SSG 267
by CristaeEpisode 267
The robots kept charging at Hades. Some tried to attack from a distance.
But not one of them managed to inflict any damage on Hades.
Any robot that got close was smashed by an extended arm, and any at a distance was erased by a black beam before they could fire their railguns.
Yuseong watched the scene nervously.
He didn’t even expect to win; this was a battle fought solely to buy a little time, but Hades showed no sign of slowing down.
‘Damn. I’m running out of time.’
He nervously checked the remaining time and calculated the distance between himself and Hades. Even after Hades arrived, it would still be a while before the otherworld transfer was activated.
‘Maybe I should have just run for it. No, if he’s that fast, I’d get caught quickly anyway.’
And outside, with nothing to block him, he’d just end up at the mercy of Hades’s attacks.
‘But hiding means nothing either.’
Giant monsters had passive abilities to sense him. Expecting Hades—obviously much stronger than those beasts—not to have that ability was too optimistic.
‘Let’s get ready.’
If things went badly, this could end up as an act of self-destruction before Hades even killed him, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that.
Hades sprinted toward his target at maximum speed. The robots he encountered were destroyed, unable to even fulfill Yuseong’s minimal hope of buying time.
Still, the robots kept sacrificing themselves, clinging to a sliver of hope.
It looked foolish, but with the robots scattered all around, that was all they could do.
Clack!
For the first time, Hades stopped.
He had reached his destination.
He could sense it. The presence of a human, something he longed for desperately. It was right nearby.
But what greeted him were a massive number of railguns.
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
The ground where he stood literally exploded. Over a hundred railguns concentrated their firepower in one spot.
These were attacks fired by the robots Yuseong had hurriedly purchased in bulk.
Seeing over a hundred robots aiming railguns at one target was overwhelming, and their firepower even more so.
But Yuseong’s expression was far from good.
‘They won’t last long.’
He’d just bought them and hadn’t had time to charge them—power levels were terrible.
Never mind the robots themselves, railguns gulp electricity at insane rates. They probably couldn’t fire more than a few shots.
‘I hope he dies from this attack.’
Boom!
But with Yuseong’s face twisting, a black beam shot through the dust.
“Shit!”
Even a giant monster wouldn’t survive a direct hit from that many railguns.
The very reason monsters became humanity’s natural enemy was not just their strength, but that human weapons didn’t work on them.
If human weapons worked, it would be humans—not monsters or beasts—ruling the earth now.
Because of that, Yuseong had hoped that maybe even Hades would die against such an attack.
It was a mistake.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Railguns kept firing at their target. But the black beam didn’t stop. The robots were wiped out in lumps.
Yuseong had tried to spread them out to prevent a total wipe, but all he achieved was buying a little more time.
Crunch!
The last robot lost its upper body and fell. Yuseong checked the cooldown again.
‘Not yet.’
He turned his attention back to the monitor.
He saw Hades emerging from the dust. Not a single wound was visible. Or perhaps it just couldn’t be seen from the shadowy aura covering his body.
But what was certain was that, whatever Hades’s condition, it was more than enough to finish Yuseong off.
‘In the end, I have no choice but to use my last resort.’
Yuseong tore his eyes from the monitor on his portable computer and picked up the pace in what he was doing.
He was digging into the floor of the shelter. With the exoskeleton’s monstrous strength, the hole he made was quite deep.
Bang!
The shelter vibrated.
‘He’s here!’
Yuseong stopped digging. If he dawdled a little more, he might end up facing that bastard head-on.
Yuseong pressed close to the ground. He took out a switch from his chest and pressed it hard.
KABOOM!
The vibration that enveloped his body. It was far stronger than the last impact.
Rumble!
Something was collapsing. The rumble of heavy things falling and breaking echoed in his ears.
‘Good, it’s collapsing well.’
His ultimate plan was to destroy the shelter.
Like most shelters, the one he was using as his base was built underground.
Of course, as a shelter, it was sturdier than most buildings, but it wasn’t an invincible fortress.
With a basic detonator and plenty of Cookingday explosives, he figured it would be enough to bring the structure down.
And he was right.
Lights went out as Yuseong huddled deep in the dark pit.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
“Ghk!”
Debris fell into the pit.
He had equipped his exoskeleton with external armor scavenged for pure defense, giving up all other functions.
But even that wouldn’t necessarily protect against the full damage from a total shelter collapse.
‘As long as I stay alive.’
As long as his head remained intact and he could press the otherworld transfer button with a hand, he didn’t care how busted up the rest of him got.
He could endure with nanomachines, move to the other world, and heal with a potion.
That’s why he thoroughly protected his head and one hand.
He piled up every piece of clothing and metal he could find, layering them over his helmet.
But even then, a big chunk of concrete to the head could easily kill him.
‘Please let luck be on my side.’
Luck had always turned its back on him, but couldn’t it help him just this once?
Thud! Thud! Thud!
“Ghhhk!”
The more debris fell, the more pain racked his body. Shock kept coming through his arms wrapped over his head. His breathing quickened, and he lost strength below the waist.
But he survived.
The noise of collapse ceased, and he was still breathing.
‘Yes!’
He had cleared the most important phase of his crazy, reckless self-burial plan: surviving the collapse.
‘Just gotta hold out a bit longer.’
No matter how incredible Hades was, it would take some time to dig through the debris and find him.
Since the shelter was underground, the debris would also have been covered by the earth above.
Of course, thinking back to the overwhelming power Hades had shown earlier, he wouldn’t last long, but the time Yuseong needed was just a moment.
It was funny, risking so much for just a brief reprieve.
‘20 seconds!’
Very little time left until his goal.
He heard thudding sounds from above. It didn’t sound like more collapse—probably Hades clearing away the debris.
‘Please! Please!’
Each second felt like an hour, the encroaching noise and rumbling drawing closer, time itself crawling unbearably slow.
Only 5 seconds left.
‘Just 5 more seconds!’
It would be too unfair to die failing to endure even those few seconds.
To Yuseong, it felt like ages, but the seconds ticked away, bit by bit.
Finally, only 1 remained. As the cooldown shade disappeared from the otherworld migration, and just as he was about to press it—
CRACK!
A black beam swept through where Yuseong lay. The area, including his position, was cleanly carved away. All that remained was a deep hole.
Thud!
Hades landed by the hole he’d made and peered inside. The hole was pitch black with barely any light, but that was no obstacle for him.
He just wanted to check, but Hades thought Yuseong was dead.
He’d been annoyed for a moment when so many robots had been deployed and the ground collapsed as an obstacle.
So he crushed everything in an instant.
Even his beam couldn’t cut through the earth in one go, but to a certain depth, it was possible.
He was sure his beam would have left no trace of a human.
But, incredibly, Hades was wrong.
He felt a squirming reaction from inside the hole.
A human.
How had he survived? Was his beam’s power too weak?
Puzzled, Hades leapt into the hole.
It didn’t matter. At least, he’d be able to finish off the human he hadn’t met in so long—by hand this time.
But before he could land, as Yuseong’s wormlike body writhed, he suddenly vanished.
Even Hades was caught off guard for a moment.
He reached out, groping the spot where Yuseong had lain. But all he found was a pool of spilled blood—there was no sign of Yuseong.
Growing desperate, Hades spread his detection range to the maximum.
Still, he couldn’t sense a single trace of a human within it.
He’d lost him.
-Graaahhh!
BAM! BAM! BAM!
In a rage, Hades began smashing the surroundings. Massive hands and feet swept out. Black beams shot in all directions.
But never did he get the satisfying feeling of crushing a human.
“Ghk!”
Blood trickled from Yuseong’s lips. He peered around through blurred eyes.
‘I did it.’
A familiar room. The sight proved he had made it to an absolutely safe space.
‘That was close.’
Really, it was. If he had been just a few seconds slower, he’d have died without a chance.
“Ptuh!”
Yuseong spat something out. It was a ball about the size of a ping pong ball, soaked in blood.
The dark, cracked, battered thing was unpleasant even without the blood.
But Yuseong owed his life to that pitiful orb.
‘Good thing I brought it.’
It was a new item made by Cookingday.
Named by Cookingday: the Last Hope Orb.
When you take lethal damage, it lets you survive once at 1 HP.
Its ability to save you from game over once made it amazing, but the limits matched the power.
Each orb could be used only once, and you could only carry one at a time.
But such drawbacks were meaningless to Yuseong.
He could materialize game items in reality, and for someone living under constant mortal threat, it was a must-have.
And Cookingday had developed this item after Yuseong, Willy, and Mad Hammer had been wiped out gathering intel on Hades.
Naturally, Yuseong had packed the Last Hope Orb for his self-burial survival operation.
Worried it might break if left elsewhere, he’d carried it in his mouth.
As he’d hoped, the orb had heroically saved his life.
‘Without this, that beam attack would have killed me.’
But with the effect of leaving him at just 1 HP—literally barely avoiding death—his condition was at its worst.
He needed to heal quickly with a potion. Yuseong bought a potion, trying to drink it.
Thud!
‘Huh?’
The potion slipped from his weak grip and rolled onto the floor.