# Chapter 18
After discovering the undiscovered entrance, Kang Dongha suddenly became enthusiastic. His face brightened a bit… that son of a bitch.
Regardless of Lee Hwan’s internal cursing, Dongha silently unfolded the rod he had been carrying. The umbrella-like elongated tool spread open, revealing a propeller.
“With that… you want us to fly?”
“How many kilos are you?”
It looks so flimsy yet it has a weight limit? No matter how much Lee Hwan examined it, it was equipment he wasn’t familiar with. It seemed to be something under development in Naru’s research lab. Considering it hadn’t been commercialized in the future, it was either functionally deficient or they had failed to make it cost-effective…
Despite its untrustworthy appearance, Lee Hwan had no choice. He could reduce falling speed with his spatial ability, but he couldn’t use it as a platform to climb up.
Lee Hwan kept glancing behind at where Team 3 had disappeared, and finally with an uneasy feeling, grabbed Dongha’s waist and clung tightly.
“It’s wobbling more than I expected.”
“Are you sure this equipment is reliable?”
“You must be heavier than you look? You’re sturdier than your appearance suggests.”
That expression sounded too much like something a grandmother would say.
The propeller wobbled as it slowly flew through the vertical cave. Despite not having acrophobia, being suspended like this made Lee Hwan’s eyes bulge.
It wasn’t so much that he was afraid of heights, but rather that he didn’t trust this contraption, and even more so, he didn’t trust Kang Dongha.
If something went wrong during their ascent, Dongha would unhesitatingly let go and drop him to save himself. That’s exactly the kind of person he was, this bastard.
Clack—his feet touched the stone floor, and the strange flight came to an end. Lee Hwan sent the propeller-folding Dongha behind him and took the lead.
From here on, it seemed better for him to go first. If anything jumped out, Dongha would undoubtedly become a helpless piece of meat.
‘To think I have to protect this guy because there’s no one else to protect…’
After just a few steps, a large cavity appeared. Judging by the echoing footsteps, it was a spacious area that didn’t match the small entrance.
Nothing visible ahead. Yet Lee Hwan felt an intense chill from head to toe, as if something was present inside.
A somehow chilling silence. The tingling sensation he’d been feeling now seemed to pierce his scalp. They say Awakened ones have animal-like instincts, but had it ever been this intense before?
Lee Hwan decided to secure visibility first and hurriedly took out his flashlight.
Click.
But no light came on. Lee Hwan pressed the power button again.
Click. Click.
It still showed no signs of working. Why had the flashlight that was working fine until just now suddenly died? Lee Hwan was now seriously starting to feel anxious.
Whack!
Finally losing patience, he hit the flashlight once, and there was a crackling sound. Something dangled from the hand he looked down at.
‘Ah, shit…’
In his panic, he hadn’t controlled his strength. The broken pieces of the flashlight clattered as they fell to the floor.
Still unable to see even an inch ahead in the space.
Would Dongha perhaps have a flashlight? Or should he retrieve the drone and salvage its flashlight? Just as these thoughts crossed his mind—
Ssssup— Ssssuuu—.
‘…!’
A spine-chilling breathing sound passed by him.
Lee Hwan tensed up and assumed a combat stance.
Flash!
At that same moment, as if it had been waiting, lights turned on. Stones embedded at the corners of the cavity were glowing like lamps.
Though still dim, his eyes could now discern objects. Lee Hwan threw the broken flashlight handle to the ground with a clatter.
Then he inhaled deeply, exhaled.
He saw something he didn’t really want to see. Lee Hwan’s back was becoming damp in an instant.
Inside the illuminated cavity, unexpected forms were floating.
* * *
Forms.
Class 2 plant-type monsters with severely distorted features everywhere. And what appeared to have once been human… shapes that were partially dismembered.
These semi-transparent entities were slowly circling the space.
‘….’
A momentary heavy silence passed. Before he could even judge what the things before him were, his feet moved first. Whoosh, as Lee Hwan pulled his body back, the distorted monster’s stem stretched out toward him.
Lee Hwan designated a space and hurriedly defended while thinking. Whatever this was, it wasn’t normal. If this many monsters suddenly appeared, combat would be difficult.
Moreover, he was already overwhelmed just fighting, with no capacity to protect anyone else. If he stood still, Dongha would die with a probability as certain as making red bean porridge with red beans.
A few seconds of deliberation. Finally, Lee Hwan shouted.
“Run away!”
He thought he should evacuate this bastard first. However…
Quickly turning around, Lee Hwan lost his words. Dongha was already far away, having grabbed the propeller and fled first. Far before he had even spoken, the guy had already taken off.
“That, that… piece of…”
It made sense to send him away first, and he himself had made that judgment, so why did it feel so unpleasant?
The already leaping, flying, disappearing back view was exceptionally swift. The way he threw Lee Hwan like bait and ran away at the first sign of danger was truly heartbreaking.
‘Right… I don’t think you’ll die anywhere else, you fucking bastard.’
Lee Hwan spat curses through his teeth, dodged the stem once more, and pulled out the stone gun from his back. While grumbling, he twisted the space to clear away the shadow that was chasing after Dongha, and fired three consecutive bombs, controlling their trajectory.
BOOM-!
BANG-!
BOOM-!
Bombs exploding with time intervals. The past few weeks of special training had been meaningful as the explosions occurred stably at fantastic positions.
But that was all. The monsters before his eyes didn’t seem to take any damage or even be affected at all.
‘Why?’
Suddenly, from behind, he felt a breathing sound again—hiss. Startled, Lee Hwan swung his elbow as he turned, almost falling over, and then he suddenly realized.
‘Just now…’
Nothing had caught on his arm.
Watching the forms that disappeared and reappeared while moving around, Lee Hwan felt cold sweat trickling down his nape and thought:
These things have no physical form.
‘Impossible.’
Constantly getting goosebumps, sweat dripped inside his mask. Rather than difficulty moving quickly or using his ability, it was simply because he was creeped out. Lee Hwan wasn’t afraid of Class 2 monsters, but he fucking hated ghosts.
Was it shortly after meeting Taesung? The boiler had burst, and though it was just for a few days, he had stayed in a shabby gosiwon. He had moved in because the rent was cheap, only to nearly scream when he heard rumors of a ghost.
He had never seen a sobbing ghost in white, a grim reaper, or a mountain spirit, but just a single ghost story had been so terrifying.
He had even closed his eyes tightly while washing his hair. That’s when he learned that even Awakened ones feel stinging pain when soap gets in their eyes.
In the past, just his imagination had been so frightening, and now he was face to face with a heap of ghosts.
Ssup— Ssup— Ss—.
The breathing sounds were unbearably unpleasant.
Swoosh!
Soon, another stem stretched out.
‘Damn it!’
In his urgency, Lee Hwan couldn’t even fire the stone gun and lashed out, sweeping the barrel. As expected, a distorted shadow stretched out and went straight through the stone gun.
He had tried his best not to let it touch him. Afraid of losing his weapon, Lee Hwan hurriedly pulled back the stone gun.
But…
‘?’
Something was strange.
Examining the stone gun anxiously, the surface was neither burst, frozen, nor twisted. The barrel seemed perfectly fine without a single scratch.
‘What’s going on?’
It didn’t take any damage…?
Lee Hwan tapped the stone gun a few times and then rolled his eyes briefly. He swung it through a form again, and this time, brought his arm with the greaves to an approaching form.
With a creepy sensation, a distorted human arm passed through it smoothly.
“!”
A skin-crawling sensation scraped down his spine, but there were no injuries. Even this sensation was closer to an aversion toward an unknown existence rather than actual harm.
‘Indeed, these aren’t real.’
For a moment, he wondered if he was seeing hallucinations and was about to hit his head. Perhaps he was going crazy from tension and seeing things. But it couldn’t be just an individual issue because earlier, Dongha had seen the same thing and had quickly fled.
He covered his nose, wondering if some gas was being released, and looked around. But again, nothing changed.
Well, if it were gas that could intoxicate an Awakened person that quickly, Dongha would have been foaming at the mouth before he could run away. Moreover, the eerie feeling that arose whenever they touched, even when not looking with the eyes.
This had no physical form, but it wasn’t a hallucination either.
‘Come to think of it, if it were a hallucination…’
I would have seen something else. I’ve had worse nightmares, and I’ve seen more horrific sights.
Lee Hwan had seen all sorts of things right after doomsday. Hunters whose upper bodies had been completely blown away by a single blow from a monster, or a sea of blood from comrades that he witnessed when he lit a torch because he heard splashing water during a field operation.
Recent dreams included Taesung who had only regressed from the neck down, Taesung with missing arms, Bang Bang Kang Taesung…
‘My life is the real horror…’
Just a brief thought made Lee Hwan’s mouth turn sour.
Even though Lee Hwan had stopped moving, the unpleasant breathing sounds and the movements of the distorted forms continued. It truly was the worst sight he had seen since his regression.
Assuming he wouldn’t be attacked, Lee Hwan stood still and examined them. Only then did he notice familiar details.
Ssup— Ss—.
Sssup— Huik— Sssuu—.
Among the forms circling the same place… some were wearing uniforms issued by Naru. And not just any uniforms, but those of the Support Team.
Arms and legs blown off, clothes torn here and there, shapes that seemed to be screaming—he once again recognized that they were actually severed and drooping human forms. Now even his body was shivering.
And soon, Lee Hwan realized that their mouth shapes were different from the monster forms that merely growled.
