Ch.21Becoming a Hostage?

Pretending not to notice and just leaving it alone wouldn’t work anyway. This place would be discovered eventually.

And if hunters caught the child, it would be immediately dragged to the underground research facility and turned into livestock for experiments.

In other words, just walking away and leaving things as they were didn’t sit right with me either.

So what should I do?

It felt like finding an abandoned kitten marked for euthanasia right in front of me.

And if I were my old self, I definitely would have…

‘The moment I’m caught, I’d have no excuse even if my family disowned me…’

Has even my head turned into a monster?

I sighed involuntarily, feeling like I was taking the monster’s side.

“Found you.”

“Kruk?”

I was so deep in thought that I hadn’t even noticed someone approaching.

When I turned my head toward the voice, the baby monster used that moment to run over and hide behind my back.

Somehow, we had already become “allies.”

“Krururuk…”

‘Hey, don’t get attached…’

“Sc-scared… H-help me…”

If I mess this up, won’t I earn the title of “Traitor to Humanity”?

But I couldn’t help meeting those ruby-colored eyes that filled me with sympathy.

Ugh, I really shouldn’t be doing this…

“Seeing monsters sticking together like this reminds me of a buy-one-get-one-free deal at a convenience store.”

With a deal like this, it would be so burdensome that nobody would buy it.

I turned back to face forward.

There was a flashy redhead walking toward me at the front of dozens of hunters.

That mischievous smile, those sharp eyes like a thug’s, those gaudy fashion choices complete with gold rings between his fingers.

With that much excessive personality, it would be stranger not to recognize him.

‘Joo Sangho… of course we’d meet.’

A-rank Hunter Joo Sangho.

He was a supporting character who occasionally appeared in “Hunter’s Blood”… not the main character.

“So you’re the Monster of Jamsil! Nice to meet you. I am Joo Sangho, one of only ten A-rank Hunters in the Korean branch of the Hunter Association!”

This guy has no sense of when to be strong or weak against opponents.

“Remember the name of the man who will defeat you!”

A man who has reached beyond anger management issues to the realm of not even trying to manage his anger.

Whether facing an E-rank monster or a National Disaster-level monster, he always fights first and asks questions later.

That’s why he was an ill-fated supporting character who disappeared mid-story with just one sentence about his quiet death.

‘This guy is still the same…’

“Here I come!”

“R-red?!”

Joo Sangho honorably announced “Here I come!” before leaping toward me.

“Ooooh!”

The junior hunters following him let out exclamations of admiration.

The baby monster couldn’t see his movements at all. The proof was that it was just trembling behind my back with its eyes tightly shut.

I gulped.

This man…

How hard should I hit him to knock him out without killing him?

THWACK!

“…!”

“S-Sangho!”

I started by matching my fist to his solar plexus with the same force I’d used to knock out the hunters on my way here.

Sangho flew backward one, two, three bounces before tumbling head over heels.

“Kruk?”

‘Did I take care of him?’

Looking at the anxious expressions of the surrounding hunters, I thought it was over, but…

“Kuhuk?! A-as expected of a National Disaster-level…! Quite, puhurk?! Strong…!”

Wow, that’s scary.

Sangho was standing up unsteadily with one leg joint twisted backward, coughing up blood.

But he pointed a crooked finger at me with confidence.

“A-as expected, th-this level is… kuhup?! H-haha, worth fighting…!”

“Senior, please stop!”

“We’ll join you from now on!”

“Kuhuk! You fools! Aren’t you the future of Korean hunters? What good would it do if promising youngsters like you die so early?!”

Despite his flashy exterior, he was a man with a warmer heart than anyone.

There was a reason he was popular among his juniors.

I was getting worried he might charge at me again in that state when…

“…?!”

“……”

As I was considering running away, I glanced to the right at a sewer entrance between me and the hunters.

There was Yoo Cheran hiding there, watching the situation.

‘Cheran. You’ve been discharged.’

I’d been too busy with my cleaning job to visit her often, but it seemed she had been discharged and immediately assigned to this operation.

So with Cheran blocking that path, my only option was to charge straight ahead?

Just as I was reluctantly considering how to deal with this patriot who looked like a thug but cared about Korea’s hunter future…

Tap tap.

“…?”

Suddenly, Cheran made eye contact with me and gestured for me to come over.

Did I see that wrong?

There’s no way a hunter would gesture to a monster, so I rubbed my eyes and looked again, but she was really beckoning me to come.

‘Why is she suddenly doing that?’

I couldn’t understand.

Could it be some kind of trap?

…No, Cheran, being a C-rank Hunter, would know better than anyone that setting a trap wouldn’t work on me.

Then what did that beckoning gesture mean?

“Sc-scared…”

Behind my back was the cowering baby monster.

If I were alone, it might be different, but I had to protect this child while advancing past hunters who were all C-rank or higher, just knocking them out without killing them.

If I accidentally killed even one of them, the consequences would be truly unmanageable.

So the choice I made was…

“Kruk-kruk.”

‘Get on my back.’

After getting the baby monster on my back…

“…! The Monster of Jamsil is charging!”

“Kuk! You all run away! I’ll hold it back!”

“No, Senior!”

While Sangho and the other hunters were performing their own little skit, I turned right.

“Kruk!”

Finally, I arrived.

Cheran was ahead.

Why had she beckoned to me?

This was the fastest escape route anyway, and if she didn’t move aside, I’d have no choice but to knock her out.

As I was sweating at the thought of having to touch Cheran…

“H-help! I’ve been taken hostage by the monster!”

“What…”

“What did you say?!”

Cheran pressed her back against me and started acting like a “hostage”?

I didn’t understand why she was doing this, but thanks to her, the hunters who were about to charge at me all stopped in their tracks.

“How cowardly…!”

“Monster of Jamsil! Let that girl go! She’s too young to die! In this country where it’s becoming difficult for even one child to be born, each young person is a jewel who will lead our future!”

He’s only in his 30s himself, but he’s speaking like an old man.

But since this was a good opportunity, I decided to play along by hugging Cheran from behind and acting like an evil monster.

“Krurururu…! Krarararak! Kagagagak!”

“Eek?!”

“D-don’t provoke it!”

“So the Monster of Jamsil is intelligent enough to take a human hostage…!”

As I hugged Cheran more tightly from behind, Joo Sangho and the hunters retreated further.

Very good.

They say victory through non-violence is the most valuable. I didn’t know why Cheran was doing this, but I owed her a debt of gratitude.

That’s when:

“Don’t think you owe me anything…”

“Kruk?”

“This is… me returning the favor.”

Cheran whispered in a small voice that only I could hear.

Returning the favor?

Did that mean Cheran had met me in my monster form somewhere before?

‘…When exactly?’

Even during the Twin-Head incident, she was already unconscious, so she couldn’t have seen me directly.

I didn’t understand.

As I was tilting my head in confusion:

“And take this.”

Cheran handed me what looked like a very small note.

“It’s a map of the Yeongdeungpo sewer system. With this, you’ll be able to escape quickly.”

Not only had she held back the enemy, but she was also giving me an escape route.

What was she thinking?

I had many questions, but that wasn’t what mattered right now.

“Kruruk.”

‘Thank you, Cheran.’

“?!”

Even though I knew she couldn’t understand me, once we had put some distance between us and the hunters, I whispered my thanks in her ear.

Then I carefully tossed her toward the hunters while simultaneously turning around and starting to run.

“T-the Monster of Jamsil is escaping!”

“Quickly, chase… we can’t. It’s too fast.”

“Yes. And we need to check on your condition, Senior, and the woman who was taken hostage.”

“Damn it…!”

The sewer system was very complex.

Thanks to that, reckless pursuit would only lead to needless deaths, making tracking essentially impossible.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Your face is bright red. Did you catch some kind of status ailment?”

“I’m… fine…”

Unfortunately for them, their role ended here.

Sangho looked at his panting junior hunter with frustration but prohibited any further pursuit.

***

At the already devastated research wing of the Korean branch of the Hunter Association:

“Hmm. A newborn baby monster did all this?”

“Y-yes! That’s right, Research Director.”

The research director of the Korean branch.

Lee Jin-ah, who was also the branch director, was walking through the blood-splattered research wing with Lee Heejeong, the only unharmed researcher.

She smiled with satisfaction as she observed the corpses of recently captured E-rank monsters, traces of something having eaten them, and finally, the dented areas where B-rank Hunters had been defeated.

“Fascinating. Can you tell me about the extent of damage to the research wing?”

“What? Oh, yes!”

Heejeong immediately began tapping on her tablet at the Research Director’s request.

“Well… the four E-rank monsters and one D-rank monster we captured have been disposed of. The D-rank Hunter who first entered to neutralize the threat died, and the three B-rank Hunters sent afterward suffered serious injuries requiring 12 weeks and 3 weeks of treatment respectively.”

“How many researchers died?”

“Researchers? J-just a moment…”

While her subordinate gathered additional information, Jin-ah lit a cigarette with satisfaction.

But then:

“Um… none of them.”

“…What?”

“All of our researchers were so busy escaping that they just fainted at worst—everyone is safe!”

Unlike her subordinate who was smiling broadly at the news of her colleagues’ survival… they should have died.

Upon hearing that all the researchers had survived “because they ran away instead of fighting,” Jin-ah’s smile disappeared for the first time.