༺ Festival (4) ༻
1.
It was like hell had descended into the world.
The pungent, nauseating smell, the darkness that hid the malice within, just like a grim reaper hanging its scythe on your neck.
If one were to focus their attention a little, they’d notice the severed fingers, pieces of intestines, and all kinds of flesh scattered on the ground.
[Thank you for visiting our store, Customers! Have a good day, and we hope that you had a fun shopping experience!]
Such an announcement, accompanied with some classical music came out from the speaker that hadn’t been turned off yet, echoed through the department store.
The contrast between the cheerful announcement and the current situation only made it all the more nauseating for Siwoo.
When he went to the next floor, it wasn’t any better.
Dozens of piranhas were swimming around, their eyes flashed when they saw him.
Though all of their snouts were covered in blood, clearly indicating that they had eaten quite the number of people prior to this, as soon as they spotted a new prey, they immediately pounced on him.
“…These bastards—!”
Those giant fish, almost as big as a truck, came rushing towards Siwoo.
If this was any other person, they’d stand still, frozen in fear or they’d try to avoid it. But he did neither.
He calculated the timing of their attacks and swung the longswords in his hands.
-Clang!
The sword on his left smoothly cut through a piranha’s side, revealing its twisted guts.
While the sword on his right moved in a straight line, crushing the piranha’s dense teeth and nailed itself in the creature’s mouth.
Despite the size difference between him and the monsters, he didn’t back down.
Because they were weak.
With his shadow armor strengthening his body like a power suit, mere tackle from a 200 kg creature wouldn’t even get him to budge, let alone hurt him.
-Bang, bang!
Siwoo twisted his ribbon, using its elasticity to strike those fish, just like what Ea did before.
In almost an instant, the ribbon that was shot in a flexible curve, hit and pierced through several piranhas at once.
The attack was so vicious that it left a big hole on their bodies.
-Flap, flap
The dying piranhas couldn’t even let out a scream, instead they flapped around the ground helplessly.
For a while, only the sound of bursting flesh and organs being crushed could be heard in that area.
Also the dry sound of those piranhas falling to the ground.
“Fuck…fuck!”
In a situation like this, even when he didn’t mean to pay attention to his surroundings, Siwoo’s eyes unilaterally moved towards the corpses scattered on the ground.
Among the victims were children.
Young children who couldn’t even crawl out from their strollers.
There were also middle-aged people who would be as old as his parents if they were still alive.
These were lives that weren’t supposed to end as meals for these creatures.
At his current state, Siwoo’s mind and body had adapted to combat, thanks to this, he didn’t give in to his rage.
Because he knew that if he were to give in, his rage would just cloud his judgment.
Instead of letting his anger burst out, he just let it burn quietly like embers.
Siwoo uttered another curse at a piranha who rushed towards him as he blocked its advance with his gauntlet.
It tried to bite his gauntlet, but despite the size of its jagged teeth, it still wasn’t strong enough to pierce through his armor.
-Flap, flap
The piranha wriggled its body violently, as if it was panicking, but its current state was akin to a butterfly that had lost one of its wings.
Its struggles were futile in the face of an overwhelming strength.
“Fuck off!”
Siwoo yanked his hand, ripping the piranha’s lower jaw from the rest of its body. The creature made a final struggle as it made another flap or two before falling into the ground.
As for the lower jaw that was sticking to his gauntlet, it was discarded like trash.
“Everyone who is currently hiding! You can come out! The monsters are all dead! I’ll get you out of here!”
As soon as he cleared the floor, he shouted those words from the top of his lungs.
“You are safe now!”
He ran around, shouting, checking secluded places like the toilet and all the corners of the floor, just in case that his voice didn’t reach those places.
“Is there anyone here? Please answer me!”
But all his shouting was only met with silence.
No one gave him their reply.
He knew that there should be some survivors, but they kept their mouths shut.
“…”
His face became twisted.
So twisted that if the twins were to see him right now, they would probably burst into tears.
After that, he went up to other floors, and he ended up experiencing the same thing all over again.
The piranhas roamed around, munching on mannequins and hangers like they were some delicacies, while Siwoo killed them all.
Hammer, spear, sword.
He stabbed, pierced, crushed and smashed them all before moving on.
Effortlessly, he did all those things in succession.
Whenever he picked up a weapon, his body became accustomed to said weapon.
As if he possessed such skills in the first place, and his body had only remembered it now.
It was clearly a strange sensation, but he decided to not pay attention to it at the moment.
After he cleared the floor again, he called out to the survivors again.
But, just like before, no reply came back.
“Why do I even bother? They won’t trust a single guy screaming randomly like this…”
No sane person would trust a single person’s words in such a terrifying situation like this.
And so, Siwoo decided that it would be better for him to prevent more damage from spreading than searching for the survivors one by one.
As got closer to the rooftop, he realized something.
That the unpleasant flow of mana that he had been feeling for a while now came from that place.
He could see the heavy, black mana dripping down from the rooftop down to the ground floor like a waterfall of mud.
There was a single locked door that stood between him and the rooftop.
But he didn’t need to open it to know that his target, the Dagon’s Flute, was there.
If he were to open this door, he wouldn’t be facing all those small fries anymore.
Instead, the real danger would welcome him with its jaw open.
“…”
-Creak…bang!
He pushed the iron door open.
Though he didn’t exert much strength, the cement holding the frame and the frame itself instantly collapsed.
Cool air swept past his ear, a completely different air than the air inside, which was filled with the rotten smell of iron and fish.
In front of him, there was an altar.
And in the middle of the carefully decorated altar, there was a flute sitting there, as if it was an offering to some kind of God.
“You…what are you?”
Beside the altar, stood something, a guardian, watching over the altar, blocking anyone from accessing it.
Its 2m body was clad with white metal armor.
There was a spear in its hand, roughly 3m long.
On its other hand, there was a kite shield that covered most of its body, from its upper chest down to its lower knees.
Its armor seemed too heavy for a human to wear and move around in.
As soon as Siwoo stepped onto the rooftop, its eyes flashed, and it immediately entered a combat stance.
A homunculus.
Siwoo could feel goosebumps on all parts of his body.
His intuition was practically screaming at him.
Telling him that the thing that stood in front of him was on a completely different level than the small fries he had been killing prior to this.
That he had to risk his life if he wanted to win.
He didn’t back down.
In fact, he felt rather confident.
Because even when he faced this thing, he didn’t feel helpless at all.
Although he had to go through various hoops, got really lucky and Della had already spent some of her mana, he still managed to beat her, a 20th ranked witch.
He also managed to kill that big dog Homunculus that was terrorizing the city.
And most importantly, the Homunculus in front of him didn’t give off the same pressure as Ea did.
Which meant, he could still fight it.
-Clang!
Siwoo molded one of his swords into a similar looking shield that the White Knight wielded.
Rather than forcing himself to dual wield, a style that he wasn’t really used to, he figured that it would be better to go with a safer way of fighting. With a shield, he could have a way of defending himself and an easier time to set up a counterattack.
If he wanted to get to the flute, then he had to beat this guy first.
He twisted his ribbons in the air.
First, he tried to probe his opponent’s reaction from a long distance.
-Wooosh!
Two strands of ribbons, twisted to their limits, cut through the air as if they had been launched by a spring.
The White Knight’s response was astute.
It easily dodged the upcoming ribbons that were coming at him at a subsonic speed.
Right after that, it immediately closed in to Siwoo.
Such a speed was something he didn’t expect to see from a 2m tall suit of armor.
“The fuck—?!”
Siwoo hurriedly twisted his body as he let out a curse.
The Homunculus’ long white spear came from below.
He immediately moved his shield to block it.
The spear’s thrust was so quick that he could only see its after image.
But he wasn’t too late in making his move.
He managed to intercept the spear in time.
Mostly because the spear came in a straight line.
With a kite shield that covered more than half of his body, blocking that kind of attack was pretty much a given.
His shield was in the perfect position.
All he needed to do now was to wait for the impact.
But at that moment, he felt a chill running down his spine.
His instincts were screaming at him again.
When he sensed that, he immediately gave up on blocking and opted to dodge the thrust instead.
The tip of the spear, which had been coming in a straight trajectory, immediately bent.
Like a snake, half the spear twisted and charged toward Siwoo’s heart.
-Clang!
He managed to ward off the attack after he hit the pole with his sword.
If he were to block the spear just now, it would definitely crawl past his shield and pierce through his heart.
This was the first exchange and he almost lost his life already.
The thing that amazed him the most out of all of this was the fact that the previous attack didn’t involve magic at all.
He was observing the White Knight’s attack closely.
From that, he could tell that the Homunculus achieved that attack by purely using its martial prowess.
Such a strike that could fool one’s senses came from pure spearmanship.
Aside from that, he had been observing this Homunculus for a while, and he had noticed something different about this one compared to all the mindless Homunculi he had faced.
And it wasn’t the number of its eyes.
He took a few steps back and the White Knight pursued him.
It raised its arm over its shoulder, not giving Siwoo any time to even feel afraid.
Following it was a diagonal slash downward, similar to how a whale hunter would harpoon his target.
Thanks to this, its upper torso and armpits were exposed.
Siwoo could move forward and use that opening to strike the Homunculus.
But, because of the amazing display of spearmanship that the Homunculus showed, he decided to not exploit that opening.
Instead, he carefully watched the way it moved.
-Woosh!
And that decision turned out to be correct. At one point, the overhand strike had changed to an underhand one, and the Homunculus swiftly thrusted its spear into three spots in succession.
Those thrusts were so ferocious that it felt like they ripped the space open.
-Clang, clang, clang!
It was thanks to his quick reflex that he managed to block all those attacks as it was practically impossible to follow with his eyes.
He took a step back from the impact that hit his shield.
‘My hand hurts…’
In terms of strength, the White Knight was as strong as Siwoo.
But, unlike him, its posture was perfect. Each of its thrusts were heavy, almost as if it focused all the weight and force of its moves on the tip of its spear.
It made it felt as if he was being hit by a piledriver rather than a spear.
This was a bad situation for Siwoo.
Up until this point, he had always defeated his opponents, whether they were witches or Homunculi, by taking advantage of the Law of Shadows.
By nature, the Law of Shadows could counter any kind of magic with ease.
However, that method wouldn’t work against this White Knight, as its prowess came from its physical strength rather than magic.
It wasn’t an opponent that he could best by using his wit either.
The Homunculus gave him no time to think.
No time to deploy his ribbons.
This time, it thrusted its shield forward.
Siwoo realized that he couldn’t keep dodging from its attack.
He had to fight back or else he wouldn’t be able to steal the momentum from it.
His body moved, following his instinct.
He lunged forward, kicking the ground with his heel while pushing his shield forward.
-Clang!
A loud noise echoed as the two chunks of metal clashed.
Part of the concrete that they were stepping on were crushed, split apart like cookies that fell onto the ground.
‘It worked!’
Then, for the very first time, a real opening appeared.
The Homunculus was setting up another shield bash, but Siwoo ignored it, he closed in before throwing a punch at it.
“Huh?!”
No loud sound echoed this time.
Siwoo, who had been clenching his teeth all this time, opened his mouth dumbfoundedly.
The White Knight, who was in the stance of attacking, suddenly took a step backward, as if running away.
That completely destroyed Siwoo’s balance.
His whole body leaned forward, swaying as he was about to fall down.
In his tilted vision, he could see the tip of the Homunculus’ spear coming toward his face, as if it had been waiting for this very moment.
“Ugh!”
Luckily, he still had his pair of ribbons.
Using them as makeshift arms, he forcibly pushed the ground, dodging the trajectory of the spear.
“Haah…haah…”
It was an unexpected movement coming from him, but the White Knight was still able to respond properly. Instead of closing in to him, it once again thrusted its spear.
This time, the tip of the spear hit Siwoo’s eyelid.
He could feel the blood covering his eyes as his vision turned red.
At the very least that attack didn’t crush his eyeball, but now he had to fight with a handicap on top of being purely overwhelmed by his opponent in terms of skills.
The situation was dire.
Now he was completely cornered, and there seemed to be no way out in sight.
