The Archmage’s Destruction Strategy - Chapter 11

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

“Ah shit, what’s with this rain. The weather’s really fucked up.”

Sung-jun, who had hastily used a random teleport spell to escape the agents who came to the rice factory, complained about the rain soaking his clothes as soon as he finished teleporting.

Then he quickly cast a waterproofing spell to block the rainwater falling on his clothes.

Tap tap tap tap tap.

He watched the raindrops rolling off the surface of his clothes as if he were wearing a raincoat, then slowly looked around to figure out his current location.

‘This must be a place where the agents swept through for territory recovery.’

The disgusting smell of blood unique to Corrosion Entities, penetrating through the heavy scent of rain, reminded him that fierce battles had taken place at this location.

And Sung-jun stood alone and lonely in the rain on the rooftop of a building where the ceiling had been completely blown away, revealing the cloudy sky above.

Thanks to the waterproofing spell preventing his body from getting wet, he slowly turned his head to look around.

The sight of a high-quality leather chair that must have once seated the highest-ranking person on this floor, now sitting there abandoned without its owner.

And the sight of office computers that had once been the most reliable partners of daily commuting office workers, now rolling around on the floor, carelessly discarded.

Considering that only about 3 months had passed since ‘that day’, they were miserably broken in a dirty and grimy state, as if past memories were lies.

“Wait, if this is an office…”

Sung-jun, remembering that floors with offices usually also have break rooms, began walking among the collapsed desks with hopeful expectations.

And shortly after, upon finding the place he wanted, he started humming and began his ‘harvest’.

“Wow, maybe because it’s the rooftop floor, there’s still instant coffee left? Today’s a complete jackpot, isn’t it?”

If it had been an easily accessible lower floor, not only instant coffee but everything takeable from pens to staplers would have been looted, but the upper floors of the building Sung-jun teleported to still had quite a few things worth taking.

And from the fact that ‘things remained’, it wasn’t difficult to guess that the teleported building was no ordinary place.

“Grrrrrrrrrr…”

Shortly after, Sung-jun finished his pleasant material search and encountered a strangely shaped monster blocking his path as he went down the stairs.

If he had to compare it to something similar, it was a monster with a bull’s head resembling the ‘Minotaur’ from mythology.

Sung-jun concluded that this guy was the reason no one approached the rooftop.

“That axe? Cleaver? Spear? I don’t know what to call that weapon you’re holding, but you should wipe the blood off weapons right away. Otherwise they’ll rust.”

As if pleased with the kind advice, the creature uncrossed its legs and slowly rose from its position.

Then it grabbed a nearby corpse and began rubbing it against the blade of the weapon it was holding.

As if it were a dishrag.

And the sight of this creature was getting on the nerves of Sung-jun, who had planned to deal with it roughly and leave.

“What, showing off your strength? Even without stripping off clothes or whatever, you want to show that you can swing around a human corpse as light as tissue paper? Or maybe…”

When Sung-jun deliberately released mana from his entire body and extended his left palm, the creature carelessly threw away the corpse it was holding.

“Did you want to send a message that I’ll end up like that soon too?”

Before he could even finish speaking, the monster roared and swung its weapon from where it stood.

Then, despite being at a distance where the creature’s attack shouldn’t reach, an invisible slash burst from the weapon and flew toward Sung-jun with a wind-cutting sound, aiming to split his body in half.

-KWAAAAAAANG!!!-

The attack was so powerful that the massive pillar behind me shattered into pieces with a thunderous roar, causing the monster to let out a victory roar.

This was because the wind pressure generated along with the slash spread in all directions, and the dust that had accumulated for 3 months blocked the view like a smoke bomb.

However, Sung-jun wasn’t pleased with the monster’s joyful roaring reaction, so he waved his hand to instantly blow away the dust storm, showing the monster his unharmed figure standing there.

“Attacking me is fine, but try not to touch the pillars if possible. Do you know how annoying it is to break through when a building this high collapses?”

Behind Sung-jun as he spoke, a magic circle glowing bright orange was forcibly supporting the pillar that had been cut in the middle.

And right next to it, Sung-jun, who had taken the slash head-on, extended his left hand toward the monster and cast an attack spell without a single wound.

“Now it’s your turn to try blocking this.”

Even if he was a mage specializing in long-range attacks, attacking head-on against an armed opponent wasn’t a recommended method.

Most aberrants carrying weapons usually had the speed and reflexes to easily dodge most frontal attacks, and some of them often had ‘trump cards’ that could deflect even 7th Circle level magical attacks.

Therefore, following his teacher’s teachings, he always cast opening attacks from behind.

A trick of deceiving the opponent’s eyes by making the magic circle summoned in his left hand seem like the main attack, while the actual attack was cast with magic from his right hand hidden behind his back.

And this combat method had another advantage besides simple deception: it could force the opponent’s first action.

“KRWAAAAAAAAR!!!!!”

-BANG!!!!!!!-

When sharp crystal fragments in awl shapes flew from a magic circle summoned behind the bull-headed monster, it swung its weapon with lightning-fast movement to strike down the attack spell flying toward it.

And that meant the creature had chosen the ‘mistake’ of looking behind while leaving the opponent in front alone.

‘That’s right. When an attack comes from right behind, it’s instinct to try to block the attack from the closer side first.’

Actually, from Sung-jun’s perspective, either choice didn’t matter.

If the opponent ignored the attack from behind and tried to block the frontal attack, he could just land an effective hit with the rear attack, and if it turned around, he could cast the spell from his left hand to attack the back once more.

– Pop pop pop pop pop!!!! –

The sharp awls, so razor-sharp they could pierce even armor-like tough hide like tofu, penetrated straight through the entire body of the monster that had turned around.

In the end, the seemingly powerful monster died standing without even letting out a single scream.

“Bastard, acting all cool when you’re nothing special.”

After confirming the monster’s death, Sung-jun turned his head to examine the state of the magic circle holding the pillar.

To check the load on the magic circle that was bearing the weight the pillar should support, calculating whether the building would remain standing even after dispelling the magic.

And while interpreting the incredibly complex characters within the magic circle in real time, he shook his head and cleanly declared defeat.

“Ah, this won’t work. The moment I dispel this, the whole building will collapse, won’t it?”

The time the stabilization magic circle he created earlier could last with the pre-injected mana was about 5 minutes.

Judging that time to be sufficient to escape this building, Sung-jun picked up the luggage he had dropped on the floor to cast spells and headed toward the stairs.

Then he stopped walking, pondered for a moment, and reached out to inject mana into the magic circle that was stabilizing the pillar.

“No matter how the world has become, turning a collapsed building into a tomb would be too cruel to the dead.”

Having made up his mind, Sung-jun walked back through the floors in reverse, placing teleportation markers on all the corpses in the building.

Then, before leaving the building, he cast a life-form tracking spell targeting the entire building one last time.

-Whoosh~-

As transparent mana ripples visible only to mages spread throughout the building, he closed his eyes and began tracking the returning magic signals.

As if he had become a human radar.

Then, seeing the faint biological information within the detection range, he let out a sigh of relief.

“I never thought there would still be survivors hiding in the upper floors three months after that day. If I hadn’t used detection magic because I found it bothersome, they might have been crushed to death under the collapsed building.”

Sung-jun cast teleportation magic using a corpse he had pre-marked on the floor where survivors were located as fixed coordinates, and immediately began walking toward the room where survivors were presumed to be.

And what he discovered there was an enormous amount of office desks and furniture that had clearly been piled up by someone outside to save the survivors inside the room, and in front of them, rotted flesh fragments too pitiful to even be called a corpse.

‘I can see what happened without even looking.’

Probably inside this place were family members that the victim who died outside cherished more than their own life.

And they had remained outside to build barricades, moving these mountain-like desks and cabinets.

And in the end, they met their final moments in front of the barricade they had built, being eaten alive by terrible monsters that devoured people.

‘From the location, what’s inside must be the break room. So they survived for 3 months with only the food and water in the break room? They probably tried to get out, but couldn’t possibly leave because of the luggage piled up outside.’

Sung-jun, imagining the final moments the owner of the rotted flesh must have faced, felt somewhat sad as he extended his hand toward the barricade they had built.

Then he cast a spell with carefully adjusted power to destroy only the obstacles without damaging what was beyond the door.

-Crack! Crack! Crunch! Snap! Crash crash crash bang!!!-

Steel, glass, wood.

All sorts of plywood and metals tore and crumpled, making loud noises, but he didn’t pay much attention.

Even if Corrosion Entities came running after hearing the noise, he could just eliminate them easily like the bull-headed monster from before.

And the reason he deliberately made loud noises while breaking the barricade was to let the survivors inside the room know that a rescuer had arrived.

“Kyaaaaaaah!!! Hup!!!!”

What came from beyond the door was a delicate female voice.

She had probably screamed involuntarily upon hearing the sound of the barricade being broken, then quickly covered her mouth.

“It’s okay. I’m a person, not a monster.”

“Is, is that really true? Are you really human?”

“Have you ever seen a monster speaking Korean in the past 3 months?”

“…No.”

“Then I must be human.”

Shortly after, with rattling sounds, the door that hadn’t been opened once in 3 months began to open with creaking noises.

And from inside, a small-framed girl who appeared to be of high school age cautiously poked her head out.

“Is it really safe? There was such a loud noise… what if monsters heard it and came running…”

“Don’t worry and come out. Even if something dangerous happens, I have ways to escape.”

Hearing those words, the girl hesitated for a moment, then carefully opened the door and came outside.

Then she slowly approached on trembling legs and spoke to him.

“…Are you an Awakened?”

“No. I’m not a government agent or anything like that… but something similar.”

“How did you know I was here… Ah! Did you perhaps meet my dad? If you came to rescue me at my dad’s request!”

After thinking for a moment, Sung-jun silently shook his head instead of answering.

It might seem cruel, but in a world like this, knowing accurate information would help even a little in making survival plans.

The girl froze for a moment, then suddenly buried her head and began sobbing, tears streaming down like chicken droppings.

“Sob… hic hic… Dad… Daddyyy…”

What should he do.

Since he had already saved her, would it be better to provide the foundation necessary for survival so the girl could live until the end.

Or should he leave alone, telling her to be grateful that he rescued her from a building on the verge of collapse.

Sung-jun, who had been contemplating while watching the sobbing girl, decided to handle the immediate task first.

Because the Corrosion Entities in the surrounding buildings had heard the loud noise he cast earlier to remove the barricade and were all rushing toward where he was.

Of course, at Sung-jun’s current level, eliminating that number of Corrosion Entities was nothing, but he didn’t want to reveal his identity yet.

Sung-jun approached the sobbing girl and spoke in a voice filled with tension.

“Sorry to interrupt your crying, but we need to go now.”

“Sniff… sob… Go? Where?”

“Anywhere. The monsters are running toward this building because of the noise earlier. If we’re late escaping, we won’t be able to get out of the building because of the monsters.”

“But right now… in my condition, I can’t run…”

“Did you hurt your leg?”

“Actually, I ran out of food a week ago… And I’ve had no water for three days…”

Of course, people don’t become unable to move just from starving for about a week.

However, unless the girl was a fool, she wouldn’t have suddenly started starving after eating sufficient meals every day.

She probably endured by restricting food intake to the extreme limit before consuming all her provisions.

Only then did Sung-jun realize that the girl’s complexion was seriously haggard, and he let out a sigh.

The girl, misunderstanding that his sigh came from finding her bothersome, urgently grabbed Sung-jun’s arm and said.

“I, I’ll try to run anyway! Even if I can’t run, if I try to walk quickly…”

“Forget it. Too troublesome. Stay still.”

Sung-jun placed his hand on the girl’s shoulder and immediately cast a teleportation spell.

The wide-range teleport spell he had marked earlier, which simultaneously transported countless corpses.

-Rummmmmmmble!! Crash crash crash crash crash!!!!-

And shortly after, hundreds of monsters that had unknowingly rushed into the building and were eagerly running toward the upper floors were crushed to death by the debris of the building that suddenly began to collapse.

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