#8. After That
#8. After That
A chill shot down a spine I didn't even have.
There was no way I could win. Even if the ten Black Wolves I'd just killed were still up, they wouldn't stand a chance against this thing. Adult versus child. Rabbit versus tiger. Snake versus frog. The difference between us was brutally, hopelessly absolute.
'Ah.'
I'm going to die here. The beast studied me for only a heartbeat before its gaze shifted to the woman slumped against the tree.
"Grrrr..."
Whether it killed me or killed her, I couldn't stop it. I'd resist, sure — but if I lasted ten seconds I'd count myself lucky. Drool dripped down, soaking me where I lay beneath its jaws. I was certain this was the end. And then—
"......?"
It turned and walked away.
Why? Was this some kind of "good fight, I'll let you live" gesture? Or did we just look too worthless to kill? The thing strode off, utterly unhurried, and I stayed frozen for a long moment half-expecting it to wheel around. It showed no sign of doing so.
'...Did I survive?'
I extended my Detection. Already out of range. It was truly gone.
'.......'
The tension drained out of me all at once and my body went limp. So this is what mental exhaustion feels like. I let myself breathe, pulled myself together, then pulled up the messages I'd been too overwhelmed to read.
[Experience Points at maximum. Lv.16 → Lv.17]
[Satiety at maximum. Devouring...]
...There are way too many of these.
Reading them one by one was too much of a time sink, so I checked my Status first.
[Fear of Snake Valley (Amorphous Slime) Lv.20] [EXP 1041/11062]
[Length 4.07m] [Height 17.7cm] [Weight 51.6kg]
[STR 66 (79.1%)] [AGI 45 (43.1%)] [VIT 146]
I'd made a staggering leap all at once.
When the fight began I'd been Level 15, but devouring the Black Wolf alone shot me straight to Level 20. I'd wondered whether Level 20, like Level 10, would come with a condition — and searching through the messages confirmed it: [Level 20 Achievement Condition: Defeat a Warg.]
In other words, eating the thing had cleared the condition in the exact same moment. Lucky— no, there was no way it was luck. The System had gotten exactly what it wanted.
'.......'
That didn't sit entirely well with me. But for now I had no choice but to follow along. The System was my only guide.
It had been a razor-thin fight.
If the beast's injuries had been just a little less severe, it wouldn't be me alive right now — it would be the Warg. Still, a five-level jump... when I thought about it, it made sense. I'd eaten a monster bigger than a tiger. If I hadn't gotten that kind of compensation, I'd have felt cheated.
Put that way, it was fair reward.
[Skill List]
Devouring (E) Lv.7, Tentacle Bundle (E) Lv.1, Heat Detection (E) Lv.1, Weak Regeneration (E) Lv.6, Weak Stealth (E) Lv.7, Spying (E) Lv.1, Presence Detection (F) Lv.9, Faint Hearing (F) Lv.7, Faint Sixth Sense (F) Lv.5, Weak Sight (E) Lv.3, Physical Damage Reduction (E) Lv.5, Weak Hardening (E) Lv.5, Transformation (F) Lv.9, Faint Poison Resistance (F) Lv.1, Intimidation (F) Lv.3, Empty Stomach (E) Lv.4, Swimming (F) Lv.4, Diving (F) Lv.4, Elasticity (E) Lv.7, Perception (E) Lv.2, Charge (E) Lv.2
My stats had grown, yes, but my skills had undergone a transformation that was genuinely remarkable.
Devouring and Weak Stealth had both rocketed to E-rank Level 7 — D-rank wasn't far off now. Tentacle, which I remembered capping at Level 8, had gained a rank upgrade. When I tried it out, dozens of tendrils writhed independently from my body.
...My eyes feel like they're rotting.
At least I could merge them into a single bundle when I wanted to. Heat Sense had become Heat Detection, and Observation had apparently evolved into Spying.
'Spying?'
The name sounded a little illegal.
Setting aside skills that had nothing to do with fighting a Black Wolf, the overall picture was a sweeping upgrade. That was nothing if not encouraging. What excited me most, though, was Transformation. I'd leaned on it ever since the beginning, and it had been stuck at F-rank the whole time — but now it was poised to rise to E-rank any moment.
I was basking in that satisfaction when my brow furrowed.
Just as during my first evolution, something sinister was floating to the surface. That same indescribable, cognition-rejecting, want-nothing-to-do-with-it ominous something.
[Evolution Available List]
1. Warg (Unformed)
A message surfaced in my mind.
It still unsettled me that I couldn't grasp what that something was — but regardless, I could now evolve into a Warg.
[Warg: A wolf-like monster. Swift and relentless.]
[Warg (Unformed): Evolve into a Warg while retaining the properties of an amorphous mucus body.]
'...Retaining the properties?'
Unformed... I tried to picture a wolf that was also mushy and amorphous. My imagination couldn't quite get there.
I set the evolution dilemma aside for the moment. First I had to deal with the woman lying unconscious. As I moved to carry her, my head drooped and my gaze landed on her face.
'...She's pretty.'
An honest first impression. Even among the people I'd seen in this world, she was easily among the most striking.
I caught myself staring blankly, a little dazed by it.
A girl with a mischievous-looking brown bob leaned against the tree, eyes closed — it looked like a scene out of a storybook.
I was genuinely glad I'd upgraded my sight. After staring for a while, I used Observation.
'.......'
[Lee Eun-ha (Human)]
[Height 164.4cm] [Weight 46.2kg]
[STR 31] [AGI 44] [VIT 21] [MP 316]
Back when the skill was still Observation, I hadn't been able to see stats. Now that it had turned into Spying, that seemed to have changed. I hated the name, but the functionality had clearly improved.
The stats of the woman called Lee Eun-ha were extreme.
Everything else was low, but her MP alone was 316. Even doubling my highest stat, VIT, didn't close the gap.
'So mana really does exist.'
It truly hit me then that I was inside a novel. Neither the Master of Baemsagol nor the Warg had ever used anything resembling magic. It was hard to believe this girl in front of me was the owner of over 300 MP — but considering the worldview of the original story, it made sense. There was a high probability she was a hunter.
[Faint Sixth Sense (F) Lv.5 proficiency at maximum. Faint Sixth Sense (F) Lv.5 → Faint Sixth Sense (F) Lv.6]
Sixth Sense moved of its own accord and brushed against Lee Eun-ha's hand.
'......?'
I was puzzling over why when the System delivered another message.
[Mana Awakened.]
'......!'
My mind snapped to full alert. I checked my Status again, and there it was: [MP 1] written plainly.
At last. I'd finally awakened mana — practically the signature of a fantasy novel. Right on cue, I sensed someone's presence approaching.
Just in case, I slipped up into a tree and activated Stealth. A man who looked to be in his mid-to-late twenties spotted the unconscious woman and let out a sigh. He must have come looking for her.
'...She's with him, right?'
No kidnapper would sigh at the sight of an unconscious victim. Last time I'd used Observation, the Master of Baemsagol had sensed it immediately — so I hesitated. But the rank had gone up since then, and the name was literally Spying. I decided to trust it.
[Jeon Woo-taek (Human)]
[Height 179.7cm] [Weight 76.4kg]
[STR 517] [AGI 449] [VIT 578] [MP 405]
Is this thing broken? I rubbed my eyes and stared again. The numbers didn't change. My brain practically short-circuited. I wondered if I was seeing things, so I toggled Sight off and on — still the same. Two stats over 500. And his MP was even higher than hers. Were those numbers even possible for a human being?
Yet despite what the screen told me, I felt absolutely nothing from the man in front of me.
'...Banbakgwijin?'
In martial arts novels, masters who've reached the highest realms always appear utterly ordinary. Maybe, unlike the woman, he was deliberately suppressing his power.
'.......'
I hadn't seen the monster wolf's stats, but this man — this man could absolutely beat that thing down. No, I was sure of it.
That was probably why the monster wolf had quietly disappeared. If it had gotten bogged down fighting me with its body still not fully healed, this man would've arrived. Now I understood why the beast had let us go.
Damn it. Every time I think I've gotten stronger, something even stronger appears right on top of me. Not that I didn't already know exactly how brutal this world was.
The man stood there for a long moment, face grim, scanning the area — then hoisted the woman onto his back and vanished without a word.
I let out the breath I'd been holding. The intruder was gone. No more complications to worry about.
So now... it was time to evolve. As soon as I faced that ominous thing again, the tension that had lifted dropped right back down.
Because, really — did it have to be like this every single time I evolved?
[Beginning evolution into Warg (Unformed).]
.......
***
A headache pounded through her skull — several times worse than any hangover she'd ever endured. When she came to, she was lying in a hospital gown.
'...Why am I in a hospital?'
Before the thought could finish, her last memories surged back. She was fairly certain she'd been about to get eaten by a Warg...? The door abruptly swung open, and she let out a shriek.
"Kyaaaaaah!"
"What? What is it?"
"S-Senior?"
Eun-ha lowered the blanket she'd pulled over her face. The person who'd walked through the door wasn't a Warg — it was her senior. Of course it was. A Warg wouldn't be in a hospital. She'd been a complete idiot.
"Yeah. How's the body holding up?"
"A little. You could've knocked."
She grumbled for show. A quick glance around told her she was in a private room, thank god. At least she'd been spared the embarrassment.
"How was I supposed to know when you'd wake up? You've been out for three days straight."
"...Three days?"
"Yeah. Three days."
She sat there paralyzed by the news that so much time had passed while Woo-taek, utterly unbothered, peeled an apple from the basket — with his bare hands.
"Agh! What are you doing? That's disgusting!"
"My hands aren't actually touching it. Don't worry about it."
He'd wrapped his hands in mana, sure, but the fact remained that he was peeling an apple with his bare fingers. Eun-ha adamantly refused to eat any of it, so Woo-taek took a single massive bite instead.
"They said it was a honey apple. Tastes good. So — body's okay?"
"Hm? Not really? I feel totally fine, honestly."
"Then come in to work starting tomorrow."
"...Actually, I feel terrible all of a sudden. Like I'm dying."
She tried to fake a stomachache, clutching her belly — and then the actual pain hit, and tears welled in her eyes. Only now did she notice that the end of her elbow was bumping against her flank, which was wrapped tight in bandages.
"Ngh..."
"Quit messing around and rest. I already put in your sick leave."
...Now that he mentioned it, she thought her ribs might have been broken at the end. The memories were trickling back. Lee Eun-ha asked for a rundown.
"How did I end up here, anyway? Did you bring me, senior?"
"What are you talking about?"
"At the very end, I was definitely..."
Definitely about to die to that Warg...?
"I'm the one who wants to ask questions. You."
Woo-taek crunched through the rest of the apple in one bite and fixed her with a dead-serious stare.
"Why did you go all the way out there?"
"Ah, that's..."
Eun-ha gulped and tensed up. She spilled the truth, and after listening to the whole story, he let out a heavy sigh.
"So. You thought they were going to get away, so you went after them without saying a word?"
"Yes. I mean, I'd basically already caught them, you know? But there just happened to be two of them..."
"You, seriously..."
He'd been about to snap and ask if she was out of her mind, but he reminded himself she'd only just woken up. He settled for pressing his fingers to his throbbing temple.
......Fine. She'd figured she could handle a single Warg by herself. He could understand that. He could. But...
"You nearly got yourself killed."
"......."
"Get your head on straight. You think just because you quit being a hunter, the monsters are going to go easy on you?"
"......I'm sorry."
"You should've..."
You should've told me first. Woo-taek started to say it, then swallowed the words with another sigh. She already knew. There was no point belaboring it. Sure, hammering it in now might keep her from making the same mistake again — but if they were going to point fingers, the real problem was dragging a girl who'd transferred to Administration out on what was supposedly a field assignment. The team leader had wanted it that way, but Woo-taek had never liked the arrangement from the start.
...No, actually, he decided it was better that things had blown up now rather than later, when the consequences could've been far worse.
"......Just rest for now."
"Okay..."
With Lee Eun-ha mumbling gloomily behind him, he turned to leave the room. A voice stopped him.
"S-Senior. At the very end... did you see anything?"
"See what?"
"......Never mind."
Lee Eun-ha shook her head, insisting it was nothing. This time Woo-taek walked out.
Left alone, Lee Eun-ha kept tilting her head, over and over.
Because in the foggy scraps of her memory, she was almost certain she'd seen something at the very last moment......