Chapter 8 - Bounty Hunt (3) (2/2)
After killing monsters, removing the Ether, and not receiving any compensation—it was still better to not buy more attention to himself.
He left no trace on the previous site, and so far, no one has noticed what has happened yet.
Il-hyun decided it was enough to leave this place without worrying.
“Where are you? Let’s go!”
It stuck its face. Il-hyun found the hidden mouse.
When the battle began, the man who fled from Burinake quickly entered the inner court’s pocket.
Il-hyun quickly dragged the bodies of two monsters and walked out of the sewer.
It was heavy and tiring, but it was too late to back down.
Less!
He opened the closed manhole cover, and Il-hyun escaped into the street.
When he jumped out from the ground, the eyes of citizens who weren’t familiar with English, stayed at him.
Soon after, he threw the corpse of the monster with one hand on the ground.
The people who saw it screamed and fled, and then the surrounding streets quickly became empty.
Il-hyun, who was watching the scene, remained silent.
“What a waste. If some middle schoolers had been hitting shit at this time, it would have been great,” he said.
Whether or not people looked at him, he contacted the police and brought another corpse up the ladder.
“Ugh!”
He looked disgusting as he came out from the manhole.
Even for a small flesh, the smell was evident, not to mention it was all over his body.
Fortunately, it hadn’t begun rotting that much yet, but after an hour or so, it will, and the stench will be unbearable.
“Oh, the stench is all over my body,” Il-hyun murmured while rubbing the monster’s blood off his clothes.
Then, he heard a clicking sound.
By reflex, he covered his face with one hand and looked back.
People who watched him from a distance started pulling out their cell phones.
Citizens did not get close even though they knew that the monster on the floor was already dead.
It’s appearance looked disgusting, and it was only natural to be scared of the monster.
However, most of them stopped on the way. They couldn’t take their eyes off of the monster while taking pictures.
“Wow, it’s my first time to see a monster.”
“It looks really disgusting.”
“Are the gates opened?”
People have heard the noise of the navy.
When he became an Awakener, he can clearly hear people’s thoughts.
“Why did the monster come out over there?”
“Oh, I see. They’re monsters that appeared in Il-yeon this time.”
“Then, the monsters that have disappeared are here? That’s really dangerous! Goose-goose!”
Everyone’s gaze started to feel uncomfortable.
“Whee! Profit!” One of them placed his hands in his mouth and whistled.
People cheered and applauded.
“Wow!”
“Cool!”
The drivers of the cars passing the noisy area also looked up to see what was going on.
“What…what?”
Il-hyun stared blankly around an unfamiliar sight.
It was his first time experiencing such a thing.
He had never been this praised in his life, let alone by strangers such as the crowd.
No, perhaps these ordinary people do, he thought.
“Haha…” Il-hyun laughed continuously at the cheering crowd.
But then, there’s the Ether and compensation.
He simply acted according to his greed, but the citizens of the streets were applauding him.
He was standing silently in the seat, and he felt like crying from the inside.
Amid the confusion, a police car arrived to save him.
“Are you the person who called us?”
“Yes, yes. There you are.”
When two police officers from the special police force got out of the car and asked Il-hyun what he called for, he pointed to the ground bodies.
The police officers’ faces brightened when they saw the stacked bodies of the monsters.
“I checked the bodies. They’re two Balaks!” the police officer exclaimed.
The other police officer sighed in relief. He bowed his head and expressed gratitude toward Il-hyun.
“Hyung, thank you. We caught them all. The other one was hiding in the water tank in an apartment, and I never thought the guy in Ilyeon-dong would be here.”
The last four police officers to arrive missed what had happened.
Il-hyun, who’s still raising one hand, wanted to get out of here quickly.
“Uh…Let’s have a seat first.”
* * *
Il-hyun checked his account at the ATM.
He confirmed that 8 million won had been deposited directly as compensation.
“If you include the money here, you can get a protective coat.”
The protective coat price was beyond his imagination, and most of the items started at 10 million won.
He needed it because of the value of his performance.
“The face…It doesn’t seem to sell.”
Il-hyun, who came out of the building, searched SNS with his cell phone.
The news of a monster that escaped Ilyeon-dong and was later caught wasn’t a big topic, but it still came up quite a bit.
He checked 3 hours ago, but fortunately, there was no picture of his face.
If his face was shown clearly, it would have been a major obstacle for the activities to come.
“By the way…”
Il-hyun sighed and sat down on a bench in the street. And he remembered what he had been doing.
After his first accidental absorption of the Ether to awaken his instincts, his nerves were all over the core.
When it comes to cores, he rushed back and forth to the point where it would seem irrational.
He did his second job dangerously, and he even indirectly stole it—but he’s convinced he didn’t do anything wrong.
He was possessed by something, even though he was proud that he had lived honestly ever since.
“There are time wherein people who are awakened wants to taste something good.”
Il-hyun shook his head because of the absurdity of his thoughts.
He didn’t feel anything strange.
He thought again of the meaning of the awakened people who had suddenly been forgotten by the citizens.
Monster hunter? A golden spoon with long life?
He looked down at his right hand that had already absorbed four ethers.
“Can I really use these powers this way?”
To be honest, he neither feels guilt nor sorry for the stolen awakened people.
While daydreaming, he recalled that he wanted to be an awakener, and the reason was that he had a great responsibility for humankind.