Chapter 38: Two Against Nine

From the beginning, Raive had been tailing behind the zombie, keeping roughly three meters of distance between them. He was nearly invisible to the others for two reasons.

One was the zombie’s body blocking the view. As it drew everyone’s attention, nobody even thought to look for someone hiding behind it. The second was the darkness of the hallway, making it hard to see anyone besides the one right in front of them.

Raive had actually worried the cowboy’s attack might pierce the zombie and hit him too, but oddly, it didn’t. That, along with the fact the man hadn’t fired his skill a second time despite being scared...

From that, Raive worked out a fair number of details about the enemy’s skill.

Enough to give him the confidence to step forward.

’Only nine left.’ He thought.

His senses told him that, individually, all of them except the cowboy were roughly on par with Hazel.

Not because they had a skill as powerful as hers.

No.

Because their stats were simply much higher.

And going by stats alone, the cowboy probably had twice Raive’s. That much he could glean from his senses alone.

They were clearly at a disadvantage, fighting two against nine.

But was that enough to bring despair to Raive?

Definitely not.

After a signal from behind, Hazel pulled the trigger once more.

BANG! BANG!

And once more, two bodies fell to the ground, as if unable to believe what had just happened.

Right.

The earlier gunfire had been the same trick—Raive and Hazel firing together, making it look like it was all Raive’s doing! The timing of the shots, the angle, even the targets, all planned out beforehand!

"Y-You bastard!!!"

Having lost two more of their rank, the remaining seven finally snapped.

The first to move, to Raive’s surprise, was the cowboy boss himself. He raised his freshly reloaded revolver and pulled the trigger.

But by then, Raive had already positioned himself behind the zombie.

No, it wasn’t even a zombie.

It was just the corpse of their ally, puppeted from a distance by Hazel.

Even now, Raive wasn’t entirely sure what Hazel’s skill really was. Manipulating earth was apparently just one application of it.

But knowing she could pull off something like telekinesis was more than enough.

She, too, had noticed the boss was about to fire. Seeing that, she pushed the zombie forward at a faster pace than before—no longer bothering to make it "walk" at all, just gliding it forward like a wraith, its feet never touching the ground.

"Hiiik!"

Startled by the sudden rush, the boss lost focus on Raive and fired at the zombie instead. Another headshot, punching a second hole through its skull.

A fatal blow, even for a "zombie"—but even that didn’t stop it from moving.

Watching the thing barrel forward without slowing, the man’s face turned pale. He dropped all pretense and turned to run. However—

BANG!

A single gunshot echoed.

Pain erupted from the cowboy mid-flight.

"Don’t underestimate me. I finished my military service top of my class...!" Raive grinned, waving his pistol.

Fraught with pain and shock, the man looked down to find his left knee blown apart—hit from behind, kneecap shattered.

Even if he tried dragging the leg to keep escaping, the pain alone was enough to paralyze it completely!

"Don’t think you can just waltz into my place!"

"Fucker! I’ll kill you to appease those four souls!"

"How dare you... How dare you kill Jane?! You’re dead...!"

The enemy, of course, wasn’t about to just stand still.

Of the remaining six (excluding the now-fallen cowboy), three moved to attack, while the other three prepared to provide covering fire.

Raive, of course, didn’t shy away either.

These people might be as strong as Hazel, maybe even have more raw stats than she did, but they were still nowhere near his level. All he had to worry about was the bullets waiting behind the three vanguards.

There was only one way to avoid that.

"Jumping into the enemy’s midst!"

On a chaotic battlefield, covering fire could just as easily hit an ally as an enemy. So closing the distance meant no support fire from behind.

The three approaching weren’t pushovers, of course.

The first had both fists covered in bright blue flame. Just looking at it was enough to tell Raive how hot that was. However, threatening?

SLASH!

He’d say no.

The reach of a fist was shorter than a sword, after all.

With a single, horizontal slash, the flaming fists were cut in half. Every finger was severed, leaving nothing but stumps at his palms.

"AH...!"

Before the man could even cry out, Raive’s sword flashed once more.

A clean cut, tracing the path of his forward step, stopping two paces behind the flame-fisted man. He didn’t linger to watch the head slip off and hit the ground—the other two were already right in front of him.

One held a sword like he did. A metal one.

His steps, breathing, and hand-eye coordination would tell anyone he had real skill with a blade. He was no slouch. His ability seemed simple enough too, letting him boost his stats several times over for short bursts.

A near-perfect pairing of skill and ability...

"HAAAAP!"

But even solid technique couldn’t close a gap this wide in base stats. Before the man could even clear his sword from its sheathe, Raive had already pressed a hand against its pommel, shoving it back in.

"...!"

Shocked, the man tried to back off and buy himself room, but...

Too late. He was already breathing through a fresh hole across his chest—a clean slash carved halfway through, unmistakably fatal.

"Die!!!"

While Raive stayed locked on the swordsman, the third attacker, wielding a massive scythe, closed in fast.

With its curved blade outreaching even the Tree Knight’s sword, Raive was at a disadvantage in range. The swing came fast from behind, aiming to cut him through the middle.

But Raive simply jumped, vaulting off the swordsman’s body, flipping backward until his feet landed against the ceiling.

"FUCK...!"

That was the exact moment the scythe wielder realized he’d made a fatal mistake.

A scythe was heavy, so it was unstoppable once swung. But that same weight was also its greatest weakness.

It was hard to stop and redirect mid-swing!

Raive pulled his sword in close, letting the momentum from his earlier jump press him tighter against the ceiling. Then, just as the scythe neared the end of its arc—

BANG!

—a gunshot echoed.

Raive’s eyes went wide in shock as blood spilt.