Chapter 106: City of Death (2)
The woman swung her arm violently and bit Hyun Suho's hand that was holding her.
Crunch!
This woman wasn’t a hunter; she was just an ordinary person at zero level. Despite that, the force of her bite was beyond imagination.
Could it be stronger than that of a crocodile?
Of course, such power, equivalent to a mere beast, was useless against Hyun Suho, who far exceeded the realm of superhumans.
With his enhanced body, not only was his flesh not torn, but the woman's teeth actually broke.
The pain from having all her teeth broken must have been unbearable, yet the woman continued biting Hyun Suho’s hand without hesitation.
Even a starving animal after three days wouldn’t behave like this.
He tried to knock her out by striking the back of her neck...
Thud!
Despite hitting the exact spot, the woman only flinched momentarily and continued biting Hyun Suho.
"How ridiculous."
The woman he was holding wasn't the only problem. There were still more people rushing toward him like a pack of wild dogs.
Hyun Suho shouted to the taxi driver, who was trembling in fear.
"Run! Quickly!"
Only then did the taxi driver come to his senses and hurriedly got into his taxi.
Screeeech!
In his rush to move the car, he crashed into street trees and trash cans multiple times.
The car was getting banged up, but he didn't have the luxury of worrying about that right now.
Hyun Suho wasn’t any less flustered either.
He couldn't just kill people recklessly, so he climbed up onto a building to assess the situation.
"Nova?"
[People exhibiting symptoms of madness are appearing all over the city.]
"Is a zombie virus really spreading?"
[It is not a zombie virus.]
"This isn't a zombie virus? Then what is it?"
[This disease is a mutated form of rabies.]
Nova quickly extracted and analyzed the virus from the floral-dressed woman earlier.
The fact that it wasn't a zombie virus wasn't necessarily good news.
Regardless of its name, the virus was still spreading quickly.
"What's the cure?"
[The only method available at the moment is the Healing Factor.]
The Healing Factor had once broken the curse of the God of Destruction.
If it wasn't a true zombie virus but just rabies, treating it should be no problem.
The issue, however, was that there were too many infected people.
Even for Hyun Suho, it was impossible to treat everyone.
"If it's rabies, can't healers' magic cure it?"
For a simple disease, healing magic from healer hunters should be enough.
But once again, Nova was pessimistic.
[Healers have already attempted healing magic, but it was ineffective. In fact, it made the condition worse.]
"How is that possible?"
[As you suspected, this is a man-made incident. The rabies virus has been forcibly modified to enhance symptoms and create a backlash effect against mana.]
Not only was the disease altered, but it was also made resistant to healing magic.
Hyun Suho had expected trouble when coming to Paris, but things seemed much worse than anticipated.
In urgent situations, it’s crucial to think calmly.
Taking a step back to assess, the malice of whoever was behind the scenes became clearer.
"Did they use rabies as a base to make it seem like a zombie virus?"
Even Hyun Suho, upon first seeing the infected, thought a zombie virus had appeared.
A simple epidemic versus a zombie outbreak—the difference in public reaction was monumental.
That was surely the intention of those orchestrating this incident.
To create a scenario resembling a zombie outbreak to incite chaos.
[Hunters in the city have started killing the infected indiscriminately.]
"Damn it!"
The feared scenario was unfolding.
Parisian citizens were starting to fight and kill each other.
The mutated rabies spread incredibly fast, but it wasn't particularly threatening to skilled hunters.
Even if it wasn't Hyun Suho, as long as they remained rational, the hunters should have been able to subdue the infected without much difficulty.
However, since even the hunters believed the infected were zombies, they were killing them without hesitation.
At this rate, everyone would be killed by the soldiers.
"Send the virus data to Tatiana! Tell her it’s an emergency!"
If anyone could create a cure, it would be Tatiana, the SS-rank alchemist.
The problem was time.
There was no telling how many would die before a cure was ready.
[I have informed Tatiana of the situation and transmitted the DNA structure of the virus. She has begun working on the cure immediately.]
"How long will it take?"
[That is uncertain.]
"...For now, let's set up a wormhole gate."
Hyun Suho created a wormhole gate in a safe corner and began evacuating people.
No matter how strong he was, there were limits to what he could do alone.
Paris was a densely populated metropolis.
With a zombie-like outbreak occurring, the city was in chaos as people tried to flee.
Ratatatatat!
The sound of helicopters echoed belatedly. They were trying to prevent crimes happening amidst the confusion.
‘The military has been deployed. Thankfully, it's not too late.’
Due to the summit, there were soldiers and police officers stationed all around. They were beginning to respond quickly.
The situation would become more manageable once things settled down a bit.
Just as he began to feel reassured...
[A mysterious aircraft has appeared in the sky. You need to be cautious.]
Startled, Hyun Suho looked up to see something flying by at high speed.
Whoosh!
It moved swiftly above the clouds, making it hard to discern the exact shape, but its extraordinary speed was clear.
"A mysterious aircraft? It’s not a French fighter jet?"
[It’s an unregistered aircraft. It does not belong to France or any European country.]
An ominous feeling crept in again.
Thinking back, while the rabies infections and zombie-like outbreak were certainly horrifying, they weren't enough to cause the complete destruction of the city.
Even if the infected had greatly enhanced physical abilities, they were no match for skilled hunters.
Yet the vision of the future Hyun Suho saw showed Paris entirely in ruins.
There was clearly something more to come.
Something even more terrible than the zombie outbreak.
At that moment, something dropped en masse from the flying aircraft.
What fell vertically from above the clouds was, astonishingly, dozens of missiles.
At first, it seemed like they were just dropping straight down, but suddenly they gained propulsion and shot forward.
The missiles targeted the French helicopters that had been deployed to help the people.
A chain of explosions soon followed.
BOOM!!!
The soldiers sent to rescue the people, and even those who had barely managed to get on the helicopters to escape the zombies, were all caught in the explosions.
In an instant, hundreds of lives were lost.
“This is insane!”
The unidentified aircraft that had launched the missiles were circling in the air, seemingly searching for new targets.
The enraged ground forces responded with ranged skills and gunfire, but the aircraft deftly dodged, almost as if mocking them.
“Where is the White Rose Order?!”
If it were the White Rose Order, France's most elite force, they should be able to take down even a flying enemy.
But they were nowhere to be seen.
[The Order is currently protecting key individuals.]
“Damn it! Of course.”
If any European leaders were to die on French soil, France would bear all the responsibility.
Thus, as soon as the incident broke out, the government prioritized the safety of the VIPs over everything else by deploying the entire Order to protect them.
That’s why there was now a security gap.
“It can’t be helped, then.”
He had tried to handle this quietly, but things had reached a point where he couldn’t afford to wait any longer.
“I'm going in!”
[I’ll assist.]
As Hyun Suho gathered his mana, liquid bright as mercury bubbled up from various parts of his body, spreading like a membrane.
Crack!
The membrane that quickly covered his entire body then solidified, taking on a fixed form.
Hyun Suho, now clad in his battle suit, took off into the air.
Vroom!
“Nova! Give me an exact location.”
[I'll display the visual information.]
As soon as Nova finished speaking, a map started to display in front of his eyes like a minimap.
His location was marked in red, and the target’s location glowed in white.
Thanks to this, finding his target was not difficult, even in the sky where all he could see were clouds.
“Thanks!”
The target wasn’t stationary, flying all over Paris’s airspace instead.
Even though it moved at tremendous speed, Hyun Suho was even faster.
As he quickly closed the distance, he began to see what it was.
The thing responsible for bombing the city wasn’t a fighter jet or a combat helicopter.
It was, surprisingly, a humanoid robot.
Just like the battle suit Hyun Suho wore.
“A battle suit?”
[No, it’s power armor.]
The entity was a jet-black power armor.
It looked a bit different from Hyun Suho's battle suit, which fit his body like clothing—this one was a fully robotic form, roughly 6 meters in height.
“What is that? Do we have any information on it?”
The battle suit was Hyun Suho's unique item. At least, that’s what he had thought until now.
Without Hyun Suho's skills and Nova, the super-advanced AI, it was impossible for Earth’s current technology to replicate such a thing.
The appearance of this power armor shattered that belief.
“Is there another mechanical hunter like me?”
Hyun Suho had an EX-class job—Arch Mechanic.
Mechanical soldiers were rare, but he wasn’t the only one in the world with such a class.
Maybe this power armor was also a skill of another hunter.
But Nova’s answer far surpassed Hyun Suho’s imagination.
[That... is an invention from the planet Eos.]
“What?!”
Why was the Eos planet being brought up here all of a sudden?
It was the super-advanced civilization’s planet that had been completely destroyed by the Death Star.
He thought all of the Eos civilization was lost when the planet was destroyed...
[There are several possibilities. It could be like Master, obtaining rewards through dimension gates. Or...]
“Or?”
[Or there could be survivors. Not all the escaping ships at the time were hypernova ships.]
“There could be survivors?”
Just imagining it was astonishing, but now wasn’t the time to figure out where that thing had come from.
Whoever they were, whatever their motive, they had to be stopped.
As the armor moved erratically through the sky, Hyun Suho swooped down like a hawk diving for its prey.
Whoosh!
The power armor sensed something approaching and turned its head, but Hyun Suho was already right there.
He thrust his fist into the back of the power armor.
CRACK!
Hyun Suho’s hand pierced through the enemy power armor’s back.
Even if it was also a product from the planet Eos, the performance difference was clear.
Nova spoke confidently.
[It's a mass-produced power suit. Of course, there’s a difference from what I personally made.]
“There’s a pilot inside.”
It wasn’t a drone; there was a person inside piloting it.
Hyun Suho dismantled the damaged power armor and pulled out the unconscious pilot.
Now, if he interrogated this guy, he could gather some useful information.
Just when he thought things had ended more smoothly than expected, Nova’s voice came again.
[The battle isn’t over yet. More power armor suits are coming this way. Five... no, seven.]
“What?”
[Displaying the enemy on the map.]
With those words, the minimap displayed on the screen showed the approaching enemy power suits.
They were surrounding Hyun Suho from all sides.
“Looks like they want to fight.”
