Lucy watched the approaching turtles, and her first order was a simple one.

“Everyone, get ready to open fire!”

Their guns all carried bullets coated with monster decomposition liquid. As long as they didn’t hit the sh.e.l.ls, they would work. The forty-five members of the group positioned themselves and aimed. That’s when Lucy gave out another order.

“Fire!”

Rat-tat-tat-at!

With loud noise of gunshots, the bullets flew toward the turtles, and the turtles started moving with surprising speed.

They closed in, and Lucy gave out the next order, “One, two, five, seven and nine, use your stuns starting with the one on the left!”

The five novices used their stuns. All of their powers were different, from dirt that rose from the ground to lock itself on the enemy, to steel chains that appeared out of nowhere and held the enemy in place.

Lucy gave out exact commands on who should restrain which turtle, and all five turtles were restrained.

Looking at them, Lucy quickly gave out the next order, “Novices with long range attacks, attack now!”

Of the novices, a total of twenty-two were capable of long range attacks. They had to kill the turtles before they closed in. The twenty-two novices’ powers flew toward the turtles. They were covered by fire and ice, and hit by shockwaves as well. Some of the turtles even retreated into their sh.e.l.ls.

Boom, boom, boom!

The sound of a loud explosion rang out, and two turtles died within their sh.e.l.ls. Three of the turtles still remained, and Lucy gave out the next order.

“We’re on a twenty-second cooldown. Tanks, move forward!”

Each team had someone who was responsible for defense. They could withstand the turtles’ attacks for a short while by wearing the Wolf Warlord’s leather amor.

Nine of them stepped forward, and Lucy calmly gave out more orders, “Tanks can last for ten seconds! Everyone else, retreat another ten meters!”

The situation was serious, but Lucy was calmly repositioning troops. The three turtles closed in, and Lucy ordered, “Once the tanks have used their powers, we’ll still need to wait another seven seconds! They’ll need time to retreat, so don’t engage up close within those seven seconds! Buy more time with your firearms!”

The tanks stepped forward, and the rest of them fired on the turtles.

Rat-at-at-at-tat!

The gunshots rang out loudly, but the turtles still pushed forward. Once closer, they extended their necks. The tanks were armored, so they stood their ground while protecting their weak spots from the turtles’ attacks to buy more time.

The turtles heads slammed against them, but with their armors, the tanks were able to withstand the attacks.

Junhyuk, who was watching, nodded. If their armors had been made of regular steel, the tanks could have all died from the attacks. But, with the Wolf Warlord’s leather amor, things were different.

That was the difference between an A-ranked monster and a C-ranked monster. The Wolf Warlord had died and left its hide behind, but the leather made from it couldn’t be torn apart.

With the tanks buying them time, the cooldowns of the long range attacks ended. Tracking the time, Lucy shouted again, “Tanks, fall back!”

The tanks pushed the turtles away and tried to retreat, but one of them couldn’t get his arm free from a turtle.

Lucy aimed her pistol and fired.

Bang!

The bullet hit the turtle’s eye, sinking deep inside the pupil.

“Wrraaah!”

The turtle let go of the arm it was holding and turned to attack Lucy, who shouted, “Retreat and attack!”

Lucy dove to the side and rolled on the ground.

Boom!

The turtle’s head slammed right on the spot she’d been standing. The novice was wearing armor, but the attack would’ve seriously injured her.

Lucy had rescued the novice tank by drawing attention to herself. She was brave.

The long range attacks killed the remaining turtles. The turtles had extended their necks to attack the tanks, but that had left them vulnerable instead.

Lucy shouted after watching the experts fight, “Don’t get too relaxed! Provide support!”

The novices, who had killed the turtles, turned to the other battle. The experts were still dealing with their turtles. They were superior to the novices, but two turtles still remained.

“One and seven, restrain them!”

The ground rose to ensnare a turtle, and the steel chain wrapped around the other one. Ling Ling ran toward the two restrained turtles and uppercut-slashed one, splitting its head from chin up. Yonhong stabbed the other turtle with a claw sword. Both displayed their skills, and even though Yonhong’s attack wasn’t as effective as Ling Ling’s, he was also using his sword skillfully.

Ling Ling looked back and walked toward Lucy.

“Thanks for your help.”

Lucy smiled and said, “I only did my duty.”

They talked, and Junhyuk came down from the building and walked toward them. He looked at Lucy, trying to recall her resume. He was jealous of Sarang’s intelligence runes. With them, he would have been able to increase his memory.

Lucy had an interesting power. She could trade places with others. For her power to be effective and so that they could use it, she would need high defense. Junhyuk didn’t think he could use Lucy’s power yet, but he had included her in the team in case of an emergency.

Inside the monster area, should he find himself in danger, he could trade places with her, and in case anyone was injured, Lucy could a.s.sume that person place.

It had taken cold judgement to include Lucy on the team. Junhyuk’s vanguard position was extremely dangerous, but he could teleport. In other words, Lucy was included on the team just in case Junhyuk used up his teleportations.

Meaning that if he did use them up, he would trade places with Lucy, and she would probably die. Still, he included her on the team anyway.

Now that he had seen her in action, he thought about his initial impression of her and gave her a higher score than before. She could trade places, yes, but she was also inspiring.

As long as Lucy was safe, even if he became a hero, if he found himself in danger, he would be fine by trading places with her.

He told them, “Let’s advance some more.”

They were all glad after killing the monsters, and Junhyuk signaled for Lucy. When she walked up to him, he asked, “How did you know about the turtles?”

Her eyes beamed, and she answered, “The turtles responded by howling once we got within a hundred meters of them. That’s their area.”

“That is quite the long range.”

“Yes, sir. They can sense others like them and form groups of five. Their sh.e.l.ls are highly dense, but their heads and legs can be injured by our weapons.”

Junhyuk nodded.

“And the novices’ teams can deal with five of them at once.”

“If more than five appear, the teams will end up injured?”

“Correct.”

He believed her a.s.sessment. Lucy’s a.n.a.lysis was very accurate considering she had only fought the turtles once.

“You probably haven’t figured everything out about the turtles. Continue to examine them. Similar-looking monsters might show up, but they could be entirely different. Be cautious,” he said calmly.

“Yes, sir!”

Lucy smiled. She was in a good mood.

Curious, Junhyuk asked, “Do you have strategies for dealing with flying monsters?”

“That depends of their range of attack. I have to meet one. We can’t create a large net in the center of the city however.”

Junhyuk nodded and said, “We’ll see them another day.”

The flying snakes were near Tokyo Tower, and they wouldn’t advance that far that day. Junhyuk wanted to go alone. The flying snakes weren’t a danger to him, and he could always kill the Black Turtle by himself.

He was feeling inspired and he wanted to visit the dimensional tear again. He could see s.p.a.ce tearing within his training facility, but a persistent dimensional tear was different. Although the tear locked the dimension on the other side, it remained there. It didn’t disappear, and he thought he could learn something from it.

Wanting to learn more, Junhyuk decided that he would make another visit, but before that, he thought about how to train his allies.

The novices were able to display their full capabilities with Lucy’s command, but right now, their battle skill was so low that they could only deal with five C-ranked monsters at a time. They would improve, however, and he would watch them go into dimensional tears and destroy them.

Once their skills improved, he would attack the dimensional tear.

Junhyuk looked ahead, and another pack of five turtles appeared. Their regular speed was very slow, but once battle began they moved incredibly fast.

Junhyuk used his spatial sense to look around him. Their call range was of a hundred meters, and Junhyuk’s sense covered a larger area than that.

He looked at the turtles and said, “Lure those turtles in! There are no other monsters within a hundred meters, so attack!”

Lucy stepped forward. She was holding a pistol, and so was Sean. They got into position and started shooting.

Rat-at-at-tat!

The turtles went berserk and started closing in, but at that moment, Junhyuk frowned and yelled, “We don’t have time to deal with the turtles! Retreat! NOW!”

Junhyuk ran forward and slashed the turtles, destroying them, but dozens of flying snakes were in the distance, heading their way.

Ling Ling tried to run toward him, but Yonhong stopped her.

“Stop!”

“He is in danger!”

Peyton shook his head and said, “We can’t help him this time. The A-ranked monster has started moving.”

Ling Ling watched Junhyuk run very far ahead of her and gritted her teeth.

“We have monsters behind us!” Lucy shouted.

“Ling Ling!” Yonhong called for her, and Ling Ling turned and said, “We’ll open a path.”