Chapter 32
Chapter 32
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: uly
Chapter: 32
Chapter Title: The Shape of Resolve
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Moving silently through the forest according to the stealth techniques he'd mastered through Spirit Possession of the blue panther's soul, Hwan-in ducked behind a suitable tree, feeling troubled.
'There are way more brown monsters than I imagined.'
He'd already killed seven of them, and not even an hour had passed.
It was getting late, the evening turning into night. By the habits of the green monsters, they should have been slowing down, but these things were getting even more active.
'Are the brown monsters nocturnal?'
Kikikiki.
Kirrrrk.
Kigehk! Kigehk!
Three brown monsters chattered noisily as if the forest were their own living room. The moment they passed by the tree where Hwan-in was hiding...
Puk. Pook.
Krr...
Kheek.
They died without even a proper scream, their heads and chests pierced by the spear.
"......"
It was strange. Even if this was their home turf, how could they be this careless? It was enough to make him suspicious.
Did they have some ace up their sleeve that let them strut around like they owned the place? Or...
Staring at the corpses of the small, imp-like brown monsters, Hwan-in recovered one of the soul orbs he'd consumed for Spirit Possession and began moving again like an assassin.
Considering all the potential dangers, it might be safer to head back and come again during the day.
'But I've already taken out ten. With that many of their kin gone, there has to be some kind of uproar.'
If they were normal creatures, they'd heighten their vigilance around the area. Hwan-in planned to scout the size of their lair first and then figure out a solution.
He locked eyes with Emergency Ration perched on a branch above, then slipped quietly back into the forest.
The blue panther's stealth techniques weren't anything special once you knew them.
It was just knowledge of which objects would rustle or crunch if brushed or stepped on.
Now that he had mastered that knowledge—what to touch without sound, how to step to move silently—Hwan-in was like a black puma prowling the darkness.
His hair, and even his coat and suit pants that were starting to tear and fray, blended into the shadows like they'd been dyed black.
With dirt smeared on his face, Hwan-in moved without a sound and began picking off brown monsters whenever one came into view.
Puk. Seok.
Kiruk.
Kerrrrk...
Through dozens of real combats, his honed battle instincts read the monsters' openings and weak points, effortlessly slicing throats, bellies, and limbs.
The brown monsters' physical abilities were similar to the green ones, so they were no match for Hwan-in now that he was stronger.
With Emergency Ration's help, he killed eleven more over the next two hours. Narrowing his eyes, he stared at the two fresh brown monster corpses.
'If I have enough soul replenishment, I could take on twenty... maybe even thirty at once.'
Protecting his back with a soul shield and repeating hit-and-run tactics, it wasn't impossible.
Even if there was a soul manipulator in the lair, he already had countermeasures mapped out in his head.
Above all, he'd killed twenty-one in three hours since entering the forest. That had to be a significant blow to their lair.
'Circling the lair and whittling down their numbers steadily isn't a bad idea.'
As he thought that and pressed toward Crescent Moon Rock Mountain for a while, he heard Emergency Ration return and cry out excitedly in short, sharp koo, koo sounds. His eyes lit up.
"Did you find a monster?"
Kook! Koou. Koo—
"Good job."
Praising Emergency Ration, which peeped kookkook while pointing in one direction, Hwan-in fed it two freshly dug earthworms as a reward. Then he proceeded even more cautiously than before.
Soon after, a foul stench assaulted him, carried on the wind from ahead. His brow furrowed instinctively.
It was several times worse than a midsummer barn after a rainstorm.
He wrapped a bandage made from his running shirt around his face to cover his nose and mouth, but...
"......"
Realizing it blocked nothing, he irritably tore it off.
With no choice, he breathed shallowly through his mouth and advanced toward the stench. The moment he identified its source, he grimaced and altered his path.
The smell tormenting his nose came from a massive dung pit where the brown monsters had dumped their waste.
Skirting the pit—which was easily several dozen pyeong wide—he ran into a brown monster that had come to relieve itself.
Kheek?
The brown monster spotted Hwan-in in the darkness and hesitated in confusion.
Chak!
Hwan-in smashed its skull with the stone axe, then kicked the corpse into the vast dung pit in rage.
Leaving the monster buried amid the muck with a splash, he moved on carefully.
......
Noise rode the wind. Moments later, he caught flickers of light through the dense conifers.
'The lair is close.'
More than that, he couldn't understand it.
Nocturnal creatures lighting fires in their lair to secure visibility? The brown monsters had night vision sharp enough to roam freely in a leaf-canopied forest where moonlight barely penetrated.
Puzzled, he crept forward in a half-crouch toward the reddish glow. Soon, he sensed he was nearing the source of the clamor from dozens of brown monsters and switched to crawling on his belly.
Kikikiki—
Kyagyek, kyaek.
Kyarrrrk—
The sounds of the brown monsters laughing and chattering pierced his ears clearly.
Realizing the thick grass blocking his view hid their lair, he carefully parted just enough to peek.
'It's big...'
Hwan-in swallowed hard at the sight of the lair.
Crude wooden huts—framed with timber and roofed with branches, sized for brown monsters—five of them filled his view.
Beyond the flickering torchlit huts, glowing red, loomed a large, pointed mound like a tumulus.
The distance felt about 200 meters to his hiding spot.
'Considering the spacing between those huts and the mound...'
This wasn't just a den—it was a village.
Hwan-in held his tension and slowly withdrew.
Any creature forming a group would inevitably produce exceptional individuals. Like that green monster who handled souls, there could be mentally superior ones... or physically developed ones.
It was dozens of kilometers away in a straight line from his cave in the valley, but following the river would lead straight there—easy to detect.
Too dangerous to leave alone.
Once away from the brown monster village, Hwan-in circled toward a hill, planning to survey it from high ground.
"......"
The hill was dozens of meters high; he expected sentries, but surprisingly, not even a small animal stirred.
Kirrrruk—!
Kiyoooot!
Kyakyakya—
With the monsters making that racket, of course no sentries.
Atop the hill, Hwan-in lay flat and observed the village clearly visible below.
The brown monster village formed a semicircle around a clearing in front of the hill.
Normally, villages centered on a chief's hut in a circle, but this looked like a snowman: hill as head, village as body.
Activating Soul Vision, he roughly counted the cyan-shaded brown monsters moving between the thirty-seven huts.
'Thirty-seven huts. Over fifty visible... Huh?'
Kieeeeek—!
In the clearing the size of a rural elementary schoolyard, three brown monsters smeared with garish dyes howled and began a bizarre dance.
Soon, they fetched drum-like instruments and beat them: doong-doong-doong.
The weird dance and eerie drumming brought a wave of disgust. Hwan-in frowned unconsciously.
What were they up to? It looked just like cannibals about to offer a sacrifice...
The brown monsters gathered by the noise, hauling thick branches to pile in the clearing's center.
Once stacked high enough, one lit them with a torch, igniting a campfire-sized blaze. One of the painted monsters tossed a bundle of green leaves into the flames.
"......"
Harmful yellow smoke billowed up. The dozens of brown monsters by the fire then started a collective, freakish dance like a drug-fueled party.
And...
Why did ominous premonitions always come true?
From the cave below the hill where Hwan-in hid, four naked women were dragged out by brown monsters.
All had beast ears on their heads and tails on their hips, resembling the female spirits who had guided him here.
Herded to the fire, the women huddled together, trembling.
Some brown monsters prodded them with sticks; each time, the women flinched and wept.
......! ......!!
......!!
.........!
Some women seemed to shout angrily, but the noise drowned them out.
The brown monsters kikikied as if amused, poking and toying with the women using sticks.
"......"
Hwan-in's gaze shifted to the two or three colorfully painted brown monsters.
'Those are the shamans.'
Not like primitive tribal shamans from Earth's jungles. They must have special abilities. Three of them...
'More monsters are gathering.'
The clearing was now half-filled with the horde.
Easily hundreds.
Even with Soul Explosion, Soul Arrow, Soul Shield, and soul resupply, Warm Ki capacity limited his uses.
"......"
Calculating odds, Hwan-in shelved intervening and kept watching.
The clearing's mood intensified.
The women's states grew odd too—not flushed by firelight, but feverish red, leaning on each other with shaking legs.
'Those green leaves were some kind of drug.'
Drug-addled expressions. As women slumped one by one, brown monsters laughed louder, stirring more chaos.
"......!"
Then Hwan-in lowered himself further, holding his breath.
Seven more emerged from below the hill—five exceptionally huge.
Like brown monsters scaled up three or four times.
Height like Hwan-in's, but twice the bulk: muscle and fat mashed into pig-like hulks.
Hwan-in's expression turned grave.
If one matched a gray monster's strength, wiping the village alone was impossible.
'All wooden huts, so fire would clear them easily, but...'
This was all forest. Setting the village ablaze risked engulfing him too.
Aaaak—!
Kyaaaah...!
The expected scene unfolded.
The five huge brown monsters each grabbed a smoke-drugged woman and began mating.
Did the yellow smoke have aphrodisiacs? The women soaked in sweat, ravaged by the big ones; the remaining two roughly handled by the five small painted monsters.
"......"
Watching, Hwan-in was overcome by visceral disgust.
Not like the NTR erotica a deranged junior at work shoved at him saying "check this out"—a different revulsion.
Like seeing women forcibly taken by dogs or pigs.
Hwan-in watched silently from the hill until things quieted.
While the big ones toyed with the women, other brown monsters coupled with their own females.
He feared they'd eat the women after, but mercifully, no.
About two hours of orgy later, they tossed hunted animals into the fire pit and roasted them.
Naturally, over half the meat went to the big and painted monsters; the rest was fought over by hundreds like vultures.
Even so, less than a third of the hundreds got meat.
The weak and young didn't even join the feast.
After the debauchery and feeding, the women—drenched in monster semen—were dragged back to the cave below.
The clearing's monsters dispersed to huts like a festival's end.
Three hours later.
As dawn's bluish-gray cloaked the village in silence, Hwan-in retraced his silent path out.
'Only one way to destroy that village.'
Once sufficiently distant, he invoked Spirit Possession and broke into a run.
The lowest-grade soul orbs were refilled with brown monster souls, plenty of time left. But the mid-grade blue panther and yak souls had under two hours remaining.
To execute the plan from watching their frenzy, mid-grade orbs were essential.
Kwakwak!
"......!"
Running while memorizing trees, forest layout, and ground, Hwan-in heard Emergency Ration's signal, veered direction, and soon spotted a Spike Tail Pig rooting up tree roots with its snout. He smirked inwardly.
"Hup!"
Using the lingering Spirit Possession strength, he hurled the stone axe at the Spike Tail Pig's head.
Whirring, it embedded deeply into the side of the Spike Tail Pig's head with a chilling thud.
Chak—
Kuuueeeek—!!
The Spike Tail Pig shrieked in agony from the sudden pain.
Dodging its thrashing spiked tail, Hwan-in gashed its right hind leg deep, intensifying its frenzy.
With its fearsome charge crippled, no more caution needed.
Batting away another tail swing with his spear and severing it, Hwan-in slashed the front legs, toppling it. Without hesitation, he thrust the spear into the flailing Spike Tail Pig's eye, killing it.
"Good."
Recovering the soul granting near-infinite stamina, Hwan-in ran on without pause.
In that direction loomed the Eastern Twin Mountains.