The Return of the Iron-blood Sword Hound

Chapter 185 Random Defense in the Midterm Exam (7)

In the darkness, a child stood alone.

“Get out.”

The voice of a middle-aged man echoed.

It was a memory from a distant past, one the child couldn’t recall, and the voice was harsh and chilling.

Next came the sad sobbing of a mother.

“Where did this wretched creature come from?”

“Doesn’t even know their place.”

“Kick them out immediately.”

“…Get rid of them.”

The murmurs of the surrounding people followed the sobbing.

Afterward, the child’s view changed repeatedly.

Running mother, a forest and mountains, pursuers, steep cliffs, rushing river, hungry wolves, and the astonished faces of passing merchants and mercenaries.

Time passed, and so did memories.

A mother who had never smiled, always looking at the child with sadness.

Beside that mother, a stepfather who lavished comfort and love on the child, becoming the sturdy pillar of the family.

With the child’s diligent efforts, combined with the money the father had saved all his life, their cramped, dark, and repulsive house gradually expanded and brightened, becoming warm.

The food that was once coarse and malodorous gradually transformed into something delicious and warm.

This life, which had no reason to be envied, began anew.

The mother’s pride, the father’s hope.

For the sake of the mother, who had been burdened with unhappiness, and to bring happiness to her, the child chose a path of challenge.

Enrolling in the Colosseo Academy.

Through the child’s tireless efforts and the savings the father had gathered over a lifetime, he achieved the result of entering this place known for gathering the Empire’s greatest talents.

The mother worried excessively about the child, for he had entered a place where only the Empire’s best were gathered.

The father was elated, handing over the money he had saved all his life, smiling every day.

The child thought they would adjust well to this place and wanted to make their parents happy.

However, things weren’t going smoothly.

Upon entering the school, the child faced bullying, thanks to his characteristic timid personality.

While at an ordinary school outside, the child had been a standout student with leadership, vitality, and outstanding athletic performance, but here in the Colosseo, which gathered only the Empire’s greatest talents, he was nothing more than an inferior student.

His intelligence was lacking compared to others, and he had difficulty with various exams, causing the child to feel extreme frustration.

At the moment, he was in a desperate situation, as even his life was at stake.

In this situation, the child’s mind kept replaying the earliest memory and sound he could recall.

“Get out. A wretch like you is not part of my bloodline.”

A hasty light.

In a situation where the mind and body were about to break down, the child barely held on to his ego.

And at that moment…

“Now it’s okay.”

A voice from somewhere sounded.

It had an effect more significant than any magic in this world, erasing all the pain in the child’s mind and body in an instant.

The agony of his birth, the guilt towards his parents, the sense of duty as a child, the burden of studying, the loneliness of not making friends, the pain in his body – all of it disappeared with one word.

It was the power of “friend’s comfort.”

“Ugh?”

The child opened his eyes, and the first thing they saw were three faces.

“Hey, Figgy! Are you all right, Figgy!? Breathe, Figgy! Breathe! Come on! Ugh! Don’t die!”

“Great! Figgy is breathing again! It must be because I gave him CPR…!”

“Sancho! Shut up and do mouth-to-mouth, quick! Bianca, You do the arms and legs!”

Tudor, Sancho, and Bianca. Friends were staring down at him, their faces smeared with tears and snot.

Tudor was always in high spirits, so it was to be expected, but even Sancho and Bianca crying was a bit unexpected.

Figgy coughed, pushing themselves up.

Their ribs felt like they’d been bent; maybe they were broken.

But even in that pain, Figgy moved their body and searched for someone.

“Where’s Vikir? What about Vikir?!”

Then Tudor, Sancho, and Bianca’s expressions subtly changed.

Soon, their gazes all converged at one place.

There…

——————

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Vikir could be seen shooting the ants with his bow like a madman.

* * *

‘Well, with the level of monsters, using expert-level strength should be enough.’ Vikir thought as he pierced the skull of a soldier ant with a single shot.

There was no need to bring out the aura of a Peak Graduator. Because…

‘In the end, hunting soldier ants is all about the tactics.’

Vikir had thoroughly studied an undocumented ant-extermination method. Although referred to as supply bows and arrows, when combined with Vikir’s mana, it could serve as a formidable siege weapon.

Pew! Pew-pew-pew-pew!

Vikir’s arrow began to pick off the ants by the dozen.

Whether they were worker ants or soldier ants, once they were hit by Vikir’s arrows, they were instantly obliterated.

Vikir cleared the way with minimal effort, he could see Tudor, Sancho, Figgy, and Bianca sitting there with blank expressions.

“…Vikir?”

Tudor’s expression was ghostly, as if he had seen a ghost.

Sancho, Figgy, and Bianca had similar reactions.

Vikir approached his friends without saying a word.

A swarm of Carnage ants swarmed around Vikir and targeted him.

But Vikir stayed calm and shot an arrow into the ant’s thoracic plate, the area between its head and chest.

Surprisingly, the destroyed ants begin to move backwards instead of forwards.

The ants that had been swarming forward began to walk backward, causing great confusion in the swarm.

As Vikir watched, he realized that the golem was an exquisite imitation of a real Carnage ant.

It must have been created by a skilled mage.

‘Carnage ants have a bio-compass right there. If it breaks, it’s over.’

This is a method of dealing with these monsters that humans don’t know about right now, and won’t be discovered for another 20 years.

Before Vikir’s regression, humanity was puzzling over how the Carnage ants could find their way back home from so long a distance.

If they could figure it out, it would be a great way to bring back warriors who had fallen in the fight against demons.

And after countless years of tireless research, humans eventually figured it out.

Carnage ants were known to find their way around by spraying pheromones or memorizing the shape of major landforms, but that didn’t explain their ability to find their way home after a storm washed away the pheromones or an earthquake altered the landscape.

It has now been confirmed that even baby ants that have just left the nest for the first time are able to find their way home.

In fact, the Carnage ants’ ability to navigate so precisely is due to a magnetic field compass built into their bodies.

No matter where they are, they can calculate exactly where they stand, where they want to go, and how many steps they need to take by integrating a complex function of mana along the way.

This extremely precise bio-compass, which can even detect polarization – the rotation of the direction of the force field when sunlight hits it – keeps the Carnage ants pointed in the right direction at all times.

And then.

Poof! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!

Vikir wasn’t killing the ants, he was just picking out and destroying their bio-compasses.

The Carnage ants, with their broken sense of direction, ran backward, blocking the path of those behind them.

‘What’s next… Is it a soldier ant?’

Vikir raised his head and gazed at the massive ants in front of him.

How could he have forgotten those murderous, heavily armored beasts?

Vikir slowly started thinking about his past life.

Great Colony’s Battle, with so many casualties. That terrifying nightmare in the anthill.

The monsters had taken advantage of the worker ants’ weaknesses and turned the tide of battle in an instant, perplexing the victorious Allied forces.

‘If you go down into the anthill, into the Catacombs, they scurry around like regular ants, though I’m not sure if they still exist today.’

The soldier ant is a dangerous creature and they swarm.

It’s so strong that even Peak Sword Experts can’t fight it 1 on 1.

But of course, even such a beast has its weaknesses.

Just as you can trap Cerberus or hounds with chocolate, you can trap a soldier ant with a trick.

“You just have to find the right point.”

Vikir focused his attention on the arrow.

He needed to concentrate even more since he only had to use the aura of a Mid-tier to High-Tier Sword Expert.

Of course, the gas aura used by an Expert and the gas aura used by a Graduator are on a different level in terms of their proficiency.

The same bread knife wielded by a child and an experienced chef will produce different results.

Shhh-

Vikir’s gas aura flies in a dark red trajectory, like a cherry at the end of an arrow.

And it goes.

peo-eog!

It pierced right through the center of the soldier ant’s head, instantly knocking the giant monster to the ground.

‘The soldier ants are so realistic.’

Vikir smiled faintly at the sight of his single arrow.

‘Their skull, which is broad and flat like a shield and specialized for headbutting, is their strength.

Everyone knows this.

But paradoxically, few realize that the creature’s weakness lies in its skull.

This sneaky ant hides its weaknesses in what should be its greatest strength.

“The powerful skull encloses the left and right brains, separately. The only weaknesses are the connecting hippocampus and the cartilage that covers it.

The skull of the soldier ant is divided into two pieces, with the connecting link at the bottom of the center.

That soft carapace, about half the size of your little fingernail, is the vital area.

When an ant is pierced in this location, the coordination system between the left and right brains collapses and the ant dies, literally splitting in half’.

The ant’s body is still intact, but the neural and sensory networks have been destroyed, and it now lies motionless.

Vikir continued to fire arrows at the dead soldier ants while stepping over them.

His appearance was that of a veteran soldier who had spent decades on the battlefield, and he was truly a military god, with the aura of a Sword Expert.

…Puck! …Puck! …Puck!

The ants continue to die from the flying arrows.

By now, far more were being crushed by their fellows than by Vikir’s arrows.

With their bio-compasses broken, the ants started to run backward, and the monster waves were stifled by the soldier ants.

Furthermore, the baby madam was inhaling the paralyzing poison spewed by the ants, so it’s no surprise that the poisonous fog was concentrated around Vikir.

Vikir used the soldier ant’s carcasses as a rampart, annihilating the ants in front of him, and when he ran out of arrows, he moved forward to retrieve the ones in front of him.

He’d then climb up a soldier ant’s body in front of him and kill another, and another, and another.

Tudor, Sancho, Figgy, and Bianca, who were watching from the rear, muttered in a daze.

“…This isn’t a dream, is it?”

The third phase, the one that even third-year seniors struggle with, had already passed.

…But.

[Map: Carnage Ant Colony ‘Impure Anthill’]

Join forces with your comrades to fend off the attacking Carnage Ants!

Time remaining until the end of Phase 3: 0 minutes, 0 seconds.

1. Vikir

HP: 100/100

Kill point: 968

Assist point: 5,321

Vikir didn’t just hold his own, he destroyed all the record ever created.