#15. Self-Restraint (克己)
#15. Self-Restraint (克己)
"Grrrr—"
A cold wind tickled my nose. I woke in a good mood, stretched, and stared blankly at the now-empty sea.
The Gwangandaegyo Bridge, just like the photos I'd seen, and the quiet night sea stretching beneath it. A peaceful, beautiful sight. Like most beaches, the water here was shallow. I shifted from my wolf form into a more streamlined shape to head out deeper. Even with Presence Detection active, finding it wasn't easy.
Because there were too many life signs down there. The sheer number of sea creatures meant even D-rank Presence Detection had its limits. I could still sense heat and presence like back in the E-rank days, but heat sense underwater was a pain.
Most fish are ectothermic animals that regulate body temperature based on their environment. You can search for aquatic life using heat sense, since their bodies are close to the water temperature, but the efficiency is terrible.
I filtered out tiny presences like minnows and focused only on large ones. Then I sifted those captures again using my sense of smell.
Aquatic creatures have separate gill and nasal structures, so they can smell underwater. Mammals, on the other hand, use their noses for both breathing and smelling, which means they can't smell underwater.
But my Weak Olfactory Sense was a skill-manifested ability. Being underwater didn't mean I couldn't use it. And I wasn't a mammal to begin with.
The name alone sounded high-class. I tried hard to recall the lobster I'd eaten just once in my life. Then I realized I had no idea what a raw one smelled like. So I searched for that distinct, earthy crustacean odor through trial and error—and finally found it.
[Thousand-Year Dragon Shrimp]
[Length 3.09 m] [Height 54.5 cm] [Weight 175 kg]
[STR 246] [AGI 196] [VIT 311] [MP 149]
'No wonder I couldn't find it.'
A sliver of crimson shell was barely poking out from under the sand. It usually hid like that. Unless you were absolutely certain it was there and actively searching for it—like I was—discovering it was next to impossible. It was a lobster, but its ecology was nothing like an ordinary crayfish's.
A thousand years of accumulated wisdom. Well, with a body that big, hiding under a rock would've been out of the question.
A thousand-year-old lobster.
My mouth watered. Strictly speaking, this thing wasn't a Calamity, so it wasn't a mandatory target. But if I went by personal preference rather than necessity, this was something I absolutely wanted to eat. The Thousand-Year Dragon Shrimp. It was a spiritual medicine—no, a spiritual creature.
In the original story, someone else was supposed to consume it. A certain character in the novel would get their hands on it. But that character would eventually betray everyone. Better that I take it myself.
Even when I was right on top of it, the thing didn't stir. As if it was utterly confident it could never be discovered. A spiritual creature. Did living for a millennium make it that bold?
Its stats alone were extraordinary. It probably never imagined anything in these shallow waters could threaten it. Excluding Hunters, it was among the strongest things I'd ever seen. With 149 Magic Power, it might even give the monster wolf a decent fight.
I quietly gathered my mana.
At 52, my magic power had grown from a coffee pot into a full kettle of boiling water. I gathered the boiling mana and condensed it into a single mass.
The mana bullet I formed slammed into the lobster's shell. No matter how tough its carapace was, blocking a mana bullet was impossible. The shot cleanly shattered a section of its exoskeleton. Pity it wasn't the head—it had reflexively raised a claw to block it.
It was tough. The bullet punched through the claw, but that was it. The mana dissipated after exhausting its force. The shell was even harder than I'd expected. The Thousand-Year Dragon Shrimp heaved its massive body up out of the sand.
And then I saw another one on the bottom. Two of them...? No, not two. I grinned. I hadn't expected this kind of luck.
[Thousand-Year Dragon Shrimp (Molting): a lobster that survived a thousand years and became a spiritual creature]
It was in the middle of molting. It hadn't fully shed its shell yet and couldn't even move properly. And the period right after molting, when the new exoskeleton still lacked calcium, was its most vulnerable phase.
Which meant it was the perfect moment to eat it.
***
[Consumed Thousand-Year Dragon Shrimp. Experience Points and Satiety increase.]
[Consumed Thousand-Year Dragon Shrimp. Magic Power greatly increases.]
[Experience Points at maximum. Lv.17 → Lv.18]
[Evil Devouring (D) Lv.2 proficiency at maximum. Evil Devouring (D) Lv.2 → Evil Devouring (D) Lv.3]
[Empty Stomach (E) Lv.8 proficiency at maximum. Empty Stomach (E) Lv.8 → Empty Stomach (E) Lv.9]
Just hitting Level 18 was satisfying enough, but now Empty Stomach was already looking at D-rank. I checked my status with a gleeful grin, and maybe it was the effect of consuming the shrimp—my Magic Power, which I'd last checked at 52 at Level 17, had shot up to 91. Almost 40. Exactly 39. An increase that made the fifty-year-old ginseng look like nothing.
I'd never regretted lacking a sense of taste more than in that moment. I seriously considered whether I should try to acquire Taste, but I ended up abandoning the idea because it felt like a waste of Skill Points. Still, I could feel the texture. The meat was chewy yet tender, and the texture alone surpassed most dishes I could think of.
[Faint Sixth Sense (F) Lv.6 proficiency at maximum. Faint Sixth Sense (F) Lv.6 → Faint Sixth Sense (F) Lv.7]
My Faint Sixth Sense leveled up out of nowhere. And whenever Sixth Sense leveled up, something absurd always followed. Conditioned by crisis, I instantly activated Stealth and slipped deeper into the water.
"Fuck?"
The silence of the night sea shattered with a single curse. Some red-haired brat was fuming.
The red hair suited her surprisingly well. She was wearing an off-shoulder dress. It looked a little out of place on a kid, but more to the point—why was a kid at the beach at this hour? No, more importantly, I needed to focus on staying hidden.
"Fuck, did it already run off?"
The girl looked around like she was searching for something. My Presence Detection finally reacted, belatedly. The armored monstrous figure from the sewers—no, she was definitely a Hunter.
'That Hunter is that little kid? No—that little kid is a Hunter?'
The sheer unbelievability of it made me use Spying before I even realized it.
[Hong Yuri (Human)]
[Height 143.6 cm] [Weight 32.9 kg]
[STR 219] [AGI 245] [VIT 278] [MP 640]
'...?'
Magic Power 640? I thought I'd misread it and went back to check multiple times, but it didn't change. 640, not 64. Every internal combat ranking I'd ever etched into my mind politely shifted down a notch. And to top it off, this girl named Hong Yuri was a character from the novel.
I was pretty sure she belonged to Daybreak's Dawn, the second-ranked clan...
Thinking back, I remembered some readers being oddly fond of her, calling her a "fire-attribute loli" or a "spicy legal loli." A Hunter from the second-ranked clan... It was a miracle I hadn't been caught in the sewer. Though she did seem to have sensed something off.
'She followed that faint suspicion all the way out here?'
The pieces fit. And in that moment, Hong Yuri's eyes narrowed.
"—Found you."
A chill voice rang in my ears. Our eyes met—mine and those crimson pupils.
"Ha. So you were a fish."
A fishy smile spread across her face as she sneered.
The instant her eyes glinted dangerously, I twisted my body on reflex. Dozens of sharp mana bolts struck the surface, sending spray bursting high. Even with my Swimming skill at Level 7, I could barely keep my balance.
'?!'
Before I could even collect myself, something incomprehensible happened. The world turned crimson. No, that wasn't it. Her vast magic power was beginning to blanket the entire night sea.
'...!'
I couldn't swim my way out. It felt like the moon itself was falling.
[Faint Sixth Sense (F) Lv.7 proficiency at maximum. Faint Sixth Sense (F) Lv.7 → Faint Sixth Sense (F) Lv.8]
I immediately kicked off the sand with my tentacles. Swift Foot activated, and I launched myself high into the air.
KWA-BOOM—!
A colossal wave of mana slammed into the shore. The waves stopped, and spray shot skyward. A deafening roar shook the air as a massive waterspout spiraled all the way up into the clouds.
In that final moment before being sucked under, I used Elasticity on a fish that had been flung airborne, received the correction buff from Charge, and detonated every last drop of my remaining mana.
***
A single curse slipped out. It had been far too quick. Only by a hair's breadth—she'd never imagined it could actually escape.
"......"
Now that it had fled into the sea, there was no point chasing it. But if the chance to meet again ever came, she wouldn't let it slip. Well, a trash mob like that would probably get itself killed on its own anyway.
"Ah, fuck. Gu Jin-ha is gonna nag me about this again..."
Vice Team Leader Hong Yuri irritably ruffled her hair, then gave up and pulled out her phone.
***
"So you let it get away?"
[Fuck, it was goddamn fast.]
"You. Can you handle the fallout? What's Gwangmyeonghoe going to say later?"
[Then I'll just smash all their heads in. Shouldn't they be grateful I did their job for them?]
"If that's how you're going to be, why are you even reporting to me?"
[I told you to clean up the mess. Why?]
The team leader let out a deep sigh. The photo she'd sent showed Gwangalli in absolute chaos. The beach had been torn inside out, fish flopping all over the sand. Naturally, everyone had woken up in a panic... It was a disaster of epic proportions.
Completely out of the blue. The moment he picked up her call, all she'd said was to handle the aftermath.
[Are you spacing out right now?]
"No. Nothing like that. Anyway, I'll deal with it somehow... Just come straight up."
[Yeah.]
The phone disconnected, as willful as ever. The team leader started pulling up Gwangmyeonghoe's number, then closed his eyes for a moment.
"...Still, we'll have Alpha's tail by tomorrow."
Personality aside, Hong Yuri's eyes were what represented the name of the Search Team.
***
I almost died...
I used everything I had and still barely escaped. Even after all that, I'd lost most of my body surface area. The desperate use of mana, the explosion I'd detonated underfoot to flee—that was the cause. If I'd been on land instead of in the water, it would've been a hundred percent death.
Grabbing onto a rock, I dragged myself out of the water and onto dry land.
From Gwangalli to Dongbaek Island wasn't far, but it was enough time to restore my surface area with Weak Regeneration.
[Weak Regeneration (E) Lv.8 proficiency at maximum. Weak Regeneration (E) Lv.8 → Weak Regeneration (E) Lv.9]
'Hoooo—'
I steadied my breathing and tried to calm my heart. But the harder I tried to settle down, the more my blood boiled.
'Hong Yuri was just doing her job.'
The Hunter's job is to take down monsters when they find them. I know. I know that. My head knows it... but the curses still surged up.
Understanding something in your head and feeling it in your chest are two completely different things. Even as I hurled every obscenity I could think of internally, I didn't feel better—only more suffocated.
A thought drifted in. What if I just quit everything?
Honestly, I'd faced death more times than I could count, and I'd been through plenty of experiences I hated. Did I actually enjoy eating bugs? Did I enjoy fighting?
It was just that I couldn't survive without doing those things, so I'd had no choice. I'd eaten things I didn't want to eat. Done things I didn't want to do. Kept seeing things I didn't want to see. This shitty world never stopped pushing me without a break. And just when I thought I could finally catch my breath, Hong Yuri nearly killed me.
I'm sick of it. When will I ever stop facing life-or-death crises? Will that day ever come? In this insane world?
It pissed me off. The more I chewed on it, the worse it got. The irritation slowly fermented into bitter resentment. The only thing I'd ever learned from existing in this world was that I wasn't the novel's protagonist.
Threatened by monsters. Hunted by Hunters.
It's irrational. I have zero intention of confronting humanity. My insides felt like they were boiling over.
Right. Don't they say people change after a brush with death?
Then how many times was I supposed to have changed? How many times was I supposed to have given up?
Life is a comedy when viewed from far away, but a tragedy up close. Situations I'd only ever known as strings of text, read as words in a book. The things that had once been comedy turned into tragedy, and every moment of that tragedy was hell.
I tilted my head back and looked up at the sky. A pitch-black night sky without a single star. The callously black sky only made me feel more miserable. My fur was soaked with water. I could have shaken it off easily if I'd wanted to. I didn't feel like it.
—Because I felt pathetic for even having thoughts like these.
[Do you wish to stop here?]
A voice suddenly spoke. The System was asking if I wanted to quit. To stop here. In the same flat, inflectionless tone as always.
'...You really, honestly.'
The same situation. The same question.
The System, as it always did, presented me a choice. Its intent was so glaringly obvious that by now, knowing it all too well, I could only let out a hollow laugh.
Honestly. So clumsy it couldn't even pass as encouragement. So awkward it couldn't even pass as comfort.
I shook the moisture from my fur.
0.02 percent—I'd lost things, but I'd also protected things.
I saved Lee Eun-ha when she was about to be killed by the Wargs.
I stopped the Sewer Calamity by killing the Rat Man and the Chimera.
And because of that, I saved Baek So-yul from becoming the "Witch's Calamity" she was meant to be.
Even if no one understood. Even if no one ever acknowledged it. I was definitely steering this world toward the right ending.
...Right. That was enough. After everything, what did one more brush with death matter?
It wasn't anything new. My entire existence had been an unbroken chain of struggle. Once my thoughts reached that point, the boiling inside me finally settled.
But that didn't make the emotion vanish. Understanding was understanding. Resentment was resentment. —I would get my revenge someday, no matter what.
'Hong Yuri.'
I seared that extra's name clearly into my mind.
[Self-Control (克己) stat created.]
[Destruction Probability 99.98% → 99.97%]