History's Strongest Manager Chapter 5

 ­ Magical Girl of Seoul Subway Line 2 (3)

Getting shot by Tasers that would instantly immobilize any D-Rank monsters, a werewolf only trembles its body for a split second.
The two Knights charge in with their Aether swords in their hands while The Awake attempts to immobilize the werewolf with telekinesis.
Not going down by the attack from the hunter team, the werewolf smacks the Knight, throwing a heavy blow to the leader Knight’s head. The Knight stomps to the right trying to stand against the damage. The blow was strong enough to make cracks through the cement floor where the Knight stepped. A normal person’s head would have exploded like a watermelon, but the Knight could withstand the damage with his enhanced body. There was extra defense from the Armour Coat, but all Knights just have ridiculously hard bodies.
‘If I had that, I wouldn’t have quit.’
As the werewolf notices the Knight still standing after the attack, it springs its body, das.h.i.+ng to the right. The werewolf intends to break the barricade and run over. But Kang-Joon, already having a.s.sumed what it would do, dashes to the same direction.
Kang-Joon runs into the werewolf, slas.h.i.+ng his Aether sword horizontally. The werewolf’s head comes off clean.
“!”

“Y…you!”
The hunting team stands surprised at Kang-Joon’s bold, clean move. Werewolves are very agile and their responses to attacks are very fast, making them a difficult target to land a critical strike against. Despite all that, Kang-Joon, definitely not having the physical abilities of werewolves, forecasted its moves perfectly and cut its head off right away. To have such movements with no extra energy wasted, the hunter team from Raeshen agency lost their words.
Kang-Joon has not survived as a B-Cla.s.s hunter for no reason. With the lack of physical capabilities, he’s had no choice but to cut down on the number of unnecessary movements and attempt to forecast the enemy’s next move.
“For werewolf cla.s.ses, they always dash back to avoid strikes no matter what. Then they generally dash right or left to switch the target. Pretty much no other movements than that, so if you fight them with that in mind, it’s easy to handle them.”

“Ah, ye..yes!”
The hunter team snaps back, listening to Kang-Joon’s orders.
“Don’t try to hunt it down. Knights stand with their enhanced body and the Awake pressures the werewolves down the s.p.a.ce around them so they won’t be able to avoid those Tasers. Rather than trying to kill one of them, just cooperate with the soldiers. The whole point is to support the soldiers to land their Tasers, alright?”

“O….Ok! We got it.”
From the appearance of the first, werewolves start to flood out.
From the other side of the barricade, the soldiers are firing their Tasers non-stop and the werewolves with more than five Tasers shots fall to the ground as if they are having a seizure.
The Knights, as Kang-Joon’s commands, concentrate on hardening their bodies to guard the attacks from the werewolves so they won’t be able to move around too much. Making a full use of the blue barriers from their Armour Coats and their enhanced bodies, they are standing well. Over the barricades, soldiers are immobilizing the werewolves one by one with their accurately aimed shots. Kang-Joon is busy avoiding the attacks from the werewolves while swinging his Aether sword sharply to cut through the werewolves’ skin. As the Knights witness Kang-Joon’s Aether sword cutting away the skin of the werewolves like it is a piece of carrot, they cannot hide their surprised faces but just stand amazed.
With their Aether sword, such power and output is impossible.
‘That equipment is at least SS-Rank or above!’
Throughout entire Korea, people with an SS-Rank Aether sword could be counted on fingers. Kang-Joon’s Aether sword, in fact, a masterpiece among masterpieces, even with a name ‘Thousand Anguish’.
Though they may have been holding well, once their line starts to break, tens of men would be slaughtered right away. The situation is beyond risky. Werewolves keep flooding out of the core and there are more than thirty lying around it, immobilized.

“Heavy fire! Everyone evacuate!”
As the commander finishes the preparation for the usage of heavy fire weapons, he shouts towards them to warn the hunters. This is indeed a major decision from him. Risking the damages to the infrastructures and surroundings to use those weapons means that he will be asked for his responsibility later on from his high-ups. No matter what, he is a soldier and also an expert in hunting.
“Get out!”
Soldiers who were standing on the right side of the barricades pulled out of their position as a custom-made heavy firearm to fight the monsters, AB-34 as known as ‘Alien Breaker’ gets installed on the spot. Firing three thousand 50-caliber bullets per minute, this cla.s.s of firearm turns any monster into a piece of b.l.o.o.d.y rag given they do not use armor fields. However, the use of this firearm would mean a major recovering construction on the subway station.
As the marksman holds the trigger ready for a sweeping fire, other soldiers shower the escaping werewolves with Tasers. Every werewolf that is coming out of the core collapses down to the floor shot by a countless number of Tasers which almost turns them into a hedgehog. As the AB-34 is just about to start firing, Kang-Joon notices something popping out into the barricades from somewhere in the station.
“Hold!”

“!”

“Th…that kid!”
Clothed in flashy pink costume, a little girl intrudes into the situation all of a sudden.
“The Magical Girl of Justice, Acacia! On spot!”
Looking to be about twelve years old, a girl with pink hair proudly trespa.s.ses into the restricted zone, holding a wand in her hand. Kang-Joon, having no idea what is going on, frowns to process what is happening before his eyes. Beyond his reaction is from the soldiers.
“Oh…oh! The Magical Girl!”

“Acacia is here!”

“Mr. soldiers! I got this now!”

Even beyond that, the hunters.
“Th…thank G.o.d. Acacia’s here.”

“…Just looks like an insane girl, no matter how hard I look.”
But even more insane things start to happen from the hands of the girl. As if she is trying to cast some magic, she starts to wave her hands in the air like a conductor.
“Go! Arch Bust Flame!”
Suddenly appears cracks in the air, werewolves get cut down to pieces. Losing his words at the scene, Kang-Joon opens up his mouth wide.
“What the h.e.l.l.”
Kang-Joon well knows this whole scene is ridiculously crazy. The crazy girl wearing some sort of typical Magical Girl dress controls her telekinesis in an extremely fine manner to use it like a sword to cut through dimensions. Standing right on the spot, as she slashes tens of spots in the thin air, the bodies of werewolves get cut into pieces as if they are supposed to do so.
“But why would she even name a telekinesis ability with ‘flame’?”
Listening to the names of her abilities which sound to be made up on the spot, Kang-Joon loses his word even more.
“Take this! Wand of justice!”
Having trespa.s.sed into the battlefield, the girl approaches the werewolves with teleport, exploding their heads like watermelons. Kang-Joon could tell that the wand held by the girl is not even an Aether device but a cheap plastic toy wand which can be purchased at a kids’ store.
Terminating all the werewolves in a split second, the girl continues to bash them down until the core stops to let the monsters out.
“Today’s good deed, done!”
Then she gives a bow towards the hunters and the soldiers.

“Farewell, everybody.”

“Acacia, you are the best!”

“Thank you!”

“Can you hold my hand for a second please?”
Soldiers wave their hands toward her out of joy as Acacia spins her body in the air, vanis.h.i.+ng with scattering pink fog. The leader Knight lets out a sigh of comfort, smiling.
“We got lucky. Getting Acacia’s help…”

“Wha…what the h.e.l.l was that…thing? A Returner…?”
To Kang-Joon’s knowledge, only the Returners are the ones powerful enough to do such an act. Such powers to break the borders of common knowledge are only exhibited by the people who have come back from the Other World, Ishtar. They can actually use magic which seems to have come out of games, bas.h.i.+ng the monsters down with ‘abilities’ or ‘skills’ just like in the games.
“You don’t know Acacia?”

“Acacia?”

“The Magical Girl, she’s been famous for a while.”
The Awake, who has been supporting the battle with telekinesis, says to Kang-Joon.
“She appears out of nowhere, vanishes into nothing like that.”

“Ha…Ha… what the h.e.l.l even is this…”

“She only appears when there is a Core situation but she doesn’t really care about the Core energy itself. Which is good for us.”
For seemingly oblivious Kang-Joon, The Awake tells more things about The Magical Girl, Acacia. It has been about half a year from her first appearance and she occasionally appears to a Core situation like the one just before, slaughters the monsters then vanishes in a split second. Saying that her charm is the mismatch between her real power and skill names which sound extremely dramatic, there is even a group of fans for her. The pink hair might be a too bold of choice, but there still are people who try to get close-up pictures because of her cute-looking face.
Ident.i.ty not confirmed, she only calls herself The Magical Girl.
“Hoooo…well, the situation has been resolved well. Thanks everyone for their efforts.”

To the Captain’s showing of appreciation, Kang-Joon gives a nod with a still oblivious face. The A-Cla.s.s emergency team from Raeshen also seems to understand what happened after hearing that Acacia has been through the scene.
Kang-Joon, not really close with the media, has never heard there is such a monster who claims to be The Magical Girl in Seoul. Though he has been through a lot of uncommon phenomena around this world, things like this are not something he experiences often.
However, to some, Kang-Joon seems to be more of a monster than Acacia. A normal human with good physical abilities at best, Kang-Joon cut through B-Rank werewolves, avoiding countless attacks from them. It is only normal for people to be curious about who he really is.
“Oh, we did not have any critical damage thanks to your orders. I appreciate your help.”

“Well, yea…don’t worry too much about it…”
Without Kang-Joon’s orders, the werewolves would have run over the barricade, turning the scene into a ma.s.sive human slaughter. Everyone at the scene knows that for sure. Following Kang-Joon’s order, the Captain had led the civilians to evacuate. However, even then, there would haven surely been a number of casualties among the soldiers.
Kang-Joon knew how to position and command the soldiers right and due to his clear orders, everyone could save their lives.
“So you are…?”

“I’m a manager.”
After that, Kang-Joon blankly looks at the core extraction process being done by the hunters.
“Oh, by the way,”
Kang-Joon grins at them.
“I will have to take my share.”
Since the hunting was pretty much done by Acacia, Kang-Joon is ent.i.tled to his own share. The hunters give him a nod though they do not look to be fully happy with it.
A favor is a favor, but the payment still needs to be made. Kang-Joon has solid standards about the payments. Getting his own share of the Core, Kang-Joon is still deep in his own thoughts. As he looks at a flood of people coming into the station as soon as it opens up, Kang-Joon asks the leader of the hunter party.
“Hey, you know…”

“Yea?”

“That little girl called Acacia, does she have a manager?”

“Uhm…I a.s.sume not. If she did, that management would have put out a ma.s.sive promotion using her, right? But I’ve never seen such management yet…”

“Oh…right…”
Kang-Joon grins. No matter who that girl really is, Kang-Joon is only interested in one thing.
‘A hunter without an owner.’

In his mind, Kang-Joon started to build up the ‘Operation Magical Girl recruitment plan’.