[Raccoon Man Beginning]
[Raccoon Man Beginning]
Kwaaaaang!!!
Force users become superhumans from the moment they awaken. While lost limbs don't regenerate, blind people with intact eyeballs regain their sight, and those crippled from the waist down can walk perfectly again.
Even a slender woman can lift hundreds of kilograms in an instant and break records in all athletic and combat-related physical activities. That is how much power Gaia Force, which is called a miracle, possesses.
However, among such Force users, Ruri was quite a unique existence.
She was strong enough to be counted among the top Force users of her age and even possessed a Unique Trait. If we're talking about talent alone, she's among the best in the world, but since she has no interest in being a Force user, she's just busy studying.
If the opponent is an Original Species, she can handle it as long as there are no special traits.
"Oh-ah!"
"No, a punch from there?!"
She slammed her fist into the beast's abdomen while unleashing the signature move of a certain fighting game character. Teo-eong! A heavy impact was transmitted to both. However, it was the Bullfrog Original Species that took more damage.
Ruri's Unique Trait, Penetration, embedded itself along with her fist, vibrating the beast's internal organs. An impact that would cause vomiting even while standing still shook the beast's body.
"Kkwe-ek!"
The beast, enraged by the surging pain, opened its mouth wide at Ruri.
A mouth opened wide enough to swallow not just a woman, but even a sturdy adult male in one gulp, lunged at her. It felt like she would be eaten in an instant and end up in its stomach.
The sticky mucus peculiar to frogs and the unpleasant pink flesh were visible. It was cramped and even smelled. Surprisingly, teeth were visible in the mouth area, so if she got eaten, she wouldn't be able to escape easily. It was best not to get eaten.
"Frog breath is froggy! Frog head, smash!"
"No, that's a sick rhyme right there!! But you're a science major!"
"Get rid of the stereotype that science majors don't have liberal arts sensibilities! These days, even science majors need to learn liberal arts sensibilities to make jokes! Yalli-yalli yallasyeong yallari yalla!"
Ruri stepped back to avoid the beast's attack. Thanks to its bulk, its movements were dull, which was fortunate.
But being quick didn't mean she could win. First, she had to find another way to beat the beast.
"If physical attacks don't work, I have to use something else! I don't have a trait for that!"
"Then you can just use a weapon!"
"Where?"
Baek-ri looked for a weapon nearby. He needed something sturdy and preferably long. It would be even better if it had a blade.
And luckily, he was able to find something usable as such a weapon. A portable signpost standing on the road near the park. A scene from a movie suddenly passed through Baek-ri's mind, but he ignored it and lifted it.
Even though it was portable, the bottom was set in concrete, so it was all he could do to just move it, let alone lift it with ordinary strength.
But Baek-ri was a Force user.
He grabbed the signpost close to the base and spun his body to utilize centrifugal force. Acceleration was added by the weight, greatly increasing the power.
Bung, buuuung, kwaaaaang!!!
He swung the portable signpost accurately at the face of the beast that was persistently targeting Ruri, smashing it with the concrete part.
It was such an intense blow that even the beast's body, which hadn't been affected by physical attacks, staggered and fell backward this time.
"I knew it!"
"I'm not exactly a noble person, though!"
Baek-ri shouted that and swung the signpost again. He slammed it down onto the stomach of the beast, which was struggling to get up, adding centrifugal force and gravity to strike even more powerfully than before.
Kwaaaaang!!!
A heavy vibration that shook even the nearby ground rang out. The concrete part of the portable signpost was shattered by the two intense attacks, but there was a part of it that was actually better.
He climbed onto the beast's stomach and stabbed the sharp pipe part directly into it. The green blood peculiar to frogs spurted out and stained his face.
"Ura-chaaaaa!!!"
But not caring about that, Baek-ri continued to shove the pipe into the beast's stomach. He didn't know where the heart was since he had never even done a frog dissection practice, but stabbing the stomach was basically a serious injury wherever it hit.
"I'll help too!"
Ruri also climbed onto the beast's stomach and grabbed the pipe together, which wasn't going in properly because of the mushy flesh. As more people added strength, it finally dug in much deeper.
The amount of blood spurting out gradually increased. Seeing the sticky liquid gushing out like oil drilling made him feel so gross that he wanted to throw a lighter and burn it. But unfortunately, neither Baek-ri nor Ruri were smokers.
The two joined forces to drive the pipe in further. At that, the Original Species cried out in pain.
"Kkweeeeeek!!"
"Die, Optimus Prime!"
"Why Transformers!"
"Then get lost to Planet Keron, you Sergeant!"
"Don't destroy childhood innocence just because it's the same frog!"
Soon, there was a sensation of reaching the internal organs, pu-uk. The pipe went in deep at once. Then, the Original Species went limp with a death cry.
It seemed they had luckily hit a vital point, dealing a fatal blow with this attack.
"Just in case, one more spin!"
"Ugh, Ruri, you have a strong stomach!"
"Do you think I'm doing this because I like it? It's a confirmation kill! A confirmation kill!"
Ruri grabbed the pipe while it was still stuck in the beast's internal organs and spun it around. It was a cruel act, but a confirmation kill was absolutely necessary.
Thanks to that, if the place she stabbed was the heart, it would have been turned into mush, and if it was the intestines, it would have become like pasta wrapped around a fork, so the two were relieved.
Seeing the beast that looked dead without moving, the citizens who were evacuating nearby cheered.
Moved by the feeling of having survived and the movie-like scene that unfolded before their eyes, they shouted.
"It's dead! The Enemy Species is dead!"
"Hey! That's an Original Species!"
"Awesome!"
The people who were fleeing flocked to the corpse of the dead Original Species and the two. Seeing them taking pictures or shooting videos, it was only a matter of time before their identities were revealed, even considering their portrait rights.
But it didn't feel too bad. They had done a good deed anyway.
Even without a Raccoon Man suit, Baek-ri could save people. Thinking of that, he realized that what was important wasn't the power one possessed, but the mindset of helping others.
"Anyway, that's a relief. You're not hurt anywhere, right, Ruri?"
"You bet your ass, fuck! I'm hungry, so let's go eat once we wrap this up."
"I'll buy you something expensive since you worked hard today."
"Op↗pa↘ya♡, let's buy beef, beef!"
"Where did this girl learn to act cute!"
Seu-seu-seu.
"Mom and Dad are going to have something to say if this gets on TV. But they won't scold us too much since we did a good deed, right?"
"They will. And nobody got hurt, anyway."
"But we got hurt."
"Ah, they'll be angry about that."
Seu-seu-seu-seu!
A faint sound that couldn't be heard because it was buried in the noise of the gathered crowd began to ring continuously. The source of the sound was none other than the corpse of the frog Original Species that should have already been dead.
The amount of blood leaking from the pipe stuck in the beast's stomach gradually decreased and then stopped. And the wound healed as if the pipe had been stuck there from the beginning.
They say animals have fast recovery, but even if an Original Species has faster recovery than a normal animal, this was a bizarre speed of recovery.
And the beast's leg twitched. People who saw it just thought it was post-mortem rigor or something like that, or that they had seen it wrong.
It was only after someone screamed that people noticed something strange.
"Kyaaaaaak!!!"
"Kkwe-ek!!"
Making a sound like a pig being slaughtered, the beast flipped its body and got up. Despite having a pipe stuck in its stomach and its internal organs crushed, the beast was still alive.
People who had flocked in relief fled again, tangling and falling over each other, causing chaos. Even in that hellish situation where people who were running fell and were trampled by those behind them, no one had died yet, but the number of injured people increased endlessly.
Ruri and Baek-ri were shocked to see the revived bullfrog Original Species.
"That bastard was still alive!"
"It's alive even after crushing its internal organs! This bastard is out of its mind!"
The frog Original Species that had gotten up let out a shriek, and it clearly distinguished the two who had attacked it from other people and charged.
A reckless body slam, with the frog's leg strength and weight added, hit Baek-ri!
"Keu, aaaaaak!!!"
Baek-ri screamed and used his 'Reinforcement' trait as strongly as possible to protect his body.
However, with a mass attack that made even that much meaningless, surviving was all he could do.
As it was Baek-ri's Unique Trait, the efficiency was good, but there was a limit to the power he could withstand if he took it head-on without time to deflect or anything.
"Eu, uaaaaa!!"
The beast, whose momentum of the charge had dropped after slamming into Baek-ri's body, pressed down on Baek-ri just like that. The feeling of being pressed down by a weight reaching several tons was an unpleasant feeling as if gravity had increased dozens of times.
To survive, Baek-ri struggled. The beast's weight was eating away at the Gaia Force of the Reinforcement Baek-ri had set up. If he left it like this, he would be crushed to death.
"What are you doing to our shitty Oppa, you shitty thing!"
Ruri fought hard and struck the beast, but even with the direct impact on its internal organs, the beast didn't care.
Judging by that, the beast's trait was guessed to be a Regeneration Trait that acted directly on the body.
Among the many Force users, those with a Regeneration Trait are rare. They are as few as those with precognitive traits. But it was unimaginable that an Original Species, not another Force user, would have such a trait.
"Aaaaaa!!!"
Baek-ri struggled with all his might to escape. He couldn't move his body, he couldn't use Taegeuk-naseon-gyeong, and Ruri's attacks weren't working, so the only thing he could trust was himself.
And little by little, the beast's body began to be lifted.
Driven by the momentum of Baek-ri, who was screaming and lifting it as if a power had suddenly emerged in a crisis situation, the beast gradually moved.
"Ura-chaaaaaaaa!!!"
The weight Baek-ri could withstand at maximum was about 1 ton.
Although it is said that the weight he can lift is a little less than that, compared to the fact that an ordinary person, even a weightlifter, is only 500 kilograms, it was a level where one could understand that a Force user is a superhuman.
However, the weight of the frog Original Species pressing down on him reached several tons. Even though he couldn't lift it, Baek-ri was lifting the beast!
"Awakening out of nowhere in a crisis is the privilege of the protagonist!"
"The protagonist of my life is me!"
"You're still in your right mind if you're saying uselessly cool things, Oppa! You haven't been hit enough yet!"
"If you have time to say that, help me a little!"
Baek-ri instinctively realized the reason he could lift the beast's body.
He hadn't awakened a new power. He had just become able to use the power he already had a little better.
"My trait, 'Reinforcement', was overlapped...!"
"Wow! Oppa, you're an all-rounder who can buff and tank and deal damage! That's insane!"
Baek-ri realized the meaning of Ruri's words immediately. The overlapping of Baek-ri's Reinforcement trait enters as multiplication, not addition.
Although it wasn't a formula that went into squares like 2 times 2, at least it showed an effect that could be felt.
Ruri, who added her lacking physical ability, threw a fierce punch. A bigger impact than before shook the beast's internal organs.
No matter how much of a Regeneration Trait it had, it was no longer an attack that could be ignored.
"Kkwek!"
The beast changed its posture. It lifted its body, looked at the sky, and the muscles in its legs swelled up. It was trying to perform an attack that would cause a shockwave by slamming down on the ground like before.
There were still many people nearby who hadn't escaped. If a shockwave like before spread, there would be full-scale casualties.
He had to stop that at least.
"Where do you think you're going, you bastard!"
Baek-ri didn't avoid the beast and grabbed it as it was about to jump. And he grabbed the iron pipe of the signpost that was still stuck in its abdomen.
Ku-ung!
And the two jumped into the sky at the same time.
"Argh! It's Flying Oppa! Leave your wallet so we can buy meat!"
"See you when you come down!"
Baek-ri shouted in a voice that was fading as he went higher and higher.