What the hell was going on?
Even with every second counting, I blanked out for a moment before finally managing to speak.
“W-Wait a second, Cheongpung.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life! Grandfather was right—the world really is vast! I’m so glad I left Huashan!”
“Yes, the world is vast, but that has absolutely nothing to do with—”
“Whoa! It moved again!”
“……”
He wasn’t listening to a word I said.
I’d known for a long time that Cheongpung was a little unhinged, but I’d never imagined he was this far gone.
What kind of person is this?
Even a veteran Hunter who encountered monsters more often than his own parents would naturally feel fear upon facing a supermassive monster of that size.
But Cheongpung wasn’t merely unaffected by Fear. He was practically beside himself with excitement.
I had underestimated him without realizing it. He wasn’t a little crazy. He was thoroughly insane.
Still, this is much better than having him tremble like the others.
He was different from ordinary people from the very beginning. The fear of the unknown—of an existence no one had ever seen or heard of before—did not apply to Cheongpung.
Because that bastard found everything new and exciting.
Point a gun at a baby who doesn’t even know what a gun is, and it’ll just smile because the thing looks interesting.
I’d stake Hyuk Mujin’s balls on it: even if you turned the entire world upside down and shook it out, Cheongpung would be the only martial artist in all of Murim capable of reacting this way to such an enormous monster.
…Yeah. This is much better.
Gung Gibang and Hyuk Mujin were still half out of their minds.
When we needed every hand we could get, having Cheongpung unaffected by Fear was a tremendous help.
I grabbed Cheongpung by the shoulder as he stared with glittering eyes, looking back and forth between the cowering Mimi-chan1 and the Mutated Water God Dragon.
“Staring at it like that won’t make it evolve, so snap out of it. Protect the boatman and the Dongting Fisherman first.”
“What about you, Benefactor?”
“I need to get those two back to their senses first.”
Before I’d even finished speaking, I raced forward and slapped Gung Gibang and Hyuk Mujin across the face.
Smack! Smack!
Two bodies went tumbling away with a pair of satisfyingly meaty cracks.
The two men flailed like people waking from nightmares, then looked up at me with unsteady eyes.
“Gasp—cough.”
“C-Captain.”
I’d put a fair amount of strength into those slaps.
The blows must have split the insides of their mouths, because blood streamed between their parted lips. But Gung Gibang and Hyuk Mujin didn’t even have the presence of mind to feel the pain.
“I thought it was a dream. Why am I still seeing things?”
“W-What is that?”
Even if my help had pulled them out of Fear’s grip, it couldn’t erase the primal fear inherent in every human being.
As the two men stared blankly over my shoulder, a low, deep roar shook the air.
—Kraaaaaaah!
Damn it. I didn’t need to turn around to know the enormous monster was furious.
Or what was making that terrifying sound as it tore through the air toward us.
“Cheongpung!”
I shouted as I grabbed Gung Gibang and Hyuk Mujin by the backs of their necks and threw myself aside.
At the same instant, something enormous slammed into the spot where we’d been standing.
Whoooooosh—crash!
Sand and mud erupted with a deafening boom.
The object that had missed us by only a few steps was a jagged boulder nearly one jang2 tall.
…It threw that all the way here?
The boulder must have weighed several thousand geun3 at least, yet it had been hurled from far away.
Its strength was terrifying, but its aim was accurate, too. If I hadn’t moved quickly, I would have been crushed to death on the spot.
Look at that control. Did it pitch in the majors?
As I stared at the monster in horror, a familiar notification pierced my ears beneath its enraged roar.
Ding.
System
A sudden Quest, Corrupted Spiritual Creature, has been generated.
You cannot refuse the Quest. The Quest has been forcibly accepted!
Logout is unavailable while the Quest is in progress!
Quest
Corrupted Spiritual Creature
For many years, this noble being waited to ascend from the depths of the river. But an unknown power corrupted it.
The spiritual creature that once possessed a brilliant intellect and a beautiful form has become a hideous evil creature. Because of the countless deaths it has caused, it will never again regain its former appearance.
And now, you must stop this unfortunate yet powerful evil creature.
Dispel the dark clouds hanging over Hubei Province!
Grade: Supreme Peak
Restriction: Jin Taekyung
Objective: Defeat the Mutated Water God Dragon (Incomplete)
Reward: Linked Quest
Vast EXP and Fame
???
Failure: Death or an equivalent penalty
I scanned the Quest window at lightning speed. My assessment was short and simple.
“…What a load of crap.”
It was the worst Quest imaginable for the worst possible situation.
First, the Quest had been forcibly accepted. Then Logout had been disabled. On top of that, the System had nailed the door shut so I couldn’t even run if things went badly.
Either I killed that enormous monster or I died here.
The System was demanding that I choose one of those two options.
And it says death or an equivalent penalty. What the hell kind of penalty is that supposed to be?
I didn’t even want to think about it. No—to be precise, I wasn’t given another moment to think.
Boom! Whoooooosh!
The next instant, I saw it.
Beyond the semitransparent holographic window, a distant cliff collapsed. Dozens of black dots filled the sky high overhead, plummeting toward us like meteors.
Faced with that incredible sight, Hyuk Mujin and Gung Gibang muttered blankly.
“Are those stars? Yeah. They must be stars.”
“They’re too dark to be stars. And they’re getting closer.”
“Stars are all like that these days.”
“Come to think of it, that’s true. Captain, you always tell me to throw away my preconceptions, but……”
“You two crazy bastards!”
Grab—whoooooosh!
I seized the two men, who still hadn’t come to their senses and were spouting nonsense, and threw myself aside.
Cheongpung was already moving too, with the Dongting Fisherman—who had passed out again after delivering his warning—tucked under one arm and the old boatman under the other.
“Benefactor! They’re big! And there are lots of them!”
His language skills were on an elementary-school level, but that was more than enough to understand what he meant. Even I could see that there were far too many of those bizarre boulders falling toward us.
They would blanket every inch of the narrow patch of ground beneath us—and then some.
Whoooooosh!
Damn it. There was nowhere to dodge.
As I threw the two men behind me, I recited the activation command in my mind.
Open Inventory. Summon.
White Flame appeared in my hand just as the shadow of an enormous boulder fell over me.
Without hesitation, I drew up every bit of internal energy in my body and swept the spearhead through the air.
Shh-shh-shh-shing!
Blue-white Force erupted from the spearhead and tore through the air.
It shot toward the jagged boulders that had spent countless ages accumulating sediment and weathering as part of the cliff.
Split.
Schk!
Force was a concentrated manifestation of energy capable of cutting steel like soft tofu. The bizarre boulders caught in the arc traced by my spearhead broke into pieces and began to fall.
Boom!
Sand and river water surged upward with a boom that shook the ground.
Amid the shrill screams of Hyuk Mujin and Gung Gibang, I saw Cheongpung escape the same way I had.
However…
Crack!
Damn it. I forgot about that.
My stomach twisted at the sight of the ferryboat’s shattered remains. It had been smashed so thoroughly that not a trace of its original shape remained.
If the old boatman had been awake to see what had happened to his boat, he might have fainted.
If we stay here, we’ll be nothing but targets. I need to use the wreckage to move us, at least for now—
Before I could finish the thought, my body suddenly locked up.
In my brief glance across the water, something that should have been there was missing.
The enormous creature that had towered amid the raging river and flashing lightning had vanished without a trace.
This is—
A red alert blared through my mind.
My eyes flew wide, and I screamed a warning.
“It’s coming!”
And in the next instant—
Kwaaaaaaah!
A wall of water more than ten jang2 high surged into the air, and a body far darker and larger than the jagged boulders blotted out the blackened sky.
A familiar face—mine—was reflected in its long, vertical, blood-red pupils.
—Grrrrrrrr.
The breath spilling from the maw of that corrupted evil beast was chillingly cold. Its enormous body, larger than any monster I had ever seen, radiated killing intent and pressure that crushed down on everything around it.
What kind of monster is this……!
I was staring up at it in shock when it happened.
Shra-ra-ra-ra-ra!
Countless streaks of light rained down from every direction.
The whiskers surrounding the bridge of its nose, which was covered in hard scales, split into hundreds of strands and plunged toward me.
Each was several jang2 long. Some shot forward in straight lines, while others curved like living creatures to attack from my blind spots.
“……!”
I wasn’t even given time to shout.
Every hair on my body stood on end, and all my senses opened wide. In a world that had slowed to a crawl, I twisted aside.
Thud-thud-thud-thud! Slash!
Scorching pain spread from my shoulder. It was obvious who the drops of blood spattering across the muddy water belonged to.
Still, if I’d escaped an unexpected attack with nothing worse than this, I’d gotten off cheap.
Now it was time to make the monster pay a much higher price.
“Hah!”
Schk!
The spearhead I swung with a battle cry cut through dozens of whiskers.
The long, flaming tail of the Fire Dragon’s Single Tail, befitting the form’s name, did not stop there. It cut through the air and swept toward the monster’s jaw.
Whoooooosh!
Alongside a deafening sound of something splitting the air, everything around me turned black.
In a world so slow it seemed to have stopped, I finally saw it.
Something was sweeping toward me from the side in a massive arc.
Ah, fuck. The tail.
The instant I realized what it was, an enormous impact tore through my entire body.
Boom!
My clear vision blurred.
In less than a second, heaven and earth flipped over countless times, and everything around me shook as though an earthquake had struck.
No. That wasn’t right.
I was the only thing flipping and shaking.
By the time my thoughts untangled from the impact, I had already flown more than ten jang2 and was hurtling toward the cliff.
Damn it. I need to dodge, even now…
But after taking a blow packed with such tremendous force, I couldn’t move properly.
I gritted my teeth and braced myself for the second impact.
No.
I tried to brace myself.
Thud. Krrrraaaack!
A light impact reached me through my back. Then my speed began to decrease as the ground was churned up beneath me.
As I blinked, someone’s voice reached my ears.
“Are you all right, Benefactor?”
It was Cheongpung.
I released the breath I’d been holding and got my feet under me. Then I realized why the Quest’s Grade was Supreme Peak instead of a question mark.
“Hey, you goddamn eel bastard!”
At the sound of that familiar voice, I let out a quiet laugh.
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