Against the Clock: The Team Leader’s Pursuit of Glory

Thud!

"Hahaha! You bastards, stop running and fight us head-on!"

"Beating these scum from the peninsula with clubs is the most fun."

"You cowardly Bangtz bastards. You're good at dodging, aren't you? Come out! If you don't, I'll burn your entire village to the ground!"

The Goryeo Alliance Hunters didn't wait for an answer to their threats and unleashed their skills. The village was burning. The shacks cried out with soot instead of the villagers who had fled to the rear. Crackling, the fire slowly spread to the wooden shacks. The heat shimmered like a mirage, distorting the view of the village.

"These bastards! Drinking their potions like water and acting all high and mighty! They can't even fight barehanded!"

"Damn it, our basic equipment is too inferior. Everyone, preserve your weapons! We don't have more supply!"

"How are we supposed to fight while preserving our weapons?"

In the midst of the sparks flying through the smoke, the Prison Village Hunters were being pushed back one after another.

The Goryeo Alliance Hunters, excited by the sight of their enemies fleeing, took it easy chasing them while barraging them with their skills. With the encirclement firmly in place, there was nowhere for them to run.

At that moment, someone burst out from the smoke.

"Is it an enemy?!"

"You can't even recognize an ally?"

The man who emerged, his face covered in soot, had the 'Falling Blossoms' guild mark on his chest.

"What are you doing here?!"

The man immediately grabbed the collar of the Goryeo Alliance party leader present at the scene.

The party leader tried to shake off his hand, but it didn't budge. He quickly realized that the person was a much higher-ranked Hunter than himself. His tone naturally became more respectful.

"What do you mean what are we doing, sir? We're catching the Bangtz."

"Didn't you get the orders from above? We're supposed to regroup at the center."

"That's where we're heading. The old Sinuiju Prison."

"Heading there, my ass. Not that center. I meant the middle of the route. We need to combine our forces and strike at once."

"That's not the order I got."

"What the hell are you talking about? Do you think the center is as easy as it is here? You know these guys are tough, right? Didn't it seem weird to you that you breached this place so easily?"

"Th-that's..."

"It's because everyone else has already gathered elsewhere!"

"Ah...?"

"What do you mean 'Ah'? You idiot! What's your name? Which guild are you from?"

"Wang Shuying from Black Dragon Clan."

"Black Dragon...? Ha! You don't know who I am, do you?"

"No."

"I don't know who you are either. Why? Because you're nobody. But why don't you know me? Because I'm a bigshot. You've ever seen someone as important as me in person!"

The party leader thought something was off, but he rationalized it thinking the man in front of him was a higher-ranked Hunter. He knew well enough from his own experience that Hunters with higher ranks had worse tempers. If he was at fault here, that was because of his lower rank.

"What are you doing, you punk?"

"Huh?"

"Now that you understand, shouldn't you be moving? Get to the center quickly! What, do you need me to drag you there?"

"N-no, sir. We'll head there right away."

Just as the party leader flinched and was about to rally his members, the man called him back.

"Wait."

"W-what's wrong, sir?"

"Where's the rest of the Black Dragon Clan party? You need to bring them too."

"Well, I only know their approximate location... I'll go find them."

"Find them? In this fire? Tch! Do you even have a brain? You slowpokes can't even see now. Setting fires? Ha. Tell me where they are. If we're late, I'll get chewed out by Commander Zhang Zhongxun. Are you going to join me then?"

The mention of Zhang Zhongxun made the party leader pale.

Zhang Zhongxun may have been known as one of the 'Five Forces of Sinuiju,' but in reality, he was the top Chinese Hunter in Sinuiju in terms of skill and reputation.

His influence was befittingly vast, and it was no big deal for him to ruin the life of a small guild Hunter.

After informing the man the location of the rest of the party, the party leader left in a hurry. Once the surroundings became quiet, the man turned and walked into the flames. In the heat, his appearance transformed like a mirage.

He now looked exactly like the party leader who had disappeared earlier.

"Ah, I'm so tired. How many more roles do I have to play today? At this rate, I won't even make enough for an interpretation item."

The man, whose voice had also changed to match the party leader's, then completely vanished without a trace.

"This is strange. They're advancing too slowly. Is it because of the fire?"

Zhang Zhongxun, who was leisurely directing the attack from the outside, kicked the innocent ground with a displeased expression.

Wen Hao, also one of the Five Forces of Sinuiju and Zhang Zhongxun's close confidant, was busy leading the attack on the front lines. Because of that, he had no reliable subordinates to depend on.

Zhang Zhongxun considered venturing in himself but he needed to maintain overall command, so he couldn't act recklessly. Without clearing the entire village for an unobstructed line of sight, any hasty involvement would only create confusion in the overall plan.

"These complicated buildings are taking too much effort. Tsk!"

The only consolation was that the 1st attack squad from the 'Falling Blossoms' guild in the center was advancing smoothly. Though the enemy was resisting strongly, it was clear that if the attack squads on the flanks pushed a bit harder, the balance would soon tip in their favor.

'Still, it's slow. Are the other guilds less capable than I thought? Or are the North Koreans better than I expected? Well, it's a matter of life and death, so of course, they wouldn't retreat easily.'

Zhang Zhongxun wanted to check the situation of the flanking attack squads, but there was no way to do so without sending a messenger.

The reason was simple--

"If I had known it would be like this, I would have secured more support for the telepathy skills from above."

The reason was there weren't enough people with skills that allowed direct message exchanges between Hunters. However, waiting indefinitely for a breakthrough was not Zhang Zhongxun's way of doing things. If there was an obstacle, it had to be cleared by force or some strategy.

"Send a messenger to the second squad. Assess the situation and tell them to break through to the rendezvous point within an hour, no matter what."

Kang Mu-hyuk carefully studied the village map he had received from the patrol. No Song-rin, feeling uneasy, shook his head at the sight.

'Does he have a heart of steel? Wait, does he have a heart at all? We may be at the rear, but explosions are echoing everywhere. This is really nerve-wracking.'

While No Song-rin took a defensive stance every time an explosion was heard, Kang Mu-hyuk remained unexpectedly calm. It was because things were still going according to his plan.

'As expected, they haven't fully identified each other's faces. It's a hastily assembled attack squad. With Mr. Cho's abilities, we can easily confuse them.'

Although it was called an alliance of five guilds, their organizational abilities were like scattered grains of sand. If they had enough people with direct message skills, it might have been different. But unless commands were given face-to-face, most parties were probably just following initial orders.

"Guild Leader Kang, Mr. Cho says he has sent another party to the center. He's asking what to do with the others."

"Send them to the left. Have them go to the far left side of the village, as far from the center as possible."

Kang Mu-hyuk adjusted the enemy party markers on the map and gave his orders. After relaying the instructions to Mr. Cho via the message skill, No Song-rin asked a question he had been curious about.

"But how did you know they don't have enough message skills?"

"Since China has a lot of Hunters, they have just as much a shortage of message skills. Due to extreme winner-takes-all practices, it's rare for them to appear on the market, and when they do, the top guilds snatch them all up."

The shortage of message skills. It was a chronic issue in the Chinese Hunter community. It wasn't necessarily the case that skill acquisition was lacking. The problem was the greed of the guilds.

Large guilds, even if skill books rotted away, wouldn't supply them externally. They hoarded them like secret martial arts manuals in wuxia novels, treating the acquisition of skills as their exclusive domain.

So, the alternative was the import of skill books.

At one point, China bought up the entire global supply of message skill books, causing a worldwide shortage. Alarmed by China's monopoly, other countries began treating message skills as strategic resources and restricted their distribution. Even with reduced supply, China still hadn't solved its message skill shortage.

Kang Mu-hyuk, seeing through this, had based his strategy on that information.

"Sinuiju is considered a backwater from China's perspective. Moreover, the Hunters here belong to lower-tier groups, not major guilds; in other words, they're non-essential. There's no way they'd invest in unimportant assets. Besides, they probably thought the high-ranking Hunters from major guilds equipped with message skills could control the situation without additional investment. This lack of communication is what led to the current chaos. It's a prime example of greed consuming the system."

"Y-You're amazing. How did you come up with this plan? Wait a minute, but not all of them lack message skills, right? How did you identify which parties didn't have them?"

"It's because of the initial setback. We conducted guerrilla warfare to observe how quickly and in what manner the enemy responded. Among the parties, except for the central one composed of the Falling Blossoms guild, there were some that responded sluggishly. This showed that they were reluctant to make their own decisions. We disrupted their formation using those parties, causing disarray among the other parties as well."

No Song-rin broke out in a cold sweat internally.

Considering they were once pushed to the brink, Kang Mu-hyuk's strategy seemed not just bold but reckless. It was shocking that a non-Hunter had stayed calm and held his ground despite the explosions going off right in front of him.

Fortunately, they had managed to mobilize their elite forces in time to stop the assault in the center. If they had been a bit slower in assessing the situation...

"Wait a minute. Did you gather our elite forces in one place to block their main force?"

"By ensuring their supporting forces didn't fulfill their role, we now only need to stop their main force. With the elite squad we have, we are as strong as they are, even without factoring in equipment and supplies."

The elite forces of Prison Village, including Yeon Jung-moon, Cheon Deoksoo, and Hwang Dongsoo, were not to be underestimated. If necessary, even No Song-rin could be deployed.

Stopping the first assault squad led by Wen Hao of the Falling Blossoms guild was the most crucial aspect of Kang Mu-hyuk's strategy. Realizing this was all part of Kang Mu-hyuk's plan, No Song-rin couldn't help but admire him.

"I always feel this, Guild leader Kang, you're truly remarkable. With this, we might actually hold out until reinforcements arrive."

"Yes, we might."

Kang Mu-hyuk responded calmly, but internally, he was anxious.

'It's a relief they're sending in elites. The most dangerous scenario would be if they pushed from all directions with overwhelming numbers. The front lines would collapse instantly. Please, let their prideful Hunters stick to their plan...'

Human wave strategy

He hoped the enemy wouldn't resort to the one strategy he most feared.

The old Sinuiju prison site was filled with people for the first time in a while. Located at the center of the village, it was the furthest from the front lines. Its high concrete walls and sturdy detention facilities made it the perfect refuge.

But despite the number of people, it was quiet. Occasionally, there were children sobbing in response to distant explosions, but considering their age, they were remarkably calm.

Among them were a few daring, fearless youngsters.

"Ah?!"

"What's wrong, Cheol-i?"

"This is Mr. No's!"

"Mr. No? Oh, the Hunter No Song-rin? The one with Guild Leader Kang?"

Park Cheol-i, who had been wandering around the patrol building with other kids, found No Song-rin's karambit knife in a confiscated items box at the prison entrance and made a fuss.

Kim Gilyoung, who didn't understand what was happening, took the karambit knife from Park Cheol-i.

"Ugh, why is it so heavy? It's so small though."

"All Hunter gear is heavy."

Kim Gilyoung swung the karambit knife. His upper body swayed under the weight, but wielding the knife made him feel like a Hunter.

Longing to become a Hunter and avenge his father, Kim Gilyoung's heart started to race. He felt an unfounded confidence that he could do something great if given the chance.

"Even Hunters would have trouble without weapons, right?"

"Why are you asking something that obvious?"

"Then Mr. No would be struggling without his weapon too, right?"

"Huh? Well... Yeah, I guess."

"Let's take this to him."

"What? No way! The adults told us not to go outside because it's dangerous."

"But we're not fighting. We're just delivering a weapon."

"Still, we can't..."

"Cheol-i, think about it. If Mr. No can't fight and we lose, we're in big trouble too. So, what do we need to do? We need to win. But we can't win without weapons. What if your dad gets hurt because we lose? But if we deliver this and he wins? We'll be protecting the village. Your dad won't get hurt."

Just as Kim Gilyoung admired Yeon Jung-moon, the village protector, Park Cheol-i admired his father, a patrol officer. His dream was to become a Hunter and a distinguished patrol officer like his father.

Nodding at Kim Gilyoung's words, Park Cheol-i agreed. It made sense to him. As long as they didn't fight, it would be fine. Eventually, Kim Gilyoung's words convinced him

"Alright, but let's just deliver it quickly and come back."

"Of course. Let's go. The other kids will be jealous when we tell them. You and I will be heroes."

Enthralled by the word 'hero,' Park Cheol-i grinned and took the karambit knife.