CHAPTER 46
Hirayon and Hirang stared at each other in a daze. Hirayon questioned himself if he should not have said anything about Hirang's rank because the boy looked at him with stunned eyes.
'Ah. Maybe he's keeping it a secret so the other players won't know about his abilities.'
Realizing his mistake, Hirayon quickly apologized. "Sorry."
Hirang raised a brow and shook his head. It wasn't really something he was keeping, and he only reacted that way because he thought he had concealed his aura enough.
"It's fine. By the way, my element is—"
"Look out!"
Before he could finish his sentence, Hirang was pushed by Hirayon, and they both stumbled on the ground. With adrenaline pumping in their system, they quickly turned their heads and looked for the monster, only to see the soil where they used to stand melted into a puddle of toxic goo.
The grimly green substance melted the soil, digging a large hole and becoming a thick slurry that eventually hardened while still melting. Because of that, its shape looked like a goopy rock that could easily be mistaken for a monster with a glance.
"Poison?" Hirayon muttered and stood up. His eyes quickly looked for their enemy when cold shivers ran down his spine. His instincts overpowered, and he pulled Hirang, still on the ground, and ran toward the nearest open path, sticking close to the wall.
Just a second after they hid, acid poured, and the open area suddenly turned into an instant death field brimming with toxic goo and poisonous gas. Unlike the first time when the goo turned solid rock, the rain-making holes in the soil did not harden and remained a puddle of thick green acid, looking like a slime that slowly spread and traveled on the remaining unscathed spaces. He did not need to check if it was deadly; the mere fact that it could melt even a rock demonstrates they are doomed once a drop touched their skin.
Suddenly, Hirayon heard a whistle and turned to look at Hirang, curiously staring at the area that now looked like a battlefield. His dead serious eyes did not change and held no surprise or worry of their circumstance.
Noticing Hirayon's stare, he asked. "What?"
'I don't know if he's stupid or just plain unbothered.'
Looking remarkably nonchalant, Hirayon figured that Hirang was the type who didn't concern himself too much with things. He doesn't know if it's because of clear confidence or just a simple force of habit instilled by continuous unfavorable situations he could lived. What he can be sure is that Hirang doesn't fear.
"What's your plan?" Hirayon asked instead of having one himself. He wanted to check first how capable the child was, especially when dealing with a Monster that could wield multiple elemental attacks.
"Kill it," Hirang answered.
'He's stupid," Hirayon concluded.
"How are you going to do that? We can't get near it," Hirayon pointed and peeked at the creature floating near the cave's rocky roof. It would constantly make a clashing sound with its teeth, almost looking annoyed that the two boys hid from its attacks. They are only safe now because the path's ceiling where they hide is lower, keeping them safe from the continued pour. But if they stepped out to attack, they would surely get rained on by acid.
"Wait for the rain to stop, get close, then attack it."
Hirang's answer made Hirayon doubt himself about his decision to partner with Hirang and whether he was actually considering their situation dire. Still, he calmed himself and reminded himself that Hirang is naturally odd. Someone who is robotic, simple-minded, and a plain mystery.
"My Water Orb will not work on that monster, and we can't get too close because its body emits the same deadly gas," Hirayon stated. His enhanced sight let him see the translucent, almost invisible smoke coming out of the creature's scales.
"Thanks for letting me know; that'll be a huge help," Hirang said and peeked at the monster, noticing that the pour of acid rain had slowed down.
"Are you still planning on getting close?"
Hirang looked back and nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine. My element is darkness, after all."
Hirayon's eyes widened, and the word darkness repeated in his mind. 'That's an element always considered powerful and... rebellious.'
Hirayon was about to ask how Hirang would attack it, but he suddenly ran out of the path. When Hirayon looked at the area, that acid rain had stopped, and the creature was slowly floating down. Its head was darting around, looking for Hirayon and Hirang.
The action made Hirayon confused. He didn't understand why it looked around when it could easily detect where they were because they were alive.
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Immediately noticing Hirang approaching its location, the creature floated back and held out its webbed hand. Its palm was directed at the child and fired acid continuously.
Hirang dodged nimbly and stepped on the little remaining spaces that did not hit the rain, avoiding the acid puddles as much as he could by walking on his toes. He jumped high toward the creature, and when he reached the peak of his ascent, Hirang used his ability and created a mass of darkness below his feet. The pitch-black smoke-looking darkness swallowed the descending boy and disappeared together with it.
Before Hirayon could even fathom the disappearance, a cloud of darkness emerged 3 meters above the creature. Hirang fell from it with its cheeks slightly puffed out with clean air, holding his breath. He plunged toward the scaly monster, and when it looked up, its head was directly smashed with Hirang's feet, hitting it straight and contorting its already disgusting face.
Feeling the spot-on hit, Hirang used the creature's slimy face to jump again and disappear in a mass of darkness. Unprepared for the abrupt attack, the monster lost control and dropped to the field of poison-muddled ground. Its head spun from the impact, and its mouth full of sharp teeth dripped with red-green colored blood. When it finally shook the dizziness away, the creature saw another pair of feet hitting its face again for the second time. It smacked him diagonally and sent the bloodied monster to a graceful fall in the middle of its acid goo.
The moment the monster's body hit the ground, Hirayon's expression turned into utter disbelief. His eyes, staring at the slowly disappearing monster, darted to Hirang, who stood valiantly on the creature's chest. He looks very proud and enigmatic in his remarkable feat.
'He looks experienced,' Hirayon thought as the child moved with precision and confidence. He holds the air of someone who has lived in hundreds of battles, as he wasted no time and did not underestimate the enemy.
Hirayon saw the child in another light and felt assured that he would be a great help in the coming fights.
After the monster's body disappeared, the poisonous acid vanished into thin air, revealing a destroyed soil with uneven holes around it.
What remained where the creature used to lay was a goo-shaped core orb and a scroll in a different color.
"So the scroll from Type 2 is different," Hirayon said after approaching the other child.
"What do we do with Monster Cores and Scrolls that we get?" Hirang asked.
"Let's distribute them according to performance," Hirayon answered.
"Don't you want to do it equally? I'll get the scroll and orb now. Then, the next fight will be yours," Hirang suggested instead.
"It's just fair if we get the cores based on who mainly fought," Hirayon reasoned.
Hirang nodded, "Alright. But I want us to share the scrolls. It will be better if only one piles everything to complete the map faster. It won't matter since we're going to the same place anyway."
Hirayon nodded, then asked. "But can't we combine them now?"
"I don't think that's possible," Hirang answered while examining his inventory. He was looking for any function that would combine their maps, but there wasn't anything.
With nothing else to do, Hirang and Hirayon checked whose map had fewer white spaces, and the two decided that Hirayon would get all the scrolls. After receiving the one they had just acquired, the map was finally about 50 percent complete. Although they still couldn't see their exact location, they decided to continue moving forward and fight more monsters along the way to finish the map.
Although they had agreed that the one who mainly fought would get the spoils, they ended up taking turns as they were too capable of handling a monster on their own. It almost looked like they did not partner up and acted individually during the fights.
A few minutes before the 30-minute mark, Hirayon and Hirang found themselves in the middle of a fights. Both of them.
Hirayon was fighting a bird-looking monster that hovers above the ground. Its body was similar to a human, but its head and arms were of a giant deformed bird with dull grey feathers. Instead of a beak, it has a maw with hundreds of teeth that can be seen when it roars like a bear.
On the other side of the path was Hirang with his 6-meter-tall twig-thin opponent. The Type 2 monster can use plant abilities, and its brittle brown body was made up of a literal twig from a tree. Swaying while walking using thin sticks as its feet, the twig has numerous leafless vines to attack and whip around. Despite the monster looking weak, Hirang, who prefers to fight close combat, couldn't get close because the vines kept him at a distance.
"How many minutes left?!" Hirang shouted, panting while avoiding the vines. He tried to pull one of them earlier, but when he touched the sturdy vine, he felt his aura getting sucked out. His only choice was to attack the brittle body to stop the vines from thrashing around.
"Three minutes!" Hirayon shouted back while sticking close to the ground, grabbing whatever he could to not blast off from the monster's mighty wind.
Because the wind was too strong, it managed to reach Hirang's location, softly pushing him and the monster back.
When Hirang looked at the source of it, he could see Hirayon still on the ground while the monster continuously flapped its enormous wings, creating hurricane-like winds.
Due to the attack, the twigs' vines became so entangled that they were rendered unusable.
When Hirayon witnessed the unfolding chaos on the vines, an ingenious idea emerged, and he positioned a Water Wall behind the monster bird. With superb control, Hirayon used the wall to push the bird toward Hirang and the monster twig, who struggled to straighten its vines.
"Get out!" Hirayon shouted to Hirang, and the child quickly ducked, copying Hirayon's position on the ground.
With his unwavering control, Hirayon pushed the monster using the Water Wall and only stopped when the two monsters crashed together.
The moment the two monsters collided, the vines grabbed the chance and quickly drained the bird's aura. The bird monster flailed around with his instinct, warning a foreboding death, but the vines had already taken hold of its feet. Dull feathers descended, and the bird turned into a shriveled creature. In just seconds, the monster slowly turned into particles, leaving an egg-shaped orb and a scroll on the ground.
Seeing that the bird monster had died, Hirang stood up and seized the opportunity to launch an attack on the still-entangled twig.
The creature failed to detangle its vines even with the stolen aura from its fellow monster. Utterly defenseless, Hirang delivered a thunderous kick that ultimately snapped the twig monster into two.
Facing the same fate as the first monster, the motionless twig turned into particles and left a scroll and its core that coincidentally resembled a coiled vine.
Exhausted, Hirayon released all the tension and allowed his whole body to rest on the ground. Enjoying the silence that had arrived after a scuffle, he closed his eyes to doze off a little, only to open again when a quick-paced bell sound rang.
'I cannot catch a break!'
R E H I L I Y A