Chapter 31 – 031 Twin Mountain
Returning with two prey, Hwan-in immediately hung them on a tree, lit a fire, and cut off one of the jaguar’s hind legs.
The trees were all wet, so it was difficult to light a fire, and even after burning, a lot of acrid smoke came out, which made it difficult.
Hwanin, who somehow managed to dry the wood over a fire and roasted the meat, thought for a moment about what to do when he saw the two hunting animals while watching the emergency rations pecking at the flesh attached to the bone.
‘If I just hang it on a tree like that, it would go bad quickly.’
The temperature is low right after the rain, but the area around the river is full of moisture. It is an environment in which natural drying is impossible.
After thinking for a while, Hwanin secured as much meat as possible from a jaguar’s remaining hind leg and a hornless gray deer, moved it into the cave, cut it into small pieces, and laid them out on a drying rack he had prepared in advance.
Hwanin learned from experience that the innermost part of the cave does not get moisture and is as cool as the outside, so if you keep it like this, it will last for three or three days.
‘It’s only a place to lay out one piece of meat.’
Having prepared dozens of kilograms of meat to dry naturally, Hwanin came down from the cave and looked at the river, which had become much cleaner and transparent, and then began digging the ground near the river.
‘How much earth and sand is there in the upper reaches of the valley?’
If it rains a lot, of course the soil will flow down and mix, but I wonder if there is no such thing in the valley here. Or is it because the flow speed is so fast that the water becomes clean soon?
Thinking about this and that, Hwan-in dug the ground big enough for a jaguar to fit in, and filled the pit with pebbles.
Two shallow waterways were also built to allow the valley water to flow in and out.
As the river water filled the pit, the soil became cloudy, but thanks to the pebbles on the floor, it soon became clean.
In the meantime, Hwanin cut off the jaguar’s neck, peeled off the skin rather than peeling it off, and then dipped it in a clean water pit.
The water is cold enough to make your hands feel cold. In addition, the pit was dug separately, the waterway was made shallow, and it was blocked with large and small stones, so minnow predators would not be able to enter easily.
‘At this rate, I’ll be able to hold out until I return from the search.’
If you wait until the surroundings are dry and then remake the furnace type smoker and smoke it, it will take a few days, but in that time, the traces the woman made unwillingly may disappear.
If the search for the trail takes longer than expected, the meat may have to be thrown away, but anyway, you can’t even eat this much meat alone in a day or two.
It’s a pity, but thinking that if it goes bad, I’ll just throw it away, and Hwanin started climbing the western twin mountains with emergency food.
It is not an ordinary beast if it is intelligent enough to trample other intelligent bodies as prisoners.
And on the Twin Mountains, there was no creature capable of capturing the beast-eared woman.
‘If there is, it must be a rocky mountain over there.’
On the hillside of the twin mountains to the west, on a protruding rocky hill, Hwanin cast his gaze toward a crescent-shaped rocky mountain that was vaguely visible in the mist in the distance.
The reason I thought so was because of the shape of the meandering river.
From the Valley of the Twin Mountains the river flows almost straight up to the rocky mountain, from which it meanders violently like a snake crawling.
If I had fallen into the water before the rocky mountain, I would have bounced off that sharp curve.
And the corpse of the beast-eared woman looked like it hadn’t been in the water for a while.
Hwanin, who had volunteered in areas damaged by typhoons during his military service, knows how unsightly corpses swell when they are submerged in water for a long time.
Even though it was a pig corpse, not a human, anyway, if you were swept naked in the rapids, your flesh would burst here and there, and the cells that absorbed water would burst and your face would be a mess.
But the woman’s body was clean. She is far away, which means that she did not fall into the water.
Finally, how to get it.
It is possible that she was swept away by the swollen waters as she tried to cross the river, but given that there was no sand lodged between her claws or in her wounds, Beast Ears most likely jumped from a height.
The only thing that fits all three reasons is the white crescent moon rocky mountain nearby and far away.
Trees were densely growing up to the middle of the mountain, and the area where the river reached was smooth without a single tree, and there were cliffs nearby.
Hwanin, who hurriedly descended the mountain leaving his emergency rations behind, crossed the river and strode toward Crescent Moon Mountain.
A few beasts attacked in the middle, but after spreading the decree with the lowest spirits, I quickly moved while killing them and refilling the soul beads.
‘As the body becomes hardened with muscles, it feels like the Necromancer effect also increased.’
I just said how many percent or tens of percent because it was easy to calculate, but do you really get stronger in proportion to your physical abilities?
Hwanin, who had been advancing for some time avoiding the broken tree on the sandy beach or the carcass of an animal that seemed to have been caught in the rapids, was a bit perplexed as he did not feel the crescent moon rocky mountain approaching at all.
‘It feels like my perspective is getting weird.’
Ignoring perspective was an unfamiliar phenomenon to Hwanin, who had never left Korea, especially on a planet with severe air pollution.
Pretty?! Quack, quite a bit!!
I looked up to see what was going on at the screams of the emergency rations echoing overhead, and I saw a large bird resembling a heron attacking the emergency rations.
Emergency rations were also avoiding the blue-legged heron’s attack with quick flapping of their wings, but they were outnumbered due to the difference in reach between their wings and legs.
Beep-!
When the signal was sent with a finger whistle, the emergency rations rushed back to Hwanin, but a blue-legged heron stood in the way as if it couldn’t miss it, flapping its wings loudly or waving its long legs like a harpoon, interfering with the emergency rations.
Hwanin furrowed his eyebrows at the sight of the heron, which was more cunning than he thought.
Gurreuk-!
Pretty, quack!
In addition, the emergency food is embarrassed, so the movement is not smoother than usual. If left as it is, emergency food will be snatched up by blue-legged herons.
Hwanin took out a stone ax from his waist and took a throwing stance, shouting at emergency food.
“Avoid!”
Quack!
Emergency food that perfectly understands your intentions and changes direction at right angles.
As the blue-legged heron stopped moving while turning around to follow the emergency food, he took aim at the gap and threw the stone ax with all his might.
Awesome liquid-!
The stone ax flew terrifyingly at a speed several times faster than expected, and the heron didn’t even give it a chance to escape, and it was pinned into the white body.
White feathers fluttering with the sound of a puck.
Hwanin, who witnessed a heron flying off into the forest with a stone ax stuck in his body, raised one corner of his mouth.
‘At this level, it would be okay to use throwing as a weapon.’
The power of a stone ax combined with his strength and the strength of his body would literally become a weapon.
The emergency rations flew in with a popping sound, and their feathers were tangled up in Hwanin’s arms, leaving them blindfolded. It seems quite surprised to see that they don’t even tidy up their feathers.
Hwanin, who patted the back of the tuk-tuk and emergency rations and trimmed the tangled green feathers, stopped moving abruptly as he tried to enter the forest where the heron had fallen with the intention of retrieving the stone axe.
It was because the female spirit with triangular animal ears on top of her head and a tail behind her buttocks was looking at Hwanin from the entrance of the forest with a sad expression.
‘It wasn’t there until a little while ago.’
Hwanin stared at the naked female soul floating in the air for a while and suddenly realized that the soul resembled the female corpse he had buried.
The corpse’s hair and tail were soaked in water, and the soul’s messy hair was so dry that it looked fashionable, so it was too late to notice.
Hwanin’s thoughts move quickly.
Hwanin, who made some hypotheses on the spot, took out the staff from his back and gave a command to the woman’s soul.
“Come here.”
At the same time as the command, a female soul with a sad expression flew in and looked at Hwanin with eyes full of longing.
‘It doesn’t turn into a soul orb.’
Hwanin studied the woman’s soul carefully for a while.
I didn’t notice it when we were apart, but when I looked closer, a transparent aura like haze on the asphalt covered my body. Its appearance is much more distinct than that of lower-middle-class beast souls.
Just looking at the sharpness, it is the level of a six-legged horse deer.
Hwanin asked in a quiet voice.
“Can you hear me? If so, nod your head.”
-…….
No reaction. Rather, he begins to distance himself from Hwanin.
Hwanin thought about how to make beads by forcing his soul.
If you ascend to heaven like this, you won’t be either.
At that time, the female spirit raised her hand with a sad expression and pointed to one side.
Hwanin, who saw that his thin finger was pointing to the crescent moon rocky mountain, looked into the woman’s soul’s eyes.
“…….”
Since there is no information about this world, no satisfactory hypothesis can be established. Still, according to the information I’ve gathered, it’s probably not a trap.
Hwanin, who ran into the forest and retrieved the stone ax, pointed to the crescent moon rocky mountain at the woman’s soul and nodded her head.
A little sadness and dark clouds gathered on the woman’s face, and then she turned around and started flying towards the crescent moon rocky mountain, and Hwanin started running after her.
Hwanin, who was chasing after the female spirit who was ahead of him, scratched his cheek as he kept trying to look away.
The woman’s soul remained the same as it was in her lifetime. As she flies about 1m above the ground with such a figure, every time the tail of the hair ball covering her buttocks is lifted, this or that part comes into view.
If you were a normal person, you would have felt embarrassed or embarrassed about the genitals or anus that were visible.
Or did you look more closely according to your desire?
Hwanin did not belong to either of them. After more than 20 years of following the social norm that one should not carelessly stare at a woman’s body, it has only become a habit.
Thinking that it would be better to think differently and not pay attention to the appearance of a woman, Hwanin recalled the question of a woman’s soul.
Why was the woman’s soul in the forest?
‘Does the soul appear in the location at the time of death?’
Apparently, the place where the female spirit appeared was not in the middle of the river, but at the beginning of a nearby forest. Moreover, the first discovery of the body was 7-8 hours ago.
The time of death must have been much earlier than that.
The souls of beasts are unusually long, considering that all of them ascended to heaven within 10 to 30 minutes.
Well, even if it could be different because it’s a human soul…….
Hwanin’s gaze captures the entire back of the woman’s soul.
‘Besides, what is that transparent aura?’
The twenty-six beast souls I’ve seen so far have either taken on their own form or have the appearance of whitish smoke.
No soul had such an aura. There was no six-legged deer that must have been a monster.
Because it’s a special soul? Or a racial difference? Is it special because it is a creature corresponding to mankind? If not, what if that woman is special?
“Whoa.”
I’ve been running for 30 minutes, so I’m slowly breathing up to the bottom of my chin.
My body is properly warmed up and my legs are perfectly relaxed, so from now on I can run all day as long as I manage my breathing and adjust my pace, but considering a possible battle, I shouldn’t overdo it any more.
As Hwanin slows down after confirming that the crescent moon rocky mountain is getting quite close, the female spirit flying in front of him looks back.
“Slowly.”
As she shook her head lightly and said, a pity spread across the woman’s face. It may seem that he is anxious.
‘Is the time to ascend to heaven or attain Buddhahood approaching?’
Or maybe he’s worried about the lives of his captives.
It’s a little different from the plan, but Hwanin, who commanded one of the two yak soul beads, pointed his finger at the rocky mountain and ran like a bullet, feeling that his physical strength increased and recovered.
The female spirit sees it, opens her eyes slightly, and starts guiding.
‘The duration of the code is 11 minutes.’
In the meantime, Hwanin, who was thinking of narrowing the distance to the crescent moon rock mountain as much as possible, ran with all his might without distributing his stamina.
Hwan-in, who was running with all his might along the river, paying attention to his feet and the beasts that might come out of nowhere, stopped when 10 minutes passed when he saw a woman’s spirit pointing away from the river bank and into the forest.
“Hoo-wook. Whoop, whoop.”
If you look ahead along the river, a cliff about 20m in height looks small.
‘Did he jump from there?’
I turned my gaze to the forest that the female spirit had pointed to.
Unlike the Twin Mountains, which were dominated by broad-leaved trees, the area around Crescent Moon Rock Mountain is dominated by conifers.
Moreover, the leaves are thick, so it looks dark even from the outside.
It’s not a problem in the dark, but it’s impossible to wield a weapon due to the high density of the wood.
After thinking for a while, Hwanin sent an emergency ration that was orbiting above his head to reconnoiter. Then he opens his suit coat, which has been left undone, fastens all his buttons, and checks the condition of his spear.
As I tightened the joints of the spearhead and the spearhead, which seemed to have loosened slightly, I cried out as the emergency rations returned to me.
“Are you a beast?”
Quack.
“Monster?”
Cackle!
“…… What is the number?”
Quack? Quack! Quite good!
I drew various elongated ovals on the ground, from 1 to 5, but instead of choosing a bundle of ovals for emergency food, I flapped my wings as if I was inflating my body.
“Hmm.”
The enemy is not a beast, but a monster. The number of emergency food is too many to count.
Calculating the distance to the horizon according to the flight speed and height based on the time the emergency food went and came, it is approximately 12 to 24 km.
Although the margin of error is large, the safety of actions increases significantly even if you know where and what is.
Holding a staff in her left hand and a spear in her right hand, she was about to step into the woods, but by chance, three human-shaped monsters came out of the forest that the female spirit pointed to.
Queek?
What is it?
Its shape and size resembled that green monster of the jungle, but it was a different color.
Their skins were brown, and their skins were rugged, as if the bark had risen from them.
More than that, the moment Hwanin encountered the brown monster, one of Hwanin’s plans was disrupted.
‘No, I don’t need to consider it important.’
Hwanin ran at the brown monsters as if bouncing without a word.
The brown monsters, who were wary of the sudden appearance of the creature, were startled and tried to fight back with wooden clubs in their hands.
Pupuk, Ssukgeok-
With just two stabs and one swing, the three were instantly incapacitated.
Kiki, Kkiek! Hey hey!
Gurgling…….
As if the stab wound was bad, one fell down, clutching the pierced chest, shivering and then stopped breathing. Just tremble
Puck. Jump!
Hwanin, who made an ax mark on their heads and forced them to be quiet, looked back at the woman’s soul and asked with his eyes.
Is it true that these monsters made you that way?
Seeing that the three brown monsters were slain in less than a couple of breaths, the female spirit covered her mouth in surprise, then, with tears in her eyes, raised her finger and pointed again into the forest.
Does that mean there’s a brown monster’s den in the woods, or is there people you want to save?
Judging from the gentle face and the energy felt in his soul, it is judged that he is not a person who dwells on resentment or revenge. Then it means that there is someone you want to save…….
“…… ?”
Hwanin narrowed his eyes as countless small lights like fireflies began to flow from the spiritual body of the woman’s soul.
As the particles of light are emitted, the image of the woman’s soul gradually fades.
‘Am I going to achieve Buddhahood?’
I can’t guess because it’s different from the ascension of souls consumed by necromancy or technology.
It was Hwanin who tried to collect the woman’s soul while holding the staff, just in case, but feeling that it didn’t work, he calmly nodded his head as if nothing had happened.
-…….
As if relieved by Hwanin’s expression, the woman’s soul bowed down with a tear-stained smile and disappeared from the world like a fleeting petal, leaving behind a few small drops of light.
“…….”
Humming-
Hwanin swung her spear wide and wiped off the blood on the blade and quietly entered the forest with emergency food.
