Chapter 45
Chapter 45
Subway Line 5, Gongdeok Station.
This place, which had become the nest of mutants, was submerged in perfect darkness where not a single ray of light reached.
Step. Step.
The only sound breaking the silence was the rough footsteps of Do Gicheol.
Blood dripped steadily from his right arm, which had not been completely stopped from bleeding, leaving dark drops on the floor.
“Hoo… hoo…”
His breathing was ragged, and his eyes were bloodshot.
Boiling killing intent toward the rat who had severed his arm.
But he was not a fool.
Facing Karambit with one arm unusable would be suicide.
“That bastard… how did he become this strong?”
He simply could not understand it.
Everyone mocked him as a pampered pig, but he too had survived years of life-and-death battles.
Despite having considerable combat experience, the fact that he had lost to Karambit, who held the advantage in compatibility, was difficult to accept.
“Damn it.”
There was only one option left.
Hiss.
Do Gicheol pulled out a silver spray can from his pocket.
It was the expensive artifact [Pheromone Spray].¹
Without hesitation, he sprayed it all over his body.
The nauseating chemical smell stabbed his nose, but he did not care.
As long as he had this, the monsters below would recognize him as their own kind—or as a superior individual.
Every step he took kicked up ten-year-old dust and unidentified slime from the floor.
Rumble.
Do Gicheol stopped at a suitable spot and stomped down, smashing the floor.
He jumped through the hole he created and smashed the floor again.
And when the underground rail line was finally exposed—
Squelch.
A wet sound echoed from the darkness.
It was not just one.
From all directions—ceiling, floor, and walls—came the sound of sticky things crawling toward him.
A sinister smile spread across Do Gicheol’s lips.
He grabbed one of the mutants drawn by the noise and snapped its neck.
Then he hacked it apart and threw the remains onto the subway tracks.
Splat. Splash.
The thick smell of blood filled the air, and the crawling sounds grew faster.
“Come. Come and tear those bastards apart.”
Thanks to the spray, he would be safe.
The monsters drawn by the scent of blood would ignore him and instead deal with the Karambit who would soon follow.
Squelch.
At that moment—
Something cold and damp wrapped around his ankle.
[Boss! High-energy reaction underground!]
At Picker’s urgent shout, I frowned.
The darkness below was impossible to see with the naked eye.
“Deploy Honeybee Unit 7. Get as close as possible and film it.”
[Roger!]
Whirr—
With the faint sound of a tiny motor, the drone that served as my eyes descended above Do Gicheol’s head.
On the screen, Do Gicheol looked visibly confused.
Something transparent and jelly-like was slowly crawling out of the darkness and climbing up his ankle.
Like living syrup.
“What the hell is this?”
Do Gicheol casually tried to shake it off.
But it would not come loose.
Instead, the jelly rapidly climbed past his calf and up to his thigh.
Only then did a chill run down his spine.
“Wait. I sprayed the pheromone.”
Even B-rank mutants would be fooled if enough of it was used.
Why was it reacting?
Hiss! Hiss!
Do Gicheol frantically sprayed the remaining pheromone over the jelly.
But it did not stop.
On the contrary, the creature absorbed the spray gas as if it tasted good and grew faster.
Whoosh!
The previously transparent jelly suddenly swelled.
The tentacle gripping his ankle enlarged, lifting Do Gicheol’s massive body into the air.
“Aaaagh! Why! Why isn’t it working!”
Do Gicheol’s scream echoed through the underground corridor.
Even when he activated [Steel Skin], it was useless.
Sizzle!
The sound of flesh burning filled the air with acrid smoke.
As his body was dragged into the massive jelly mass, Do Gicheol widened his eyes in horror.
“Pu… pull… me… out…”
Those were the final words of Do Gicheol, the ruler of Mapo Boulevard.
Inside the once-transparent slime, his body melted away in an instant.
At the same time, the concentrated energy of a [C-Rank Awakened] was absorbed into the slime’s core.
Gurgle.
After consuming the enormous energy, the slime began to boil violently.
Its transparent body turned blood-red.
The shrunken mass that had endured long starvation rapidly expanded like polyurethane foam, filling the entire underground passage.
The expansion speed even surpassed the drone’s maneuverability.
[W-we must eva—!]
A red tidal wave filled the screen.
Honeybee Unit 7 was swallowed by the swelling jelly before it could even scream.
[Aaaagh! B-Boss! The honeybee melted! Instantly! The signal just cut off!]
Picker screamed in panic.
I swallowed hard as well.
What we had just seen was closer to dissolution than digestion.
“That thing… it’s not just a monster. The moment it digested Pig, its size doubled.”
As if it had absorbed his power.
“Huff… huff…”
Karambit ran like a madman to avoid losing Pig.
Ahead of him, the gaping entrance of the subway station came into view.
Pitch-black darkness opened its maw.
He hesitated.
Instinctive fear gripped his ankle.
Everyone who had survived long in Mapo District knew the [Gongdeok Station Rumor].²
Once you entered, you never came back out.
But he had no choice.
His subordinates were annihilated, and his pride had been trampled.
If he returned now, he would be nothing but a penniless defeated soldier.
All I need is Pig’s head. If I kill him, Mapo Boulevard becomes mine.
Since he had already defeated the ruler of Mapo Boulevard, rebuilding power would be easy.
Karambit gripped his twin blades and ran into the darkness.
“Come out! You pig bastard!”
But it was not Pig who answered.
Kweeeek!
A grotesque roar that seemed to echo from the depths of hell.
Then a crimson wall surged upward from the stairway below.
“Wh-what the hell!”
Karambit stumbled backward in terror.
A blood-red mass of jelly was rising like a tidal wave through the hole Pig had smashed open.
Embedded within it was the half-dissolved but still recognizable face of Do Gicheol.
“H-hiik!”
Karambit screamed and ran back toward the surface.
But it was already too late.
Rumble!
With the sound of the ground collapsing, Exit 3 of Gongdeok Station exploded upward.
Through the dust cloud emerged its true size.
The height of an eight-story building.
A gigantic crimson pillar visible across the entire Mapo District.
[Boss! Honeybee Units 4 and 5 signal lost! Approach impossible!]
“Fall back! Picker, you pull back too!”
Even watching through the monitor, I felt overwhelmed.
That thing… was a disaster.
Just looking at it triggered instinctive fear.
The slime that emerged onto the surface trembled.
Thud! Thud!
Chunks of red flesh rained from its body like shotgun pellets.
“Ghk!”
Karambit used [Acceleration] to dodge frantically, but he could not avoid everything.
Splat!
A sticky blob struck his knee.
The mucus hardened instantly, slowing his movement.
“Get this off! Let go!”
Karambit slashed at the slime with his twin blades.
But the blade passed straight through the jelly.
[Physical Immunity]
The mucus simply reattached itself no matter how many times it was cut.
Rumble—
A massive red wave surged toward him.
Even Karambit, who had defeated Pig, was nothing more than a meal before this predator.
“Please… save me…”
His scream was brief.
The crimson tide swallowed him.
Moments later, inside the transparent stomach, Karambit’s body began dissolving.
“…This is insane.”
Watching the horrific scene inside the slime’s stomach, I was stunned.
Karambit dying did not concern me.
The problem was what he had been wearing.
“My stuff! That’s all my stuff! Spit it out, you bastard!”
The [Subspace Waist Pack] on Pig’s belt.
The [Shadow Stealth Cloak] worn by Karambit.
And various high-grade artifacts.
All the top-tier items I had been drooling over.
They were bubbling and dissolving inside the slime’s gastric fluid.
Completely.
Without leaving even a shape behind.
“All that expensive gear… just gone…”
It felt like my chest was being torn apart.
I had been happily imagining what technologies and materials I could obtain by using [Disassembly].
But that slime bastard had eaten everything.
[Boss, calm down! They weren’t yours anyway!]
Picker said something that sounded halfway between comfort and blunt truth.
He was not wrong.
But it still made me angrier.
“Hoo… right. Calm down.”
What was melted was already gone.
I forced myself to settle down and focused on the monitor.
There was no time to mourn.
Take what could still be gained.
What lay before me now was essentially a living laboratory with its interior completely visible.
“Picker. Activate the [Mana Resonance Lens].”
[Roger!]
The screen shifted to a blue filter as the flow of mana became visible.
Inside the slime’s stomach, near the hearts of Pig and Karambit.
The cores embedded there were dissolving and reverting into pure mana.
Blue energy flowed along vein-like pathways and was absorbed into the slime’s nucleus.
The efficiency of absorption and the change in wavelength.
It was the exact data I had wanted.
“That’s it.”
I swallowed.
“If we analyze those wavelength patterns… we might be able to quantify an opponent’s core rank or the power of their techniques.”
Like the scouter in Dragon Ball.
Until now I had relied on rough intuition.
But with this data, enemy strength could be measured with precise numbers.
[Ohhh! Collecting data! Recording every 0.1 seconds!]
I had lost expensive items.
But I gained core research data that money could never buy.
That would have to be my consolation.
At that moment, the information board window beside me began blinking wildly.
“What’s going on?”
The reason was videos uploaded by raiders.
With something that huge, it was visible throughout Mapo District.
But the footage they uploaded was distant, zoomed in, and extremely blurry.
“Picker. Upload our video too.”
[Live footage: Gongdeok Station situation.gif]
[Author: Thunder]
The comment section exploded immediately.
It was on a completely different level from the videos uploaded by other raiders.
Every droplet of slime and even Karambit’s expression as he was swallowed were captured in vivid detail.
[Anonymous: What the hell is that? A building-sized jelly eating people?]
[SurvivorKing: Physical immunity? The blade just passes through.]
[BasementWarlord: Isn’t that Karambit getting eaten? Holy crap… but Thunder is filming that up close. Does he have a death wish?]
[SergeantKim: Damn… that’s the Gongdeok Station Slime. It’s still alive?]
Sergeant Kim?
That guy seemed to know something.
People’s shock quickly turned into profit.
Watching the AP notifications skyrocket in real time, Picker giggled.
[Heh~ Boss! Sensational content really is the best! They curse it but still watch!]
“True. Looks like we won’t have to worry about running out of AP anymore.”
Ignoring the flood of AP alerts, I focused on the information veteran users were posting in the comments.
[MapoVeteran: That’s not a mutant. It’s a Dungeon Monster.³ There’s no official rank classification for it.]
[Explainer: Yeah. It’s not based on Earth lifeforms. It’s basically an alien monster. That’s why the military gave up. Physical immunity means it can’t be killed normally.]
[SergeantKim: I was on the team that tried to seal that slime. It wasn’t this big before. At most it was the size of a three-story building. Why did it grow so much?]
The moment I read that comment, the pieces of the puzzle snapped together.
The thousands of mutants Pig had locked in the hotel basement.
“Food.”
Pig had been feeding those mutants to the slime, trying to control or grow it.
Over time, it had accumulated and turned into this building-sized monster.
“In the end, he dug his own grave.”
Pig’s greed had created the disaster of Mapo District.
I almost felt disgust toward humanity itself.
How could anyone do something like that?
And now the disaster humanity had nurtured was leaving the underground and emerging onto the surface.
Rumble—
On the screen, the red slime writhed.
After digesting two powerful Awakened, it now sought a larger hunting ground.
Its massive body crawled onto Mapo Boulevard.
Buildings that touched its body corroded with sizzling sounds and collapsed.
What began as a simple power struggle between raiders had now escalated into a disaster threatening everyone’s survival.