Something Keeps Appearing in My Subspace - Chapter 266

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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266. Australia Subjugation (2)
Once a land where humans had dwelled, Australia had transformed into a monster’s domain—one that showed no welcome to human visitors.
Well, from the monsters’ perspective, it was only natural; they were being jolted awake by sudden lightning strikes falling from the sky.
-Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
The miniguns and missiles mounted on the military helicopter we rode blazed with fire. The adjacent aircraft mirrored our assault.
Our target lay ahead. Flying-type monsters that would be priority extermination elsewhere remained intact here.
“Awakened entity confirmed!”
At the outskirts of Australia, non-awakened harpies rained down from the sky in torrents, yet some persisted through the barrage.
Those were the hunters’ responsibility. We’d accounted for every contingency in our planning.
“Min-jae.”
“Yes, sir!”
Mages distributed across multiple helicopters simultaneously channeled their mana.
-Whoosh!
Though their speeds varied, dozens of spells streaked forward and struck true—lightning barrages, flame lances, magic missiles, and more.
Mister expressed his admiration cautiously.
“I’m not sure if I should say this, but it’s magnificent.”
Black smoke billowed from all directions across Australia’s sky, embroidered with spells of every hue.
I could share Mister’s sentiment completely.
“It’s surreal, isn’t it?”
The spells found their mark among the harpy swarms.
-Boom!
-Crackle!
Explosions and harpy shrieks intertwined. Since everyone prioritized accuracy over raw destructive power, nearly every spell struck its target directly.
Some monsters survived by using their comrades as shields, but follow-up spells ensured they didn’t escape.
“Even if we handle these, the real problem comes later.”
“The griffins and wyverns?”
“Exactly.”
Most of them were awakened entities—far more troublesome. And unlike harpies, they weren’t fragile.
During the Daejeon Gate incident, Korea’s Advance Team had repelled them, but not without considerable difficulty.
“They said we’d avoid their habitat by adjusting our route, but you never know, right?”
“Well, we’ll have to respond appropriately.”
We’d optimized our path as much as possible; all we could do was hope to avoid them. If luck favored us, we’d pass through unscathed. Otherwise… things would become considerably more complicated.
Still, with black smoke rising across all of Australia, I suspected we’d draw less attention.
“But those are the real concern.”
We couldn’t afford to worry only about the sky. Immediately after the bombardment, military helicopters roared in formation as they advanced.
Glancing downward, I could see an enormous horde of monsters charging toward us across the ground.
‘Not a zombie swarm, but close enough.’
They couldn’t match the helicopter’s speed, but they were undeniably drawing aggro from every monster along our route.
This is why ‘swift’ subjugation was critical to our operation. If we delayed, we’d encounter a staggering number of monsters while closing the Gate.
The original plan would’ve posed no problem, but hadn’t we divided our forces into three teams?
It meant the military support allocated was equally minimal.
“It’s teeming with them. How many would die if Min-jae unleashed his magic there?”
“Quite a lot, but… most of them would still remain, I’d say?”
Min-jae swallowed hard with a dry gulp.
“Even if you expanded the range enormously?”
“Exactly. Look at those numbers.”
“Fair point.”
“A volcanic eruption would be nice.”
“A volcanic eruption?”
Mister tilted his head at Min-jae’s words.
“Well, you know where Hye got that Blaze skill, right? If we just brought that here…”
“Huh?”
Still, since I’d anticipated everything beforehand, it was fortunate that the guild members’ mental state hadn’t changed drastically.
“The sky’s similar, at least.”
I pointed far ahead. Black smoke rose endlessly along the path we were advancing through.
“Yeah. After this operation ends, Australia will be almost entirely scorched land.”
Through this operation, we’d set fires across all of Australia. Given how much artillery we’d fired, it was natural, but we’d also deliberately ignited flames, they said.
It was to construct a defensive line of flames, at least, on the outer edge of our entry direction.
I believed it would be quite effective. If not for this, the monster hordes wouldn’t just be following from behind—they’d be charging from that direction too.
Anyway, even in the old days, Australia was a place where wildfires raged absurdly. No one knew what would become of this fire that humans weren’t stopping.
‘Unless heavy rain falls… it’ll spread across the entire region.’
* * *
-Team 1! Catoblepas encountered! Operation commencing!
Not long after, the radio crackled. Catoblepas was first on the route. We still had more distance to cover.
Whether the God of Play intended it or not, all three Gates had distance between them but weren’t spread too widely across Australia.
-The other Gates opened as a consequence of the constantly operating Mega Gate.
Chun-bae corrected my assumption. I’d thought the God of Play had shown minor consideration while imposing trials.
“It’s over there!”
As we advanced a bit more, we could finally see that battlefield from a distance.
“Insane. It’s absurdly massive.”
Ja-tan had been enormous enough to fill the Han River, but Catoblepas was even larger.
Should I describe it as a living, moving soccer or baseball stadium?
Its overall form resembled a horned ox, but from its head down its long neck ran a mane like a horse’s, and it was a creature that seemed to blend multiple animals together.
Because of its presence, the surrounding landscape seemed to register a beat too late.
“That’s…”
“A secondary phenomenon from the constantly operating Gate, it seems.”
The Mega Gate from which Catoblepas emerged was currently the longest-open location on Earth.
Around last year, the land surrounding the Gate had completely transformed. Into multiple terrains, too. Now it had expanded even further.
“At a glance, there seem to be at least ten different terrains?”
Around the Gate existed places where lava flowed, places where snow accumulated, barren wastelands, and lands with thick toxic green coloration.
The terrain was quite diverse, and there were even areas with water as dark as the sea.
“It looked like CGI in the photographs… but seeing it in person, the landscape feels unreal.”
Mister’s impression matched mine.
“With terrain like that, combat won’t be easy.”
“We’ll just have to hope for the best.”
Hunters began jumping from helicopters in the distance. Parachutes deployed simultaneously. The Advance Team was being inserted.
You could call them an airborne unit of hunters. It was something we’d soon be doing as well.
Because of this, hunters participating in the Australia Subjugation had undergone airborne training. Even for hunters, free-falling from the sky carries impact.
Not everyone needed it. Shin Chang had jumped from a standstill to reach a helicopter before, hadn’t he?
As for me and Mister, we had spatial movement and Yong-yong. There were a few others like us too…
“Choin.”
One of them was Choin. He was someone who could fly through the sky. Originally he couldn’t, but he recently acquired a new skill.
Job skill acquisition rights and skill rank enhancement rights weren’t something only I could obtain.
-ROOOAAARRR!
Catoblepas’s roar echoed out, apparently in response to the impact. Despite the considerable distance, it was affecting us even in the sky.
“Huff.”
The helicopter shook for a moment. The pilot wasn’t a hunter, so he’d been affected.
“Damn. Even I flinched for a second there?”
Mister said that, and I wondered what it must have been like for ordinary people.
“Huh?”
In fact, one helicopter that had dropped off Team 1 near Catoblepas and failed to escape quickly was crashing.
“Phew.”
Fortunately, the pilot regained consciousness just before impact and barely managed to pull the helicopter’s nose up.
And soon, Catoblepas and the hunters became dots before disappearing completely from view.
“They’ll do well.”
“They have to.”
Perhaps because we’d seen Catoblepas from a distance, tension hung thick in the helicopter’s interior.
I glanced at the faces of my guild members. Fortunately, it wasn’t bad enough to be a problem.
-Team 2! Encountered Trimbo! Operation commencing!
The second was Team 2, which Fist King belonged to. This was the most recently opened Mega Gate. Compared to Catoblepas, this creature was much smaller in size.
Therefore, even hearing the radio transmission, we couldn’t see its form.
“Where is it? Can you see it?”
“No?”
In photographs, it looked like a combination of a horse and a dragon. It had massive horns on its head, and apparently it was named after a creature from games.
Team 2 was at a greater distance, so we could only see the parachutes deployed by hunters descending from the helicopter.
-KRRAAHHH!
However, Trimbo’s roar was clearly audible even at that distance. Despite being smaller in size, it was an even louder roar than Catoblepas’s.
The helicopter shook again. Less than before.
Fortunately, there was no helicopter crashing on that side. Perhaps because we’d witnessed Choin’s example, Fist King seemed to have staggered the timing.
Indeed, he was a smart man.
“That won’t be easy either.”
“Right. Just hearing its roar tells you it’s no ordinary creature.”
“The one we’re facing should be similar, right?”
“Exactly. It didn’t even emerge from the Gate we visited before.”
It was common knowledge that creatures from Mega Gates required at least a level 70+ ‘team’ to defeat.
That’s why my defeat of Ja-tan became such an absurd topic of conversation, even accounting for favorable matchups.
Considering my stats exceeded those of an average level 80 hunter, Ja-tan must have been incredibly powerful.
And after a brief flight….
-Team 3! Entering Lion-Human territory! Beginning operation!
Our turn was approaching.
* * *
“Drop!”
With the command, I threw myself from the helicopter. As gravity pressed down on me, an exhilarating sensation of gliding washed over me.
How to describe it—falling yet not feeling like I was falling. The wind battered my body wildly, and I felt utterly free.
It didn’t last long. I needed to focus on the battle ahead. Since I wasn’t using a parachute, I activated Leap to touch ground before the fall became critical.
The other hunters were still descending from the sky.
‘A bit longer.’
Yong-yong would come later. If he burst out with a roar right away, it might provoke the Lion-Human.
Based on previous experience, Mister remained in the helicopter for now.
-Shwiiing!
That’s when I heard a strange sound of something cutting through air. Instinctively, I turned my head to see a spear flying across the sky.
And it struck a helicopter hovering above.
-Kaboom!
One helicopter exploded on the spot.
‘Mister?’
My eyes widened in shock, but fortunately it wasn’t the helicopter Mister was in. Though ‘fortunately’ wasn’t the right word—there were casualties.
Still, that moment of worry sent my heart rate soaring.
-Shwiiing!
The spear that flew through the sky returned with a piercing sound. Did this spear have a retrieval function built in?
Insane. The helicopters began frantically changing direction.
‘We definitely didn’t provoke it first….’
Now I noticed something different. Unlike the beast-form Catoblepas and Trimbo, this one was ‘humanoid.’
As I’d read in the Gate’s records, it had originally been human.
I’d encountered cursed beings who became animal-humans and lost their reason, but this one was special. Perhaps it retained intelligence.
If that were true, leaving things as they were would only worsen the situation.
‘The hunters are descending by parachute.’
Each one was precious combat strength. They were the nation’s elite Advance Team. Dying without even fighting was unacceptable.
Among the descending hunters were Seo Seung-yeon, Min-jae, and Han Chul, along with other Saebyeokbit hunters.
-Whoosh!
First, I opened a Subspace.
“Yong-yong! Come to me!”
First, I had Mister jump down from the helicopter.
“That bastard’s spear is terrifying—you could actually die, so fly carefully!”
-Screech!
After warning Yong-yong as well.
-Whoosh!
I activated Leap. If I wanted to save even a single descending hunter, I had to draw aggro myself.
-Boom!
And someone landed beside me.
“?”
It was Shin Chang. He’d been wearing a parachute unnecessarily, but he’d slashed it away with his spear in haste.
Well, he wouldn’t care about such things anyway.
“Go.”
“Yes.”
Shin Chang, speaking tersely, looked oddly impatient. He seemed angry, and concern flickered across his face.
Shin Chang glanced upward. Following his gaze, I saw Seo Seung-yeon descending by parachute above, aiming her gun downward.
‘Ah. So that’s why.’
-Crack!
Shin Chang immediately kicked off the ground. I didn’t fall behind and activated Leap.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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