Chapter 127
Chapter 127
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: The Boar's Request
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The view of Cheongju from the sky looked as if snow had fallen over the city.
It was the vast territory of monster spiders.
And in the center of the city, there was something like a massive egg... or maybe a cocoon.
‘Obviously, it didn’t just appear out of nowhere for no reason...’
Still, I had no intention of poking at it.
But it did worry me a little.
I had no idea what was inside, but I was certain it wouldn’t be anything I’d like.
Well... first things first, Daejeon.
I left Cheongju behind and headed to Daejeon in search of the wild boars.
On the way to Daejeon, I felt someone watching me.
When I looked over, far in the distance, I spotted what looked like a bird.
It appeared small because of the distance, but it was actually quite a large bird.
“A crow?”
As if sensing my gaze, it suddenly flew off somewhere.
‘Looked like it was worth at least 5 points...’
I couldn’t help but lick my lips.
Chasing it down seemed iffy, though. Since it could fly, it wouldn’t be easy to catch.
Even if I could fly through the sky, I couldn’t maneuver as freely as a bird.
Especially since it was a monster.
The black dragon I’d caught back home in Busan might not have been so easy if it had fought from the air right from the start.
Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be heading toward Sejong City where the kids were.
I decided to hunt it down later and hurried on my way.
Daejeon, when I arrived, had turned into a forest.
The street trees had grown to bizarre proportions, and the buildings were completely overgrown with foliage.
A literal forest of skyscrapers.
It was a bizarre and absurd phenomenon, but the view from the sky was spectacular.
‘It turned into this in such a short time? Even for summer, isn’t this too much? What the hell happened? Where’s that wild boar?’
It was a monstrously huge wild boar.
If it was in Daejeon, there was no way I couldn’t find it.
While flying over Daejeon searching for it, I spotted a herd of wild boars under a small hill.
There were about 10 of them.
The area had particularly tall trees and dense underbrush.
Judging by their size, they looked like mid-grade Corrupted Beings.
They were circling around a massive hill, playing around.
‘One, two... three, eleven... eleven points...’
This was a goldmine. The chance to rack up a ton of points made my mouth water.
The moment I started descending to hunt them, I froze. I felt a sense of wrongness.
‘A hill in the middle of downtown?’
The dense foliage had made me think it was a small mountain at first.
But then I realized it wasn’t.
It looked just like an animal lying down...
I shifted my gaze to what seemed like the head, and though it was covered in brush, I could make out the shape of a wild boar’s face.
It was ridiculously huge, and its entire body was overgrown with foliage, so it was easy to mistake.
‘Is this the same wild boar I saw in Daejeon back then?’
It was different from that hideous, infected-looking black wild boar I’d seen before... Its body being covered in foliage gave it a completely different vibe.
It lay there quietly with its eyes closed.
‘It’s not... dead, is it?’
Looking closely, I could see its body rising and falling as it breathed.
I’d figured it might have a herd, but eleven mid-grade Corrupted Beings? That was high quality.
‘Can I take them?’
Mid-grade Corrupted Beings were no longer a threat to me.
If that was all of them, it was possible.
As I sized them up from the sky, gauging the hunt...
-Kruuung!!!
A roar echoed from afar.
The sound was so immense that I could feel the vibrations even here.
I turned my gaze that way.
I saw something like a black cloud.
‘What the hell is that...’
I glanced down.
Despite the massive roar, the foliage-covered monster wild boar hadn’t budged.
Unable to ignore my curiosity, I left the boars and headed toward the black cloud.
And I witnessed an unbelievable sight.
‘Fuck...’
An enormous swarm of giant hornets was attacking a colossal monster wild boar.
These weren’t ordinary bees.
They were the infamous giant hornets.
The hornets were brutally large, ranging from human-sized to small truck-sized.
Hundreds of them were swarming together to assault the giant monster wild boar.
‘The hornet swarm aside... Shibal... two of them?’
This giant black wild boar was a familiar one.
A monstrous size, at least 20 meters tall at the shoulder.
It looked cleaner than the hideous version I’d seen before, but I knew it was the same one from Daejeon.
The wild boar shrugged off the attacks from the horde of monster giant hornets.
Every time it chomped with its jaws or swung its head roughly, the hornets exploded.
Unable to hold out, the hornet swarm eventually flew south in retreat.
Watching them go, the wild boar leisurely headed back toward the giant foliage-covered boar.
As the black wild boar approached, the smaller ones? came out to greet it.
The black wild boar then spat out the giant hornets it had in its mouth.
The smaller wild boars eagerly tore into and devoured them.
‘Urk.’
This was a wild boar family.
‘...Two... two of them...’
Two was burdensome.
If they were dumb, maybe, but I couldn’t expect that.
‘That crow from earlier... might be easier to hunt down and kill.’
If I caught it and leveled up Body Strengthening, these guys wouldn’t be much of a threat.
As I thought that and turned to leave...
A woman’s voice came from somewhere.
-I looked around.
Of course, there was nothing.
The sky was clear and blue.
“Suni, did you hear nothing?”
That was odd too. Suni could detect any sound I heard. But she said she didn’t hear it.
Was I hallucinating? That didn’t make sense either...
Then the voice came again.
It wasn’t just a voice coming from somewhere.
It felt like it was resonating directly in my head...
Below meant the wild boars.
The foliage-covered wild boar down there had opened its eyes and was staring at me.
“No way... is that wild boar looking at me... talking to me?”
It wasn’t exactly language—it felt like the intent was being directly implanted into my mind.
It was like... telepathy.
Damn, could top-grade Corrupted Beings use telepathy like this?
I never thought I’d live to hear a monster speak... well, not exactly speak, but...
“Alright... what do you want?”
“..........”
“You know something that’s important to me?”
Of course, a wild boar’s words made no sense to me.
“......No...... not really...”
“Uh...”
The monster wild boar was cooler than I expected. But I couldn’t just walk away.
“........Ahem... so what’s this important matter?”
“Humans are curious creatures by nature.”
“Maybe after hearing you out, I’ll feel like helping...”
“........”
Shibal... did a mere monster just call me stupid?
It did, right?
But I couldn’t even get mad—it had totally caught me acting like an idiot.
Damn it, why couldn’t monsters be as dumb as they’re supposed to be.
“Hoo... fine... why should I grant your request?”
“A threat?”
“Not a threat?”
“Yeah.”
“They didn’t seem that threatening. Looked like they tasted pretty good...”
“So ‘tiny fraction’ means dozens of times more?”
‘Monster giant hornets... infinite...’
Now I understood why it said the wild boars were a threat to us.
These monster wild boars were acting as a barrier, holding back the hornets’ expansion to some extent.
“You two can’t handle it, but you think adding me will make it possible?”
“I... see.”
It was a simple solution.
If I couldn’t just coolly leave like them, then I was the one at a disadvantage.
‘These cunning bastards...’
I might be able to handle it alone.
But it’d be easier with their help.
Their negotiation skills were top-notch.
‘These things are monsters?’