Auto Hunting

No. 178

A few moments after Yoo-seong and Lee Jae-hak had stepped inside the crack…

“Ugh!”

The observers at the Jongno-gu control center had begun yelling in panic.

“Director Yang Chang-guk!”

Yang Chang-guk, who was looking at the monitors, replied with a slightly trembling voice. “Yes… I can see it.”

Countless beasts were pouring from the crack that had just appeared, as if they had been waiting for the crack to open.

“Several Shantigas observed! No Prime has appeared yet, thank God…!”

“Gurkaga (★★★) and Meltarisks (★★★★★) are also appearing in large numbers. What is going on?!”

The creatures that had appeared were all exotic beasts. Like the Shantiga, which Yoo-seong encountered on his second hunt, these monsters did not usually appear in Korea.

Since the first Shantiga had appeared, the Korean hunters had learned how to deal with them, so it wouldn’t be that difficult this time. However, there was no precedent for them to appear in these large numbers all at once.

‘-It is not a natural phenomenon that caused them to appear in Korea.’

Yang Chang-guk recalled his talk with Yoo-seong a few days ago.

‘-Beasts who fight well have been imported from other regions to disturb our side.’

The master races inside the rift.

Yoo-seong had already told Yang Chang-guk the story about the old masters of the Earth. Which meant this enormous horde of alien monsters was…

“An ambush,” Yang Chang-guk muttered in a grave voice.

Was it just a coincidence? Or had Yoo-seong known the alien races would use this crack and so had decided to use this one to enter the world beyond?

“Aren’t we supposed to be putting hunters in right now? Director?!”

“…”

Yang Chang-guk looked at the monitor. According to the drone’s footage on the screens, Lee Jae-hak and Yoo-seong had already disappeared among the surging monsters. They must have pushed on against the massive wave, destroying the monsters directly in their way.

“Spread the situation to all hunters nearby right now! Low-level hunters should help evacuate civilians as far as possible from the blocking line; leave the gold or higher level hunters to reinforce the blocking line.”

“Blocking line… are we only sending the hunters to guard the blocking line?”

The employee who’d received the order had understandable worries. However, Yang Chang-guk’s authority had recently been made absolute.

At this, the other agents in the control room exchanged confused looks.

Can’t he see those monsters pouring out?

No firms or teams had been deployed to the crack’s center to stop the deluge.

With Lee Jae-hak and Oh Yoo-seong inside the crack, there was no hunter in Korea who could manage these monsters.

“Do it now!” Yang Chang-guk yelled, shocking the employees into action. “Don’t procrastinate, and spread the instructions! I’ll explain to you once the situation is over!”

Soon enough, it turned out that Yang Chang-guk wouldn’t need to add his explanation. Even before the agents had completed spreading the information, they understood why Yang Chang-guk hadn’t needed to deploy teams into the center.

***

Lee Jae-hak forcefully swung his arm in a horizontal direction.

Blah-!

A thick ice wall, about twenty meters long, immediately rose from his Psy of Freezing.

Lee Jae-hak was inside the crack, preventing monsters about to get out of it by freezing them.

“Yoo-seong!” he yelled out to his partner, who was sealing the crack with a needle. “One of us has to go out and stop the ones that escaped…”

“You don’t have to!” Yoo-seong yelled back over the roars of the beasts around them.

“But…!” Lee Jae-hak looked around him. Countless beasts were lined up before him; those in front had already been turned into ice. However, a significant number of monsters had already escaped the crack before he and Yoo-seong had been able to get in.

It wasn’t a number that either Lee Jae-hak or Oh Yoo-seong would have had difficulty dealing with, but it was a different story for other hunters.

“We can’t afford to do that!” Yoo-seong yelled again.

Through his Enhance tattoo, he could feel the total number of CE vessels around him. It was too many to count.

The master races must have been prepared for an all-out attack and sent all the beasts they could.

If either Lee Jae-hak or Oh Yoo-seong stepped outside, the crowds of beasts might use the opportunity to overwhelm the person left inside and pour into the streets of Jongno.

“Let’s do our job! We need to empty the cracks!”

“…”

After a moment, Lee Jae-hak nodded firmly.

It had only been a few days since he’d started hunting side by side with Yoo-seong. However, in that short period, they had recognized each other as partners in whom they could put their trust.

There must have been a reason for Yoo-seong to make that judgment.

Lee Jae-hak focused on the monsters flocking into the crack, covering Yoo-seong, who was sewing it closed. However…

Hooop-!

A monster swooped in at an incredible speed, flying over Lee Jae-hak in an instant. It was the superior species of the Shantiga.

Shantiga Prime (★★★★★★)

***

The streets of Jongno spread out before the beast’s eyes as soon as it passed the crack’s opening.

The strong smell of blood filled its senses.

It looked around before focusing on the ground it was falling toward.

‘Red.’

‘Red.’

‘Red.’

Blood and pieces of flesh had been scattered on the street, the scent and bright color stimulating the monster’s instinct.

The primal lust for flesh overpowered the simple triggers planted in its brain by the old masters, as well as the warning cries of the other beasts around it.

Its mind was blinded with a sole purpose, to swoop down and feast on the abundance of flesh.

Down below, a man was watching the Shantiga Prime diving at an incredible speed.

‘It looks too good to catch,’ the man thought and chuckled to himself.

It had been his spontaneous idea to scatter blood and flesh on the street. Fortunately, there was a big butcher restaurant nearby. As soon as he’d confirmed the type of monsters pouring out, the man had pulled all the meats from the store and placed them on the street.

Sure enough, the beasts had dived in, like flies to garbage.

Now, most of the meat and flesh on the streets was from those monsters he’d just slaughtered.

-Keeeeek?!

The Shantiga Prime hesitated in mid-air and perched on a building immediately.

What had made it hesitate was a small, weak-looking creature standing on two legs.

It was only a small amount of meat compared to the feast on the street, but…

Even to the brain of a hungry creature, it was shocking to see a man standing in mid-air.

“Hello,” the man said.

At the sight of such a small, weak-looking creature defying the physical laws of nature, the Shantiga Prime tilted its head, fascinated.

Then it realized something else: it was afraid.

The Shantiga Prime felt upset that this small creature had made it afraid.

It began to lash out in anger.

Quazzik-!

At the next moment, the beast jumped onto the hunter.

The superiority of the beast was obvious to anyone, yet it wasn’t a very smart decision on the beast’s part.

Somehow, its long and massive claws couldn’t reach the man, whose name was Sung-wook.

“Wow, it’s heavier than it looks,” Sung-wook remarked.

The confused Prime struggled and looked around. Just then, it saw something it hadn’t noticed during its bloodlust-filled free fall.

-Keek keek keek!

-Googgeuk!!

Countless monsters hung in the air, each trapped in some sort of invisible cobwebs. This was Aura in the form of long and thin threads, the basis of the Tech called Parasitic Bees.

It was spread out over the whole space, trapping the beasts.

“I got the idea of using it this way from Yoo-seong,” Sung-wook smiled.

He was the original owner of the Tech, but he hadn’t made it to be used this way.

Besides, Sung-wook’s web was clearly different from that of Meteor. The spider webs trapping the beasts over Jongno Street weren’t as tight as Yoo-seong’s. They were a little loose and allowed the monsters to move to some extent. Still, as the beasts struggled, they got more and more entangled in the web.

Instead of generating strong webs that rendered the monsters helpless in an instant, Sung-wook’s webs were designed to gradually tighten themselves around a struggling prey.

Unlike Yoo-seong, Sung-wook didn’t have CE that recharged itself constantly. Nevertheless, his greatest advantage was creativity. He was creative enough to have made his own Tech in a country that didn’t have any.

Two masterpieces had been born from his mind: the Spinnenschrift and the Thread Tech.

And right now, in the streets of Jongno where a monster ambush had been prepared, Sung-wook had found his comeback stage.

“Now, Shake!”

With a flick of his fingers, Sung-wook presented to the world the third Tech he had created.

A disturbance erupted in the air.

-Keek keek keek keek!

The Shantiga Prime shrieked in panic and confusion.

‘What is this pain it feels on its skin?’

‘Why is it losing sensation in its limbs?’

The same was true for the other monsters inside the spider web traps.

-Bzzzzzz-!

The thin threads contained super vibrations, which were breaking through the scales and shells of the monsters.

An unprecedented Tech to control the flow of Aura that made up the thread and turned it into vibrations.

Even while his core was broken, Sung-wook had held on to his ideas and studied them constantly. The Tech he had developed in the darkness had now come to light.

“Gaso!” Sung-wook sighed with satisfaction.

-Plok plok plok-!

The monsters, including the Shantiga Prime, now looked like meat after it had been through a grinder. Flesh and blood from the webs spattered onto the streets, and the threads stretched out again into position. Of course, even after that, there were still many beasts in the sky.

“I can’t miss a single one.” Sung-wook looked up.

The crack was now almost completely closed.

Behind the invisible walls of the alien world, Yoo-seong had to be fighting his own battle.

“This… this is the second chance I have been given.”

Two years ago, Sung-wook had passed on his CE to remove all his remaining regrets.

However, Yoo-seong had exceeded everything he had dreamed of.

“Now it’s my turn to live up to your expectations,” Sung-wook smiled.

He imagined Yoo-seong was looking back at him from beyond the crack.

“Come back. See you again soon.”