Somewhere in Jin-Ah’s high school….
Three male students and their faces were currently full of unhappiness at being asked to run an errand for their art teacher.
“Isn’t this clearly exploitation of the labor force?”
“Yeah, I wonder about that myself.”
“I mean, why are we doing something that guy was supposed to do it himself in the first place?”
The male students continued to complain bitterly as they unlatched the bulky lock of the second art classroom, currently serving as their school’s storage unit.
“Argh, look at all this dust.”
“Bleurgh~.”
The thick coating of dust befitting a disused, forgotten storage greeted the trio of students.
Several worn art supplies, pieces of paintings thrown away by their original owners, and plaster statues once used for sketch exercises lay discarded in this place.
“Hey, how many of these plaster statues were we supposed to take with us?”
“There are six of them here, so it must be six.”
“Argh, come on…. That means we have to come back here again.”
“Why don’t you carry four of them at the same time, then?”
The male students rolled their sleeves up in order to carry the plaster figures away. But then, the student picking up the dusty figure tucked away at the deepest corner ended up discovering ‘something’ else.
“Uh?”
After hearing his surprised-sounding voice, his friends quickly walked over to take a look.
“Uh? Isn’t this….?”
There was a large ‘hole’ in the wall. It was a Gate about the size of an adult human. The biggest student among the trio smirked after taking a look at the Gate.
“And here I was, wondering what was up.”
The male student pressed his hand on the surface of the Gate and carried on.
“A closed Gate like this one is safe. Only Hunters can go inside, and the things inside can’t come out, either.”
It was then.
Crack.
A crack suddenly formed on the surface of the Gate and at the same time, a ‘hand’ shot out to grab the head of the male student.
“Huh?”
The male student struggled fiercely to get out of the grip, but the hand didn’t even budge an inch.
And then…
Kwajeeck-!!
Accompanying the sound of the hard surface of a fruit shattering into pieces, blood splattered all over the dust-filled storage.
“Euh, euwaaaahk?!”
“Joon-Seok-ah!!”
And, as the two blood-soaked male students screamed out, the black ‘curtain’ covering up the entrance of the Gate shattered like glass, and the monsters trapped inside began pouring out.
Orcs were natural-born hunters.
Their level of intelligence fell some way short of that of humans, but they easily exceeded humanity when it came to tracking and hunting prey weaker than they were.
And now, the doorway had been shattered. The ‘wall’ blocking the dungeon from the rest of the world was gone, and these hunters began pouring out from the Gate.
“Kururuk.”
“Keuk.”
The Orcs shoved away the annoying corpses of the high school boys and scanned their surroundings.
“Sniff, sniff.”
“Kuruk.”
These hunters had been trapped inside the dark dungeon for the whole week, quietly waiting for this day. It was rather obvious that they would get excited from all the smell of blood and flesh coming from their surroundings.
However, this group was merely advanced scouts. Even if their blood was boiling, they weren’t supposed to act as they pleased. Dozens of their brethren were waiting impatiently for their reports just beyond the roundish doorway.
These Orcs looked around and spotted straight walls with many doors and windows.
The Orc in charge of the advanced scouts immediately realized that they were standing inside a complicated artificial structure like a castle.
“Kururuk.”
Its nostrils twitched.
There were two choices here to make. One, leave this ‘castle’ and kill every prey they could find with utter impunity.
Or, kill every human found within this ‘castle’ and turn it into a fortress – and then, commence with their hunting in earnest. There was no need to even consider which one was the safer choice.
The leader Orc ordered its underling.
“Summon our brothers.”
And then, it raised its head to glare at the ceiling above. The monster’s ears twitched and caught the noises coming down from the upper floors.
Above, and then, more above that, still; this structure was seemingly filled with prey.
Its head was currently ringing painfully with a voice that kept telling the creature to kill every single one of those prey.
“Good.”
The monster’s maw parted and its yellowing fangs were revealed to the world.
“First, we cleanse this place completely.”
________
An urgent call came through to the Hunter’s Association emergency hotline.
The caller’s voice belonged to a young teenage girl.
– “Is, is this the Association?!”
The call center employee heard the scared sobbing coming from the other side of the line as soon as the call got connected and realized something was wrong.
“Yes, it is. Please speak.”
– “This, I’m in, sob, my school, but….. There are, sob, there are monsters outside.”
“Outside? Where are you making this call from?”
– “I’m hiding, I was with, my f-friend, but my friend, I, sob, I’m in the bathroom.”
Her sobbing meant that her words were constantly being cut off and it was hard to carry on a conversation.
However, the call center employee was experienced enough to piece together those stuttering words and figure out what this girl was trying to say.
Immediately, an urgent message was sent to the Association’s main building.
[Monsters appeared in the local school, one confirmed victim, the informant in hiding.]
Could it be that a dungeon break occurred inside a school? The employee shuddered from the horrifying images taking root in his head and focused all of his being on trying to keep this female student alive.
“How many monsters are there? Are they any near you right now?”
– “I don’t know, I really don’t know. Ah, ah! I hear screams. Sob, sob. I can hear so many screams. I, am I, sob, am I going to die?”
“Please calm down and listen to my voice.”
This employee knew very well from his extensive experience about how weak-kneed humans could get when faced with life-threatening situations.
He knew he had to be calm and collected in such situations while answering the call.
He had to calm the caller down sufficiently enough and then, had to suggest some kind of a plan for the current situation.
That was his role.
“Right now, Hunters from the Association are headed your way. These Hunters will not give up on you guys. That is why you need to stay calm and rational, okay? Can you hear me?”
– “Really? I-in that case, sob, can I, can I survive?”
The voice coming from the other side of the line was gradually recovering from the panicked state. That was a good sign.
The employee thought that he succeeded in calming the female student down, and then asked the question that could prove to be most important in saving the girl’s life.
“By any chance, those monsters… do you know what kind of monsters those are?”
– “Yes, yes. I know. I know. I saw them. On TV.”
“Which monsters are they?”
If the monsters possessed weak senses and chased after humans using their eyes, then hiding in a bathroom would work as a suitable solution for the time being. The employee prayed that such monsters had invaded the school, instead.
– “They… they have human bodies, but, sob, but they have ugly faces. Ah, and their skin is green.”
‘Can it be?!’
The eyes of the employee grew wider and wider.
“Orcs… are they Orcs?”
– “Yes, I think it was what they were called. Orcs.”
‘N-no, this can’t be!!’
The employee shot up from his seat before he realized it and cried out.
“You need to run away from there! Hurry! Orcs can…..”
It was then.
Despite the employee’s earnest prayer, he could hear the sound of the bathroom door being destroyed, followed soon by a sorrowful scream.
– “Kyyaaaahk!”
“Uwaahhk!”
“Kyaahhk!”
Heartbreaking screams rose up from all corners of the school.
Less than half of the students managed to escape from the school alive. As for the rest, either they had all ended up as corpses, or were busy running around inside the school’s premises trying to evade the Orcs.
Unfortunately, their futile resistance could only buy them a brief respite.
The hunts of the Orcs that started from the lowest floor continued to higher floors and drove all victims caught in their wake to gruesome deaths.
“Uwaaahk!”
The students who couldn’t run away in time and remained trapped in their classrooms could only cover their ears as more screams rose up from the lower floors.
The classrooms for the third-year students were located on the top floor of the school building. Jin-Ah was also among those 3rd-year students who couldn’t run away in time. The doorway shoddily blocked up with junk was the only thing that could defend them against the marauding Orc horde.
“Ah….”
“….F*ck me.”
The male students grabbed onto chairs and mops or whatever that could serve as weapons with their trembling hands. But, none of them helped to instill a sense of confidence in the scared students.
No, all they could do was wait and pray fervently for the Hunters to show up before those Orcs stepped foot inside their classroom.
KWANG!
The bent classroom door was flung away.
“Uwaaahk!”
“Kyaaahk!”
As the screams of the frightened students resounded out, two Orcs covered in the blood of the countless number of people they had murdered stepped into the classroom.
“U-uwaaahk!”
A male student holding a mop near the door threw away his makeshift weapon and ran to the back entrance, before yanking it open.
However, another Orc was lying in wait there, and it slammed an axe down on the forehead of this fleeing male student.
Kwajeeck!
The male student fell powerlessly, the light of life leaving his eyes.
“Kyaaaahk!”
“Uwak!”
Both entrances of the classroom were now blocked off by the Orcs.
The remaining students screamed out loudly and crowded against the windows, but they all knew that the results would largely end up the same regardless of whether they chose to jump out from a sixth-story window or get caught by the Orcs.
‘Oppa, oppa!!’
Finding herself stuck in the middle of the students fleeing towards the corners of the classroom as they tried to get away from the Orcs, Jin-Ah squeezed her eyes shut and called out to Jin Woo.
Her oppa, the S-rank Hunter. If she called out to him, it felt as if he’d show up here right away. That was her only hope.
“Kurururuk.”
“Ku-euk?”
The Orcs stopped advancing after they surrounded the students from all corners. They began conversing with each other in their native tongue.
“Boss. There is a human with magic energy coming off.”
“Kill that one first.”
Unlike regular humans, those who knew how to wield magic energy were dangerous opponents. Therefore, these Orcs had to deal with a threat like that first.
The Orc, having received the boss’s order, began scanning the students before eventually locking them onto Jin-Ah’s location.
“Ah!”
The Orc grabbed her wrist and dragged her out to the middle of the classroom.
“Is this female the one?”
“It is, boss.”
The underlying was right. Although faint, they could sense magic energy coming from somewhere on this girl. Whether that came from this female’s abilities or some sort of a weapon she possessed, it didn’t change the fact that she had to be eliminated first before everyone else.
The boss raised its axe up.
“Ah, ah….!”
Jin-Ah saw the axe rising up high above her head and eventually squeezed her eyes shut.
“Kuruk.”
The boss twitched its nose and swung the axe down with a disinterested face.
Swiiiish-!
‘Oppa!’
But then, this happened.
Rumble-!
A puff of black, white and, green smoke. suddenly exploded out in front of Jin-Ah and took on a solid shape.
Grab.
The brows of the advanced scout’s boss shot up high in surprise.
Because it just realized that a man with golden avian eyes suddenly appeared out of nowhere to grab onto its wrist.
“Kuruk?”
Before the puzzled Orc could say something….
The man threw a simple punch and shattered the head of the monster like an exploding watermelon.
Kwajeeck!!
Comment