Chased by Kwangcheol (2)
“……Are you serious?”
Of all days, a Sudden Gate had to erupt today? Right on the route I was taking? Timed perfectly to the minute I'd be passing through?
It's not even 'the day you leave is the day it rains' — this is a full-blown conspiracy!
The original story was no help in this situation whatsoever. The Yahui of the original, unlike me, would've been sprawled out sleeping at an orphanage in Sejong City or trudging off to school at this hour!
Which meant that right now, I had to claw my way out of this crisis on my own strength and nothing else. My legs were the first to abandon the intersection behind me.
A heartbeat later, a sound like two cars slamming into each other smacked against my ears.
Apparently a vehicle that had slammed its brakes upon spotting the Sudden Gate had been rear-ended by the car behind it, which hadn't kept a safe following distance. Or, alternatively, some otherworldly creature had come bursting out of the gate and hurled a car straight into another one.
No — the odds of that second one are slim.
According to the setting, Sudden Gates mostly spat out low-grade specimens — that is, comparatively weak and common creatures.
And low-grade otherworldly creatures generally followed common sense. Strength proportional to bulk, no flashy special abilities — that kind of thing.
So a creature capable of hurling a car would have to be roughly the size of an elephant, and anything with an elephant's mass would generate noise — the ground shaking underfoot, at the very least.
The circumstances made it clear the Sudden Gate had opened near the corner of the intersection, so if that level of commotion were happening, I'd have heard it plain as day.
But while screams had rippled out and there'd been the crash of colliding cars, there'd been no rumble of the earth. That was the clue.
Granted, elephants barely make a sound when they walk thanks to the fat pads on their soles, and there's a chance this creature's built the same way…
Even so, something that big would be crashing into the vehicles stopped all over the road every few steps, sound of footsteps or no.
Yet not even that reached my ears. So my current read was this: whatever had come out had to be at least small enough to weave between the cars.
“Aaaagh!”
“Kyaaaaa!”
THUD!
Hiiissss!
Then, atop the screams, new sounds began layering themselves one over another.
The peculiar crunch of something heavy landing on thin sheet metal. The dry hissing that creatures without developed vocal cords tended to make. A bubbling, gagging rasp like lungs filling with fluid.
Wrrrooooo!
…And the howl of an ordinary canine beast.
Oh, that feeling is very, very bad.
Information from the manhwa — not from the main story proper, but from the fanbook — came flooding through my mind in a long, glittering stream. Namely, the Cryptozoid & Otherworldly Creature Compendium.
What canine-type creatures were in there again?
The Codename: Baby fanbook, the Cryptozoid & Otherworldly Creature Compendium, was surprisingly information-dense. It wasn't one of those cash-grab products that called itself a compendium while containing a single illustration and a name scrawled beneath it.
Which was why it was thick as an encyclopedia and absurdly expensive for a fanbook… and why, right now, I could not have been more grateful for it. A promotional money-grab of a fanbook was helping me more than the main story ever had, simply because it covered a different stretch of the timeline.
Nolls, dire wolves, warhounds, sweeper dogs…
Maybe it was because there were simply so many canine-type otherworldly creatures that nothing jumped out as a definitive match.
No wait — I can at least rule out the noll. A noll barks more than it howls, because of its vocal structure—
Then came the sound of four paws hammering down the sidewalk — ta-dat, ta-dat. The sound you'd often hear in videos of puppies sprinting at full tilt.
But hearing a sound through a screen and hearing it in person were two very different experiences. Different source, different situation — naturally so.
—It's coming!
Something was approaching. The instant that instinct struck, my mind snapped taut and started turning at full speed.
A low-grade canine otherworldly creature running on all fours…!
I obviously didn't possess the supernatural gift of identifying an enemy from sound alone. But the moment the target's identity narrowed down to a four-legged canine creature, I could at least recall how to respond to one.
Every last one of them is terrible at changing direction mid-sprint!
My body twisted sharply in a single beat. My speed dropped for an instant, but it let me veer just off the path I'd been running.
My body slipped out from the middle of the sidewalk and made contact with a car parked along the road — the spot between the front door and the hood, where the side mirror sat.
The folded side mirror brushed against my lower back.
Grrrrk!
The next instant, something enormous sliced through the space where I'd just been standing. A canine beast with conspicuous gray fur.
Da-dad-dat. The frantic scramble of paws desperately braking stabbed at my ears. The beast's massive body only came to a halt two or three steps past me, unable to simply run me down.
In the meantime, drool dripped from the jaws that had bitten empty air, and the beast's head whipped around. Pale yellow eyes — wolf-like, I'd have said — fixed on me.
After that, I have no idea what state of mind I moved in.
One of my hands planted itself on the car's hood and hauled my body up. Whether that was even a physically possible move for this body — I had no spare thought to wonder.
My body rolled sideways across the hood, and the lunging wolf bit down on the empty air I'd occupied a half-second earlier.
Crunch! Snap!
BANG!
Weee-oo! Weee-oo! Weee-oo!
Was it because the car was a taller model? Or had it simply not expected me to dodge? Instead of climbing onto the hood, the wolf slammed straight into the vehicle itself.
The car erupted into its alarm in an instant. At the sudden blaring, both the wolf and I — every one of us — startled and fell back.
Now…!
I bolted in the opposite direction from the wolf. Perhaps because everything had exploded so abruptly, the road was strewn with plenty of vehicles that doubled as obstacles and cover alike.
Five strides in, a car appeared — the exact image your brain conjures whenever someone says the word sedan. My hand caught the hood again and I vaulted over it in a sliding motion. Faster than going around.
Damn, this body is GOOD!
I'd never once imagined I'd be capable of moves like these, yet they executed so smoothly that even I was impressed. Setting aside the raw athleticism itself, it felt like these movements were literally etched into the flesh.
In other words — to put it more simply — the physical instincts that the original 'Yahui' had trained into this body hadn't been wiped clean. They'd carried over.
If that was really the case, thank God. Talent or no talent, there was no way I — someone who'd spent half a life confined to a hospital bed — could handle a body this well on my own.
Wrrrooooo!
…It's coming again!
But even with a gifted body and its instincts intact, the situation hadn't magically resolved itself. I needed a plan — something more.
Crunch!
“Hrk—!”
I rolled across the asphalt. Crrrack! The wolf, which had somehow kept pace with me over the hood, chomped down on air yet again.
In the split second the failed biter turned its head to re-establish my position, I vaulted one more hood. And there, spread open before me — a side mirror.
“Ah!”
My hand shot out on pure reflex and grabbed the door of the neighboring car.
By then the wolf had gathered its hind legs and made a massive leap, bounding onto the hood and springing again, putting it on level with me.
Weeee-oo! Weeee-oo!
The car registered the external impact and wailed again. After several cars' worth of this pandemonium, neither the wolf nor I so much as flinched anymore.
Clunk!
Instead, the car door swung open — and became a shield between the wolf and me.
How did I know the door would open? Honestly, it wasn't an action I took with one hundred percent conviction. It was closer to a gamble, built on an emergency evacuation guideline I'd read in the fanbook — 'when evacuating in a crisis, leave car doors unlocked' — and that open side mirror.
Either way, I'd been a hair's breadth from getting caught, so it was a gamble worth taking.
BANG!
Just as my hand seized the inner door handle, the wolf — lunging to pounce on me — crashed headlong into the open car door.
The impact was tremendous. The door shoved inward, and my body nearly got wedged between the door and the car frame.
Son of a—!
I frantically shoved myself inside the car. But before I could pull the door shut, the wolf rammed it again. BANG! And with that, the door slammed closed for me.
Grrrrrrr!
Having crammed my upper and lower body in so hastily, I ended up sprawled flat between the driver's seat and the passenger seat, rear sticking straight up in the air. The wolf glared at me in that position and raked the car with its claws.
Screeeech! Claw marks carved themselves into the transparent glass, one after another. My spine went ice-cold.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
At this point any reasonable creature would've just given up and moved on, but the wolf kept glaring at me, scratching the car and slamming its body against it. Each time, the vehicle — which was clearly no compact — rocked violently left and right.
It's a low-grade, so the car should hold for a while at least…
That's what the fanbook said, anyway. Something about how, if there was truly nowhere to run, sheltering inside a vehicle was a viable option.
But the visual pressure of those eyes boring into me was another matter entirely. My back had gone slick with cold sweat.
Ha… this is genuinely terrifying.
Even knowing the door was still holding, I instinctively scrambled backward. My body, which had been draped across both front seats, slid fully onto the passenger side.
Clatter. Something snagged against my leg as I stepped on the seat to push myself back.
BANG!
Grrowl! Snap!
The wolf was slowly crumpling the car door when my gaze landed on that clattering something. It was a multipurpose knife — the kind most people called a Swiss Army knife.
Borrowing this, thanks!
My hand snatched it up in a hurry. I had no idea how much good one small knife would do, but it beat having nothing at all.
Wrrroooooooo!
Then the wolf suddenly threw back its head and howled. For a moment, chills ran down my spine. An ill omen felt not by reason, but by instinct.
Wooooooo!
And my gaze slowly turned away from the wolf, landing on the car's rear window. Far down the road, a bipedal figure with dull green skin and a tail was dimly visible.
…So this wolf bastard was a Lizardhound.
A Lizardhound.
A feral dog tamed by Lizardmen and pressed into service as their hunting hound. To put it another way: a guarantee slip that its very appearance certified the presence of Lizardmen.
And Lizardmen.
Weak in single combat, but intelligent enough to use hounds as hunting dogs and gifted with a pack-hunting nature — which made them surprisingly dangerous for a low-grade classification.
Of all the low-grade creatures out there, I had to roll the worst of the bunch?!
For the record, even 'weak in single combat' was a relative term. Lizardmen averaged a height of two meters twenty, and the strength that came with that frame naturally exceeded the human mean.
In other words, faced with that combination, a civilian's odds of survival converged on zero. It was a horrifying thought.
Wrrrooooo!
While I spiraled into despair thanks to the fanbook's knowledge, the Lizardhound diligently called for its master. The resonance from that massive frame was tremendous, and the howl punched straight through the surround-sound chaos of car alarms blaring from every direction, carrying all the way to its owner.
The golden eyes of the Lizardman sprinting along the road found me in a single beat. Our lines of sight tangled.
Hssss! Hssh!
The Lizardman hissed out sounds of unmistakable intent, waving its hands in sharp, sweeping motions. The classic gesture for shooing something away.
Snap!
And sure enough, that was exactly what it meant — the Lizardhound barked once and withdrew. Whether that was fortune or misfortune, I couldn't say.
It was good that my enemies had narrowed to one. But that retreat also felt like an expression of confidence — the Lizardman didn't need its hound to hunt me down.
Shaaaaak!
Mid-approach, the Lizardman hurled the wooden spear it was carrying.
THUD! The spear slammed into the glass I was leaning against and gouged a scar across it. I scrambled away from the car door.
My heart was pounding like mad.
Shaaak!
The Lizardman pressed itself flush against the car, face to the window. Bracing both hands on the vehicle, it leaned its face in close and studied me, slow and deliberate.
Scritch-scritch-scritch. The claws of its bracing hands weren't just scraping the exterior — they were feeling along the seam of the door.
Skaaak!
…The fanbook did describe Lizardmen as fairly intelligent. I just really, really didn't want to be reminded of it by watching one hunt for the door seam.
This bastard has already learned that the car door opens.
It was intelligent to the point my teeth were chattering. Intelligent enough that I wondered how this thing could possibly qualify as low-grade.
…No, even so, one lone Lizardman I can handle.
Smart, yes — but not smarter than a human. Superb physically, yes — but its body's structure leaves certain movements beyond its reach.
A Lizardman without its Lizardhound, oddly enough, gave me a fighting chance.
The real problem is that Lizardmen are pack hunters. Right now it probably came alone because I look easy pickings, but the moment things turn against it, it'll call for the hound or its packmates without hesitation.
Unfortunately, the current me hadn't yet acquired any ability — any cryptozoid, in other words. My physical stats weren't bad, but my actual combat capability hadn't risen one notch above ordinary civilian.
And if more enemies showed up on top of that? Then I would truly die. Helplessly. Horribly.
Right now… what do I do, right now.
Just running wouldn't cut it. A Lizardman calls for reinforcements even when it thinks its prey might slip away.
Before it calls for help — I have to take it down.
Which meant killing it.
If I wanted to live, that was what it took. There was no other way.
The question is how the hell I kill the thing—
Shaaaaak!
The Lizardman suddenly roared. Apparently it had realized that while a gap existed, slipping its fingers through it was still a distant prospect.
Like an enraged man, it spat out a monstrous shriek and hammered its fist against the window again and again. Thank god the glass was truly sturdy. The Lizardman's arms rained down and the window didn't brea—
CRASH!
With a sound less clean-cut than what you'd normally imagine, the glass shattered. The culprit: the Lizardman's foot.
Something closer to the foot of a lizard or a bird than a human's was thrust right up to my face.
Skyaak!
The window didn't shatter cleanly — it tore apart like a stubbornly peeled sticker, the middle ripping out and leaving a ragged mess around the edges. Because of that, the Lizardman ended up hopping around in an awkward crouch, trying to reclaim its foot.
Grip. Both my hands clamped onto that leg at exactly that moment.
Moving without consulting my brain, my hands wrenched the Lizardman's leg sideways. Objectively speaking, its raw strength probably outmatched mine — but its posture was its posture.
As its leg joint rotated against its will, the creature staggered.
Thuk.
Seizing that opening, I drove the Swiss Army knife — blade already flicked out — into the leg.
Otherworldly creature or not, this was the first time in either of my lives that I'd acted with intent to kill something living. But the instinct to survive smothered the visceral wrongness of harming a living body.
“Hh…!”
The Swiss Army knife I'd never once handled in my life was more awkward than expected — and, strangely, easy.
The short handle made it hard to put my weight behind the thrust, but my thumb, braced instinctively against the spine of the blade, solved that.
Even the blade trying to fold back inward under my thumb wasn't much of a problem. The blade's retraction path was occupied by the Lizardman's leg.
SHLAK!
The blade punched through fierce resistance and split tough hide and flesh alike.
In a single stroke, a wound opened from the ankle halfway up the shin. Blood sprayed in every direction.
Shaaaaak!
The next instant, the Lizardman yanked its leg free in a flash. It was a move that accepted the risk of the remaining glass shaving its leg on the way out.
CRUNCH! Sure enough, in the process of pulling back, the leg must have caught on the leftover glass — shards scattered everywhere.
“Ugh!”
Some of the fragments reached me too. And as the leg withdrew, its claws raked lightly across my arm.
But the damage was minor. Thank god I'd bundled up in thick clothes against the cold.
Reclaiming the breath I'd lost, I hurriedly drew my other hand back. Clunk. The hand on the passenger-side handle eased the door open a crack.
After all, with the window shattered, the inside of the car was no longer safe ground. A space too cramped to maneuver was, in itself, a penalty.
Hsss!
The price of yanking its leg free was a single tumble across the ground, but the Lizardman rose to its feet, spear in hand. Judging by its length, it was a weapon that could reach me just by being thrust through the broken window.
BANG!
I drove my weight against my back, which had been braced against the door. The lock was already disengaged, so the door swung wide open.
My body tumbled out onto the pavement, and in the process rolled with surprising economy. If the theory about retained muscle memory was true, it proved itself now — movements I'd never once imagined performing flowed out of me as naturally as water.
THUD!
Before I'd even finished rising from the roll, I slammed the door shut first. Half a beat later came the sound of wood striking car door — the Lizardman had clearly hurled its spear into the car.
Other enemies—
The Lizardman I'd been facing off against was on the far side of the car, and with a major wound to one leg, it couldn't round the vehicle in a single dash.
Working from that, my eyes darted rapidly. The pounding of my heart kept prodding me onward.
—Confirmed: none.
Right to left. With the faintest turn of my head, my eyes swept the surroundings.
By luck, nothing capable of attacking me was in sight. For now, anyway. It was an environment where I could afford to focus on the thing in front of me.
Then I can do this.
Inside my thundering heart, someone was laughing. Someone who perhaps had those same golden eyes. Someone who, unlike the patient rotting away in a hospital ward, had lived cutting through battlefields.
A Lizardman on its own — that much, I can kill.
The corrected grip of the Swiss Army knife settled into my hand like it belonged there — like an old friend.