The First Hunter Chapter 5: It's the Hunter (2)

3.

Tatatatata!

The gunshots sounded like pouring rain under the blue sky as dawn faded away.

Tatata!

The sounds were strong enough to affect people that were far away.

“Wow, this is no joke. Nothing like a movie. F*ck, it is nothing like a movie.”

Bhang Hyunwook spoke more as they grew closer to the sounds.

“Whoa… Whoa… Whoa…”

Ahn Sunmi was breathing heavily.

The effect of real gunshots was that intense. It’s totally different from what you see in the movies. You can’t move and your mind stops working if you’re experiencing the sound for the first time.

Of course, living in Korea Bhang Hyunwook and Ahn Sunmi had never heard the sound of real gunshots before.

It was proof of their obedience and to Kim Taehoon’s leadership that they were going forward, despite the gunshots.

Kim Taehoon, of course, was not surprised by the gunshots.

‘They are still shooting.’

Instead, he was finding meaning in the gunshots—what sounded like meaningless shots to others—and drawing a picture in his mind based on that meaning.

‘They are definitely moving around.’

But the problem was that it wasn’t a pretty picture.

‘We’re not going to see something pretty again.’

A gun was a powerful weapon. Not only handguns but also rifles, the power they had easily exceeded regular people’s expectations.

When you get shot, you realize how absurd it is in the movies, the main characters still survives and functions after getting shot repeatedly. But it wasn’t something you needed to know.

What was clear to him was that the gun was powerful enough to fight against the orcs or goblins that the gang had previously encountered. That meant there’s no reason to blindly shoot a machine gun.

‘To have survived until now should mean that they had gone against the monsters pretty successfully…’

The soldiers currently fighting inside the base would know that well. It didn’t make sense not to know that because it would mean this was the first battle. But the guns kept firing.

There could be two cases.

It was either the number of the monsters they were fighting was well over 100, at the minimum, or it was a terrifying monster that couldn’t be finished with one or two bullets.

Nothing was good in either case.

The worst-case scenario would be both combined. Where there’s a strong monster, such as the Black Orc, and they were the leader of a pack.

‘It could also be something that cannot be destroyed by guns.’

Or it could be a type of monster you could not kill with firearms. It doesn’t come through with common sense, but you can’t apply the same existing knowledge to the planet anymore.

The dragon’s existence had left an important message to Kim Taehoon.

AHHHHHH!

Meanwhile, they could also hear screams. The first scream they easily heard came from the green isolation wall that Kim Taehoon’s gang were facing.

Kim Taehoon stopped in front of the wall. Bhang Hyunwook and Ahn Sunmi also stopped walking.

Kim Taehoon turned his head to check on them. Of course, they didn’t look good.

‘Whoa, Bhang Hyunwook calm yourself down. You survived back there. Relax. You’re with Kim Taehoon so just chill. Energy, yeah I have energy power. I can smash some monster skulls with this bat.’

‘Don’t think, Ahn Sunmi, you just have to follow orders. Do not think about anything else. You have to survive. You came here to survive.’

As soon as they passed those walls, they would be witnessing the scene of monsters’ screams and gunshots. He would be more worried if they had happy faces while looking at more terrifying scenes than horror and splatter movies.

Kim Taehoon said to them.

“We need a vehicle.”

“Yeah?”

At his sudden comment, Bhang Hyunwook and Ahn Sunmi both had questioning looks on their faces.

“Vehicle.”

“Ah, you mean a bus?”

Ahn Sunmi recalled Kim Taehoon using the bus when he finished the Black Orc.

“Bus isn’t bad but I’d like a truck. Like a dump truck.”

“Huh?”

“Something like 15 tons…”

Kim Taehoon found what he wanted at that moment.

“ … good.”

4.

Military bases were always desolate. The desolate landscape does not disappear no matter how many trees and greenery you planted. It was like a warning to the fact that the military base was a stage for killing, not intended for something prosperous and beautiful.

Tata! Tata! Tatatatatata!

And that warning had now become a reality.

A group of soldiers, exactly 24 of them, formed a semi-circle and were shooting rifles in order, like a cogwheel.

Keeee!

Kiiieeeeee!

Brown colored goblins, about 150cm in height, were attacking them.

There was a large number of goblins, the ones that could be seen fighting were well over fifty.

“ARGGGHHH!”

“Help, Help, Park, Sergeant Park, Help, Help me…”

If you added the number of goblins who were eating alive soldiers —who had fallen to the ground—it would be closer to 100.

An enormous number.

But it wasn’t the numbers that were making the soldiers struggle.

“F*ck! Die! DIEEEE!!!”

Tatatatatata!

The fact that the brown goblins were not stopped even though they were shooting to the point their shoulders hurt was.

Puh puh puh!

After getting wounded, the brown goblins’ red eyes would glow even brighter. Like a candle burned the brightest right before it went out.

The flood of brown goblins, with their red glowing eyes filled with hostility, only sped up. Their jumps became stronger, and the soldiers increasingly panicked.

“AHHHHH!”

One brown goblin jumped like a frog and finally succeeded in knocking over one of the soldiers.

It was the end as soon as you fell to the ground."

"Keee! Keeee!"

The goblin who knocked over the soldier died, but its comrades rushed to rip off the soldier’s uniform and bit into the flesh as if they were waiting for it.  

“ARGGGG!”

“Corporal Kang! Sh*t, Kang Ilhyun!”

It was a terrifying scene for both the soldiers getting chewed on and the soldiers who were watching. What’s more terrifying was the fact that the soldier could not shoot the gun at the brown goblin while it was dangling on your colleague.

Because a gun does not have comradeship. It might end the colleague's life, not the goblin’s.

Even if it meant you were easing the pain of your fellow soldier, it’s not something you can decide to do easily.

No, it was even harder to make that decision. To pull the trigger to free a friend from suffering, was incomparable to pulling a trigger to kill a monster, an enemy.

Only people who were cool-headed and had a true heart towards their fellow soldier could take that shot.

Tatata!

“Arg!”

The number of survivors was now 24, no, 23. The only person who could be that cool-headed among them was the officer in command, the second lieutenant Kim Suji.

“Everyone hold yourself together! Don’t panic! The number of enemies is shrinking! If we keep calm and do what we have to do we can finish them!”

Second Lieutenant Kim Suji.

With a pretty face, you could call her a beauty but her thick eyebrows, big bright eyes, and sharp nose gave a rather fierce beast-like impression. She also had a strong physique.

You could find her easily among the soldiers, she was at least 180 cm tall, and the uniform looked better on her than anybody else.

Tata!

Above all, only her shots had self-restraint. Killing the enemies on the front line, her muzzle did not waver even when she was squeezing the trigger. She was dispatching the enemies with the minimum amount of sound.

“Fall back to the church!”

Her voice was unwavering even when issuing the last command. It was the only light that shined in this unrealistic nightmare.

The soldiers clenched their teeth.

Tatatata!

And pulled their triggers again.

They didn’t stop falling back as they continued shooting at dozens of goblins.

‘Just till that church.’

‘Yes, just to that church. Just like right now.’

The goal was clear now. To reach the church(about 200m away). It didn’t seem like it was impossible to do.

Naturally, confidence started to return to their devastated minds.

KWAAAAA!

But the roar of a creature totally blacked out their slightly hopeful minds.

“Ah!”

“It, It’s that thing. That monster…”

The soldiers couldn’t help but recall a dark memory.

New year, to some of them it could have been the end of their military service, but that monster attacked the base. That monster ripped off a human head even in under a shower of lead. No matter how many bullet holes formed in its body the wounds would seal up like sand filled in a hole after a wave.

KWAAAAAA!

That monster had appeared again in front of the soldiers.

It was literally a monster. Four meters in height the body was not just tall but also obese. If there were a highly obese monster, this one would be it. The face also looked like crushed dough, the nose, and the cheeks were about to explode. Its skin looked like mud. Like it was going to flow down to the floor.

“Uh…”

“Ah, ah, ah…”

The murky cry it spat out became invisible chains that latched onto the soldiers.

The soldiers were frozen and just stared at the monster with empty faces.

For the first time, the shooting stopped.

“Keeee!”

The brown goblins started to fill the silence.

“Kiiiiiiieeeehhhh!”

The brown goblin pack started to move again.

“Retreat!”

Only Kim Suji made a voice of a human being in that fiasco.

Tatata! Tatata!

With that shout, she started to shoot the heads of the brown goblins, not the giant monster.

“Fall back as much as you can!”

She filled up the gap between the scattered gunshots with her worn out voice.

“We will form the battle line again at the church! Fall back!”

That moment.

Click, click!

Her gun which had kept emitting bullets finally made an empty sound.

Kim Suji’s face turned rigid.

‘Ah!’

It was a sound of the last light getting blown out in the darkness at the worst possible moment. The lights in the soldiers’ eyes became dim again.

Kim Suji remained calm up to this point but couldn’t do anything but lose control at this moment.

HOOOOONK!

What woke them up was the honking of a giant dump truck that was rushing towards them.

HOOOOONK!

“Wha, what?”

“It, It’s a truck!”

The constant honking woke up the stiff body of the soldiers.”

HOOOOOONK!

The dump truck didn’t stop. Without any sign of hesitation, the truck threw itself straight at the giant monster.

When the two giant things collided,

BAAAANNNNNGGGGG!

A tremendous sound like a clap of thunder instantly filled up the chaotic scene.

The brown goblins’ eyes changed in front of this unspeakable impact.

“Kee? Keeh!”

For the first time, the brown goblins’ eyes held fear in them, like they had broken out of some kind of hypnosis.

“Hold your fire! We came to help!”

In the silence made by the dump truck, they could hear a man’s voice.

Kim Suji turned her head to look at the guy.

One man was walking through the bloody path left by the dump truck with crushed bodies of brown goblins. He was followed by a young man.

Kim Suji asked the guy.

“Who are you?

“Kim Taehoon.”

Kim Taehoon replied briefly.

“Hunters! We are monster hunters!”

Bhang Hyunwook added, with a lot of enthusiasm before a battle.

“A hunter?”

Kim Suji asked back with suspicion at what Bhang Hyunwook said.

Kim Taehoon replied with a grimace.

“Yes, a hunter.”

Their conversation ended there.

“KWAAAAAA!”

The monster who had been hit by the dump truck, the mud troll, which had enormous recovery abilities, didn’t allow them to have any more conversation.

The End.

Chapter end