#22 The Stirring of Evil (5)

The Quickening Evil.

Here was the real problem. Everything up to this point had been mere preparation. The sheer speed of its approach now—far more ferocious than before—meant it had already recovered most of the wounds Hong Yuri had inflicted.

This was absurd.

[The Quickening Evil]

[Body Length ...] [Body Height ...] [Body Weight ...]

[STR 510] [AGI 413] [VIT 699] [MP 567]

Insanity.

Strength had been 506. Agility had been 409. It had grown even stronger during the chase. Its Magic Power, originally zero, now sat at 567. An utterly impossible number.

But the real horror lay elsewhere.

The highest single stat I had ever seen was Hong Yuri's MP of 640. Yet this monster's VIT was 699—a figure that dwarfed even hers.

There was no way that merely being an Unfinished Product of Incidental Results could explain this. Something else was at work. Something I didn't know about.

"......."

I had wasted too much time fighting Gu Jin-ha. The gap between the monster and me had narrowed far more than I'd expected.

[Lv.10 Achievement Condition: Lure The Quickening Evil]

The System had told me to lure it.

Lure—lead it somewhere. The Quickening Evil's target was Hong Yuri, and I had fought Gu Jin-ha precisely to draw its attention. It had seen Hong Yuri strapped to my back.

'——!'

A skin-crawling gaze bored into me, making every hair stand on end. My remaining mana was less than half of my total. 699. VIT on that scale was effectively an infinite resource—like trying to drain the ocean with a bucket.

Which meant:

'I'm supposed to outrun a monster with effectively infinite stamina and 413 AGI?'

Tentacles lashed out endlessly. The Quickening Evil—a once-in-an-age incarnation of Malice—had closed to within a mere two hundred meters. This was nothing like before.

'It's gotten too damn big.'

It moved like a mountain. The number of monsters trampled under its bulk had already passed a hundred. The distance kept shrinking.

"—Ngh!"

It aimed for Hong Yuri, bound to my back with a Tentacle Bundle—and hurled chunks of its own body at us.

"......!"

A black mass of flesh splattered against the ground, staining everything around it black. Blood? Bodily fluids? Was its blood mixed with poison? The chunks raining down multiplied at a terrifying exponential rate.

'How many of those things are coming?!'

They fell like meteors, infecting the forest black. Monsters that had been fleeing alongside me collapsed one after another.

'Shit!'

The physical impact alone was brutal, but they withered like victims of the Black Death and stopped breathing within moments. If one of those hit me... even imagining it made my blood run cold. I wrapped Hong Yuri completely with my Tentacle Bundle.

'Lure.'

I had to think. The System had not told me to kill it. Only to lure it.

'To where?'

It surely didn't mean leading it outside the dungeon. The Swamp Dragon? By now, Gu Jin-ha had probably pulverized it. Even if a true dragon showed up, I doubted it could handle the monster as it was now.

'To whom, then?'

Gu Jin-ha couldn't stop it. Hong Yuri had fallen.

But the System had always presented a clear path. If I thought harder—just a little harder...!

'No good!'

I forced mana through my body to evade the monster now nearly on top of me, and my head throbbed. The reinforced body opened the distance again, but I had maybe one more such burst left. One. After that—nothing. Shaking off Gu Jin-ha had cost me far more than I'd anticipated.

'The condition is lure.'

If it had wanted me to stall, the condition would have been Survive or Endure, not Lure. That meant the answer was to find someone.

'Damn it. Always helpfully vague.'

Or was it the opposite? If this weren't the condition, I wouldn't be in this mess to begin with. I veered toward the densest tree cover I could see, straining to shake the monster. All the while I never let go of my Detection.

'Think. Think!'

The Temple's Ju-gyo? No, even Ju-gyo couldn't beat The Quickening Evil. Besides, he'd be outside the dungeon. Then who, inside this dungeon, could possibly bring it down?

The bombardment of flesh chunks kept coming. There were plenty of them, but I could tell where they were going to land, so dodging wasn't the hard part.

'—Hk!'

A Gust whipped the contaminated foliage into the air. I could read the impact zones, but the chunks already on the ground blocking my path were a constant, nagging problem.

'...Damn it.'

Cornered and pushed to the limit, I found the edge of the forest directly ahead of me. The edge of the forest—the dungeon boundary. Once I crossed it, I'd be back in the park.

***

"Huff. Huff!"

The man slumped against the belly of the slain dragon, breathing ragged. His ankle was torn, he could barely walk, and he looked like he might keel over at any moment—but he kept gnawing at the back of his hand, forcing himself to endure.

'Hong Yuri...'

One thing Gu Jin-ha could not understand. Why Alpha had abducted Hong Yuri. What possible reason? At first, he had assumed it was for leverage.

'But ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no. Alpha left without a second thought.'

Then why go to the trouble of taking her? He next considered whether Alpha might somehow know about Hong Yuri's Tracking Magic Eye. Ridiculous as it seemed, with everything he had seen of Alpha so far, it wasn't entirely out of the question.

'Still.'

Even if that were true, taking her made no sense. It would have been far more efficient to kill her on the spot and flee than to carry her while running. He could not make it add up.

'Then why did Alpha take Hong Yuri?'

He had no answer.

If he could read a monster's mind, he'd be a monster, not a man. What he did believe was that Alpha had no intention of killing Hong Yuri immediately. There had to be a reason to keep her alive. Action came before self-recrimination.

'Regrouping is the priority.'

With a mangled leg, Gu Jin-ha chewed at his hand and walked on.

***

"—Hk!"

A ragged gasp spilled out. I had never felt it as a slime, but now that I had a proper body, I was feeling the absolute limit of stamina for the first time.

'Even so.'

I couldn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stop moving. The moment I did, I was dead.

RRRUMBLE...!

The gap shrank further. Tentacles shot toward me.

'Use mana?'

I had one burst left. But if I burned it now, I wouldn't be able to handle what came next. What if I ran into the Temple? What if another hunter spotted me? A chain of ominous what-ifs coiled around my ankles.

A spike missed my head by about thirty centimeters—close enough to feel the wind. A whip hissed past my skull. And still the rain of flesh did not stop.

'......!'

I barely dodged. While the whip churned the ground completely, one tentacle punched clean through me—through my hind leg and into the earth, pinning me to the spot.

[Make your choice]

Blood streaming. The tentacle was too tough to bite through. By the time I managed to gnaw it away using Evil Devouring—

"......!"

I found myself sealed off at the forest's edge by an enormous wall of flesh.

As if a fence had been erected, flesh surrounded me on all sides.

And then—the voice, announcing the moment of choice as it always did:

[Whether to go forward or to stop]

Once again, it forced the choice on me.

***

"Team Leader!"

With his battered, bloodied hands, Woo-taek supported the team leader, whose torn-up face wore a bitter smile.

"Sorry. They took Yuri."

"...The Vice Team Leader."

Hard to believe. But no one joked in a situation like this. Alpha really had made off with Hong Yuri.

"Are you all right?"

"I feel like death. But she's more urgent than me. Can you pursue?"

"Yes."

The word came without hesitation—though Woo-taek had to be near his own limit. Behind him, the Temple members arrived.

"Cough! Why—why so fast? I can barely keep up."

"...My apologies. Could I ask you to take care of our team leader? I'm going after the monster."

"...Go ahead. We'll call for reinforcements."

If they could get outside, there might yet be Hope—the elites of Dawn Teams 2 and 3. With them here, perhaps they could stop that thing.

"Hoo. Seems that's the best we can offer."

"Thank you. I'm going."

"Brothers. I leave it to you."

"Brother Seong Dae-woon... please do not overexert yourself. May the Lord's blessing accompany you."

"Mm. May the Lord watch over us."

The moment they vanished from sight, the Monk supported Gu Jin-ha.

"The boundary is not far. Hang on just a little longer."

Gu Jin-ha managed a bitter smile and tried to figure out where things had gone wrong. They walked for some time. Then—

"Something is coming! Ready yourselves!"

The Monk's alarmed cry. But what appeared was not a monster—it was a person.

"Team Leader Gu! Are you all right?!"

Seong-hun, from Team 2, the ones who had entered the dungeon with them.

"I'm fine. More importantly—Alpha took Yuri. Can you pursue?"

"You needn't worry about that. Have you forgotten?"

At Seong-hun's words, the vacant-eyed team leader flinched.

"Who I was looking for. That person is already on the way."

"Ha. Damn. If he'd shown up sooner, would anything have gone wrong?"

"My thoughts exactly. He was dozing in broad daylight, you know. Still had sleep crust in his eyes."

Despite the grumbling, the dread had vanished from both men's faces. The Monk, utterly baffled, couldn't help but ask.

"Who in the world are you talking about?"

Who could possibly erase these men's fear of that monstrous horror in a single breath?

***

I was completely hemmed in at the boundary's edge. The monster had sealed off every escape route with its titanic bulk—like an animal in a cage. Dodging the bombardment, the spikes, the whips was becoming impossible.

—Choice. It had told me to choose.

'I go forward. Obviously.'

If I crossed the boundary, it would follow—follow me, or rather follow Hong Yuri on my back—and that meant unleashing it into the middle of a city. Even if I offered Hong Yuri up as a sacrifice, the slaughter wouldn't stop. Maybe it would chase me outside instead, since I'd been the biggest nuisance.

But then everything I'd done up to this point would be for nothing.

That, I could not accept.

'I'm going—!'

I had to draw it as far from the boundary as possible.

I steeled myself to dodge every hail of flesh, every razor spike, every whipping tentacle.

'Change is going to be tough.'

I couldn't use Change while shielding Hong Yuri. On top of that, I had exactly one mana burst left—and using it would probably trigger Mental Exhaustion. The Quickening Evil surrounded me on all sides. There was nowhere left to retreat. And—I had no intention of retreating.

'So.'

The skill I'd resolved not to use. Embers kindled and set the underbrush ablaze. The flames swelled into a colossal fire-demon and swallowed the Gust whole.

A tentacle shot toward me. I used it—ran up it. The fire-demon that had consumed the Gust swept along the flesh, raging upward, immolating the monster. Black flesh sizzled and acrid smoke billowed in thick plumes.

"——!"

The Quickening Evil howled with a sound beyond description.

It could regenerate endlessly, but the flames wouldn't vanish. Ember kept burning, and the monster had to regenerate at an even greater rate just to keep pace.

'This thing is too tall.'

I climbed and climbed, and it felt like scaling a mountain with no summit. The more the flames spread across its body, the more smoke rose. Gust pushed the smoke away; I dodged whips and spikes as I ascended. Flesh writhed under my feet, forming trap-like holes; flesh jutted up like thorns to block my path.

I dodged all of it. But the dozens of whips the monster had spawned—

'These—!'

[Insight (E) Lv.5 proficiency has reached maximum. Insight (E) Lv.5 → Insight (E) Lv.6]

The level-up didn't matter. Every possible direction I could move was already covered.

Even if I summoned mana, it would be too late...!

'I can't dodge this!'

Death took a long stride toward me. No gap to squeeze through like I'd managed against Aranea—no room to morph my body—!

'......!'

I thought: Hardening plus All Damage Reduction—even that wouldn't stop instant death. That was the thought.

Then space jumped.

'How?'

Like a cut in film—like it was supposed to happen—I crossed the space. How?

I had been certain I was dead. I had felt with complete certainty that it was unavoidable. Getting hit was an established fact.

'...Did Hong Yuri...?'

A short-range teleportation spell? I didn't know. What I did know: I had to move now, not think. Without hesitation, I raised the last handful of mana.

'Now!'

A beat late, dozens of whips collided with one another in empty air. The impact shuddered through The Quickening Evil; I used the recoil and my Elasticity together. Leaping high, I drove my claws into its flesh and barely kept from falling off.

"Grrrr—!"

The fluids seeping from it contaminated my claws. Now I understood how those other monsters had died.

[Faint Poison Resistance (F) Lv.8 proficiency has reached maximum. Faint Poison Resistance (F) Lv.8 → Faint Poison Resistance (F) Lv.9]

I had barely regained my balance when vertigo hit.

'Damn.'

Mental Exhaustion was closing in. The well was running dry. The only reason I could still hold on:

[Mana Regeneration (D) Lv.2 proficiency has reached maximum. Mana Regeneration (D) Lv.2 → Mana Regeneration (D) Lv.3]

A tiny trickle was still seeping back in.

"Grrk!"

In the split second I staggered from the dizziness, a spike punched through my front leg. Flesh pierced flesh, locking my movement in place.

'It's tough. Hard to chew through.'

So solid that even Gust couldn't bother it. Evil Devouring wouldn't be fast enough. I morphed my paw with Transformation and pulled free.

'Just a little farther now—!'

Past the monster, I could reach the other side.

And then—a voice reached me.

"That Wolf...?"

A hunter I recognized from Jirisan. But his arrival didn't reassure me. Men stronger than him—Gu Jin-ha, Hong Yuri—had failed to bring The Quickening Evil down.

And Jeon Woo-taek himself wasn't in good shape.

"Huff. Haaah! Keeping up is all I can manage."

The paladin who'd let Gaptorang get away had followed too, though I didn't expect much.

'But.'

I didn't know the reason, but it was clear Dawn was hunting me at the clan level.

"Ngh—!"

I dodged another whip and caught the thought.

If Dawn was hunting me. If the "lure" the System had mentioned was made with Daybreak's Dawn in mind—

As far as I knew, Dawn had exactly two people stronger than Hong Yuri and Gu Jin-ha. First, the Clan Leader and Team 1 Leader, Kang Tae-jun. But the head of Dawn wouldn't come personally over one monster like me.

'Which means...'

That left exactly one.

'Kang Tae-ho.'

Kang Tae-jun's younger brother, Team Leader of the advance Team 2. Also known by the epithet "Sword-Speaker"—a monster in his own ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠right.

'Where is Kang Tae-ho?'

"—Hrahh!"

Below me, Jeon Woo-taek planted his stance. The way he was drawing mana, he meant to stop The Quickening Evil.

"That's reckless! What can you do with hands in that state?!"

"...Don't worry."

Ruined hands. The paladin could see they were no longer usable. One more impact and he might be crippled for life.

But the martial artist didn't hesitate. He threw his fist.

'He missed?!'

No—not a miss. At this range, missing was impossible. That meant his target had never been the monster.

'Ah—!'

The wind pressure from his punch scattered the tentacles. In that opening, the Wolf ignited a fire-demon and ran.

"You meant to clear a path from the start?"

"The Vice Team Leader seems to be with Alpha right now."

He couldn't see her through the cover, but he felt it. Which meant: if the Wolf got caught, Hong Yuri died too.

At least for now, the Wolf had to survive.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"We'll need to draw its attention first. Can you manage?"

"Leave it to me!"

Heave-ho—the paladin hefted his hammer and gave a solid, dependable grin. With the last of the last, he poured his remaining strength into gripping the hammer.

"Thank you."

"Think nothing of it!"

***

"I see."

Having heard the account, Ju-gyo nodded calmly.

"So Gu Ma-jun has become a monster—and you do not know why."

"I'm sorry."

Park Yo-han lowered his eyes, clearly ashamed. Ju-gyo shook his head as if to say it was all right.

"No. It is not your fault. Do not worry yourself."

"Ju-gyo. Forgive my impertinence, but... it truly looked like a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠monster. If it ever leaves the dungeon..."

He didn't want to imagine it. If—if—that thing escaped the dungeon and ran rampant through the city? The mere thought raised goosebumps across his entire body.

"It will be fine. Whatever may happen."

Ju-gyo rose from his chair and moved to the window. Opening it carefully, he gazed out at Ihyeon Park, now transformed into a dungeon.

"Fufu... because He is here."

***

With a strength he had never summoned before, the paladin swung with everything he had. It was a textbook strike—clean, economical, without a wasted motion.

"—Guhh!"

But raw power was the problem.

The Quickening Evil was a being beyond the realm of living creatures. A half-baked superhuman's blow was never going to land. He knew that better than anyone—yet the paladin swung his hammer again and again. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! The ringing hammer-blows echoed, and the Quickening Evil did not so much as glance his way.

As if it didn't even register that it was being attacked.

"—Ngh!"

CLAAAANG!

He gathered the last of his strength and swung—and the hammer flew from his grip. His arms trembled uncontrollably and his grip was torn open; he couldn't hold anything in that hand anymore.

It was an inevitable result. A man who hadn't even reached B-class simply could not damage a flesh-mountain like this. Yes. He knew, deep down, that even drawing the monster's attention was beyond him.

—He lacked power, overwhelmingly lacked power.

The gap was despairing.

"You know the meaning of quit?"

The paladin still didn't stop. By sheer stubbornness, by spite, by grit, he searched for the hammer that had flown from his hand. But he never managed to pick it up—not because his strength failed, not because his grip was torn.

"Now that's a fine man right there!"

It was because a giant of a man, a full head taller than him, was holding the hammer.

"You—!"

The paladin's eyes went round. The man flashed a grin.

"Watch closely."

Holding the very hammer the paladin had wielded moments ago, Geohan rolled up his sleeve.

"This is how you swing a hammer!"

Tendons stood out on Geohan's log-thick forearm and pulsed with savage force—!