Chapter 18
Chapter 18
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: Strength Without Apology
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The monkey-like animal had apparently already breathed its last before it fell, slamming into the ground with a dull thunk, but it showed no sign of movement whatsoever.
Upon closer inspection, he could see signs of advanced age here and there.
"Died of old age and weakness, huh."
Lifting his gaze to the tree above, Hwan-in spotted a cluster of round heads peering down at him curiously.
While trekking through the jungle, he'd occasionally spotted small bones scattered about, and those must have belonged to these creatures.
'Perfect timing.'
As he waited for the soul to emerge, he took a moment to examine it more closely. It was indeed an odd-looking thing.
Overall, it resembled an Amazon squirrel monkey, but it had two tails—like the Japanese yokai cat known as a nekomata or bakeneko—and a thumb-sized patch of gray scales matching its fur color on its chest near the solar plexus.
It was small in size, with delicate features.
Hwan-in figured it would be pretty popular back on Earth. Then he watched as a soul slipped free from the dead two-tailed monkey's corpse and raised his staff.
"......"
But that soul's appearance closely resembled a lizardman's.
The souls of green monsters or beast-head monsters took the form of vague mist, making their original shapes impossible to discern. Yet this monkey's soul was clear enough to easily recognize its living form, albeit a bit hazy, just like a lizardman's.
What accounted for the difference?
Could it be?
Harboring a spark of anticipation, Hwan-in commanded the two-tailed monkey's soul to come to him. It immediately morphed into a soul orb and seeped into his chest.
Thump.
"Hm."
The moment the monkey's spirit possessed his body, his heart began pounding fiercely.
One might expect pain from a heartbeat this intense, but there was none. He felt heat building in his body and realized some change had taken hold.
His heart was beating larger and faster, pumping blood with greater force to accelerate his circulation.
It wasn't just his body temperature rising or his blood flowing quicker. As the heat spread, his muscles relaxed, loosening up.
Yet he wasn't losing strength—instead, it felt like power was seeping into every muscle fiber as they pulsed.
"......?"
Suddenly, the tree before him felt like a playground toy. A bit flustered, Hwan-in gripped it with both hands.
It felt as familiar as a well-worn tool.
He could sense the grooves in the thick bark without looking, and his mind instinctively knew where to place his hands and feet to climb effortlessly.
It wasn't mere knowledge—it was a bizarre sensation of embodied instinct.
Hwan-in started moving his hands and feet without hesitation, scaling the over-20-meter tree in less than a minute, as if climbing stairs.
Screee.
Chwee~.
The two-tailed monkeys gathered at the treetop stared at Hwan-in—who had climbed up just like one of them—with wide-eyed wonder from a safe distance.
Perched leopard-like on a thick branch, Hwan-in glanced at the monkeys before surveying the dense canopy.
'Just as I thought.'
He could tell which branches would support his weight and which wouldn't.
Trusting that instinct, he hopped lightly from branch to branch like a tightrope walker, snagging four yellow fruits. Then, using one hand and both feet, he slid down the tree.
'About three minutes left.'
After setting down the fruits and his gear, Hwan-in pinched a bit of bark between his thumb and forefinger and yanked.
Riiip.
Fresh wood tore right off.
Not only had his grip strength increased, but his skin had toughened too—no splinters, not even a mark.
He picked up his spear and tested a few thrusts and swings.
Whoosh—! Ping— peeng—!
The swings bent the shaft like a bow; the thrusts pierced the air with arrow-like whistles.
As the two-tailed monkey spirit's possession ended, his body temperature normalized, and his heartbeat slowed to its usual rhythm.
He'd worried about lingering aftereffects since his heart had raced at least 1.2 times faster than normal, but aside from a slight heaviness like right after waking, he felt fine.
Did it loosen not just his muscles but his internal organs too?
"Pretty impressive."
Confirming no serious aftereffects from the possession, Hwan-in channeled the green monster's soul clinging to his staff's antler into his body.
"Hm."
His heart raced again, but far more sluggishly than with the monkey. His temperature barely rose, and his strength...
Whoosh— wheeeng, fwoop—
...was hardly different from normal.
Having experienced possession by both a green monster soul and a two-tailed monkey soul, Hwan-in reached a confident conclusion.
"So, souls retain their original forms if the creature had special skills or abilities during life, while ordinary ones without any standout traits become hazy mist."
The green monster soul's possession offered only a faint boost to physical abilities, but the two-tailed monkey's brought tree-climbing prowess, accelerated blood flow for increased muscle elasticity, and improved joint flexibility.
The tree-climbing skill wasn't bad. Scaling 20-30 meters in a minute made it great for evasion or escape.
Most importantly, the blood flow acceleration boosted his physical stats overall.
Hwan-in looked up at the monkey troupe watching him curiously and grinned.
"Mm."
With Emergency Ration's help, he'd killed two two-tailed monkeys and harvested their souls, but he let out a sigh of regret.
His soul capacity was six—did that tie into the six-hour duration of a soul orb somehow?
He released one green monster soul orb and slotted in the new two-tailed monkey soul in its place. Then he skinned the dead monkey and began butchering it with his multi-tool's knife.
This was his first protein source in the jungle, like rain in a drought. Monkey or not, he had no intention of wasting it.
"......"
But the moment he peeled back the skin, his hands slowed. 'Do I really have to eat this?' The thought coiled in his mind.
Without the fur, it looked disturbingly humanoid.
Moreover, back in his original world, a horrific pandemic—suspected to stem from some Chinese delicacy—had been raging, which only heightened his reluctance.
'It's just meat anyway. Emergency Ration's alive too, and that's fine—there's no reason this should be different.'
Sorting through his thoughts and disgust, Hwan-in buried the head and innards, then chopped off the limbs. He roasted the torso separately from the appendages.
"......"
The two-tailed monkey's living color was pale green, and as it cooked, it turned white—so it should be fine to eat.
Once fully cooked to a uniform white, Hwan-in gingerly took a bite of an arm skewered on a wooden stick, which resembled a chicken wing.
"......Mm."
Setting aside the revulsion, the taste was mediocre. Like 70% shrimp and 30% chicken, with a texture slightly tougher than chicken breast.
The smell was milder than expected—no gamey carnivore stench.
Maybe because he'd slit the throat right after killing it to drain the blood and cleaned the guts immediately.
"Wanna try some?"
Squawk.
Hwan-in gave a wry smile at Emergency Ration's head-snap away, then quickly devoured the rest.
The monkeys were skinny and small, so both didn't take long to finish. But fretting over it all made his solar plexus feel heavy, like he might choke.
How do Chinese people eat this stuff?
As he buried the fire's embers and leftover bones, Hwan-in muttered to himself.
"Never again."
In this jungle, indigestion, vomiting, or diarrhea would lead to rapid stamina drain.
And stamina loss meant losing combat ability— a life-or-death issue.
Better to stick with less squeamish insects.
Munching a yellow fruit to settle his stomach as he headed upriver, Hwan-in swung his staff, attempting to replicate the green monster's colorless explosion.
Activating various abilities always started with opening Soul Vision.
He was convinced the colorless explosion was a Soul Explosion, so the trick lay in how to handle the soul orbs...
Along the way, he ran into five beast-head monsters. Without even possessing a spirit, he charged the hesitating foes, swinging his spear in wide arcs to end the fight in seconds.
Gurk.
Kyawk!
Grrr......
Two died instantly with half their necks severed. The other three lost limbs or had their guts spilled from gutted bellies, rendering them combat-ineffective, so Hwan-in mercifully pierced their hearts one by one. He flicked the blood from his spear and murmured.
"Definitely stronger."
His movements were quicker, his stamina better.
Testing with a sergeant jump toward a nearby tree, he cleared nearly 1.3 meters. Enough to vault a 3-meter wall easily.
"......"
Why the sudden power-up? Did gaining this weird soul-seeing and -handling ability change his body too?
Not that he was complaining. It meant better odds of escaping the forest.
As he watched souls emerge from the dead beast-head monsters, a sudden memory flashed, making Hwan-in's eyes gleam.
He ordered the souls to wait before ascending, then fetched the deer-antler staff hidden behind a tree.
The green monster had gripped the staff, staring at him while mumbling what seemed like a chant. But maybe it wasn't a spell—just noise to focus the mind.
If so...
"Emergency Ration, come here."
Squawk.
He perched the docile bird from the staff onto his right shoulder, gripped the staff, and focused with Soul Vision open.
Soul Explosion.
It was called an explosion, but really, it was compressed vibrations bursting out in an instant. Soul Vibration might fit better.
Soul Explosion. Soul Vibration. Colorless, odorless, formless... explosion.
Focusing on the sensations of Cold Ki and Warm Ki flowing through his body, he felt the two energies stir faintly.
Soon, the Warm Ki and Cold Ki flowing into his hand from his body instead surged from his hand into the staff.
It felt like an extension of his arm. He sensed the soul orbs resonating with the ki.
Aiming at a tree 20 meters away, Hwan-in gripped the staff with crushing force and thrust.
"Go!"
All six soul orbs on the staff shot toward the target at once...
Kugugugugu!
...unleashing a barrage of formless explosions that pummeled the tree.
Dodging the scattering leaves, splinters, and bark, Hwan-in clutched his forehead moments later as an inexplicable headache hit, groaning.
"Why a headache......"
He trailed off, falling silent at the sight before him.
The 5-meter-diameter tree bore intense gouges like a grizzly bear had raked it with its claws.
The power was undeniable. But what caused the headache?
All the soul orbs firing at once?
Then the resonance with ki was the loading signal. Did firing them individually launch one by one?
Shaking his head, Hwan-in noticed the sudden chill and sighed.
A single Soul Explosion couldn't drain this much Warm Ki, so six simultaneous blasts must have amplified the consumption.
Regretting the loss of the two-tailed monkey soul he'd planned to use as a buff, Hwan-in collected the beast-head monster souls, massaged his temples, and set off upriver again.
Shoooo— splash—
Kiruk... kiruruk......
His path must have veered slightly; after walking nonstop for about an hour, he arrived not at the river's head but at the Great Lake's cliffside.
No issue there, but the bird cries—absent on his prior visit—made Hwan-in react sharply.
He flattened himself in the waist-high underbrush and crawled to the edge, peeking at the sky in the direction of the sound.
'Geese? Or gulls? Hard to gauge size with the perspective.'
The horned scale whale had leaped from the water, giving a size reference. But these sky-flying birds? No clue.
They looked vaguely like gulls...
Even with vision sharp enough to spot a green monster at 300 meters, he couldn't make out details—so either tiny or far.
And if the latter, they were monsters, not birds.
Counting roughly 34, Hwan-in decided to skirt away from the cliff just in case—for cover in the woods if they spotted and attacked.
"......"
But Emergency Ration's fixation on the mystery flock was nagging at him.
Come to think of it, the bird had acted this way since before they found the Great Lake.
"Your friends?"
Squawk?
Hwan-in lightly prodded Emergency Ration, who tilted its head and looked at him.
Then it locked eyes on the flock again, staring entranced.
"......"
The sight unnerved Hwan-in, like a dog or cat staring intently at an empty corner of a room.