In the Name of God - Chapter 77.1
While heading toward the cave following the map.
Kwon Jeong-han cut a path through, dealing with the monsters without rest.
Although I supported him by informing him of the monsters’ locations and attack directions, his own intuition was also strikingly excellent. Moving based on the locations I pointed out, he nimbly grasped the monsters’ presences to adjust the timing and angle of his dagger swings, and he dodged the monsters’ attacks like a ghost using only his own senses.
This level of energy sensitivity and movement could truly be called Lee Sunho-tier.
Perhaps because of that, I felt very comfortable giving instructions to Kwon Jeong-han. No matter what order I gave, he never asked back or hesitated, reacting instantly as if he had known in advance. It was simply fascinating that a Grade 6 guy would so obediently follow the words of a Grade 7 Awakener like me, who was one rank lower.
Thanks to Kwon Jeong-han, monster corpses began to pile up one by one along the path we took.
Kwon Jeong-han stood at the vanguard, attacking the monsters quickly, and I found the central axes of the fallen creatures to destroy them at once. A few jumped back up and stealthed again before I could find the axis, but each time, Kwon Jeong-han would rush back in without missing a beat to create an opening.
However, the other teammates were the problem.
“H-how much longer do we have to do this?!”
“They keep getting up no matter how much we attack! I can’t even see the central axis or whatever it is!”
“Shit! Hey, Team Leader! Do something! We’re all going to die at this rate!”
“Do you think I have some brilliant solution?! Dammit… this never happened no matter how many times I came here before…”
The teammates following behind while fending off monsters raised their voices as time passed.
Though not as much as Kwon Jeong-han, they were also working hard to strike the monsters. However, because the fallen beasts got up immediately, stealthed, and repeated their attacks, the teammates became exhausted and anxious. The arrows of blame naturally turned toward the Team Leader.
‘It’s a total mess.’
While I let out a sigh, I understood. Due to the monsters’ traits of infinite regeneration and stealth, it must look like we are the only ones fighting a losing war of attrition.
‘In reality, we’ve already handled about twenty of them.’
We were in a situation where we had reduced the enemy count by more than 20% in a harsh environment. Of course, that was the number of central axes I had destroyed.
Since we had reduced that many without any casualties on our side yet, it was hard to say we were merely fighting a war of attrition.
‘Still… it’ll definitely be dangerous if we keep going like this.’
While everyone was still holding onto their mental state, we had to get inside the cave quickly.
Unlike the forest where one has to use a wide field of vision, the approach path inside a cave is limited to the entrance. Even if the monsters maintain their stealth, if long-range dealers including myself guard the narrow entrance, we could reduce the enemy’s numbers with almost no damage to our side.
To put it bluntly, if we poured out long-range attacks like a machine gun, some of them would die.
Just then, Kwon Jeong-han, showing clear signs of exhaustion, entered my sight. Although he had good stamina, jumping here and there to attack invisible monsters repeatedly was bound to be difficult. It was also partly because I had run him ragged while overlapping his image with Lee Sunho.
“It’s the cave!”
One of the teammates shouted. Just as he said, beyond Kwon Jeong-han who was suppressing the monsters, a round cave entrance was visible.
We just needed to move forward while steadily pushing the monsters back like this—
“Get out of the way!”
“W-wait! Me too…!”
Two impatient teammates dashed toward the cave like arrows. Even though it was right after Kwon Jeong-han had knocked down all the monsters in front, their actions were extremely dangerous.
“Wait! You have to move while maintaining the formation!”
One of the people who ran out was the tanker in charge of rear defense, and the other was the one who had been preventing the monsters’ approach with wide-area magic. With the two of them leaving at once, chaos naturally broke out in the back.
“Argh! My a-arm…!”
“Kyaaa! You monsters, don’t pull me!”
“S-stay back! No, get close to Seong Do-yoon quickly! We’ll all die if we get separated!”
Even the Team Leader was flustered and didn’t know what to do. The surrounding monsters were rushing in as if they had been waiting for this exact moment.
The teammates were in a situation where they were taking hits without even being able to defend properly.
I, too, was too busy plunging bullets into the swarming monsters to have a gap to assist Kwon Jeong-han.
Kwon Jeong-han, who had approached by then, spoke as he kicked away a monster that was lunging at him.
“Seong Do-yoon, my gut feeling is bad on this one.”
“Anyone can see that the current situation feels bad.”
Teammates on the verge of panic, monsters swarming so much it was difficult to take another step, and depleting stamina.
Where would there be a madman who looks at this and says his gut feels good?
However, Kwon Jeong-han seemed to have felt something else, not just this situation itself.
“It’s not that. There’s something in the cave.”
Kwon Jeong-han’s sharp gaze was directed toward the cave where the two teammates had recklessly run.
“I get the feeling that this itself was a trap.”
“A trap?”
My wonder lasted only a moment.
Soon, I could feel the same anxiety as Kwon Jeong-han.
In the direction where the cave was, there were undoubtedly stealthed monsters positioned. Nevertheless, the two teammates who broke formation ran the whole way without being caught by monsters, and they had now ducked right into the cave.
Why did the monsters leave those two alone?
And even now, when the monsters had lunged at the flustered teammates all at once, there were strangely no major attacks. Although there were some injured teammates, they were in a state where their lives were not in significant danger, and the monsters were repeating a pattern of attacking and then backing off.
As if they had no intention of killing us at all.
‘Monsters that think of nothing but killing humans are controlling their attacks? And they’re intentionally not touching the teammates who went toward the cave?’
It was definitely strange.
It was quite different from the methods of the monsters I had met until now. The monsters I heard about in the briefing had no particular peculiarities other than being cautious and having stealth abilities, but looking at them now, they seemed like trained soldiers moving under someone’s command.
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