Chapter 78
Chapter 78
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 78
Chapter Title: 43. Worries (5)
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"A headshot's the only answer."
Baek Seung-hyeon's lips trembled.
"How the hell do I even hit that? Hitting the torso is hard enough already."
If it were a human, maybe.
At 150 meters, a human looks about the size of an ant, moving as sluggishly as one too.
But even humans get tricky to hit if they dodge around.
150 meters is a pretty long distance, after all.
Humans are tough enough, but this Red monkey with its red fur moves with dynamism that's incomparable.
One moment it's grabbing concrete rebar like tree branches with its long arms and leaping up; the next, it's dropping down, snagging another piece of rebar, and swinging behind another ruin.
Its movements are utterly unpredictable.
Considering that mid-to-long-range sniping mostly relies on prediction in controlled scenarios, it's an incredibly hard target.
While Baek Seung-hyeon hesitated, the mutation landed on the ground with a heavy thud!, dragging its long arms along as it bounced forward on its legs toward Cheon Young-jae.
Its bizarre gait was still faster than any human's.
"Why aren't you shooting? Shoot it!"
Cheon Young-jae bellowed as he sprinted at full speed, but Red had already closed in right behind him.
Cheon Young-jae spun around, drawing his machete.
"Come at me, you bastard."
Even as he steeled himself, he glanced back.
The Baek Seung-hyeon in his view seemed somewhat reliable, at least.
With that serious face aiming the rifle, anyway.
But Baek Seung-hyeon was hesitating.
He eyed Baek Seung-hyeon's finger.
The leather-gloved finger inside the trigger guard was trying to pull the trigger.
Yet it never went all the way.
He'd released it midway.
"Kee-eeek!"
In that moment, Red savagely swung its long arm.
The arm, covered in red fur, was roughly two meters long.
Practically the size of a small crane.
It even had armor plating on the elbow.
A makeshift custom guard, crudely wired together by hand.
No matter how clever a chimp it was, it hadn't reached the level of crafting full plate mail like a human.
There were exposed weak points.
The face, neck, upper arms beyond the wrist guards, hands, and the tops of its feet.
But demanding Baek Seung-hyeon hit those exposed spots was far too harsh.
If it were Kim Daram, who was the best shot among us, maybe. Even I wouldn't find it easy to nail the weak points of something moving that fast and unpredictably.
To make matters worse, this area was zombie territory.
They already knew we'd entered and were warming up.
If gunfire kept going, they'd swarm like waves and overwhelm us.
Any plan would be ruined.
Those harsh conditions seemed to be why Baek Seung-hyeon gave up shooting.
No, there was one more thing.
Jeju Island.
Baek Seung-hyeon's one shot carried Jeju Island on it.
That promised land Kim Daram—whom he envied and hated so much—couldn't have.
I spoke coldly, meeting his wavering eyes.
"What are you doing? Shoot."
"...The angle's no good."
"If you don't shoot, that guy's gonna die."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"What do you want me to do when the angle sucks? Fuck!"
Baek Seung-hyeon bellowed.
"That monkey bastard's angling itself! Fuck, it's doing this on purpose!"
He was right.
The thing was using Cheon Young-jae as a shield, keeping him between itself and us.
Knowing that full well, Cheon Young-jae swung his machete to create an opening, but against such a clever and agile mutation, it was futile.
The creature toyed with us, letting out weird noises like it was enjoying the situation, moving with demonic frenzy.
"Kki-kki-eek!"
The situation darkened rapidly.
This guy already had armor plates everywhere, minimizing blind spots, and now he'd added Cheon Young-jae as a human shield.
"Dodge to the side!"
Baek Seung-hyeon yelled, and Cheon Young-jae yelled back.
"Faking left!"
It looked like he went left, then abruptly dashed right.
A momentary opening appeared.
Bang!
The gunshot rang out as expected.
A classic old-school hunter combo in action.
The shot itself was spot-on.
It hit the mutation's torso dead center.
But the damn thing was armored.
Clang!
The bullet sparked off the giant chimp's armor plate, leaving only a tiny scratch before ricocheting away.
"Kee-eek! Kki-eek!"
The chimp puckered its massive lips, then suddenly raised both its two-meter arms high.
What was it doing?
"?"
Baek Seung-hyeon's face went pale.
It was flipping us off.
Red was giving us the double bird with both hands.
"Kee-eek!!!!"
Then it extended its index fingers and pointed at its head.
Baek Seung-hyeon ground his teeth.
"That monkey bastard..."
Cheon Young-jae broke into a sprint.
The distance had narrowed to under 100 meters.
A single dash away.
Giving it space would endanger not just him, but all of us.
Yet Baek Seung-hyeon hesitated on the next shot.
"Shoot! You has-been!!!!"
Cheon Young-jae's sharp yell exploded.
Red was reaching out from right behind him.
If Cheon Young-jae hadn't swung his machete in time, he'd have been grabbed ages ago, hoisted upside down onto a building, and dropped to his death.
"Shoot, damn it!"
80 meters.
Now it was right in his face.
In this do-or-die moment, Baek Seung-hyeon proved exactly why Kim Daram hadn't chosen him.
"...I can't."
Baek Seung-hyeon lowered his rifle.
He'd bailed on the mission himself.
Instead, he pulled a metal rod like a knife blade from his pocket.
A U.S.-made suicide blade drone.
Set the target, and the blade-shaped drone flies in, exploding into shrapnel right in front of the enemy.
Probably saved it for a last resort.
But I had my doubts.
Whether that toy would even work on this monster.
And even if it did, Cheon Young-jae was definitely dead.
"Sunbae."
I grabbed his arm and shook my head.
Baek Seung-hyeon looked at me with exhausted eyes.
"...Park Gyu."
Back in the old days when old-school hunters ruled, there were heated debates on what true hunter talent really was.
My mentor claimed it was a fearless heart that scorned death—like a moth to flame— even coining the archaic-sounding term "hunter's spirit."
Even Jang Gi-young had a rival.
Once a fierce competitor, but pushed to second-tier by faction politics: Ko Jong-beom.
Unlike Jang Gi-young, Ko Jong-beom crossed to China, selling K-hunter know-how for profit, and argued that quick-witted adaptability in crises was a hunter's greatest trait.
Other virtues took the stage one by one, each with their logic, rising and falling.
I wasn't into theorizing, but after countless battles, I developed an eye for what mattered most.
For me, it's this:
Can you set yourself aside?
Put differently, self-objectification.
Can you view the world not from first-person, but third-person, treating even yourself as a pawn?
That decides the fate of us old-school hunters.
I drilled it into my team always.
In extreme situations, anyone can be sacrificed—no exceptions.
Even me, I said.
I backed it up myself.
Leading from the front, taking the riskiest roles.
Using myself as a pawn, throwing me into the worst zones.
But I didn't just pawn myself out.
I've abandoned comrades, sacrificed them too.
No guilt.
Didn't they teach us in school?
We move as one thousand becoming one.
So I discarded one part making up that one.
That's all.
Of course, I wasn't free from that part's fate either.
It was during a loss to a general-type in the otherworld.
Nearly every bone broken, dumped in a corner of the rift.
White mist swallowed everything; comrades abandoned me and left.
With limbs shattered, stuck in that rift corner, waiting for death.
A few strokes of luck and whims saved me barely, but I brushed death's door for real.
Some whispered that horrific experience drove my retirement.
No.
No resentment for being discarded.
It was that the circumstances and process of it invalidated my entire life that forced retirement.
But I don't want to watch my teammate die in front of me.
This ragtag crew I met just hours ago, with this professor in it—I don't want to see it collapse pointlessly.
I told Baek Seung-hyeon.
"I'll shoot."
I took the rifle from him.
Baek Seung-hyeon handed it over without a word.
The moment I gripped it, its hefty weight made my arms sag.
Even with cutting-edge lightweight materials, it's a 12.7mm beast.
Trimmed down to 8kg.
Disqualified as personal firepower.
Fighting with such a monster weapon is our cursed fate, though.
"Stay put."
Quietly aiming the rifle, I lined up both the growing figures of Cheon Young-jae and Red in my sights.
Target distance: 60 meters.
I scanned the surroundings.
"Shoooooot!!!"
Cheon Young-jae screamed.
55 meters.
Red reached out.
50 meters.
Cheon Young-jae swung his machete, but it clanged off the wrist armor, blade bouncing away.
About 48 meters.
Cheon Young-jae was caught.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
Baek Seung-hyeon turned to me, but my eyes didn't twitch, fixed on the sightline.
Cheon Young-jae was dragged toward it.
No matter his S-rank hunter skills, against this off-spec monster, he had no real counter.
I wouldn't have fared much better.
"What are you doing?! Park Gyu!"
Baek Seung-hyeon bellowed.
I ignored him, keeping the rifle aimed.
The giant chimp's movements were insanely fast, different from anything we'd faced, hard to predict.
Plus helmet on its head, patchwork armor on torso and back.
Against that, without an awoken, options were limited.
But I'd gotten info from Baek Seung-hyeon earlier.
"Aaaah! Save me! Fuck!!!"
"Park Gyu!"
The chimp grabbed a bent streetlight, leaped up, and reached for concrete rebar.
"Quiet down."
I said calmly and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The moment it fired, hammer-like recoil shook my body hard as I held the sightline.
The heavy 12.7mm round tore through the zombie-reeking air in a spiral, embedding exactly where I wanted.
Squelch!
"Kee-ee-ee-ee-eek!!!!"
It hit the chimp's hand—the unprotected spot.
Too fast-moving to even consider as a target.
"Wha-how?"
Baek Seung-hyeon asked, stunned.
"You told me, sunbae."
I handed the rifle back and bolted toward Cheon Young-jae.
"That bastard loves dragging people up high and dropping them."
"So you waited for it? For Cheon Young-jae to get grabbed?"
Baek Seung-hyeon followed, hefting the heavy rifle.
"The spot it climbs to isn't random, right?"
Concrete rebar.
No matter how variably it moved, there was a convergence point with near-zero variables.
I'd used Cheon Young-jae as bait and controlled them.
What came next was inevitable.
"Ha."
Baek Seung-hyeon whistled in admiration.
"Just like Kim Daram's disciple."
Red's drop was at least 10 meters.
Painful even for a normal chimp; at this size, way worse.
Cheon Young-jae groaned, rolling beside a crumpled car.
"Fuuuuck! That hurts like a bitch. Ahh..."
He seemed fine.
Spitting curses vigorously, anyway.
I aimed the rifle, searching for Red.
It staggered up, barely supporting its bulk with those two massive arms.
The demon-changed chimp's face glared at me.
It opened its mouth, making a weird sound.
"Ba... Ba..."
What was it trying?
No way.
That motion.
Was it trying to speak?
An ape?
"Ba... Park Gyu."
"?"
My name?
The mutation called my name.
But probably coincidence.
Since it was flipping me off, after all.
Its underdeveloped vocal cords and tongue were likely mangling "fuck you."
Anyway, it was alive.
Mobile.
Badly wounded and limping, but still a threatening predator.
Shing—
My turn now.
"Come on, monkey."
I drew my axe, circling to its flank, swinging threateningly at it.
Red eyed me warily but glanced at Baek Seung-hyeon following behind.
"Eyes here."
I hurled the axe.
Pretty fast throw, but the mutation's reflexes weren't monster-comparable for nothing.
"Kee-ee-eek!"
It swatted my axe to the ground with its blood-gushing hand.
"Sunbae!"
But I had a reliable ally now.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Baek Seung-hyeon unleashed.
Close range with no obstacles—flawless shooting.
"Kee-ee-eek!"
The bullets pierced unprotected spots: neck, one armpit, under the jaw.
The mutation toppled without even screaming.
Thud.
The monster was down.
"Hoo..."
Baek Seung-hyeon looked at me, awed.
"Fuck..."
He gave me a thumbs-up.
I returned it.
Only Cheon Young-jae, sprawled on the ground, flipped us both off.
I tossed him a line.
"Didn't you say you loved this shit?"
His double birds turned to double thumbs-up.
"..."
One colorful guy.
Vrooooom—
Situation not over yet.
Zombie howls approached.
Payback for breaking the three-shot rule.
Our Baek Seung-hyeon had fired four.
"What now? Hey, Young-jae, can you walk?"
"...Fuck! Feels like my leg's broken."
"Gonna need a car."
"Roger."
Baek Seung-hyeon radioed calmly.
"Laser here. Laser here. Primary target down. One injured. Request pickup."
A truck's roar approached.
"Hoo..."
I sighed, picking up my dropped axe.
The dead mutation stared blankly at me.
No particular feelings for this monster.
But seeing my reflection in its eyes... somehow, I glimpsed my future.
This is how it'll be from now on.
Bickering with cheerful neighbors in that shithole house, endless life-risking hunts alongside old-school hunters.
"..."
My worries might resolve quicker than expected.