By Zephyria After finishing their meal, they moved again. Their somewhat depleted morale was quickly recharged when they luckily discovered an untouched pharmacy.
They understood why it was untouched upon seeing the cluster of monsters that had made the pharmacy their home. Spiders, with unusually long legs and bodies the size of 1-liter water bottles, swarmed the place. Their distinctly bright red bodies suggested they were poisonous spiders. Even Yohan recoiled this time. He just couldn’t get used to insects being corrupted.
“Sometimes, you get lucky and can solve things like this easily.”
Lee Hyun-muk said this as he calmly opened the pharmacy door. Before the spiders could even react, he tossed something he was holding inside and shut the door. A small, grenade-like object rolled precisely into the depths of the pharmacy and detonated with a pop. Then, colorless and odorless smoke spread everywhere. It was insecticide.
The spiders emitted sounds inaudible to human ears and glowed. They weren’t dead, but their movements became incredibly sluggish. They then sprayed webs in all directions, trapping even their own kind. Lee Hyun-mook smiled at the wide-eyed members of the Little Sheep team.
“We were really lucky this time.”
Yohan, wearing a stuffy gas mask, thought that insecticide probably wouldn’t work on high-grade monsters. He and the Little Sheep team worked hard to take down the large, slow-moving spiders. Spider bodily fluid splattered, and foul-smelling webs stuck to them, making him desperately wish for purification, but he held back.
The pharmacy contained quite a lot of usable medicine. Afterward, they also salvaged a considerable amount of canned food, filling their backpacks until they were bulging, which brightened everyone’s faces. They could take a certain amount of this medicine and food for themselves. Alternatively, they could turn it in to the guild and receive money, or exchange it for medicine they wanted. Especially in an era where medicine had become so scarce, it was a good way to earn money.
That night, they secured a suitable abandoned building, cleared out the monsters, and made it their temporary base. The new recruits, exhausted from a day of constant tension, fell asleep in an instant. Yohan, whose turn it was for watch, smiled faintly. Lest any of the Little Sheep team members overhear, he used his spear to scratch letters onto the ground.
‘Aren’t you sleepy?’
Lee Hyun-mook, smiling, wrote back with the tip of his spear. ‘Not at all.’ He then continued,
‘How was today?’
‘A bit boring, but just right.’
To accommodate the new recruits, they had been sticking to the outskirts even within the Rift zone, making it a very mild exploration. The Little Sheep team members, though struggling, were keeping up well. In an era where human lives, especially those of Awakened individuals, had become precious, any proper guild would take good care of and nurture its new recruits like this. Furthermore, due to accumulated Corruption, it had become even harder to find experienced Awakened individuals, making this approach even more necessary.
Glancing around, Yohan shyly drew a small heart. Lee Hyun-mook, smiling silently, drew a fluffy, rounded mass next to the heart. It looked like a sheep. Seo Yakrin, who had been watching their conversation, chimed in. She subtly drew another heart on each side and scratched onto the ground.
‘The babies are so cute, aren’t they.’
Babies… Is that so? From Seo Yakrin’s perspective, they must have seemed incredibly young. After all, no one on the Little Sheep team was over twenty-five. Seo Yakrin then continued, giggling,
‘Thinking about how they’ll be chirping even more tomorrow already makes me happy.’
Chirping even more tomorrow…? What could possibly be happening? Seeing Lee Hyun-mook smile too, Yohan felt a bit uneasy. Before falling asleep, he looked at the sheep drawing Lee Hyun-mook had made, intending to take a photo of it for safekeeping, and noticed Seo Yakrin’s hearts had been seamlessly erased. Yohan chuckled quietly.
The next day, Yohan understood what Seo Yakrin had meant.
‘So this is what she was talking about…!’
Before his eyes was a giant chicken. A chicken… if one could even call it that.
Kwaaak! Kwaak!
No, was it a parrot? Perhaps a pigeon or a duck? While Yohan was having these thoughts, the Monstrous Bird let out a cry. Honestly, it looked less like a bird and more like a dinosaur, specifically a pterosaur. Its beak and talons were incredibly large and hard, striking the ground with heavy thuds, disproportionate to its wings, which were barely a handspan wide.
“Aaaargh!”
“Ack, you’re insane!”
The Little Sheep team members nearby screamed and fled. They realized that compared to the rampaging 4-meter-tall giant chicken, the bipedal dogs and poisonous monsters they had faced yesterday were nothing. This monster’s estimated danger level was Grade 5. Naturally, Lee Hyun-mook and Seo Yakrin hadn’t left them to fight a Grade 5 monster. Seo Yakrin clapped her hands together forcefully, encouraging them.
“Alright, alright! Ten minutes left, ten minutes! Run! Don’t just run! You have to watch your surroundings too!”
“Aargh! Save me! I, I think I’m going to die!”
“It’s okay. You won’t die, you won’t die! Hang in there!”
What the Sun Guild demanded of its new recruits was simply to endure. For a Grade 5 monster, this one wasn’t particularly difficult to fight. It didn’t use poison or acid; it only attacked physically. In terms of Awakened abilities, it was akin to a Strength or Body Enhancement type.
One of them, screaming and darting around, narrowly dodged a beak attack and tumbled. The beak struck the ground with a loud crack above his head. Unable to overcome Seo Yakrin’s Psychokinesis, it pecked a few times before giving up and looking for an easier prey. As the recruit, trembling, couldn’t get up, Lee Hyun-mook, watching from the side, remarked casually,
“As I’ve said many times, you can give up anytime you want.”
Despite the words of absolute non-coercion, the recruit gritted his teeth, sprang up, and shouted,
“…No! I will continue!”
Compared to other guilds, the Sun Guild’s welfare benefits, annual salary, and commission rates for guild contributions during explorations were overwhelmingly superior. Since they had to join a guild and hunt anyway, they had to endure at the Sun Guild, come what may. If they endured, wealth and honor would follow.
Lee Hyun-mook patted his shoulder as a gesture of encouragement, and the recruit mustered his strength. Then, he leaped back into the zone of Psychokinesis walls set up by Seo Yakrin. The space, which had become a giant arena occupied by the monstrous bird, was filled with curses and screams. Just as the recruit, though brave, was already intimidated and trembling,
“I’ll draw its attention, so take a moment to catch your breath.”
“Uh, uh?”
The recruit, responding dazedly, watched as Yang Yohan, a teammate, bravely charged at the rampaging Monstrous Bird and stabbed its ankle with his spear. The recruit’s jaw dropped.
Kwaeaaaak! Kwaaak!
The enraged Monstrous Bird’s eyes bulged as if they would pop out. Then, its protruding eyeballs rolled and fixed onto Yohan. Its massive beak and talons mercilessly battered the opponent who had wounded it. Bang, bang, bang! Tremendous roars, like those heard at a construction site, shattered the concrete floor.
However, none of those attacks hit their target. Yohan, with nimble grace, dodged the attacks skillfully, even showing the audacity to stab the Monstrous Bird’s ankle once more. The recruit unconsciously muttered,
“Hah… Crazy.”
As Yohan attacked the giant Monstrous Bird, he recalled the times he had dealt with heavily Corrupted entities or attacked Abyss cores. After experiencing the most brutal and difficult things in the world, his courage seemed to have grown. Seeing a monster like this reminded him of Yoon Seung-ryong’s boiled chicken soup.
‘It doesn’t even look that grotesque. It would be nice to purify it and eat some meat. The Bone Birds and flesh birds were really delicious.’
And on another note, he also thought,
‘It would be difficult to kill this monster on my own.’
Thanks to the rigorous training Lee Hyun-mook and the other team members had put him through in the Abyss, Yohan had become adept at dodging attacks.
The Monstrous Bird’s attacks were destructive, but its large movements made it relatively easy to evade. Yohan knew that although he had stabbed the Monstrous Bird’s ankle a couple of times with his spear, he hadn’t inflicted significant damage. While he could fight it without purification, it would undoubtedly take ages to kill. This was the limitation of a Healer class with no significant offensive abilities.
In any case, while Yohan drew its attention for a considerable time, the Little Sheep team members regained their composure. Someone shouted,
“Debuffer! Let’s use your ability! And when aggro is drawn, the Tanker should protect!”
“O-Okay!”
The Little Sheep team finally began to use their abilities. The Debuffer, a support-type role, could inflict status ailments on enemies, similar to in games, with common types including confusion, sleep, speed reduction, and weakening.
As the purple aura emanating from the Debuffer seeped in, the Monstrous Bird, afflicted with a weakening debuff, faltered and staggered after the supporter. As the Debuffer scrambled away to the Tanker, the Tanker used their defensive abilities to block, and in that opening, two Dealers attacked. Seeing them finally react like Awakened individuals, Seo Yakrin smiled with satisfaction.
“Look at them chirping, Team Leader. They’re cute, aren’t they.”
Even though the situation was easy, it was still an ongoing operation, so Seo Yakrin’s tone towards the leader was formal, unlike her usual demeanor.
“…Yes, they’re cute.”
Lee Hyun-mook nodded, but his gaze was fixed on Yohan. Seo Yakrin thought, He must be referring to our youngest member as cute.*