Chapter 27
Chapter 27
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 27
Chapter Title: Abnormal Phenomenon
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Kang Geohan piloted Pectoralis through the towering trees.
The deeper he ventured, the more bizarrely twisted trees there were.
‘That one looks like a troll. And that one resembles a rock giant.’
Monster Forest lived up to its name, with trees warped into the shapes of all sorts of monsters, exuding an eerie presence.
Kang Geohan marked unusual trees, rocks, slopes, and inclines on the magical map inside the cockpit as he pressed onward.
Ordinary terrain was automatically recorded on the map, and any special notes were simply voiced aloud for automatic entry—no hassle at all.
How far had he gone like this?
-Grrr...
As the dense canopy blotted out the sky, plunging the area into darkness, a low monstrous growl reached him. Pectoralis’s superior sensory processing unit pierced the thick foliage and shadows, pinpointing the source in an instant.
‘Three orcs.’
He’d seen them in books, but this was his first time face-to-face. The orcs lurked in the tree shadows.
[Orc]
Height: 248cm
Weight: 237kg
Willpower: 183/183
Strength: 518/518
Mana: 180/180
Fat Mass: 38kg
Muscle Mass (Skeletal): 112kg
Demonic Mass: 1,800 pindem
Brown flesh bulging with vicious veins. Faint steam leaking from their mouths. Red eyes glowing like warning lights.
Monsters among monsters—utterly horrifying if he had to face them bare-handed.
‘But right now, they just look like neighborhood kids.’
Kang Geohan was synced with his 8.5-meter-tall Giant. Before this dizzying sense of omnipotence, orcs seemed downright cute.
The orcs must have sensed their disadvantage too. They stayed hidden in the shadows, wary, but didn’t flee.
Monsters were born from the blood and flesh of ancient gods, after all. Exposed to divine slaughter-lust during the Great War, they harbored a madness-driven killing instinct.
‘Take them out in one go.’
His first real combat mounted on a Giant.
Feeling a faint thrill, Kang Geohan ramped up Pectoralis’s output. He shrugged off the pleasant heavy pressure on his shoulders and charged.
Boom! Boom!
Pectoralis barreled through the trees. The orcs scrambled to dodge, but it was a step too slow.
In its hand gripped a short sword (short for a Giant, but still two meters long), and with excavator-like claws, it slammed down on one fleeing orc. Crush!
Kraaa!
Sizzle!
The orc’s muscles swelled across its body. Its eyes bloodshot red, steam billowing from its mouth and shoulders like from machinery.
Grrrrind!
The orc thrashed, making Pectoralis’s hand jitter with an unpleasant screech. But a mere orc couldn’t withstand a Giant’s overwhelming power.
Stab!
Sizzle!
Pectoralis’s short sword shredded the pinned orc.
Grrr!
Kyaaa!
The other two orcs lunged from both sides. Their 200kg-plus bulk hurtled through the air.
Heavy axes targeted Pectoralis’s head. Thud! Thud! Their stomping echoed like artillery shells.
But...
Bam!
Crunch!
Kang Geohan boosted output again. Pectoralis’s massive arm swung, smashing into an orc that crumpled like an aluminum can, spraying red blood into the air.
The other fared no better. A pincer attack from two sides was child’s play.
To a Giant’s sensory processing unit, capable of tracking dozens of targets at once, the orcs’ movements appeared frozen.
Kang Geohan swung his short sword, piercing the orc’s chest before its axe could fall.
Splat!
Its bulletproof hide meant nothing against the blade’s overwhelming force and weight.
Kang Geohan slammed the skewered orc to the ground.
In moments, the battlefield was gouged earth and splintered trees.
Hot steam rose from the three orc corpses.
‘This is a Giant...!’
Kang Geohan shuddered.
Humanity’s ultimate weapon.
The reason humans, once helplessly on the defensive, could finally seize the initiative and pioneer beyond the zones.
And this was just a used training Giant. What would a top-tier frontline model feel like?
His heart raced at the thought.
-I got two orcs! This... it’s thrilling!
Roen’s voice crackled over comms right on cue. Kang Geohan shouted back boldly.
“Easier than I thought. Let’s pick up the pace! We need to see what’s in the core! Tighten formation and push to the center faster!”
-Good.
-This is nerve-wracking...
Helena and Harkrox’s voices buzzed with excitement too.
* * *
Gravity is acceleration. The pressure crushing your body during acceleration feels just like it.
Raising a Giant’s output was the same.
Each boost brought a rush of pleasant pressure through his body, making the Giant move faster and more powerfully.
That crushing force was just exhilarating speed.
Boom! Boom!
Pectoralis smashed through trees. When five goblins appeared, he simply trampled them.
“Five goblins.”
Kang Geohan muttered with a grin, and the magical map marked the encounter spot.
“One rock giant.”
Even a six-meter behemoth was no match. He drew the flail from his side and pulverized it.
Aside from the time wasted on its struggles, nothing to it.
Nothing could stand in a Giant’s way.
Kang Geohan wasn’t the only one hyped. Every trainee was slaughtering monsters effortlessly, delving deeper toward the forest core.
But then.
As the trees grew so thick it turned pitch-black like night, the mood flipped.
An unscheduled anomaly.
Trainees on mission reported over general comms from somewhere deep in the forest.
-Thirty goblins! Incoming! Raaah! Come on!
Monster numbers suddenly spiked.
-Twenty orcs! Ngh! Not bad?!
-Huh? Huh? Five ogres!
Then the types changed. Mid-to-large monsters started swarming in groups.
-Support request! Seven ogres surrounding me! Ack! Urgh! You bastards...!
Support calls flooded in from all sides, amid booms! Crashes! And snapping trees everywhere.
The forest stirred.
Whoooosh-!
The twisted trees wailed like ghosts.
‘Suddenly...?’
Kang Geohan wasn’t spared. Five ogres and twenty orcs appeared before him.
They weren’t that deep in yet. Something was off.
[Ogre]
Height: 409cm
Weight: 1,843kg
Willpower: 3,000/3,000
Strength: 9,500/9,500
Mana: 1,520/1,520
Fat Mass: 470kg
Muscle Mass (Skeletal): 950kg
Demonic Mass: 15,000 pindem
“Seeing them like this is new.”
The ogre he’d met en route to Kaltz and the training camp had been a monster incarnate. Pure, unreasonable violence—like a natural disaster you couldn’t even dream of fighting.
But from Pectoralis’s vantage, it was different.
That massive body was less than half Pectoralis’s size, its weight just an eighth.
The sudden swarm threw him for a loop, but
he wasn’t afraid.
“No idea what’s going on, but... let’s clear these first and figure it out.”
Suuuuck! Hooo...
Kang Geohan drew a deep breath, resisting the sharply increased output. Pectoralis stomped forward like lightning.
Weaving between tall trees, he smashed the lead ogre with his flail. It bulked its muscles. Python-like tendons bulged, drool spilling as it braced with raw power.
But Pectoralis’s flail crushed through, driving home.
Dooong!
Like striking a bronze bell, the ogre toppled backward.
It planted hands on the ground, trembling its bloodied body, snarling at Pectoralis.
‘Not dead?’
Kang Geohan’s superhuman strength was 49. This ogre’s neared 10,000. Tough enough to survive a Giant’s blow.
The massive flail hummed with vibration.
Groooar!
Seizing the moment, the monsters charged.
Ogres gorilla-like scaled trees, leaping high at Pectoralis; orcs fanned out, axes raised at its knees.
The sensory unit let him watch it all in slow motion, but dozens of attacks at once? Impossible to block entirely.
‘No...! I can do it. Quick and clean.’
Kang Geohan bit his lip.
‘Overclock!’
The cockpit lit up, dizzying pressure enveloping him.
“Hup! Hah! Hup! Hah!”
Sweat beading, he summoned every ounce of demonic essence to shove back the pressure, again and again.
Vroooom-!
Pectoralis roared to life, moving at unbelievable speed for its size.
Crack!
Short sword pierced the lead ogre’s skull. Flail from the other hand smashed the next one’s head to the ground. Exploding dirt.
Boom!
Shaking the earth, the Giant kneed an airborne ogre’s gut.
The ogre vomited blood, crashing away.
Crunch!
Landing crushed two orcs flat. An arm snagged another ogre’s neck, slamming it into a tree.
Snap!
Tree splintered; Kang Geohan impaled the ogre on the jagged stump. Wood shards flew.
Boom!
Meanwhile, one ogre closed in, tackling Pectoralis’s left leg.
It teetered. But Kang Geohan tensed his core and held.
Hiss!
Steam jetted as abdominal and waist plates locked. Pectoralis steadied.
“Hup! Hah! Die!”
The heavy short sword cleaved the ogre’s shoulder deep.
Clang! Clang!
Orcs’ axes sparked off Pectoralis’s armor, but Kang Geohan ignored them.
Crack!
An unlucky axe lodged in an arm joint.
Ignoring the grinding snag, Kang Geohan prioritized the ogres, smashing them one by one.
Then he hurled, snapped, and kicked the pesky orcs to death.
Pectoralis ran red with monster blood.
“Hah... hah...!”
In seconds, twenty-five monsters down. He yanked out the axes jammed in the joints and tossed them.
Movement wasn’t perfectly smooth from the damage, but tolerable.
‘How’re the others?’
From experience, five ogres alone would overwhelm most trainees. A forest-wide assault like this...
‘Could be a massacre.’
Sure enough, instructors’ urgent orders blared over comms.
-Sudden anomaly! All units, abort mission immediately!
-Something’s wrong! Retreat! Instructors, aid those in need first and extract from the forest!
-Operation halt! Operation halt! Evacuate now!
But,
-The forest...! The forest is moving! Static!
-Hiss! Path... can’t find...! Static! Trees shifting, terrain’s a mess...! Static!
-Monsters static! Forming encirclement...! Hiss!
-Damn it! Static! Uh... static... Hey!
-Agh! Trees attacking...! Static! Body tangled...! Static hiss!
Even retreat was blocked.
Trees suddenly animating, reshaping terrain—rendered maps useless.
Comms glitched with interference, then cut.
Chaos let core monsters swarm out, encircling and attacking scattered trainees and instructors.
Hearing the pandemonium over comms, Kang Geohan swallowed hard in tension.
‘This is the world beyond the zones...’
Savage wilderness that devoured even Giant-wielding godlike power.
He steadied his breath and opened comms wide.
“This is Kang Geohan. Respond if you hear me.”
Luckily, proximity weakened interference; nearby trainees replied.
-Static... This is Helena. Reception good.
-This is Roen! Everyone okay?
-Whew... This is Harkrox! Just had three ogres and ten orcs... static... nearly died.
They’d advanced together toward the core, keeping a slight distance.
Hearing them, Kang Geohan sighed in relief.
He shoved nearby trees down and looked skyward.
The core tree loomed closer, even grander up close.
Staring it down, he spoke over comms.
“Looks like escaping won’t be easy. Anomalies everywhere... monsters forming encirclement, long-range comms down.”
Opening general comms yielded only screams and static.
-Static! Ngh! Hiss!
-Aaah! ...Static!
The forest felt like it was devouring people.
Roen’s voice trembled.
-B-But if we four team up, we can break out, right?
“Together, yeah. But trees are shifting, misleading paths. We might miss each other. Then... it gets dangerous.”
-What do we do...?
“Let’s strike the core.”
Kang Geohan said, glaring at the giant tree.
“Destroy the core and conquer this area.”
Zones beyond caused anomalies, neutralized by core destruction.
Common knowledge here. That’s what he meant.
-Makes sense... Core monsters all rushed out, so it might be thinner there.
Helena approved.
-But... there could be other threats...!
Roen worried, but Kang Geohan was resolute.
“Wandering blindly is risky too. Good thing the core tree’s visible from anywhere—we can use it as a beacon, meet up easy. Then decide: assault or retreat. Plus, destroying the core... might save our comrades.”
Harkrox agreed.
-Agreed. Let’s rendezvous first. Four Giants together won’t go down easy.
Course set.
The four pushed deeper, shoving through trees.