Chapter 5: Monster and Monsters (2)

A city was a village that was independently formed by people without a ruler. In order to support themselves, they focused on farming and commerce activities, with most of the people involved in the latter. Therefore, a city was a place where a lot of wanderers stopped by, and was open to everybody. This large floating population allowed a city to grow bigger than any village. And in the city, food, lodging, water, weapons, and cheap alcohol could be bought with chips. Hunters always stopped by a city as it served as a pit stop for replenishment.

However, the advantages came with disadvantages well. Cities were unsafe, had weak security forces, and thus were easily attacked by beasts. In addition, the unmaintained streets were filled with abandoned corpses and the stench of rotting garbage. Epidemics swept the city from time to time, and nobody cared if a murder took place in the middle of the day.

Having no control whatsoever meant that neglect and chaos would ensue.

I am inside, yet outside.

Hunters visiting a city would describe it in such a manner. The city was secluded from the beasts, yet dangers similar to the ones outside still existed. Hunters had to fend off the threat of thieves and gangs trying to mug them. Of course, if they were aware of how dangerous hunters could be, they wouldn’t dare to attack, but in the Ancient-Korea region, where hunters were rare, there were sometimes ignorant people who didn’t know about hunters.

Just like how the outside was dangerous, the city was not much safer as different threats existed. To the hunters, a city was a type of dungeon. Until the hunter could discover the wanted goods and escape the dungeon, the hunter needed to take care of himself.

But now, a city that had been metaphorically referred to as a dungeon had become an actual dungeon.

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“Hmm…”

Zin looked at the trash wall of the city from afar. The wall built from piles of trash was barely holding upright, and its height was low at about twelve feet. There were sharp objects in the wall, but they were easily avoidable.

“Grrrrrr!”

Within the city, beasts growled here and there. Among the different sounds, Zin heard a distinctive cry, a cry that sounded like the screech of rusted metal.

Most of the cities were built on top of ruins, and Zado City was no different. Having trash walls was better than having nothing, and ruins were the best spot to find trash.

Zado City was a relatively small city, but it was much larger than Ard Point.

A city’s ability to defend itself was inversely related to the size of the city. Zado city did not have the ability to defend itself because of its bigger size, and the consequences were present in front of Zin.

—munch! munch!—

Krrrrr..

—chomp! chomp! chomp!—

Many beasts were feasting on a corpse. Ghouls, corpse-eating beasts and monsters, and poisonous canines had all gathered around it. Zin quietly watched the party of monsters.

Beasts were animals.

They would usually growl, but when they were eating, they didn’t display any signs of aggression.

Zin slid down the trash wall of Zado City and walked into the middle of the group of beasts. If someone were to see this, he or she would say that it was a suicidal action, but Zin walked over without any hesitation.

They’re starving.

Beasts were animals and some of the beasts noticed Zin, but they ignored him. There was meat already in front them, and corpse-eating beasts preferred to eat corpses, instead of attacking living humans for meat.

Kyaaaah!

Grrrrrrr…!

Furthermore, if the corpse-eating beasts were hungry to the point that they’d attack each other, they wouldn’t pay attention to Zin at all. So it was more dangerous to attack these beasts first. Although Zin walked freely among the beasts, the beasts paid no attention to him and continued to feast on the corpse.

A hunter was able to survive in the wilderness not because he was strong, but because he was knowledgeable about beasts.

He would know how to handle the different beasts. While others would have run away scared or started swinging their weapons, Zin calmly walked between the flesh-gnawing beasts.

In the midst of the bone-breaking and flesh-chewing sounds, he walked.

And the hunter thought to himself:

Zado City was destroyed about a month ago. If the beasts attacked then, the corpses should be nothing but bare bones by now, so it’s strange that the beasts are still eating now.

Corpse hunters have just arrived. Why would they leave the corpses untouched for a month?

Was the beast that attacked the city so dangerous that the corpse-eating beasts were too scared to come any closer?

In the Ancient-Korean region, there are no beasts that hunt for the purpose of getting anything other than meat. Then why would the beast leave behind all the meat? If it planned to destroy the city, it would have nested in the city, and consumed all the corpses…

The hunter started analyzing.

The corpse hunters did not destroy the city.

The beast’s purpose in attacking Zado City wasn’t for corpses/meat.

In the Ancient-Korea region, all beasts attack for the purpose of getting meat.

There is a possibility that a wanderer-type beast might have entered the region. But it’s very unlikely.

It will be hard to come up with a conclusion regarding this incident.

I’ll need to look around for more clues.

The corpse hunters weren’t a threat. These beasts were cowards by nature and didn’t act as a group. Each beast lived for their own benefit, so after eating they would run away from the different beasts.

Just as beasts were not a human’s only threat, humans were not the beast’s only threat.

In Zado City, the residential area was mostly made up of shacks and regular buildings. The hunter slowly refined the identity of the culprit. Zin did not go inside the building since there’d be more corpse hunters inside them.

Most of the shacks that had been hastily built with slates had collapsed, but the concrete buildings were still intact.

It was a beast that can crush shacks, but not concrete ones. It’s possible that it’s not an extra-large or large-sized one, but a mid-sized beast.

Mid-sized beasts couldn’t go inside the buildings. But Zin heard flesh-eating sounds coming from inside the buildings. That meant that smaller-sized beasts had entered the building and killed the humans.

Small-sized and mid-sized beasts attacked the city.

There were more tall buildings toward the center of the city, with louder sounds of beasts coming from inside the buildings. It was clear that all the humans had been killed. As Zin scouted around the area, he couldn’t help but think about the unexplainable things.

Claw marks…

On the hardened mud, there were giant claw marks made up of four deep lines. Naturally, Zin remembered Baek-Goo’s words.

I think the wolves did it.

But a single Giant Wolf wouldn’t be able to destroy a city of this magnitude by itself. And it made no sense that a solitary beast would attack the city with a group of small-sized beasts.

The situation seemed suspicious and improbable.

“No way….”

As Zin reached the center of the Zado ruins, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Even the cool-tempered Zin frowned at the bizarre scene in front of him.

—crunch! crrrunch!—

Krrr… Grrawrl!!!

There were at least fifty corpse hunters eating corpses. It was a dreadful scene where ghouls, corpse-eating beasts, and poisonous dogs all mingled together. However, Zin wasn’t frowning because of that.

Baek-Goo… you were right.

The giant pieces of flesh that the corpse hunters were hurriedly munching on were actually the dead bodies of five Giant Wolves. As Baek-Goo had said, Zado City had been destroyed by an attack of mid-sized beasts, Giant Wolves.

But those Giant Wolves were now all dead.

Zin climbed up the ladder on a tilted building and watched the scene from the roof of the tall building.

The Giant Wolves had attacked a city. Among the beasts that attacked, the mid-sized beasts were the Giant Wolves, and the smaller sized ones were the cubs. There were the dead bodies of the cubs as well, but the corpse hunters were feasting on them. It was an unbelievable sight.

Giant wolves acted on their own since they only attacked beasts and humans that trespassed. They only went out to hunt if they were starving. It was almost impossible for all ten Giant Wolves to be starving at the same time.

After finishing the hunt, did the wolves fight against the others and then kill each other?

The fact that the corpse are in one place suggests that they were fighting against each other, resulting in their deaths.

If that was the case, it explained why the corpse hunters would have arrived later. Because the smell of blood from the Giant Wolves was all over the place, so the corpse hunters wouldn’t have dared to approach the city.

It was an unexplainable situation for an ordinary person.

In any case, Zin’s purpose was to find out who attacked the city, not to take revenge on the attackers.

Therefore, after looking at the pile of corpses, Zin’s mission was complete. The beasts were the Giant Wolves, and they were all dead after the attack. So, the people of Ard Point would not need to migrate.

Hmm… Would this make sense for the elder…?

Zin knew that his explanation wouldn’t be enough to be accepted by the elder. It was not an ordinary situation, and it was very possible that the elder would take it as a false report. Without a recording device, it would be a challenge to convince him with the truth.

Zin could yank out a couple of teeth from the Giant Wolves as evidence, but he would not be able to receive additional compensation.

A hunter’s main goal was not to find the truth. Mysteries were best left as mysteries, and hunters only needed to accomplish the request. The world was full of unexplainable events anyway, and there was no reason to risk one’s life to understand them.

Zin looking at the corpse hunters whose stomachs were bulging out from feasting on the meat.

This feels like a devil’s deed indeed.

However, Zin has witnessed many incidents that seemed to be done by a devil, but many of them did not turn out to be the case. This sort of bizarre events, though not too often, could happen at any given time. Whatever reason the Giant Wolves had gathered in this place, it could not have been a devil that did it.

For Zin, there were more important matters than observing the collapse of a city.

Since the city’s chip safes were now without owners, it now waited for a new owner. With the amount of chips that a city of this size would own, Zin would be able to extend his uptime. Zin’s alternative goal for this surveillance request was to reclaim the chips within the city.

It was more important to profit off what was certain, rather than focusing on the unknown. That was a sure-fire law of survival.

Fortunately, the Reavers won’t be able to come in because of the beasts.

Many thieves could come to the city as soon as news of its collapse started to spread around. However, Reavers could not approach the city because of the many corpse hunters. In a sense, beasts become an excellent line of defense.

Hunters only hunted when there was a need for it, and they utilized beasts for that purpose as well. Zin started searching buildings that would have safes in them.

Over there.

Zin started moving towards a relatively intact building in the southeast side of the city.

krr…krrrrk…

And behind the remains of a corpse, something was starting to wiggle and shake ominously.