Episode 24

“Grroooar―”

The cold wind tickled the tip of my nose. I woke up from a pleasant sleep, stretched, and stared blankly at the sea, now devoid of people.

The scene of the Gwangan Bridge, which I had only seen in photos, and the calm night sea stretching beneath it. It was a peaceful and beautiful sight. Like most beaches, the water was not deep.

To venture deeper into the sea, I transformed from a wolf into a more streamlined shape. Even with Detection activated, it wasn’t easy to find it.

There were too many reasons. The sheer number of marine creatures made it difficult, even with the D-rank Detection. While I can still sense heat and presence like in my E-rank days, detecting heat underwater is tough.

Most fish are ectothermic, meaning they regulate their body temperature based on the external environment. It’s possible to find aquatic animals with a body temperature similar to the water temperature through Heat Detection, but it’s not very efficient.

I filtered out small presences like minnows and only captured large ones. Then, I refined the detected presences with my sense of smell.

Aquatic creatures have separate gills and noses, so they can smell underwater, but mammals cannot, as their noses serve both breathing and smelling functions.

However, my weak sense of smell was a result of a skill. Just because I was underwater didn’t mean I couldn’t use it. I wasn’t even a mammal to begin with.

The name came to mind just by thinking of it. I tried to recall the lobster I ate once. But then, I realized I didn’t know the smell of an uncooked one. So, I repeated trial and error, searching for the characteristic musty smell of crustaceans.

“This is why I couldn’t find it.”

Under the sand, a red exoskeleton barely sticks out. It usually hides like that, so unless someone is certain there’s something like it, it would be nearly impossible to find. It was a lobster, but its ecology was different from regular lobsters.

A thousand years of accumulated know-how. I suppose hiding under rocks with such a large body would be impossible.

A thousand-year-old lobster.

I salivated. When it comes down to it, it wasn’t a disaster, so I didn’t have to deal with it. But if I judged by taste rather than necessity, it was definitely something I wanted to eat. Millennium Lobster—It was an elixir―To be specific, a spirit creature.

Originally, it was something someone else would eat. It was meant to be consumed by a character in the novel. But he would soon betray humanity. So, it would be better for me to consume it myself.

Even as I approached, it didn’t move. It seemed completely confident that it would never be discovered. It was a spirit creature. Had it become bolder after living for a thousand years?

First of all, its stats were extraordinary. I doubt it ever thought it would be threatened in such shallow waters. Aside from hunters, it was one of the strongest creatures I had seen. With 149 mana, it could be a good match for the monster wolf.

I quietly raised my mana.

The mana, now increased to 52, was like water filling a kettle, bubbling up. I gathered and condensed the bubbling mana together.

Soon, the created mana ball collided with the lobster’s exoskeleton, and no matter how hard its shell was, it couldn’t stop the mana ball. The mana ball thoroughly shattered its exoskeleton. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the head that took the hit, but the claws. It seemed that it reflexively raised its claws to block.

It was tough. The mana ball pierced the claw, but that was all. The mana ball disintegrated with all its force. The shell was tougher than expected. The Millennium Lobster rose from the sand with its massive body.

Then, I saw another one on the ground. Two…? No, wait. It wasn’t two… I grinned. It was an unexpected stroke of luck.

It was in the process of molting. It hadn’t fully shed its shell yet, so it couldn’t move properly. Especially during molting, it lacked calcium in its new exoskeleton, making it the weakest period.

This was the perfect time to eat it.

I was satisfied just by reaching level 18, but before I knew it, Hunger was approaching D-rank. As I happily checked my status, I saw that my mana had increased to 91, by nearly 40—exactly 39. It was a far better increase than aged ginseng.

I’ve never regretted not having a sense of taste like right now before. I seriously considered ‘Should I acquire taste?’ but stopped because I didn’t want to waste my skill points. However, I could still feel its texture—chewy yet tender meat, which surpassed most foods in terms of texture alone.

Suddenly, my Weak Intuition level increased. And every time my Intuition level rose, strange things always happened. I instinctively used Stealth from my learned sense of danger and hid in the sea.

“Shit?”

The quiet of the night sea, and then the curse that broke the silence. A red-headed kid was throwing a tantrum.

It was surprising how well the red hair suited her. She wore an off-shoulder dress. It didn’t quite fit for a child, but why would a kid be out here at this hour? No, more importantly, I needed to focus on staying hidden and silent.

“Shit, did it already run away?”

The girl looked around, as if searching for something. Then, my Presence Detection belatedly reacted. It was that creature from the sewer—or rather, it was definitely the hunter.

‘That hunter is that little kid? No, that little kid is a hunter?’

In the face of the unbelievable, I involuntarily used Espionage.

‘…?’

640 mana? I thought I had seen it wrong, but no matter how many times I looked, it stayed the same. Not 64, but 640. My internal combat ranking dropped a notch. Furthermore, that girl, Hong Yuri, was a character from the novel.

So, she was probably from the second-place clan, Dawn…

Looking back on it, I remembered some readers liked her, calling her “Fire Attribute Loli” and “Spicy Legal Loli.” A hunter from the second-place clan… It was a miracle she wasn’t caught in the sewer. But it seemed she had sensed something off.

‘She came all the way here, chasing the unease?’

The pieces of the story seemed to fit. At that moment, Hong Yuri’s eyes narrowed.

“―Found it.”

Her cold voice rang in my ears. In an instant, I met her red eyes.

“Hah. I never thought it would be a fish.”

Hong Yuri, with a sardonic smile, mocked me.

The moment her eyes glinted dangerously, I reflexively turned my body. Dozens of sharp mana blasts struck the water’s surface, sending large splashes. Even with Swimming at level 7, I could barely maintain my balance.

‘?!’

Before I could gather my thoughts, an incomprehensible phenomenon followed. The world turned red. No, that wasn’t it. Her enormous mana began to engulf the night sea.

‘…!’

I couldn’t escape by swimming. It was a crisis, as if the moon was falling.

I immediately drove my tentacles into the sand. My Elasticity skill activated, and I leapt high.

Kuwa-kwang—!

The enormous mana covered the coast. The waves stopped, and a huge splash rose. With a deafening roar, a massive vortex like a dragon’s whirlpool erupted, sending clouds into the sky.

In the final moments, before being sucked in, I used the momentum of a fish floating in the air to correct my dive and unleashed all my remaining mana in an explosion.

A single exclamation escaped her. It was faster than expected. It was by a hair’s breadth, but she never imagined it would be able to escape…

“…….”

Now that it had fled into the sea, chasing it would be useless, but if there was another chance to meet, she wouldn’t miss it. No, anyway, that kind of low-level mob would get itself killed eventually.

“Shit, Gu Jin-ha is going to nag again…”

The deputy team leader, Hong Yuri, irritably messed with her hair before reluctantly pulling out her phone.

“So you missed it?”

[Shit, it was really fast.]

“You. Can you handle the aftermath? What will the Light Society say later?”

[Then I’ll just break the pot. I helped them out, shouldn’t they be grateful?]

“Then why are you reporting it?”

[I told you to clean up afterward. What’s wrong with that?]

The team leader sighed deeply. The photo she sent showed a mess in Gwangan-ri. The sand was completely overturned, and fish were flopping around on it. Naturally, people were all startled and waking up… it was chaos, nothing short of a disaster.

It was a disaster at an unexpected hour. The phone rang, and when he picked it up, all she wanted was for him to clean up afterward.

[Are you thinking about something else right now?]

“No. Nothing? Anyway, I’ll handle it somehow… just come up right away.”

[Okay.]

The phone hung up on its own. The team leader closed his eyes for a moment while looking for the Light Society’s number.

“…Still, by tomorrow, we’ll have Alpha’s tail.”

Regardless of her personality, Hong Yuri’s eyes were representative of the search team.

I almost died…

I used everything I had, and yet I almost got caught. Even after all that, I lost most of my body volume. The urgent use of mana, and the explosion of mana under my feet to escape, were the cause. If it had been land instead of the sea, I would have definitely died.

I grabbed onto a rock and barely climbed out of the water and onto the shore.

From Gwangan-ri to Dongbaek Island. It wasn’t far, but the Weak Regeneration was enough to restore most of my body volume.

“Huuh―”

I took a deep breath and tried to calm my mind. However, the more I tried to calm myself, the more my anger boiled up.

“Hong Yuri did her job.”

If there’s a monster, it’s the hunter’s job to deal with it. I know. I understand. I get it in my head… but curses keep bubbling up.

Understanding with my head and feeling it with my heart are entirely different things. Even though I cursed myself inside, it only made me more frustrated, not better.

Suddenly, the thought crossed my mind—Should I just quit everything?

In fact, I couldn’t even count how many times I nearly died, and I’ve had unpleasant experiences countless times. Who would enjoy eating bugs or fighting?

If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t have survived. I had to do what I didn’t want to do. I had to eat things I didn’t want to eat, do things I didn’t want to do, and keep seeing things I didn’t want to see. This damn world always pushed me relentlessly. Just when I thought I could catch my breath, Hong Yuri almost killed me.

I’m sick of it. When will I stop facing life-threatening situations? Will that day ever come? In this crazy world?

I’m frustrated. The more I think about it, the more frustrated I get. The frustration turns into resentment. The only thing I feel as I go through this world is that I’m not the protagonist of a novel.

Threatened by monsters, hunted by hunters.

It’s unreasonable. I don’t even plan to fight humanity. Yet, I feel like my insides are boiling.

Yeah. They say a person changes after facing a life-threatening crisis, don’t they?

So how many times should I have changed up until now? How many times should I have given up?

Life may seem like a comedy from a distance, but it’s a tragedy when viewed up close. The situations I had only encountered through strings of text or words in books. What had been a comedy to me turned into tragedy, and every moment of that tragedy felt like hell.

I turned my head and looked up at the sky. A pitch-black night sky with not a single star in sight. The indifferent black sky only made me feel more downcast. My fur was soaked with water. I could shake it off if I wanted, but I just didn’t feel like it.

I felt pathetic for having these thoughts.

A voice suddenly echoed. The system asked if I wanted to stop here. If I would stop. As usual, the voice was calm and without any change in tone.

‘…Really, you too.’

The same situation. The same question.

As always, the system presented a choice. Its intentions were so clear. I knew them too well, and it made me let out a wry laugh.

Really. So clumsy, it wasn’t even encouragement, nor was it consolation.

I shook off the water clinging to me.

0.02%—I may have given up some things, but I’ve saved others.

I saved Lee Eunha, who nearly died to the Worgs.

I dealt with Rat Man and the Chimera, stopping the disaster in the sewer.

Because of that, I saved Baek So-yul, who would have otherwise fallen victim to the ‘Witch’s Disaster.’

Even if no one understands, even if no one acknowledges it, I am clearly guiding this world to the right conclusion.

…Yeah. That’s enough. What’s the big deal that I almost died just now?

It’s nothing new. Life has always been a continuous struggle. Once I reached that thought, my boiling frustration finally settled down.

But that didn’t mean my emotions disappeared. Understanding is understanding. Resentment is resentment—I will definitely take revenge one day.

“Hong Yuri.”

I clearly remembered her name, even though she was just an extra.