Chapter 6
Chapter 6
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: Angel's Monster
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"Honey...!"
"Yeah?"
"Are you crazy?!"
Thwack!
"Ow!"
The flying headbonk was only natural after calling their adopted son a monster.
"How could you call Shin-woo a monster?!"
"Th-that... I didn't mean it like that..."
"Then what did you mean?"
"Like I told you before... us Beast Hunters always get hit with this inexplicable disgust whenever we deal with people, right?"
Even toward the parents who raised them. Even toward their comrades they'd shared life and death with. Even toward their beloved spouse and children. The intensity varied by target, but that was Beast Hunters for you. They felt disgust toward any 'human'. But.
"For the first time, with that kid Shin-woo, I felt... at ease."
"At ease?"
Calming her excitement, Rolling sat back down at the table across from her. Lee Seok-gyu continued.
"Yeah. It felt so comfortable, like facing a monster. Of course, if it had been one, I'd have charged right in. Haha!"
"...So that's why Sophia likes Shin-woo too?"
"Yeah. Probably. It's a completely new experience for our girl."
"The disgust that's there even toward the parents who raised her..."
"It's completely gone with him. Shin-woo has none of it."
What could that child's true nature be? What was he? Normal people would have dug into that first.
"So let's cherish and care for our benefactor, our adopted son."
"...Without calling him a monster."
"Of, of course! A soldier keeps his word!"
Their daughter, whom they'd thought would live forever as a loner, had found the one person she could truly open up to. The couple simply smiled in joy.
It had already been three days since I'd been adopted into Aunt Rolling's family.
Life here was... what could I say?
"Juggling two kids now that I have them!"
"Ooh!"
"Hahaha."
"Honeyyy!!"
Maybe because I'd never felt such harmonious joy before.
Three days flew by like a single hour, pure bliss.
But I was a possessor and a regressor returned ten years to the past.
I had things to do.
"Shin-woo, what're you doing?"
"Hm? Just thinking about something."
"Think... ing?"
"Anyway, kids shouldn't know. It'll hurt 'em."
"...! Hmph!"
In Sophia's pink room, decked out like a princess's chamber, I'd already finished the kindergarten workbooks ages ago.
Meanwhile, Sophia was still struggling with 1245 + 634.
Taking advantage of my free study time alone, I was jotting down upcoming major events in the corner of my workbook.
'It's still ten years before the game events... so those were just backstory flashbacks for the characters, right? Probably.'
South Korea, ten years from now.
The main heroines of this world, whom you'd meet right at the start of Hunters Blood.
Most of them personality wrecks—they'd sneer at me every time, bringing up one shared incident.
The infamous 'Smiling Monster Incident', where Busan Metropolitan City was utterly obliterated.
It had scarred most of the heroines with massive trauma, the worst loss of life and territory in this world's South Korean history.
It happened exactly ten years ago in the original story—right now.
On a snowy day.
At Busan Port, Korea's first 'National Disaster Monster' named 'Angel' appeared.
To subjugate it, the military and most hunters mobilized all the way down to Busan, but it was a total defeat.
Korea lost nearly all its forces against monsters, regressing from a developed nation not just to a developing one, but back to a 1900s backwater.
The surviving 'Angel' was supposedly vaporized by a nuke from the US.
'But Busan was completely wiped out, and neighboring Ulsan and Daegu became uninhabitable radioactive wastelands.'
Childhood shapes personality and values the most.
Just like that saying, the incident had plummeted the heroines' life philosophies into the abyss.
I planned to stop the Smiling Monster Incident this year, no matter what.
But to do that, I needed a reason for an elementary kid like me to head to Busan alone where the monster would appear...
"Haa..."
"...?"
"Can't think of anything."
"Hmph! Acting all smart, but even you don't know everything, Shin-woo! But I'm not showing you mine!"
"......"
"I-I mean... if it's too hard, I could show you a little..."
Should I just run away for a bit then?
But imagining my new family's reaction when I returned filled me with guilt that tore at my heart.
"Haa..."
"Sniff... hng... Sh-Shin-woo... don't sigh... I did wrong... waa..."
"?! Sophia, why are you crying all of a sudden?"
"Wasn't it because of me?"
"Of course not! Just some worries."
"Wor... ries."
Any good ideas?
As I comforted the deeply sullen Sophia and kept brainstorming, that's when it hit.
"Hm?"
"Whoa!"
Looking out the window to clear my head.
"Shin-woo, look! It's snow! Snow!"
"...Snow?"
It was early June.
The heart of summer.
Snow falling in the season where you'd sweat buckets without AC?
Come to think of it, the heroines mentioning the incident always grimaced at the word 'snow'.
"That day... it snowed so much..."
"Snow poured down unnaturally hard. It was freezing..."
"I hate snow. Whenever it snows, that day comes back."
I'd thought it was just winter snow at first.
But now I got it.
Snow in midsummer—that's why they fixated on it.
Which meant Busan right now...!
Bang!
The door flew open roughly. Uncle Lee Seok-gyu and Aunt Rolling rushed in, smiling, looking for us.
"Mom? Dad?"
"......"
"K-Kids..."
They smiled brightly as always, but the cold sweat trickling down their temples and the quivering lips gave it away instantly.
'Something's happened in Busan!'
"H-how about... we all go on a trip to Busan together?"
"Busan?"
"Yeah! Remember how you wanted to see the sea, Sophia? Mom and Dad both have time today, so we're going on a trip."
"Yay! Awesome!"
Who goes on a trip in crisp military uniforms and dress?
But I played along.
"Sounds good. I wanna go to Busan too!"
"...! Right! Our son Shin-woo comes along too."
"Yes!"
And so, our family piled into a foreign luxury car straight to Gimpo Airport.
VIP fast-pass, no checks.
Flight to Busan took barely an hour.
Three times faster than the KTX.
Even exiting the airport was fast-pass.
Busan's first sight upon arrival after mere hours.
"Aaaah!"
"Run! Monster!"
Pure pandemonium.
"Sir! I'm Major General Lee Chun-kyung, commander of the 53rd Division defending Busan!"
"At ease. Army Chief of Staff General Lee Seok-gyu here. This is..."
"Hello. I'm Commander Hunter Rolling, deputy branch chief of the Hunter Association's Korea branch."
"Ah, yes! Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Rolling."
Right after landing at Busan Gimhae Airport, a military vehicle waited at the entrance like it had been standing by.
The driver? None other than the division commander defending Busan.
Uncle Lee Seok-gyu rode shotgun, while Aunt Rolling, Sophia, and I sat in back.
"B-but, Army Chief of Staff, sir. The children in the back..."
"My kids. My daughter's a Beast Hunter, no babysitter I can trust, so had to bring 'em."
"I see..."
Sophia, feeling that Beast Hunter disgust, clung tight to me to avoid the commander's gaze.
Meanwhile, Uncle Lee Seok-gyu chatted easily with the commander despite being a Beast Hunter himself. Impressive.
"So, current situation?"
"Yes. Well... honestly, it's not good."
"How much force lost?"
"No direct full engagement yet, so troops and gear intact. But..."
"But?"
"We'll link up with the joint Army-Navy base soon. Full briefing there."
"Got it."
Sounded bad even without asking.
Sophia, thinking it was just a trip, hated this strange vehicle so much she clung to her mom's arm and asked.
"Mom. Can't we just go home?"
"Hm... then no snow crab for you, Sophia. That okay?"
"Snow crab?!"
Moms were the greatest.
"Dad'll finish work quick, then snow crab party for all. You too, right Sophia?"
"Yeah! Sophia loves snow crab tons!"
Sophia perked up instantly from her gloom.
But Aunt Rolling's smile watching her daughter held a shadow of worry.
'Korea's first National Disaster Monster since founding...'
If worse came to worst, I'd step in—but could I monsterize without getting caught?
The military vehicle arrived at the naval base amid that tense silence.
"Hooah! Navy Chief of Staff Yoo Jun-young."
"At ease. Skip formalities, Jun-young. Briefing now."
"Y-yes, sir. Understood, senior."
Army and Navy, but 'senior'? They knew each other.
In the HQ packed with massive monitors and radars, Uncle Lee Seok-gyu took salutes from countless soldiers.
We settled at the long holographic table with Aunt Rolling to hear the Navy Chief of Staff's briefing directly.
"First, at 04:21 AM today, a gate wave hit Busan Port."
"Monster emergence? Size? If you're calling even me, Army Chief of Staff, it's at least B-rank threat, right?"
"W-well..."
"...?"
The Navy Chief stammered mid-briefing.
Clearing his throat, he continued, shocking not just Uncle Lee Seok-gyu but Aunt Rolling too.
"Enemy entity roughly under 2 meters..."
"What?!"
"Estimated humanoid monster, minimum B-rank threat... but tragically, it shows human-level intelligence, which only exists at A-rank and above..."
"Evidence. Proof it has human-equivalent intellect?"
Gulp.
"Yes... it's occupied one of the USFK aircraft carriers stationed at Busan Port."
"What?!"
"A monster stole a human weapon? That's insane...!"
"And this is footage from a long-range camera last dawn."
With that, the hologram revealed the monster.