”

Kang Moo-hyuk gave orders while correcting several enemy party markers on the map.

After sending a message to Mr. Joe using his messaging skills, Noh Song-rin asked him what she was curious about.

“But how did you know that those guys lack messaging skills?”

“China has a lot of hunters, so they always lack message skills. It’s a winner-takes-all situation, so it’s rare for them to come onto the market, and even if they do, they’re all swept up by the top guilds.”

Lack of messaging skills.

This has been a chronic problem in the Chinese hunter community.

It wasn’t that there was a shortage of skills to be acquired. It was just the guilds’ greed that was the problem.

Even though the large guilds had rotted and worn out skill books, they did not supply them to the outside world. They kept them hidden away like secrets from a martial arts novel, and made it seem like the acquisition of skills was their own sanctuary.

So the alternative was to import skill books.

At one time, China bought up all the Message Skillbooks that were being supplied to the world. Afterwards, a global shortage occurred. Surprised by China’s skill monopoly, each country treated Message Skills as strategic materials and blocked their distribution.

China, whose skill stock has decreased again, still has not been able to resolve the shortage of messaging skills.

Kang Moo-hyuk, who saw through this, formulated an operation based on that information.

“From China’s perspective, Sinuiju is a remote area. Furthermore, the hunters here are not part of any large guilds, but rather a lower-ranking group. To put it bluntly, they are a throwaway group. There’s no way they would invest in a throwaway group. Furthermore, some of the high-ranking hunters deployed here are part of large guilds and have message skills, so they probably thought they could control them without any additional investment. That’s how the lack of communication led to the current chaos. This is a typical case of greed eating away at the system.”

“Wow, you’re amazing. When did you get that kind of brain… Wait a minute. But you don’t have any message skills, right? How did you find a party that doesn’t have any skills?”

“That’s why we were pushed back in the beginning. The reason we fought a guerrilla war was to see how fast and how the enemy would respond. Among the parties except for the central one, which consisted of the Fallen Flower Guild, there was a party that was slow to respond. We could tell that they were reluctant to make their own decisions. We made a mess of the formations of the party that weeded them out. We also disrupted the movements of other parties.”

Noh Song-rin broke into a cold sweat inside.

Considering that he was once pushed right up to his nose, Kang Moo-hyuk’s strategy was bold, if not reckless. It was brave of a non-hunter to hold out without running away when fireworks were exploding right in front of him.

Fortunately, we were able to mobilize our elite forces to block the central offensive before it was too late, but even if we had been just a little late in realizing it…

“Huh? Could it be that you gathered our elite forces in one place to block their main force?”

“Since the tributes have been made to be unable to fulfill their role as tributes, we now only need to block the main attack. With one elite unit, we are just as strong as them. Even without considering equipment and supplies.”

The elite of the prison village, including Yeonjeongmun, Cheon Deoksu, and Hwang Dongsu, were not a weak force. If necessary, Nosongrin could also be deployed.

Stopping the 1st Division led by Won Hao of the Nakhwa Guild was the most important issue that Kang Mu-hyeok considered when planning this operation.

Even thinking that this was Kang Mu-hyeok’s trick, Noh Song-rin could only feel pure admiration.

“I feel this every time, but Captain Kang is truly something. At this rate, I think I can hold out until real support arrives.”

“Yes, to this extent.”

Kang Moo-hyuk answered calmly, but in reality he felt uneasy.

‘It’s fortunate that the opponent is an elite force. In the current situation, the most dangerous thing is to push in from all sides with numbers. The front line will be pushed back in an instant. I hope the opponent is a hunter with strong pride… ‘

Due to tactics.

I just hoped that the enemy wouldn’t make the move I most wanted to avoid.

* * *

The site of the old Sinuiju Prison was packed with people for the first time in a long time.

It was the perfect place to hide, as it was in the center of town, farthest from the front lines, had high walls, even concrete ones, and some of the prison facilities were among the strongest in town.

But unlike the crowd, the area was quiet. There were some children who would occasionally whimper and cry at the sound of loud noises, but if they were in the south, they would have been able to endure it calmly, considering they were of an age where they would be attending kindergarten or elementary school.

And among them there were a few brave, if not fearless, fools.

“Huh?!”

“What’s wrong, Cheol-i?”

“This is Mr. Noh’s!”

“Mr. Noh? Oh, the hunter named Noh Song-rin? He was with Team Leader Kang Mu-hyeok.”

Park Cheol-i, who was walking around the patrol building to appease other children of the same age, was furious when he discovered the karambit knife used by Noh Song-rin in a box of confiscated items at the entrance to the prison.

Kim Gil-young, who had no idea what was going on, accepted the karambit knife that Park Cheol showed him.

“Right wing, what’s so heavy? Even the sword is small.”

“Everything a hunter uses is heavy.”

Kim Gil-young swung the karambit sword. His upper body swayed back and forth under the weight, but as he swung the sword, he felt as if he had become a hunter.

Kim Gil-young, who wanted to awaken as a hunter and avenge his father, began to feel his heart pounding. He felt a groundless confidence that he could do something, that he could do well if given the chance.

“Even a hunter would be in trouble without a weapon, right?”

“What are you saying, hyung?”

“Then, that old man Noh must have a hard time without a weapon?”

“Huh? Um… I guess so?”

“Let’s give this to the old man.”

“What? No! The adults told me not to go out because it’s dangerous.”

“We’re not even fighting. Let’s just bring the weapons and come back.”

“But it still doesn’t work… … .”

“Cheol-ya, think about it. If Uncle Noh loses because he can’t fight anyway, we’ll be in big trouble too. Then what should we do? We have to win, right? But we can’t win without weapons. What if your father loses and gets hurt? But what if we bring this and win? We’ll be protecting the village. And your father won’t get hurt either.”

Just like Kim Gil-young, who admired the Yeonjeongmun that protected the village, Park Cheol also admired his father, who was a patrolman. He dreamed of becoming a hunter someday and becoming a great patrolman like his father.

Park Cheol nodded to Kim Gil-young’s words. When he heard it, it was true. Just don’t fight. In the end, he fell for Kim Gil-young’s trickery.

“Then, I’ll bring it to you quickly.”

“Of course. Let’s go. When I tell the kids later, they’ll all be jealous. You and I will become heroes.”

At the word hero, Park Cheol-i laughed heartily and picked up the karambit sword.