Chapter 23 – 023 Flood – Outskirts
“Whoa.”
Once the goal of escaping the flood was achieved, Hwanin felt much lighter.
To be honest, I couldn’t relax even for a moment because I had a strong abnormal feeling that deviated from common sense.
But is this a normal natural ecosystem?
It feels like a meadow and a forest where life lives normally, so I feel like my mind is stable.
There were only a few wild animals and beasts.
Even the slightest movement would catch the eye of the beasts, scouting or watching Hwanin from afar, growling, and if they thought their territory was being invaded, they would attack right away.
But there was nothing wrong with it.
I don’t understand it after fighting dozens of dogs a few days ago, but I started to see the enemy’s movements clearly.
In such a situation, there was even a code that strengthened the overall physical ability by nearly 20%, so the battle did not feel like a battle.
It’s not an attack mixed with human malice, but it’s easy to read because it’s a wild animal’s instinctive simple straight line attack.
“Here too.”
Quack? Quet!
“Wait.”
Hwanin, who was digging the ground at the urging of emergency food, grabbed a thick root and pulled it out.
Pitter-patter, the soil fell and several crops resembling potatoes came with it.
Kwu~!
Finding small insects and earthworms falling together through the soil, the emergency rations flap their wings excitedly and peck at the insects and earthworms.
Hwanin, who went round and round avoiding the mountain like a poisonous apple, was able to secure a large amount of edible plants or root vegetables like bait for bait in a field that was not very wide.
There were potatoes that looked like potatoes but inside were vegetables like sweet potatoes, some that looked like radishes but were red, some that looked like finger-thick deodeok and burdock, as well as sprouts that looked like sprouts and bellflowers that looked like bellflowers.
There are many earthworms and small insects that come out while digging the ground, so emergency food is also happy.
“Hmm.”
The sun is slowly sinking towards the horizon. Hwanin confirmed the two hind legs of the blue leopard that was worn around the waist.
After encountering and killing them during the day, they were cut to secure protein. The color system of the meat is chunyu green, which looks like a mixture of yellow and green.
There is no color change yet.
After looking around for a while, Hwanin found a single giant tree growing tall in the rugged basin terrain.
The height is about 10m. It has a jagged shape like coral, but the pillars are thick and high, so it looks good for an overnight stay.
Hwanin immediately climbed the tree, focused on cutting off the branch with many leaves with a stone axe, dropped it to the ground, and stabbed the bare ground with a sharpened black club at intervals.
“It’s fortunate that it’s not on solid ground.”
The material of the black club is almost as hard as iron, so it was temporarily used instead of a shovel.
Hwanin, who made a hole about 50 cm long by stirring the ground as if digging, removing the soil and poking it again, then started to produce a shade screen, recalling his experiences in bush craft.
The material is a tree branch with leaves attached to it, pruned to the height of one’s own height.
The back will be covered by trees and small hills, so just enough to block the light from flowing forward.
‘It would have been easier if I had animal skins.’
Hwanin, who finished the work before sunset and made a strong fire in the pit, then began to grill the blue leopard meat with residual heat.
It is a method of grilling like a skewer after cutting a fist-sized piece of lean meat on a wooden skewer made with a multi-tool.
Hwanin arranges the food harvested during the day to cook in the heat of the bonfire, and turns the skewer to cook the meat.
“Hmm.”
As the meat cooks, the color system changes to white, and a strong smell that I have never smelled in my life began to come out.
Still, it’s better than a whole monkey roast. I’ve been only vegetarian for a few days, so I’m not in a state of panic.
I picked up a perfectly grilled leopard skewer and cut it with a multi-tool knife to eat it, but it wasn’t the worst. It’s a bit tough and smells good, but that’s all.
After confirming that it is okay to eat, he also distributes meat to emergency rations who stare at him from the side.
“Eat.”
I cut them moderately with a knife and pile them on top of the leaves, so I peck them with my beak.
After taking a bite of the well-grilled black-brown meat, Hwanin will eat it silently without any expression.
Hwanin, who burned and ate the precious protein he encountered in a few days for 30 minutes, patted his stomach feeling a little lacking.
Even though I ate close to 4 kg of meat, I still don’t feel full.
‘Why did you eat so much? Is this also an effect of gaining superpowers?’
Come to think of it, Hwanin thought that his fuel efficiency had improved.
Over the past three days, he has been quite active and has eaten a number of notable edible plants.
It is difficult to replenish all the calories a person needs for the day with only a small amount of fiber. An ordinary person would have been exhausted from hunger.
However, Hwanin digested the fight without difficulty, and he never thought about dying of hunger.
I’m just a little hungry, that’s all.
“…….”
Eating a lot in this situation was not so bad, I thought.
If you are gaining weight due to excessive intake of nutrients, it will be solved by reducing what you eat.
‘By the way.’
Even Hwanin, who has a strong stomach, feels a bit of anguish because of the strong smell coming up from his throat every time he breathes.
He takes out a grass root resembling a deodeok from a bundle of vegetables tied to a running shirt and chews it. If the grass pieces taste bitter, this smell will go away a little.
“Well?”
However, the slightly reddish-brown grass roots mysteriously shared moderately bitter and spicy tastes.
If you knew it would taste like this, you would eat it with meat.
While chewing on the grass roots, he wondered what to do with the leftover leopard leg, and then he lit a fire and skewered it again.
It was because the temperature did not drop that much, as if it would begin to rot overnight if left alone.
However, as the meat is grilled, the stomach starts begging to add something else to eat.
Hwanin had no choice but to start eating sweet potatoes and red radishes that he had been roasting to keep as food for preservation.
The potato sweet potato had a fluffy taste and texture, like a mixture of potatoes and sweet potatoes.
However, the red radish being grilled with blood-like liquid was a visual that I would never have eaten without the safety guarantee of the color system.
When you break it in half, liquid like blood drips down…….
However, unlike the appearance, the taste was excellent.
‘It tastes like a mixture of strawberry and pomegranate juice.’
Hwanin ate up to 4kg of meat, 3 baked potatoes the size of a fist, and 1 baked red radish the size of a woman’s forearm.
After preparing the meat for tomorrow, I supplemented the sugar with white cherries. Maybe it was because I was full and rested.
Grilled meat for two hind legs.
If this smell spreads, nocturnal beasts may come.
Above all, that mountain area wrapped in gray darkness. What if a formidable monster lives on that mountain? What if that monster is the head of a pack of beasts? What if that mountain area was the den of beasts?
“…….”
As a pack of dogs is a canine family, they must have an excellent sense of smell, and there is no way to stop them if they are determined and chase them.
In pursuit of this idea, if you cross a meadow at this hour, you will be attacked by a nocturnal beast and cause a commotion.
After severing the fear of being connected by biting tail after tail, Hwanin collects the skin from the surrounding long-stemmed grass and makes it like a string, then weaves six skewers of leopard meat like a sea urchin.
Then, they covered the unlit pit with a wooden board for shading and climbed the giant tree with equipment.
5 m. Although there were bends enough to put weight on his feet, Hwanin, who climbed the 5m height with ease, noticed the potential of Gangnyeong.
If you accept a soul with a skill, you will be able to use that skill temporarily.
And even after the code is over, all of those skills won’t disappear, and some of them will remain in your body, so if you practice a little based on that experience, it will become your own.
That means that the more souls with skills you accept, the stronger you become.
‘But it’s not as simple as it sounds. Climbing trees and swimming are relatively simple, so I learned them easily, but the more difficult the skills, the longer it will take me to master them.’
Perched on a relatively flat spot where the pole ends and branches extend in all directions, Hwanin hung a grilled skewer on a suitable branch and took off his pants to examine the wound on his right thigh.
The wound is now completely healed.
He gained a little weight, but he didn’t get sick from the intense battle, so you can say he’s cured now.
Wearing pants and stretching his legs comfortably, Hwanin leaned against a thick tree branch. Since the back part extends in a V shape, you won’t have to worry about falling if you toss and turn a little.
Hwanin, who patted the emergency food between his legs, stared at the eight soul beads on the horns of the deer antlers staff.
Nevertheless, the merits of gaining some experience of technology are indescribable.
It’s still in the guessing stage, but what if we command the soul of a person who has mastered one skill?
For example, someone who has honed spearmanship to the limit.
“…….”
As he thinks about the code, the regret he felt while fighting comes to mind.
‘If he could give orders to the spirit without a staff, he would be able to exert great power even in battle with many.’
I couldn’t regret having to use a staff to use Necromancer or Soul Blast. Also the duration of the soul orb.
Grab the staff and concentrate, and the soul orb falls from the horn and floats in the air like a firefly.
Looking at the soul orb swimming in the gray darkness with a soft light, he recalled the growth of his abilities a few days ago.
Looking at the increase in the number of soul orbs that can be possessed, it is certain that as one becomes more proficient in psychic powers, the number of possessed soul orbs and the holding time increase.
If this is repeated, won’t it be possible to use Necromancer and Soul Explosion without a staff someday?
But…… What bothered me was the need to kill so many living creatures.
It takes as many Soul Orbs to use Necromantics and Soul Blast multiple times.
He was a Hwanin who did not believe in karma, but after gaining the superpower to deal with the soul, he could not say for certain that there was no such thing as karma.
Hwanin, who was lost in thought for a moment, smirked, raising the corner of his mouth cynically.
‘I guess this is something I’ll do after I get out of here alive.’
If you respect other lives, this side will die.
Furthermore, if you change your thinking, in some cases, karma may accumulate for not cherishing your own life.
Hwanin, who came to the conclusion that contemplation without proper knowledge would only lead to self-contradiction, and that he would continue to do just as he had done so far, tilted his head back and looked at the night sky visible through the leaves.
My deceased parents let me read a lot of books, so sometimes…… It wasn’t, but he was a Hwanin who often fell into these thoughts and thought he was tired.
Hwanin, who kept a light sleep and woke up repeatedly, felt the presence of several nocturnal beasts approaching the base of the giant tree.
As he narrowed his eyes and looked down, he found traces of Hwanin’s fire…… Three hyena-like beasts came into view.
When the soul sight is opened, the color system, which is a moderate mixture of red and green, exhibits intense colors in the dark.
Hwanin, who was staring at a hyena of a different species, carefully inspected the basin around the giant tree, but there were no other animals besides those three.
‘Did he come out hunting?’
Four soul orbs were nearing their retention time. Two 20-minute, 43-minute, and 45-minute each.
All but 1 of the 8 soul beads are the lowest level souls without skills, so after holding the staff and spreading the decree with the remaining souls for 20 minutes without sound…….
“Good.”
When all three of them came within range of Soul Blast, they stacked two Soul Blasts in a low voice.
Kwakwang!
Kkeaeng! Cough!
Keck.
Caught in a shapeless explosion, the three are thrown in all directions.
One of the dogs is in a bad condition with her front paw broken.
Hwanin immediately leaped from a height of 5m and at the same time pierced the back of a staggering fish with a spear.
Catch!
Immediately after, he spurts off the ground and runs out, piercing the neck of the other animal who is bleeding from a nosebleed and unable to stand.
The hyena that had been stabbed deeply in her back gasped and staggered, and the hyena that had her throat pierced died instantly, the hyena that had her neck splayed open and bubbles of her blood bubbled out, struggled for a moment and then fell silent.
After examining that the three are dead, Hwanin touches the broken paw of one with a spear.
‘If you shoot two Soul Explosions evenly, it’ll even break weak bones.’
Well, it’s the power to blow away tens of kilograms. If the direction of action of the force is different, it will break.
However, it doesn’t seem very useful for using 2 soul orbs.
It’s better to fire one shot at a time to create gaps and finish with a spear.
‘Another lowest-class soul with no skills.’
After a while, Hwanin, who saw her hyena’s hazy smoke rising from her corpse, silently made her soul orb and retrieved it.
Gradually, it became complicated to distinguish between souls with and without technology, and Hwanin set his own standards.
A smoke-type soul with no skills is the lowest class. These include green monsters, brute-headed monsters, packs of retriever-like dogs, and hyena-like beasts.
Those with form and skill, such as two-tailed monkeys, frog-men, and lizard-men, are inferior.
Currently, there are only two grades, low and low, but as time passes and experience increases, the grade is expected to continue to rise.
The reason for the expectation was the presence of a horse deer spirit.
The horse deer’s soul was much different from the lesser soul in terms of form.
‘What kind of effect will the spirits of monster seagulls, giant rabbits, and blue flame tigers have? ….’
Even the souls of things that can be called monsters, not monsters, are special.
It’s a pity that I couldn’t capture the soul of the six-legged horse deer. Since the body was the size of a giraffe, it must have been a powerful soul.
Anyway, Hwanin had no intention of staying at the giant tree that had seen blood.
Thanks to taking a break for about 4 hours, most of my mental and physical fatigue disappeared, and although the moon was still shining at night, I thought about going out again because my eyesight was bright thanks to the vision of the spirit.
After climbing up the giant tree, Hwanin gathered his luggage and equipment and checked the remaining duration of the soul orb attached to his staff.
Then, one soul orb filled with 8 hours of magic turns into smoke with a wheezing sound and goes up to the sky.
“…….”
Hwanin looked into the one soul bead that was particularly vivid among the remaining seven bead.
The blue leopard’s soul orb obtained during the day, the only low-class orb.
‘The remaining maintenance time is about 2 hours.’
The number of soul orbs that can be held = the official verification of the holding time has been completed.
When the time comes, he thinks that he should also try using the blue panther’s soul orb, and Hwanin jumps from the tree.
The harmony created by the fruit trees of different shapes and colors of different colors and shapes was quite unpleasant.
It feels like standing in front of a carnivorous plant with its mouth wide open.
Of course, it is not an ordinary carnivorous plant, but an apartment-sized carnivorous plant that draws lines on a pumpkin and pretends to be a watermelon.
“Hmm.”
Hwanin looked around at the emergency rations dozing off his shoulder, avoiding the small mountain approaching in a more gloomy and dreary light as the gray darkness had settled down.
Sometimes it’s funny to wake up in a fright as if I’m about to lose my balance while falling asleep, and I’m worried about falling backwards.
Originally, the animal skin scroll worn on the side was reserved for the seat…….
I tried to come up with a temporary solution for a while, but gave up. The only luggage was a bag of food made out of running shirts and five weapons.
While being wary of the surroundings, Hwanin assimilated into the darkness and moved forward, grasping the beast’s approach three times, but it did not lead to a fight.
Three black-gray wolves (color system is black), two hyenas that look exactly like the ones I encountered at the giant tree, and a camel…… An animal that is hard to tell whether it’s an ostrich or not, moved quietly as if looking at it from a distance, then just walked away after Hwanin’s gaze touched it a few times.
“…….”
Hwanin, who turned around and stared at the back of the camel Joe, felt a bit regretful.
It was because he secretly wanted you to fight because the remaining time except for the newly acquired 3 soul orbs was short.
But it was natural for the night raiders to give up and go back.
Hwanin himself didn’t know it, but the experience he had after falling into the jungle combined with his peculiar temperament to cause a bad phenomenon.
After overcoming death once and waking up to supernatural abilities, life was surging in the body as well as in the eyes.
The pack of dogs that attacked the Hwanin were also stimulated by the Hwanin’s murderous behavior, and recognized them as enemies and started fighting.
Hwan-in, unaware of this, did not neglect his surroundings and moved without rest. By the time the sun began to rise, he passed the mountain that seemed like a trap.
Shoot ah-
He ran into the river again.
