Chapter 14
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: The Fire Toad's Eggs
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I had anticipated that question to some extent. How would I, a Chimera Hunter, appear in the eyes of Guu, a monster?
Just as Cheon Doun was about to answer, Kim Nari scooped Guu into her arms.
“Mister. What did Guu say?”
“He’s asking what I am.”
“Ah. Guu doesn’t know yet. Mister is a native here.”
A brief silence followed her cheerful reply. Not expecting such an answer, Cheon Doun couldn’t help but laugh.
If he asks for my tribe’s name, maybe I should say I’m from the Mango Tribe, to go with the Coconut Family theme.
Mulling over the joke, he gently pushed Kim Nari’s back.
“We’re going to the volcanic zone. If you want to come, go get ready.”
“I’m going. I’m going with you, Mister.”
Kim Nari ran off, her face beaming with excitement. Once he confirmed she was gone, he turned back to Guu.
“You’ve probably already guessed, but I’m a Chimera Hunter. The reason I can understand you is likely because cells from your species are mixed in with mine.”
-So you really were a Chimera Hunter. But your appearance… No, never mind.
Prying into someone’s circumstances isn’t right. Recalling that this was a matter of human etiquette, Guu stopped mid-sentence.
Cheon Doun looked a little surprised by that.
“Is that all you have to say?”
-It is. Why do you ask?
“Well, it’s just unexpected. I thought you’d be disgusted to learn this.”
At Cheon Doun’s words, Guu tilted his head. His reaction seemed to ask why he should be disgusted.
To Cheon Doun, that reaction was all the more fascinating.
Most people shunned Chimera Hunters. There was a prejudice that they could turn at any moment.
In reality, Chimeras mixed with monsters often caused such incidents, so the prejudice was inevitable.
Having lived half his life under such scrutiny, Cheon Doun found Guu’s reaction refreshing.
-And I’m not unobservant. I have seen the memories of many hunters until now. I know what a Chimera Hunter is.
It was an experiment where one never knew when or how they might die. No one would volunteer for such a thing.
Research on living people was an experiment forbidden by law.
And yet, it was an experiment conducted on living people somewhere. Guu looked at Cheon Doun.
-You must be a victim as well. I have no intention of blaming you for one of my kind being used as a test subject.
In the first place, there was no reason to blame him.
-As you may know, most monster species have little to no camaraderie. Even with my intelligence, that part of me doesn’t change.
Far from camaraderie, monsters would eat each other when hungry.
Of course, some monsters had strong bonds with their kind, but at least Guu’s species did not.
To him, Cheon Doun, with whom he shared meals, was more precious than a monster he had never even seen.
When Cheon Doun said nothing, Guu cleared his throat.
-In any case. If you are going to the volcanic zone, I will go too.
“You too? I can see Kim Nari going, but… that place is avoided by even the toughest monsters. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
-No problem. I am originally from the volcanic zone.
Cheon Doun was surprised by the unexpected revelation. At the same time, his expression showed understanding. There was a reason his aura felt so unusual.
If he hadn’t lost his power, he would be an A-rank monster. Perhaps even something greater.
He was the kind of monster that would cause the Hunter Association to sound a disaster-level siren if he ever went to the human world.
‘I’d like to see him when he regains his original strength.’
Cheon Doun patted Guu once before leaving the house.
“Then let’s all go together. With the three of us searching, we should be able to find it quickly.”
Cheon Doun grinned. The search for the fluorescent lights that would brighten their home, the glowstones, had begun.
* * *
Beyond the forest where Cheon Doun lived lay a barren plain.
The forest where he had settled was a particularly hospitable area. The arid land was the true face of the Demon World.
Of course, the forest being hospitable was by Cheon Doun’s standards.
Among hunters, the forest was an area to be avoided, known for being the most infested with monsters.
-I have a question. You’re looking for glowstones to light up your house, correct?
“That’s right.”
Cheon Doun replied. Guu, perched on his shoulder, looked puzzled.
-Then couldn’t you just cross a Gate and buy a tool for that purpose? Like a lantern or a flashlight. When you were organizing your things before, I saw you had quite a few return stones.
“That’s true. But there’s no romance in that.”
-Romance?
“And it’s no fun.”
-Fun.
“I want to build my home with my own two hands. Isn’t that more fun?”
Guu tilted his head. He didn’t understand why one would choose a difficult path when an easy one was available.
‘No. To this guy, this is also an easy path.’
From Cheon Doun’s perspective, it was only a matter of whether there was romance or not; both paths were easy.
An hour had already passed since they left the forest. After running for a good while, they stopped.
“We’re here.”
A new landscape unfolded before them.
The ground was cracked as if in a drought, and lava could be seen flowing through the fissures. Green toxic gas rising from them was an added bonus.
The sight of boiling lava occasionally spattering upwards was reminiscent of hell.
‘So this is what the volcanic zone looks like.’
Cheon Doun looked around with an interested expression.
He had been here before during his time as a Chimera Hunter. But that was when his mind was broken, so his memories of the scenery were mostly hazy.
‘The last time I came here was by accident, I got lost.’
Even for a Chimera Hunter fused with a monster, an order was engraved in them to avoid areas with dense demonic energy.
Their resistance to demonic energy was no different from that of a regular hunter.
Cheon Doun, who was completely unaffected, was just a special case.
“Where might the glowstones be buried? Guu, you know anything? You’re from around here.”
-I’m not sure. I only know that they’re buried near lava.
Guu paused, then tilted his head.
-Come to think of it, how do people know that glowstones are minerals from the volcanic zone? No human can enter this place.
“Ah, that. They found out by chance. Was it about 30 years ago? A Gate opened and lava poured out. The Gate opened inside a volcano’s crater.”
A naturally occurring Gate.
It was different from the artificial Gates humans created to travel to and from the Demon World.
A Gate whose time, location, method, size, and duration could not be predicted.
That was a naturally occurring Gate. It opened at random, and even what would pour out of it was random.
Sometimes monsters. Sometimes seawater. Sometimes dirt.
If you were lucky, nothing would come out before it closed.
The day lava poured out of such a Gate was a day of pandemonium.
The Gate that opened in the sky didn’t close for 12 days, and a waterfall of lava began to pour down.
Thanks to that, a city vanished from the map.
No matter how many elite hunters gathered, everyone was equally powerless before the natural disaster of pouring lava.
“I guess a few glowstones fell along with the lava back then.”
-I see. So that’s how the origin of glowstones was discovered.
Currently, there are eight glowstones in the human world.
All of them were obtained during the lava incident; no one had ever succeeded in mining them directly.
“Glowstones emit a white light, so they should be easy to find. Let’s split up and search. Don’t go too far.”
“Got it.”
Kim Nari and Guu headed in opposite directions.
“Guess I should get going too.”
Where could the glowstones be? He began to walk, scanning his surroundings.
* * *
The search on the flatlands was left to Kim Nari and Guu. The place Cheon Doun headed for was a gently rising crater.
The crater was only about three stories high.
Though not tall, the crater itself was massive, easily spanning over a kilometer.
“It’s pretty deep.”
Inside, lava bubbled dozens of meters below. Surveying the crater’s interior, Cheon Doun grinned.
“Found it.”
On one part of the crater wall. The things embedded tightly in the wall, shining brightly, were unmistakably glowstones.
Conveniently, there was a protruding rock ledge just below, which looked like a good foothold.
The problem was that the spot was already occupied. A large, one-meter toad occupied the ledge.
The ability Cheon Doun once used to spit fire from his hand to burn a ramen wrapper.
A Fire Toad, which drinks lava and breathes fire, was there.
Long ago, the corpse of a Fire Toad that fell into the human world through a Gate ended up in the hands of the research institute, and its cells were implanted into Cheon Doun.
‘It looks like it’s sitting on something. What is that?’
He tried to get a better look, but its bulky body obscured the view.
The toad glared at Cheon Doun before leaping. The ground shook as its heavy body landed.
It had intended to crush Cheon Doun, but he had already moved out of the way.
“What a nuisance.”
Cheon Doun shot threads from his fingertips. They wrapped around the toad’s entire body.
He made sure to bind its mouth shut to prevent it from spitting lava.
A single pull would tear it into dozens of pieces. But Cheon Doun stopped just before that.
His gaze was fixed on the rock ledge where the toad had been.
‘Egg sacs…?’
What the toad had been cradling under its belly were three egg sacs.
-Grrroooak!
The toad struggled as soon as it saw Cheon Doun spot the eggs. It was a desperate attempt to draw the predator’s attention to itself.
A calculation that if he ate it, he would be full and leave the eggs alone.
Most monster species have no camaraderie. Naturally, they had no familial love either.
Among such monsters, the Fire Toads of the volcanic zone were a unique species that possessed both camaraderie and maternal love.
Cheon Doun looked at the toad, then jumped down to the ledge. The anxious toad let out a tremendous roar, still bound by the threads.
-Groak, grrroooaaak!
For an ordinary person, the sound alone would have burst their eardrums.
To Cheon Doun, it sounded like a plea to eat it instead of the eggs.
Cheon Doun picked up the three egg sacs. Inside the slimy sacs, hundreds of eggs were clustered together.
‘This is strange. Even for a monster that lives in the volcanic zone, it wouldn’t incubate its eggs inside a crater.’
Cheon Doun shouldered the egg sacs and returned to where the toad was.
“Mister!”
Outside the crater, Kim Nari and Guu had gathered, drawn by the toad’s roar.
-What was that sound just now? Did you fight that monster?
“Not really a fight. It was incubating its eggs where the glowstones are.”
Cheon Doun pointed to where he had found the toad. Seeing the ledge, Guu immediately understood the situation.
-It must have dropped its eggs.
“So that wasn’t its nest after all.”
-Correct. Fire Toads are a species that carry their eggs on their backs. Even after the young hatch, they carry them on their backs for a while. If it was incubating eggs there… a predator’s attack must have caused the egg sacs to fall into the crater.
The heat from the lava had melted the adhesive on the surface of the egg sacs. It became impossible to stick the eggs back onto its back.
Carrying them out of the crater in its mouth was not an option either. The Fire Toad’s salivary glands produced lava.
In the end, the toad chose to cover the eggs with its body to protect them.
It cradled them under its belly, secreting mucus from its skin to protect the eggs from dehydrating.
Cheon Doun examined the toad. Its skin was cracked from dehydration.
‘Monsters from the volcanic zone should be resistant to heat.’
For such a monster’s skin to be so cracked, how long had it endured inside the crater?
Hours. Days. Perhaps even months.
With the sole determination to protect its eggs, the toad had forsworn all food and drink and guarded its post.
When the young hatch, it, weakened, will die. It won’t be able to climb the walls of this crater and will fall midway.
Its instincts told it so, but it did not move.
The young that hatch from the eggs will be healthy, and they will leap out of a crater like this with ease.
Hoping for that, it had accepted its own end long ago.
-What will you do with those eggs?
Guu asked. The toad, still bound by the threads, could not take its eyes off the egg sacs in Cheon Doun’s hands.