The First Hunter Chapter 15: Accompanied (2)

< Chapter 15. Accompanied (2). >

4.

The destroying power of Kim Taehoon’s fist was enormous yet horrifying.

The wall started to crumble like a cookie. Piece by piece, the parts of the wall fell on the ground.

‘Ah!’

But it wasn’t Kim Taehoon’s power that surprised Jang Sunghoon. What he could see were lumps of transparent vinyl within the broken wall.

Tap tap!

Kim Taehoon removed those plastic lumps and handed them over to Jang Sunghoon right away.

Jang Sunghoon took them very carefully and immediately unwrapped the plastic.

Very luxurious blue silk was revealed in the vinyl.

‘It’s not a usual silk.’

The silk itself looked like a very high-quality product. As did the texture. But as soon as he touched the thing Jang Sunghoon knew that the silk was not a relic but also was not a cheap knock-off product.

Yet it was nothing compared to what was hiding inside the silk.

“....You’re joking.”

It was a book that was revealed within the silk. An old book, ordinary people would just call it an old book.

‘How could this be here?’

The letters written on the cover of the book in black ink were enough to paint Jang Sunghoon’s mind dark.

Daedongyeojido 大東輿地圖[1]

“....It’s Daedongyeojido.”

Daedongyeojido.

What kind of explanation was adequate enough?

Kim Jeongho[2], it was the masterpiece of his whole life and a heritage for future generations. For them to explain and evaluate it would just be ridiculous.

“It’s different from the Daedongyeojido that I know of.”

“This is a woodblock-printed version. The map was created as woodblock prints. The Daedongyeojido we see in the textbooks would be the combined versions of each print like a puzzle. And this…. Would be the unreleased version.”

Jang Sunghoon recalled the rumor that a version of Daedongyeojido that was not released to the world was out in the market.

“I heard the rumor but I thought it was fake news…” But honestly, when he heard it he thought it was just gossip. Those kinds of rumors always flooded the market and something big like Daedongyeojido was not supposed to be floating around the underground market like that.

If it were real, the big guys would have made their moves. But the rumor was true. And the big guy for that was Baek Sungtaek.

‘That’s why it was hidden inside the wall. Yeah, it’s worth hiding. A thief wouldn’t trust a safe.’

Jang Sunghoon asked Kim Taehoon while holding the book in his hands.

“How did you know it was hidden inside the wall?”

Kim Taehoon’s black eyes only had the ability to see things with more clarity but it could not see through things. For example, he did not have the ability to see through the wall. But he punched the wall without any hesitation as if he knew what was there.

“Only that part of the wall had a different texture.”

“Different texture? You mean you saw that?”

Instead of answering the questions, Kim Taehoon turned his eyes black again and looked at the Daedongyeojido that Jang Sunghoon was holding.

[ Daedongyeojido ]

Jang Sunghoon also pulled out his smartphone and checked the stats of the Daedongyeojido.

Jang Sunghoon started to flip the pages with his eyes wide with surprise.

Flip, flip!

Jang Sunghoon’s eyes quickly scanned through the pages of the map as the sound of pages turning were heard.

At the same time, he was combining the pieces of the map in his mind.

That was one of the talents Jang Sunghoon had. A man without those skills would not be able to create a forgery of art. He had to memorize everything about the original piece and then recreate it based on his memory, that’s how a good forgery was made.

So it wasn’t a hard thing for Jang Sunghoon to see pieces of the map in the book and visualize it complete.

Flip!

The moment Jang Sunghoon saw the last page, the whole picture inside his head was completed too.

“This map is some sort of a map hack.”

He also figured out the map’s feature quickly.

“Map-hack?”

Kim Taehoon was confused. Gaming terms were not something he was familiar with.

Jang Sunghoon started explaining things as his fingers started to go through the book once more.

Soon, his finger stopped and he showed the particular page to Kim Taehoon.

On the piece of the map, there were lots of orange and red dots.

“This is the map of where Bucheon is now.”

“These lights…”

“Shows the monsters.”

“Elaborate.”

“It seems like it shows the surrounding monsters near the location of the map holder. It’s like a radar. It can accurately detect the nearby monsters, even the smaller monsters, but further away it can only detect the bigger ones. Small dots means a weaker monster, larger dots mean stronger ones.”

Kim Taehoon could only think of one question to ask. “The highest rank of the monsters so far?”

“There was a navy blue light in Jeju’s Halla mountain and another in Baekdu mountain.”

Navy blue.

Monsters of the same rank as the dragon he had seen before were located at each end of the Korean peninsula.

It was not good news. It was a sign that the world changed even more horrifyingly than he expected.

But there were things that he had to take care right now. An orange light and a few red lights were moving on the map. That meant a pack of monsters was moving.

“Take the important things.”

“Yes.”

5.

It was brown goblins that were attacking the janitors clearing the road of the dead bodies.

The soldiers of the Maek clan Bhang Hyunwook were used to the monsters.

“Everyone on to the truck!”

An individual brown goblin was weak, an armed man could definitely take care of it.

Keeeehh!

The problem was these brown goblins were not moving individually but were under the control of a Hobgoblin.

Plus, the special charm of the hobgoblin took the fear and pain away from the brown goblins.

A monster without pain and fear was more horrifying than you’d imagine.

The pack of monsters, more than 100 of them, created a fierce tidal wave that caused people to lose their will to fight even before it started.

“AROOOO!”

In front of all of this, Bhang Hyunwook was showing off his howling that he acquired from the black wolf’s monster stone Kim Taehoon had given him and rushed towards the brown goblin that was sprinting towards him.

It was to earn more time, and also an expression of confidence.

“I will kill you all!”

As he shouted, Bhang Hyunwook’s Energy started to wriggle inside. That Energy made his whole body stronger than usual.

Besides Kim Taehoon, he had the highest numbers in Strength and Stamina. Being stronger than usual would be a terrifying thing for the goblins that had to face him.

Another thing was, he was wearing armor made out of black orc’s skin. It wasn’t as strong as the black snake’s skin but the black orc’s skin couldn’t be called weak. The teeth and claws of the brown goblins couldn’t do anything to that skin.

So the battle Bhang Hyunwook decided to throw himself in was like free batting to him.

You set the ball in place and hit it with a bat, free batting. The only difference was that he was hitting a goblin’s head, not a baseball.

BANG!

Bhang Hyunwook started to go crazy.

Meanwhile, the soldiers of the Maek Clan in the truck passed Bhang Hyunwook and fired towards the approaching brown goblins.

Tata!

Now their gunshots contained more restraint and they did not waste their bullets anymore, nor point their guns at their allies. It was complete self-restraint.

No one was pulling the trigger like a madman out of fear towards the goblins as they had previously.

Keeehh!

The goblins who were running towards the truck were knocked down very quickly by the restrained gunshots.

Despite the fallen goblins, the remaining ones gradually narrowed the distance between them and the truck.

Not a single goblin stopped. It even seemed like they got faster as they stepped on their dead friends.

Keeeeh!

The rage in their eyes was the same. The scream coming out of their fallen friends on the ground fueled their rage.

It was a single arrow without its body that flipped the situation 180 degrees.

Shhhsh!

The movement of the arrow was like that of a craftsman making a bead necklace.

The arrow started to move as if it was connecting all the heads of the brown goblins like beads on a necklace.

Collapse!

The running goblins started to collapse on the floor like a puppet without its strings, and other goblins started to pile up on them, creating a large wall of bodies.

Keehk!

The goblins that were still alive stumbled to the ground because they ran into their dead colleague’s body.

It was total chaos.

The survivors became surprised at this absurd jaw-dropping scene. But they were not dazed.

“Waaaaa!”

They had no reason to be suspicious about who had come and accomplished all this.

“Master! The master is here!”

The man who did the job was like a savior to the people who were here right now.

The true Messiah.

Everyone would be proud of the appearance of their savior.

“Master’s here!”

“Kill them all!”

Thanks to that, the people who were fighting against the goblin now had their eyes glowing.

Their spirit also reached the hobgoblin that was controlling the brown goblins from a distance.

Keerr Keeeerk!

The hobgoblin shivered at the spirit that was oppressing the madness it created between the brown goblins. But that was all that it could do.

The hobgoblin’s head fell to the ground after the shiver.

A well-forged sword was what removed the head from the hobgoblin.

At the same time, the brown goblins fear and pain returned from the removal of the hobgoblin’s charm.

Keehh!

Keee, Keeee!

With the fear and pain returning the brown goblins started to let out weak screams and flee.

Bhang Hyunwook just watched the goblins without saying anything. In his eyes, he could see Kim Taehoon returning after getting everything done that he needed to do.

6.

Jang Sunghoon carefully wrapped the Chusa Kim Junghee’s writing and Daedongyeojido with the silk. He didn’t need to. Those things gained a new life the moment they became relics. He did not have to worry about them wearing off.

But Jang Sunghoon could not dare to leave it like that.

‘I never thought we’d get these kinds of treasures.’

Treasure, the artifacts he could only describe with that word. Mistreating it was not something he would ever dream of since he devoted his passion and dreams to the arts.

Jang Sunghoon had a particular bag to put his treasures in. The bag contained the important things that Jang Sunghoon had to carry at all times.

For example,

“Eh?”

A gold-decorated crystal glass that contained a red liquid.

< Chapter 15. Accompanied (2). > The end.

[1]Famous large scale map of Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daedongyeojido

[2] Korean geographer and cartographer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gim_Jeong-ho

Chapter end