Chapter 49
Chapter 49
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 49
Chapter Title: No Shelter Here
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Emergency Ration had a single horn protruding from its forehead, about the same thickness and length as its beak.
Hwan-in called it a horn because that's what it looked like, but it wasn't as hard as bone when touched, nor was it as soft and squishy as flesh.
Yet after Emergency Ration grew to the size of a goose, the horn had shrunk down to little more than a bump.
'Was it some kind of vessel holding the energy or nutrients needed for growth?'
Hwan-in kept fiddling with the bump-like horn, and Emergency Ration, perhaps finding it ticklish, squeezed its eyes shut and twisted its head before burrowing into his arms like a spoiled child.
He handed the bird over to the women, who were cooing over how adorable it was, and took a closer look at his greatly grown companion.
Even to Hwan-in, whose sensibilities had grown rather dulled, the matured Emergency Ration was undeniably cute and pretty.
It reminded him of a blue jay—one of those migratory birds in the crow family—but with its colors swapped out for green.
'It grew this much in one go, so after three or four more growth spurts, I might even be able to ride it.'
Hwan-in pictured himself soaring through the skies atop Emergency Ration and resolved to feed it even better from now on.
It was then, as they passed through the forest where the mountain turtle loomed like a neighborhood boss blocking the street, and climbed the third ridgeline.
Whiiiiiish...
A fierce gust of wind suddenly blew in from behind, shoving hard at their bodies.
"Kyaaak!"
"Euaah~."
The women clung to each other, struggling not to get swept away. Hwan-in shielded his face with one hand and squinted.
This wasn't the muggy wind of midsummer—it was an unpleasant blast carrying heat close to human body temperature.
'Another freak weather event?'
Hwan-in had endured floods, downpours, cold snaps, and tropical nights in short order. He couldn't even guess what might come next.
As he scanned for the wind's source, he noticed the mountain turtle's head—mouth slightly agape—pointed their way.
'No way...'
The distance from there to here was no small gap. Could a mere exhalation produce wind this strong?
After sizing up the situation for a moment, Hwan-in became convinced it was indeed the mountain turtle's breath. And it didn't seem intentional.
They'd simply been in its path by chance as it breathed.
The wind battered the group for quite some time before finally dying down.
It was absurd, but it drove home how much more dangerous the mountain turtle's vicinity was than expected.
A roar backed by that lung capacity, heard up close, would rupture eardrums for sure.
Hwan-in straightened his clothes, thinking they should put even more distance between themselves and the beast, and scanned the surroundings again.
"Hoo..."
He let out a small sigh.
He'd sensed it while climbing the third hill, but he'd misjudged the ridgeline distances after all.
There was another forest below the hill, and beyond it stood the tall ridgeline he'd spotted earlier.
An optical illusion had made the distant one look close, blending the two hills into what seemed like one.
The ridgelines were similar in color and shape, and with virtually no air pollution in this world, his sense of distance was off.
Kwak! Kkook kkwak! Kwak!
Hwan-in halted his descent toward the ridgeline at Emergency Ration's warning cry from overhead.
A signal that the forest teemed with beasts.
Its voice had sharpened as its throat strengthened with growth—it was impossible to miss.
Over the past two days, he'd felt firsthand how aggressively territorial the beasts here were compared to elsewhere.
He figured it had something to do with territorial incursions, but he couldn't know the truth.
'Not in good shape.'
The problem was his poor condition, mental and physical alike.
Crossing three ridgelines had taken two full days. The dense battles—not thrilling or exhilarating, but grim slaughters driven by duty and necessity—had drained his warm ki, leaving him chilled and fatigued.
And moreover...
After pondering a moment, Hwan-in shook his head and addressed the women.
"We'll move along the ridgeline."
Fortunately—or perhaps not—the low ridgeline eventually merged with the high one. Climbing to the tallest point from there should give a full view of the surroundings.
Walking the dirt ridgeline dotted with scrubby little trees, the deep blue sky meeting the dark brown ridge filled his left field of view, while the green flooded area meeting the blue sky dominated the right—all in a single glance.
It felt like trekking through some unnamed foreign wonderland, but the mountain turtle occupying one corner of his vision harshly undercut the romance.
Soon after, as they reached the ridgeline's downslope, Hwan-in sensed something ominous about the spot far below where the terrain plunged dramatically into what could only be called a ravine.
"Perfect terrain for an ambush."
"Beasts charging out from the forests on both sides...?"
The setup was so blatant even Ryuhi, who knew nothing of combat, could read it.
He rubbed his dry face, and Ryuhi glanced at him cautiously, wondering what was wrong.
Hwan-in furrowed his brow at how even that gaze was starting to feel annoying.
'A problem.'
Hwan-in sometimes felt an inexplicable ennui toward everything. Not the mere annoyance of hassle, but a listlessness born of utter lack of motivation.
At first, it just made him lazy. But if it persisted, his psychopathic tendencies would bypass all filters and spill from his mouth.
People's reactions then split two ways: fearfully avoiding him, or exploding in hostility that led to physical confrontations.
He knew why it happened.
Hwan-in's mindset wasn't normal. He preferred acting alone, to boot.
When faced with hardship, most people draw comfort from others' presence—but not him.
To be precise, he considered it irrelevant.
Dropped alone into a jungle, he'd feel no extreme stress, just calmly ponder escape routes.
Aware of his nature, Hwan-in acted the 'normal person' around others.
What would a normal person do here? Say? Feel? Do?
That's where the issue arose.
Spending nearly a fortnight, 24/7, with four women while sustaining his 'decent guy' act had consumed massive mental resources, breeding this tedium akin to burnout.
On Earth, he'd take leave to clear his head and recharge in solitude.
Actually, on Earth, daily alone time after work would have prevented this entirely.
But this was another world—a labyrinth teeming with monsters and beasts.
His goal: escort these near-combatless women safely to a village.
"...!"
Slap!
Hwan-in smacked his cheek hard and spoke firmly to the women, whose eyes now brimmed with concern.
"Let's go. Steel yourselves—just in case—and be ready to run."
He drew his spear, summoned the brown spirits drifting about with chuckling sounds, and cast Spirit Possession on the group.
Then, wary of the forests on both sides, he began descending the slope.
700m to the ravine. 600m. 500m...
When about 400m remained.
"...?"
Hwan-in stopped at the fleeting glimpse of yellow amid the dark brown and green foliage. The women halted too, staring at his back curiously.
"Beasts are lying in wait in the forests on both sides."
He'd clearly seen yellow—mismatched with the woods—crouching or slinking between trees and brush.
Not the beasts' fur, but their color as seen through Soul Vision.
Five visible ones. The actual number hiding in the forests was likely several times that.
What to do? No cover nearby for the women. Out in the open like this, retreating halfway might let the beasts bypass him and hit the women first.
Forcing through would mean a pincer attack—Hwan-in might survive, but the women were as good as dead.
"Benefactor, we can fight too."
Ryuhi, reading his hesitation, raised her thorny mace with resolute tone. Ephnis nodded beside her, gripping the same weapon.
"We'll stick together so you won't have to worry about us while you fight!"
"Yeah. We'll protect the sisters."
Hwan-in fell into thought.
No trees on the ridgeline. Better to backtrack to the forest, hide the women in the branches, and fight...?
"...Hah."
As if reading their movements, brindled wolves began emerging from both forests, growling.
Not one or two. Ten, twenty, thirty... they kept coming.
No choices left.
To the women swallowing hard as over forty brindled wolves locked eyes on them, he said:
"Don't die."
Even as he spoke, Hwan-in expected casualties among them.
He had limits protecting them, and the enemies were too many.
Recasting Spirit Possession on himself, Hwan-in gripped his spear and advanced slowly toward the brindled wolves.
Grrrrrr...
Grgrrrr...
Provoked by his approach, the wolves began inching forward. One spark, and they'd charge en masse.
Keeping eyes on the wolves, he quickly scanned the terrain.
'The ridgeline's width here is about 12 meters...'
The edges sloped sharply—more cliff than incline. Beasts tumbling down wouldn't climb back easily.
One plan in mind, Hwan-in smirked faintly and summoned every visible spirit.
A few distant ones didn't heed the call, but beyond the fourteen soul orbs on his left arm, thirteen more floated nearby.
That instant.
Awooooooo!!
"...?!"
A massive howl erupted from the forest, and the brindled wolves rolled back their eyes, charging all at once.
Kraaaang!!
Yip yip yip!!
'They have a leader.'
The roar alone hinted at its size.
Lips pressed tight, Hwan-in thrust his spear upright against the onrushing forty-plus wolves, conjuring two triple-layered soul shields that he unfurled like wings to either side.
This plugged the relatively narrow width.
Not a straight wall, but angled toward the slopes.
He'd have preferred four to seal it completely, but he could only summon two shields now.
Facing the tidal wave of wolves surging front and rear, Hwan-in took a deep breath and...
Pfboom—boom!
Yelp!
Yeeelppp...
...detonated three soul explosions right in their midst. The shockwave sent several wolves tumbling down the slopes.
Then several times more wolves poured toward Hwan-in.
"Hah!"
Stab! Stabstab!
Kyaek!
Krrk!!
With short, precise thrusts, he skewered the chests and heads of wolves lunging right to his face.
Jaw-pierced wolves dropped dead; chest-stabbed ones rolled, trampled by those behind.
The rest that didn't hit Hwan-in tried slipping past to the women, but...
Yip?!
Kraaang!
Yelp!?
They slammed into invisible barriers, couldn't halt their momentum, and slid along the angled soul shields straight off the cliffs.
Some sharp ones tried braking, but with their kin crashing like furious waves from behind, they had no choice but to dive to avoid being crushed.
Yeeeeeeeeelp...!
Ignoring the wolves plummeting dozens of meters with fading cries, Hwan-in stabbed and slashed at the onslaught like lightning.
"Hup!"
Stab! Stabstab! Whoosh!
Grk!
Gurk?!
Kek!
To prevent wolves from leaping over piles of corpses, he backpedaled slowly, creating space while swiftly regenerating shattered soul shields.
But holding back this many alone was impossible.
One with its front leg severed, another gashed deep in flank and hind leg—two slipped through the narrow gap between Hwan-in and his shields, bolting for the women.
"...!"
Hwan-in focused on the wolves before him, whirling and thrusting his spear like flashes of lightning, determined not to let any more through.
Less than a minute since the clash began.
In that time, eight wolves lay dead, over ten more flung off the left and right cliffs by the angled shields.
Now even the wolves realized something invisible blocked the flanks.
They clustered before Hwan-in like cars bottlenecked on a highway, howling in frenzy.
While fighting, Hwan-in triggered his prepared trap.
"Boom."
Boomboomboomboom!!!
The soul orbs he'd laid on the ground as he retreated detonated all at once, engulfing the brindled wolves.
The low-grade explosions wreaked havoc in the 12-meter-wide passage crammed with wolves.
Those caught in multiple blasts shredded into rags, vomiting blood as they collapsed; a lucky few on the edges, grazed by shockwaves, yelped and fled tails tucked in terror at the scale.
The tide had turned.
Wolves charging in blood-mad frenzy hesitated at the sight of nearly half their pack scattered by the blasts, like cold water dashed on them.
No more rushed Hwan-in. They whimpered, trying to back away instead.
As he spun his spear like a windmill and advanced, even those with intact legs cried "oh hell no" and bolted.
Slower ones, spooked by the whirring blade, leaped off cliffs themselves or tripped and tumbled.
The rest all died on Hwan-in's spear.
The pack of over forty brindled wolves melted away in under five minutes, like ice cream splattered on hot asphalt.
Three killed by the seven soul explosions.
Nine shredded by blasts then finished by Hwan-in's spear.
Eleven slain head-on by stabs or slashes.
About twenty tumbled off the side cliffs.
And the two that had slipped past him.
"...!"
Bracing for the worst, Hwan-in slowly turned. There lay two dead wolves—and four women standing unscathed, weapons in hand.
"Benefactor~!"
"We're fine~!"
Only now did Ryuhi and Huina wave their arms, shouting that they were unhurt.
His mind eased, Hwan-in twisted his spear and glanced toward the ravine below.
There, a massive sand-colored wolf stood on hind legs like a man, walking out amid the other brindled wolves.