Vol 3 Chapter 54

Swoosh! Thwack!

Immediately, with the sharp sound of piercing shell, three arrows embedded themselves like porcupine quills near the Deberebreb's red head. It was a critical hit, precisely striking the vital point. The event happened so quickly that while Kran was still in the process of drawing his sword, the Deberebreb, which had momentarily frozen as if someone had pressed pause, soon staggered and collapsed sideways.

Thud!

The twitching feet also stopped moving after a few seconds. Shortly after, where the creature had disintegrated and disappeared, a part of the Deberebreb's shell remained as a junk item. Un-o strode forward confidently and picked up the shell. Only after all this was over did Kran, who had awkwardly pushed back his sword that he had drawn about a third of the way out, give a hollow laugh.

"Haha... I keep forgetting how terrifyingly fast that guy is."

True to his word about not being a burden, Un-o had been dealing with the monsters that appeared after he joined them in this quick manner. Even if Kran had faced the monster, he could have won in a short time, of course, but the speed at which Un-o drew and released his bowstring was unparalleled. Moreover, if they had cut it with a sword, they would have had to endure the terrible smell from the monster's body fluids, but with arrows cleanly piercing only the weak points, there was no such problem, which was convenient.

Thanks to this, Kapros often used the spare time to do other things, but Kran, perhaps out of habit, repeatedly found himself in embarrassing situations like just now, trying to draw his sword.

You should adapt properly, Kapros thought, clicking his tongue inwardly as he opened his item window and took out Superior's spellbook.

"Oh, Kap. Are you finally going to try that again?"

"Yeah."

"Ooooh."

Kapros nodded to Kran, whose eyes sparkled at the sight of the book being taken out, and Kran made a sound of fascination. Un-o also looked on curiously as Kapros scratched his head and opened the book, revealing the first spell, Inferno.

Apart from the description of "hellfire," he still couldn't understand anything, but unlike the frustration he felt before, this time a fresh tension filled his chest. Remembering Yoon Seok-ho's advice that the 6th circle was different from before and to try it first, and having succeeded with Aerial Servant thanks to that, Kapros intended to attempt this one first as well. He placed his hand on the page, took a long breath, and slowly closed his eyes.

"Inferno."

At that moment, disaster struck.

Kapros walked on silently, looking only ahead.

Behind him, he could feel the muffled presence of the two guys watching him cautiously. Despite the good weather and scenery, his mood was at an all-time low.

'...'

Come to think of it, how many days had passed since then... 4 days?

'It's already been 4 days since that disastrous day.'

He chuckled involuntarily.

"Sigh..."

As he unconsciously let out a long sigh, he could feel the two behind him flinching even without looking. Everything had started from that day. On that day that had kept him fixated on one thought for 4 days, he had lightly drawn a circle, specified the range, and uttered the incantation for Inferno.

"Inferno!"

Even as he shouted with his eyes closed, imagining hot fire, he had inwardly thought that nothing would appear and had let his guard down. How could magic be implemented with just a single activation word without a proper incantation, and without a clear image? That's what he had thought. But that was his critical mistake.

"..."

"...Kap... Nothing's appearing?"

As Kran, who had been waiting, awkwardly asked when nothing appeared even after some time had passed since the incantation, Kapros thought, "As expected," and opened his eyes.

Suddenly, all strength drained from his entire body. At the same time, as he opened his eyes, he saw flames starting to form in the air. With a terrible sound of oxygen being consumed, an enormous flame erupted right before his eyes.

- Whoosh!

He had never seen such bright red, flickering flames before.

It looked more like moving blood than fire, to the point where that would have been more believable.

"Ugh!"

The groan that reached Kapros's ears as he stared with wide eyes in shock snapped him back to his senses. He saw the red flames about to latch onto Kran and Un-o like living snakes.

Although both Kran and Un-o quickly dodged as the hungry-looking flames writhed and tried to attach to them, even the slightest touch of sparks burned through anything, be it armor or otherwise.

"What is this!"

Kran waved his arm threateningly at the fire with an incredulous expression, but far from extinguishing, the fire instead flared up as if to devour the palm he had extended, like a snake biting. Surprised by the intensity, Kran stepped back, and only then did Kapros grasp a general sense of the situation.

The magic he thought had failed had activated. However, this magic wasn't like the ones before that followed his will. Unbelievably, it was as if the flames were alive.

As this was the first time he had encountered such a situation, Kapros was about to approach Kran, who was moving to avoid the flames, not knowing what to do. That's when Un-o's voice, who had dodged to the opposite side, was heard.

"...It's gone!"

"What?"

Surprised by the sudden announcement of disappearance, Kapros looked at Un-o, but at that moment, faster than his gaze, the flames raced along the ground and lunged towards Un-o. Un-o, who had become dumbfounded like Kran earlier, immediately jumped up to avoid it, and the flames flared up as high as possible as if frustrated. Along with this, Kran's shout was heard from behind.

"Oh, the fire's gone!"

At those words, as Kapros was about to turn his body towards Kran again, he suddenly stopped in his tracks as if struck by lightning.

"...This is...!"

- Crackle...

"The fire..."

Un-o muttered lowly from the side. What Kapros instantly realized as he was about to turn his head quickly was that the flames, which had been desperately lunging towards Un-o while he was looking at him, immediately reacted as soon as his gaze moved, moving at tremendous speed 'along the path of his moving gaze'.

Realizing this and stopping himself from trying to look at Kran in surprise, Kapros looked at a point in the middle, and the flames quickly moved towards that spot as if they always had to be within his field of vision. And on both sides, outside his line of sight, the hot flames died down as if by magic.