The First Hunter Chapter 15: Accompanied (3)

< Chapter 15. Accompanied (3). >

7. 

Every living things struggles to live on. 

When those living things exist together, it becomes a ecosystem. 

The monsters. Those monsters, whose origin was unknown, built an ecosystem to carry on with their lives. The weakest ones, those that couldn’t afford to have their own territory or to hunt, became wanderers scavenging for food or carrion to eat. The stronger ones established their own territories and made their lives within those territories. 

Then a huge rock fell into that ecosystem. 

The black snake. The horrifying snake that turned a wide swath of Bucheon into its territory was killed. 

It was like the death of a king. It wasn’t something that could be hidden, nor something to keep a secret. The earth shaking news of a king’s death spreads out quicker than any other deaths. 

It especially caused monsters with ambition to make a move. The monsters that wanted to take over the territory of the black snake, usually the heads of certain packs, decided to more actively move. 

It was upto Kim Taehoon, the man who defeated the black snake, in the new King’s role, to squash  those ambitions.

Smash!

Kim Taehoon’s right arm that looked like a giant hammer, colored black from the tip of his fingers to the shoulder, smashed onto the skull of a Monkeydog that was a head taller than Kim Taehoon himself. 

While the brains of the monkeydog were flying in the air, Kim Taehoon swept into the pack of 12 monkeydogs who followed behind their leader. 

Bang!

Kim Taehoon black fist struck towards the heads of the monkeydogs like a snake. 

It looked like he was the only one that was able to move in a stopped world. The reason why it looked like that was not only because of his speed.

The accuracy. Kim Taehoon’s fist landed in the middle of the forehead of the monkeydog straight between its two red eyes while everything was moving so fast like the wind. 

Superhuman, there was no other word to describe his skill at achieving what he wanted in such a short period of time amid a mess. 

‘Not enough.’

It was proof that Kim Taehoon was acclimating to his new ability, Black snake’s eyes. 

And that was the reason why Kim Taehoon was throwing himself into a battle with monsters that were drooling over the idea of fresh hot blood and rushing to attack him for a feast. 

“Can’t describe it in words.”

“Who’s the monster now…”

The survivors who worshiped him as a savior couldn’t just stand in awe anymore because while they were constantly butchering the monster corpses the amount never seemed to shrink. 

But Kim Taehoon, on the contrary, who created that scene was not happy with his results. 

‘Two.’

He couldn’t be happy. 

‘Two monsters similar to the dragon on this peninsula.’

He now knew enough about the brutality of this world. There could be no way he was not aware of it. 

But the moment that brutality was shown in exact numbers the despair he felt made him even more critical with himself. 

He expected that there would be monsters that were equivalent to the dragon but he now knew those monsters exists in Mt. Baekdu and Mt. Hallasan. 

The Korean peninsula was just a tiny slice of land on this great Earth. How many monsters were like the dragon in the whole world? 

It wasn’t just that. 

‘There are lots of monsters that are stronger than the black snake which almost took my life to get down.’

Daedongyeojido was like a radar as Jang Sunghoon had explained. Powerful monsters like the dragon were marked on the map even at a great distance but the weaker ones did not appear unless they were close enough. 

There were nine blue lights around them that they could see in the Daedongyeojido now. 

Green and yellow lights were too numerous to count. 

‘Lee Jinsung, he was right.’

Bucheon was the only place that was free of green and blue monsters among the surrounding regions. 

‘Bucheon was lucky.’

They were able to survive because they were between the powerful monsters. 

‘For now.’

But it wasn’t much good news. 

A country located between two great countries would benefit from it for a short time, but eventually it would get crushed. 

History had proven that. 

On top of that the ecosystem of this new world was supported by the excessive number of human beings. 

The monsters could stay alive by fueling themselves with humans. But humanity was not like plankton. They don’t breed like fish, laying eggs. 

Right now the number of humans was enough, but eventually the numbers would decline as they were eaten by the monsters. 

The monsters couldn’t create human farms, they would eventually have to move to search for more human in order to feed. Bucheon would very easily become a target because of the remaining population it would have. 

There was only one way to solve this problem. 

‘We gotta kill them before they get us.’

Kill before getting killed. Before the monsters gained complete power, they needed to end this while humanity still outnumbered the monsters, and possessed the technology and willpower to fight.

Because of that, killing orange and red-eyed monsters did not have an emotional impact on Kim Taehoon. He was definitely not impressed, but felt desperate. 

‘This is not enough… With just this power… Can’t do anything.’

What made his desperation go away was the small whisper Jang Sunghoon put in his ears. 

“Boss, the glass is full.”

8.

Bucheon City Hall.

The building located in the middle of the city was now used as a headquarters of the Maek Clan. 

There was lots of evidence that showed that. 

The soldiers of the Maek Clan, who were guarding the building with glowing eyes was one such evidence. The intimidating awakened coming back from hunting and entering the building was another piece of evidence. 

“He’s back.”

“He?”

“The master, master.”

“Who’s the master…”

“Him! The savior!”

The hope and expectations on the faces of the survivors who reside near Bucheon city hall was also evidence. 

“He caught more than 100 monsters this time I heard. Alone. With his bare hands.”

“100 monsters with bare hands and alone? Does that make sense?”

“Why not, they say the dead bodies he made formed a road. It might be more than 100.”

“But bare hands….”

“He killed the yellow devil in no time, so that wouldn’t be a problem for him.”

The world was still not bright. The methods of communication were down, there was no news of the military doing its job, there were monsters everywhere, and no sign of other survivors coming in from anywhere else to bring the news, and food was becoming hard to find. 

The winter was as cold as any other time and made people die from the cold and hunger. You could only wish for a peaceful death if you had a large wound. 

There was no one who expects to change things in this situation. 

There was only hope. 

“Is he about to exterminate the monsters?”

“I hope he does.”

The hope and expectation that it would be Kim Taehoon, the first hunter, who would do something, anything that could bring even a small hope, who would make changes in this reality. 

The person being discussed,  Kim Taehoon was sitting on a comfortable chair in the Mayor’s office in city hall, holding a golden glass in his hand. 

By appearances, he looked like an arrogant boss. But the face of Kim Taehoon, who was staring at the weird liquid that never overflowed out of the glass, was far from an arrogant boss. 

He really had a bad face. 

‘What’s the logic behind this?’

The golden glass of Napoleon. The mysterious golden glass had once again filled itself with another mystery that would allow one to dream something unpleasant. 

Without any notice or signal. 

He was curious. What caused this glass to fill? 

Jang Sunghoon made some assumptions to this. 

“It’s my opinion that the golden glass of Napoleon has the ability to peek on one’s destiny. But it wouldn’t be easy to foresee someone’s future. Of course as one’s destiny changes, it would need time to peek on the changed future. That would be the reason why the glass decided out of the blue to refill. It took time to see the changed future.”

It was a pretty persuasive argument. If the destiny was some type of computer program, it would need some hacking to read that program. 

It was natural for it to take time. 

‘The world’s fate has changed.’

If the assumption was right then the fact that the glass had the red liquid again meant that the future Kim Taehoon saw had changed. 

The destiny that he’d die fighting the dragon ceased to exist. 

However it wasn’t all delightful. 

It wouldn’t be strange if Kim Taehoon’s death would be nearer in the changed future. 

If that happens, it would be enormously dreadful. 

If the struggle he went through to extend his life actually shortened his life, he wouldn’t be motivated to struggle anymore. 

‘I’m dreading it.’

He was scared of course. 

But Kim Taehoon did not hesitate, he downed the whole glass in one breath. 

His body loosened up at the same time. 

9.

“Open your eyes! Open!”

The scream of a woman shouting pounded on his eardrums. 

“Open your eyes! Kim Taehoon, wake up!”

Continuous shouting.

Even though his eyes were closed Kim Taehoon could tell who was shouting. 

‘Ahn Sunmi.’

Shortly after, Kim Taehoon could see a woman in his eyes. 

He could see Ahn Sunmi’s face was not much different from what he remembers, even the freckles on her face. The only difference was the long hair. Her long hair showed that some time has passed. 

‘What year is this?’

But he could not tell if this was a year later or 5 years later. 

And that was the only thing Kim Taehoon could see. Kim Taehoon’s eyes closed again.

‘Ah.’ Kim Taehoon realized. ‘I’m dying now.’

That he was right in front of his death. He did not have strength to even have a conversation and gain some clues from it. 

‘Like this…’

It was the worst. He didn’t expect to dream the moment of his death. He didn’t think that all the effort he put in would be wasted like this. 

‘F*cking hell…’

What could he get out of this dream?

Kim Taehoon sighed. But he was the only one who could hear that. 

But once again, Kim Taehoon heard her voice in his ears.

“I will speak to you hoping that you will dream of this moment. I don’t know when you’d dream it… I will tell you the prepared wish list.”

< Chapter 15. Accompanied (3). > The end. 

Chapter end