Hunter Academy’s Battle God

Following Shin YuSung’s directions, Sumire stealthily infiltrated the House of Horrors.

‘…I have to be as quiet as possible!’

Sneak sneak.

The first floor had a lot of points of entry, so there weren’t a lot of students standing guard in it. Even so, Sumire moved quietly.

The building was modeled after an abandoned hospital—which were popular horror spots. An eerie green light poured out from the hallway.

Sumire held down her terror and moved to hide in a corner. It was a miracle that no one from D Class had discovered her yet.

As soon as she hid, she began to hear the voices of other students from the hallway.

“Hey, why is Park HaWon making us patrol this area when no one’s here, anyways? Jerk.”

“Nothing we can do; the class prez told us to do it. Stop whining.”

Stomp stomp.

Sumire let out her held breath as the footsteps of the other students grew more distant.

“F-fuah…”

Now that she had found the patrol group, there was no reason for her to stay hidden anymore. Sumire carefully took out a tissue from her pocket.

There was a hair gently swaddled in it.

‘Shin YuSung-ssi’s hair…’

Sumire looked at the lock of hair as if it was a treasure, then used her Skill to summon a skeleton with it.

Crk! Craaack!

The floor of the abandoned hospital split and a grotesque skeleton crawled out from the crack in the floor. Its height was around the same height as Shin YuSung, possibly due to it being born from his hair.

“S-skeleton. Please stay silent… you have to find an opening, then strike. Do you understand?”

Sumire, reminded of when the skeleton started rampaging on its own on Jewel Island, immediately began to ask this of the skeleton. As if understanding her commands, it stood in place and shut its jawbones.

Clack! Claclack!

‘…I can’t mess up the mission that Shin YuSung-ssi entrusted to me!’

 Sumire braced herself and then used her Skill again. This time, a glowing, purple magic circle etched itself on the ground, and two bats appeared from it. This was the [Familiar] Skill that could summon low-level spirit familiars.

The most that they could usually do was perform reconnaissance or perform basic tasks, but this time, these bats had an important mission to fulfill.

“Yep, there sure was nothing there.”

“How about we go to where Jin MinAh is?”

As the two male students’ voices approached closer, Sumire gave a command to the bats with a gesture from her hand. The two bats hid in the darkness of the ceiling, where the light couldn’t reach.

“Jin MinAh? Why not.” 

“Ugh, did you see the orders the other guys got from Park HaWon? We should’ve stayed in line, too.”

The moment of truth.

The bats on the ceiling viciously attacked the two unaware students.

Flap flap!

“Squeak! Squeeeeak!!”

The bats suddenly dove into their faces, cutting off their vision. The two students, shocked, began to scream.

“Aaaaah!! Bats!”

“What-aargh! Is this!?”

But the real attack had not even begun.

As soon as the boys were distracted by the bats, Sumire pointed at them with her finger.

“Skeleton, get them!”

At her orders, the Shin YuSung skeleton immediately pounced towards them.

Tup!

It kicked one of the students in the back at an incredible speed.

Bam! Shatter!

The square hit on the student’s back instantly shattered his barrier shield. The D Class student toppled to the ground ungracefully.

“Arghhh!”

“A-a sneak attack!?”

The boy next to him tried to retaliate, but the skeleton easily dodged the swipe of his blade and threw a punch.

In an instant, the two were down for the count.

“W-we did it!”

Sumire began to jump for joy at her own exploits, then high-fived the skeleton.

“Cl-clack!”

Shin YuSung’s skeleton also praised Sumire. It seemed that—due to the artifact raising the aptitude of her Skills—Sumire’s dominion over her summoned creatures had risen.

“You, uu-uuu… this time… you’re actually listening to me. Does that mean you’ve acknowledged me as your master?”

Sumire was touched by the skeleton’s change in personality. The skeleton turned towards Sumire and rattled its jawbone in reply.

“Cl-clack!”

“R-really?”

“Clack, clackk!”

“This is…this first time that a skeleton has ever said this to me. They’ve never listened to my orders before…”

It seemed like Sumire had some sort of way to communicate with the undead skeleton, possibly due to her Trait. Even if others couldn’t understand what the skeleton was trying to communicate, its owner, Sumire, seemed very happy about it.

“Then let’s check if these guys are actually de… n-no… if they’re actually disqualified. Just in case.”

Sumire crouched down to check the remaining shield amount of the D Class students.

[D Class – Jin MyungSeok]

[Shield Remaining 0/1000]

[Status: Disqualified]

They were both out of the test.

Whatever shield they had remaining had been completely demolished. It was nothing to be surprised about. Even if the skeleton had only 3/10s of Shin YuSung’s strength, it still used his martial arts techniques.

It had more than proven its destructive capabilities.

“Good job, skeleton! You really are from Shin YuSung-ssi’s hair! You’re the best!”

Sumire was on cloud nine because the plan had succeeded, but she wasn’t in the position to relax, not until she had rescued the hostage.

‘Now, with the ring that Shin YuSung-ssi gave me…’

Sumire looked at the ring and gave a creepy smile. She began to pour mana into the ring, so as to plunge the abandoned hospital into terror.

Woosh!

A black light began to emit from the ring.

What Sumire had used was the [Keeper of the Undead] Skill from the ring.

Unlike the [Familiar] Skill from earlier, a black magic circle was etched on the ground instead.

Voom!

A skeletal knight wearing a suit of armor appeared on top of the magic circle.

“…I will do what my M-Master wishes.”

Sumire used her Pocket to bring up a holograph listing the explanation of her artifact.

〈Immortal’s Ring〉 Rare

Info – The ring owned by the ruler of the Graveyard of Despair, the lich. It has a power that boosts the power of the undead.

Keeper of the Dead (Skill) –

Summons undead monsters based on the amount of mana used by the caster.

Fog of Despair (Skill) –

Dark clouds move to hide the sun. They strengthen the undead underneath their shade.

In the explanation, there was no mention as to what sort of undead creature would be summoned by [Keeper of the Dead].

Sumire only realized why as she looked up at the death knight.

‘…O-oh, I see. The type of undead that’s summoned is random.’

Even after using the Skill, Sumire was overflowing with mana. In disbelief, Sumire once again poured mana into the ring.

Voom!

Again, a magic circle was drawn on the ground. This time, a skeletal horse appeared from it.

“W-wow.”

Three minutes passed like this.

After using the ring a bunch of times, Sumire was surrounded by many different undead.

“Cl-clack!”

“Krr, neiiigh!”

“As… mas… ter… wi… shes…”

The skeleton soldiers clattered their jawbones.

The skeletal horses went up on their hind legs and neighed.

The death knight sat upon a skeletal horse. Sumire had turned the abandoned hospital building into an undead-themed dungeon. 

She boldly took the lead.

“Th-then, let’s go, shall we?!”

With the power of the artifact, the weakest person of F Class, Sumire, was reborn into a terrifying necromancer.

* * *

* * *

The rooftop of the abandoned hospital…

Park HaWon, who had been looking down at the rest stop building, fiddled with her glasses and began to talk to Kang MinSu.

“Hey, Kang MinSu.”

“Yeah.”

“What is that Shin YuSung thinking? Why isn’t he leaving the rest stop?”

“Who knows? I’m curious, too. Even when time is on our side.”

As he said this, he threw a glance towards the instructor, Lin Xiao. As long as he, the hostage, was safely contained in their base, all they had to do was hold out for an hour for it to be D Class’s victory.

“Something’s off…”

Park HaWon narrowed her eyes. Suddenly, one of the students that she had placed on patrol hurriedly ran into the base.

Bam!

“H-HaWon-ah! Big trouble!”

“What’s going on?”

“The guys on the first floor! The ones who were on guard duty… they’re knocked out…”

“What!?” she yelled, face in a grimace.

Lin Xiao, who had been watching everything from the side, let out a small laugh.

“So it’s a diversion tactic, then.”

Park HaWon bit her lip, then shot a glance at Kang MinSu, who seemed to understand her plan from just that look.

“Okay. Got it, let’s split up for now.”

Now that they knew that there was an intruder in the abandoned hospital, Park HaWon had to leave the base to quickly neutralize the threat.

“No matter what happens, protect the hostage. I’ll go and attack the opponent’s base with our troops on the outside.”

“Hm… Ju HaJin is on the outside, right? He isn’t too shabby.”

After their discussion, Park HaWon quickly left the rooftop. Instructor Lin Xiao, despite the rope tied around him, managed to speak in a grave tone.

“Looks like D Class has been making a lot of errors so far.”

“That isn’t something that’s been decided yet.”

At Kang MinSu’s denial, Lin Xiao laughed, eyes closed.

“Is that so?”

“Shin YuSung still has to protect his base, and I can stop whoever the guerrilla member is. There is no change to the plan.”

But Lin Xiao kept throwing questions in response to Kang MinSu’s nonchalant reply.

“You don’t even know who infiltrated the building. How can you be so sure that you can stop them?”

His nonchalance lasted only a moment.

Kang MinSu couldn’t think of what to say to the instructor’s razor-sharp question.

“That’s…”

The reason why he was so certain of his victory was because he thought that the fighting skills of all F Class students, barring Shin YuSung, were poor.

‘…But I can’t say that to Instructor Lin Xiao.’

The man gazed coldly at the boy, who had suddenly become quiet.

“Didn’t I just tell you to treat this test as if it was real life? But you already think you’ve won when you barely know anything about the opponent, huh?”

Kang MinSu had lost to Lin Xiao. He eventually clenched his fist and began to speak again.

“Then I’ll prove that there is a gap between D Class and F Class with my skill.”

As if telling the instructor to listen in, Kang MinSu started to give plans to Sung IkHyun and Jin MinAh, who were next to him.

“Protect the hostage. I’ll go, defeat the intruder, then come back.”

This was the perfect chance for F Class, yet also their moment of danger.

The ace of D Class, Kang MinSu, was personally making his move in order to subdue Sumire.