Chapter 39
Chapter 39
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: Arachronon
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I pocketed my phone first, then wiped the clammy cold sweat from the back onto my pants.
This wasn't the time for that.
To scatter Jin Kyung-pil's hunting team, I absolutely needed that item—and getting it meant combat was unavoidable.
A memory from my first encounter with one of those things flashed in my mind.
'It was horrific.'
Swarms of baby spiders bursting through human flesh, devouring skin and muscle right after birth, leaving screaming victims as hollow skeletons in under a minute.
The memory of crawling into that underpass tunnel, clueless, wondering if a stray Monsterato Gem had rolled down there...
Luckily, I hadn't gone alone that time—I'd hired five or six money-hungry mercenaries to come with me. That was the only reason I survived.
Sniff sniff.
Sure enough, a foul stench began wafting from somewhere.
"Urk."
A stench incomparable to mere human bodily fluids. No, this wasn't just disgusting—it was a toxic gas in itself.
Arachrokinin gas.
No parasite eggs or spores floated in the gas itself, but breathe it too long, and suddenly baby monster spiders would spawn inside your body.
Researchers theorized some dark matter-material creation principle was at play, but that was beyond me. What mattered was this: sniff it bare-nosed for over ten minutes, and you're 100% dead.
Anyway, I snapped my prepped mask with purifier onto my face. No thanks to getting my gut sliced open by spiders.
Sip—haaa.
Much better.
The spot I was exploring was the entrance to the Seoul-South Gyeonggi Contaminated Area. Before it became ruins, the area was called Yangjae.
More precisely, the Yeomgok Underpass.
At the end of this underpass lurked a special specimen monster called Arachronon.
A repulsive beast that endlessly spewed baby spiders from its bloated belly while exhaling poisonous gas.
Just thinking about facing it had cold sweat trickling down to my eyes already.
Step step.
Navigating the pitch-black underpass—devoid of any presence but relying solely on my flashlight—was tense.
Grrrrrrumble.
A phlegm-rattling growl echoed from afar.
'There it is.'
I scanned the surroundings in an instant.
Something usable.
A half-collapsed wall.
A ceiling with rebar jutting out haphazardly.
A massive, tattered ventilator.
And beside it, a duct for pipe maintenance.
'That's it.'
Climb up there, and I'd have a huge advantage in the fight.
I crouched immediately.
No handholds on either side, so I had to vertical leap 4.5 meters.
Humanity's record for a standing vertical jump was a measly 1.6 meters.
A Grade 5 Awakener could match or slightly exceed that; a Grade 4 could triple it.
So with my Strength stat at Grade 3 levels, this was a given.
I wasn't the same guy scrambling through monster filth just to survive anymore.
I steeled my resolve and crouched deeper. My muscles compressed like a spring, brimming with explosive tension.
Bulge!!
Power surged into my thighs. Blood rushed in. They swelled like they might burst.
Groooan!
My toes clenched into the ground like claws. Then, the explosive extension of my calves.
And—
Shwoooosh!
A tearing wind rushed past my ears as I rocketed upward at insane speed. No stopping now—I'd jumped with too much force!
"Gah!"
In the blink of an eye, the ceiling and duct opening loomed before me.
"Ngh."
Bam!
I barely shielded my head with my arms, but my vision spun. Good thing it was a standing jump with no run-up.
"Hoo..."
This proved I still hadn't fully escaped my civilian power scale. 4.5 meters was dizzyingly high to a normal person, but for a Grade 3 Awakener, it was easily reachable with a standing jump—maybe even a simple hop without crouching.
Yet here I was, like a flea trapped in a jar, lacking confidence in my own abilities, tensing up too much, and launching at full power.
Was I really in shape to fight Arachronon like this...?
Truth be told, if you knew its Arachrokinin gas and baby spider gimmicks, it wasn't that tough even for a Grade 4-5 Awakener team. But that was for standard team hunts.
I was quasi-Grade 2, but no combat skills, and my body wasn't battle-hardened. A normal Grade 2 would treat it like trash mob fodder, but my unique case left me uneasy—probably thanks to the intense trauma from facing one as a civilian.
Maybe I was being too hasty.
Maybe I should've farmed outer rim trash mobs first, or trained for days or weeks.
But a bad gut feeling kept nagging me.
A creepy sensation prickled the nape of my neck.
Taking it slow for training felt worse than rushing Arachronon now.
I needed physical abilities ASAP.
That urge had exploded the moment I realized that mysterious figure existed.
I was being targeted right now.
I didn't know how close they'd gotten, but it was soon. If I didn't power up way faster than they expected, I'd lose.
Like before. Exactly like before.
"I'm never going back to those days."
If I were unawakened, this might seem like paranoia or delusions. But as an Awakener far beyond human mental limits, no way.
The urgency to grow stronger crushed me, but it also felt exhilarating in part—like ambition fueling me. That's why my maxed Mental Power and Mental Barrier weren't activating.
Scritch scritch scritch.
Slither slither.
The sound of multiple legs crawling across the ground approached.
It must've heard the commotion I made.
And then it appeared.
A 2-meter-long body, a belly bloated like it might burst, coarse insect hairs bristling across its shell. Ten legs.
A human-like face with eight compound eyes. Fangs dripping pitch-black venom. It resembled an earthly spider but on a grotesquely magnified scale.
With its arrival, the mustard-yellow gas thickened rapidly.
It tilted its humanoid head quizzically as it approached the spot where I'd jumped. That head—like a periscope absurdly protruding from the center of its massive body.
Too tricky to hit from the front, which was why I'd gone through all this to claim the high ground.
Grrrumble...
Hiding right above its position meant the gas blasted straight up at me.
A faint whiff seeped through my purifier.
Couldn't let the fight drag on.
Stay calm.
I'd prepped the perfect strategy to kill it.
Siii... haaa...
I took a deep breath and launched myself.
Target: the head.
As I dove, hyper-focused vision slowed time.
Target: the head!
The hefty head of my shortened-handle sledgehammer tore through the air as I swung.
Bam!
Spluuurtch!
The overpowered swing didn't just crush its head—it exploded it outright.
With the head gone, the body staggered back. Monster resilience meant decapitation alone wouldn't kill it. Its real body was that spider bulk anyway.
But losing most of its senses plunged it into chaos.
And panicked Arachronon's pattern was singular.
Pssshhhhhh!!
It vented all its stored Arachrokinin gas.
At the same time—
Fwoooosh!
Slither slither slither slither.
Hundreds, thousands of baby spiders erupted from its bloated rear.
"Not letting that happen."
The two liters of gasoline in the thin glass bottle at my waist sloshed.
Click! Fwoom!
Flames latched onto the rag at the bottle's mouth from the lighter.
Whoosh!
A firebomb soaring through the air, flames licking the void.
And—
Splat, clink!
Kieeeek!!
Blaze erupted with ferocious intensity.
Fwoooosh!
The sugar mixed in the gasoline caramelized in the heat, sticking gooily to the spiders as it dripped.
That fire wouldn't go out easily.
Kik! Gigigik!
Babies freshly born into acrid smoke and mass annihilation.
Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
Arachronon's belly bulged and thrashed ominously.
"Hold up."
I dove behind the massive ventilator on the floor just as—
Boom!
Groooar!
Its body detonated with force enough to shove a hunk of metal backward.
"Haaa..."
Arachrokinin wasn't normal Earth gas, so I didn't know if it'd explode on fire.
I'd half-expected it, but not this destructive power.
Without cover nearby, I'd have been in deep shit.
"Got it?"
Never thought I'd say a line like that, but with my own eyes, nothing remained where it had been except a few chunks. Solid kill.
No one used strategies like this. Why? No corpse left. For dark matter extraction and material processing, bodies needed to be intact.
Who'd kill a monster this way and get nothing?
It was billions in team wages for eight hunters plus materials—up in smoke.
But not for me. Besides, no other Awakener would fight this dirty. Molotovs were improvised weapons I'd scavenged in contaminated zones as a civilian to survive. Greenhouse flowers walking the standard clan path couldn't dream of this.
Step step.
I walked to where it had emerged.
"Found it."
A Monsterato Gem, only found in Arachronon nests. Think of it as monster-exclusive gear produced and excreted by special specimens.
Arachronon's was nicknamed the Pheromone Sprayer.
Not literally spraying scent molecules—it emitted wavelengths that stimulated dark energy in other monsters.
Arachronon used it to communicate with kin and baby spiders.
"Now I've got all the puzzle pieces."
All that remained was finding Jin Kyung-pil and Hunting Raven's hunting team.
Hunting Raven Clan was a big player in contaminated zones.
Its Awakeners were top quality, and over ten field teams raked in billions per outing. Maybe that's why.
Their gear, spotted patrolling near Yangjae IC intersection, looked premium at a glance.
Clan-issued, probably.
Compared to me with just my handle-shorted sledgehammer, it was no contest.
That team was a textbook setup: melee DPS, tank, support, ranged DPS. Four core members, plus what looked like identical spare members for emergencies—eight total.
Even with the leader at Grade 3 and the rest Grade 4-5, eight Awakeners meant a head-on clash was suicide.
Combat was a chain of unpredictable variables.
You minimized them with skill and power, but becoming the raid target of eight unknown-ability Awakeners? Straight-up idiotic.
I'd seen ex-Awakeners—kicked from clans for trouble, bragging about past team leader or Grade 4 status—get their throats ripped out by monsters.
No plans for moronic moves like that.
Grrr rumble.
Slash!
-"Just trash mobs today? Su-hyun, scan around."
-"Ran my ability—nothing special. Guess we farm casually and head in?"
-"Fuck, boring."
I'll make it exciting for you.