Episode 24
The surface of the suit was matte.
The gray was quite close to black, and the sharp color made it seem as though it was shiny.
Yoo-seong began to wear it.
The outer part of the suit was a solid armor consisting of hundreds of nodes.
However, the inside has a softer surface, like high-performance sportswear.
Eventually, after being zipping the suit to his nape, Yoo-seong paused in fascination and enjoyed the sensation he felt throughout his body.
“Isn’t it quite comfortable?”
The delivery man smiled at Yoo-seong’s reaction.
He was not only a delivery man but an apprentice who had been part of the crafting process.
“Except for the joints, which have several segments for easier movement, the whole outer surface is made of tough materials. Then, we put the utmost effort into the processing and bonding of the inner lining.”
“You used a lining?”
It didn’t feel like it. It felt so smooth; Yoo-seong felt he could wear it forever.
“Well? Didn’t you notice the feathers of Slush Terror that you provided as a material?”
“Yes?” Yoo-seong asked in surprise.
Slush terror-★★★★
At first glance, it looked like a mixture of a poodle and an ostrich, a ridiculous-looking giant bird. However, unlike its appearance, it was an aggressive predator, exceptionally greedy for flesh.
It was covered in fluffy feathers that could absorb considerable amounts of physical shock. Essentially, it was flesh-eating cotton candy.
Yoo-seong was deep in thought.
A Slush Terror was a rare monster that was quite difficult to capture. The three hundred million won in Yoo-seong’s bankbook would have been wiped out to purchase enough feathers for this suit. He couldn’t have afforded it.
So then, where did the resources come from?
The driver noticed that Yoo-seong seemed worried.
Yoo-seong smiled a little to ease the man’s tension.
Inside, he wasn’t smiling. It was clear where the feathers of the Slush Terror came from.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"}) Sung-wook would have gotten them from his private warehouse.
He had hidden the detail about the feathers in the sample order he had shown Yoo-seong.
“Would you like to try it out for a while? It’s impossible, but if there’s a problem with your movements, I can make adjustments to it.”
“Okay,” Yoo-seong said.
He flipped his head, and the helmet was folded flat on the back of his neck.
When he flipped his head again, the helmet completely covered his head. Yoo-seong moved his arms and legs, carrying out simple movements like bending, twisting, or stretching.
He threw a punch and the suit perfectly caught up with his move without resistance or noise. He was impressed.
Yoo-seong felt his heart beating with excitement.
Dark. Tough. High quality. High performance. Cutting edge. His custom-made suit had arrived.
Yoo-seong clenched his fists. As he did, he noticed there were nice cursive engravings on his suit’s arms, from wrist to forearm.
– Oh Yoo-seong.-
-Freelance Hunter-
At the same part on the left arm were the words: -Reginae Amet-
“What does this mean?” Yoo-seong asked.
“Uh… This is the phrase you asked for when you ordered, right? It looks as though you have no idea of your order. Usually, the name of the equipment is engraved on the left forearm. What was the meaning again…”?
After thinking for a moment, the driver snapped his fingers and said,
“I think it means ‘The Queen’s Hug.’”
Yoo-seong raised an eyebrow.
“Is it German?” He asked.
“The internet says it’s Latin,” the driver replied.
Yoo-seong smiled.
“It’s perfect,” he said. He liked Sung-wook’s naming sense.
The suit itself was as though the Queen Ant wrapped its tough armor around him.
The feather lining only made it feel much better. He stepped out of the luggage compartment where he had gone to change.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"}) The older QR Hunters looked at him with admiration as they whispered among themselves.
The seniors didn’t envy him. They had better armors.
However, some of the hunters were jealous.
They were those who purchased armor rather than having it custom-made from their prey.
“Ah, what…”
Jang Yoong-cheol couldn’t hold back his goosebumps.
He glanced at Yoo-seong, then at the other team members. He was going to complain about the armor’s gray color, but he knew it would be futile. It would be obvious that he was just jealous.
***
The crack opened.
-Alpha Team, 02 Operation Division assigned.-
-Giant Whipper-★★★~★★★★★-
-Currently, there are three monsters observed. Two are 4-stars, the other is a 5-star.-
-Further reports will be sent later in case of more monsters observed.-
“Briefing is out!” Jang said as he stormed out of the camp.
The other hunters followed closely behind him.
The Alpha Team and three other QR hunter teams were in charge of the rift area. They were separated into four divisions.
“Get your equipment!” he shouted to the hunters around him.
In general, monsters with four or more stars have a certain level of strength and special abilities, just as the Queen Ant had a higher durability level.
“Box mounted!” one hunter said.
“B4, B9, C2 boxes have been confirmed!” another one replied.
They stacked the necessary supplies in a trunk and headed out to the rift locations.
“According to the briefing, there are three Giant Whippers in total,” Yoong-cheol said on the way to the operation section.
“We will move in twos, and we’ll be using capture ropes to subdue them. Got it?” he asked his team.
“Okay!”
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})“Okay!”
The team members shared a subtle glance among themselves.
They were all familiar with using the equipment through the training they received from QR.
Yoong-cheol intended to make Yoo-seong a bystander during the operation.
He had ensured that would happen. The capture ropes were designed to be used by two people at once.
The Alpha Team had ten hunters and five capture ropes.
The task was perfect for their workforce, without Yoo-seong being included.
“It’s a four-star monster, so, everyone, stay vigilant. We’re going to grab the monsters, two hunters with a rope.”
As the vehicle got closer to the center, everyone in the car moaned.
“Wow…”
“This is crazy…”
The crack was right before them.
It was the first time for all of them to see a storm-class crack that covers at least a small town. Its length was over a hundred meters. The purple aurora tore through the blue sky.
Their bus stopped, along with the buses carrying the other team of hunters.
The only buses that went further ahead were those carrying hunters assigned to go inside the crack to close it.
“Guys, look!” a hunter said, pointing out to a row of buildings.
Everyone almost stepped down from the bus to see what the man had pointed at.
Suddenly, there was a thud against the bus, causing it to turn over.
It was a giant monster, over 13m in height. It had the shape of a human body without a neck and face. The eyes and mouth were on the chest side.
At the ends of each arm, instead of a fingered hand, were several long wriggling whips.
“Okay… everyone has the right frequency?” Jang Yoong-cheol whispered.
The team members nodded nervously.
For them, this was more than just practice. They set their GPS so that they could request support from nearby seniors if the problem became more than they could handle.
They sneaked down from the bus as the Whipper’s attention shifted from them.
It started to walk past the bus.
Jang Yoong-cheol looked at the monster’s back in relief.
Yoo-seong was the last one to step out of the bus.
“Hey, go hide in a building or something. We need to get to work,” Yoong-cheol said to him.
The operation had begun, and an outsider was a nuisance. Jang Yoong-Cheol stared ahead. Around him, the Alpha team moved quickly.
A hunter blew a whistle, and the piercing sound filled the streets.
The Giant Whipper turned.
One of the Alpha Team members stood on the street right behind the monster.
The member blew another whistle, diverting the monster’s attention.
Meanwhile, the other Alpha team members ran to their positions. The monster wasn’t in a hurry to chase them.
It was bigger than any of them, and its single step could cover more ground than theirs.
Just as the Whipper got between two high rising buildings, Yoong-cheol yelled into his communicator.
“Everyone, go now!”
At the same time, three pairs of Alpha Team Hunters appeared on the buildings.
At least ten stories high, the buildings were a little taller than the Whipper’s head.
“Throw!” Yoong-cheol commanded.
Three of the pairs standing on the same row of buildings each held on to a rope. Focusing Aura on their arms, they threw one end of the rope at their partners on the other rows of buildings.
Their aims were accurate. Their training was paying off.
As soon as their partners at the other end caught the rope, they all pulled down hard. Then, they slid down the walls of the building.
The Whipper screamed as the three ropes tore through its flesh. The rope was designed to vibrate and dig into the flesh of monsters.
Meanwhile, work was also taking place below.
“Go, go, go!”
With the first hunter who had been blowing the whistle, three hunters hiding on the ground appeared. Together with the six hunters holding ropes, they trapped the legs of the captured Whipper.
The Whipper tried to swing its tentacles as it screamed, but it was too late. The Alpha Team members were elites that had been carefully nurtured by QR.
Soon, they were done with subduing the Whipper.
Then, Yoong-cheol climbed to the Giant Whipper’s vital spot and sunk his sword in.
“Okay, that’s it!” he yelled and raised his hand in excitement.
“We’ve got the first one, guys. Let’s go for more. We can do this!” he said as he turned to his teammates.
That was when he noticed the weird expression on everyone’s face. Someone motioned for him to turn around, and he slowly did so.
That was when he noticed the shadow looming over him. He jumped off the first Whipper just as a tentacle landed where he had been.
Another Whipper, quite larger than the first, was behind them.
Jang landed hard on the ground and groaned in pain. He wondered how he had missed the massive Whipper.
The briefing had revealed the locations of the three Whippers.
They had gotten so immersed in the first Whipper that they hadn’t heard the arrival of another.
He groaned again as he watched the Whipper swing its tentacles.
“Jang Yoong-cheol!” a female hunter cried out.
He rolled out of the way before the tentacle reached the ground where he was.
“Run, guys,” he said as he stood up.
“Aren’t we supposed to go to get it?” the lady asked.
“Just run!”
If they had been calm enough to think things through, they would have been able to capture it.
There were still enough ropes. But their minds didn’t work that way. They began to panic.
The Whipper had appeared unexpectedly, and their team leader had worsened things by acting in a frenzy.
They ran towards the bus. The Whipper got to them in no time, using its tentacles to flip the car over before they could even get in.
The hunters changed directions towards an empty building. As they ran, Yoong-cheol tripped and fell.
A hunter turned back to help his leader, but when he saw the Whipper get close, he realized it was too late and ran back to the building, screaming.
Sure enough, the Whipper’s tentacles were already wrapped around Jang Yoong-cheol’s ankle. Anxiety filled Yoong-cheol. Only one thought filled his head.
A Whipper’s mouth was smaller than the size of a human adult.
Therefore, if Whipper wanted to eat him, it wouldn’t end with one bite.
The Whipper slowly lifted him.
Upside-down, he watched the distance between him and the ground increase. He felt his life leaving him already.
Suddenly, he caught the silhouette of a person from the corner of his eye.
In-yung, a hunter, soared through the air and landed on the Whipper’s body.
He gave the Whipper a heavy punch.
The next second, Yoong-cheol’s ankle was released, and he felt himself falling through the air. At the same time, he spotted Yoo-seong, too, soaring through the air and landing on the Whipper.
In-Yung and Yoo-seong each cut off a tentacle of the Whipper.
The Whipper let out a scream as Yoo-seong leaped off it to catch Yoong-cheol.
He came in contact with Yoong-cheol’s body just as his feet touched the ground.
Yoong-cheol, who couldn’t believe that he would live through the ordeal, almost threw up the moment he realized he was safe.
Before he could, though, he saw something that made his eyes widen.
The places where Yoo-seong and In-Yung had cut grew again in two-folds, releasing four new tentacles.
He wanted to warn Yoo-seong about what he saw, but he couldn’t get his lips to move coherently.
Thankfully, Yoo-seong noticed his motions and turned to see what he was pointing at.
He saw the tentacles coming at them, grabbed Yoong-cheol, and leaped towards the tentacles.
Yoong-cheol barely felt the impact of Yoo-seong’s landing on the tentacles. Before he could wonder what Yoo-seong was doing, something more surprising occurred,
Yoo-seong was running on the tentacles like a spider running on a wall.
After running for a while, he leaped off the Whipper’s body and landed on a power pole.
Then, he continued running up the pole.
The moment they reached the top of the pole, Yoo-seong leaped off it again, just as the Whipper’s tail crashed against them.
Yoo-seong landed on another tentacle and kept running.
His next leap took them towards a window on the seventh floor of a building. There almost made it, but a tentacle hit them, sending them flying through a window on the 6th floor instead.
Yoong-cheol was wounded in a couple of areas, but that was all.
Yoo-seong was still okay.
As they were trying to catch a breath, a tentacle came through the window, groping around the room. The Whipper was trying to find them.
Yoo-seong grabbed Yoong-cheol and led him out of the room.
They stopped at the corridor of the fifth floor, away from the Whipper’s tentacles.
“Stay calm. Inhale, exhale. Are you okay?” Yoo-seong said.
Only then was Jang Yoong-cheol able to speak.
“Thank… you…”
“Do you have any major injury? Sorry. I couldn’t completely avoid the Whipper.”
Yoo-seong took off his helmet. His face was full of sweat.
“I just… how the hell did you…”
“I learned it somewhere,” Yoo-seong said concisely.
Yoong-cheol wasn’t satisfied with the answer, but he let it go. There were bigger things to deal with.
“Team leader, are you okay?” The voice came from the communicator.
“Yes, I am. What about you, guys?”
“We’re safe too. We’re in a building. The Whipper can’t find us. But what are we going to do? The mission has gone awry. We didn’t even secure the first one properly. I fear the hunt is now over.”
“And I fear you’re correct. Now that there are two of them, we have no hope of defeating them.”
The sound of tentacles groping inside the building echoed in the hallway.
The first Whipper had broken free.
Now, the two of them were demolishing buildings, searching for their prey. The Alpha Team’s time was running out. Unless support came, they were going to die soon.
Jang Yoong-cheol groaned in frustration.
He knew how much their CEO, Yoon Kang-Cheol, had looked forward to them hunting in the central region.
His attention was drawn back by the sound from Yoo-seong’s helmet.
Yoo-seong had put it back on. He stood up and went towards the window.
“Hold on, rookie. Where are you going?”
“Outside.”
“Are you crazy?!”
“Yes. But I’m not about to give up like your team. I am an outsider. So, it’s different for me.”
Jang Yoong-cheol stared at him, confused. He hadn’t seen Yoo-seong’s video.
He had just heard that some impressive rookie had emerged. The rumors were everywhere in the industry.
He had thought the reason everyone was so impressed by Yoo-seong were the skills he had just shown.
Yoo-seong had saved his life, and that was great, indeed. However, there was no way a beginner would be able to catch the monsters outside.
He hadn’t been able to avoid the tentacle completely during their escape.
‘How could he face two of them?’
Yoong-cheol gripped the rookie’s shoulder.
“No, you can’t just-” he began, but Yoo-seong shrugged his hands off and continued walking towards a window.
“Hey, hey!” Jang Yoong-cheol shouted as he went after Yoo-seong.
The operation was already ruined – that was clear.
However, if the rookie got killed on his watch, he’d be on a whole new level of trouble.
Yoo-seong faced the window. He could see Whipper’s tentacles outside.
“Come back here! What are you doing? You were hit the last time. You’ll just get yourself killed!” Jang said from the door. He couldn’t get himself to move any further.
“You’re hiding well,” Yoo-seong said as he smiled at Jang Yoong-cheol.
The reason he had been hit by the Whipper the last time was simple: he hadn’t turned on Auto-Hunt.
He had wanted to fight with his abilities. He had saved Yoong-cheol and escaped the Whippers by himself.
He had been training in sweat and blood for the past two months for this moment.
He wanted to know how far he could go without the button.
He had gotten a great armor for the job.
Of course, he could always press the button when he needed to.
With a slight smile on his lips, Yoo-seong cracked his neck.
“When you do, you have to be sure,” Jang Yoong-cheol warned him.
For Yoo-seong, the tour was now over.
It was time for full-scale hunting.
-Press the button to auto-hunt.-
