Chapter 59

Chapter 59
My gaze swept swiftly across the entire expanse of the snowy battlefield.

A single massive beast already lay motionless and cooling upon the white ground. Far across the opposing side of the area, the Commander cut a decisive path through the pandemonium with his dark hair streaming behind him, successfully drawing and keeping the creatures’ full attention.

Noticing that he remained uninjured, I let out a measured breath of relief.

He had somehow managed to hold the line entirely without my presence.

I had been wondering how they were enduring an assault from so many large-class monsters simultaneously. Acting on the Commander’s strategic directions, the soldiers executed an alternating rhythm of gunfire and controlled fallback, corralling the beasts into a single pocket and containing them within a defensive circle that held fast.

Confronting this many heavy-tier threats at once must have been an unprecedented challenge even for him, yet his execution was far more composed than I could have anticipated. Though his uniform bore traces of blood, nothing in his movements indicated it was his own.

He still had not spotted me, keeping every ounce of his focus locked onto directing his troops.

They are managing much better than I anticipated, but…

A barrier of that nature merely served as a temporary delay. Even if they maintained the formation through sheer fortune, ammunition would eventually run out—and the exact second it did, the defensive perimeter would disintegrate completely.

Had I not arrived precisely when I did, the Commander and every single soldier on this ground would have perished.

Suddenly, a segment of the circular encirclement shattered.

“Ugh-!”

A soldier stumbled backward and collapsed, dragging several companions down with him, and the beasts immediately exploited the gap. One of them lunged directly toward the men sprawled across the snow, its jaws gaping wide to reveal flashing, razor-sharp teeth.

“A-aaah!”

Watching the terrified fighters desperately claw and scramble across the snow, I drew a white round from inside my coat and discharged it directly into the creature’s eye.

A white round would not inflict critical harm on a large-class monster, but its color remained imperceptible to them, ensuring they never dodged projectiles aimed straight at their eyes. It was an ideal tool for generating agro.

True to expectation, the beast took the white round dead-center in its eye, let out a piercing screech, and whipped its head toward the origin of the projectile. Every gaze among the troops—along with the Commander’s—snapped instantly toward me.

I watched the color drain entirely from the Commander’s face as he discovered me standing armed upon the snowfield, shock washing over his features in successive waves.

“Haydam! What are you doing here?!”

That was a fair reaction. Discovering your own son stationed right in the middle of a monster swarm would unnerve anyone.

Yet I could not afford to lose my designated father figure here either.

My illegitimate-son narrative only functioned if the Commander protected me until I solidified my position as his successor. Even if he perished at this exact moment, Daphne, Meursault, and the Academy graduates would still throw their weight behind me, meaning taking the zone would not necessarily become impossible.

The real complication lay in my youth.

If the Commander fell prematurely, the individual most likely to inherit the role would not be me, but rather Meursault. Hayden had only risen to become Commander of the Cola Area by marrying Daphne, the preceding Commander’s daughter—and the person holding Daphne’s affection was Meursault.

Presently, both of them viewed me with favorable disposition. What that goodwill might transform into once they ascended to the apex of power remained entirely unpredictable.

Furthermore… I had given Luna Moon my word that I would safeguard Hayden.

Recalling the vow made when I retrieved the ring from Luna Moon’s grave conjured her image unbidden in my mind—a visage bearing a striking resemblance to my mother’s. I forced the memory away with deliberate intensity.

There was no room for distractions. Whether I was a player or not, confronting this many large-class monsters alone demanded absolute concentration.

I raised the rifle slung across my back and dashed straight toward the creature charging me.

“Wh—?!”

“You lunatic! Haydam!”

Exclamations erupted from all directions as they realized I was not retreating—I was sprinting headlong into the beast’s charge. Ignoring all of them, I slid across the frozen surface like an ice skater, gliding neatly beneath the monster’s lowered jaw.

The rationale for sliding beneath its chin was straightforward: following the impact of the white round, the monster had refrained from throwing its head backward. Instead, it had instinctively pulled its jaw tight against its torso, as though guarding a vulnerable spot.

There it is.

I drove a bullet upward into the tender flesh beneath the jaw. The creature twisted in response to the perceived threat, attempting to pivot around.

The immediate reaction confirmed I had found the right mark, but the rifle in my hands was tailored for a child’s recoil threshold, possessing unremarkable stopping power.

Which explained precisely why I had issued prior instructions to Meursault.

Fire immediately after I shoot.

-Bang! Bang!

Two deafening reports cracked in rapid succession from close proximity. Meursault had not been exaggerating when he claimed he could strike whatever target I designated. His initial round blew apart half of the monster’s jaw, while the second slammed into the exact coordinate my bullet had penetrated.

A wet crunch echoed as something fractured. The creature’s heavy frame listed sideways. I rolled out from beneath its chin and yelled out to the surrounding soldiers.

“Fall back!”

Caught between anxiety for my safety and anticipation of the next charging beast, the men scrambled away at my command. Two of the monsters they had previously been containing were flattened under the collapsing bulk of the one we had just slain, crushed instantly beneath its massive carcass.

The remaining creatures flicked their gazes toward me, but the dwindling numbers on this sector of the field failed to hold their attention. They pivoted instead toward the soldiers who had bunched together while dodging the falling corpse.

“Hah-hah-Lord Haydam, please, no more reckless—”

Meursault had arrived at a full sprint and was still catching his breath. Without shifting my eyes away from the beasts bearing down on the troops, I extended an open hand.

“White rounds.”

He appeared to heave a monumental sigh at my outstretched hand delivered without a single glance in his direction—yet a solid white round was pressed firmly into my palm a second later. I fired it into the rear skull of a monster as it turned its attention away from me.

Across the field, the Commander had clearly deduced that I was intentionally pulling agro. He stared at me with an expression that suggested he wanted to swallow me whole. For the present moment, however, this strategy remained the most advantageous course for both of us.

I averted my eyes from him and focused on the monster charging toward me, provoked by the white-round agro. There, perched prominently upon the bridge of its snout, a core gleamed openly.

A core resting that exposed while it remains alive must belong to one of the more intelligent variants.

It had consistently evaded gunfire by throwing its head upward. Any casual observer would have targeted that obvious motion, yet the bridge of its snout remained relatively unblemished while the underside of its jaw was shredded to pieces.

An adversary like this proved more troublesome than the previous one whose core lay tucked beneath the chin. Short of securing a direct hit, humans inevitably ended up engaging in prolonged attrition, which explained why conventional hunts poured overwhelming firepower into a creature until it collapsed before scavenging for the core to destroy it.

However, my approach differed entirely.

If my physical vessel lacked the capability to strike the mark directly—

I relied on external variables.

Before acting, I cast a quick glance past the charging beast toward the Commander positioned behind it.

The distance is sufficient. The title effect can be toggled off momentarily.

Verifying the separation, I switched my active title from Luna Moon’s Friend to Magic Marksman.

My last count indicated roughly three charges remaining before the seventh activation. A single monster would not deplete the stockpile.

I leveled the firearm barrel. The creature whipped its head up, displaying its target—

Yet such minor maneuvers held zero significance before the Magic Marksman.

I pulled the trigger without hesitation. The projectile tore through the weakened underside of its jaw—the exact stretch of tissue already ripped open by prior concentrated fire—and drove straight through the core resting exposed on the opposite side of its snout.

The monster collapsed instantly where it stood, as though its internal mechanism had been switched off. Its remaining momentum carried the carcass sliding across the snow until it came to a halt right before my boots.

Meursault had closed the distance to provide follow-up support. Witnessing the monster drop from a single bullet, he stared at me in absolute disbelief.

“You…”

“Wooooaaah!!”

Whatever remark Meursault intended to make was drowned out by a roaring wave of cheers. Large-class monsters still populated the battlefield, but the sudden appearance of a youth who had just neutralized two of them consecutively seemed to erase everyone’s sense of danger. They were completely preoccupied with staring at me in open admiration.

Eliminating two targets in rapid succession granted the remaining teams vital breathing room. The pair pinned beneath the first beast’s falling body had already been dispatched by soldiers who capitalized on the opening.

Four remaining.

Dropping two in a row drew the collective agro of the final four monsters directly onto me. I verified my remaining ammunition count and shouted instructions to the troops.

They hesitated for a brief moment, torn over whether they had authorization to obey—then spotted Meursault advancing behind me, hoisted their wounded comrades, and streamed away from my position like an outgoing tide.

With the soldiers cleared from the immediate area, three figures became visible approaching through the intervals between the advancing monsters.

The Commander had relinquished field command to another officer and was walking forward with his rifle aimed at the beasts. Platon followed close behind with an flushed, exhilarated expression. Trailing them for reasons beyond my comprehension, the reclusive Yeobo was pounding across the snow as fast as her short legs could manage.

I cannot maintain Magic Marksman in active status.

The seventh bullet generated by Magic Marksman invariably struck the individual most cherished by the user. Hitting any of those three targets would spell absolute disaster—and confronting the Commander without Luna Moon’s Friend equipped risked planting seeds of suspicion within him.

The exact millisecond I swapped Magic Marksman back for Luna Moon’s Friend—

An anomalous phenomenon occurred.

“…Huh?”

All four monsters lunging toward me flinched simultaneously, their massive physiques shuddering violently. They shuffled backward before abruptly wheeling around and fleeing—diverging sharply away from me as I advanced in their direction. Even with the Commander approaching directly behind them, they surged past him and vanished completely across the snowfield.

I lowered the firearm barrel I had instinctively jerked upward in case they targeted the Commander, feeling a sudden sense of absurdity.

“What just happened?”

Despite the sheer improbability, they had scattered like prey animals escaping an apex predator, absolute terror etched into every motion of their retreat.

Why?

While I possessed titles capable of striking panic into monsters—Luna Moon’s Friend was certainly not among them. Even if such properties existed, no title recognized within the Safe Zones possessed the capacity to send four large-class monsters bolting in sheer terror. Furthermore, I had worn Luna Moon’s Friend from the moment of my arrival on the field, having only temporarily switched to Magic Marksman before reverting.

If the title itself had triggered their flight, the reaction should have manifested the instant I materialized.

This requires proper investigation…

Whatever caused their panicked flight—and whether it correlated with the monsters mysteriously disappearing from the Team Zone earlier—demanded a thorough explanation.

For the present moment, however, their retreat had effectively preserved my life.

Engaging four simultaneously would have pushed even my limits.

I was still tracking the direction of their flight when voices rose from the distant edge of the field, heavy with profound awe.

“D-did those things genuinely just run away from Lord Haydam?”

“Two monsters neutralized with two bullets wasn’t enough for him…”

“He routed four large-class monsters using pure presence alone?!”

Ah.

Simply another absurd addition to the growing legend surrounding my birth.