Chapter 377

An island had formed at such an absurd altitude that it was almost impossible to make it out from below. And as if that were not troublesome enough, a monster threatening all of humanity was lurking inside it.

If someone volunteered to deal with a problem like that, even a primitive species ought to be grateful.

Hmm.

Perhaps that was why, belated though it was, I found myself receiving the Earthlings’ full support.

A few hours later.

An international organization had provided a ship and all the equipment needed to approach the island, free of charge.

A sea voyage!

Now this is nice.

Using the ship I had borrowed through the international organization’s influence, I made my way comfortably out to sea.

It was duller in color than the cruise ships I had seen on television, but the experience of being aboard was pleasant enough.

Still, I never expected them to help me with this too.

“A helicopter?”

“Yes!”

The Earthlings—whose nationality I did not even know—had even brought along specialists such as paratroopers.

So their plan was to airlift me, a Hunter, to high altitude by helicopter... and then have me descend onto the island by rope?

I spoke to the human standing before me.

“There’s no need for that. Please tell the helicopter on standby to stand down.”

Unfortunately, I had intended from the very beginning to bring the island down in the exact opposite direction.

“W-What did you say?”

“Pull the helicopter back?”

“Do you have some kind of flight skill? No, even Awakeners normally can’t fly that high.”

Come to think of it, when we spoke over the video call, I had only told them that the operation would take place near the water, hadn’t I?

While the aliens murmured among themselves, I calmly gathered my thoughts.

I could already sense the monster’s mana.

And the island was still far away.

Somehow, the atmosphere around me had turned into a demonstration stage for an archmage’s magic.

By the way, could everyone please just keep quiet?

For reference, as I mentioned earlier, there were spectators of various nationalities aboard this ship.

A Korean politician with a title so long it was difficult to say in one breath.

An observer from an international organization.

And someone who had recently been accompanying me often enough to almost qualify as a teammate.

Jung Haseong.

I had wanted to stop that guy from tagging along because I knew he would be troublesome.

The troublesome island was slowly entering my effective range.

I decided to conserve as much power as possible and prepared my spell at the slowest pace I could manage.

Then, for just a moment, I turned my head.

One of Earth’s dominant species standing within my field of vision spoke.

“Hunter Kim.”

Black hair.

Black eyes.

Those were Jung Haseong’s defining features.

He had taken time out of his own schedule to accompany me while I dealt with this situation.

He said he had come because he wanted to help...

I decided not to say anything unnecessary to someone acting out of goodwill and remained silent for the time being.

“Even if you can do it, Hunter, I have no way of reaching that structure myself. Should we really withdraw the helicopters completely?”

“Yeah.”

But since the conversation had already started, there was no harm in talking for a bit.

“Come to think of it, I just realized something.”

“Yes?”

“This whole thing happened so suddenly that I never properly negotiated with those people. That’s the one thing I regret.”

Maybe that was why unnecessary things like helicopters had ended up being prepared.

“Yes?”

“This is basically an unpaid business trip, you know.”

“...Hmm.”

“If I had played several countries against one another and stalled for time, I could’ve made a fortune.”

Before striking the monster’s nest with magic, I calculated the optimal angle in my head to minimize the damage as much as possible.

Since there was still a little time left, I continued chatting until the island entered range.

Jung Haseong, who had been listening quietly, frowned slightly.

“Hunter, are you seriously worried about money in a situation like this?”

Right.

A national hero probably wouldn’t understand.

Someone in the position of a person with overdue taxes...

I came up with a few possible responses, filtered them carefully, and settled on this one.

“Then pay the forty billion yourself so I don’t have to worry about it.”

“Is it really forty billion?”

“I’m serious. I told you that from the very beginning.”

“I understand. Then I’ll put the amount together soon, so if you could wait a few days—”

“You mean while you sell items to raise it? Fine. If you don’t have the cash right now, that’ll do.”

What a depressing situation.

I had to clear out a nest floating high in the sky, in an extremely dangerous location, and I was doing it for free.

Even while chatting, I kept regretting that I had not been paid.

But what could I do?

The island in the sky was moving closer to Korea through Earth’s atmosphere with every passing second.

If the timing of its collapse went even slightly wrong, the fake island and Ulleungdo might collide.

And even if they did not, it would still crash straight into South Korean waters.

Just imagine the enormous waves such an impact would create.

And then imagine what those waves might do to my precious home...

No.

Absolutely not.

I don’t even have enough money to buy a new comforter right now.

That was when it happened.

Seeing me wearing such a serious, troubled expression, Jung Haseong seemed to misunderstand something.

For some reason, he suddenly spoke with a slightly uneasy look on his face.

“Hunter Kim, what about calling Mr. Kang Changho and having him handle the operation in your place?”

He only said that because he did not fully understand why an alien mage was here in the first place.

Come to think of it, Jung Haseong was the only one who had blindly followed along while knowing almost nothing.

So I quickly explained the situation to the mage beside me.

“Something terrible will happen if anyone goes into that dungeon.”

“Why?”

“Because the entire area will collapse the moment it’s conquered.”

“...”

The black-haired man finally reacted with surprise.

Water was always moving, rippling, shifting.

And compared to solid ground, it certainly looked safer.

But that did not mean it would not hurt if you slammed into it head-on.

From that height, even an S-rank Hunter could not simply fall and expect to be unharmed.

Jung Haseong seemed reluctant to send anyone else into such dangerous terrain, and soon fell silent in thought.

Meanwhile, I continued speaking in my usual tone.

“Of course, for a moment I did think that someone like Kang Changho could honestly just die.”

Even after making the joke, my face remained expressionless.

“But that won’t work. I settled some kind of account with that person, so for the time being, I can’t interfere with him.”

“Is that... so?”

“You can’t just break a promise whenever you feel like it.”

As we continued talking, the island finally came into view.

Far in the distance, an unnatural mass of rock hung in the clear sky, covering the horizon all the way down toward the water.

The sun blazing overhead made it difficult to see clearly.

“So...”

People with power were supposed to at least pretend to be fair.

That was the only way the world could keep turning more or less properly...

I let the sentence trail off.

“By the way, what were we talking about before we drifted onto this subject?”

At the same time, I quickly returned to the main point.

“Right. Anyway, I’m not going up to that island. I’m just going to bring it down upside down.”

“What did you say?”

“If I break it apart into small pieces with water pressure, starting from the outer edge, the impact should be reduced. Of course, the dust and debris afterward will still be a massive headache...”

There was no time left to hesitate.

The reason I had come all the way here without even stopping to calculate how much money I might squeeze out of this situation was simple.

The distance between the coastline crowded with Earthlings and the island was now only a few steps.

I immediately got to work to ensure that its imminent fall would not turn into a disaster.

BOOOOM!

FWAAAAASH!

“Ugh!”

“What? It’s already started?”

“Whoa, wait! How could that—”

Come to think of it, I really did not understand why everyone was making such a fuss.

I had dealt with fires in the middle of a city before.

Surely they could have expected at least this much.

“—How can your skill reach something that high?!”

For an Awakener capable of creating artificial rain, extending my influence that far was only natural.

But apparently no Awakener on Earth had ever done anything like it.

A planet where practitioners of magic were still at such an infantile stage.

Earth really was an interesting place.

The primitive mages aboard the massive ship were completely dumbfounded.

They stared at the phenomenon unfolding before them with their mouths hanging open.

BOOM, RUMBLE!

At an altitude so high that it was difficult even to keep my eyes fixed on it, I watched the unclaimed land of the Heavenly Palace shatter completely and begin to fall.

The rocky structure had looked solid enough that punching it would only hurt your hand.

And yet now it was being eaten away by soft water.

The reason was simple.

Speed.

Water was perfectly suited for covering something and pressing it down, but if a mage’s skill was high enough, it could also become something sharp.

It could smash.

It could cut.

In any case, high-pressure spraying was an extremely efficient technique.

Even a small amount of water could damage almost anything if used correctly.

FWAAAAASH.

The violent roar of the water reached us even from this distance.

Soon, one section of the exposed island began to tilt.

The outer edges of the floating island, which had been divided into roughly ten sections, burst apart into even smaller fragments as water erupted from within.

Those fragments were then ground down further still.

The alien structure kept changing shape without pause.

Success.

The monster’s fortress falling from the sky would no longer cause any harm to humanity.

Hmm.

Of course, if I included bodies that were only barely alive under the category of “human,” then perhaps that thought was not entirely accurate.

“So I still can’t erase terrain of that size freely...”

It would have been nice if I could have spent three or four days slowly breaking the island apart while recovering my mana in between.

But the alien structure was still relentlessly approaching the ground.

In other words, if I dragged this out for the sake of my own body, there was no telling what might happen to the world.

“I’m only helping this once.”

Just this once.

After all, it was rare for the Gisimche to overproduce something so uselessly.

I gathered every bit of mana I had left and struck the island’s main body in a single burst.

CHIIILK!

CHIIILK.

I heard some strange cries coming from somewhere.

It seemed even the dungeon beasts had died from that one strike.

Or perhaps I had simply mistaken the cry of some passing migratory bird.

Stupid birds.

The one who really wants to cry here is me.

With that, the island that had posed a threat was safely brought down.

So, in any case, the job was done.

To think I have to live my entire life with such pathetic durability.

Seriously, how am I supposed to wait around alone until the Earthlings evolve any further?

FWAAAAASH.

I cast another spell so the remaining sections of the island would collapse with a slight delay.

Even after pouring out all of my mana, I watched the streams of water continue to form on their own.

But I could not keep staring at the scene forever.

“You really do show up every single time, don’t you?”

Needless to say.

A few seconds later, blood spilled from my mouth.

Come to think of it, if you searched online, this world apparently used a unit called a “seom” in the past.

One seom.

Ten mal.

And then...

Whatever.

I had just vomited an amount that could hardly be compared to a few sacks of rice, straight into the sea from up here.

Naturally, the price for that came due soon afterward.

“I’m suffering this kind of backlash just from destroying an island smaller than Jeju Island.”

It could not be helped.

Changing terrain consumed an enormous amount of energy.

At this rate, would conquering Earth have to be done entirely through one-on-one combat?

Or would I simply have to endure everything and live quietly, no matter how irritated I became, until humanity evolved a little further...?

So that was why this world had legends about vampires.

Well.

There really was nothing more monstrous than surviving on blood that tasted this awful.

Various thoughts were running through my head around that time.

Fluid began spurting from the tube in my neck.

But I had expected it, so I was not surprised.

“Let’s spit it out here.”

I had placed a bucket nearby in advance, knowing this would happen.

“Ugh!”

“Kyaaa!”

“Holy crap, what is that?!”

Now all that remained was keeping everyone from panicking.

I had stayed quiet because warning them in advance that I was about to get hurt felt a little ridiculous.

But this mess was unfolding almost exactly as I had expected.

By the way, why does the great hero who saved humanity also have to worry about cleaning up afterward?

After vomiting into the metal bucket, I shifted my posture.

The pain had changed subtly because of [Body Modification].

It did not hurt much.

Still, my insides were unquestionably damaged, so I needed to rest.

But the moment I slumped down, a voice filled with unmistakable shock rang out.

“H-Hunter Kim Giryeo...?”

Yeah.

Actually, putting everything else aside, this guy is definitely the biggest problem.

A considerate but troublesome creature.

Jung Haseong, who had been acting like a spy up until now, went pale.

His expression changed completely.

He kept looking back and forth between the island that had been destroyed by water and the Awakener who had just performed the miracle, his breathing uneven.

I wondered what he would say.

And the first words out of his mouth were surprisingly memorable.

“Y-You fraud.”

That’s the first thing you say now?