Evolution Theory of the Hunter Chapter 78

Evolution Theory of the Hunter (ETH)
Volume 1 Chapter 78

And the next day, we started to hunting monsters in earnest.

The Southern Marsh definitely had more level 2 monsters than in the lands before it. The majority of them were included humanoid orks and lizardmen as well as beast types such as white wolves, grizzly bears, and giant bats.

The prevalence of beast type monsters was good news.

Stab!

[+200]

The white wolf died easily. All I had done was stab it in the rear with the Smash Sword, but it trembled a bit as if hit by an electric shock before dying.

High level weapons are amazing, indeed.

Sooah, who had been supporting the long range attackers, asked.

“Sunbeh Oppa, that sword is crazy good huh?”

“h.e.l.l yes. Why else would it be a level 4 item?”

This is what I said, but I was honestly surprised at its power too.

I thought the level 3 Honcheon sword was plenty powerful. But killing a level 2 monster with required a bit of effort on my part. I wasn’t able to kill a monster in one blow as I was able with this weapon.

“Partyhead!”

“I’m coming.”

Cho Youngoo was hollering loudly. He had about 10 or so wolves surrounding him.

The wolf is a relatively clever monster. And the white wolves were the same. They preferred to separate a straggler from a group and surround their prey before attacking.

We had used this bit of knowledge to our advantage by having Cho Youngoo stay a bit further away from the rest of us.

We were up against 30 of them in all.

And while ⅓ of them had surrounded Cho Youngoo, Jong Sawon and I started to attack them.

Slice!

[+200]

Stab!

[+200]

As soon as I felt the blade of my Smash sword hit its target, I didn’t have any need to check if it had done its job. The sword finished off every monster it touched.

And I had done away with 3 wolves in mere moments in that manner. Moving so fast I was leaving an afterimage, the wolves were dying one after one helplessly. They didn’t have a chance.

Seeing this, the rest of them began to avoid me and headed towards Sooah and the archers.

“Five of them! Can you handle it?”

“Yes! Leave it to me!”

Sooah yelled aloud. She was currently borrowing my reflexes with her new item.

Combined with the garter belt that raised her power by 30%, my borrowed reflexes, and the level 3 no name sword, she was well equipped to handle the level 2 white wolves.

Manager Kim asked.

“I can trust you right?”

“Manager. You’re more chicken than you look. Don’t you remember how you lived because of me last time?”

“But Jong Sawon was there that time.”

“I’m probably stronger than him right now.”

Sooah said with a bit of a confident swagger.

A staggering 300% in reflexes. No matter how flawed its design was, if it were me, I’d never pa.s.s that off to someone else.

Sooah slashed out with her sword as quick as lightning. She had learned to hold a sword with both hands from me, and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d sword was suited for this style.

Slice!

Upon striking, the wolf’s side split out, spilling out blood and guts.

She didn’t bat an eye and just moved on to the next one.

Han Joonseok and Bae Yeonkyoung stuck right behind her and continued shooting their bows while Park Hanb.u.m used his moving shots atop his bike.

And Kelby.

Gnas.h.!.+

Kelby chomped ferociously on a wolf’s neck, immediately snapping it. Then Kelby immediately chased after the next wolf.

The white wolves were busy trying to run away from Kelby while Kelby was rounding them up so that Jong Sawon and I could cut them all down.

It would probably look like we were fighting blindly to an outside observer.

But this was all planned and coordinated beforehand.

Of course there were little deviations here and there, but the core of it all happened as we expected it to.

“It seems everyone has powered up significantly. Thanks to that I can rest peacefully.”

Manager Kim yelled out. After Sooah took up the sword, he had become the only non-combat member of the party.

It may seem that he was just hanging out while we were doing all the work…but that wasn’t entirely true. There was 7 wolves fast asleep. He had done his part.

Though it was all thanks to his items, but the same went for every one of us.

And we had continued hunting in this way for a week straight.

I don’t know if it was because we were lucky, but we never once crossed paths with the Ezekiel Team in that time.

We had earned a total of 600 ores and 40 items. As for reward points, I earned 60,000 of those.

All the items that dropped from the monsters were pretty much Level 1 and Level 2 items, but I could use these towards item fusion.

I ended up fusing together the Level 2 Ingot sword that Cho Youngoo had with a Level 1 Agile sword to create the Rubicon sword. He was now armed with level 3 equipment.

Then I used up all the blisolnites to fuse level 1 items into level 2 items so that we could sell and earn more money in that way.

The most disappointing aspect was that all the items were from the old system.

It seemed that new system items only dropped from irregulars or hunters.

The former was not something we could laugh at while the latter was something I hoped didn’t happen often.

But I wanted to be able to fuse the new system items.

But since it was so hard to come across new system items, it was hard for me to do it.

If I could even just fuse and create Sooah’s Redemption necklace, I could boost up all of my party members’ abilities in an instant.

Of course it still had the design flaw. But if I could just get my hands on the needed items to perform the fusion, I would make wearing them mandatory.

There was probably no other item as efficient as this in bringing up a person’s abilities. Even Sooah, on wearing the item and copying my reflexes, she was able to become even more powerful than both Jong Sawon and Cho Youngoo.

Not having any injuries the entire week of hunting was largely thanks to her help.

Hic Hic Hic-

A weird sound started chugging from ChoYoungoo’s car.

“I think it’s about time due for maintentance.”

“We only rode it around for a week, and it’s already breaking down?”

At Sooah’s question, Cho Youngoo calmly responded.

“Even if they say 4 wheel drive, there is no such thing as the perfect offroading vehicle. The only vehicles that could survive this kind of beating are those only available to the army or something ok?”

“Do you mean humvees?”

Han Joonseok asked. He was someone who knew a little bit of this and that. It wasn’t surprising that he knew about military grade vehicles.

“No, they have something more suited for us in the form of a truck. You’ve seen them around here remember?”

“Ah, you mean those trucks covered with tarpaulin?”

“Yep. You can stow maybe 20 people in the back and it can also carry a lot of our equipment. And you can even modify it so that people can sleep in there too. It looks a bit bulky on the outside but it’s the best vehicle for offroading.”

“How much does something like that cost?”

I asked. Buying a car or two isn’t a problem if we just hunted for a day or two and sold the items.

“They run up to about 30,000 dollars. They’re a bit on the expensive side but it comes with alot of options just for hunters.”

“Would we be able to make the purchase at Manripo?”

They did have a autobody shop, but I didn’t remember seeing a dealers.h.i.+p.

“Even if we can’t immediately, we should be able to soon. Because vehicles are as useful as having two feet in the new land. There is no way that car dealers would not jump at such a great opportunity.”

Han Joonseok responded.

“Hm. Then let’s head back. We’re almost out of supplies and the car is having issues so that would be best.”

We were planning to finish up our hunting through the end of day anyway. Instead of continuing our hunt and getting stranded, it was better to return to Manripo.

After leaving the Southern Marshes and returning to the entry point, we saw that a bunch of new temporary shops and buildings had been set up in the span of a week.

They were all in the form of modular buildings. Additionally, we saw long stretches of roads had been paved. It was amazing how fast things changed in such a short time.

The main reason for paving the roads was to ward off monsters.

“It looks like we don’t even have to go all the way to Manripo.”

Cho Youngoo whistled and said. I nodded my head in agreement.

Just the parked cars alone numbered over several hundred. There weren’t any civilian vehicles – most of them were 4 wheel drive trucks. There were quite a few motorcycles as well.

“It looks like they moved all the buildings from Manripo to here.”

Han Joonseok said after examining the many buildings. When we got closer, we saw a sign that said The Yellow Sea of the West Sea.

It looked like they had already named this bustling city as well. It was probably not something done officially but, more likely than not, just hurriedly put together and posted up.

They probably did this in an effort to label the land as Korea’s amidst the rising tension with China.

We drove in and parked our vehicle. It didn’t take long for us to find a hostel. The city was organized in groups to make finding everything easier. There were even policemen patrolling around the alleys carrying firearms.

“Wow, pretty scary. Do they have to walk around like that?”

Cho Youngoo asked.

“Of course. Hunters are basically human weapons. If there aren’t policemen around, fights would just break out everywhere.”

“Still.”

“I bet the police force is stretched thin because they’re forced to come here.”

I said as I looked around. The West Sea had appeared out of nowhere so it was likely they were using personnel who should be devoted elsewhere.

“Hm….”

My throat was parched. Manager Kim had forced me to drink yet again last night and half the night was a blank.

“Euum…”

I tried to get up to get some water, but my body was very heavy.

I forced my sleepy eyes to open, and I saw a head on top of my body.

Sooah had fallen asleep using me as a pillow.

I placed her head onto the floor and slowly got up.

Squeak.

“Ah….”

Yeonkyoung, who was coming out of the shower, briefly locked eyes with me. She wasn’t wearing a bathrobe, but she had on a white ts.h.i.+rt and shorts. I could slightly see through the areas that were wet from her hair.

Jeez.

I stopped my eyes from trying to glance at areas I shouldn’t and spoke.

“You’re up early.”

“Ah…so are you.”

“Uh…but why was I sleeping here?”

We had checked into two rooms. One was for the men, and one for the women. Since the rooms were large, there was no reason for me to have slept here.

“Unnie was a bit drunk and carried you here.”

“Is that so….”

I turned around to look at Sooah. It looked like she was awake too – she was rubbing her eyes and staring at us.

Then, surprised, she covered her face with her blanket.

“Huh? Don’t look. My face is probably swollen all to h.e.l.l.”

I’ve already seen you like that plenty of times. What does covering it now do?

“But what are you doing here so early?”

“From what I hear, you carried me here.”

“Hm…I guess I did it out of habit.”

Out of all of us, I had the lowest tolerance for alcohol.

And it was Sooah’s job to carry me home because she was the only one physically capable of doing so.

Since no one had to go home yesterday, in her drunken state, she seemed to have done what she always did…except dropped me off at her and Yeonkyoung’s room.