By Zephyria Though Yohan was timid, after experiencing the Abyss once, Rifts now seemed unremarkable. Compared to the Abyss, with its sticky, heavy, unpleasant air, where there was neither night nor day, and all sorts of cunning and malicious monsters swarmed everywhere, this place was quite livable. For starters, even though it felt a bit dim and reddish, as if smog had settled everywhere, you could still see the sky well, and the sun was out, wasn’t it?
Seo Yakrin was at the very front, and Lee Hyun-muk at the very rear, leading the tense new recruits forward. It was early in the Rift entry, so there were almost no signs of monsters nearby yet. Nevertheless, perhaps due to their tension, their senses were dulled, and the recruits flinched at the slightest sound, looking around nervously. Only Yohan was thinking to himself as he scanned his surroundings.
‘I wish I could just spread out a field here and purify it all….’
It was about an hour into their exploration. The moment they passed a certain street, the windows of the lower floors of an apartment building shattered with a loud crash, and a swarm of monsters leaped out above their heads.
“Aaaargh!”
The startled new recruits screamed in surprise and fumbled with their weapons. But for some reason, the swarm of monsters hovered directly overhead, growling and barking, flailing their legs but unable to reach them. As the recruits finally regained their composure, they saw a golden aura constricting the monsters’ bodies, fixing them in mid-air. It was Seo Yakrin’s ability.
“Children, calm down. How should you react in a situation like this?”
The monsters’ forelegs were so close they almost brushed their heads, making the recruits turn pale with fright. One person’s legs gave out, and they collapsed. Someone finally managed to answer.
“Uh, um… Attack….”
“No. First, you should dodge, or the tanker needs to use their defensive ability. You know your weapon is a spear, so you need to maintain distance, right? You’ll get corrupted if you fight this close.”
The dazed recruits remained frozen, unable to move even after hearing Seo Yakrin’s words. Seo Yakrin gestured rapidly.
“I said, fall back?”
Only then did they stumble backward in a panic. Yohan, who had been observing with slightly startled but not panicked eyes, also moved back, pretending to be a new recruit. One person, whose legs had given out, couldn’t get up, so Seo Yakrin moved them with psychokinesis. It wasn’t a particularly dangerous situation, so Lee Hyun-muk simply watched without doing anything. Only after they had safely created distance did the Little Sheep team members finally regain their senses and react.
“The smell…!”
“Ugh, disgusting….”
Like all monsters, these creatures emitted a terrible stench. They looked like dogs, but were much larger, and their purple tongues, which seemed to be their main weapon, dragged on the ground. Their fur was sparse, giving them a ragged appearance, and they walked semi-bipedally. They were undeniably grotesque monsters. Yet, Yohan stared blankly at them.
Thinking about clearing the Abyss Core, they weren’t scary at all. No, they weren’t even comparable to clearing the Abyss Core. Flood? This was also incomparable. If he had to think of something similar, it might be the Red Head from the abandoned hospital?
‘Yeah, the Red Head was a bit more difficult… You had to be careful because its head could explode.’
However, these monsters were formidable in their own way. The appearance of monsters greatly influences memory, and perhaps because of this, there were many creatures that resembled humans. This was especially true for monsters that were once someone’s pet. Their cries sometimes sounded vaguely similar to human vocalizations, like saying “Let’s go for a walk.”
“They seem to be around Rank 2. Alright, shall we take them on one by one? Who wants to go first? Everyone has to kill at least one today.”
The shock of the monsters falling from above had been significant, so no one stepped forward to challenge them easily. Finally, Yohan, who had been watching quietly, raised his hand.
“I’ll go first.”
“Oh, great! Very brave.”
Seo Yakrin praised him and then created a circular fence of golden energy. As Yohan stepped inside, one of the monsters held by psychokinesis was released.
Yohan maintained a standoff instead of attacking immediately. The monster, drooling saliva that had a high chance of causing severe inflammation, shook its head left and right before finally charging forward, unable to resist the impulse. It was quite fast, but…
‘Since it’s Rank 2, it’s plenty avoidable.’
The Bone Birds that suddenly appeared from the reeds in the Reed Sea were harder to dodge. Yohan lightly twisted his body to evade, and the monster slammed its head into the psychokinetic wall with a loud thud. The new recruits watching from outside flinched in surprise.
Grrr, creak, bark! Spreading saliva everywhere like a rabid animal, it charged again. This time, instead of running straight, it leaped, aiming for the neck. Yohan swung his spear, striking the dog and creating distance.
The monster, hit hard on the neck, howled and swung its sticky, long tongue. As it tried to latch onto his body, Yohan swiftly cut it off with a seok-deuk. With its tongue severed, the monster, seemingly losing its mind, bared its teeth and lunged ferociously. Yohan’s spear pierced the monster’s head.
Kwa-jik! Blood splattered, making Yohan frown. The wriggling monster soon died. It was a decisive and accurate blow, almost an instant kill. He wanted to purify the blood splatter but held himself back. Lee Hyun-muk, who had been watching with a serious expression, said with a faint smile,
“Don’t forget to wipe away any blood splatter immediately.”
“Ah, yes!”
Yohan, who had forgotten due to being a Purifier, quickly took out a wet wipe he carried and wiped away the blood. Such contaminated items were meant to be left behind in Rift areas, so this was his first time discarding something improperly.
“Next?”
Seeing Yohan handle the monster so easily and smoothly, one of the Little Sheep team members mustered their courage. However, once face-to-face with a monster, they panicked and fumbled incessantly. Dodging was harder than expected, and the pressure from a monster larger than oneself was immense.
“Aaaargh! Aaaargh!”
As the recruit was chased bipedally, trying to bite their neck, the monster suddenly switched to quadrupedal movement and lunged ferociously, baring its teeth towards their heels. The recruit screamed. Tripping on a rock and losing balance, they fell. Seizing the moment, the monster’s tongue shot towards their eyes like a bullet. But just before it made contact, the monster’s body stiffened. Seo Yakrin had ensnared it with psychokinesis.
“Hah, huff…”
The recruit, who had narrowly avoided blindness, gasped for breath. They were so tense that sweat beaded on their entire body. Seo Yakrin clapped and encouraged the recruit.
“Come on, get up. Again! Get up quickly!”
The recruit, mustering strength in their trembling legs, pushed themselves up and moved away from the monster spitting saliva in mid-air. To the recruit, whose face had turned pale, Lee Hyun-muk said in a calm tone,
“You can quit if you want to. There will be other opportunities.”
“I, I’ll do it! I’ll try again!”
Even though there would be other opportunities, they didn’t want to receive a bad evaluation. They had overcome immense competition to join the Sun Guild, and they couldn’t give up now.
“Don’t be too scared. It’s just one Rank 2. If you focus, you can handle it.”
It was as Seo Yakrin said. Just one Rank 2. It was difficult, but it was a monster even a Low-rank Awakened could handle. There was no way a mid-level Awakened like them couldn’t handle it. Taking a breath and gathering courage, the recruit engaged the monster again. After struggling valiantly, they finally managed to kill it. Emerging from Seo Yakrin’s barrier, they realized a considerable amount of time had passed and were surprised.
“Next person.”
The next team member wasn’t as flustered as the previous one. Perhaps they had experience exploring and hunting in Rifts, as they were relatively calm, but without Seo Yakrin, they might have been grazed by the monster once or twice. Nevertheless, they quickly dispatched the monster.
After hunting all the monsters without a single person giving up, they moved to a new location for mealtime. Everyone seemed to have lost their appetite, their hands moving slowly with their utensils, but they forced themselves to eat at Seo Yakrin’s insistence that meals were essential.
“Yohan, how are you so good at catching them?”
The team member who took the longest to defeat a monster asked dejectedly. Yohan, who was the only one with an appetite and was eating heartily, replied sheepishly,
“I’ve caught monsters a few times before. My Hyung is an Awakened.”
“So you’re a veteran new recruit after all.”
“No wonder, there’s a reason you passed even as a low-rank.”
Subtle dismissive remarks were made, but Yohan just smiled them off. He thought to himself, Is this the confidence of someone who has it…? Am I a hidden powerhouse…?
However, he soon humbled himself, thinking of Lee Hyun-muk’s and the other team members’ abilities. In monster hunting, he wasn’t even 0.01% of Joo Ho-young, let alone 0.1. Naturally, Joo Ho-young could hunt dozens of much stronger monsters alone. At times like this, he regretted that his high-level Awakened status didn’t grant him auxiliary abilities.
Moreover, the current Little Sheep team members were just flustered due to their lack of experience as new recruits; Dealers and Tankers, by their class characteristics, would eventually become much better hunters than Yohan. While Yohan was having these thoughts, the team members were conversing in low voices.
“But if we had come out alone, it would have been a real disaster.”
“I might have gone blind.”
“I didn’t expect them to ask even a supporter to hunt monsters.”
“Even as a supporter, you have to hunt a Rank 2 monster alone. It’s the Sun Guild, after all.”
The person who had struggled and killed the monster earlier was a supporter, not a Dealer or Tanker. However, it wasn’t just the supporters who were disheartened by the unexpectedly difficult and frightening hunting environment. It was the psychological pressure that the Rift environment imposed.
On top of that, everyone was astonished when Seo Yakrin instantly killed the remaining several monsters. Even though they were both mid-level, the difference in skill was like heaven and earth. This easy hunt wasn’t solely because Seo Yakrin’s abilities had become incomparably stronger after falling into the Abyss. Even before falling into the Abyss, she was someone who could easily defeat monsters of this level.