The Returner Chapter 408

Chapter 408
“Freaking hell! This is bloody nuts, man!” (Kim Dah-Hyun)
Kim Dah-Hyun let out an angry yell . No matter how many he killed and pushed back, the number of monsters flooding in didn’t seem to decrease at all . It was like the monster horde was being regenerated constantly and him being stuck in an endless loop of killing them over and over again didn’t seem to put a dent in their overall numbers .
“What would I give for a handful of wide-area attacks right about now!”
Kim Dah-Hyun was a speed-type ability user, so he was understandably weak against large monsters with tough outer shells . Didn’t matter how fast he was, the actual destructive power he possessed was still limited, that’s why .
When looking at physics, then that stupendous turn of speed should have translated into proper offensive power but Kim Dah-Hyun didn’t possess the physique necessary to withstand the impact . If he ran at full tilt and collided with a monster with his whole body then sure, the monster would turn into meat paste, but then so would he .
Kim Dah-Hyun would run rings around other ability users in a one-on-one fight, but against these types of mobs? He found it hard to exhibit his full power .
On the other hand…
Ruuuuuumble!!!
A massive flood of hellfire from Seo Ah-Young swallowed up the monsters .
Like some high-budget CGI scene, the roiling flames as wide and expansive as tsunami waves devoured all the monsters standing before them .
Kuwaaaah!
Kha-aaaahk!
Unlike their vicious external appearance, these flames making up the waves didn’t possess any physical force . However, the power to scorch everything away was stronger than any force imaginable .
Monsters being swept up in the waves of flames turned into ashes in an instant and disappeared from the face of Earth .
“Wow, I think I saw that in a documentary about Pompeii . ” (Kim Dah-Hyun)
Just like how it was with Pompeii where lava had swept everything away and the victims all turned into mummified ashes, monsters couldn’t put up one iota of resistance before turning into piles of ashes as well .
“…Seriously, that’s so typical of a gold spoon, ain’t it?” (Kim Dah-Hyun)
Even though Kim Dah-Hyun was an S-grade ability user, witnessing that spectacle made him feel that life was too unfair with how there was such a clear difference in one’s abilities from birth .
“A gold spoon? No, dude . You’re the gold spoon . ” (Yun Hyuk-Gyu)
Yun Hyuk-Gyu smirked and walked past Kim Dah-Hyun .
“Really? What spoon is the director, then?” (Kim Dah-Hyun)
“A diamond spoon, obviously . ” (Yun Hyuk-Gyu)
“…………”
“You’re also another symbol of pure unfairness to those KSF kids over there, so… Stop whining and concentrate on what you’re supposed to do, Mister Rescue . ” (Yun Hyuk-Gyu)
“I didn’t train to become an ambulance driver, though . ” (Kim Dah-Hyun)
Kim Dah-Hyun groaned and turned around to leave . Yun Hyuk-Gyu watched the complaining younger man and could only grin wryly .
‘What a relief that his personality is like that . ’ (Yun Hyuk-Gyu)
As a narcissist, Kim Dah-Hyun had this desire to shine brighter than anyone else . And it seemed that his ego had been wounded somewhat after being unable to put in an awesome showing so far . But from the perspective of the NDF, one could argue that he was a far more important personnel than Seo Ah-Young .
Anyone could also do the jobs performed by Seo Ah-Young or Yun Hyuk-Gyu . Sure, the firepower might lag behind and things might take longer, but there was no denying that plenty of folks could do broadly similar roles to what the two of them did .
However, there was no one else in the NDF who could take over Kim Dah-Hyuk’s role in his stead .
The story remained the same even now . No one could dare even try what he was doing, which was to thread through the countless monsters and search for any potential survivors and extract them .
Strictly speaking, the NDF was far closer to a search and rescue team than a combat division of the army . They didn’t even need to subdue the monsters if none posed threats to humans . In that sense, everyone knew the person most needed right now in this very place was indeed Kim Dah-Hyun .
‘Except the man himself, of course . ’ (Yun Hyuk-Gyu)
Maybe he was addicted to superhero movies or something, because Kim Dah-Hyun didn’t seem to get any satisfaction unless he personally stepped up to kick a*s and take names and solve everything by himself . If only he recognised the position he was in, then he’d realise that becoming a candidate for the next director would present no problem for him without doing that .
“But with a personality like that…” (Yun Hyuk-Gyu)
Yun Hyuk-Gyu tutted inwardly and gathered his hands to his front . Crimson flames began dancing within his hands next .
“I mean, the one really suffering is me, you know . ” (Yun Hyuk-Gyu)
The strict ability classification said that Seo Ah-Young was a flame-type ability user while Yun Hyuk-Gyu was an explosion-type . Unfortunately, that explosion-type was also flame-based, so from the outsider’s perspective, the two of them looked like similar types of ability users .
Seriously now, someone was busy flinging around mountain-sized balls of flames every which way, yet he could only manage to cause minuscule explosions somewhere far behind, so anyone seeing this sight would think of him as an inferior copy of her .
So, realistically speaking, it was Yun Hyuk-Gyu and not Kim Dah-Hyun who got mentally damaged several times over .
– “Stop talking rubbish and hurry up with sorting this out, please . ” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
You see? You see??
Even Choi Jeong-Hoon can’t speak so rudely to Seo Ah-Young like how he’s doing to me! (Yun Hyuk-Gyu’s inner monologue)
“I’m already on it, dude! Dang it!” (Yun Hyuk-Gyu)
Yun Hyuk-Gyu grumbled unhappily and extended his hands towards the monsters .
*
Kwa-booooom!!!
Seo Ah-Young kept her eyes locked on the progress of the battle . Choi Jeong-Hoon decided that her role should be to provide assistance to the locations being pushed back by the enemies . Initially, what he meant by that was for her to provide her firepower on time whenever the defensive line created by the NDF was pushed back, but now…
“What the hell?! Everyone’s being pushed back!” (Seo Ah-Young)
There was seemingly no end to the monster horde in sight, while humans clearly had a limit to their stamina .
She continued creating balls of flames with both of her hands and chucked them to those locations needing help, then shouted into her smartwatch .
“Still not yet?!” (Seo Ah-Young)
– “We got our permission! It’ll start very soon . ” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
“What’s taking so bloody long?!” (Seo Ah-Young)
This is why getting it ready ahead of time is so crucial, isn’t it! (Seo Ah-Young’s inner monologue)
It had been a long time already since the enemies started their attack, yet there were just too many places they needed to get permission from in order to mount any proper counterattack . Seo Ah-Young got royally irritated by the fact that even if the president of the nation gave his go-ahead, things still wouldn’t happen immediately .
“This is why when we got invaded by the North, they pushed us back all the way to Busan right away!” (Seo Ah-Young)
Seo Ah-Young spat out all of her dissatisfaction, but just as she was about to yell out again, a loud whoosh reverberated from the skies above .
She instinctively realised what that was and cried out loudly .
“Sweep them all away!!!” (Seo Ah-Young)
A bomber flew past above and began dropping its ordnance on top of the monsters .
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-boooooom!
Along with the explosion noises akin to the entire world collapsing, the city of Seoul was engulfed by the flames .
*
“D*mn it . ” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
Choi Jeong-Hoon watched the flame clouds rise up from the middle of Seoul and quietly gnashed his teeth . To think that he’d be the one responsible for requesting a bombing raid on the capital of South Korea .
Even if the priority should be placed on human lives, the resulting cost from the destruction of property after all those buildings came down would be no laughing matter .
Monsters would be gone after they were killed off, but the remaining humans would have to carry on living here . If the cycle of destruction repeated itself then even without the monsters, the current way of living would no longer be sustainable and the whole system would collapse on its own .
However, they simply had no other choice .
The endless deluge of demonic beasts had long since gone past the level of being defended against human power alone . Even if each agent of the NDF could exhibit powers exceeding that of a bomber, they were still human beings at the end of the day, not some machines that could keep bombing away as long as you fuelled it up and reloaded its cargo .
Once their stamina fell and their Ether reserve emptied out, then the odds of the defensive line currently being maintained through great difficulty crumbling away were uncomfortably high .
“Where are those battleships supposed to come in through the Han river?!” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
– “They are currently heading up north as we speak, sir . ”
“Are they going to show up only after Seoul’s been levelled flat?!” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
Not swearing right now was the greatest display of patience Choi Jeong-Hoon could put on at the moment .
– “A SCUD is heading your way . ”
“Excuse me?!” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
Choi Jeong-Hoon hurriedly raised his head and thought he could see something blinking in the far-off distance in the sky . It turned out to be an object flying in at his general direction with an alarming turn of speed .
Holy cow, I did ask for a bombardment, but they actually fired a d*mn SCUD missile?! (Choi Jeong-Hoon’s inner monologue)
It was as if the military really wanted to turn the city into a desert or something .
But…
“What the… Why does that thing look like it’s headed over here…?” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
Choi Jeong-Hoon’s eyes shook .
Unless that particular missile was outfitted with new technology that allowed it to suddenly veer off its well-maintained flight course and drop to the ground, shouldn’t he assume that the targeted area was right on top of his head?
“Son of a b*tch, you trying to kill me or somet…” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
Rustle…
It was right then, Jeong Hae-Min popped up right next to Choi Jeong-Hoon and without saying anything, grabbed the back of his collars and teleported out of there .
KWA-BOOOOOM!!!
A humongous explosion went off and the surroundings were blown away to smithereens .
“Holy sh*t, I thought I was gonna meet my maker!” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
Choi Jeong-Hoon reappeared on top of a nearby building’s rooftop, then began pouring all sorts of curses into his smartwatch .
“What the f*ck?! You son of a b*tch, are you trying to kill me?!” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
– “Looks like there was an error this side . ”
“An error?! Kiss my a*s! Who cares about that sh*t after you’re dead already?! You really wanna have a go at me? Is that it?!” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
– “Official apologies will be provided at a later stage . For now, please focus on the current situation . ”
You son of a gun, I’m going to find out who you are later . I swear . (Choi Jeong-Hoon’s inner monologue)
Even as Choi Jeong-Hoon stood there trembling in rage, the situation continued to devolve into a desperate struggle .
‘D*mn it . ’ (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
No matter how many they killed, the situation still didn’t want to change . A space opened up after a bunch of monsters were killed off would be filled up in an instant by another batch rushing in from behind .
“Hasn’t the artillery division arrived yet?!” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
– “It’s proving to be too difficult to enter the city, sir . Due to the abandoned vehicles and the evacuating civilians, approaching the location is proving to be difficult at the moment . ”
“But a K-9’s attack range is over forty kilometres, isn’t it?!”
– “That’s only the theoretical range on the spec sheet, sir . Besides, that range would lower the accuracy too greatly and will result in friendly fire . ”
“Give me a godd*mm break . ” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
Although Choi Jeong-Hoon tried to egg them on out of sheer urgency he felt, he also knew that they were already doing their very best as well .
‘He should have lent his aid to us by now, so why…’ (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
The fundamental reason why the situation had reached this point was because Yi Ji-Hyuk hadn’t come to lend his assistance yet .
Of course, Choi Jeong-Hoon knew that Yi Ji-Hyuk was currently fighting against a demon king . The thing was, even if the latter couldn’t come here personally, he could at least send his monster army or even Oh-Sik which would have improved the situation greatly .
But even that was not happening, which Choi Jeong-Hoon found to be strange .
“Is he having a hard time?” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
Choi Jeong-Hoon raised his head and took a look at the distant sky . He saw flames and thorny vines seemingly made out of pitch-black Mana far away from his current location, busy erupting with enough force to completely blanket the entire skies .
‘It’s like they are really going to blow up Seoul . ’ (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
If one only looked at the scale or the size, then Seo Ah-Young’s own flames wouldn’t lose out to those things . However, her attacks did not emit that feeling of ominous foreboding easily felt from those displays of ‘abilities’ over yonder .
‘What exactly is going on over there?’ (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
Choi Jeong-Hoon didn’t think Yi Ji-Hyuk would lose .
No, he couldn’t afford to think that .
The moment Yi Ji-Hyuk lost, then all the fighting would cease, too . Humanity would be defeated by then . So, there was no point in coming up with a hypothesis of Yi Ji-Hyuk’s defeat . Indeed, all of Choi Jeong-Hoon’s strategies were based around the assumption of Yi Ji-Hyuk emerging victorious against the demon king no matter what the situation was .
“He won’t lose, right?” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
With a concerned face, Choi Jeong-Hoon looked up towards where Yi Ji-Hyuk would be . The ‘Yi Ji-Hyuk’ he knew was a tenacious b*stard who would even resort to biting chunks out of a demon king in order to win .
– “Evacuations are almost fully complete . Apologies, but please re-confirm that there aren’t any survivors left behind . ”
“Monsters are rampaging around like that, so how do you expect our people to search for survivors?!” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
– “We understand it’s difficult, but it’s still our duty . ”
“D*mn it . ” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
Choi Jeong-Hoon thought that, rather than chatting to this faceless b*stard, he’d much prefer to see Jeong In-Su quickly patch up his injuries and get over here right away .
It was right then, a massive explosion noise went off, one almost strong enough to even blow Choi Jeong-Hoon’s body away .
“W-what was that?!” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
He raised his head only to be greeted by a bizarre spectacle .
“…What, what is going on over there?” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
He could see Yi Ji-Hyuk battling against a demon king . However, the overall look of that battle was quite different from all the others he had witnessed so far .
“…Mister Yi Ji-Hyuk . ” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)
A gasp of resigned helplessness leaked out of Choi Jeong-Hoon’s mouth .
Fin .