Chapter 90
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 090
Chapter Title: The Soldiers - [4]
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After snapping out of the hallucination, I could tell just how terrifying my expression must have been from the looks on the faces around me.
It was the kind of face ready to explode at any second. No doubt about it.
“Kim Geuk-ssi?”
Looking at Im Hyeong-taek staring at me, my reflection in his eyes was far fiercer than I’d imagined.
Veins bulged like spiderwebs across a face brimming with rage. The sort of mug that screamed someone about to snap and do something reckless.
Seeing his anxious look, I offered an explanation.
“I’m fine. That story I just heard? It’s got my blood boiling all over again.”
Muttering that, I rummaged through my wallet. Where the hell did I stick my business card?
Damn it, couldn’t spot it.
I moved my trembling hands—and my mouth at the same time.
“I... used to run with the Korean Awakener Alliance... you know, the group fighting for Awakener rights? Stuff like this really sets me off... You know the Korean Awakener Alliance? The one Councilor Park Mi-hyeong was with...”
“Ah, Councilor Park Mi-hyeong? The one famous for being Korea’s only brainwashing Awakener...”
One of the soldiers muttered, and only then could I manage a smile.
“That’s right. I worked with her in that group. Anytime we heard some Awakener got screwed over, we’d all swarm the place. And my main gig? Intimidating folks with this hulking frame of mine...”
Ah, there it was. My business card.
“And now... I can do way more than just throw my weight around.”
With that, I handed over the business card the Hunter Association had made for me.
Awakening Committee Vice Chairman Kim Geuk, and some other fine print.
Truth be told, neither Kim Hyeong-man, who set up that committee, nor I as vice chairman had a clue what it actually did. But who cares?
What matters isn’t the seat—it’s who’s sitting in it.
I passed a card to each soldier as I spoke.
“If you get treated like crap, call me right away. Even if you’re discharged and wanna become a Hunter but have no idea where to start—hit me up. No matter how slammed I am, I’ll make time...”
They’d know from my face just now that I meant every word.
The soldiers nodded, carefully tucking the cards into their breast pockets. They even buttoned up after, so no worries about them ditching it later.
That’s when the roar hit. ‘Uoooooooh—’
I’d heard that kind before. Plenty of times.
An ogre’s bellow. A massive monster’s rage.
Were they venting the frustrations from their weak goblin days now that they’d bulked up? Ogres loved roaring like that for no damn reason, or so they say.
And especially the one called Tubby that haunted Mani Mountain.
I knew that because the soldier who’d visited me in the hallucination had told me.
Those hallucination soldiers who came to me? They weren’t like the ones in front of me now. Because in the hallucination, the ones here were long dead.
The hallucination soldier had said:
‘The last platoon got eaten alive... Tubby—we went out to take down one ogre, and they all got wiped right there...’
‘That why you’re so spooked? Scared you’ll all end up monster chow again?’
‘Yeah... But if we refuse to deploy or desert, it’s not the MPs who come—it’s the special forces. Word is they don’t even nicely arrest you and toss you in army lockup. They execute you on the spot...’
Recalling that hallucination brought the rage surging back.
Taking a deep breath, I asked,
“Tubby... that ogre—wasn’t it around four meters?”
“Yes. That’s what I heard, anyway.”
I spread out my mental web, probing the distant monster’s bulk before speaking.
“Nah, feels more like five meters to me.”
“Five meters?”
“Dead certain. With all these monsters swarming the place, it must’ve chowed down on a bunch and grown. And you know bigger monsters are always tougher and harder. Plus, didn’t you say it’s a Force Field Body?”
“Yeah. Back when it tanked a phosphorus bomb, not even a scorch mark...”
“Then its force field exoskeleton’s gotta be jacked up too—insanely tough. Gigantic ones like that almost always pack Super Regeneration too, so even if you breach the field and wound it, it’ll heal in seconds. This thing could eat an airstrike point-blank and shrug it off...”
As I muttered, Seong Mun-yeong piped up.
“So what’s your point? That it’s too strong to take down?”
“Nah. We’re taking it out, no matter what.”
Apparently, that landed like some badass line.
I spotted the cameraman following Naito zooming in on me. Jeong Jin-yeong was even thumbs-upping me.
Either way, nothing had changed. We just had to hunt even more thoroughly than planned.
After wrapping up the day’s hunt, I went to see the base commander, a colonel.
I requested military supplies from him.
“Can you hand over all the military-grade explosives you’ve got?”
“Explosives? What for...”
“Gotta take down Tubby, right?”
Saying that, I eyed the colonel. Beyond being a non-Awakener hack, he screamed Seoul elite.
Those hallucination atrocities—his doing?
If so, could I just teleport him to the middle of the ocean, make him vanish without a trace, and stop Awakener soldiers from being treated like cannon fodder?
No idea.
Just looking at his face filled me with disgust, but I held it together.
Easier than I thought.
The military’s treatment of Awakener soldiers in the hallucination was horrific, sure. But something even more repulsive had shown up there too.
Hallucination me.
That guy was repulsive even to me now.
The lunatic pretended to help the soldiers while chasing his own delusions.
Handing a bullied kid a machine gun to spray the classroom isn’t helping the kid.
Sure, the bullies die, but the kid’s life goes down the drain in the fallout. And when it hits the nine o’clock news, the only one grinning is the gun lender.
Satisfied with his vicarious revenge. Kid’s ruin? Whatever.
That’s exactly what hallucination me did.
Pretending to help desperate folks, acting like he’d avenge their kin—then shoving them off a cliff.
Realizing his fantasy of ‘non-Awakeners as Awakener slaves,’ basking in it alone. Didn’t give a damn about the forcibly relocated soldiers’ fates.
I’d pitied hallucination me’s end before, called it pathetic. But I hadn’t realized how utterly vile he was.
Come to think of it, wasn’t he the guy Kang Jun-chi tried to kill for getting in the way of wrecking Seoul?
Now I got his deal.
Hallucination me wouldn’t leave fellow Awakeners alone if they didn’t dance to his tune.
He’d ship them to another world to ‘make them proper Awakeners’ or call them obstacles and nuke ’em with tactical nukes.
All of it was utterly loathsome. The kind of lesson that makes you swear never to go that route.
And I’d make a choice hallucination me wouldn’t—or couldn’t.
Nothing fancy. Just the proposal I was making now.
“Tubby? You all know Mani Mountain’s a monster den because of that one, but you can’t touch it? We’re here—might as well clean it up.”
Offering to personally slay such a powerhouse, taking the risk for weaker kin? Impossible for hallucination me. He wasn’t as strong as me now.
But I was. That was the key difference.
“Yes! You’re right. We should take the chance while we have it...”
The colonel soon approved my request.
We kept hunting after that, and about a week into our time on Ganghwa Island...
Us Hunters were crashing at a local inn full-time now. We’d just finished work and were settling in to relax.
Then chaos erupted from the military base.
“What the hell?”
Nerve-grating noise. No details, but it was clearly an alert. What now?
My phone rang next. A soldier yelled through the receiver.
「Kim Geuk Hunter? A Gate just opened here! Can you come now—」
I rallied the Hunters and linked up with the soldiers.
Inside the base, everyone—officers and grunts alike—was moving like clockwork. Not a single one panicking. Elite unit, huh, I thought.
In this day and age, what else could you expect?
Commanders had probably drilled the troops relentlessly while making them carve out fortifications. Even if it sparked abuse scandals. Same logic for throwing Awakener soldiers into the meat grinder.
Not that I’d ever excuse it. Never.
Baek Dam-bi quickly opened a small Gate, stuck her head in, then pulled it out.
“Gate found!”
She confirmed another Gate beyond it and relayed the rough location to me. I teleported directly to pinpoint it.
Radioing the intel back got a flustered response.
「What? That’s the ammo depot...」
Listening more, attacking risked a massive secondary blast.
Still, with the Gate’s spot locked, soldiers formed a defensive line and unlimbered mortars.
Deathclaws pouring from the Gate got shredded by the kill zone. Zigzagging or not, no dodging that bullet storm.
One Force Field Body mixed in took mortar rounds and went flying. Might end without a hitch, I thought—
“Ah...!”
A roar hit. Infrasound-laced, it made my Hunter crew shudder. I gripped my gear tighter.
Then the ammo depot’s steel container buckled on one side.
The steel wall tore like paper, revealing a colossal monster. Soldiers who recognized it screamed.
“Tubby!”
Loves yelling, they said—and sure enough, it roared again. “Uoooooooh—”
This time, pure fury. Makes sense—we’d been poking the monster zone for a week straight.
Mani Mountain beasts or spirits feeling the heat, launching this raid?
Tubby seemed like their ace in the hole.
It burst from the depot in seconds, smashing straight through the kill zone.
Rifle rounds? Bounced off the force field. Absurd speed let it dodge most mortars, and the few hits? Didn’t even flinch. Just kept charging.
“Shit!” “Insane!”
Screams everywhere. Fair enough—that thing outclassed a tank in raw power and toughness.
I moved when Tubby had bolted about 150 meters from the depot.
Teleporting in with 800kg of C4.
Could’ve used more, but that was all the nearby explosives.
Slapped it on the charging ogre’s neck, then teleported away and detonated.
A deafening boom followed. Eardrum-rattling thunder from the ground.
Hundreds of kilos could level a building—this proved it.
Dust cloud from the blast blotted everything. Tubby’s five-meter frame? Completely obscured.
Soldiers seeing the spectacle yelled,
“Got it!”
But no.
Those ultra-tough Awakener rebels survived military building-busters, foiling every crackdown. This guy did the same.
“Uoooooooh—” From the dust cloud, Tubby roared.
Enraged survival. My mental web confirmed: not a scratch, force field intact.
“Probed with my web—it’s like the force field didn’t even crack...”
I muttered. Lee Jong-ho beside me yelped in horror.
“Then can we even kill it?”
Honestly, yeah—I wondered too. Untouched by that? How? Real-deal monster I couldn’t handle.
To steel my faltering resolve, I thought:
The stronger it is, the more power I gain when it dies.
As the ogre burst from the dust and charged, I grabbed my Hunter rifle and teleported in.
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