the first hunter
Chapter 4. Relic, Part III
Translator: Khan
Editor: RED
3.
“Oh, it is filling up! It is filling up!”
Bang Hyun-wook admired the magically clear liquid filling the old-fashioned glass that had nothing in it.
On the other hand, the expression of Ahn Sun-mi holding the glass was not good. ‘I can’t move.’
Her body was just a conduit. Some unknown power was now pouring into the glass after undergoing a process similar to a water purifier inside her. The problem was that the moment she moved her body, the moment her concentration faltered, everything stopped. The concentration required by this process was beyond imagination.
Ahn was a doctor, and if necessary, a doctor needed to perform surgery in an operating room to keep a patient alive for ten hours straight. Her concentration could not be lacking. If it had been lacking, she would not have gotten even close to perfect scores on the entrance exam for university and entered a medical school. But she felt her concentration being consumed so fast that she could not compare with surgery. Eventually, she gave up.
“Huh, huh …” She was panting hard. It was not a trick, as the sweat on her forehead was not from the cold weather.
“Are you alright, sister?”
“It’s all right, hoo… okay.”
Bang talked to the exhausted Ahn. Kim Tae-hoon silently looked at her and arranged his thoughts.
‘Magic… She is like a magician.’ The appearance of Ahn reminded him of the existence of magicians in games, movies, and novels. Magicians had to memorize spells for some time to use magic, and they required a lot of concentration. When they move or were interfered with while memorizing spells, the memorized spells became useless.
It was high risk compared to the Energy of Bang, and the telekinetic power of Kim. So Kim had to know if there was any merit to taking this risk.
“Did you say the effect was wound recovery?” Kim rubbed the wound on the back of his hand after taking some transparent liquid onto his finger. It half-filled the glass that Ahn possessed, and it could only be considered water.
Then the wound started to bubble and it began to heal! The sight took Ahn’s breath away. She looked at Kim’s hand with incredulous eyes and shouted, “Oh my God, this is a miracle, a miracle!”
“Lower your voice.” Kim gave an order to Ahn, not a warning. She shut her mouth promptly.
The police station was quiet again. Kim, however, carefully moved his feet between the bodies without feeling relieved, and he extended his senses out to the gate of the police station. He examined the darkness around. There was no particular sign, but a sense of silence.
After Kim made a gesture that seemed to open his mouth with his left hand, Bang and Ahn exhaled softly.
Hoo…, the long wind drifted through the police station.
The conversation was a little bit later.
“That’s great. It’s kind of an item, isn’t it?” Bang was the first to open his mouth, and Kim gave an order instead of an answer.
“Take pictures of all of them.”
“Yes?”
“Take pictures of all the antiques and check how many relics are there.”
“Ah!” Only then did Bang wake up and take all the antiques out of the bag and start taking pictures.
Meanwhile, Kim asked Ahn several questions. “How did you feel using Mana?”
“Mana?”
“I decided to call it in that for the sake of convenience, but if you want to add something special, it’s fine.”
“Mana does work.”
“So how do you feel?”
“My body feels like a water purifier. It feels like Energy goes through my heart and then into this glass… But it’s really hard. It’s like walking on a tightrope.”
Kim nodded. ‘The risk is big, but the merit is great.’
The concept of relics and Mana had been put together.
‘A relic is an item that helps us use Mana or any mysterious power. There exist relics among the historical objects like antiques. If we consider in the concept of games, things made by monsters can also be relics or items.’
‘Mana requires many restrictions and conditions to use differently than Energy and Telekinesis.
‘If we get weapons, the next destination will be the museum. Of course, we must secure as many of these relics as possible.’
In this world, there was no Sotheby auction, and even if an auction was held, Kim would not be able to buy the goods at such an auction with just his lifetime savings.
“Big brother, there’s nothing else,” Bang reported, after finishing checking the relics, shaking his head.
Instead of answering Bang, Kim handed over the revolver he had brought from the arsenal. He also handed one to Ahn.
“The cylinder will open this way, put the bullet into it, and close it.” He taught them how to fill the cylinder of the pistol and how to shoot. “Check the target, aim, and shoot. Hold it with both hands when shooting. Pull the trigger only once.”
Bang and Ahn began to fill the cylinders with bullets clumsily.
Kim told them so. “Never point a gun at our people. Don’t point a gun at me even when filling the cylinder and practicing.”
At his words, Bang, who was about to point a gun in Kim’s direction after filling the cylinder, instantly stopped.
Kim smiled bitterly at his actions. He had anticipated what Bang would do. It wasn’t hard to predict.
‘It’s one of the mistakes most people usually make when they first touch a gun. They aim at the person in front of them when they hear the word ‘aim.’
‘These two are not bad either, but it would be better to have a career man if I wanted to move along.’
It was something Kim would have to endure to go around with Bang and Ahn. The two had never been soldiers.
‘Even if I wanted something like a soldier right away, it doesn’t mean they can’t do the job. I hope there’s someone who will be helpful in the Ojung-dong military base.’ It would be convenient to find an Awakened soldier, and that was one of the reasons why Kim was heading for the military base.
An Awakened soldier was needed. Of course, there was no guarantee that an Awakened soldier would become a subordinate to him even if there was one there.
‘I hope there is a man of sense…’ That’s what Kim worried about.
“We`re moving now. Take sugar with the chocolate we prepared, and arm yourself, then let’s move on to the next point…”
With the first objective done, it was time to move toward the military base in Ojung-dong.
Kuoooooo! A loud cry rang through the city of Bucheon.
4.
‘The most fearful thing to those who survive in a city which had been ruined by bombing is the sound of the fighter jets passing overhead. The sound not only paralyzes the reason of the listener but sometimes even the heart. This is the case; on the battlefield, the body is fine, but a dead man with his ears covered is seen from time to time.
Even trained soldiers are not free from the fear. The moment a bomber bombs, death is on the way. That kind of fear cannot be overcome. They just get used to it.’
——-
Kim’s ability to go without losing his reason in front of the monstrous fear that rampaged through his mind was also due to his familiarity with this kind of fear. He could not overcome the fear. He was lying on the floor, just waiting for the fear to fade away. Soon after Kim Tae-hoon’s fear of everything exploding disappeared, he rose from his seat.
The first thing he did was look at the condition of Bang and Ahn, who were similar to the dead bodies scattered on the floor. He checked their pulses immediately. Their pulses were running, but there was no focus in their eyes.
“Huck!” Bang woke up first, but his eyes were full of fear.
Kim forced the chocolate from his pocket into Bang’s mouth after breaking it.
“Melt it down in your mouth; do not swallow, let it melt.”
Kim then approached Ahn. Her condition was worse than Bang’s. Her heart was beating, but her eyes were not focused. She was truly in a state of unconsciousness.
Kim slapped her cheek. “Get ahold of yourself, Ahn Sun-mi. Get ahold of yourself.”
The focus returned Ahn’s eyes after her cheeks were red.
Kim put the pieces of chocolate in her mouth. “Melt it down on your tongue.”
Kim then spoke to Bang, who was somewhat sober. “Stand here. If anything happens, shout out to me.”
Bang, who had been melting chocolate hard in his mouth, was surprised and asked, after gulping down the chocolate. “Yes? What about you?”
“We need to figure out what monster passed over our heads. Boil water using the portable pot we brought. It’s dangerous to move in this condition right away. Let’s warm up and move.”
With those words, Kim went out the broken door of the police station.
5.
Tap!
With a short sound, the police car’s door unlocked itself. Kim stared slowly at the car’s window, and he opened the door right after blinking his eyes a couple of times. Soon after, he pushed himself into the wide-open door.
“Hoo…” The cold police car was filled with his white breath. Kim’s hand extended through the cloud to the black box installed in the car. He opened the black box as it was, playing the video that the black box had recorded a short time ago.
Under the night sky, the image of the dark world, without a street-light, was of course dark. But it was not difficult to see its presence in the video. The video taken by the black box was more than enough.
It was about three hundred meters long and large enough to cover a gymnasium with the massive wings that could lift the giant body. It was a dragon. At least, among the countless human words, the dragon was the only word that could describe the monster.
The huge dragon was flying past Bucheon towards Incheon, where the sea was visible.
Kim grit his teeth tightly. ‘Black Orcs… are at the level of wild dogs.’
There was already a crazy monster in the world. The chance of beating such a thing could not even be calculated without the help of a powerful weapon.
‘The world has changed well beyond my imagination.’
Kim did not even dare to dream that such a monster would appear in the world. Instead, he was able to imagine what would happen when such a monster appeared.
‘If this monster gets settled in Incheon City… I must be determined to return Incheon City to September of 1950 to kill it.’
How much firepower would be needed to simply kill this monster with human weapons?
How much property and geographical damage would be taken, and how many lives would be lost?
Some of the survivors were people who were willing to take the damage and still survive the ruthless violence.
‘… I need to hurry.’