Debuff Master

Boom!

The first flare shot up into the sky.

“It’s him! Chase him down!” Vladimir commanded while pointing at the flare.

The zealots rushed toward the area where the flare had come from.

Swoosh… Boom!

The second flare shot up into the sky, causing Vladimir to get flustered.

“Does he have someone with him? Or did an animal trip the alarm device?” Vladimir could not help but wonder why another flare had gone off. There was a possibility that the first flare was triggered by some deer or rabbit, while the second flare was Siegfried’s doing or vice versa.

“We will split into two and search both places,” Vladimir commanded.

It was then.

Two more flares shot into the air, but this time, they came from the north and the south.

East, West, South, and North.

Four flares were hanging in the sky, and they were from completely opposite directions.

But that was not the end of it…

More flares took to the sky, and the Church of Osric had to divide their forces into eight.

“Has his reinforcements already arrived?” Vladimir muttered, perplexed by what was happening. His confusion was understandable, as it would be impossible for Siegfried to go around, triggering all of the flares from different directions.

“Search the entire forest! Shoot a green flare upon spotting him!”

In the end, Vladimir decided to search every nook and cranny of the Tundra Forest.

“Kyaaak!”

“Kieeek!”

“Kieeeeek!”

Twenty thousand unidentified vicious creatures responded to his command and spread throughout the entire forest.

Meanwhile, Chae Hyung-Seok stood at the center of the forest without budging an inch.

“Where are you, Han Tae-Sung?” Chae Hyung-Seok muttered under his breath.

There was a popular saying that a sparrow near a school would sing the primer. Chae Hyung-Seok had suffered numerous times at Siegfried’s hands, so he knew better than to react to these kinds of diversion tactics.

Siegfried had stabbed him in the back so many times that being cautious against Siegfried's antics had long become his second nature.

“Nobody moves. We’re going to fall right into his trap the moment we do something,” Chae Hyung-Seok said. Then, he grimaced and added, “We will wait it out. These are just one of Han Tae-Sung’s tricks.”

After telling his men to wait, Chae Hyung-Seok started analyzing the situation.

“These kinds of tricks won’t work on me. Where are you, Han Tae-Sung?” Chae Hyung-Seok growled under his breath.

Chae Hyung-Seok’s mind was running at an incredible speed, trying to locate Siegfried. He put himself in Siegfried’s shoes and tried to think as if he were Siegfried. This was made possible by Chae Hyung-Seok's familiarity with Siegfried after their numerous "encounters."

He thought hard and long until he had a grasp of Siegfried's goal.

Boom! Boom! Boom!!

More and more flares pervaded the sky, but Chae Hyung-Seok did not budge an inch.

‘Where are you? Show yourself…’ Chae Hyung-Seok thought while inspecting his minimap intently.

It was then.

‘Could it be…?’

A sudden thought crossed his mind, and this caused him to look at a specific part of the Tundra Forest.

“So he's there,” Chae Hyung-Seok muttered with a smirk. He was confident that Siegfried was hiding in that specific location.

“Note down the coordinates! One, one, four, eleven! Hurry and run!” Chae Hyung-Seok exclaimed to his men. Then, he grinned and added, “That bastard is there right now, so run! We need to stop him before he destroys the spatial distortion devices over there!”

The Vice Guild Master of the Genesis Guild shouted in response, “What do you mean?! How the hell do you know that?!”

“Fuck! Do I have to explain?! That’s the only place with enough space to warp an army!”

“...!”

“That’s the biggest clearing in this forest, and they can instantly form a defensive line once they warp over there! I’m confident that’s where he’s aiming at, so run! We need to get there right now!” Chae Hyung-Seok shouted while running toward the coordinates.

‘Han Tae-Sung! I’m not going to let you get out of here so easily! Never!’

Chae Hyung-Seok ran with all of his might with a single goal in mind, and that goal was none other than to kill Siegfried.

***

Meanwhile, Siegfried moved as fast as he could to destroy the spatial distortion devices.

‘Excellent.’ Siegfried smiled after destroying five spatial distortion devices. He needed to destroy twenty in total, so this meant that he managed to clear twenty-five percent of his goal in an instant.

‘But I still have more to destroy. I need to destroy all of them as fast as possible.’

However, he remained calm and did not let his success get to his head. He ran to the next spatial distortion device and had no plans of stopping until he had destroyed all twenty devices in the vicinity.

Not a single one of his allies would be able to warp here and help him unless he had destroyed all twenty spatial distortion devices.

Why?

It was all because one spatial distortion device was so strong that its waves could cover the entire clearing by themselves.

‘Let’s keep moving,’ Siegfried thought. He destroyed the sixth spatial distortion device.

Swoosh… Boom!

The alarm device right beside the spatial distortion device shot a flare into the sky, but he did not pay any attention to it.

‘Next!’

The reason was that another flare had shot into the sky ahead of him. The Night Stalkers were roaming throughout the Tundra Forest, destroying whichever spatial distortion devices they could get their hands on, which allowed him to ignore the flares.

Of course, he was not one hundred percent safe.

‘They’re coming!’ Siegfried thought after noticing the enemies coming toward him through the red dots on the minimap created by Inzaghi’s Clairvoyance.

A bunch of Adventurers were coming toward him, and one of them had the name Desire above the red dot. On top of that, one of the Mercenary Kings, the first Adventurer to receive the prestigious title, Guderian, was coming toward him as well.

‘Did they notice what I’m trying to do?’ Siegfried wondered.

A green flare suddenly shot up into the sky and exploded. This was the flare that Chae Hyung-Seok had shot to the skies upon confirming Siegfried’s intentions.

‘I need to move faster!’ Siegfried realized that his enemies had uncovered his plan, so he moved even faster, destroying a spatial distortion device and rushing over to the next one in the blink of an eye.

“Kyaaaak!”

“Kieeek!”

“Kieek!”

“Kiruk! Kiruk!”

However, his path was blocked by a bunch of hideous-looking monsters he had never seen before. He tried flashing his Rune of Insight at them, but they could not be analyzed with the rune.

The monsters bared their fangs and rushed toward him like a bunch of hungry beasts.

‘There’s no time to fight! I must run away!’ Siegfried thought, placing down Shadow Hell to slow the monsters down and activating Pesky Brat to explosively increase his speed.

Thanks to that, Siegfried managed to get away from the monsters and destroy another spatial distortion device.

‘Nine! Eleven left!’

Siegfried continued running and destroyed three additional spatial distortion devices after that.

‘Twelve! Eight more!’

He ran after destroying the spatial distortion device and jumped up to a tree, but…

Boom!

A mortar shell came flying from a distance and absolutely smashed the tree into pieces.

“Ack!” Siegfried crashed and rolled on the snowy ground.

Click… Clack…!

His ears caught the sound of a firearm being loaded.

Shwoooong…!

Then, another mortar shell came flying toward him.

‘Damn it!’ Siegfried hurriedly transformed his +13 Vanquisher’s Grasp into a shield and hid behind it, but he instinctively felt that it was not enough, so he wrapped himself with his Black Crow Wingsuit as well.

Boom!

The mortar shell exploded on his shield.

“Kuheok!”

Siegfried was flung back several meters and crashed into a tree.

Creak… Baaaam!

The tree tilted slightly before crashing down to the snowy ground.

“Argh…” Siegfried groaned while getting back up to his feet.

Thud… Thud…

The culprit behind the mortar shells approached Siegfried.

“Wow, your defense is quite good,” Guderian said in awe.

The weapon Guderian used to shoot Siegfried down was the +16 Heavy Sniping Gun[1], and this sniper was capable of shooting bullets the size of mortar shells from a mile away.

Thus, Guderian didn't imagine, even in his wildest dreams, that someone could block his +16 Heavy Sniping Gun.

“Oh, well, if one large bullet can't do the job, then I should just riddle you with holes with smaller ones,” Guderian said with a shrug. Then, he took out a +13 Gazelle Submachine Gun from his waist and sprayed bullets at Siegfried.

Siegfried hid behind his +13 Vanquisher’s Grasp.

Clang, clang, clang!

He took one step after another and closed the distance to the Mercenary King.

“What the hell is this monster?!” Guderian exclaimed out of frustration after seeing his opponent withstand the numerous bullets he shot. Then, he wielded both his +13 Gazelle Submachine Gun and +16 Heavy Sniping Gun and aimed it at Siegfried, but…

“...!”

—Guderian was shocked once again after Siegfried exploited that split-second window and appeared right in front of his face.

‘Danger!’ Guderian’s instincts screamed at him to get away from his opponent.

However, there was no way Siegfried would let him get away that easily.

Baaam!

Siegfried slammed his +13 Vanquisher’s Grasp into the ground.

C-Craaack!

Fwaaaaah!

Pillars of flames shot up from the snowy ground and formed the Barrier of Victory that swallowed both of them.

***

“Damn it…” Guderian cursed under his breath after realizing what happened. He could not help but be flustered by the sudden rock walls that appeared and trapped him in it.

Why? Because being trapped in a closed space was the worst nightmare for a ranged combatant, and not being able to run away from his opponent spelled certain death.

“This damned bastard…” Guderian growled. He attempted to pull out his revolvers and shoot Siegfried from point-blank range, but it was already too late.

Bam!

The +13 Vanquisher’s Grasp struck him dead-center on the top of his head.

“Kuheok!” Guderian gasped and froze upon suffering a concussion that shook his brain, which made it bounce around his skull.

Thud… Thud…!

The blow was so strong that he ended up letting go of his revolvers.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Of course, Siegfried did not care what Guderian thought and smacked the latter's head nonstop.

Thud!

The Mercenary King helplessly fell to the ground.

Siegfried looked down at Guderian and asked, “Have you heard about what happens to those unlucky enough to die at my hands?”

“W-What happens to them…?”

“Hmm? You haven’t heard of it? Anyone who dies to me is guaranteed to drop their main weapon.”

“Ah?!” Guderian gasped in horror. He belatedly remembered the baseless rumor spread by some Adventurers that whoever died at Siegfried’s hands was bound to become bankrupt.

“Oh? So you've heard of it?”

“T-That is…!”

“Then you better spill the beans. Who’s the Adventurer working together with the Church of Osric?” Siegfried asked, pressing his +13 Vanquisher’s Grasp at Guderian’s chin.

“I-I have no idea…”

“Ha! Don’t make me laugh,” Siegfried scoffed. Then, he smirked and said, “The Church of Osric is made up of NPCs, but how did they get their hands on the information regarding the Super Rookie Tournament? Also, that specific information was only sent to the participants.”

Siegfried's words made sense. The fact that whoever missed the tournament would get banned from the game was something only circulated to the participants.

Yes, it was possible that the information had spread through word of mouth, but it couldn't have reached the Church of Osric’s ears in such a short period of time.

Siegfried was certain there was an Adventurer behind this vicious plan and attracted the Church of Osric into joining them by saying that this was the golden opportunity to get rid of Siegfried.

“I’ll spare you if you tell the truth. Who is it?”

“I-I really don’t know.”

“So you wanna die?”

“It’s true! I really have no idea!” Guderian screamed desperately. Then, he exclaimed, “Casillas, Dreyfus, and I were hired by Kaosin to kill you! Then, Chae Hyung-Seok joined us later on! Chae Hyung-Seok was the one who brought the Church of Osric with him! That’s all I know!”

“What?” Siegfried doubted his ears for a second. Then, he muttered, “Kaosin…?”

Kaosin was none other than the Adventurer who had reported him to the Church of Martial God for suspected arena abuse.

1. The author used ‘Sniping Gun’ specifically, so I can’t change it. ☜

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