Chapter 8 - Bounty Hunt (3)

Bounty Hunt (3)

It appeared in the dark forest faster than Il-hyun thought it would.

Kagagak!

Balak swung its tail vigorously, and it scratched on the floor.

Caen!

Il-hyun’s sword bumped its tail. He flew backward with a heavy sound, rolling a few times before he stood up again.

“Okay!” he yelled.

Il-hyun frowned as he shook his hand.

A sharp shock traveled on his arm when he delivered his attack, his sword blocking the Balak’s tail.

The faces of ugly monsters appeared in front of him.

Two Balaks approached him slowly.

Once more, Il-hyun fixed his grip on his sword again.

His safety would’ve been a little bit assuring if he had a protective coat with him.

One mistake, and it could end his life.

However, Il-hyun and the others already devised some strategies based on the information they found about Balaks.

He remembered hunting the Forn—he shook his head and focused on not being noticed by the monsters, but he realized that it was too reckless.

After a short period of planning, Il-hyun decided to make the first move.

He knew the Balak mostly use their tails to attack. It was the Balak’s deadliest body part, and it narrowed down Il-hyun’s distance when it comes to blocking its attacks.

The tail lost its control, and he was able to avoid danger while drawing his distance closer.

Il-hyun lowered his posture to dodge two sharp, forked tails coming his way. Then, he ran toward the closest Balak and kicked its head.

Bright, red blood burst out from its skin as the monster trembled, then Il-hyun struck down his sword.

Caen!

But the Balak recovered immediately in a short amount of time despite getting stabbed.

Lifting its head, it removed the blade from itself.

The other monster’s tail flew on Il-hyun’s side. He barely dodged it, and it could’ve blown him away with unimaginable force.

He escapes it again, and the monster’s tail fell near his forehead.

Terrified, Ilhyun quickly took a step back, but the two monsters didn’t wait.

Il-hyun immediately narrowed his distance to the Balak. He felt pressured, not knowing when to attack them again.

He was in a difficult situation.

The speed was fast, and the power and strength were good.

Also, both breaths fit well with the monsters’ theme.

Even an E-class is much stronger than the previous Forn.

If he hadn’t absorbed the second Ether core yesterday, he wouldn’t be able to fight them properly, and he would surely die.

Of course, it’s a different story now.

Il-hyun felt hot as he got up on his two feet.

He looked at the area around Rang Kugu-gu, and it echoed. The ceiling above the monsters got carved out into a square.

A clump of concrete began falling over their heads.

The Balaks alarmingly noticed this. They tried avoiding it, but their movements were too slow.

This is because Il-hyun used the vines and transformed it like strings that looped around the monsters’ ankles.

His mind control felt far more delicate than it had before.

Kung!

A pile of concrete crushed the Balaks as the dust began to bloom all over the place.

Shortly after, the pile moved, and the two Balak popped out from underneath layers of concrete.

Their faces looked as if they were in shock, their bodies bloody, but they didn’t suffer any fatal injuries.

Il-hyun already expected it to happen, so he ran straight to them with his sword.

As soon as the Balaks attempted to run to where he is, he lifted the floor where the monster stood.

“Chat?”

Suddenly, his body was flipped over, and his bare feet struggled while he floated in the air.

Bouncing toward his direction, Il-hyun’s transformation ability shook the floor strongly where the monsters stood.

Thanks to that, both Balaks flew in complete disarray.

Il-hyun avoided the tail that went his way, and it struck down the other Balak instead. It wasn’t able to protect itself from the tail’s blow.

Even after eradicating its neck, the remaining torso struggled for a long time to lurch toward Il-hyun.

Only one monster left now.

The remaining Balak realized that the situation has become unfavorable. It began retreating.

That Balak had a stronger will to survive than any ordinary monsters would’ve. It chose to escape rather than attack the human in front of it.

The moment the Balak turned around and tried to run away, a huge wall unexpectedly blocked it.

“Where are you going?” Il-hyun said.

His eyes shone like a predator with its prey in front of him.

* * *

Pooh!

Il-hyun’s sword penetrated Balak’s chest.

The monster collapsed on the floor and stopped moving.

“Phew.”

Il-hyun palmed his knee while holding his breath. It’s only the second fight, and he felt incredibly skilled already.

Every time he fought, his body would heat up, his excitement rising when he’s in battle.

His predatory instinct was not only affecting his body but also his mind. But he couldn’t afford to think about it right now.

There are other important things ahead.

Il-hyun walked toward the Balak’s dead body.

Then, he took out two cores from it. He placed them on the floor, looking at it warmly.

Il-hyun wanted to absorb the core instantly, but then he tried to exercise his patience.

If he dared to absorb it right now, the crystal fragments would litter on all directions, and the government-side squad assigned for cleanup will find it strange.

It was not known that the Ether core could break by physical force.

There was no way other than to extract all the energy contained in it and make it disappear on its own.

He must never leave any trace that will get the government asking too many questions.

Il-hyun put the two cores in the bag and rearranged the distorted scene in front of him.

The raised floor was put in place again, and the walls and ceiling were restored.

When it was roughly finished, he looked at the crushed and curved swords all over the place used in fighting the Balaks.

It was a mess due to the corrosion of the monster’s toxicity.

Even if he tried to clean it, it seemed to him that it was too much to re-write.

Il-hyun threw the sword on the floor.

He didn’t forget to break it down finely so that no one would suspect anything odd.

“What should I do now?”

After finishing the cleanup, Il-hyun sat on the floor for a moment and thought.

It was a problem for the bounty with the monster killed here.

He was a little hesitant to contact a special security guard who took care of thieves.

“Yes, it’s better if you would just disappear.”

He kicked the monster’s body.

Anyway, he showed several people the way to this place.

After killing monsters, removing the Ether, and not receiving any compensation—it was still better to not buy more attention to himself.

He left no trace on the previous site, and so far, no one has noticed what has happened yet.

Il-hyun decided it was enough to leave this place without worrying.

“Where are you? Let’s go!”

It stuck its face. Il-hyun found the hidden mouse.

When the battle began, the man who fled from Burinake quickly entered the inner court’s pocket.

Il-hyun quickly dragged the bodies of two monsters and walked out of the sewer.

It was heavy and tiring, but it was too late to back down.

Less!

He opened the closed manhole cover, and Il-hyun escaped into the street.

When he jumped out from the ground, the eyes of citizens who weren’t familiar with English, stayed at him.

Soon after, he threw the corpse of the monster with one hand on the ground.

The people who saw it screamed and fled, and then the surrounding streets quickly became empty.

Il-hyun, who was watching the scene, remained silent.

“What a waste. If some middle schoolers had been hitting shit at this time, it would have been great,” he said.

Whether or not people looked at him, he contacted the police and brought another corpse up the ladder.

“Ugh!”

He looked disgusting as he came out from the manhole.

Even for a small flesh, the smell was evident, not to mention it was all over his body.

Fortunately, it hadn’t begun rotting that much yet, but after an hour or so, it will, and the stench will be unbearable.

“Oh, the stench is all over my body,” Il-hyun murmured while rubbing the monster’s blood off his clothes.

Then, he heard a clicking sound.

By reflex, he covered his face with one hand and looked back.

People who watched him from a distance started pulling out their cell phones.

Citizens did not get close even though they knew that the monster on the floor was already dead.

It’s appearance looked disgusting, and it was only natural to be scared of the monster.

However, most of them stopped on the way. They couldn’t take their eyes off of the monster while taking pictures.

“Wow, it’s my first time to see a monster.”

“It looks really disgusting.”

“Are the gates opened?”

People have heard the noise of the navy.

When he became an Awakener, he can clearly hear people’s thoughts.

“Why did the monster come out over there?”

“Oh, I see. They’re monsters that appeared in Il-yeon this time.”

“Then, the monsters that have disappeared are here? That’s really dangerous! Goose-goose!”

Everyone’s gaze started to feel uncomfortable.

“Whee! Profit!” One of them placed his hands in his mouth and whistled.

People cheered and applauded.

“Wow!”

“Cool!”

The drivers of the cars passing the noisy area also looked up to see what was going on.

“What…what?”

Il-hyun stared blankly around an unfamiliar sight.

It was his first time experiencing such a thing.

He had never been this praised in his life, let alone by strangers such as the crowd.

No, perhaps these ordinary people do, he thought.

“Haha…” Il-hyun laughed continuously at the cheering crowd.

But then, there’s the Ether and compensation.

He simply acted according to his greed, but the citizens of the streets were applauding him.

He was standing silently in the seat, and he felt like crying from the inside.

Amid the confusion, a police car arrived to save him.

“Are you the person who called us?”

“Yes, yes. There you are.”

When two police officers from the special police force got out of the car and asked Il-hyun what he called for, he pointed to the ground bodies.

The police officers’ faces brightened when they saw the stacked bodies of the monsters.

“I checked the bodies. They’re two Balaks!” the police officer exclaimed.

The other police officer sighed in relief. He bowed his head and expressed gratitude toward Il-hyun.

“Hyung, thank you. We caught them all. The other one was hiding in the water tank in an apartment, and I never thought the guy in Ilyeon-dong would be here.”

The last four police officers to arrive missed what had happened.

Il-hyun, who’s still raising one hand, wanted to get out of here quickly.

“Uh…Let’s have a seat first.”

* * *

Il-hyun checked his account at the ATM.

He confirmed that 8 million won had been deposited directly as compensation.

“If you include the money here, you can get a protective coat.”

The protective coat price was beyond his imagination, and most of the items started at 10 million won.

He needed it because of the value of his performance.

“The face…It doesn’t seem to sell.”

Il-hyun, who came out of the building, searched SNS with his cell phone.

The news of a monster that escaped Ilyeon-dong and was later caught wasn’t a big topic, but it still came up quite a bit.

He checked 3 hours ago, but fortunately, there was no picture of his face.

If his face was shown clearly, it would have been a major obstacle for the activities to come.

“By the way…”

Il-hyun sighed and sat down on a bench in the street. And he remembered what he had been doing.

After his first accidental absorption of the Ether to awaken his instincts, his nerves were all over the core.

When it comes to cores, he rushed back and forth to the point where it would seem irrational.

He did his second job dangerously, and he even indirectly stole it—but he’s convinced he didn’t do anything wrong.

He was possessed by something, even though he was proud that he had lived honestly ever since.

“There are time wherein people who are awakened wants to taste something good.”

Il-hyun shook his head because of the absurdity of his thoughts.

He didn’t feel anything strange.

He thought again of the meaning of the awakened people who had suddenly been forgotten by the citizens.

Monster hunter? A golden spoon with long life?

He looked down at his right hand that had already absorbed four ethers.

“Can I really use these powers this way?”

To be honest, he neither feels guilt nor sorry for the stolen awakened people.

While daydreaming, he recalled that he wanted to be an awakener, and the reason was that he had a great responsibility for humankind.