In the Name of God - vanish into fiction

If the boy made up his mind, he could send a signal to the floor below, ordering an attack on the hostages or using them to threaten us.

If they were dragged into this confrontation, it would be difficult to even find an opening to respond.

‘I should tell him not to provoke the boy too much for now. There are quite a few hostages, after all…’

“Do-yoon.”

As I was lost in thought, Lee Sunho wrapped his arm around my shoulder and whispered. Seeing this, the boy released an even more murderous aura.

“What that guy couldn’t do, I’ll do.”

“What?”

“I know there are hostages on the floor below. I’m saying we should make it so he can’t even think about using them.”

Lee Sunho kept his eyes fixed on the boy even while whispering to me.

“Back then, he was most vulnerable to this kind of provocation.”

Provocation?

And why is he talking as if he’s recalling his own past?

Before I could voice my questions, Lee Sunho’s face suddenly drew close.

At the same moment Lee Sunho swallowed my lips, I heard the boy catch his breath.

***

Boom!

When the first roar echoed.

Kwon Jeong-han felt the hairs on his body stand up and a sharp chill run down his neck.

‘This is…!’

It felt as if a mass of unspeakable foreboding had dropped onto the upper floor like a bombardment. Even though he had no way of knowing exactly what was happening, Kwon Jeong-han instinctively sensed that something terrifying had appeared upstairs.

‘Did another boss show up?!’

Before he could even gather his thoughts—

Rumble!

Another roar rang out.

This time, it wasn’t the kind of bursting sound made by something intruding from the outside, but a threatening noise as if the surrounding wood had been smashed by a ferocious force.

‘Are they fighting?’

Kwon Jeong-han stared at the ceiling, conscious of the growing ache in the back of his neck. Due to the aftermath of the two roars, wood debris and dust were sporadically falling from the ceiling.

“What on earth is going on…”

“Are they f-fighting?”

“Would they really? They know perfectly well we’re being held hostage.”

“Could it be… maybe another team came to rescue us?”

“If they came to rescue us, why would they bother going to the second floor? We’re right here on the first floor.”

“But…”

The team members whispered busily in low voices. Their faces were a mix of anxiety and anticipation as they repeatedly glanced at the upper floor.

Instead of worrying about the floor above with them, Kwon Jeong-han looked around at the monsters nearby.

The monsters surrounding the group were the same, but the beasts lined up on the first floor also remained motionless. They didn’t go up to check the situation on the upper floor, nor were they flustered by the sudden roars.

They were simply monitoring the group on the first floor exactly as they had been ordered.

“Are they just being faithful to the boss’s orders? Even so, it’s definitely strange that every single one of them is failing to react.”

It would be easier if they showed a typical reaction and ran around in confusion; then he could somehow create a gap and look for an opportunity to counterattack.

Kwon Jeong-han, who had been feeling troubled, soon changed his expression.

‘No, now is the chance.’

Kwon Jeong-han subtly felt around his pants pocket. He felt a small, hard bullet about the size of a finger joint.

It was something Seong Do-yoon had secretly handed to him just before they reached this house. Their weapons had been confiscated, but the bullets that were still half-remaining on Seong Do-yoon’s waist belt had stayed as they were.

-A bullet? Why this?

-It’s a flashbang made for use against monsters. Normally you load and fire it, but it has an impact-sensitive detonator, so it can be used with just a strong shock.

At that time, Seong Do-yoon had finished explaining while watching the monsters surrounding them.

-There’s almost no sound when it explodes, so for humans, it’s just a brief moment of eye pain, but it can dull a monster’s sensory organs as well as their vision for a while. The effective range isn’t that wide, so it’s not very useful outdoors.

The effective range of the flashbang was only about 50m.

Certainly, it was an item not very suitable considering the wide field they had stood in and the monsters scattered far and wide, though it might be different for a small cave-type dungeon.

However, Seong Do-yoon, sensing that the monsters were taking them to the boss, believed that the flashbang would definitely be helpful.

-Once we meet the boss, I’ll draw their attention somehow, so you keep an eye on the monitoring monsters. They’ll stay close to make observation easy, even if just for the sake of monitoring. With your intuition and sense of energy, it won’t be hard for you to find the central axis where the black energy gathers.

In the field, there was no time to observe because of the non-stop combat and the monsters’ stealth abilities, but it was different now that they were quiet hostages.

Knowing this, Seong Do-yoon had smiled slightly while lightly patting the back of Kwon Jeong-han’s hand as he held the flashbang.

-That is the “sense” you’re so proud of, after all.

There was nothing wrong with what Seong Do-yoon said.

In fact, Kwon Jeong-han had already sharpened all his senses and perfectly located the central axis of every monster standing on the first floor with his eyes.

‘I need to clean this up quickly and go help.’

Kwon Jeong-han, worrying about Seong Do-yoon who might be fighting a life-and-death battle with the boss monster by now, threw the flashbang in his hand with great force.