Tales of the Labyrinth

Translated by: il0vecats

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Chapter 8: Confrontation at the Lake

After spending the night in his makeshift shelter, Hwanin left at first light and headed back towards the large lake, carefully disguising the entrance to his shelter with branches and brush. Having discovered a shoreline that seemed like a perfect base, it was important to secure it properly.

‘It makes no sense.’

The previous day at the lake, despite staying for over three hours and cooking meals, no monsters had shown up. Ordinarily, the smell would have certainly attracted them.

‘Not a single one.’

He had the emergency ration as a warning system, and no monster appeared during the entire time. It was puzzling. The lake undoubtedly hosted its share of creatures.

Possibly, the expanse of the lake meant monsters missed him, or—

‘It could be that the creatures avoided it due to toxins.’

Nonetheless, his body felt stronger after having seafood, possibly indicating a nutritional boost.

“…”

It nagged at him. Deciding to play it safe, he resolved to only eat jade crabs and bivalves in dire hunger.

Mulling over various scenarios and actions, Hwanin took a different route today, fortuitously discovering a corona berry bush laden with ripe fruits. Unharvested, it provided him with 21 ripe berries.

Six of the coin-sized corona berries could fend off hunger, proving sufficient for a day’s sustenance if managed correctly.

Quack. Quack. Quack-quack. Quack!

Suddenly, hearing the stage-one alarm from his emergency ration, Hwanin grasped the bird’s beak with his hand to silence it.

Squeak…

Without a sound, Hwanin drew his black club from his hip and crouched, quieting his breathing.

Silence enveloped the jungle as Hwanin listened keenly to detect any movement.

Corona berry bushes typically grow parasitically on larger trees, offering some cover. He needn’t worry about threats directly across.

Rustle. Rustle.

As he tuned focus, 30 meters from his rear-right, he heard a disturbance in the undergrowth.

Hunkering behind the tree with the corona berries, Hwanin silently maneuvered his smartphone to reflect the direction of the noise. The screen, black and reflective, revealed an unfamiliar creature stumbling through the thicket, making congested grunting sounds.

Grurgh. Grurgh…

About 1.7 meters tall, its body was disproportionately long compared to its short legs, but its arms were 1.5 times that of a human’s, muscular like boulders with defined pecs and biceps, and a protruding belly reminiscent of a grotesque ghoul.

Brown leather-clad its waist, obscuring its legs. Nevertheless, its ankle and thigh bulked thick, suggestive of impressive strength.

Overall, it seemed like a hairless gorilla, bizarrely malformed.

The creature’s visage was ghastly, swollen from numerous injuries, with shredded lips revealing yellow teeth and a mutilated snout baring its dentists’ worst nightmare.

Grurrgh…

It was weakened, evident by the cuts streaming blood and visibly fatigued respiration. Its staggered step indicated severe exhaustion.

‘Was it in a fight?’

Patiently waiting for others to emerge, Hwanin inferred from its wounds—a series of scratches and a deep bite mark on its left leg.

‘It was attacked by the beast-headed monsters and possibly the green monsters too.’

Grurgh…

Sensing the coronavirus berry bush, the gray monster approached Hwanin’s hiding spot. Assessing whether to engage or withdraw, Hwanin shifted his grip from the black club to the stone axe and unshouldered the rations.

Though it was conceivable that some creatures might be non-hostile, Hwanin’s instincts screamed otherwise—this monster was a predator.

‘5… 4… 3…’

Counting down from ten while tracking the gray monster’s steps, Hwanin sprang as he reached one, flinging the emergency ration to the creature’s left.

Quack!?

Gruuh?

Turning towards the sound, the gray monster reached out to grab the bird as it squawked and flew in a parabolic arc. In that split second—

Thunk!

Craaaahk!!

Seizing the moment, Hwanin struck the monster’s spine with the stone axe, penetrating three fingers deep but failing to shatter the bone despite his full strength.

“Well.”

Stepping back quickly, Hwanin realized the axe was lodged in the monster’s muscle, refusing to budge. Adjusting his plan abruptly, he switched to the black club.

Kuwahhh!!

Detecting the approaching swipe of the gray monster’s massive fist, Hwanin leapt back, narrowly escaping the blow. The sweeping arc of the creature’s punch whistled past him.

His heart raced with exhilaration; a fight against such a formidable foe was unlike anything experienced before. The gray monster was of similar height but had a doubled width.

Getting hit was not an option. Despite this, Hwanin’s lips curled into a chilling smile.

Kuwarrghh!!

Red-rimmed eyes wild with rage, the monster lunged with arms wide, combining its hideous visage and ferocity, creating a hellish presence. Hwanin, unfazed, focused entirely on the task at hand.

Dodging the wild swings meticulously, he analyzed its movements—its joints, visibly constrained by its dense muscular build, along with its straight-line lunges leveraged by its overwhelming strength.

If it’s enraged, its movements could still harbor threats—

Thump. Thump.

The monster pounded the ground in frustration before fixing its gaze, eyes brimming with killing intent, on Hwanin.

“…!”

Adopting a quadrupedal stance, the monster’s limbs formed, ready to charge at heightened speed and stability, posing a more direct threat.

Hwanin swiftly undid the arm buckle of the wooden shield, watching for the monster’s move.

With a spring-like coil, the monster lunged, and Hwanin hurled the shield at its face, dodging left. Striking its face, the shield halted the beast, triggering an enraged roar as it sensed something in its eyes.

Kwwaaahh!!

‘This pesky creature!’ Its cries seemed to say. Despite bloodshot eyes, it turned to find Hwanin—

Thunk!

The impact on its back was jarring but not painful—just a disturbance spreading from an entry at the spine. Hwanin’s follow-up axe blow made the monster’s legs wobble.

There was an effect.

“Hup!”

Quuwh??

Abandoning the embedded axe, Hwanin drew back and swung the black club at the beast’s shoulder with vigorous strikes, revealing bones and spraying blood with each hit.

Two sequential strokes aimed at its shoulder crippled the right arm, causing the monster’s arm to flail like a broken twig. A spray of arterial blood punctuated the severed veins.

Undeterred, Hwanin methodically dismantled the monster, neutralizing its limbs one by one.

Whack! Whack! Whack!!

“Stubborn beast!”

Crack!

Krgahhh!!

With each crushing strike, the beast’s powerful yet defenseless figure finally fell to the ground. Hwanin, panting, shifted to the black club and circled to its head amidst the writhing form.

Kwuuarrgh!!

“Withstanding agony even now, huh?” Hwanin muttered, admiring the creature’s tenacity before unleashing relentless blows upon its skull, hammering away as though driven by some unending fury.

Thud. Crack! Thwack! Crack!

Thunk.

Only after the sixth devastating blow did the gray monster’s head finally give in, ceasing all movement with a sickening crunch.

“Huff, huff. Huff. Ha… hahaha.”

Panting heavily, the adrenaline and thrill of battle now thoroughly washed away, Hwanin found himself laughing aloud.

The fight was surprisingly one-sided, due to the success of his ambush. Although the gray monster recklessly resisted, its body painfully betrayed it. It would flinch and pause at every harsh movement, and after several attacks, it even panted heavily with exhaustion.

Even so, it took considerable effort to kill the gray monster. Despite repeatedly crushing its head with the black club, it took six brutal strikes to put it down. The vibrations from smashing its spine weren’t exactly encouraging either, not to mention the arm bones that only splintered after numerous strikes with the stone axe.

Though he hadn’t experienced it firsthand, he assumed the strength the creature could exert must be near-supernatural.

Strong, durable, and tenacious—this beast was a far cry from the cowardly, fleeing green and beast-headed monsters.

Thinking back to the moment it accelerated towards him, coupled with the running speeds shown by silverback gorillas on Earth, Hwanin mused over the impossibility of trying to outrun such a monster.

Imagining these monsters in packs deepened his sense of gloom.

“…”

Quack.

Recalling himself to the present, Hwanin walked over to retrieve the emergency ration bird that blinked back at him.

The bird’s position gave away a sight: his thrown wooden shield, carelessly discarded by the gray monster’s frantic movements, now lay compromised. A slight shake was all it took to confirm this; the shield’s frame collapsed into pieces.

After numerous battles over five days, the fact that the shield lasted this long was miraculous.

“I’ll need to make a new one,” he noted, though planning to first head back to the lake.

As he turned to leave, a shiver ran down his spine, prompting him to look back.

The once quiet path from which the gray monster emerged was now alive with activity.

Kikk—

Kit? Kiaak. Kikikik.

Emerging from the thicket were eight small but armed green-skinned creatures, each laughing and brandishing weapons.

“…”

Unlike the previously half-naked green monsters, these were garbed in leather reinforced with wood and carried shields akin to the one Hwanin had constructed.

Notably—

“They’re armed with bladed weapons.”

Three of the eight had rusted blades—a broken sword, a heavily scratched shortsword, and a rusted spear tied to a wooden pole.

Even those without bladed weapons wielded dark cudgels or clubs with spikes.

“Elite green skins, huh?”

He muttered as he studied the well-armed monsters, realizing the gravity of his situation.

Fighting the gray monster to exhaustion, losing his shield, and now facing eight armed and almost mocking green monsters, his breath remained heavy, and his heart still pounded irregularly.

Facing these armed monsters in such a state?

Kekekeke!

Kyaakakaka!

Upon seeing the green monsters laughing mockingly and hopping in place, Hwanin deduced with bitter clarity:

“They watched me fight the gray monster.”

Kyikikik!

Confirming his suspicion was an eerie laughter from behind the monsters. At this, the frontline monsters parted, revealing a green monster wielding a strangely twisted staff, swaggering forth with exaggerated steps.

Kugyaa! Kerrk! Kyakakaka!

Performing strange gestures with its staff, stomping the ground rhythmically, this unique monster seemed surrounded by an aura, barely visible but present, which sent chills down Hwanin’s spine.

The eerie feeling, goosebumps rising, Hwanin sense greater danger from the staff-bearing green monster than the gray monster.

Throwing the bird as bait wouldn’t…

Useless here.

Should I use that?

…No, they’re too spread out. I’d need at least three.

Watching the staff-wielder keenly, Hwanin steeled his resolve, gripping both his stone axe and black club tightly.

Despite their equipment, they were still green monsters. Their shorter legs and burdened by gear meant they couldn’t match his speed.

The staff-wielder’s lax stance spoke volumes of its overconfidence.

“Hup!”

Kyik?

Kiik!

Pretending to launch a surprise attack, Hwanin’s exaggerated movement caused the staff-wielder and the other seven to flinch visibly.

…Kyik?

Kyy?

Kreh?

What…?

Attacking, right??

Why run away??

Catching sight of their vulnerability, Hwanin darted into the underbrush, vanishing swiftly.

Had the green monsters been dumber, they’d instinctively chased after him. However, their middling intelligence left them dithering stupidly.

Kyii! Krrrrak!

The furious staff-wielder spurred them on with enraged cries, stampeding at Hwanin’s trail.

Grumbling, the frustrated staff-wielder clutched its weapon, teeth grinding from the humiliation of allowing an escape.

Daring to make me fear! Not that I did, but still!

Suppressing complex emotions ill-suited for their grasp, the leader’s face turned red with vehemence.

Kkrr…

Raising its staff high, the creature began tracing slow, deliberate circles in the air.

That weird figure would face a severe reckoning…

Kikekik… Kgurgh…

As the chants grew rhythmic, a dull, white light coalesced around the staff. Seven faint lights circled the staff, drawing visible but significant energy.

The sole creature capable of harnessing such power, a privilege, and curse, now ready for its methodical retribution, set forth with astounding speed, doubling that of its fleeing comrades.