WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving as a B-Rank Hunter ◈
Chapter 26
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“Kieeeek!”
The long, narrow, dark corridor ahead was filled with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Orphan Horde monsters.
Their bodies were skinny except for their swollen bellies. Their heads had nothing but mouths, split open as if cut with a knife. Some hunters called them “hungry ghosts” rather than the Orphan Horde.
One hungry ghost flew toward Jo Gyeongtaek’s face with its mouth wide open.
It literally flew. The nearest monster had sprung forward on all fours like a frog, trying to bite off Jo Gyeongtaek’s face.
“Gah!”
Dohyeon yanked Jo Gyeongtaek back. The monster’s open jaws snapped shut in midair with a snap.
Dohyeon pulled the staggering Jo Gyeongtaek to his feet and took off running.
“Run!”
“Ghaaah!”
Jo Gyeongtaek followed Dohyeon with a scream that might have been an answer. In his unsteady rush, he bumped something, and the crossbow secured with an anti-theft tether snapped loose and fell to the floor.
Of course, he did not stop or turn back to pick it up. That one weapon would not be enough to stop the crowd of Orphan Horde monsters anyway.
As Dohyeon and Jo Gyeongtaek fled, the Orphan Horde filling the narrow corridor began charging after them like mad.
“Grrk!”
“Kieeek!”
“Grrraaa!”
It was complete chaos. They crashed into, shoved, and hit one another, all fighting to get ahead in the cramped corridor.
Dohyeon and Jo Gyeongtaek benefited from it. While the Orphan Horde jostled among themselves, the two quickly ran around the corner ahead.
“Huff! Hah! Huff!”
That did not mean their situation was good. Jo Gyeongtaek had already reached his physical limit after sprinting up dozens of floors in the Infinite Staircase. His face was turning from red to nearly black.
Even Dohyeon, running ahead of him, was gritting his teeth and breathing hard.
Still, the monsters that had pulled a few steps ahead of the rest kicked off the concrete floor and raced after them on all fours.
When Dohyeon glanced back, he saw them slam into the corner with their momentum, then charge after them again like rabid dogs.
“Don’t stop running!”
Dohyeon said that, then suddenly turned and stopped. Momentum carried him into a long slide. At the same time, his right hand gripped the hilt of the sword over his shoulder.
His left hand naturally reached behind his waist and gripped the sheath. Then he pulled both hands in opposite directions.
The sword came free.
A clean arc immediately swept across a hungry ghost.
“Grrk!”
Its neck, as thin as its skinny limbs, came off with a chop. It was cut so easily that it felt like slicing a cucumber or some other fruit.
The flashing blade did not stop there. It swept left and right once each. The motion looked less like swordplay than shaking out a large brush.
But instead of ink, it scattered monster blood. Orphan Horde monsters whose waists and upper bodies had been cut apart collapsed with a splat, spilling black blood and guts.
After killing three monsters with three strikes, Dohyeon immediately began backing away. At the same time, he watched the movements of the charging Orphan Horde.
“Grrh! Gnk! Grrk!”
The creatures pushing forward behind the leaders caught the scent of blood. Driven by their immediate desires, they followed the smell of blood and flesh rather than sweat.
Their wide-open mouths descended on the flesh of their own kind. Dozens of monsters became entangled, covering themselves in blood and fluids.
Not all of them did so, however. The ones farther back targeted the humans running ahead of them rather than the fiercely contested corpses of their kin.
But even they could not ignore the leaders rolling around in front of them and leap over them. Naturally, they all crashed into and shoved one another until the narrow corridor became clogged.
Once Dohyeon had confirmed that, he turned and ran again. The monsters falling over one another was helpful, but it had only bought them a little time.
Unless they escaped this dungeon, they could not get away from those monsters.
As he fled with the monsters behind him, Dohyeon let out a hollow laugh without realizing it.
He had killed three monsters in three swings?
Cutting through living flesh, muscle, and bone in one blow did not merely require brute strength.
It required speed, simplicity, and sharp senses and skill that pierced through an instant. Simply put, it required the skill of a master.
Dohyeon had never considered himself that skilled. He had not trained with a sword to that extent. He was a dungeon expert, not a master martial artist.
But a moment ago, he had not had time to think about such things. He had simply swung his sword on instinct, and that instinct had drawn an incredibly clean path.
Dohyeon’s eyes flicked toward his left hand. More precisely, he checked the ring tattoo on his index finger, Vargband. Was this another function of the ring?
He did not know. Would the Valkyrie answer if he asked?
An answer came.
[It was already within you. Wield it bravely.]
He could not trust her when she said nonsense like that. Dohyeon flicked the blood and stray thoughts from his long sword, then ran on.
After passing through a narrow doorway and over three or four short flights of stairs, he saw Jo Gyeongtaek staggering forward at a pace somewhere between walking and running.
Jo Gyeongtaek turned around with his face soaked in sweat. Once he confirmed it was Dohyeon, he stopped with his hands on his knees.
“Huff, huff... Doh, Dohyeon...”
“We need to keep moving. They won’t stop.”
“J-Just a second... I need to breathe...”
Even while panting, Jo Gyeongtaek fumbled at his waist. He pulled out a plastic water bottle, one of the cheap materials they had found while wandering Kowloon Walled City that day.
The water, which would still sell for at least ten thousand won outside, went down Jo Gyeongtaek’s throat without hesitation. It was better to drink it than die trying to save it.
Jo Gyeongtaek held out the half-empty bottle. Dohyeon’s throat was parched too, so he took it and drank deeply. Since it was not his share, he did not hold back either. About half of it overflowed and ran down his chin.
Then a nearby “Kheeeck!” rang out. Dohyeon and Jo Gyeongtaek exchanged looks, threw away the empty bottle, and immediately started running again.
“We need to find the exit.”
“The exit! The exit!”
Jo Gyeongtaek repeated Dohyeon’s words as he followed. Their eyes frantically searched in every direction for a sign or door marked EXIT.
They passed through three or four spaces that looked like private homes and went up and down stairs, all while listening to the pursuing Orphan Horde behind them.
When they burst through a door, the space suddenly opened up.
Beyond the corridor railing was an empty space stretching above and below, making the place seem hollow.
It was a square courtyard, in a sense, but its top and bottom were invisible, making it uncanny. Faint light flowed down from above and sank into endlessly dark depths.
Jo Gyeongtaek looked over the railing into that darkness and recoiled in horror. Then he spotted something and pointed.
“There!”
Following his finger, Dohyeon saw a door shining impossibly in the distance through the dark, cluttered space. More precisely, a light was shining on the door.
A glowing EXIT sign. It was an elevator.
Dohyeon immediately headed toward it. The sounds of the Orphan Horde behind them were getting closer. They seemed to be only two or three walls away. They had to escape at once.
Dohyeon flew over and pressed the elevator button. The display showed the number 60, which soon changed to 59, then 58, then 57.
“Th-That’s the exit, right?”
“It is. When the elevator door opens, that should be the exit.”
“Ah, we’re not getting in and going down?”
Dohyeon nodded. Jo Gyeongtaek let out a relieved sigh.
“Seriously, I would’ve been in huge trouble without you, Mr. Dohyeon. How can I ever repay you?”
“Don’t worry about it. We agreed to watch each other’s backs in the dungeon.”
Dohyeon said that while looking up at the falling numbers.
He had never expected anything special from Jo Gyeongtaek in the first place. If anything, he had kept the man close partly to figure out his hidden intentions. There was no reason to be thanked so much.
“No, how can I not worry about it? Listen, I know a buyer. They pay a little more than the average market price for Vanaskelium. It’s a foreign company. If I put in a good word, Mr. Dohyeon could also...”
Dohyeon’s eyes sharpened.
Not because of Jo Gyeongtaek’s words, but because a foul smell had brushed past his nose.
His strangely enhanced sense of smell. Sometimes, it felt as though he smelled not an actual scent, but some future event.
Dohyeon did not doubt that feeling. He spun around.
“Ah!”
Someone was there, only three or four steps behind them.
The problem was that he could not properly see that someone. Someone was clearly there, but Dohyeon could not focus his attention on them.
It was as though they had melted into the scenery. Their outline of existence seemed scattered, making it impossible to look at them directly.
But there was a smell. Dohyeon could smell them.
The other person also seemed flustered that Dohyeon was trying to look at them. Their approach had been discovered, yet they hesitated, unsure what to do.
Then two more figures appeared at the end of the corridor.
“Idiot! Just jump him!”
The two looked absurd.
They wore the fronts of human skulls over their heads as masks and had no shirts on.
Strange characters had been painted on their bare skin in dark red pigment that appeared to be made from blood and bodily fluids.
They also wore small necklaces shaped like cheap Asatru symbols sold online.
“O-din!”
The figure that had scattered Dohyeon’s attention suddenly rushed him. Dohyeon swung his sword on reflex, but absurdly, he misjudged the distance and the blade sliced through empty air.
It was because of that bastard’s diffuse presence.
“Die! I’ll kill you and ascend to Val-holl!”
Why were there so many goddamn cultists?
Dohyeon thought that as he became tangled with the barely noticeable bastard and fell. The blonde, blue-eyed ones they had encountered earlier had also been Asatru.
They had been far more neatly dressed than these bastards, but judging from their accessories, they worshiped the same god.
“Kiyoooot!”
Once Dohyeon became tangled with them, the bastard finally became clearly visible. Like the others, they were shirtless and had bogus rune characters written across their body. What they wore over their face was slightly different.
A helmet. Strangely enough, it was a Greek Corinthian helmet.
Why was a bastard who wanted to go to Valhalla wearing a Greek helmet?
And the weapon in their hand was a wire. It seemed they had planned to sneak up silently, loop it around Dohyeon’s neck, and strangle him.
Absurdly, the bastard was incredibly strong too. As they rolled across the floor, their feet kicked the concrete wall hard enough to leave an impact mark.
“There’ll be more blood eagles to offer O-din!”
“Rag-na-rok is coming!”
Meanwhile, the other two rushed in as well. They held a sword and an axe, both caked in dried blood. Quite a few lives besides the blood eagle victim Dohyeon had seen must have fallen to their hands.
Since they had been lying in wait beside the exit, that certainty only grew stronger.
The situation worsened.
With a ding, the exit elevator doors opened.
At the same time, Dohyeon lost hold of his sword and rolled with the cultist into the railing. Both were stronger than normal, and the concrete railing cracked.
Beyond it was nothing but darkness, a bottomless abyss.
While pushing away the bastard trying to strangle him with the wire, Dohyeon glanced over and saw Jo Gyeongtaek standing before the open door. With the glowing doorway before him, he was looking between Dohyeon rolling on the floor and the approaching cultists.
In that moment, Dohyeon gave up expecting anything.
Jo Gyeongtaek would leave through that door. With one step, he could escape the insane cultists, the monsters charging with their mouths open, and the endlessly whispering dungeon.
For him to leave the exit behind and turn back to save Dohyeon, they would have to be family he had lost or someone he loved. Not a hunter he had met only hours ago.
Dohyeon turned his eyes to the cultist on top of him, strangling him.
The helmet had come off while they rolled around, fully exposing the cultist’s twisted face. Their eyes were red with excitement, white foam covered their mouth, and the foul smell was a bonus.
This motherfucker, how dare you breathe that stink on me?
Dohyeon grabbed the bastard’s hand.
His left index finger burned, and the heat ran up his arm and along his spine. It felt as though a tangle of threads, hot yet cold, ran along his spine and swept across his entire body.
“Huh?”
The cultist’s hand around Dohyeon’s throat came free as if it had been torn away. Their face showed surprise. Their trembling hand was clearly using all its strength.
You’re dead.
Dohyeon saw panic in the bastard’s eyes.
And reflected in those eyes was a man with sickly yellow eyes.
Huh? Who’s that?
The moment he flinched at the reflection, a military boot came flying in from the side and stomped the cultist’s face.
“Ghk!”
The boot shoved his face straight into the railing. The already cracked railing shattered, carrying the cultist over the other side.
Along with chunks of concrete, the cultist fell into the bottomless abyss. The sight of them flailing their limbs as they fell through empty air was strangely futile and hollow.
“...?”
Freed, Dohyeon looked up with a blank expression.
Jo Gyeongtaek stood there. He seemed surprised that the concrete railing had shattered and sent the cultist falling beyond it.
Then he met Dohyeon’s eyes and lightly kicked the sword hilt lying nearby toward him.
After that, he pulled a large knife from his waist and turned to take a stance.
“Get up! There are still two left!”
Dohyeon grabbed the sword that had been pushed toward him and rose, checking the elevator doors. The exit was still there. Jo Gyeongtaek had not left.
While aiming his knife at the cultists rushing toward them, Jo Gyeongtaek whispered to Dohyeon.
“We’re even now. You saved me earlier, and I saved you just now. One to one. Okay?”
“...Let’s say that.”
“Huh? What’s with that unconvincing response?”
Dohyeon snickered.
As he rose to his feet, the two cultists were already standing before them, glaring. Beneath the skull masks, their teeth snarled, sickly yellow. Filthy bastards.
One of them began shouting at the top of his lungs.
“A glorious battle awaits! Valkyrja will lead me to the heavenly palace! I will become an Ein-herjar and stand at the forefront of Rag-na-rok! Then I shall await the golden age that will...”
At that moment, with a thock, a black arrow pierced their neck.
The one who had been shouting froze. So did the remaining cultist, Dohyeon, and Jo Gyeongtaek.
The cultist with the arrow through their neck touched it with a stupid expression, then turned toward where it had come from.
There stood a blonde, blue-eyed medieval warrior lowering a mechanical longbow.
The woman warrior beside them struck her sword and shield together with a thud.
“Faen. Found you, you insane bastards.”
And there was the one holding a long poleaxe.
They were the Asatru followers Dohyeon had encountered earlier.
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