#6. The Master of Baemsagol
#6. The Master of Baemsagol
8:00 AM. As announced, every member of Search Team 3 was present—except the vice team leader.
"Now that everyone's here, we begin. The Warg subjugation starts now. Report on contact. That's all."
At the curt briefing, one team member voiced confusion.
"Is all this really necessary for a single Warg?"
"Would you rather we leave it alone? We're hunting it now. Any more questions?"
"...No."
"Move out."
And with that, the hunters began scouring Jirisan.
***
Below the valley's surface. I gauged the fish population through Heat Sense and Presence Detection.
What came next was a gamble with my life. Not a hunt backed by certainty—an expedition with none. But surviving meant taking it anyway.
The moment I submerged, the fish took an interest. The tiny ones, minnow-sized, spooked and fled. The large ones, though, bared their teeth as if I'd just done them a favor.
What had happened to the cowering, hiding attitude they'd shown when the Black Wolf appeared? The moment they decided that thing is edible, they flipped like a switch.
[Intimidation (F) Lv.1 proficiency at maximum. Intimidation (F) Lv.1 → Intimidation (F) Lv.2]
I puffed up my body to scare them off. Every last one bolted—except for one.
The Master of Baemsagol.
That massive eel already knew. It had watched me pop like a balloon against that young raccoon once, so it understood my current display was a bluff.
A useless threat. I let my form relax and dove. The eel seemed baffled by the move, as though it couldn't parse what I was doing. But it must have figured I was just food destined for its stomach either way—its jaw spread wide.
[Remaining Skill Points: 2]
Skill Points I'd poured into hunting this thing.
I streamlined my body, modeling it after a dolphin to minimize water resistance. Swimming and Diving—two skills bought with Skill Points. Thanks to them, I could finally move underwater. I used my tentacles like fins to turn, barely slipping past the eel's first strike.
That was all it took. Confidence kindled inside me. I can do this.
By my Level 6 Observation, the eel's swimming speed was 6 km/h—slow on flat ground, but fast underwater.
The eel seemed proud of its swimming—the way it eyed me after I dodged, it was clearly annoyed. It didn't bother hiding it. A second charge. The massive body carving through the water was a threat in itself.
'...!'
I dodged by a hair, but the surge knocked me off balance. I couldn't out-swim a creature that had lived in water its whole life.
The eel turned in a smooth arc, jaws spreading wide as if determined to swallow me whole this time.
In that instant, I extended a tentacle and launched myself as if snapping a rubber band. Impossible if you account for water resistance and the tentacle's limited power—but the Elasticity skill I'd acquired beforehand made it possible.
I was adapting to the water, little by little.
Three failed attacks, and the eel changed tactics. It surged forward and coiled its long body, trying to constrict me.
Elasticity let me dodge once, twice—but I couldn't keep evading a creature this persistent. Everything I'd dodged so far had relied on reading the timing of its linear charges. I'd never held a speed advantage.
'...'
Constriction has three purposes: suffocation, and crushing bone and flesh. Neither works on me.
But the third—locking down movement—that mattered.
The eel wrapped around me like an anaconda, aiming to gulp me down with those enormous jaws in one go. I released Hardening, returned my rigid body to its natural mucus state, and slipped out of the coils.
[Physical Damage Reduction (E) Lv.1 proficiency at maximum. Physical Damage Reduction (E) Lv.1 → Physical Damage Reduction (E) Lv.2]
An E-rank skill that had stubbornly refused to rise—its first level-up. No time to celebrate. I had to keep dodging the thing's relentless lunges. The unending barrage and water pressure eventually caught up with me, and I took a hit.
'...!'
One collision, and I'd lost roughly 30% of my body surface area. The only reason it wasn't worse was Physical Damage Reduction.
[Swimming (F) Lv.1 proficiency at maximum. Swimming (F) Lv.1 → Swimming (F) Lv.2]
[Diving (F) Lv.1 proficiency at maximum. Diving (F) Lv.1 → Diving (F) Lv.2]
The levels came at the right time. Moving got easier. I was getting a feel for how to handle myself underwater. I had no intention of being a punching bag forever.
The moment I took that hit, I realized dodging wasn't always an option.
Hardening to reduce the damage would've been the safe choice. I didn't want that. So I chose to strike back.
One step away from everything I'd done so far—and that one step made all the difference.
"———!"
A piece of me, torn off, was tangled in its gills.
I'd morphed a tentacle into a hook and anchored it there. It wouldn't come loose easily. Water stopped flowing properly through the gills. The eel thrashed in agony.
Even now, Weak Regeneration was restoring my body. Stalling would only tip things further in my favor—but I didn't want to stall. No, I shouldn't.
Combining full-body Elasticity with Swimming and Diving shot my momentary speed to 20 km/h. Before the eel could recover, I targeted its gills again.
Opening or not, my tentacles were still weak. Accounting for water resistance, a blunt strike wouldn't deal meaningful damage.
What I had to aim for was asphyxiation. And more than that—I had to cling so relentlessly the thing couldn't breathe. A better chance wouldn't come than right now, while it was already suffering.
The eel was visibly shocked when I—who'd done nothing but evade—latched on. It twisted its whole body, trying anything to scrape me off. I morphed into a rope and coiled around it in response, but holding on with a slick mucus body wasn't easy.
I forced tentacles inside anyway. A few strands squirmed inside, tearing through the delicate tissue of its gills.
Water that should have been expelled reversed course. The eel made a gurgling, agonized sound—then slammed its body against a massive boulder as if it had no other option.
'...!'
The damage was too much for even Physical Damage Reduction to cover. My grip broke. The impact crushed me, and nearly half my remaining body surface area vanished in an instant.
The eel, by contrast, seemed to have taken little shock—I'd acted as its cushion. Though with parts of my body lodged deeper into its gills, it wasn't comfortable either.
Weak Regeneration was restoring me in real time. The eel, meanwhile, was struggling just to breathe.
Right now, I was at a disadvantage—but the longer this went, the more it favored me. Which meant the eel had no choice but to act.
It had to be the one to press the fight. I'd bought a skill specifically for this: waiting, finding the timing, then countering.
[Remaining Skill Points: 0]
I transformed.
The eel, desperate to finish this and rest, swam at me with its body stretched over two meters long.
It wasn't the sleek, water-parting glide from before. This was a bull with fire in its eyes, charging blind—a monster throwing itself forward with no thought for what came after. It looked hopeless, like a wall bearing down on me. But this was the moment I'd been waiting for.
Eyes wide open, I stared it down. Not just sight—hearing, Heat Sense, Presence Detection, all of it locked on to pinpoint its exact position. I measured the distance. At 30 centimeters, I launched myself with Elasticity, shooting forward like a slingshot. My remaining body surface area plummeted.
'20 centimeters...'
That was my diameter now. A body as small as the moment I'd first become a slime. Less than a quarter of my original mass remained. Maybe one kilogram in weight. What was left barely qualified as fragments.
But I hadn't shrunk from taking damage.
[Weak Hardening (E) Lv.1 skill acquired.]
[Faint Hardening (F) Lv.4 integrated into Weak Hardening (E).]
[Weak Hardening (E) Lv.1 proficiency at maximum. Weak Hardening (E) Lv.1 → Weak Hardening (E) Lv.2]
The notifications from the skill I'd bought earlier—I registered them late.
I turned. The eel was panting, floundering. A long gash near its gills carved across nearly its whole body, scattering blood into the water.
I'd extended a long tentacle, morphed it into something thin and smooth, then honed it into a blade with E-rank Hardening. Timed it with Elasticity, drove it in as a counter—no matter how thick its hide, it couldn't hold.
But the thinner and sharper the blade, the more you risk it shattering.
The cost was a huge portion of my body surface area.
I'd meant to kill it in one blow. Failed.
The eel's spine was far thicker than I'd imagined. Even a hardened blade couldn't cleanly sever the spine of a 2.5-meter monster eel.
The eel was on the verge of death. So was I. Most of my body was gone, and the tactics available to me had shrunk just as much. If I tried another attack like that, I'd die instantly.
A hardened blade was off the table.
'Still. I'm not giving up.'
I wasn't the only one. The eel wouldn't flee either.
It sensed its own death and was readying a final strike—determined to at least take me with it. Our gazes met. The eel surged forward at a speed I hadn't seen yet.
No thought spared for what came after.
The valley's current alone was already a lot to handle. The eel's charge shoved a wall of water ahead of it, and I lost my balance entirely. No—I could use that. If it was impossible to fight the current, I'd let it carry me.
I watched the monster close in and clenched teeth I didn't even have.
Truth was, if I shut my eyes, it still felt like I could turn back.
I spread my body wide to maximize surface area, resisting the rushing water. The distance collapsed. The eel opened its jaws to their limit.
Exactly what I wanted.
Instead of fleeing, I used Elasticity and lunged straight into that gaping mouth.
"——?!"
Just before its jaws slammed shut, I slipped down its throat.
It tried to cough me out, thrashed—but that alone wasn't going to expel me. The gills were its other option, but I was struggling too hard to be flushed out, and the torn gills only made it less possible. That huge body had become its own undoing.
The fury I'd felt facing death surged up fresh. The injustice of it, the sheer rage—I thrashed to survive.
Because that was the only way to live. Because this was the only thing I could do.
I battered the eel's insides with hardened tentacles. Twisting its body was the only resistance it had left. The fight was already decided. I burrowed deeper, tore through its stomach, and emerged.
The Predation skill, now E-rank, had become a weapon in itself. My entire mucus body became a food vacuole, slowly dissolving the eel's flesh. Even I found the sight grotesque. Organs melting away as if touched by some virulent acid.
[Devouring: Converts satiety into Experience Points. Intake is possible through contact alone.]
'I want to live...!'
That was all it came down to. I didn't want to go through what I'd felt facing the Black Wolf again—a death crisis I couldn't survive. So, paradoxically, I'd willingly thrown myself into one I could.
To escape a lethal threat I couldn't overcome, I'd leaped into a lethal threat I could.
Because I'd resolved to struggle, even like this, to grow stronger.
There'd never been physical pain. And because there was no pain, the fear crept in deeper. I didn't know this body's limits. Without pain, there's no signal for death.
The end would come silently and shut me up without a word.
My condition was catastrophic. Even holding the high ground, death wouldn't be strange at any moment.
The eel seemed to have given up on living. It radiated a determination to die together, slamming its massive body against the rocks over and over. The shockwaves traveled inside. Already weak, I shattered into smaller and smaller fragments.
[Physical Damage Reduction (E) Lv.2 proficiency at maximum. Physical Damage Reduction (E) Lv.2 → Physical Damage Reduction (E) Lv.3]
15 centimeters... 10 centimeters... Shrinking further, and the terror surged back. So did the regret.
Had this been reckless? Had I made a rash decision? Had I really needed to change my approach so suddenly...? Thoughts like that.
But setting all of it aside—I wanted to win and survive.
The resentment born from fear, and the fierce longing born from that resentment, drowned out every doubt. My body shaved away, piece by piece. If I just waited, the eel would die on its own. But was victory worth anything if all I'd done was wait it out and claim a corpse? Was there any value in a win earned by running? To survive, didn't I have to face the life-or-death moments I could survive—and face them head-on?
'I want to win...!'
Longing, obsession, resentment—they all rose above the regret. This feeling—I wanted to resolve it in the one clear form I understood: victory.
So I endured. Endured and endured. Even when it felt like dying. Even when my remaining body mass shrank to the size of a knuckle, I held on to the end.
An emotion I'd never once felt in my life swirled and congealed inside me.
I became absolutely certain that if I couldn't resolve this feeling now, I'd never resolve it for the rest of my existence.
That congealed emotion condensed into a single, burning desire.
And at last, I took the first step beyond.
[Lv.10 Achievement Condition met.]
[Experience Points at maximum. Lv.9 → Lv.10]
[Status Window fully unlocked.]
'...!'
I clenched my extended tentacles tight.
The joy of winning. The sense of achievement from taking a step forward. The relief of not being dead. They mixed together into something new.
Conviction in myself.
No longer a hunt—an expedition. And I'd finally taken my first real step into one. A gamble with my life on the line, and what I'd won was victory. Joy. The fear and terror washed away like they'd never existed. Regret receded like the tide.
It felt like the World that had made me was shattering to pieces. The sense of accomplishment arrived as an indescribable euphoria, and as if entranced, I opened my Status.
[Master of Baemsagol (Amorphous Mucus Body) Lv.10] [EXP 2926 / 3821]
[Body Length: 2.4m] [Body Height: 10.8cm] [Body Weight: 29kg]
[STR: 44 (68.7%)] [AGI: 31 (46.5%)] [VIT: 116 (-)]
In that moment, the Master of Baemsagol changed.