Translator: Nox
Chapter: Chapter 35
When on the same side, he's reliable.
The three Hunters who came on behalf of the Hanbit Research Institute's request were bound and sweating profusely. They had fainted, and when they came to, they were tied to trees and hanging.
That much was fine. They felt relieved that they were alive and had opened their eyes.
But they couldn't feel at ease with the sight before them.
"What the... where is this? Why is there a place like this inside the Gate?"
Before losing consciousness, they were too focused on the Mandragora to look around.
Now that they were prisoners, they could calmly survey their surroundings.
The first thing they saw was a log cabin covered in white silk.
"I can feel an enormous Magical energy. What is that? Is it some kind of trap?"
The territory marking of an S+ Class monster, the Silk thread larva. Combined with the Magical energy emanating from the Glowstone embedded inside.
The mixed energy made them tremble with fear.
"B-but the scent is nice. What is it?"
It was scary, but their minds and bodies were calming down. What was this confusion? The Hunters looked at Cheon Dowoon's house with wavering eyes.
Next, their eyes turned to the vegetable garden.
The Mandragora leaves planted in the garden boasted their freshness.
For some reason, the Metal Mandrake they had brought was also buried in the garden, its silver leaves swaying.
'Why are you there?' The Hunters resisted the urge to say.
"A vegetable garden with Mandragora planted in it. No one would believe this even if we told them."
One of the Hunters said, looking at the garden. At his intense gaze, a Mandragora popped its head out. It struck the ground once with its Rootlets.
-Hoo-oong!
'Don't look, invaders. Your gaze is impious.' After giving that warning, it went back into the ground.
"Ugh..."
The Hunters groaned. They didn't know for sure, but this was a strange place. As they thought that, the bushes rustled and the Yoo-beom siblings returned.
The Hunters quickly pretended to be unconscious. They squinted and observed the situation.
Yoo Ji-ah was carrying Nam Ki-seok on her shoulder.
He had fainted from exhaustion after receiving physical training from the siblings. The Hunters saw it differently.
'They went hunting!'
As evidence, the face of the man placed on the ground was haggard. It must have been a sign of a desperate escape.
Above all, the Fur hide wrapped around his body was unsettling.
'What did they dress him in? Why is the Poison energy so strong?'
They were horrified by the Poison energy of the Fur hide, even from a distance.
'That's... it. It must be the recipe of a monster that marinates its prey in poison before eating it.'
They might soon be wrapped in Poison Leather and become preserved food. The Hunters' faces turned pale.
At that moment, a huge shadow fell over their heads. Forgetting that they had to pretend to be unconscious, they looked up.
"T-that's...!"
"A Parrot Poison Bird!"
An 8-meter-tall giant bird was flying towards them.
If you were to name a monster with a ferocious personality, this species would definitely be on the list. The Hunters despaired as the bird approached.
Thud. With a heavy sound, the giant bird landed in front of the house.
The Hunters' mouths fell open. They had never seen a Parrot Poison Bird this close before.
'Is that the bird of terror I've only heard about?'
Their faces turned pale, but soon they tilted their heads at a strange sense of incongruity.
"That's the... bird of terror?"
Unlike its fearsome reputation, the bird looked somehow haggard. Its feathers were patchy and missing in places, making it look unsightly.
Deep eyes that seemed to have experienced both hardship and enlightenment. It looked like the eyes of an enlightened monk.
-Piiiii...
The Parrot Poison Bird moaned and lowered its head to the ground. Someone jumped off its head.
"You're here?"
The siblings, who had seen Cheon Dowoon riding it since it was in the sky, approached without surprise.
"Why are you riding a bird?"
"I caught one nearby. I'm going to expand the house in the future, so I thought it would be good to have one to move things around."
The siblings were speechless at Cheon Dowoon's words. They were dumbfounded that he had casually ridden a bird that they hadn't been able to tame even after living for decades.
They couldn't help but laugh at the fact that he regarded the notoriously ferocious bird as a transport truck.
They were about to ask how he had tamed it, but stopped. Just looking at the bird's haggard appearance, they felt like they knew without asking.
'Well, it's Cheon Dowoon.'
'Let's not try to understand.' The siblings brushed it off.
The watching Hunters couldn't do that. What on earth was going on?
They had never heard of a monster being tamed by a human.
Nevertheless, they couldn't deny that there was someone riding a monster in front of them.
'He seems to know that humanoid monster too. Who is he?'
Now they were beyond confused and into fear. It felt like they had stepped into an unknown realm that they shouldn't have.
The Hunters flinched as Cheon Dowoon's gaze turned to them.
"What are those?"
"Invaders. They suddenly appeared and were trying to steal your garden, so I caught them."
"The garden? That's strange. They wouldn't have known about it. But it's too much of a coincidence..."
Cheon Dowoon had been injecting Magical energy into the garden every day for the Mandragoras. Thanks to that, the Magical energy density in the area had increased.
People would suffocate just by getting close. They could tell it was a dangerous area from 300 meters away, so it was impossible for them to have entered by chance.
If they had come in despite that, there was only one reason.
"Kim Nari. Stay up there and don't come down. Don't answer."
'Those are Hunters who came to find the Mechanical Creature.' Sensing that, Cheon Dowoon instructed Kim Nari, who was still on the bird's back, to hide behind the ore.
Kim Nari discreetly crouched down and hid.
"Oh, right. Those guys brought a strange metal plant with them. It's buried in the garden with the plants you're growing now."
At Yoo-beom's words, Cheon Dowoon looked around the garden.
He saw the silver metal plant buried among the four plants he was growing.
The same feeling as the metal that was Kim Nari's original form, which he had seen once.
With just that, Cheon Dowoon grasped the general situation.
'A Chimera made to track Kim Nari.'
Cheon Dowoon carefully pulled out the silver Rootlets.
-Hoo-ooo...?
The sleeping Rootlets rubbed its eyes with its Rootlets.
A thin, pencil-thick Rootlets with a cracked surface despite being metal. An enervated cry unlike a Mandragora.
It was a typical artificially cultivated Mandragora.
-Hoo... hoo...
The Mandragora looked at Cheon Dowoon and closed its eyes again.
The sleepy Rootlets recognized Cheon Dowoon as a giant member of its species and felt relieved.
It had already felt the warmth of its kin. The silver Rootlets no longer showed the ferocity of wielding its Rootlets.
'If the purpose is location tracking... was it made to exploit the resonance between Mechanical Creatures?'
But this small Rootlets was searching for the scent of its original kin, not Kim Nari.
As a result, it headed to the garden where the Mandragoras lived. The Hunters, unaware of this, had followed it in, clueless.
Cheon Dowoon held the metal Rootlets and turned to the Hunters. The Mandragora stiffened as it saw the Hunters. Its leaves trembled finely.
-Hoo-ooo...!
Liquid Metal Mandrake. As a Chimera, it had better eyesight than a normal Mandragora.
Thanks to that, it accurately recognized the faces of the Hunters who had kicked it.
[Wake up, you weed. Why are you collapsing again?]
[Kick it once. It'll wake up then.]
[Something like this is worth billions. Hey, should we pluck a few Rootlets when we return it? We can say it happened while searching inside the Gate.]
[Oh, should we? Rootlets are too timid. Let's pluck a few leaves. And cut off the end of the Rootlets and take it separately. How about that?]
It didn't understand everything the Hunters said. But it certainly recognized the murderous intent directed at it.
-Hoo... hoo!
The Metal Mandrake pulled out its Rootlets and swung them. The 3-centimeter Rootlets that couldn't reach the Hunters flailed in the air.
Cheon Dowoon watched it and patted the Rootlets with his index finger.
"Mandragoras are gentle creatures. It's rare to see this kind of reaction unless they're attacked first."
Cheon Dowoon's gaze turned to the Hunters.
"Did you hit it?"
The Hunters couldn't answer. Their teeth were chattering, and they couldn't speak.
They would have preferred him to shout and get angry. They didn't understand why his emotionless expression felt so scary.
'He's angry.'
Yoo-beom thought, looking at Cheon Dowoon.
He knew when Cheon Dowoon made that face, as they had been roommates for four years in their childhood.
When he experienced something unfair.
Everything inside the lab was unfair. But even within that, there were things that exceeded the acceptable range.
Shooting someone in the leg because he didn't like his eyes, threatening to kill someone by opening a Gate and pushing him in, or having a heated discussion about dissecting someone.
When he was suffocated, Cheon Dowoon would make that face.
The Cheon Dowoon that Yoo-beom remembered was a my-way person who wasn't interested in anything other than his own work.
But occasionally, if a colleague was severely wronged, he would silently find the researcher who had done it and beat him up.
The lab couldn't do anything because there was no evidence.
Chasing after them when they escaped and handing over the Return Stone was also part of that.
Very rarely, a switch would turn on for some unknown reason, a sense of camaraderie between Chimeras. That switch had just been turned on.
'Those guys are doomed to not go back safely.'
Yoo Ji-ah thought to herself.
He wouldn't kill them. Cheon Dowoon didn't kill people recklessly.
However, he had a personality that would pay back so much that it would be better to just kill them cleanly.
"A small Rootlets like this wouldn't even be considered a Chimera Hunter. Once the work is done, it'll be melted down and used for new research, and that'll be the end of it. Right?"
The Hunters couldn't answer. If they made even a single wrong breath here, they would really die. They were frozen with that fear.
"Don't worry. I won't kill you. Looking at the state of the Rootlets, it doesn't seem like you've caused any external injuries. So I'll only do that much too."
'What exactly is "that much"?' The Hunters resisted the urge to ask.
Cheon Dowoon flicked his hand. The silk that came from his fingertips cut the Hunters' bonds.
They fell to the ground and looked at Cheon Dowoon with surprised faces.
They hadn't even seen what he had done properly. They were surprised that he had cut the ropes that had bound them.
'Wasn't this rope made by twisting the tendons of a monster?'
The rope that the Yoo-beom siblings carried for hunting. They were horrified that he had cut it with a single gesture, something they couldn't cut no matter how hard they tried.
"W-who are you..."
"Shut up. I'm not taking questions. Instead, I'll give you a choice."
"A c-choice?"
"If you do what I tell you to do, you'll be able to go home."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I'll let you live."
'He'll let us live.' It was a strangely unsettling answer. But thinking that it was better than dying, the Hunters nodded.
"We'll do it."
"Me too."
"If you just let us live, we'll do anything."
A world where Hunters who cared about the world had disappeared. Even A-Class Hunters were just merchants focused on making money.
No one cared about honor. The atmosphere in the Hunter industry was that if you could beg for your life to live, you should definitely kneel.
Cheon Dowoon looked at them and flicked his hand. With that one gesture, the Hunters rolled their eyes and fainted.
"What are you going to do?"
Yoo-beom asked.
"Well, it's you. I'm sure you'll figure it out on your own. But if we send them back unharmed, it'll definitely be a hassle."
"I know. So we have to go with a method that doesn't leave any loose ends."
"A method that doesn't leave any loose ends?"
"It's a method I used on the instructor when I was in the lab. It's pretty good."
"What did you do?"
Yoo-beom asked. Instead of answering, Cheon Dowoon recalled an old memory.
The instructor looking up at him with a desolate face.
[Just... just kill me, you bastard! This isn't it!]
Had he screamed like that? He could use the same method as then.
He could deal with them in a way that wouldn't leave any loose ends, a way that wouldn't even allow them to remember anything about him or the location of this place.
"Don't worry. It's a clean method that won't leave any trouble behind."
Cheon Dowoon looked at the fainted Hunters and smiled. He scanned their bodies with Mana and nodded.
"As expected. I didn't think they'd entrust the request to just anyone. All three of them are A-Class Hunters."
Cheon Dowoon looked at the yellow ore he had brought on the bird's back.
If they were A-Class Hunters, there were many places to use them before sending them back. They were excellent workers, so he should make good use of them before sending them back.
He smiled contentedly at the thought of getting free workers. The siblings took a step back when they saw that.
They didn't know what he was planning to do. But they felt that it was better not to get involved.
'It's a good thing he's not our enemy.'
A reliable guy when he's on your side. A crazy guy when he's your enemy.
'Let's stay friends with Cheon Dowoon for life.' The siblings thought, sweating profusely.
