Chapter 25
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 25
Chapter Title: The Northern Sea
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The Northern Sea of the Demon World
“A human silhouette?”
“Yes. They said they saw it at night, and it was moving so fast they couldn't get a clear look. But they felt it was similar to a person.”
If it was just about the shape, there were plenty of monsters that resembled humans. Mermaids, harpies, minotaurs, like something out of mythology.
The Gates were filled with monsters reminiscent of such creatures. It was just that they were hard to find, living in places untouched by humans.
Considering that, there was no reason to be surprised by a monster that looked like a person.
“Is there any other information besides that?”
“No. For now, that's all.”
“Alright, I understand. For now, you go and purify your demonic energy. Come back in about five days, to be safe. We should be back home by then.”
“Understood.”
With that, he had avoided being dragged to the sea. Nam Giseok entered the Gate with a relieved expression.
* * *
The northern sea of the Demon World. A place located in the north on the map created by the Hunter Association.
In the jungle surrounding the beach, 15 Hunters were running. Ahead of them, a dark avian monster flew low at high speed.
“Damn it, we're in a jungle, why is it so fast!”
“This speed is insane! Are we sure we can even catch this thing?”
“Stop talking and run! You'll bite your tongue!”
The pursuing Hunters were all seasoned veterans. They were a group composed of A-Rank Hunters, but even so, they couldn't catch the monster ahead.
“Being asked to capture a disaster-class monster! Why did we even take a request like this!”
“Enough! Use your tracking ability, now!”
“Stop rushing me. I've been trying!”
The Hunter at the front clapped his hands. When he pulled them apart, a ring of light formed on his hands.
“Not getting away this time!”
The Hunter threw the round ring of light. The bird skillfully dodged the first ring. The Hunter wasn't disappointed.
That one was just bait, anyway. The second ring he threw struck the bird's right wing.
Due to the jungle terrain, the bird's room to maneuver was limited, making it easy to predict its trajectory.
Upon hitting the wing, the ring of light began to sprinkle golden dust.
“Got it! Captain, the tracking spell hit! Now, wherever it goes, that powder will show us the way!”
Hearing their shouts, the avian monster looked at its wing.
“How annoying.”
It had planned to exit the jungle and head beyond the sea, but it changed its mind.
It couldn't return to its nest with a tail on it. If they were going to pursue it to the end, it was wiser to cut off their heads.
As it exited the jungle, a wide-open sandy beach was revealed. The bird, as if it had been waiting, shot vertically into the sky.
“It's running, just as I thought!”
“Wait! No. The target is flying at high altitude...! It's not leaving, it's right above us!”
The bird stopped its vertical ascent.
“It's—it's coming! Brace yourselves!”
The avian monster folded its wings and plummeted toward the ground as if in a free fall.
A deafening roar echoed. The sheer pressure from its landing sent half the Hunters flying.
The bird flapped its massive wings. The demonic energy carried on the downstroke transformed into blades and shot toward the Hunters.
“Barrier! Get the barrier up—Gah!”
“Wh-what kind of power is this...!”
Despite being fully prepared, most of the Hunters were sent tumbling to the ground.
Three of them were knocked unconscious, unable to fight. Two were injured and could no longer be counted on.
“Damn it, it's not like this is our first time facing a disaster-class monster...! What the hell is that thing? It's a complete beast!”
The Hunters backed away as they looked at the monster. They got their first clear look at it now that it had stopped flying.
Its body was human-shaped. Atop its shoulders was the head of a bird, like an eagle. The massive wings on its back were more reminiscent of a pterosaur than a bird.
‘It's wearing clothes. Could it be an intelligent entity?’
The cloth, draped loosely because of its wings, was reminiscent of medieval Egyptian attire.
The problem was that the material of the clothes was monster hide.
“C-Captain. Isn't that... the hide of another disaster-class monster?”
Being a team of A-Rank Hunters, they immediately recognized the identity of the hide the monster wore.
The roughly stitched-together hide was made from at least six different species. The monster before them was a beast that had single-handedly dealt with six disaster-class monsters.
What were they confronting right now? Had they really set out, just 15 of them, to capture something like this?
“W-We're done for. We're all going to die.”
Regret washed over them. From that single blow just moments ago, they had seen an insurmountable gap in power.
“Damn it, A-team, defensive formation! B-team, prepare to attack! We stick to the plan. Move if you want to live!”
They were veteran Hunters who had worked together for years. They instantly formed up and surrounded the monster.
The avian monster looked at them, then spread its wings.
With each flap, the surrounding air gathered. It compressed, forming blades of wind.
Fifteen compressed masses of air. Condensed balls of demonic energy, one for each Hunter, floated in the air.
“Wh-what is that...”
“Captain. We... Ah, no. It's no use. We can't block that.”
They could see the air compressing in real time. Each one of those blades far surpassed the power of the 15 Hunters present.
That's a monster from the abyss. Someone muttered with a dazed face.
The disaster-class monster of the northern sea.
It swung its wings toward the Hunters. Fifteen blades of wind shot out, aiming for their necks.
* * *
Cheon Doun and Kim Nari walked through the dense jungle.
They carried camping bags on their backs, and Guu sat atop Kim Nari's head. On top of Guu's head, Sasa was coiled up, asleep.
To anyone watching, they looked like they were happily on their way to go camping.
-Grrrrrr!
If it weren't for Cheon Doun occasionally kicking away the A-Rank monsters that popped out, it would have looked peaceful.
“Kim Nari. Commence obstacle removal.”
“Commencing!”
Kim Nari transformed her arm into a railgun and aimed at the thick, tangled vines.
When the railgun fired, the path blocked by the vines was cleared wide open.
They were actions that defied common sense, but aside from that, they looked like they were on a picnic.
Rivers and cliffs. Valleys and swamps. Even dense thickets of thorns.
They plowed straight through paths that would have forced a person to take a long detour.
Sometimes they even ran at beast-like speeds, so they arrived at the northern sea quickly.
“Mister. I smell salt nearby.”
“You're right. Looks like we're almost there.”
“I can hear waves, too.”
Cheon Doun stopped walking. Just as Kim Nari said, he could faintly hear the sound of waves. Mixed in with it was a discordant sound.
The shouts of people, their screams, their cries as they struggled for their lives. And crushing them all like ants, a vast demonic energy.
“Mister. There is a collision of some kind 900 meters ahead.”
“So there is. They said Hunters don't come near the sea. What a load of crap.”
Just from the sounds, the fight was one-sided. If they continued to walk at a leisurely pace, the situation would resolve itself.
The monster would win, and all the Hunters would die. By the time they arrived, the monster would also be gone. Then they could just mine the ore in the quiet.
‘The problem is, if a bunch of Hunters of that rank die, the Association will send an investigation team.’
Trying to avoid immediate trouble could lead to even more trouble later.
It would be better to just knock out the Hunters, open a Gate with a return stone, and toss them through.
Cheon Doun set down the camping bag he was carrying.
“You guys wait here. I'm going to go clean up.”
“Clean up?”
“It'll be annoying if there's something loitering around while we're mining.”
“I see. Then I will go too. I will help you, Mister.”
“No. You stay here. That's how you can help.”
The escape of the Machine Lifeform was all over the news. Search requests had even been sent to the various guilds.
In a situation like this, being seen with a child inside a Gate would obviously become a hassle.
“Guard the luggage here. That's an important mission, too.”
“An important mission...! Understood. I will guard the luggage.”
Having received her mission, Kim Nari nodded with a serious expression.
Cheon Doun smiled lightly and headed toward the sound. A faint breeze. A high-speed movement that vanished without even a sound.
The spot where Cheon Doun had stood remained perfectly still, not a single fallen leaf disturbed.
“Mister disappeared. Mister is really fast!”
Kim Nari exclaimed, her eyes wide. Even her visual sensors couldn't track Cheon Doun's movement.
Guu, sitting on Kim Nari's head, also looked surprised.
-I had my suspicions, but... that's truly a monster beyond measure.
Guu looked toward the sound of the waves.
The monster over there is also quite a powerful species. If those two were to fight, the whole area might sink.
Even so, he didn't think Cheon Doun would lose. Kim Nari, too, waited with a trusting expression.
* * *
In the blink of an eye, Cheon Doun was out of the jungle. In an instant, his view opened up to a white sandy beach and the sea.
Before him were Hunters standing blankly in the face of death. Highly compressed blades of wind were shooting toward their necks.
Cheon Doun inserted himself between them. His high-speed movement caused the sand on the beach to swirl outwards.
The moment he landed, he drew a pure white thread from his fingertips.
The thread of an S+ rank rare monster, the Silk Thread Caterpillar. The thing he usually used as a kitchen knife and a clothesline had found its original purpose for the first time.
‘First, I'll cut the flow of mana.’
The mana coating the thread stirred the wind. It severed, strand by strand, the paths of condensed mana within the wind.
As the condensed mana shattered, the blades of wind lost their form and dispersed in all directions.
It looked simple, but in reality, it was a situation where immense forces had collided and canceled each other out.
With a roar like a bomb had dropped, the ground around Cheon Doun caved in. Even the distant seawater surged up as if a tidal wave had formed.
The Hunters couldn't withstand the force and were sent flying, tumbling for a good distance.
“Kuh...! Wh-what just happened!”
“Who in the world is that... I-is he even human?”
The Hunters were terrified by Cheon Doun's sudden appearance.
They were shocked that he wore no armor, and shocked that they hadn't sensed his presence until he appeared before them.
No one had seen exactly what Cheon Doun did. They only registered that at the moment they were certain of death, the young man before them had appeared and neutralized the force.
The hair on the Hunters' bodies stood on end. They couldn't tell if the eerie feeling was directed at the monster or at the unidentified young man who had appeared out of nowhere.
“Wh-who are you?”
Someone asked, but the question was drowned out by the sound of the surging seawater crashing back down.
Cheon Doun stared at the monster. The monster, too, looked at Cheon Doun with cold eyes.
A powerful being who had nullified its attack with a single gesture. The monster had never met anyone like this in its life.
‘No. There was one.’
A face so old it could barely be remembered. The friend who had saved his and his brother's lives long ago flickered dimly in its mind.
It had been nearly 70 years. He was surely dead and buried by now.
Through faded memories, convinced of each other's death, neither recognized the other.
The monster shook off the thought and moved its mana.
An ominous energy flowed from its wings. Watching it, Cheon Doun felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
‘That's strange. This scent... I've smelled it somewhere before.’
A familiar scent. An unpleasant aroma that stirred something in his past memories.
“I remember now.”
This is the smell of the chimera concoction that runs through the veins. The smell of the synthetic drug often used at the research institute where he had been.
Cheon Doun looked at the monster and opened his mouth.
"TDA Research Institute."
At that single phrase, the monster froze. The pupils in its bright yellow avian eyes dilated.
The name of the facility where it was confined as a child. An early illegal research institute, of which no records remained after decades.
How do you know about a place like that? The monster's expression said it all.
Seeing that reaction, Cheon Doun was certain.
“I knew it. Looks like you're from the same place I am.”
Once the suspicion took root, the shape of the bird's head began to look familiar. Cheon Doun looked at the monster with an intrigued expression.
“I know a guy who looks like you. Could it be you?”