Chapter 3
4.
In the groceries section located in the second bas.e.m.e.nt level of the supermarket.
”Euhaaaak!”
What had once greeted customers with towering walls of food had now become a battlefield full of lament, of screams and blood.
“Surround that goblin son of a b.i.t.c.h! Surround it!”
“Chang! Chang! “
Four young men rushed towards the three green skinned dwarfish goblins.
Whether it be clothing, age, or appearance, these four young men had nothing in common save for one thing– all four of them were wielding makes.h.i.+ft spears made from curtain rods, kitchen knives, and insulation tape.
Those four young men wielded their spears very well.
Taking advantage of the spear’s great range, they poked at the goblins’ greatest weakness– their genitals.
Keee!
The goblins screamed out in pain, and one of them slipped on the floor and fell unconscious.
At the moment the goblin slipped, a baseball bat came out of nowhere, and like an ax, struck the goblin’s head.
Bbak!
The baseball bat crushed part of the goblin’s head as though it were made of clay.
The goblin’s eyes, nose, and mouth spewed out blood while laying on the floor, stunned.
”Euratcha!”
Shouting out cry overflowing with power, the owner of the baseball bat, Bang Hyun Wook, rushed towards the first goblin that he saw.
As soon as he closed the distance, huwuk! Bang Hyun Wook’s bat cut through the air horizontally.
Puhwook!
And like that, the goblin’s face shattered.
The baseball bat hit right on the bridge of the nose. But of course, the hit being in the vicinity of its eyes, the goblin’s red eyes wouldn’t be safe either. Like a bursting egg, its eyeb.a.l.l.s popped.
But the goblin didn’t scream out in pain.
It was killed on the spot.
The other goblins could do nothing but fall backwards, while the one on the floor twitched about.
‘What strength.’
It was at that moment that Bang Hyun Wook knew.
‘I can hit a homerun in the major leagues if I stay like this!’
Starting from his belly, he could feel something flowing all the way to his extremities.
And like that his courage soared.
‘‘Draaaau! Draaaau!”
Bang Hyun Wook yelled loudly. It was as though he was inviting all the monsters in the groceries section on the second floor of the supermarket to fight him.
However, there were no monsters that came to him.
Kw.a.n.g!
There was only one monster left on the second floor, who will be called an orc for convenience.
The last monster to die on the second floor of the supermarket, who will be called an orc for convenience, was a 190 centimeter tall, brown-skinned goblin.
In addition, the orc’s cause of death was a traffic accident.
The fork on a forklift had impaled it through the chest and was stuck in the wall.
The driver of the forklift, Kim Tae Hoon, stepped down from the forklift. Meanwhile, he pulled out the smartphone he had left in his pocket.
At that moment, pajik!
With a strange sound, the lights on the second floor suddenly went out.
“Huh? What’s going on?”
“I can’t see anything!”
In the following confusion, the light coming from the smartphone’s LCD screen illuminated Kim Tae Hoon’s face.
In the darkness, Kim Tae Hoon had an unsightly expression on his face.
‘I can’t communicate. ‘
It was another factor that triggered warning lights in Kim Tae Hoon’s head.
5.
The end of a battle is always silent.
There was no cheering.
Having realized that they had survived, the people in the area collapsed, relief sapping their strength. They had no power left to even make small talk.
Furthermore, the fatigue that they ignored during the heat of the moment came rus.h.i.+ng all at once.
With the fatigue came pain as well.
There were 102 survivors who survived the conflict with monsters on the second floor of the supermarket.
Everyone sat down on the floor.
There were some sitting on the floor resting against shelves and some who had just collapsed onto the floor as though they were stunned.
Once the emergency generator came on, the gentle light emitted by the emergency lights lulled some people to sleep.
If it were pitch black, n.o.body would have been able to fall asleep, but because there was some visibility and the light was gentle, it gave people relief.
Furthermore, there was another factor of relief.
Fire shutters.
Fire r.e.t.a.r.dant fire shutters had dropped down and blocked off all the entrances, giving the people a sense of security.
Except for one thing.
‘The monsters suddenly appeared.’
Kim Tae Hoon was not relieved.
In contrast to the others, Kim Tae Hoon felt much more nervous right now than he did when he first encountered the dwarf like goblin.
It was because the fight was over.
Once the battle starts, Kim Tae Hoon doesn’t let anything other than the battle enter his mind. Anything else he can do after the battle is over.
In other words, since the battle had ended, Kim Tae Hoon had been agonizing over the various other factors surrounding his current situation.
And while thinking, Kim Tae Hoon realized something.
‘The monsters suddenly appeared’
was not entirely correct. The monsters had suddenly appeared seemingly without any spatial constraints.
Therefore there would be no point in erecting a wall or a barrier.
However the worst case scenario in his head quickly came and went.
‘It looks like there are some evils that are greater than what I’ve known.’
Kim Tae Hoon felt a cold s.h.i.+ver down his spine as he imagined what could happen.
”Hyungnim .”
Bang Hyun Wook said as he interrupted Kim Tae Hoon’s train of thought.
Bang Hyun Wook, wearing a baseball cap and baseball jumper, looked quite different than Kim Tae Hoon.
Kim Tae Hoon was a head shorter and had a nearly shaved head.
He looked surprisingly naive. He had big eyes reminiscent of deer’s eyes.
But seeing him take off his jumper, you could see that he had a good figure. It didn’t feel like he maintained a needlessly muscular body, but rather taking appropriate care of his body.
“I brought the coffee you asked for. “
Bang Hyun Wook pa.s.sed the canned coffee he held in his hand to Kim Tae Hoon. Grabbing the canned coffee, Kim Tae Hoon noticed that he hadn’t taken off his b.l.o.o.d.y gloves.
Kim Tae Hoon placed the coffee he received onto the floor. He was going to drink the coffee after he had taken off his gloves.
Bang Hyun Wook sat in front of Kim Tae Hoon and said,
“Um, hyung nim, do you know what’s going on?”
Having asked what he was most curious about, Kim Tae Hoon took off his left glove and said,
”If I knew what was going on, I wouldn’t have a reason to be here now would I.”
“Haha, that’s true.”
Bang Hyun Wook awkwardly laughed then sighed before once again asking,
“It looks like a lot of people died. Like a lot…….”
There were 102 survivors.
If you considered the number of customers who go to a supermarket at the end of the year, the numbers are pretty dismal.
But of course not everyone died. A lot of people ran away from the store the moment the incident occurred.
Whether it was through the subway connected to the second floor, or the many doors on the first floor.
But still considering that, there were still many casualties and fatalities.
The number of broken corpses was at least just as much as the number of survivors.
More than 100 people died.
It was a huge figure. It’s rare for a hundred people to die even in a serious accident.
“It’s because they didn’t fight..”
But Kim Tae Hoon entertained no doubts about that gory spectacle.
Regardless of the number of monsters, Kim Tae Hoon would fight until there’s only a few left. So naturally this would be the result.
That’s just how it is.
If a hundred young men were to fight a lion with their hands and baseb.a.l.l.s, regardless of how many die, you could say that they would be able to capture the lion, but if they all run, of course the lion will just go free.
But the goblins and orcs were not just simple beasts.
‘These monsters flock together and travel in groups.’
These monsters gathered together and cooperate with each other.
They were similar to wolves, hyenas, and even humans.
What more, the hunting efficiency of a herd is astounding. The proof is in the text, if anyone were to look back at human history, they would see that there is great power behind numbers and cooperation.
In the current circ.u.mstance, you could argue that it was due to Kim Tae Hoon that there were 102 survivors. If it wasn’t for Kim Tae Hoon’s timely arrival, it would have been impossible for the survivors on the second floor to have killed the three orcs.
“Is that so?”
Bang Hyun Wook said, not quite sure what he meant yet. But still, he did have an inkling of the intent behind his words.
The fact was that he had survived until now while fighting after all.
Also if Kim Tae Hoon wasn’t there, then without a doubt the damage would have been far greater.
“What do you think will happen next? No, rather, should we continue to stay here? Well this is a groceries section, so if we want to stay here, I’m sure we’ll hold out for a long while. That’s why you led us down here, right? If we had gotten trapped in the first floor because of the fire shutters… that would have been terrible.”
Bang Hyun Wook said to Kim Tae Hoon.
Instead of replying, Kim Tae Hoon took off his right glove.
At that moment Kim Tae Hoon saw it.
A black tattoo carved into the back of his right hand, a pattern reminiscent of the blazing sun.
‘This?’
Kim Tae Hoon discovered the sign of his awakening.