Parasitic Growth (Chapter 9)
The next day.
Kang Seojun stood waiting in front of the house, his voice calm and direct as he sent the message. “I’ll wait for you here. With the possibility of encountering a monster, please prepare the entire group thoroughly for battle.”
Jin Serin and Seo Eunha, along with the Sungjin Group security team, arrived exactly at nine o’clock to pick up Kang Seojun.
“Let’s head to the Portal Customs Station. The destination is Mount Songni.”
The driver steered the car toward the location Kang Seojun had provided.
In just under two hours, the group reached the entrance to Mount Songni.
“Ugh…! Uwek…”
The moment Kang Seojun stepped out of the car, he doubled over and vomited violently.
Even the transcendent-grade willpower that had pushed him to the limits of human endurance could not defy the body’s involuntary functions.
Given his countless bottom-grade debuffs—morbid obesity, terminal cancer, and the rest—the dense, unrelenting motion sickness he suffered daily had been compounded by the motion of the ride, leaving him no choice but to heave.
“Puh-duk! Pu-de-deuk!”
The plastic bag he used to collect the bile grew heavier with each retch.
“…”
Because Kang Seojun kept dropping the bag, Seo Eunha, who had been holding it for him, frowned while looking down at him.
*Just a single hour in the car and his condition is like this?*
“Uwek…!”
“Pu-de-deuk!”
Seo Eunha’s expression twisted further with disgust.
*As expected, his appearance is no lie about his physical state.*
Seo Eunha let out a small sigh.
*Is it really okay to entrust a young lady’s safety to this man?*
He might collapse at any moment.
The layer of doubt she had already accumulated since yesterday only grew thicker.
“Uwoo…! Hwueuk…”
After a long stretch of retching, Kang Seojun finally managed to catch his breath.
Each inhale and exhale sounded wet and labored, making him look like a patient with severe lung disease.
“Deputy Go. Please take this and handle it at the restroom nearby.”
Once his stomach had settled a little, Seo Eunha passed the bag of vomit to Deputy Go.
“Ex… yes…”
Deputy Go accepted the bag with a forced smile, though her face clearly showed reluctance. The plastic was now stuffed with bile.
“How is your condition?”
Seo Eunha asked, bringing herself to the same eye level as Kang Seojun, who was sitting on the bench.
Since the person responsible for guiding them had started out in such a mess, Jin Serin and the rest of the security team wore complicated expressions as they stared at him.
“It’s fine. As soon as he returns, we’ll depart immediately.”
Kang Seojun pushed himself up from the bench.
But soon his legs began to tremble violently, and he collapsed back onto the bench with a heavy thud.
“Ah…”
Seo Eunha could not suppress a sigh.
*This won’t do.*
If they left now, she was sure the man would die.
“I think it would be difficult today. Your body looks too unwell.”
It might be better to send him back and tell the young lady to find someone else.
What kind of work could this person possibly handle?
“Perhaps I’ll have to have someone carry me.”
However, the man showed no sign of wanting to leave.
“What? You’re insisting on continuing?”
“Yes. Although it doesn’t look like it, today is the best condition I’ve had in ages. So we must go today.”
Kang Seojun wiped the saliva from his pale lips with his sleeve and spoke.
He knew that turning back now would mean missing this rare opportunity.
He had already prepared himself for the possibility that his body would break down in the car.
“Ah…”
Seo Eunha looked at Jin Serin with a complicated expression.
Jin Serin returned the gaze with an anxious look in her eyes.
A hint of desperation flickered in her gaze.
“Tsk.”
Seo Eunha clicked her tongue once and said, “If that’s the case, I understand. We’ll depart as soon as Deputy Go returns.”
From Seo Eunha’s perspective, the idea was utterly unappealing, but she could not refuse a suggestion made with the desperation of clutching at straws.
Not long after, Deputy Go returned with a heavily wrinkled face, having taken care of the vomit. The group began climbing Mount Songni.
At first they followed the paved uphill path, but when Kang Seojun pointed the way, the civilized trail vanished almost immediately, and the surroundings became pure wilderness.
A steep slope on the left, a long rock cliff covered in thick moss on the right.
“Um… Team Leader…”
While the group walked in silence, Deputy Go spoke quietly to Seo Eunha.
“Why?”
“Shh!”
When Seo Eunha answered aloud, Deputy Go quickly raised a finger to her lips and gestured behind her.
The gesture clearly meant to talk quietly in private.
One of Seo Eunha’s eyebrows rose at the motion.
“Look at this.”
Deputy Go played a video on her phone and handed it over.
Seo Eunha glanced at Deputy Go with suspicion, then watched the video.
The video showed…
“Ugh.”
A toilet bowl filled with liquid.
“Damn you…!”
Is this guy trying to get revenge because I made him clean the filthy thing?
Still thinking that, Seo Eunha watched as Deputy Go pointed at the screen with a serious expression.
“Look carefully!”
Her tone left no room for joking.
Seo Eunha tilted her head in confusion, then focused on the video.
*Please, just nothing.*
*You’re only sparring with me from now on.*
“Eh…?”
Soon something moved in the video.
At first she thought it was gas, but upon closer inspection, several black dots were writhing.
Seo Eunha’s expression crumpled.
“Auwek…!”
“You see? Bugs! They came out of the toilet!”
Whispering that, Deputy Go pulled a zippered bag from her pocket.
Inside the bag were two of the writhing bugs from the video.
“You… have a strong stomach…?”
“If I hadn’t brought them, what would you have said?”
“I see.”
Seo Eunha took the bag and examined the bugs in detail.
They resembled eels.
But a closer look revealed they were nothing like ordinary Earth lifeforms.
“This is a monster.”
It had a round, black head with no eyes or nose—only sharp mouth.
“How did something like this come out of a body?”
“Exactly! The cadets who will enter the academy with the young lady, right? Don’t you think we should report this now? Raising monsters in a body… that’s Insect Craft! It’s illegal!”
The technique of cultivating and controlling monster insects inside a mage’s body.
In the hunter community, it was known as Bug Craft or Insect Craft.
It was pioneered by the World Rank 12 Hunter Ma Duseok, who developed bug magic.
Insect mages who used pheromones to control bugs kept at least two species of insects in their bodies.
Once a top-tier magic school in the hunter industry, the field collapsed after horrifying human experiments and conspiracies involving bug mages were exposed.
Ma Duseok was branded a villain and his laboratory was incinerated to the last speck of dust, but underground, insect mages continued to research his lineage.
Seo Eunha stared at Kang Seojun’s back ahead of the group.
She could see his red, swollen nape.
The moment she thought about it being a nest of insects, she could not help but wrinkle her face.
*He was an insect mage…*
She had expected him to be hiding something, but she never imagined he was openly practicing the taboo skill of Insect Craft.
The ruined body could be considered a side effect of the magic, which explained it to some extent.
*Then those strange balanced stats… are they also a result of Insect Craft?*
An extraordinarily high Willpower stat.
And despairingly low stats in everything else.
“Hmm…”
But the strange stat balance and Insect Craft did not seem directly related.
*Damn… my head is getting complicated again…*
She had uncovered one of the things this man was hiding, yet instead of finding clarity, she felt even more lost.
There were far too many unexplained elements for Insect Craft to be the whole story.
*No, no way.*
Seo Eunha shook her head.
What mattered now was not what else he was hiding.
She had to report to her master that this man was a criminal practicing illegal magic.
“Give me your phone for a moment.”
“Ah…!”
Seo Eunha picked up Deputy Go’s smartphone and tapped Jin Serin’s back.
“Why?”
Jin Serin turned and asked.
Seo Eunha raised a finger to her lips.
“Look at this.”
Then, whispering quietly, she played the video they had just seen.
“…”
Jin Serin blinked her large eyes, curious, as she watched the video Seo Eunha showed her.
A plate of rainbow-colored pizza floating in the toilet bowl.
“Uwek…!?”
“Shh… Shh…!”
Jin Serin looked at Seo Eunha with revulsion.
“Unnie… don’t share your weird hobbies…”
“It’s not that. Look carefully.”
“…”
Jin Serin stared at Seo Eunha with a puzzled expression, then tilted her head at her serious demeanor and focused on the video again.
“You can see them moving.”
“Auwek… what is this?”
“This.”
Seo Eunha reached for the zippered bag containing the bugs and warned.
“You’re not allowed to scream that it’s gross.”
“U, um…”
Jin Serin frowned at the grotesque sight of the cannibal parasite.
“This came out of that man’s stomach. He’s practicing Insect Craft.”
“Really…?”
“Yes. Deputy Go saw them with her own eyes in the restroom. It’s hard to believe someone who is practicing illegal magic has no dealings. We’ll report it when we go down.”
“Hmm…”
Jin Serin looked at Kang Seojun, who was being carried by a security guard and directing the group’s direction.
“Should we really keep going?”
“Young Lady?”
“It’s not a problem trading what we want. Besides, I don’t think he was trying to hide it in the first place. Switching positions over something like this feels a bit off.”
“You never know when you might be in a hurry. Insect Craft has a terrible reputation for human trafficking. We don’t even know where we’re going right now? Once we’re caught, it’s too late.”
“If you’re that suspicious, honestly, there’s no end to it. And you know this now. Even if something makes you uncomfortable, you have to accept it to some degree. The time for picking and choosing methods has passed.”
At those words, Seo Eunha’s mouth went dry.
The situation still did not sit well with her, but Jin Serin’s reasoning was sound.
“Unnie. You’re worrying too much. Think about it. If he had any evil intentions, would he have told us to prepare for battle? We approached him first. What if we’re the ones who become suspicious…?”
“That’s…”
There was nothing she could really refute.
“I know you’re worried about me, but we’re not going back now. Actually, I feel better here. No one has come here before. It feels like something different.”
Jin Serin’s eyes sparkled with anticipation.
Seo Eunha sighed through her nose and wore a complicated expression.
Meanwhile,
[Host EXP stolen! HP EXP has increased!]
[Host’s efforts stolen! HP grows stronger! HP stat has increased by +1!]
[Skill [Parasitic Growth] special effect activated! Select the trait to steal from the host or the trait to transfer!]
‘Finally…’
A quiet smile of relief spread across Kang Seojun’s face.
He had been on the verge of passing out.
*If it had been even a moment later…*
◆Trait
[Terminal Cancer Lv. Lowest]
‘Finally, the terminal cancer is cured.’
This was the moment he was transferring the humiliation of this body to Park Sinhu.
The instant his body’s condition, which had been deteriorating rapidly since yesterday, received a miracle breath of fresh air.
[Host EXP stolen! HP EXP has increased!] [Host’s efforts stolen! HP grows stronger! HP stat has increased by +1!] [Skill [Parasitic Growth] special effect activated! Select the trait to steal from the host or the trait to transfer!]
[Host EXP stolen! HP EXP has increased!]
[Host’s efforts stolen! HP grows stronger! HP stat has increased by +1!]
[Skill [Parasitic Growth] special effect activated! Select the trait to steal from the host or the trait to transfer!]
‘Finally…’
Kang Seojun smiled quietly in relief.
If it had been even a moment later, he would have truly passed out.
◆Trait
[Terminal Cancer Lv. Lowest]
‘Finally, terminal cancer is cured.’
This was the moment he was transferring the humiliation of this body to Park Sinhu.
The instant his body’s condition, which had been deteriorating rapidly since yesterday, received a miracle breath of fresh air.