Chapter 34
Chapter 34
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Cats
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"B-Brother... y-you'll come back, right?"
Seeing me gearing up to head out for scouting, Ji-ah looked somehow anxious.
The other kids watching me didn't look too cheerful either.
'Do they think I might just leave like this?'
They had to know they were a burden while traveling with me, so their anxiety that I might abandon them was understandable.
But if I had decided to cut ties, I would've ditched them long ago.
"Yeah. I'm not running off, so don't worry like that."
As I stroked Ji-ah's head and spoke, her anxious expression softened a bit, looking somewhat relieved.
I didn't think anything major would happen, but I couldn't help feeling uneasy about leaving these kids behind.
Still, if I fretted over every little thing, I'd never get anything done.
Once Un-ho left, Ji-ah was fidgeting restlessly in a strange way.
Chae-won felt a bit anxious herself, but Un-ho didn't seem like the type to just take off alone.
She keenly felt his absence too.
Traveling with her little sister had always brought constant anxiety and survival pressure, but with him around, she barely felt any of it.
It gave her a sense of stability even greater than back at the survivor camp.
But just his absence was enough to drastically change the group's mood.
"Ji-ah unnie. Stop pacing and sit down already."
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry."
With Un-ho as their only pillar of support, her behavior was understandable.
Chae-won had no intention of judging her for sleeping with Un-ho.
It had been commonplace even in their previous survivor camp.
Becoming the woman of a man in a key camp position guaranteed a comfortable life and safety.
She wasn't about to condemn that.
It just meant that in this ruined world, sleeping with a man for survival wasn't something shameful anymore.
What meaning did it even have?
Especially for someone like Un-ho with his absurd abilities.
Chae-won herself had briefly entertained the idea back at the old camp.
She just hadn't known he was a lolicon.
Even so, in this hellish world, Un-ho was someone who kept his boundaries.
If he had demanded her body, Chae-won couldn't have refused.
No, she hadn't even considered refusing.
She had been prepared for it when they started traveling together.
But Un-ho, despite seeming interested in her, never demanded to share a bed.
I left the shelter and began moving quickly.
Kicking off the ground, my body lifted into the air.
I effortlessly leaped onto the roof of a three-story building.
Ever since strengthening my body, scaling this height had become a trivial matter.
The commercial buildings outside the apartments weren't that tall anyway.
I bounded from rooftop to rooftop at high speed.
For the low-grade Corrupted Beings I detected, I took out the ones near my path and just marked the distant ones as I hurried along.
Hunting Corrupted Beings wasn't my goal.
'Zombies too—better to avoid them if possible.'
I'd seen one evolve from zombie to low-grade Corrupted Being before.
Someday, they might turn into precious experience... no, Corrupted Beings.
Finding the school wasn't too hard or too easy.
Without a map, I had to wander a bit, but spotting signs made it straightforward.
It was while scouting the second school and heading to the third.
'This is weird...'
At some point, the streets were excessively clean.
No—not clean. There wasn't a single zombie in sight.
'Is that even possible?'
Then I spotted a Corrupted Being.
'A cat?'
An ugly monster, estimated to be the size of a cow from a cat, was leisurely prowling the road.
Not far away, and now that I'd seen it, I couldn't just let it be.
I leaped straight from the rooftop and swung my greatsword down at the monster cat.
-Thud.
'Dodged?'
I hadn't gone all out, but the monster cat evaded it.
Being a cat-turned monster, its reflexes seemed extraordinary.
-Kyaaak!
Furious, the cat monster bared its fangs at me.
With its massive size, it even looked like a twisted tiger.
I kicked off the ground and closed in instantly, pulling a spear from my Inventory and thrusting it rapidly.
But with its insane reflexes, it seemed to perceive even that and tried to dodge.
Still just a low-grade.
Agile because it was a cat, but it couldn't evade my strike poured with full power.
-Puk!
In an instant, the monster cat's skull was pierced.
Unlike the dog Corrupted Beings, its reactions were on another level.
Because it was a cat, quicker maybe?
With that bit of deduction, I set off again for the third school.
'No matter how I slice it, this is off. Why are there no zombies?'
'Corrupted Beings?'
Red dots were swarming in from all around in the distance.
Anyone could see I was surrounded.
'This is bad...'
Had I underestimated this world too much?
'Mid-grade?!'
C-Rank meant a mid-grade Corrupted Being.
The first mid-grade I'd seen since arriving in this world.
Suni highlighted one dot in a different color.
A massive monster cat, body length around five meters, lightly stepping across the rooftops, came into view.
Unlike the low-grades, it had the sleek form of a black cat.
Not revenge for the one I killed... I'd entered their territory?
Suni didn't even need to warn me.
No thinking required—the mid-grade alone was bad enough, and the sheer numbers screamed danger.
'Gonna break out.'
One-on-one, maybe. But there were too many.
Twenty or thirty, at least.
I kicked off into a rapid escape.
'What the hell?!'
The mid-grade giant monster cat narrowed the distance with terrifying speed.
Its absurd bulk moved with feather-light grace, bounding across rooftops straight for me.
At this rate...
'Damn.'
No chance of shaking them off.
I couldn't lead these things back to the kids' base.
I'd planned a quick return to base, but I veered off course.
The save point should be active by now.
But if I used it?
Even if I returned to my original world, leveled up, and came back—no problem for me, but I had no confidence in protecting the kids against this horde.
My body was ridiculously tough.
I trusted my stamina.
They couldn't chase forever, so pure evasion might let me shake them eventually.
As I changed direction to flee, low-grade cat Corrupted Beings in the path lunged at me.
'Going up.'
Roofs over ground.
I powered my legs and leaped toward a building rooftop.
That instant, the mid-grade cat exploded forward, its massive forepaw smashing in.
Caught mid-air, fully exposed to the attack.
'Goddamn! Can't dodge!'
Suni yanked a giant shield from my Inventory in a flash, blocking the strike.
-Boom!
Gripping the shield, I was sent flying backward.
-Crash!
The mid-air impact sent me tumbling wildly across the ground.
-Kyaaaang!
Low-grade monster cats from who-knows-where swarmed the tumbling me in an instant.
'Gotta break out.'
I bashed one charging low-grade cat Corrupted Being with the shield and flew it back, then stood with the shield forward and smashed through the encirclement.
-Clang. Clang.
The lunging monster cats ricocheted off the shield.
Glancing at the shield while running—it was badly dented.
Right where the mid-grade had hit.
'Fuck. What kind of attack power...'
Mid-grade lived up to it—insane damage.
The moment I broke through the surrounded cats, I stowed the heavy shield in my Inventory and bolted.
First priority: escape this area.
But cats excelled at ambushes.
Despite their bulk, they hid in buildings and alleys, pouncing on me.
Good thing my detection let me prepare, but I couldn't dodge everything.
I wanted to kill the low-grades, but that would slow me down.
The mid-grade cat was faster than me.
Couldn't ignore that behemoth.
Just fleeing was already dicey.
Best bet: evade while escaping.
I used the terrain to flee as best I could, but the mid-grade monster cat relentlessly blocked my path, slowing me.
And exploited the openings to bait low-grade attacks.
The one-sided assaults continued as I fled.
Eventually, the company's Combat Suit gave out and shattered.
All that remained was the pitch-black suit from my skill wrapping my body.
'This won't cut it.'
No matter how I looked at it, mindless fleeing would just rack up damage with nothing to show—pure attrition hell.
'Damn. Guess I gotta fight.'
I steeled myself and abandoned the escape.
As if they'd been waiting, the monster cats instantly tightened the encirclement.
The mid-grade Corrupted Being cat perched haughtily on a distant rooftop, its cold, dark-red eyes gleaming down at me.
The gaze of a ruler.
The zombie-free clean streets told it all—this thing was the king dominating this district.