Chapter 85
Chapter 85
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Blockade
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It was dawn, and I was thinking about going out to hunt down those Corrupted Beings.
Out of nowhere, Grandpa Sect Leader from the Celestial Sect showed up.
The reception room was on the first floor, set up separately.
It was a bare space with just a table and chairs, roughly cleared out.
I'd made it that way because I had no intention of letting outsiders into my living quarters.
Seolhwa and I greeted Grandpa Sect Leader.
"It's the Black Wolf."
"Black Wolf?"
The sect leader had shown up out of the blue and dropped this bombshell out of nowhere.
"Sigh... I hardly know where to begin... Our Celestial Sect had settled on Gyeryong Mountain."
It sounded like Grandpa Sect Leader's story was going to be a long one.
I figured it'd be boring,
but on the other hand, it might be useful information, so I decided to hear him out.
To sum up Grandpa Sect Leader's ramblings: They were living on Gyeryong Mountain when the zombie outbreak hit.
They managed fine at first.
Then they got attacked by this thing called the Black Wolf.
Being martial artists, they fought back decently and repelled it.
But the Black Wolf's pack kept growing over time.
In a brutal fight, they killed what you could call the Black Wolf's mate, and Seolhwa's dad died too.
Still, the Black Wolf survived,
and eventually they couldn't hold out and fled all the way here.
According to Grandpa Sect Leader, the Black Wolf hasn't forgotten that the Celestial Sect killed his wife and came for revenge.
From what I'd heard, Black Wolf was some pitch-black wolf, but to me, it looked like a regular black dog mutated and grown huge.
'I think I heard something about over ten million pet dogs in Korea before.'
Given how many monster dogs there were,
this world didn't seem all that different.
"Sorry for dragging you into our mess. We'll handle this ourselves. Still, tell your family to stay cautious."
He seemed confident they could deal with it.
It was a decent, responsible attitude—like cleaning up your own shit.
I had skill points to spare, so I'd end up helping whether I liked it or not, but I had no intention of teaming up.
And I wasn't about to brag about it right here.
"Then what about the ones that attacked us?"
That guy probably wasn't the Black Wolf.
According to Han Suji, it was some yellow mutt.
"That's... one we hadn't seen before either. Maybe he found a new mate..."
"How do you know it's the Black Wolf, then?"
"I never saw him myself. But it's not just here—our Celestial Sect members outside have been attacked too. Their habits match what we saw back on Gyeryong Mountain."
From the sounds of it, the leader commanded a bunch of monster dogs underlings.
He hadn't even seen the Black Wolf firsthand, but for some reason, Grandpa was convinced it was him.
I didn't buy it completely.
Monster dogs traveled in packs by nature; it wasn't unique to this one.
I'd caught plenty on the way here, so I knew.
Whether it was the Black Wolf or not didn't matter much.
Hunt them down, rack up skill points—that was it.
-Thud!
"Uncle! Monsters!!"
Chaewon suddenly burst into the reception room and shoved the detector in my face.
"Huh?"
Unless I focused, my detection range was shorter than the monster detector's.
Chaewon's device had picked something up.
Peeking at the screen, I saw a ton of monsters swarming around us.
"This is..."
Broken?
'Expand the detection range as far as possible.'
At my command, Suni unleashed a wide-area mana scan.
The intense mana waves rippled out, making the old man and Seolhwa flinch as if sensing something.
"W-What was that...?"
I couldn't help but be shocked by the info flooding my mind.
'What the hell? So many?'
Not just the numbers—the detected ranks were no joke.
'C-Rank and... B-Rank?!'
-Whoosh!
I shot up from my seat.
"W-What's wrong?!"
"H-Husband!?"
Ignoring their confusion, I bolted to the rooftop.
From there, I scanned the surroundings.
On the low building.
On the undeveloped empty lots.
On the roads.
Monster dogs were blatantly swarming everywhere in a wide perimeter.
'Surrounded?'
And in the middle, a massive black wolf-like monster stood out—a giant one the size of a four-story building.
Even at a glance, it screamed upper B-Rank Corrupted Being.
Five skill points worth, easy.
Flanking it were four C-Rank monster dogs.
"Th-The Black Wolf!?"
Seolhwa and the old man, who'd followed me, spotted the unmistakable giant from afar and cried out in shock.
........That thing's the Black Wolf?
"You held out against... that?"
No, you ran from that?
Did I misjudge the Celestial Sect's strength?
No matter how I sliced it, they couldn't have withstood even that one alone.
"B-Back when we fought it... it wasn't that big..."
Grandpa Sect Leader stared at the Black Wolf with trembling eyes, utterly flustered.
His earlier confidence about handling it themselves had vanished.
And it wasn't just him—four C-Ranks detected now.
Thirty-four D-Ranks.
'The Celestial Sect is screwed...'
No, this puts me in a bind too.
The kids were the real problem.
Damn, I thought the Celestial Sect was a solid breakwater, but it was a shitty one covered in crap.
A group that had shat itself all over Gyeryong Mountain and stunk up the place.
Standing next to them got me splashed with the fallout.
I needed to evacuate the kids, but there was nowhere safe.
Should've built an underground bunker if I'd known.
The thing's gaze was fixed right on us, like it knew exactly where we were.
'Or is it staring at the old man?'
Size aside, it did look like a black wolf.
I got why Grandpa kept harping on "Black Wolf."
-Awoooo~!
Suddenly, it let out a howl.
-Awoooo~! Awoooo~!
Its underlings joined in a cacophony.
'What, a declaration that we're fucked?'
Even amid the chaos, I racked my brain on what to do with the kids if they charged.
But contrary to my expectations, it just watched us for a while before vanishing with its pack.
"......?"
Puzzled by the behavior, Grandpa Sect Leader explained.
"He's cunning... Doesn't like his pack taking losses. Even back on Gyeryong Mountain, he never attacked head-on. He went after stragglers."
Maybe on Gyeryong their forces were evenly matched, but I doubted it.
It didn't know about me.
That black mutt could charge solo—without me, nothing could stop it.
With that level of smarts, it knew its forces overwhelmed us.
Yet it retreated to drag this out?
It wanted to torment us slow.
Petty thug.
'Chase it?'
I considered it briefly but gave up.
Still a B-Rank monster.
Prime skill point haul, but...
Too many minions,
and it didn't look like a quick kill.
Unlike monsters from my old world, this one seemed sly—prolong the fight, and it'd wear me down.
Not an easy catch.
"What now?"
I asked Grandpa Sect Leader.
His mortal enemy had turned out to be a monster, leaving him visibly stumped with no clear plan.
Couldn't run now even if he wanted.
Same for me.
Couldn't just bail.
Moving with the kids risked an ambush by those not-insignificant ranks—I couldn't protect them.
Tough call on the kids.
'Damned if I do, damned if I don't.'
No better option, so I decided to hole up with the kids at the Celestial Sect until this blew over.
Inconvenient, but unavoidable.
If I faced the Black Wolf,
the kids would be defenseless.
Seolhwa, Jia, Suji.
Those three topped out at one C-Rank in my book.
Too many enemies.
Sorry to the Celestial Sect folks, but they made a decent shield.
Once I moved in, Seolhwa must've put in a word— no hostile glares.
With so many of us, we picked a spacious four-story house, sorted spots for the kids, and settled in.
I also dismantled the save point from the school rooftop garden and set it up in the living room here.
"Uncle, don't you feel guilty slacking off? Chaeyoung and I are cleaning hard."
I saw the kids earnestly mopping, amateurishly.
Honestly, no guilt.
It's not like it'd break their arms.
I didn't even ask them to.
But I didn't say that.
"Ahem. Not slacking. Circulating mana for upcoming battles."
"R-Really?"
Lame excuse I pulled out of thin air, but Suji seemed to buy it reluctantly.
"Kyaaah~!!"
Then a sharp scream echoed through the apartment complex where the Celestial Sect lived.
I leaped down to the terrace and rushed out. Some auntie had collapsed, staring at something rolling on the ground.
Two distorted human heads, flown in from who-knows-where.
Bodies probably eaten by the monsters.
From the expressions, eaten alive.
Behavior straight out of a beast.
"Scouts we sent out..."
Grandpa Sect Leader said grimly.
Looked like Celestial Sect martial artists.
Rushed out in panic, probably.
Already short on manpower, losing two Awakeners hurt bad.
Since detection missed them, the Black Wolf's gang had the Celestial Sect blockaded over a wide area.