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Chapter 22: Phantomvein (2)

With a single slash, the low level-ectoplasm had dissolved into fumes similar to a snail that had touched some salt.

—fff!—

The volume of the ectoplasm decreased, but it didn’t die. Zin looked at the dark sword in his hand with a bitter smile.

“You must have aged just like me.”

The Phantomvein used to slay great ghosts into a pile of ash had aged with the hunter. Zin realized that his power had diminished with time since the sword was unable to finish off the low-level ectoplasm with a single slash.

The sword that once fed on devil’s blood might have forgotten the taste of the devil’s blood. And therefore it might have lost its power to slay the evil spirits.

“Kyaaaah!”

Once more, the ectoplasm rushed towards Zin, who then raised the Phantomvein in his right hand. Zin was old, and his charm was getting old as well.

Zin was an old hunter who was prolonging his life by raking in chips.

Phantomvein was just an old charm that had lost its spirit slaying power. Zin was a powerless old tiger with fangs. However…

—thunk!—

“Kyaaarrrrg!”

A tiger that was old and weak still had its claws.

—thud!—

“Krrrrrraah!”

The old tiger did not lament the loss of its fangs but fought back with its remaining claws.

—thunk!—

If there were no fangs to instantly finish off the enemy, the claws were there to rip them apart.

—wham! wham! wham!—

Zin swung at the charging ectoplasm with his Phantomvein repeatedly. He continued to charge and attack when it retreated from the pain.

A hunter only needed to kill the enemy at all cost.

“Phew…”

—pfffffff!—

The ectoplasm emitted white smoke and soon turned into a pile of ash.

Once a warrior, always a warrior.

An old tiger was still a tiger, and an old sword was still sharp.

Especially for Zin who continuously hunted down monsters—he would not lose out to a low-level ghost.

After finishing off the ghost, Zin put back the Phantomvein into his bag, and he extracted chips from the pile of ash.

“Is it over?”

“Yes.”

Leona felt shaken up when she saw that the vaporized ectoplasm had crystallized into a blue chip. And Charl was shaken up as well. They clearly remembered how Zin had swung that sword like a demon.

“How in the world…”

It was unbelievable for Zin to take down a ghost with a sword.

“Ghosts aren’t hard to fight against as long as you have a plan of attack.”

It would be a problem to fight against an enemy without knowing its weaknesses. Exploiting one’s weakness would make the fighting much easier. The ghost’s greatest weapon was the terror it invoked, and terror caused the people to lose the will to fight. There was no reason to fear as long as one had the will to fight.

However, this fact only applied to Zin.

Most people would start panicking as soon as they realized that guns or weapons couldn’t inflict any damage. Ghost-type monsters rarely appeared to the point where a whole fortress would instantly be on red alert if a ghost appeared. And fighting it off was not easy as well. All the firearms in the fortress would be rendered useless, and specially trained forces would have to arm themselves with special weapons to fend off the ghost-type monsters.

The fact that a monster was immune to physical attacks meant that any physical defense was useless. Therefore Charl could not believe that a single flute and sword was all that was needed to finish off the ectoplasm.

And more than anything, he was amazed at Zin’s calmness.

“Why were you panicking? Even without a charm, if you knew a little about magic, you could fend off the ghosts.”

“Magic, how can someone fight against a ghost with that nonsense…”

Charl started talking and stopped when he remembered Zin ripping apart the ectoplasm with the sword. Zin finished up the extraction, looked at Charl and said:

“It’s impolite to judge areas that you’re not familiar with.”

“… Excuse me.”

“It’s rare for one to use magic that’s effective. Most magicians are engaged in meaningless ceremonies.”

“So what are you telling me?”

As Zin taunted Charl, Charl replied with frustration.

“I just wanted to tell you that there can be the real deal among the many fakes.”

“Pft…”

After Zin extracted chips from the ectoplasm, he grabbed the shovel.

“If the vagabonds are already moving in, we can’t stay here for too long.”

Zin murmured and started digging. Leona was still shocked to have encountered a ghost for the first time.

“Ugh, so scary.”

Still trembling from the experience, Leona moved next to Zin and sat down. She had a strong belief that the seat next to Zin was the world’s safest place.

“Leona, I’m more scared to hear you say that you were scared to see a ghost.”

Charl slowly walked towards Zin and talked to her. Charl’s laser pistol was a superior weapons than Zin’s firearms.

“Why?”

“Some of the soldiers pass out when they encounter ghosts.”

“The soldiers pass out?”

“Yeah… a bit embarrassing, but whatever.”

Charl grew embarrassed, paused talking, and then smiled. Leona looked at Charl weirdly but smiled shortly after.

“Soldiers are scared of ghosts? They’re not kids, you know.”

Leona clicked her tongue and thought it was pathetic. Charl wanted to refute this, but he didn’t since he wished that the Wargrave soldiers could be as calm as Leona.

It was Zin who actually objected.

“You’re the weird one here.”

“What? I’m the weirdo?”

“The presence of ghosts causes people to panic. It affects people’s minds. People who aren’t used to seeing ghosts start losing it..”

“Panic?”

“Yes, they start shooting at one’s own comrades, start running away, charging towards the ghost, or blanking out.”

“What? They start shooting at their own comrade? Isn’t that crazy?”

The fear of the ghost was not in its force, but in the panic and chaos. Without doing anything, ghosts could break down a group of armed soldiers by causing them to panic.

Charl answered Leona:

“Ghosts make people go insane.”

“Well, that’s stupid…”

Zin did not feel terror because he was used to ghosts, and Charl had felt shocked and lost his composure when the laser pistol had turned out ineffective. And although Leona shouted out ‘ghost!’, she didn’t panic at all.

Charl knew about the power of ghosts, and slowly nodded his head.

“I’m pretty sure your nerves are made of steel.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“In a way, yes.”

Leona smiled, and Zin continued to dig.

Charl realized that traveling through the wilderness wasn’t easy. Charl felt nervous when he realized that his weapons weren’t effective against the monsters in the Ancient-Korea region.

However, Leona who had nothing to prove looked at Zin without any fear. And her fearlessness did not come from the belief that Zin would protect her. Charl felt that Leona wouldn’t be afraid even if she were left alone. And he also knew that not all everyone in the wilderness was like Leona.

Most of the people were afraid and avoided the Wargrave soldiers if they spotted them from far away.

And Reavers usually avoided Wargraves as well unless they were extremely crazy.

However, Leona had displayed no fear when she first met Charl. She was curious and cautious about seeing a stranger.

As Zin dug out the steel box, the sun set and it became dark at Ard Point. Charl looked at the warheads stored in the box and nodded his head.

“Although not all of them are in the box, these are the stolen weapons for sure. They must have used them.”

Charl checked the remaining weapons and nodded his head.

“Thanks, hunter… I know you were probably going to save the weapons for yourself, but that’s okay.”

Although Zin stole the weapons that the Reavers stole from the Wargrave, it wasn’t unusual for Charl to pay the reward. The Wargrave may be a cruel group, but they honored contracts pretty well.

“I will not take back the warheads that you might have in your possession. Think of it as a bonus for the request. I can let those go.”

Charl didn’t know how many Zin took, but since he retrieved quite a large amount of warheads, he did not ask Zin to return them.

“I had no intentions of returning them, but I will gladly keep them like you said.”

“Just curious, do you talk in that cocky matter on purpose?”

“You can think of it as an old man acting cute.”

Zin laughed it off with a serious look, and Charl sighed.

“Hah… Well, I will let you keep the heat-pressure warheads, but I need you to understand that this conversation needs to remain a secret. If a problem arises because of the warheads, nothing good will happen to you or me.”

“I will keep it as a secret.”

Charl handed Zin the promised 1,500 chips, plus the 100 chips for the battle that happened because of his carelessness. Zin divided the 1,500 chips with Leona as per their agreement. But Leona shook her head.

“You hold on to it, mister. I don’t want to carry around chips without a chipbox.”

“… are you sure about that?”

“Promise me that you’ll give them to me later.”

“I will.”

The portion due to Leona was a lot of chips for her to carry around. Leona didn’t feel suspicious about Zin keeping all the chips, and Zin felt uncomfortable with Leona’s behavior. Regardless of his uneasy feeling, Zin stored the chips inside his chipbox.

Without looking at her chips getting poured into the chipbox, Leona looked at Charl and asked:

“So, I heard that you’re a private soldier?”

“Private… I am a lieutenant… Hmm, hmm! Yeah. I’m pretty much treated like a private.”

Charl scratched his head in woe.

“The Wargrave must be a rich group! How can a private carry around that many chips?”

Zin answered her question.

“The Wargrave is an organization that has the most chips in hand. Nothing new about it.”

“Hahah…”

Charl laughed awkwardly, and Zin stared at Charl as he added:

“Of course, they seem to be effectively using that many chips. And I’m fine as long as I get my portion of chips.”

Charl was slightly surprised at Zin’s words, but Zin seemed to believe that everything was cool as long as he got the exact reward promised. The request was complete, and everyone was free to go their own separate ways.

“Now, what are your plans? If you’re heading north towards Shera, I’m willing to go with you.”

For Zin, there was no harm in tagging along with a Wargrave officer as an ally, and he had food with him.

“I need to stop by the SMCP (Seoul Mass Confusion Point) fortress, so I’m heading in the same direction. If a hunter goes with me, that’s cool. And, of course, there’s no reward for tagging along.”

“Ah. What a pity.”

Zin spoke like it was a pity, but he didn’t look like it at all.

Charl recorded the coordinates and buried the steel box. Charl was planning to send out a transportation unit as soon as he arrived at the SMCP to retrieve the warheads.

“Hah… so now we go back…”

Leona felt pissed that she now had to walk back to Shera.

“You’ve only traveled the same path twice, but it’s the sixth time for me.”

“…”

“So stop complaining.”

Zin has been the first one to come to Ard Point, left Ard Point after completing the initial request for the second time, came back for the third time, left for the fourth time with Leona, came back from Shera for the fifth time, and now he was ready to leave for the sixth time.

Zin was also not excited to be going back to Ard Point. Leona kept on pouting and complaining to Zin.

“Well… I’m expressing my frustration over things that frustrate me. Can’t I even express myself?”

“You have a knack for annoying other people, so you’re better off staying quiet.”

“You’re no different in that sense, mister. Aren’t you exactly like me?”

At Leona’s words, Zin smiled and answered:

“I think you told me before that people hate others who resemble them.”

“… Ah, ah. I hate you…”

Unlike Leona, Zin annoyed other people with his calm voice, and it was pretty effective.

And Zin was a little better than Leona at it.