Chapter 12

Chapter 12. The Mirror That Reflects Despair

***

I lowered my gaze.

I focused my consciousness on the soles of my feet.

The contraction and relaxation of my muscles, and through those minute gaps, I pushed Aura in.

Creeeak—

The sensation of the ground being pressed down like modeling clay.

The moment the condensed power passed its critical point.

BANG—!

My body cut through the air like a released spring.

A rupture loud enough to tear my eardrums.

It felt different from the Teleport I had used as easily as eating in my previous life.

The air screamed as it wrapped around my body.

This was not simple running.

It was closer to low-altitude flight, launching off the ground.

'Fast.'

Trees streamed behind me like sheets of rain.

A speed at which the scenery blurred.

Even so, my vision was clear.

My dynamic vision was perfectly keeping up with my body's speed.

The vibration reaching my knees and waist was faint.

At level 1, the recoil had felt as if my bones would shatter, but now it was nothing more than a pleasant resonance.

A level 10 body, and the correction from Rare-grade artifacts.

Like well-oiled gears, everything meshed and turned perfectly.

'This is enough.'

A faint smile spread across my lips.

The standard method for clearing a Gate.

It was time to show them what that meant.

BOOM! BOOM!

Dull explosions went off in succession up ahead.

The smell of gunpowder and acrid smoke filled the forest.

Without slowing down, I leaped.

I kicked a tree trunk with a foot infused with Aura.

Like a nimble rogue, I climbed up into the trees and secured my field of view.

The situation below was chaos.

'The trap zone.'

Crude pits and tripwires that goblins would use had been laid out everywhere.

But their power was not crude.

Mana-reactive mines.

Step on one, and your ankle gets blown off.

'They fell for that.'

A few of the advance group who had run ahead were floundering in pits.

The tuition that hot-tempered bastards had to pay.

Using tree branches as stepping stones, I crossed over the trap zone.

Crawling along the ground was for amateurs.

The real path was overhead.

KABOOOM—!

A huge explosion rang out from the forest to the left.

It was not a simple mine. It was a chain explosion.

I turned my head and saw something hard to believe.

"Just trust me and follow! You'll get hurt if you stop!"

A green tracksuit.

It was Lee Seong-chan.

With the two shields in both hands held out like a bulldozer's blade, he was breaking straight through the trap zone from the front.

BANG! BOOM!

Fragments flew and flames surged, but he did not stop.

A blue hexagonal energy membrane had formed over the surface of his shields.

'Holy Shield?'

A unique skill of the paladin line.

It was a technique that coated a shield in Aura to maximize its defensive area and durability.

Normally, it was used while standing still to defend.

Its stamina consumption was brutal.

But that man was sprinting at full speed while keeping it constantly active.

'That is insane.'

His body was obviously not going to hold up, but the effect was certain.

Thanks to him carving out a path, the Hunters of Group C following behind were passing through the trap zone without so much as a hair on them being harmed.

"Ugh! Hraaaah!"

Lee Seong-chan's face flushed bright red.

It was less a technique than a brute-force breakthrough pushed through with physicality.

But that sort of brute force sometimes became the correct answer.

The spirit of sacrifice to gladly become a bulldozer for his comrades.

'Interesting man.'

I overtook them as I leaped between the trees.

Lee Seong-chan's method was novel, but it was not my way.

***

Had I run for around ten minutes?

At the point where the trap zone ended, the air of the forest changed.

The fishy smell of metal. And the sticky smell of fear.

"Aaaah!"

"Get back! I said get back!"

"What is that? What the hell is that?!"

"Don’t push me! I’m going to fall!"

Desperate screams stabbed my eardrums.

These were not sounds made by simple shock.

They were the voices of people who had seen death walking toward them.

THUD... THUD...!

The ground shook.

Something enormous was walking toward them.

I stopped on a tree branch and looked down below.

A clearing where the forest ended.

The survivors of Groups A and B, who had arrived first, had gathered together and were backing away.

The place where their gazes were fixed.

From within the forest's shadow, an overwhelming white form was walking out.

SHIIING—

It was blinding.

Even under the cloudy sky, its body was absorbing and reflecting all the light around it.

It was like a cliff made of mirrors had begun to move.

Five meters tall.

Smooth, streamlined armor.

An unknown metal body perfectly processed without a single seam.

Each time it took a step, the ground caved in.

"...Damn."

A hollow laugh slipped out on its own.

It was the very bastard that had raised the infamy of the Hunter exam in my previous life.

The "Newbie Cutter" said to annihilate D-grade, no, even C-grade Hunter parties.

'Mirror Golem.'

To release that kind of monster on chicks who had just Awakened.

It made me wonder if they had any intention of selecting Hunters in this exam at all.

An artificial life-form equivalent to the 3rd Circle.

An artificial weapon that could only be made through the collaboration of at least a 4th Circle alchemist and summoner.

That was the Mirror Golem.

Its trait was clear.

Just as the name said, "mirror."

Without knowing the strategy, it could never be defeated.

The problem was that the bastards down there did not even know its name.

"No, fuck! What the hell are you all doing?!"

The yellow-haired mage who had picked a fight with Lee Seong-chan earlier shouted.

Bravado to overcome fear.

A 2nd Circle spell, [Fire Ball], flew from his hand.

'He is dead.'

I clicked my tongue.

The Fire Ball struck the golem's chest.

No, it looked as if it had struck.

Sssss.

There was no explosion.

The moment the Fire Ball touched it, the golem's surface rippled like water.

The flame did not burst.

It was sucked straight in.

As if it had been swallowed into a mirror.

Soon, the golem's white armor began to glow red-hot.

It looked as though the heat it had just swallowed was slowly being circulated inside.

"Uh......?"

The yellow-haired mage stared blankly, mouth agape.

"Why is the magic...... Why is it doing that?"

A short gap born from confusion.

In that moment, a warrior carrying a greatsword charged forward.

"Move!"

He shouted through clenched teeth.

"If magic does not work, we just smash it with physical attacks!"

The warrior kicked off the ground and leaped.

The greatsword gripped in both hands rose high above his head.

And then he brought it down toward the golem's shoulder.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

SHAAANG—!

It was like a flashbang had gone off.

A tearing light burst from the golem's surface.

[Flash], which converted absorbed mana into light energy and released it.

"Aaaagh! My eyes!"

The warrior screamed and clutched at his eyes.

A body exposed helplessly in midair with its sight gone.

The golem's massive arm struck him like a fly swatter.

THWACK!

A dull impact.

The warrior's body flew like a scrap of paper and slammed into a tree as thick as a man's arms could reach around.

I could hear the sound of his spine bending from here.

He had probably avoided instant death, but whether he would be able to overcome the trauma was another question.

In an instant, everything became pandemonium.

The formation collapsed.

The terrified Hunters turned their backs and began running away.

But the golem had no mercy.

The armor on its chest clunked open.

Condensed red mana whirled inside.

The energy of the Fire Ball it had absorbed earlier.

A counterattack that amplified it and returned it.

"Grooooo—"

Along with a mechanical roar.

KABOOOM—!

A red stream of fire sprayed out in a fan shape.

Over the backs of the fleeing Hunters, hot light swept down all at once.

"Ah, hot! I'm on fire!"

"Save me! Is anyone there?!"

The screams quickly tangled together.

It was impossible to tell who was calling whom.

Another person tripped over someone who had fallen, and the flames did not miss that opening.

Fire, light.

And a collapsing defensive line.

Groups A and B were annihilated just like that.

In only three minutes.

***

Acrid smoke hung thick in the air.

The smell of burning flesh and the stench of blood vibrated through the area.

FWOOOSH—

Red signal flares shot into the sky.

Ten, no, more than twenty of them.

Declarations of withdrawal.

The drones standing by buzzed in and filmed the scene, and the rescue personnel hiding in the forest rushed out and carried the injured away.

I looked down at the sight coldly from atop the tree.

This was reality.

Inside a Gate, no one saves you.

Dying because of your own ignorance and arrogance.

That is the end of a Hunter.

Since they had experienced it in an exam site by luck, they had at least saved their lives.

THUD— THUD—

The Mirror Golem stopped in place as if it had finished its job.

A white giant standing silent with its head lowered.

It gave off an even more grotesque atmosphere than when it had been moving.

'Shall I step in now?'

Just as I was drawing up Aura and preparing to land.

Rustle.

I heard a presence from the forest behind me.

Ragged breathing. And heavy footsteps.

"Hoo...... Huh?...... Mr. Kim Do-jin!"

Again, it was Lee Seong-chan.

He pushed through the forest with his shields slung over him.

His whole body was covered in dirt and soot, but his eyes were still alive.

Behind him, a few surviving members of Group C followed, staggering.

"You are already here! As expected, you are incredible."

Lee Seong-chan gasped for breath and raised his thumb.

He had broken through that ridiculous trap zone and led his team here without a single dropout.

He was not just a muscle pig.

"Mr. Do-jin, what is the situation? Could you share it with us?"

Lee Seong-chan asked as he looked toward the clearing.

I gestured at the horrific scene.

"Annihilated. By that one thing."

"Whoa...... That is."

Lee Seong-chan's expression hardened.

He looked back and forth between the fallen Hunters and the Mirror Golem standing tall among them.

Then he stroked his chin and sank into thought.

"It is a golem type. But it probably is not an ordinary one."

At that moment, one of the mages who had followed him stepped forward with her staff in hand.

"Golems are weak to magic. I will draw its aggro."

The exact same action as the yellow-haired mage from a moment ago.

Was she incapable of learning even after seeing the scene?

I tried to stop her, but Lee Seong-chan was faster.

He grabbed the mage's shoulder tightly.

"Wait. Stop."

"What? Why? Its cooldown should be the opening right now......"

"Look. The scorch marks on the ground. And that thing's surface."

Lee Seong-chan pointed at the golem with his shield.

"The surface is smooth. It might reflect magic. Considering the explosion from earlier as well, if we use magic carelessly, we are at high risk of being counterattacked. There is no way they would release a simple golem in the exam site."

An accurate analysis.

He had sensed the danger by instinct.

He lacked flashy knowledge, but his survival instinct had been honed sharply.

'Good call.'

I nodded inwardly.

Most rookie Hunters obsess over textbook affinities.

Fire is weak to water, golems are weak to magic; that sort of one-dimensional thinking.

But real combat is full of variables.

The caution to tap even a stone bridge before crossing it.

That is the quality of a Hunter who survives.

"Then what do we do? Just from looking at it, blunt-force attacks do not seem like they will work either......"

The other Hunters murmured anxiously.

Their gazes naturally turned toward Lee Seong-chan.

Lee Seong-chan bit his lip, as if he did not have an answer either.

It was understandable.

At this point in time, the strategy for the Mirror Golem had not yet been discovered, as it was a new monster species.

"What should we do?"

The female mage holding the staff was biting her nails.

Time was being delayed.

At this rate, our group would also end in a time-out or annihilation.

Since I had to pass the exam, it was time to choose.

'Should I just do it?'

It would be nothing for me to step in personally and sweep it away.

Ten seconds would be enough.

But I hesitated.

Lee Seong-chan's judgment was not bad.

A mentality that did not collapse even in a crisis, and a sense of responsibility that looked after his comrades.

Sprouts like that were rare.

In my previous life, humanity had not lost because Blade was weak.

It was because there were far too few comrades we could trust with our backs, far too little fighting strength that could stand alongside us.

On top of that, this was a world without Sword Saint Kang Tae-yoon.

The war against the Evil God Dragon would not be a battle fought alone.

Only if raw gemstones like him grew up and did their part would we have a chance of winning.

Then what I should do now was not play the bus driver, but act as a guide.

It was meddling as a senior, and an investment for the future.

With just a little direction, they would break out of their shells on their own.

They had not moved yet.

I adjusted my grip on my sword and stepped in front of them.

"That thing is a mirror."

At my voice, everyone's eyes focused on me.

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