Chapter 290: Room 204, Mission Room – ‘Hotel Cinema’ (13)

– Cha Jinchul

I’ll be honest.

I’m not confident I can catch that thing before the drink gets cold. Was the drink boiling hot to begin with? It would take at most 10 minutes to cool down, and there’s no way I can catch such a monster in that short time.

But everyone will understand, dammit.

Born a man, I’m holding a guandao on a pre-modern battlefield. If I’m going down, it’s okay to quote Guan Yu’s famous line once, right?

…Let’s think realistically. I’m the one who stepped up saying I’d beat that thing.

Kurta was different from Murtanie.

If I charged in with the naive thought of “Let’s endure with fighting spirit,” like last time, I’d be done in at 3 seconds at best. That meant I needed a strategy.

What could be the weakness of that ridiculous monster?

The first thing I focused on was the lightning Kurta was spewing. Though called lightning, it wasn’t striking from the sky but rather being emitted from Kurta’s body. Around Kurta’s body, long streams of bright blue currents constantly rotated, looking like glowing threads floating around Kurta’s body.

When one of those threads suddenly thickened, that was the signal for lightning.

The distance between the beast and I was now only a measly 30 meters. The roar Kurta made was almost deafening. Kurta’s eyes, which were slaughtering soldiers, turned to me. The beast seemed to be sneering at me, asking if I came to die.

I stared at Kurta with all my concentration, as if trying to pierce through it.

What action will it take? Charge in and strike? Or…

Lightning attack?

As the white thread flowing over Kurta’s shoulder emitted a blinding radiance, I jumped diagonally with all my might, as if throwing my entire body.

The lightning that shook heaven and earth brushed past me by a single step. Even though I dodged it, the scorching heat felt like it would burn my entire body!

But I dodged it nevertheless!

If one dodged the enemy’s attack, it was natural that the next opportunity came to you. For a brief moment, the wolf’s body that had spewed lightning stopped.

I moved my right foot half a step back and twisted my waist half a turn. I stretched my right shoulder back with all my might. Twisting my entire body, I squeezed out the monstrous strength granted by the Blessing of Courage to its limit.

Like a fully bent bow suddenly releasing its power, I exploded all the strength in my body outward. With an unbelievable boom that seemed impossible to come from a human body, the spear in my right hand sliced through the air.

– Thwack!

The moment the spear that flew like lightning struck Kurta’s shoulder, the entire body of the wolf, boasting a size as big as an elephant, staggered.

For that moment, I was amazed at myself for throwing the spear! Even Guan Yu probably couldn’t have achieved the feat of throwing a single spear and landing an effective hit on a wolf as big as an elephant!

[You will not die a peaceful death!]

A hideous roar sounded like human speech in my head.

This wolf cub can even use telepathy? Is it possible because it’s the hound of a god?

Kurta’s eyes, trembling in pain, moved towards its own shoulder instead of me. It was thinking of pulling out the spear stuck in its body. The moment I realized the wolf’s gaze had left me, instinct told me.

A heaven-sent opportunity has come!

I ran. I didn’t think and then move, but thought while moving.

Why? Why did my instinct tell me to cling to that thing now? Wouldn’t it be better to throw spears from a distance?

No.

There’s no point in keeping distance and throwing spears at that monster.

The difference in mobility is overwhelming from the start. The previous hit only landed because Kurta was careless.

Therefore, I must cling to it. Not just fight nearby, but actually climb onto that thing’s body.

But why?

The content of a documentary I saw on TV long ago flashed through my mind. Mongolian people had traditionally used hawks or eagles to hunt wolves.

Although birds of prey were strong animals, they weighed five to ten times less than large wolves. So how could birds of prey hunt wolves?

It was due to the structural limitations of canine animals. They couldn’t block attacks coming from above with their front legs or mouth, so they were one-sidedly vulnerable to attacks from birds of prey swooping down from above. This problem didn’t disappear just because the wolf got bigger.

So…

I prayed that Kurta would have a similar weakness. As I jumped with all my might next to the wolf that had pulled out the spear with its teeth, I prayed and prayed.

Please, let this monstrous wolf not suddenly stretch its front legs back like a monkey or have a hidden fifth leg pop out from behind its back!

Fortunately, nothing like that happened.

The second round had drawn its curtains.

As soon as I climbed onto Kurta’s back, a white-hot line glowing blue brushed past my eyes. I jumped once more, as if skipping rope to avoid the heat line, but I almost fell off due to Kurta’s movement during my airtime.

“Let’s see who wins, you or me!”

Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the wolf’s pencil-thick fur and then struck its back with all my might!

What? A wolf as big as an elephant? The punch I’m throwing now has enough power to surprise even an elephant, that’s what I’m saying!

– Thud! Thud!

I threw punches in succession. The power embedded in my punches was so great that my entire body was about to float in the air from the recoil of my own strength. Putting strength into my thighs and calves, I gripped the wolf’s upper body with both legs and…

“Ah, fuck!”

Once again, a ball of light emitting scorching heat approached!

Doesn’t this bastard feel hot with such power flying around its body? Well, it would be funny if a lightning-wielding wolf died from its own lightning.

This time, I hid my entire upper body in the wolf’s fur.

Is this somewhat fortunate?

The white radiance only floated around Kurta’s body, not burrowing into the fur to burn me. It seemed that even Kurta couldn’t withstand it if the lightning penetrated beyond floating nearby into the body.

Having overcome the crisis, I started pounding Kurta’s back again with all my might. I hit so hard that my entire skeleton, which Murtanie had described as having iron-like durability, was trembling.

– Growl!

Kurta’s roar shook the battlefield.

That howl—no, wail was clearly different from the previous roar. The emotion of pain, unbearable even for the hound of a god, was mixed into the howl.

As I continuously pounded Kurta’s back, which reminded me of concrete, my fists finally reached their limit. The skin was completely peeled off, and my left index finger was completely crushed, exposing the bone.

I gritted my teeth so hard they felt like they would crumble.

If I don’t kill this monster wolf now, I’ll die!

At that very moment, suddenly my whole body tilted, and the world started to flip upside down.

“Ugh, ugh! What the hell is—“

It didn’t take long to understand the situation.

Kurta, judging that it would be difficult to shake me off by simply moving its body, had decided to lie on its back on the stone ground and start rubbing its back!

The wolf’s body flipped over, and as I turned my head back, my eyes met a gravel-filled stone ground, sending chills down my spine!

Am I going to die? With the weight of an elephant-sized wolf pressing down on me while grinding against the stone ground? To think I’d die in such a horrible way!

“…”

Both I, trembling in fear imagining a terrible end, and the wolf trying to scrape off the barbaric monkey on its back against the stone ground, had missed one point.

Unlike humans, wolves were creatures with thick fur all over their body. Kurta also had pencil-thick fur longer than my legs growing all over its body.

In simple terms, instead of being ground against the stone floor, I ended up deeply buried in the wolf’s fur. Some of Kurta’s hard and sharp fur pierced into my upper body like needles, but it was 1,000 times better than being ground against the stone floor.

My face burrowed into Kurta’s back due to the crushing pressure.

As I barely managed to balance myself by grasping the surrounding fur and flesh with not just my legs but also my arms, I realized my face had touched a spot where the flesh was half torn off from the dozens of punches I had thrown earlier.

Right now, I was using both my arms and legs to cling to the wolf’s body. But… I realized there was still one means of attack left.

The most primal weapon of beasts living in the great nature—the mouth!

Taking advantage of my upper body being buried in the fur, I bit into the wolf’s back!

I’m really doing all sorts of crazy things. I’ve heard of wolves biting people, but I never thought there’d be a situation where I, a human, would be biting a wolf!

Something I realized while biting into an enemy for the first time in my life was that a human mouth wasn’t a bad weapon. I just didn’t know because I had never bitten into something with all my might like this before. Wasn’t my jaw strength, enhanced by my Blessing, closer to that of a crocodile or hyena than a human’s?

The moment I tore off a chunk of flesh, a noise that felt like it would split my head rang out.

[You barbaric bastard! I’ll fry you alive!]

Wow, you fucker!

Now I’m even being called barbaric by a wolf! I swear I’ll rip out this bastard’s spine today and make potato soup out of it!

Just as I was about to sink my teeth in again, spreading the wound that was spurting red blood like a pump with both arms—suddenly the wolf’s body shook greatly and stood upright again.

At the same time, stiffened fur stabbed my body from all directions. It seemed to have strongly tensed its back muscles.

What’s its intention? Surely it doesn’t think it can kill me by stabbing me with its fur?

When I came to my senses, I realized I couldn’t move at all because of the stiff fur wrapped around my entire body. As if it had been waiting, the bright blue radiance floating in the air slowly began to approach.

Only then did I understand Kurta’s intention. The hound of god had finally decided to use the power of lightning to burn me to death as I clung to it.

If it tried to sear me with lightning while I was stuck tightly to Kurta’s body, Kurta’s own body would be greatly injured too. But considering the size difference, I would die before Kurta did.

My entire body couldn’t move at all.

It was partly because of the physical force Kurta put into its fur by tensing its back muscles, but mainly because my body was too damaged. My hands already had finger bones visible in various places, and my legs had holes all over with blood streaming out.

Only when the power of lightning approached right in front of my face did I accept it.

This is the end. I guess it was too much for me to defeat this crazy monster, after all.

…

[I’ll help you a little.]

…?

[Watching you was a bit frustrating.]

What is this?

[Long ago, I despaired at the imperfections contained in the human body. The evolution to fill that imperfection is far too slow.]

“Who, who are you?”

[Therefore, I made up my mind. I will achieve a million years of evolution in a single moment.]

My skin started to boil.

Muscles twisted.

Bones shook.

In the midst of excruciating pain as my entire body transformed into something unknown, I asked her, “Who! The hell! Are you!?”

[Who am I, I wonder?]

The girl, passing by in the hazy illusion, seemed to be genuinely curious.