The First Hunter Chapter 2: The Mark of the Awakened (3)

< Chapter 2. The Mark of the Awakened (3).>

3.

“You’re dead if you move.”

With that warning, Kim Taehoon removed the plastic apron he was wearing.

The sound the green blood made as it dripped from the soaked apron was the creepiest thing ever.

“Sir!”

Bhang Hyunwook showed up after Kim Taehoon had dropped his apron to the floor.

With his appearance, the noisy crowd once again fell silent.

But this time… the silence was different from the previous one which had been filled with menace.

There was some sort of overpowering vibe filling the air that could not be compared to the menace.

Glup!

Like it was planned, the sound of people swallowing was proof of the atmosphere.

‘That dude is a monster…’

The four guys were not immune from the overwhelming vibe.

They froze as soon as they looked at Kim Taehoon, and remembered the same thing at same time.

‘What should we do?’

‘We could have run away if it wasn’t for that fucker…’

While they had struggled against the orc on level B2, Kim Taehoon had taken care of the orc with the ax he held.

He cracked the Orc’s skull, sprayed something into its eyes, and while the Orc rubbed its tearing eyes he poured lighter fluid on to its head and then lit it on fire. And how fast and accurate it was.

They were sure of one thing.

There’s nothing good waiting like this!

‘What should we do?’

‘Should we just beg for forgiveness?’

‘Damn it, should we have run away?’

Three of them were in a panic.

“Kill? Kill me! Fucking kill me you son of a bitch!!”

Unlike his friends, the bulkiest one of the four bared his teeth at Kim Taehoon.

That meant the guy had a pretty strong will, fighting spirit, and bravery.

Because of that, Kim Taehoon did not hesitate.

Cough, Cough!

Kim Taehoon used his telekinetic ability and grabbed the big bulky guy by the neck.

And just like that he lifted the man up.

The scene could not be described with common sense, concept or rational thought.

“Oh, Shit!”

“What, what the? What!”

“A ghost?”

The fact that their friend was the sacrifice for that scene, caused the other three to collapse to the floor with gasps.

Kim Taehoon lifted the guy straight up about three meters, then released the power.

Thud!

The horrifying sound of a dead body falling to the ground swept across the whole area.

The silence returned but it was more than menace or overwhelming vibe. This time it was a silence caused by fear.

Everyone looked at Kim Taehoon with a frightened face, and while everyone stared at him, Kim Taehoon spoke to the other three.

“From now on, you three have no right to speak. Speak up now if you have any complaints.”

The three kept their mouth shut and shook their heads.

Kim Taehoon didn’t bother to watching them anymore.

After he verified that Park Jaewoon and his family were alright, Kim Taehoon looked at the watch on his left wrist.

Checking the time, Kim Taehoon made an announcement with a low voice.

“Current time 22:33. It’s early, but I will be reporting on the current situation.”

4.

“Our current location is on level B2 in the superstore, the emergency power generators are running but communications through smartphones or walkie-talkies are not possible. There has been no attempt of contact by rescue teams or from survivors outside.”

Kim Taehoon took a sip of canned coffee after he finished his sentence.

His sip wasn’t short.

But no one dared to ask questions to Kim Taehoon during that time or complain about it.

Kim Taehoon enjoyed his coffee till the end, in silence, then opened his mouth.

“To make a personal observation based on the current situation, we are not in a good situation. This place is not as safe as we think it is.”

A few people started to have doubts in their minds about Kim Taehoon’s comment.

‘Dangerous?’

‘But isn’t this place supposed to be relatively safe?’

It had been seven hours since the monster attacks.

The heat of the battle had chilled down enough, and only the aftermath remained.

Of course, the survivors didn’t want to do anything anymore.

All they wanted to do was stay there, where they found it rather safe, and wait for the rescue team or military force.

Based on the common knowledge of the people here, level B2 of the superstore was safer than any other place.

First, there was a fire shutter so nobody could sneak in without being noticed.  There was also a lot of food. There were enough food and water for survivors to last at least half a year.

It’s somewhat problematic that there was limited space for personal hygiene and toilets, but when there were crazy monsters out there it was not something to be consider seriously.

But that space, which everyone else thought of as safe, Kim Taehoon said was dangerous.

“It has been more than six hours since the incident happened but no one from outside, including the rescue team, came down here.”

The crowd still had doubtful expressions on their faces.

“In a situation where the infrastructure of a society has collapsed the first thing a survivor would do was secure food items. If the route to get here was safe someone would have already come down here, even if they were not a rescue team. They would have come here, whether it was for ramen noodles or… iPads.

With Kim Taehoon’s last sentence the three silent guys started to shiver.

Kim Taehoon took another sip of coffee.

The not-so-short coffee pause was there again, and the crowd started to think hard.

‘He’s right. If there was a rescue team, they would have shown up here.’

‘Right, if it was really safe here… There would have been someone already. I’d have come down and gotten something, at least liquor.’

When everyone had thought things through, their faces became pale.

The signs of being worried.

Glup, Kim Taehoon swallowed the coffee that he had been enjoying after he saw everyone’s worried faces.

“Also, the situation we’re in now is entirely different from what we had previously experienced.” After saying that, Kim Taehoon held up the back of his right hand to everyone.

Everyone in the crowd squinted to see the glowing mark which burned like the sun.

“With the appearance of the monsters, some of you have a mark, like this, that appeared on your hand.”

People reflectively checked their hands.

A few of them were surprised.

One of them finally opened her mouth.

“What is this?”

The first one to ask a question was the lady with the freckles; who had stood up to save Park Jaewoon.

She had the mark on the back of her hand.

“I’m calling it the mark of the awakened.”

“Awakened?”

“I couldn’t come up with another name for it so that’s what I decided to call it. But one thing for sure is that people with the mark now have special abilities.”

Kim Taehoon didn’t bother displaying that special ability again.

He didn’t need to.

Just a quick glance at the bulky guy collapsed on the floor, was enough explanation.

“For your information, the mark of the awakened can be decoded by taking a picture of it. When you take a picture of the mark with a smartphone it will show the decoded translation of the symbol. It is similar to the stats window in video games.”

Kim Taehoon continued to talk.

“There are three big categories of abilities, and it’s simple to enhance the abilities. Take a monster’s heart, cut it in half, remove the stone out of it, and consume that stone.”

As soon as he finished his sentence, he held out his palm.

Bhang Hyunwook, as if he were waiting for that moment, took out a tiny red stone from his pocket and put it on Kim Taehoon’s palm.

Kim Taehoon placed the stone into his mouth and swallowed.

He ate it right away.

Everyone stared at Kim Taehoon’s throat.

“Now I have my strength enhanced.”

The crowd showed him a dumb face. It wasn’t to realistic.

But Kim Taehoon didn’t care about that and continued his speech.

“Also, the stone you get from monsters can be decoded by a smartphone to see what it’s worth.”

Kim Taehoon pulled out his smartphone as he spoke and showed the picture he had taken to the crowd.

In the close up image of the red stone, there could be seen clear writing on the stone. The stone which Kim Taehoon had just eaten.

[Orc’s crystal]

That was it.

“This is the information I could get so far.”

Kim Taehoon’s information was gathered, all by himself, by butchering monster corpses at the meat section.

“This is all the information I could get after dissecting the monsters.”

It was not easy to get that information.

Because it was not easy to butcher dozens of monster corpses, one by one.

A normal person would not be able to even butcher one, even if they had a whole day to do it.

This valuable information was only known by Kim Taehoon and Bhang Hyunwook.

But Kim Taehoon had shared it with everybody.

The crowd was thankful, yet a few of them were suspicious about Kim Taehoon’s intentions.

“Why are you telling us this?”

It was something to be thankful for, but Kim Taehoon didn’t have any obligation to share with others about the information he had gained.

Did he do it because he was altruistic and had a strong service spirit?

Nobody had known Kim Taehoon for more than a day, but anybody could see that he’s not that altruistic. He was not that kind of person.

That was true.

Kim Taehoon didn’t tell them the information because he was full of love and warmth.

“The world has changed. Monsters have appeared, the awakened have also appeared as if they are meant to fight against the monsters. It means this was not going to be a one-time thing.”

Kim Taehoon realized this faster than anybody else.

“In order to survive this change you have to be selfish, but cleverly selfish.”

Human’s were now in a war with monsters.

It was worthless and meaningless to monopolize basic information.

It was also more advantageous for Kim Taehoon to have more survivors.

Even now, most adult males have had military experience.

It wouldn’t be impressive if they had axes and cooking knives, but if they had guns, it was a whole different ball game.

“And we had already taken the prize. We ate all the monster stones.”

On top of that, Kim Taehoon already took his share of the information.

Kim Taehoon shared the monster stones taken from the monster hearts with Bhang Hyunwook. The monster stone, under this circumstance, was worth more than anything.

It’s enough of a price for sharing the information.

A sort of 'give and take'.

“Does anybody have any objections?”

Giving, receiving, everything was solely under Kim Taehoon’s control.

“I will consider that a no.”

Now the crowd understood what he meant by you had to be cleverly selfish.

“For the last part, this hypothesis is something that hasn’t been proven yet, but the monster appeared without any restriction to space. Like they fell from the sky. The reason why I’m saying this….”

Kim Taehoon stopped speaking.

His eyes changed.

While everyone was getting surprised at his changing attitude, Kim Taehoon finished his canned coffee.

Glup glup!

Not enjoying it anymore, but literally putting caffeine into his system, then he shouted.

“RUN!”

BAM!

As soon as he shouted the fire shutter, which was the barrier between the B2 and B1 underground levels, exploded like a bomb.

KWAAAAA!!

And over the sound of the blown fire shutter was an horrible cry that could not be compared to anything else.

The thing with the voice was.

“Oh, God…..”

It was a gigantic dark-skinned orc with a height of more than two meters.

< Chapter 2. The Mark of the Awakened (3).> The end.

Chapter end