NOVEL NEXT Chapter 42
Sergeant Seong Dae-woon had never thought a person could be this massive.
‘Oh.’
It was more like a raging bull than a human, with muscles that made every sinew pop out like metal cables. The man, who I initially thought had a head that looked big, now had a belly that was ridiculously large. Muscles that seemed compressed to the extreme were now swelling up.
‘Just lifting it, huh?’
Even without swinging it, the pressure from the air made it hard to keep my eyes open. Finally, when the wind settled, I could see his absurdly stiff muscles. He was in a state of peak tension. Even a stranger could tell he was gathering strength. No, even the air around him felt different.
‘……!’
And finally, when the flow of air came to a standstill, the sergeant witnessed a mountain moving.
***
[Level 10 achievement conditions met]
[Experience has reached maximum. Lv.9 -> Lv.10]
‘My level went up?’
Although I had reached level 9, I hadn’t piled up experience to the limit. But how?
‘Oh.’
Come to think of it, I had seen the same message before it became the Awakening Evil. The chimera trait seemed to remain unchanged, although now it was something I could barely understand.
‘…I see.’
At that moment, my health was restored. Just barely, I managed to leap over the wall of flesh and land on the ground. The hand of Hunter Jeon Woo-taek was thrusting outwards, having cleared a path for me with the wind from his punch.
‘And probably.’
It was likely because of Hong Yu-ri. Jeon Woo-taek locked eyes with me, confirming that I was with her.
‘You want her to be handed over.’
In truth, I was still mulling it over.
Like it or not, being threatened by a person, not a monster or animal… felt really awful.
Especially considering that I was doing all this for them in the grand scheme of things.
‘That first time.’
It had been Hong Yu-ri. I had mistakenly thought I was fighting against Euna and the monstrous wolf. —It was just the situation at hand.
So that might be why. I felt betrayal for no reason. The unfairness I felt despite being a monster was just a baseless insistence. Hong Yu-ri was just doing her job.
‘I get it.’
Still, feeling and understanding are different.
Some might call it a small fry mentality, but… in fact, I was still deep in thought.
‘If I devour Hong Yu-ri.’
I could maybe jump straight to level 20. No, I’m sure I could.
‘And.’
If I could take down even the battered Jeon Woo-taek, it might be possible to evolve next…
[……]
Feeling someone’s anxious gaze upon me, I inwardly chuckled.
‘Impossible.’
Any attempts to do that would surely lead to destruction. As Hong Yu-ri, who was covered with my tentacles, became visible, Jeon Woo-taek’s gaze became fixated.
“…….”
At first glance, his gaze seemed calm, but he couldn’t completely hide a flicker of anxiety. It seemed he was worried about the bleeding Hong Yu-ri. Gu Jin-ha had wrapped her up in cloth, but she was shaking a lot, so her condition was probably not great.
‘That’s not my concern.’
As I set Hong Yu-ri down, Jeon Woo-taek quickly scooped her up.
‘If things go well, she might die.’
Jeon Woo-taek gave me a strange look. He seemed to ponder whether he should kill me or not, calculating whether he could take me out in his current state and if he had the time to do it. Then he ultimately turned away.
‘…So, you’re prioritizing saving Hong Yu-ri.’
It was a sound decision. And above all…
‘Kang Tae-ho.’
The enormous battle hammer looked tiny in his hands like a mere tool. The muscles, compressed to their limits, seemed ready to burst free when Jeon Woo-taek flinched and ran away.
Kang Tae-ho hadn’t done anything yet, but the gaze of the Awakening Evil was locked onto the giant.
‘I see.’
It seemed he was chasing those who posed a threat to himself—this meant he considered Kang Tae-ho, who could kill him right now, more dangerous than the nearly lifeless Hong Yu-ri. I couldn’t be sure if there were other reasons, but that was all I could deduce.
‘……’
Spears, tentacles, whips, bombs. And sheer size that was violence incarnate. The Awakening Evil tried to use everything it had to stop the giant. But they all lost meaning just before they could connect.
“Grrrr, grrrk!”
Even with claws buried deep in the ground, it felt like he was pushed back several dozen centimeters. The hammer he swung with all his might created a typhoon.
‘Incredible…’
He might be the strongest among all the hunters when it came to sheer strength alone. The moment Kang Tae-ho’s hammer struck the Awakening Evil, it fell over.
‘It fell over?’
A hollow laugh escaped me. To exaggerate a bit, it was as if a small mountain had just moved with that one strike against the Awakening Evil.
What an absurd show of strength. Yet even the giant, Kang Tae-ho, looked disappointed as if he had tasted something bland.
“S-sorry. The hammer broke… hm? Why are you there?”
As he handed the hammer to the bewildered sergeant who had been blown away by the wind pressure, he received the broken weapon with a blank expression.
Wasn’t a hammer supposed to be something that breaks?
“Ah, no. I’m fine with that.”
The sergeant’s mouth closed when he asked if he was okay without a weapon. The giant reached into thin air and produced an absurdly large greatsword from somewhere. It was closer to a siege weapon than a sword! It was a massive iron chunk, easily more than 2 meters long.
‘Patheos Sword.’
It felt shameful to even call it a sword, but that blade earned the nickname that silenced all swordsmen (剑公) by representing their weapons and no one could refute that.
“Step back. It’s dangerous if you get caught up in this.”
At Kang Tae-ho’s warning, the sergeant stepped back. And finally, when he swung the ridiculous sword, the Awakening Evil—did it split?
‘I struggled to sever even a single tentacle…?’
The split Awakening Evil was relentlessly beaten by the Patheos Sword without giving it a moment to regenerate. The terrain altered with every swing, the ground cracked.
‘Is this what a human can do?’
Escaping was difficult, yet Kang Tae-ho pressed forward without allowing it a single counterattack. I was mesmerized by the surreal scene and suddenly snapped out of it.
‘I have my own tasks to do.’
Activating C-grade Stealth, the sergeant started to look around. He couldn’t find where I had suddenly disappeared to.
‘Oh, got it.’
It seemed to work on the knight but maybe not on stronger hunters. He would wonder how I vanished in the instant he turned his head.
I slipped away from that spot and dashed back into the woods. As I retraced the path I had taken while escaping with Hong Yu-ri, I realized I had covered quite a bit of distance. Finally, I reached the end of the trail, where I had lost Gu Jin-ha.
‘Of course, it’s still here.’
[You have consumed the Swamp Dragon. Experience and fullness have increased.]
[Your Food Craving (D) Lv.3 has reached maximum. Food Craving (D) Lv.3 -> Food Craving (D) Lv.4]
[Experience has reached the maximum…]
‘Whew.’
I quickly dismissed the message.
The Swamp Dragon was a monster stronger than Aranea. I could confidently say that taking one down now would be impossible. I shot up from level 10 to level 14 thanks to over 60,000 experience points filled four times. I had almost gained around 300,000 experience in one go.
‘…Ahem.’
Gu Jin-ha did the hard work while I soaked up the benefits.
And there were still things to eat left. Horribly contaminated corpses were scattered about. Monsters who met their unjust end because of the Awakening Evil. It was utterly impossible to think about consuming them because they were completely contaminated, but not for me.
‘Because of the Evil Eating.’
Being able to eat without discrimination meant just that.
[Weak Poison Resistance (F) Lv.9 has reached maximum. Weak Poison Resistance (F) Lv.9 -> Weak Poison Resistance (F) Lv.10]
[Weak Poison Resistance (F) Lv.10 has reached maximum level. Weak Poison Resistance (F) Lv.10 -> Weak Poison Resistance (E) Lv.1]
The poison resistance I had since my Slime days finally rose to E-grade.
‘Ahem.’
Even in this dizzy state, my mouth kept twitching.
***
“…Running away?”
The sergeant muttered, dazed. The flesh monster… was it running away?
“Ah, how annoying.”
The giant shouldering the Patheos Sword frowned. The sluggish flesh monster was spitting something out. Spitting… what on earth?
‘Not spitting, then.’
It was dividing, separating. No, to be precise, it was splitting.
“Tsk. What a waste.”
With another swing of the Patheos Sword, most of the separated flesh was swept away. However, he didn’t manage to deal with all of it. Although it had significantly reduced, a chunk of flesh still stood in his way as big as a building.
“Hmm.”
Even so, it wouldn’t take him more than five minutes to finish it off. With that calculation done in his head, the giant turned to the sergeant.
“That should be fine. Can you chase it?”
As he threw a potion he had, the bewildered sergeant drank it and nodded.
“…Leave it to me. I’ll catch it no matter what.”
“Take it easy. Just take it easy.”
To the giant, those smaller pieces had mostly lost their abilities, so it shouldn’t be a hard task.
‘Where could Seong-hoon be, I wonder.’
While swinging the Patheos Sword, the giant recalled the hunter who had come to wake him up.
—I think he said something like it was fascinating to see a special wolf and wanted to take him along…
“Well, he can do as he likes.”
He could just make sure to quickly kill the creature if he really got too worried.
***
[Dungeon Horror (Skull Wolf) Lv.17] [EXP 62584 / 96238]
[Up 0.06%]
[Body Length 2.21m] [Height 94.9cm] [Weight 141kg]
[Strength 183] [Agility 204] [Stamina 262] [Magic Power 180] [Endurance 4]
‘Great. This exceeds my expectations.’
Just in pure stats alone, I could now match up against a C-class hunter. Considering the synergy from my skills, I was confident I wouldn’t fall behind even if I fought Aranea one-on-one. Although the Awakening Evil was giving me a headache, the leftovers it left behind were making me even stronger.
‘If I could just consume those…?’
When I turned my attention to the remaining prey, I spotted something devouring them. Something… or more accurately, a small black mass. It was grotesquely gobbling up the contaminated corpses it had killed.
‘No way?’
As expected, a check through my Insight showed it was the Awakening Evil.
[Destruction probability 99.84% -> 99.8%]
[You gain 0.04% worth of EXP]
‘0.04%?’
There was only one possible reason for the destruction probability to drop suddenly. It meant Kang Tae-ho had killed the Awakening Evil. Given that, the 0.04% gained felt far too little, leading to a frown.
‘Ah.’
If I hadn’t pursued it, Gu Ma-jun wouldn’t have had to consume the [Incomplete Product of Collateral]. In other words, this was something that wouldn’t have happened originally. The system only calculated causality based on the fact that ‘Gu Ma-jun died.’
‘…Then does that mean those remnants can’t revert back to the Awakening Evil?’
Good prey. The remnants of the Awakening Evil that had completely rotted away.
“Grrr—!”
As I bared my teeth, they charged at me. Even in that form, they seemed to have some sight and hearing. I was genuinely looking forward to how much experience they would yield.
‘No fear.’
Having run away from Kang Tae-ho, did they think they could differentiate between people? Each chunk of flesh was roughly the size of a raccoon, with stats on par with a kobold. Although their abilities were surprisingly high compared to their size.
[You consumed —. Experience and fullness have increased]
There was no way I could lose. They couldn’t even lay a finger on me without any special actions; they were mercilessly shredded. The remnants of the Awakening Evil were simply reduced to pulp, unable to act anymore.
‘Tasty.’
Each provided 1,000… from my senses, there were about 30 of them, so when I finished eating, I could probably jump to level 18.
‘I think I’m starting to understand Food Craving now.’
At first, I had no idea what it was about, but now that I’d become a living being, I understood.
‘Always staying hungry means.’
It meant I could constantly consume something. While I wasn’t suffering from hunger pains, what a remarkable skill it was. It had been useless in its formless state.
‘It’s still a pity to have left the formlessness behind.’
Every time I consumed something with Evil Eating, it seemed my Poison Resistance skill rose as well. It didn’t completely block the poisons with Weak Poison Resistance, but it wouldn’t be a problem since it would recover soon—until that time, there was a problem. As I battled dizziness, something pierced through me.
‘…What just happened?’
It was a magic-filled arrow that had flown from somewhere. The arrow pierced through the windstorm, wreaking havoc within me. If I had no damage reduction, this wouldn’t have ended here. It could’ve been a situation where I randomly died from a shot without even knowing.
‘Is there someone using arrows in the temple?’
No, there wasn’t. As far as I knew, it was rare for anyone associated with the temple to use arrows. This meant,
‘The Dawn.’
It indicated they were from the Dawn faction. I couldn’t definitively say there weren’t other clans that had entered the dungeon, but it was unlikely they would have let many in while the temple was delegated.
‘Who from the Dawn could be using a bow?’
Too many to recall. One thing was certain: I definitely didn’t want to fight them. I had enough confidence in myself—so they must have started a fight.
‘…Let’s back off.’
Minimum B-class. They could even be A-class. I immediately activated Stealth, but even so, arrows came flying.
‘Damn.’
I narrowly avoided it; it was pure luck. If the black mass in front of me hadn’t been the one hit first and exploded, I would’ve been hit without having seen it coming.
Stealth wasn’t an omnipotent solution. Just because I was hidden didn’t mean I was out of the opponent’s awareness. If they hadn’t caught sight of me from the start, it would have been a different story, but after the attack, they undeniably knew I was there.
‘…So even being able to see through C-grade Stealth is still impressive.’
It was as if they had the eyes of an archer. The direction from where the arrow came had broken tree trunks strewn about, and beyond that, I sensed a presence.
‘Approximately 2km. Did they just take a shot from that distance?’
Even running properly, it would take at least 30 seconds to cover that distance. Thinking of getting sniped in that time made the odds look slim. Besides, just because I got close wouldn’t guarantee a victory against an archer. Just as I was about to retreat, the knight in the white helmet blocked my way.
‘Damn.’
“Ugh….”
The knight, who seemed to be pondering for a moment, soon raised his mace. Well, he couldn’t help but be someone who stood against the Awakening Evil… then again, it wouldn’t matter to the temple whether he did.
Yeah, I had no expectations.
‘If I were alone, it wouldn’t have been a problem.’
Back when I first met him in the dungeon, fighting the knight could’ve been tough. But now, it was different. I was confident I could kill or subdue him within a minute.
‘The problem is the sniper. The archer.’
The archer seemed to think the knight couldn’t bind my feet on his own and was getting closer.
As quickly as possible, I tried to shove the knight aside and escape—the fact that the archer got this close meant he definitely had confidence he could beat me even if I revealed myself. Immediately dashing with the gust of wind, the knight blocked my path, swinging his mace.
Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have been able to block me at all. But I had not yet recovered from the initial damage of the shot. Healing aside, recovering from the injury to my insides wouldn’t be easy. While being swept in the wind, I bit down on the knight’s leg. As I sunk my teeth into the torn armor, he let out a pained scream.
‘Good.’
It seemed I wasn’t the only one who was low on health. I toppled the sergeant, and the remnants of the Awakening Evil charged at him to consume him. While the knight squirmed, an arrow flew in to save him.
‘Done. Just as expected.’
I had predicted that saving the knight would take priority over hunting me. My prediction came true, and I thought I could escape—just when I thought that, a graver despair blocked my way.
“It must not have been easy to catch Seong-hoon… it seems like Team 3 missed something.”
‘……!’
When the system informed me of a change in the destruction probability, I should have taken that as a warning.
Why didn’t I think more? Why didn’t I leave immediately? It was a belated regret.
‘Damn… I should’ve bolted.’
The giant with the Patheos Sword—looked nothing less than absolute despair.