The Age of Adaptation
There was a standard.
When you could control your enhanced body and Omega Suit without a hitch.
When your innate talent and gear were strong enough to back you up.
At what point could you hunt down a Level 5 Infector, one that had gone beyond Level 4?
Yoo Sung-jun knew that standard better than anyone.
Still, this was reality, and reality always came with a few variables.
First, there was the way innate talent could be applied.
Something that didn’t exist in the game would become a major variable here.
And then there was the power hidden inside the Craving Egg.
‘Its radius for attracting Infectors is about three hundred meters.’
‘And that radius changes depending on the condition of the life form born from the egg.’
‘I wasn’t talking to you.’
It had been distracting him from planning the operation in silence.
Sending crying emoticons?
With his arms folded, Yoo Sung-jun swept his gaze across the surrounding terrain, his eyes cold and still.
A high-rise building. One glance was enough to take it all in.
Kiii...
“Shut up.”
Crack! With one stomp of his foot, the Infector crawling along the floor had its head burst apart.
It had been one he hadn’t managed to verify-kill.
Well, who told it to occupy the building?
‘That’s what happens when you bite off more than you can chew.’
Infector corpses filled the rooftop.
He ignored the scene he’d made himself and scanned the area again.
‘A national park sits to the west, and a residential district lies to the east. Since the Sasquatch area is about five hundred meters from our base, I’ll need to change the state of the Craving Egg.’
He’d need to prepare in advance.
The highway stretching north was irrelevant, so he could ignore it.
Yoo Sung-jun decided he would start with the national park and make a complete sweep all the way to the residential district.
He needed to know what kinds of Infectors were out there first.
‘This is going to turn into a melee.’
But it had to be a melee he could control.
If the Infectors fought each other over territory, that was fine—but the battle still had to unfold under Yoo Sung-jun’s direction.
This was preparation for reaching that ideal shape.
‘All right. I guess I’ll head back for today.’
Yoo Sung-jun leapt from the building.
The still air slammed into him as he fell.
Under the Omega Suit’s support, he drew the Agantic Sword and drove it into the side of the high-rise.
Rrrrkkk!
Chunks of concrete, dust, and powder scattered into the air.
He stopped his descent at a lower floor and reclaimed his sword.
For now, he would rest. He needed the fatigue gone if he wanted to accomplish his goal without making mistakes.
That brought him to the temporary shelter.
Voices spilled out from inside the building.
“Kkyung! Kkyung-kkyung!”
“You want more? So now that you’ve been born, you don’t eat human blood anymore and just gorge yourself on Infector corpses...”
“Sung-hwan, if you’re tired, should I prep the food?”
Yoo Sung-jun looked over the being that had awakened from the Craving Egg a few days earlier.
And at his younger brother, who was smiling brightly at it and happily feeding it, he only shook his head.
It was hard to believe this was the same boy who had once said eggs were disgusting and all that.
‘So being cute really is what matters, huh?’
Even Yoo Sung-jun was seeing an organism born from an egg in this form for the first time.
Well, the number of Craving Eggs he had ever raised could be counted on one hand.
Still, from the perspective of someone with an eye for aesthetics, the creature was beautiful in its own way.
Scales split evenly between pale pink and red.
A tiny tail and little limbs.
Its wings, attached to its back, were small and pitiful, unsuited to the round body they belonged to.
It kept flapping them as if it wanted to fly, but it was no use.
Its round black pupils followed his brother and Jeyca, whom it recognized as its parents.
Kkyuuung! Kkyung!
And above all, there was that cry of its.
As if laughing, it gave a delighted little giggle and tilted its head, which was nearly half the size of its own body.
Yes... it was definitely cute.
The two of them, captivated by it, were not feeling the slightest trace of the mission known as “the agony of child-rearing”—they were enjoying themselves.
‘No good.’
After watching them quietly for a while, he turned away.
No matter how cute it was, an Infector was still an Infector.
A being that had to be killed if it couldn’t be controlled, and killed if you didn’t want to be devoured.
Yoo Sung-jun didn’t want to make exceptions for things like that.
So what if reality contained Infectors that were friendly toward humans?
He only wanted to use that kind of compromise when he was hunting Infectors to the bitter end.
That was how Yoo Sung-jun thought, after facing the instincts and pure malice of Infectors so many times.
“Sung-hwan. Come talk to me for a second.”
“Huh? Okay. Jeyca noona, could you feed Ryong-i for me?”
“Of course. Go ahead.”
So they’d even given it a name.
His younger brother came over after handing off a chunk of minced Infector meat.
“What do you want to talk about? You’re not going to use up a question right away, are you?”
“No. From here on out, think of it as advice if anything.”
“Something about hunting?”
“Something like that.”
Ryong-i—or rather, the Infector they were raising—was clearly a problem his brother had already started to recognize.
The heart of this one-off mission.
“Beast hunting. You know when that is, right?”
“That can wait. Listen carefully. You and Jeyca are making a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“You’re getting too attached to that Infector.”
“Isn’t this how you clear the mission?”
“I’m not talking about the method. I’m saying there’s a fundamental problem with how you’re handling the Infector.”
“Don’t you think Ryong-i is cute? It doesn’t even eat blood anymore, and now it lives off Infector corpses. It doesn’t seem all that dangerous. Besides, it listens to us like we’re its parents.”
The two of them didn’t know what high-level Infectors had done to humans, even if this was a game.
“What if it suddenly changes?”
“Huh?”
“What if it’s been using you until it grows big enough? And then, once it’s big enough and thinks it has the strength to eat you, it shows its true colors?”
“That’s...”
He probably hadn’t thought of that.
He had never actually come face to face with the thing he needed to think about.
“An Infector instinctively desires the evolution of its species. That’s the reason mutated beings like them exist, isn’t it? They eat users, or they eat creatures higher up the food chain. That’s all that’s in their heads. And every one I raised in the game was like that.”
“But Ryong-i...”
“You want to believe it’ll be different. That maybe it could be. I understand that. Still, keep your distance. Don’t get attached any more than you have to. You can’t even bring it into reality with you.”
After Beast Hunting ended, they would have to return whether they liked it or not.
That was the user’s final destination once the mission was over.
“Whether you like it or not, Ryong-i—no, that Infector—has to stay here. Left alone, it’ll end up a creature far below Level 1, trembling in terror over when it might die. Is that what you want?”
“...No.”
“Then think it through carefully. Judge it coldly. Are you going to keep pampering it and raise it like a baby, or treat it like an Infector and use it for the mission before throwing it away—or putting it down?”
I’ll respect whatever choice you make, for now.
“For now.”
With that, Yoo Sung-jun left.
He planned to give Jeyca the same warning later.
“...Haah.”
Left alone, Yoo Sung-hwan clenched his fist.
His brother wasn’t wrong about a single thing.
Ryong-i was undeniably cute. It hadn’t even shown hostility toward humans.
Maybe that was why he’d let his guard down.
He had trusted Ryong-i.
I shouldn’t have done that.
Without knowing anything about Infectors.
Without knowing as much as his brother, who had seen every kind of hideous thing in the game, and still acting all slack-jawed and foolish.
Right. Ryong-i is an Infector. And there’s never been a case where humans and Infectors coexisted peacefully.
That much was plain enough from digging through Another Earth lore and the community boards.
Yoo Sung-hwan shut his mouth tight.
With a look of resolve, he headed to the tent where Ryong-i was.
He still held a sliver of hope that Ryong-i might be different, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Soon he would have to return, and he couldn’t take it with him.
I should cut my feelings off now...
“Kkyung!” The creature cried brightly at the sight of him, and his heart softened.
But Yoo Sung-hwan forced himself to harden it.
He bit down on his lower lip and ignored Ryong-i.
It was the night he began to understand why this mission was called the agony of child-rearing.
A week passed.
During that time, what Yoo Sung-jun had done was simple: scout the surroundings, investigate the Infectors, and clear out what needed clearing.
Remove the unnecessary. Leave the necessary.
He hadn’t taken his brother’s and Jeyca’s performance lightly, either.
‘Moment-to-moment judgment, decisiveness, emotional control.’
His brother scored 8, 8, and 7 out of 10 in those categories.
He understood the mission, responded appropriately, and took in the earlier advice, controlling his emotions fairly well.
Jeyca, on the other hand...
‘6, 7, 4, I guess...’
There weren’t many situations where she had to make judgment calls since his brother was taking the lead, but through her Appraisal Eye, she could still show some initiative.
Jeyca, however, did not.
Unless it was a crucial moment, she simply accepted her brother’s opinion.
‘Her decisiveness is decent, but it’s been cemented too much into the role of a helper.’
That was even more true in the absence of someone as well-rounded as himself.
She needed to judge the moment and act when the time came, but it was a shame she had become too fixed in her current position.
She also seemed to have trouble killing her feelings for Ryong-i.
‘Still, she seems focused on the mission, so I guess it’s time to start.’
Yoo Sung-jun called them over.
Ryong-i had grown far larger than it was last week, now about the size of a three-year-old child.
It was time to use it.
“Let’s start the operation. It has both presence and the core trait for evolution.”
“So that’s why the low-level Infectors came close...”
Even though the base they’d moved to had turned out to be a nest of high-level Infectors, there was no helping it.
Ryong-i’s presence was simply too enticing to suppress its instincts.
“You remember the point you found before, right? Wait there.”
“Then what about Ryong-i?”
At his brother’s question, Yoo Sung-jun lowered his head.
He grabbed the back of the creature’s neck as it rubbed its head against Jeyca’s leg.
Kkyung! Kkyu-kkyung!
It was noisy. He gave it a slap on the head.
It was a light hit by his standards, but to the creature it was a brutal shock.
Its eyes rolled back, and it fainted.
His brother and Jeyca flinched at the sight.
But they didn’t say anything.
By now, the two of them were used to the idea that they couldn’t afford to get attached to an Infector.
Still, there seemed to be one thing bothering them.
Before heading off to their positions, his brother asked, “Hyung. Ryong-i... are you going to kill it?”
Yoo Sung-jun looked at the creature with a calm face.
“Is that a question right now?”
“Yeah. Tell me. If I know before I go, I can support you more comfortably.”
Jeyca didn’t say anything, but she seemed curious too.
Yoo Sung-jun glanced at the creature and kept his expression even.
He was going to kill the Infector.
That much was obvious, but this time he set it aside.
After everything he’d observed so far, he’d become a little curious.
What would a Craving Egg organism born in reality be like?
“I’m not going to kill it.”
Once it had served its purpose, he intended to discard it.
After that, the choice would be its own.
Perhaps that sounded acceptable, because Yoo Sung-hwan smiled.
That ended the small talk. Yoo Sung-jun headed south.
Toward the point where the western and eastern zones met. Toward the place where the beast, the Sasquatch, could be drawn in and tangled up with the other Infectors.
Kkyuing! Kkyuing-ning!
Ryong hated this situation.
It was the same race as the mother and father, and yet this one was different.
It was cold, not warm, and rough.
That was why it was being held by the nape and shaken around with every little gesture.
It hurt, and it was irritating. So when it cried, it was met with a raised fist.
“If you cry again, it’ll hurt more.”
Pain came before irritation.
Ryong, who had already learned that lesson, shut its mouth.
It looked up at what the man was doing in silence.
“Let’s begin.”
He suddenly stopped, so what was this “begin”?
Ryong only realized what was happening too late.
He had said it would hurt more—he never said it wouldn’t hurt.
And it hurt enough to make Ryong understand exactly what he meant.
The man’s grip tightened as if he were tearing at its wings.
Kkyu-iiing!
Ryong could only cry out in agony with everything it had.
The young, fragile Infector expressed its pain any way it could.
Every time it cried, it felt as if something inside it was being pulled away.
That left it weak and hollow.
“From this point on, you’re useless. Run away if you want. Or, if the despair of being at the bottom of the food chain drives you to kill yourself, that’s fine too.”
The man let go of its wings, its neck.
Ryong dropped limply to the ground, then looked at the man before turning its head away.
At the same time, it felt a strange sensation like scales rising all over its skin.
Something was happening.
It could feel countless scents, countless presences rushing toward it.
What am I supposed to do?
The answer the young Ryong arrived at after frantic thought was simple.
Go to its parents.
Especially to its father, whose pull it felt most strongly.
Staggering to its feet, Ryong began to toddle forward.
Its destination was the top of the high-rise, where the scent of its father was strongest.