Chapter 16: Is that really enough? (3)

Jeong HoJun's screams spread through the swamp along with the explosions.

He could hear the sound of lizardmen approaching after hearing the explosive claps.

'What a crazy guy!'

He had also lured in some lizardmen by making noise, but it was completely different from what KangWoo had done.

What he had done was like throwing firewood at a burning house, but what KangWoo had done was the equivalent of throwing a bottle of oil into it.

"R-run!"

Jeong HoJun shouted toward his party members.

The party members began looking for an escape route with pale faces.

KangWoo looked at them very calmly.

"Will you be able to escape?"

"Ugh...!"

Just like KangWoo had said, they were completely surrounded by lizardmen.

There wasn't an escape route.

Jeong HoJun grabbed the short sword and angrily shouted.

"Do you think you'll be safe after doing something like this?! Huh? Are you saying that we should all die together or what?!"

"Die together? What are you talking about? You're the only one who's going to die."

"Ha! Do you think you'll be able to handle such an amount of monsters?" Jeong HoJun shouted while sneering.

There were almost hundreds of lizardmen coming their way.

Even his party that lived from doing bus parties had to risk their lives to get a chance to survive.

There was no way that a player who had just achieved the 2nd awakening would be able to survive that monster wave.

"You asked me if I knew that the lizardmen were sensitive to noise, right?" KangWoo asked Jeong HoJun while smirking.

Jeong HoJun shrugged after seeing his chilling smile.

"I knew that fact very well."

KangWoo used the Authority of Silence and rolled his feet.

Even though KangWoo was moving his feet in a swap, he wasn't making any noise. After looking at that, Jeong HoJun began trembling.

"You... don't tell me..."

'He has an attribute that lets him control sound.'

Judging by the loud noise he had made before and the fact that he could completely erase the sound he made, it wasn't hard to guess the nature of his attribute.

"Kiieekk!!"

"Damn it!"

Jeong HoJun looked anxiously at the group of lizardmen that were getting closer.

He shouted toward his party members.

"Isn't there any possible escape route?"

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

Even faint hope was trampled on. His expression became tinged with despair.

KangWoo leaned his back against a tree and looked at Jeong HoJun with a relaxed expression on his face.

'The timing was perfect.'

They'd approached him while KangWoo was thinking about if he should try horde hunting or not.

'It was a bit too much to do it by myself.'

The smile on KangWoo's face deepened.

Even for KangWoo, with his current level, it was hard to fight against hundreds of lizardmen at once.

He thought of using Authority of Silence to approach the lizardmen silently, attack them, and then back off, but there was one problem, their sight was bad, but they weren't blind.

But thanks to good bait like Jeong HoJun's party appearing, the story changed.

First, they were clearly going to attract more attention than the silent KangWoo, so he just had to silently watch them fight against the lizardmen.

'Since they're a bus party, 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 bus party that earned money by helping people level up.

He wasn't sure why they were operating a bus party, but he was sure that they would at least be able to resist a bit longer than a normal party.

KangWoo watched them panic with a smile on his face.

'This is the best possible situation.'

He 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. And then, once the lizardmen were tired of fighting continuously, he could easily wipe them out.

Not only that, but he could avoid meaningless conflict with Jeong HoJun's party, which was like killing two birds with one stone.

"What's wrong? If you don't form a defensive formation, you'll die without being able to offer resistance," KangWoo asked them as if he were trying to make fun of them.

'If you guys don't offer more resistance, I won't be able to keep a passive posture.'

While thinking of something that would probably make Jeong HoJun faint, KangWoo hid himself the best he could among the vines.

It was to avoid being seen by the lizardmen.

"D-don't tell me he...!"

After guessing his thoughts from his attitude, Jeong HoJun got so angry that he was struggling to speak. He shouted while stuttering.

"You demonlike asshole!!!"

'I'm a demon, indeed.'

KangWoo smirked at Jeong HoJun's scream.

Although he looked like a human, in reality, he was closer to being a demon.

After all, there was no way you could live for more than ten thousand years without losing your mind if you weren't a demon.

"Instead of saying things like that, get into formation. Do you really want to die without offering resistance?"

"AAAHHH!"

* * *

Jeong HoJun grabbed the short sword and ran toward KangWoo.

'Even if I die, I'll at least kill you!'

Judging by what he'd seen until then, KangWoo's attribute was something related to sound.

So there was a chance he wasn't good in real-life combat.

While placing his anger on his blade, he leaped toward KangWoo.

"Kiieekk!"

"Ugh!"

"B-be careful!"

What blocked his path wasn't KangWoo, 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, he couldn't rush to KangWoo anymore.

"Then do your best to resist," KangWoo said while laughing.

Although Jeong HoJun couldn't hear what KangWoo said because he was using the Authority of Silence, he could guess what he was saying just by looking at his expression.

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

"Mr. HoJun! D-don't scream!"

The lizardmen attacked HoJun with their lances.

Even though he was raging, he was able to block their attacks with his short sword.

"D-defensive formation! We must get into a defensive formation!"

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

Seo YeRi shouted to the other party members.

With pale expressions on their faces, they listened to her orders and got into a defensive formation.

Boom-! Crack-!

"Kiieekk!!!"

"Ugh! There's just too many of them!"

"Resist!"

The man wielding the shield shouted with a desperate expression on his face.

It was hard to keep himself together with so many spear attacks coming from all directions.

Even a bus party that hunted groups of 10 ~ 20 lizardmen wasn't used to facing hundreds of them.

Crack-!

"The amount of enemies we can face at once is limited! So, everyone, focus on protecting YeRi!"

At the other party members' screams, Jeong HoJun had somewhat managed to return to his senses, joined the formation, and shouted.

While receiving the protection of the party members, Seo YeRi cast magic.

"Fire Shock!"

She activated her fire-type attribute.

Fire flew out of her wand toward the lizardmen.

Fwoosh-!

"Kiieekk!"

The lizardmen, who were weak to fire, started to scream while being burned.

"Woah."

KangWoo looked at the party members with interest.

'They're better than expected.'

There was a reason why they ran a bus party. Even while being surrounded by hundreds of lizardmen, they were able to offer quite a good resistance.

Especially Seo YeRi, who was in the middle, was doing a great job.

Crack-!

"Hold on for as long as you can and break through the circle!"

"Th-there's just too many!"

Although they were doing a good job, they looked desperate.

It was because they knew that once their stamina plummeted, they wouldn't be able to resist anymore.

Jeong HoJun's party did its best to break through the formation of lizardmen.

'Nice.'

KangWoo looked at them fight with a smile on his face.

Thanks to them being better than he thought, they would probably die along with the lizardmen.

'I don't need to do anything.'

KangWoo had been thinking about how he should deal with the lizardmen in case they died too quickly, but now he could watch the battle a little bit more relaxedly.

He had no intentions of helping them.

He wasn't someone benevolent. No, to be more precise, he was a human that grew up in an environment that didn't let him be benevolent.

You had to deal with malice with even greater malice.

You had to deal with a killing intent with even greater killing intent.

The moment he didn't follow those rules, he would probably become food for others.

He was worried that if they died, the corpses could generate problems for him, but it seemed like he wouldn't need to be worried about that.

'The situation is different from the time I faced Han TaeHyun.'

In the case of the fight with Han TaeHyun, if he killed him, there was a high chance that he would get into trouble.

But right now, it wasn't him who was about to kill Jeong HoJun's party.

The ones that were about to kill their party were the lizardmen.

Players dying at the hands of monsters wasn't something new.

"Coff! Oof, oof."

Jeong HoJun, covered in lizardmen's blood, breathed heavily.

Because there were too many lizardmen, it was impossible to break through them.

But they also had no way to deal with hundreds of lizardmen.

"S-save us! P-please! Save us!!"

Jeong HoJun, scared, shouted to KangWoo. They were so desperate that they had to grab onto everything they could.

While looking at them fighting desperately, KangWoo raised one hand.

Then he showed Jeong HoJun his middle finger.

"Ah..."

A sigh filled with despair came out of Jeong HoJun's mouth.

The smile on his face felt really scary.

A certain shape overlapped with the smiling KangWoo.

"Demon..."

A demon with ragged wings, two horns, and a long tail.

Although KangWoo was definitely a human being, he saw the figure of a demon overlapping him.

Smash-!

The spear of a lizardman pierced Jeong HoJun's chest, who had been standing still.