Chapter 16: Are You Sure You're Fine with Just That? (3)

Jeong Ho-Jun's screams rang throughout the swamp, along with the explosive sounds. He could hear the screeches of Lizardmen as they ran toward the source of the noise.

'Crazy fucker!'

Although Ho-Jun had also lured in some Lizardmen with noise, it was completely different from what Oh Kang-Woo had done. What Ho-Jun had done was like throwing firewood at a burning house, but what Kang-Woo had done was the equivalent of pouring a drum of oil onto it.

"R-Run!" Ho-Jun shouted to his party members.

The pale-faced party members began looking for an escape route.

Kang-Woo looked at them very calmly and asked, "Do you seriously believe there's anywhere to run to?"

"Kuh…!"

Just like Kang-Woo said, they were surrounded by Lizardmen. There was no escape route.

Ho-Jun grabbed his shortsword and shouted angrily, "Do you think you'll be safe after doing something like this?! Huh? Are you trying to die with us or what?!"

"Die with you? What are you talking about? You're the only ones who are going to die," Kang-Woo replied.

"Ha! Do you seriously think you can handle that many monsters by yourself?" Ho-Jun shouted with a sneer.

Close to a hundred Lizardmen were coming their way. Even Ho-Jun's party, who got paid to carry newbie Players, considered this a life-threatening situation. There was no way that a Player who had just achieved his Second Awakening would be able to survive a monster wave like this.

"You asked me if I knew that Lizardmen were sensitive to sound, right?" Kang-Woo asked Ho-Jun with a smirk.

Ho-Jun flinched in terror after seeing Kang-Woo's chilling smile.

"I knew," Kang-Woo said.

Then he used the Authority of Silence and kicked around in the swamp, making the water slosh around. However, the sloshing wasn't making any noise.

After watching that, Ho-Jun began trembling. "You… Don't tell me…"

'He has a Trait that lets him control sound.'

Judging by the loud noise Kang-Woo had made before and the fact that he could completely mute the sound he made, it wasn't hard for Ho-Jun to guess the nature of Kang-Woo's Trait.

"Kiieekk!!"

"Damn it!" Ho-Jun looked anxiously at the group of Lizardmen that were getting closer.

He shouted toward his party members, "Do any of you see an escape route?"

"There's none! We're completely surrounded by Lizardmen!"

Even their faintest shred of hope was gone. Ho-Jun's expression became filled with despair.

Meanwhile, Kang-Woo leaned his back against a tree and watched Ho-Jun with a relaxed expression.

'Perfect timing.'

The party approached Kang-Woo right when he was considering whether he should try horde-hunting.

'I felt a bit uncomfortable doing it by myself.'

The smile on Kang-Woo's face widened.

Even for Kang-Woo, it would be hard to fight against a hundred Lizardmen simultaneously at his current level. He thought of using the Authority of Silence to sneak up on the Lizardmen, attack them, and then back off. However, there was one problem with that. The Lizardmen had bad eyesight, but they weren't blind.

Nevertheless, the appearance of such good bait, Ho-Jun's party, changed things. They would clearly attract more attention than the silent Kang-Woo, so Kang-Woo just had to remain silent as he watched them fight against the Lizardmen.

'Since they carry people for money, I guess they'll be able to resist at least a bit.'

The best part was that they weren't a party of low-level Players; they were a party that earned money by helping people level up. Kang-Woo wasn't sure why they were doing such a thing, but he was sure that they would at least be able to resist a bit longer than a normal party.

He had a smile on his face as he watched the party panic.

'Nothing better than pitting your enemies against each other.'

Kang-Woo didn't need to put his life at risk or fight with everything he had. He just had to keep silently reducing the number of Lizardmen while they were fighting. Then once the Lizardmen were tired from the prolonged battle, he could easily wipe them out.

Furthermore, he could avoid meaningless conflict with Ho-Jun's party, which was like killing two birds with one stone.

"What's wrong? If you don't get into a defensive formation, you'll die without even being able to put up a fight," Kang-Woo said teasingly.

Ho-Jun's party was so panicked that they couldn't even get ready to fight.

'I can't reap the benefits if you don't put up a good enough fight.'?

Kang-Woo's thoughts would probably make Ho-Jun faint.

Meanwhile, Kang-Woo hid himself as best he could among the vines to avoid being seen by the Lizardmen, who had bad eyesight.

"D-Don't tell me he—!" Ho-Jun muttered. He noticed Kang-Woo had gone into hiding. From that, he guessed what Kang-Woo was trying to do and exclaimed in a fit of rage, "You demon!!!"

'I'm a demon, indeed.'?

Kang-Woo smirked at Ho-Jun's scream.

Although Kang-Woo looked like a human, he was, in reality, closer to a demon. After all, there was no way a person could live for more than ten millennia without losing their sanity if they weren't a demon.

"If you have time to say stuff like that, use it to get into formation. Do you really want to die without even putting up a fight?" Kang-Woo said.

"Arrrggghhh!" Ho-Jun raised his shortsword and ran toward Kang-Woo in rage.

'Even if I die, I'll at least take you with me!'

Ho-Jun thought.

Judging by what he'd seen until now, Kang-Woo's Trait was something related to sound. So, there was a chance he wasn't good in practical combat.

Ho-Jun leaped toward Kang-Woo with rage infused in his shortsword.

"Kiieekk!"

"Ugh!"

"H-Ho-Jun! Watch out!"

Yet, what blocked his path wasn't Kang-Woo but a group of Lizardmen. Because of his scream, they'd chosen him as their first target. Thanks to the group of Lizardmen leaping toward him from all sides, Ho-Jun couldn't rush over to Kang-Woo anymore.

"All right, struggle as best you can," Kang-Woo said with a laugh.

Ho-Jun couldn't hear what Kang-Woo said because he was using the Authority of Silence, but Ho-Jun could guess what Kang-Woo had said just by looking at his expression.

"AARRGGHH!! YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!"'

"Ho-Jun! D-Don't scream!"

The Lizardmen attacked Ho-Jun with their spears. Even though he was raging, he somehow managed to just barely block their attacks with his shortsword.

"D-Defensive formation! We have to get into a defensive formation!" Seo Ye-Ri urgently shouted to the other party members.

Since the party leader had lost his mind, someone else had to take charge.

Still with pale expressions on their faces, the other party members listened to Ye-Ri's orders and got into a defensive formation.

Boom! Crack!

"Kiieekk!!!"

"Kurgh! Th-There are too many of them!"

"Hold on as best you can!" the man wielding a shield shouted with a desperate expression.

It was hard to keep himself together with so many spear attacks coming from all directions. Although they had previously hunted groups of ten to twenty Lizardmen, facing a hundred of them was a new situation.

Crack!

"We won't have to face a hundred of them all at once! They'll come in waves! Focus on protecting Ye-Ri!" Ho-Jun yelled.

Ho-Jun had joined the formation after being brought back to his senses somewhat by the other party members' screams.

.

With the protection of her party members, Ye-Ri cast some magic, "Fire Shock!"

She activated her fire-type Trait skill. Fire shot out of her staff and rained down on the Lizardmen.

Fwoosh!

"Kiieekk!"

The Lizardmen, who were weak to fire, started to scream as they were burned.

"Wow." Kang-Woo looked at the party members with interest.

'They're better than expected.'

There was a reason why they carried newbies. Even while being surrounded by a hundred Lizardmen, they were still able to put up quite a good resistance. Ye-Ri, especially, was doing a great job as she stood in the middle.

Crack!

"Hold on for as long as you can while breaking through the encirclement!"

"Th-There are too many of them!"

Despite doing a good job, the party members looked desperate. They knew that once their stamina was depleted, they wouldn't be able to fight back anymore. Nevertheless, Ho-Jun's party did its best to break through the Lizardmen's encirclement.

'Nice.'?

Kang-Woo watched their battle with a smile on his face.

Thanks to the party being better than he'd thought, they would probably die along with the Lizardmen.

'I won't even need to lift a finger.'

Kang-Woo had been thinking about how he should deal with the Lizardmen in case Ho-Jun's party died too quickly, but now he could watch the battle a little bit more relaxedly.

He had no intention of helping them. He wasn't a benevolent person. No, he was a person who had grown up in an environment that hadn't let him be benevolent.

Evil had to be dealt with using an even greater evil, and bloodlust had to be dealt with using an even greater bloodlust. The moment Kang-Woo stopped following those rules, he would become the prey.

Initially, Kang-Woo had been worried that if the party died, the corpses could generate problems for him. However, it seemed like he didn't need to worry about that.

'The situation is different from the time I faced Han Tae-Hyun.'

If he had killed Tae-Hyun in that fight, there was a high chance that he would have gotten into trouble. Whereas, in the current situation, Kang-Woo wasn't killing Ho-Jun's party himself. The ones who were about to kill their party were the Lizardmen, and Players died at the hands of monsters all the time.

"

Cough! Pant, pant.

" Ho-Jun, covered in Lizardman blood, was breathing heavily.

There were too many Lizardmen, so it was impossible to break through their encirclement. However, the party had no way to deal with a hundred Lizardmen either.

"S-Save us! P-Please! Save us!!" Ho-Jun shouted to Kang-Woo fearfully.

Ho-Jun's party was so desperate that they had to grab onto anything they could.

While watching them fight desperately, Kang-Woo raised one hand. Then he showed Ho-Jun his middle finger.

"Ah…" a whimper filled with despair emerged from Ho-Jun's mouth.

There was a horrifying smile on Kang-Woo's face. Ho-Jun felt like he could see a certain form overlapping with the smiling Kang-Woo.

"Demon…" Ho-Jun muttered.

It was a demon with black bat wings, two horns, and a long tail. Kang-Woo was definitely a human being, yet Ho-Jun saw the figure of a demon around him.

Crush!

Right when Ho-Jun was standing still out of shock, the spear of a Lizardman pierced his chest.