# Chapter 131
All first experiences are special. The first food you taste, the first clothes you wear, and even the first emotion you feel. Whether they stay in your memory or not, they all imprint on your mind consciously or unconsciously, creating standards for your entire life.
For Lee Hwan, Taesung was such an existence. The person connected to everything—his first Hunter life, the first high-quality clothes and food he experienced, and even the first strange attraction he felt.
He was a kind of turning point toward a happy life.
Perhaps it was natural that he thought of him whenever he had a moment. After all, Taesung had always been entangled in his life since his Awakening.
Moreover, Taesung was the only person with whom he kept that final step of distance, fearing that someday they wouldn’t be able to be together.
Until daybreak, Lee Hwan stayed awake all night. Like during his wandering days before the regression, Lee Hwan occasionally checked Taesung’s breathing as he slept and examined his wounds.
He only opened his eyes when the sun had risen enough for ordinary people to distinguish objects, and the surroundings had brightened.
Having sustained injuries, even minor ones, his throat must be quite dry. Lee Hwan handed him the remaining water and asked as he got up.
“How are you feeling?”
“…Good enough to run.”
“That’s a relief. We need to climb the mountain.”
Lee Hwan spoke calmly while glancing at Taesung’s profile. He wouldn’t remember yesterday anyway. So he wouldn’t know about the unnecessary questions he’d asked.
Or how he’d touched his face, supposedly wiping away cold sweat.
If found out, he’d be dead meat. With that thought, he turned his head again, and by then Taesung had lifted his clothes where the blood had dried black and was checking his wound. Due to the darkness, he couldn’t clean it thoroughly, and blood stains were still smeared here and there on his skin.
“I’ve checked it roughly, so it should be fine. Let’s do proper treatment when we arrive at the safe house.”
When he started to move his lips after looking at the patches attached here and there on his chest, Lee Hwan quickly intercepted. He was probably about to question how far Lee Hwan had gone, using a minor wound as an excuse.
“If you go down looking like that, there’ll be a commotion, so put on my outer garment and wear the hat again.”
Lee Hwan tossed out another comment. A shirt torn in various places with black dried bloodstains. Unless the zombie apocalypse had arrived and everyone was walking around in rags, it was an outfit that would inevitably attract attention.
Taesung looked Lee Hwan up and down, then without any particular objection, shook off the outer garment covered with grass and slipped his arms in. Since it was originally his clothes, unlike some people, it fit perfectly.
“Any movement on the other side?”
Even with his face hidden by the pulled-down hat, he was still Kang Taesung. Well, the problem was his proportions from the start. Such a height and build were truly rare, even disregarding his face.
“I didn’t see any suspicious people until I went to the meeting place and climbed the mountain… But as you know, several hours have easily passed.”
“You mean they might be waiting nearby, following our trail.”
He was quite perceptive, understanding everything perfectly no matter how it was said. Was it thanks to treating his wounds, or was he still a bit dazed and not in the mood to be irritable? Despite Lee Hwan’s repeated glances, he showed no signs of displeasure.
“Now all that’s left is…”
“As we discussed earlier, we both hide at the safe house. Frankly, I’m looking at around 5 weeks or more.”
It would be a very long, awkward, and nerve-wracking time. Lee Hwan would fidget with his hair diligently even when leaving his room just for meals, and Taesung would wander around the living room, pretending not to notice the sound of his footsteps.
Then they’d raise their voices over something trivial, get upset, and eventually someone would extend a hand and things would smoothly resolve.
Apart from the fact that it would mostly be him extending that hand, Lee Hwan’s heart raced for no reason. The phrase ‘it bothers me’ really, really, extremely bothered him.
“We should have enough food.”
“There’ll be enough even if we eat five meals each. Though it won’t taste good.”
“It’s fine as long as there’s enough to keep us alive.”
“There’ll be enough even if we eat five meals each.”
Did he really mean they should eat five meals?
With Taesung repeating the same words, putting his smashed phone in his bag, and quietly beginning to move, their escape resumed.
* * *
“Northwest is impossible.”
“The opposite side looks difficult too.”
Taesung’s face visibly hardened. Lee Hwan was trying hard to stay calm, but even he couldn’t endure without biting his lips.
“Should we consider this a mountain encirclement?”
“Well, it seems more like they’ve already followed our tracks and positioned themselves… but they must be gradually realizing. That the mountain is likely.”
According to the original plan, they should have come down the mountain, gone far beyond the neighborhood, appeared flashing here and there, and then concealed their tracks. However, suspicious individuals were loitering in groups of two or three at every suitable spot for descending the mountain.
They must have somehow obtained CCTV footage from the streets and some dashcam videos, finding clues during daylight. As they narrowed the encirclement, they naturally came to the mountain.
The reason they hadn’t stormed in yet was probably because of the mountainous terrain.
Taesung, who not only used fire but also possessed an S-class physique, had successfully escaped from yesterday’s many-against-one battle.
Furthermore, Lee Hwan’s proper abilities hadn’t even been fully revealed yet. Someone who had somehow subdued all monsters in a mutated gate. Plus, the person who had ransacked Building D, essentially the instigator of this situation.
In a situation where they weren’t sure what would happen even if they attacked in numbers from advantageous positions, they likely thought it would be somewhat risky to enter the mountain where the two were encamped.
‘Well, now it seems they’re willing to take that risk and are gradually pushing in.’
The longer Lee Hwan and Taesung lingered in the mountains, the more reinforcements would arrive. Then the holes through which they could escape would gradually disappear.
“We need to get out before more gather.”
Taesung must have guessed a similar situation as he groaned softly. Suddenly lowering his gaze, Lee Hwan saw him bending his thumb and pressing his index finger hard, as if he would bite it off.
In his mind, he was probably already imagining one of them being caught and pummeled.
“It’s serious, but not a completely hopeless situation either.”
When Lee Hwan encouraged him with a normal face, as if he hadn’t been biting his lip, the shadow under Taesung’s eyes seemed to lighten a bit.
Despite all the talk about abilities and atmosphere, at times like this, he still showed signs of youth.
Well, Lee Hwan had experienced several near-death situations after the monster wave. It might be a bit cowardly to rely on those experiences.
“We need to move up a bit along the mountain range. I think we’ll have to cross regions.”
“Won’t they pursue us?”
“If we stay in one place, we’ll be surrounded.”
Then they’d be captured immediately, regardless of hiking up or down. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it the worst bad ending they could face in the current situation.
“…Let’s go.”
Even if Taesung hadn’t said it, Lee Hwan would have gone anyway, but he nodded as if following his instructions.
He had been injected with some unknown sleeping drug yesterday and had sustained injuries in various places. No matter how S-class he was, there would still be some aftermath, so Lee Hwan hoped his mood would at least improve.
Moving across the mountain was quite arduous, not so much due to physical strength but for other reasons. As the terrain narrowed toward the top, going too high made them easy to spot, while moving too low made them easy to capture.
The fact that there was a path through the grass and trees meant frequent human footsteps, so they had to avoid it, but walking where there was no path made it easy to leave traces.
Walking only through dense trees and rugged areas consumed a lot of energy, while the easy paths were usually places where humans had already stepped or positions good for being discovered.
‘This guy, how the hell did he cross mountains all the way to Busan?’
It was so maddening that the thought came naturally. Especially since Lee Hwan had only been chased by monsters before, he would instinctively think about their habits and then be startled when he remembered human intelligence.
The feeling of being pursued right up to the chin by chasers who weren’t deluded by sounds or bait. Lee Hwan felt as if his heart was being compressed to a quarter of its size.
However, despite fleeing for a long time, suffering in body and mind, a gunshot rang out somewhere in the mountains.
Tang! Tang!
There was no way someone would be hunting in the uninhabited mountains, especially with a silencer. We’ve been discovered. Lee Hwan realized it even before turning around.
‘Damn it, did we waste too much time after all?’
But Taesung hadn’t woken up until sunrise, so they couldn’t depart earlier. He had no intention whatsoever of leaving him behind, and even if he had started fleeing with Taesung on his back, they would have been caught eventually.
Tang!
As the gunshot sounded again, Taesung, who was running beside him, grabbed Lee Hwan’s arm and yanked it hard. Unable to resist the momentum, Lee Hwan’s feet lifted off the ground, and Taesung almost embraced him to hold him steady.
Pa-ba-ba-ba-bak!
Several large bullets lodged themselves right where Lee Hwan had been. They were so fast that they burrowed into the rock.
They were anti-large monster bullets. Not like those issued to Supporters that put monsters to sleep or poison them with minimal provocation, but weapons that could inflict serious injuries.
Lee Hwan’s entire body shuddered, and his neck tingled. When he quickly looked back, four silhouettes were running toward them as if flying.
They all held firearms that appeared to be for large monsters, and their speed was extraordinary, clearly indicating they were Awakened ones.
‘Damn it! How long have they been following us?’
To think they had already found their location and were pursuing. He hadn’t expected trackers to have set up positions this far down. They must have been tracking from the place they first stayed, following their traces.
Tang!
Fortunately, since everyone was running, they could only fire one or two shots at a time. Due to the two of them moving quickly, the accuracy seemed to drop, and the sound of bullets hitting trees could be heard.
Still, they couldn’t just keep running forever. For example, as they ran while avoiding the trackers’ attacks, they were gradually being driven down the mountain.
They were probably designating a position and luring them there. If they didn’t dodge, they’d be attacked, but dodging meant walking into the net themselves.
‘We need to ambush those guys to stop their attacks even momentarily so we can continue fleeing.’
When Lee Hwan looked at Taesung, he also faced Lee Hwan and nodded once.
It seemed they had made the same judgment.
