The First Hunter Chapter 14: Acquired the Eye (2)

< Chapter 14. Acquired the Eye (2). >

5.

It was the night that finally calmed the survivor's fervor.

The cold dark night arrived, and the survivors had to find somewhere warm again to survive.

Kim Taehoon was also preparing to spend the night. The place he chose for his bed tonight was a car. A Mercedes Benz S500, it was way too expensive to be a tent but Kim Taehoon sat in the driver’s seat, lowered the window and looked out.

He could see the black snake’s dead body.

Kim Taehoon lifted his mug while looking at the snake. His partner that he was holding was telling him that he did not want to sleep tonight.

“Boss.”

“Hyungnim!”

Bhang Hyunwook and Jang Sunghoon appeared.

“Did you want a beer? It’s really cold since it was in the snow. We also brought something to munch on.”

Even before they heard an answer, Jang Sunghoon hopped into the passenger seat and Bahng Hyunwook took the back seat.

Jang Sunghoon put his hand in the black plastic bag he brought.

“Did you have a preference?”

“I don’t want one.”

“Hyung, I want Miller. Miller.”

Jang Sunghoon handed over a can of beer and made a comment to Bhang Hyunwook who had quickly said what he wanted.

“You just graduated high school and know beer brands? Huh?”

“Haha, it is what it is, isn’t it?”

Bhang Hyunwook took the can of beer with an awkward smile.

Kim Taehoon took a sip of coffee while looking at them. He started his silent savor of the coffee.

“Good job sir.”

Jang Sunghoon started to talk without missing the chance.

“Now, let’s talk about some real talk. Now we establish the clan.”

The talk had reached the important part.

“Clan? We are already a clan, why would we make another one?”

“It means we will allow people to create new clans within our territory and we will be the head group over of all those clans. For example, Maek clan will become the Maek guild and would have several clans underneath it. Those clans would operate parties internally.”

It was an easy concept to understand for people who had played an MMORPG.

Bahng Hyunwook questioned right away. “That’s dangerous though. What if anybody betrays…”

“After knocking over the boss, what they would face is a fight against those things outside the window, would you do that?”

Bhang Hyunwook took a sip of beer after realizing the possible outcome.

Jang Sunghoon looked at Kim Taehoon.  

“Frankly speaking, within those parties there are groups that are already forming a pretty big power, they are just not called a clan yet.

We just need a system as we grow larger. We should consider providing them firearms if it is needed. The war would depend on the number of people eventually. Of course, this is not urgent. The more urgent problem is the civilians. They need representation.”

Jang Sunghoon drank a bit of his carbonated water.

“It’s the civilians that are the ticking bomb. The groups are operating around awakened now. The civilians are currently not in a good position. About 2 to 3 female patients out of 10 that Sunmi nunim[1] sees are the victims of sexual assault. There are male sexual assault victims as well. But they don’t really confess to that.”

Jang Sunghoon’s face stiffened as he went on.

This was the reality.

“You mean we should vote for the representative of civilians?”

The civilians needed someone to represent their voices. So that everything would be balanced, and so the order of the system would remain right in the balanced situation.

“Voting is impossible. We cannot have an election under these circumstances. We don’t need to as well. It’s not hard to appoint someone to represent them. You just have to pick one. The problem is, who to pick. With that being said, can you give me that snake?”

At that, Kim Taehoon took another sip of coffee.

“There’s an old man named Park Gabsoo. He made leather shoes for over 40 years and he has the skills. I’m thinking about having items forged by giving him the snake. Also, that would bring people to light with skills who have not been discovered yet. Make a craft workshop. We need something like that to make the awakened and the civilians mutual compatible.”

It would be meaningless to just have someone political represent the civilians.

Mutual compatibility. They needed civilians with the techniques and a labor force who could support the awakened that were risking their lives hunting the monsters.

At the same time, they needed the symbol. Something to remember today’s incident by. For whoever would record it later on.

The corpse of the black snake would be a perfect symbol.

“We would provide some of the item made out of the snake’s skin to the newly created clans.”

Kim Taehoon continued to drink his coffee and stared at the corpse of the snake in silence as Jang Sunghoon spoke.

Of course, Kim Taehoon wasn’t going to oppose Jang Sunghoon’s idea. The silence was his expression of approval.

“Of course I wouldn’t take it for nothing.”

Jang Sunghoon also knew that, so he pulled out a folded map with a smile on his face to ease the tension. The map was for the city of Bucheon.

“I will give you my prey since I’d be taking yours.”

Jang Sunghoon tapped on one spot on the map which was full of his handwritten notes.

“This place has a high possibility of being the storage of Baek Sungtaek.”

“Who’s that gentleman?”

“A whale.”

“Whale?”

“Whale.”

Kim Taehoon swallowed his coffee and opened his mouth to the silly conversation the other two were having.

“Who is that?”

“He’s a man that specialized in stealing cultural assets and dealing in stolen goods. He takes anything like his nickname, the whale. He has a storage since he can’t store the stolen items in his house and the storage is in Bucheon.”

“Is the star mark where it’s located?”

“One of the possible locations.”

“You don’t know exact location?”

“If I knew where it was exactly I would have deserted from the military and stole them all.”

“Then how do you know?”

“That guy is very sensitive to Feng shui. He wouldn’t have put his storage just anywhere. The problem is…”

Tap Tap.

Jang Sunghoon tapped around the star marked area. There were apartment complexes near it.

Bahng Hyunwook who was peeking from the back seat scrunched his face and said.

“Geez, why are there so many apartment complexes?”

Apartment complexes. It would be nothing special before but now that the world turned into the monster’s era, apartment complexes were the most hellish places.

The reason was simple.

“It would be a total monster fest over there. With stronger ones.”

There was lots of food.

Literally.

The population density of the apartment complex could be higher than anywhere else. On top of that, the time the monsters appeared was December 31st. Most of the people were at home getting ready for the New Year.

And where the food was, the predators would gather to feast.

That was why not just Kim Taehoon, but also the Messiah, were hesitant to approach the apartment complexes… But the place Jang Sunghoon was pointing at was in the middle of those apartment complexes.

“It would take a lot of men to get in there, wouldn’t it?”

If it were a normal situation they would never go to such a place.

Even if they went, they would have fully armed themselves beforehand.

“We will be moving there tomorrow straight away.”

But now the situation was different.

“Boss, wouldn’t it be too hard to move immediately tomorrow? You would have to organize things around you…”

“Me alone is enough.”

Kim Taehoon, he was totally different from yesterday.

And tomorrow’s Kim Taehoon would be totally different from today’s Kim Taehoon.

6.

Grrrr!

The black werewolf’s growl swept through the empty road that didn’t even have a wind blowing.

Pat!

And the sound of the werewolf stepping on the snow was heard.

Pat, Pat!

But the sound did not happen just once.

Six of them!

Unlike their gigantic 2 meter high bodies, they had rather quiet footsteps.

Their red eyes started to glow with their footsteps. Several things were reflected in their glowing eyes. The hostility to invaders of their territory, and the lust to swallow the warm blood of the prey.

Without knowing that, the prey kept walking on the empty road.

Step, step.

The prey did not even try to hide its footsteps, rather it showed off its existence and continuously moved.

Thud!

Soon the six werewolves revealed themselves in front of the prey. They formed a siege formation, lifted their heads up to the sky and howled right away.

AROOOO!

Terrifying howling came in like waves from every direction.

It was even short. The black werewolves did not have the patience to wait for their prey to panic. They started to run towards the prey after the short howls.

Three of them ran on two legs, the other three ran on four.

Paah, Paah!

Whichever way they took the running was horrifying. They were not just kicking the ground up to run, rather they were smashing it. Just their sprinting would take your breath away.

AROOOO!

Two of them howled again. As if they were celebrating early, and teasing the prey.

At that moment, in the middle of the besiegement, the prey’s two eyes turned black.

It was just a brief moment.

Yip!

The first black werewolf that encountered those black eyes made a pathetic sound that even a dog wouldn’t make.

The prey, the guy rolled his black eyes.

But, no one could really tell. You would not notice anything if you drew something with a black crayon on a black canvas. And there was no one left to notice anything.

It was a short period of time.

Swish!

One arrow without its body appeared around the guy’s waist, making only a minimal amount of noise, like an assassin, circled around the guy like a thunderbolt.

Zigzagging, the movements were irregular and it would have truly looked like a thunderbolt if you saw it from the sky.

But the movements had one thing in common.

Splash!

Each movement had struck a werewolf’s brain.

Splash, splash!

The werewolves that were about to knock down the man and start their mad feast were all left on the ground, stumbling and rolling.

Once they were down the werewolves didn’t get up anymore.

The man, Kim Taehoon, looked at the dead bodies of the black werewolves. The world he saw with the new black eyes wasn’t very different from the world he saw with his normal eyes.

Everything was a bit more clear, that was all.

The same thing happened just now too. It seemed to his eyes as if the rushing werewolves had stopped moving.

Kim Taehoon could picture the scene that he wanted in his head more perfectly than ever. But he didn’t feel a special satisfaction at it.

It was rather the opposite.

‘Not enough.’

The clearer world also let Kim Taehoon see his immaturity and inadequacy more clearly.

KWAAA!

A giant black wolf popped out from the left side of Kim Taehoon with a big growl. The wolf had orange eyes and was so gigantic that it could even chew up a bear.

At the same time, it was furious. At the enemy who turned its pack into pieces of meat with a single attack.

Kim Taehoon turned his head towards that fury.

The orange eyes and the black eyes crossed each other.

Krrrr, Kak!

But as soon as they looked at each other the wolf made a choking sound and its body froze.

It was to resist the great power that was trying to pull its body in 5 different directions.

Clang!

A sword came out of the sheath that Kim Taehoon was carrying on his back and flew directly towards the black wolf.

Crunch!

It sliced into the head without any hesitation.

Kim Taehoon could see it once again more clearly.

‘It’s not this feeling.’

What he was lacking.

< Chapter 14. Acquired the Eyes (2). > The end.

[1]  Nunim: A term a younger male uses towards the older female in respect.

Chapter end