The First Hunter Chapter 4: The Relics (3)

3. 

“Ohhh, it’s filling up! Filling up!”

Bhang Hyunwook admired the glass as it filled up with a clear liquid, like magic. 

Ahn Sunmi, who was holding the glass, wasn’t so happy.

It couldn’t be good. 

‘I can’t move at all.’

Right now, her body was just a conduit. 

Some unknown power was filtering through her body, which acted like a water purifier and then into the glass. 

The problem was as soon as Ahn Sunmi moved the concentration was broken and everything stopped. 

It required concentration that was beyond imagining. 

She’s a doctor. A doctor needed to stay focused when performing a 10-hour operation and when it was required to save a patient. Her ability to focus should be greater than anybody else's. 

If it wasn’t, she wouldn’t have been able to get into medical school by scoring almost 100% on her Korean SAT. 

But now she felt her focusing ability was decreasing faster than on any other occasion—even compared to when she performed an operation. 

Eventually, she had to give up. 

“Ha, Ha…”

She was breathing heavily. 

She wasn’t being lazy. The sweat on her forehead wasn’t normal for this cold weather. 

“Are you alright?”

“I’m okay. Whoa, okay.”

Bhang Hyunwook tried to talk to her. But Kim Taehoon was sorting his thoughts in his head without speaking, just looking at Ahn Sunmi.

‘Magic power… like a witch.’

Ahn Sunmi reminded him of wizards and witches from the movies, games, and novels. 

The wizards and witches had to memorize and recite spells for a period of time, which required a lot of focus and when disturbed the spells they were reciting failed. 

It had a higher risk than Bhang Hyunwook’s muscle power or Kim Taehoon’s telekinetic power. 

So Kim Taehoon had to know. 

“The effect was to heal an injury, right?”

Was it worth the risk? 

Kim Taehoon dipped his index finger into the clear water-like liquid that filled the glass halfway, then rubbed it into a wound that he had on the back of his hand. 

Bllgh blllgh!

The wound bubbled and then started to heal. 

Ahn Sunmi’s heavy breathing stopped while looking at the scene. She looked astonished at Kim Taehoon’s hand and yelled. 

“Oh my god, this is a miracle! A miracle!”

“Lower your voice.”

Kim Taehoon gave her a cold look and gave an order to her, not a warning. Ahn Sunmi zipped her mouth. 

Again the precinct was quiet. 

But Kim Taehoon didn’t make himself comfortable but moved past the bodies beside the precinct’s door, and enhanced his senses. He tried to get a feel for the surroundings. 

There was nothing special other than silence. 

After Kim Taehoon gave them an all-clear sign via an opening gesture with his hand, Bahng Hyunwook and Ahn Sunmi started to breathe again. 

Whooaaa, a sound of deep breaths flew around the precinct. 

The conversation took a bit longer to resume.

“It’s incredible. Is it some kind of magic item?”

Bhang Hyunwook started to ask, but Kim Taehoon gave an order instead of responding to his question. 

“Take pictures of all of them.”

“Huh?”

“Take pictures of all of them to see how many relics we have.”

“Ah!”

Bhang Hyunwook gathered himself together then removed the antiques from the bag and started to take pictures. 

Meanwhile, Kim Taehoon asked a few questions to Ahn Sunmi.

“How did it feel to use your magic?”

“Magic?”

“I’d like to call it magic for convenience sake, but you’re the one who found it so you can put a special name to it.”

“magic is good.”

“So the feeling?”

“It felt like my body became a water filter. Some sort of power went through my heart and straight into the shot glass… But it’s really tiring. It’s like walking on a tightrope.”

Kim Taehoon noded. 

‘High risk but great merit.’

The concept of the relics and the magic was organized in his head. 

First of all, relics were items to help use special abilities such as magic. 

The relics existed within historical artifacts like antiques. 

‘If you look at these from a gaming perspective, the stuff you made through monsters might also be a relic or an item.’

Magic also had more restrictions and requirements, unlike telekinesis and energy. 

‘Once we secure the weapons the next stop would be a museum.’

They had to collect as many relics as possible. 

There wouldn’t be a Sotheby’s auction anymore in this world, and even if there were Kim Taehoon wouldn’t be able to afford the stuff there, even with his life savings.

“Sir, there’s nothing more.”

Bhang Hyunwook shook his head and reported after he finished checking the relics.

Instead of responding to him, Kim Taehoon handed over a revolver that he had removed from the armory to Bhang Hyunwook and another revolver to Ahn Sunmi. 

“This opens the cylinder, you insert the ammo in here and close it.”

He explained how to fill the cylinder.

“Check the target, aim, and shoot. When shooting, hold it with both hands. Pull the trigger only once, each time.”

He briefly explained how to fire the guns. 

Bhang Hyunwook and Ahn Sunmi clumsily started to load ammo into their guns. 

Kim Taehoon told them. 

“And NEVER point the gun towards an ally. Do not point it at me for practicing after you fill up the cylinder.”

Bhang Hyunwook’s body paused for a moment with Kim Taehoon’s words because he was going to aim the gun in Kim Taehoon’s direction once the cylinder was filled. 

Kim Taehoon made a bitter smile on his face as looked at Bhang Hyunwook. He knew what Bhang Hyunwook was going to do. 

It wasn’t so hard to predict his behavior.

It’s a common mistake a beginner made when they held a gun for the first time. When told to aim they aim at the person right in front of them. 

‘They are not bad, but we do need some expert to be with us.’

This was something that Kim Taehoon had to take into consideration since he decided to go with them. 

They had never been a soldier. 

So even though he wanted a soldier-like something from them, they couldn’t give it to him.

‘I hope there’s some helpful awakened at the Ojeong-dong base.’

That was one of the reasons why Kim Taehoon was heading towards the military base. To find awakened among the military. 

He needed someone from the military.

But it was not guaranteed that the specific person would be willing to be under Kim Taehoon’s command. 

‘Hope there’s someone I could talk it through…’

Kim Taehoon thought hard.

“Now we move. Replenish your energy levels with the chocolate we brought, arm yourselves then move on to the next location…”

With that statement, he was about to order them to move on to the Ojeong-dong base, but then…

KWWWOOOOO!

A massive cry filled the city of Bucheon again.

4. 

The thing that people who went through a bombing feared most was the sound of jet planes above their head. 

That sound paralyzes the rationale of a person, or sometimes even stops their hearts. 

That was what happened to a dead body, found with their ears covered by their hands but without any physical damage. 

On top of that, even trained soldiers were not immune from that fear. 

They couldn’t be. 

The moment the planes drop the bombs, the moment they were exposed to that, it meant death. 

So they could never completely overcome those kinds of fears. They just became used to it. 

Clench!

That’s exactly what happened to Kim Taehoon, not losing his mind and getting used to those kinds of fears. When he heard the sound of an unknown monster crying out, he just clenched his teeth hard. 

But he could not overcome it. Kim Taehoon laid on the floor facing down and just waited for the monster to leave and get far away. 

When the fear wrapped him around was gone Kim Taehoon quickly stood up from the floor. 

The first thing he did was check Bhang Hyunwook and Ahn Sunmi’s condition. 

He checked their pulses first. 

Baboom baboom…

Their hearts were beating. 

But their eyes had no light in them. 

“Gasp!”

Bhang Hyunwook pulled himself together first. His eyes were filled with fear. 

Kim Taehoon took out some chocolate, broke it into pieces and shoved it into Bhang Hyunwook’s mouth.

“Melt it in your mouth, don’t swallow, just let it melt.”

Then he approached Ahn Sunmi. Her condition was worse than Bhang Hyunwook’s.

Her heart was beating but her eyes had lost their light she had practically fainted. 

Kim Taehoon slapped her face left and right. 

“Come back. Ahn Sunmi, come back.”

It was only after her cheeks had turned red that she came to her senses. 

Kim Taehoon put the chocolate pieces into her mouth. 

“Slowly melt it in your mouth.”

Then Kim Taehoon told Bhang Hyunwook, who had somewhat gathered himself together. 

“Wait here. Give a shout to let me know if anything happens.”

Bhang Hyunwook melting the chocolate inside his mouth swallowed with surprise and asked, 

“Huh? What about you?”

“We need to figure out what that thing was that flew over us. Also, boil some water with the camping pots we brought. It’s dangerous to make any moves right now in this condition. We’ll warm up a little bit and then head out.”

As he was speaking, Kim Taehoon walked out through the precinct’s cracked glass door. 

5. 

Click!

With a small sound, the locks on the car were unlocked. 

Kim Taehoon stared at the window of the car, blinked twice and then opened the car door. 

Open!

Kim Taehoon reached his body into the car through the open door. 

“Whoa…”

Kim Taehoon’s warm breath made a small cloud inside the car. 

The thing Kim Taehoon reached for, through the cloud, was the dashcam inside the car. 

Pluck!

As if he had previous experience with the machine, Kim Taehoon took the dashcam out and played the video it had just recorded.  

Of course, under the dark sky without any streetlights the video only contained darkness. 

But it wasn’t hard to figure out its existence in that video. 

There was something giant that passed by in the dash cam video. 

Around 300m in length, the body would easily cover a gymnasium and had a huge set of wings to make its humongous body fly. 

It was a dragon. 

Dragon was the only word out of the numerous words that humanity had that fit the creature. 

That dragon was flying towards Incheon, past Bucheon, where it could see the sea.

Kim Taehoon clenched his teeth.

‘The Black Orc was… just a stray dog.’

The world already had indescribable monsters. Monsters that, without powerful weapons, it was impossible to calculate how to defeat.

‘This world ridicules my imagination.’

Honestly, even Kim Taehoon didn’t expect these kinds of monsters would also appear. 

But he could definitely imagine what would happen after the monsters appeared. 

‘If this big monster places itself in Incheon… You have to prepare yourself to set the city back to September 1950.’

How many man-made firearms would be needed to take that monster down? 

How much life, money, and geographical damage would it take? 

And how some of the remaining survivors would easily take such losses if it accomplished their goals...

‘... Gotta hurry.’

The end. 

Chapter end