126 – Being a child
Grurrr- Wee-ing- Weeing-
Vibration that sounds once long and twice short, unique to the Association.
Most of the beeps that ring at this time are not good signals.
She returned her phone at an angle that I could see, so she could see the whole association message.
「Tracking down a criminal group for a first-degree crime with the 1st investigation department.
Hunters who receive this message are requested to immediately take action corresponding to a disaster level 2.
Tracked target: A large number of mutants and 5 producers of evolutionary stones that ran out of control during the production of ‘Evolutionary Stones’. (The identities of the 5 will be announced as soon as they are identified.)
The combat power of mutants is estimated to be at the level of C-D.
The fighting power of the producers is between B and C grades. (It should be easy to specify because it has not been long since the second forced awakening.)
Hunters who receive the message should immediately search for their area and promote the safety of citizens.”
I couldn’t help but click my tongue when I saw the text message.
‘How did you manage to miss this much? Are you saying that it will be easy to recognize because he’s running amok with an unidentified opponent?’
It is appreciable that the management office and the association’s personnel conduct a coordinated investigation to pursue the villain, but as the two agencies work together, there were rather holes exposed in these emergency cases.
“··· Evolution Stone··· Terrible. They are really bad guys.”
“…Just…”
Yeon-hee was busy raising the anger gauge by thinking about the origin of Jinhwa-seok rather than that part.
“Second Awakening… It’ll be easy to find out…”
“……”
“……”
And then there was a moment of silence. It was common to get hired to catch a villain, but the topic was not good. It’s an evolution…
What is an Evolution Stone?
About 20 years ago, it started when a Swedish hunter found a recipe for the ‘elixir of life’ in a dungeon.
A miraculous item that is said to revive the dead and restore youth to the living.
He devoted himself to research for a long time with several colleagues, and eventually came to complete the ‘Elixir of Life’.
However, they seemed to have accomplished a great feat, but soon they were chased by hunters.
The reason was simple. This is because the price required to make one bottle of medicine was so high.
That’s ten thousand lives.
They sacrificed an entire area where tens of thousands of people lived, and they achieved what they intended, but at that time they were far from humans.
An item with condensed great power enough to revive the dead.
So it was only natural that the humans who took it would not stop at simply rejuvenating. Even they are all talented hunters.
All the hunters who were initially pursued were killed, and the strongest men in Europe gathered to defeat them who became monsters.
In the end, it was only after the early Awakeners joined in that they succeeded in eradicating them from the world, but for some reason, the research results were not discarded and passed on to the European Union.
After that, nothing was known about how the disposition of the result proceeded.
However, a few years later, a copy named ‘The Elixir of Life Recipe’ quickly spread through the shadows.
Of course, even if the contents were greatly deteriorated from the original contents, the fundamental manufacturing method was maintained, so it was studied and practiced in the dark, and unexpected accidents began to occur.
And it didn’t take long for the contents to be delivered to Korea.
To revive the dead, to regain youth… But those weren’t the biggest reasons.
Like the developers of the ‘Elixir of Life’ who obtained enormous power, the desire to become stronger played a bigger role, so it spread quickly.
However, it took quite a long time for the modified name of ‘evolution stone’ to rise to the surface.
No matter how degraded it is, how to improve it was purely because the user’s effort was required.
And since a few years ago, the number of missing children under the age of 10 has started to rise steeply.
At first, it was a simple disappearance, but as the lump grew, it was raised to the first part of the special case under the Hunter Management Agency.
The results of the year-long investigation were shocking.
This is because ‘Evolution Stone’ is mainly made of children who swallow runes and magic stones obtained from monsters.
It was amazing. How could the same human come up with such a method?
How many sacrifices were made in the process, and how many children will be sacrificed for the finished production method?
The production of ‘Evolution Stone’ was immediately listed on the list of first-degree crimes, and it became a felony that made it difficult to avoid the death penalty even if you were slightly involved in the crime.
“Innocent children…”
Yeon-hee frowned and did not hide her anger. It’s something that anyone can’t help but be angry about.
Woweee!!
The sound of sirens began to reverberate outside as well. Even in a world that has changed like a movie, it is easy for ordinary people to fall into a panic in this situation.
A quick fix was needed, and we had the power to help.
Looking at Yeon-hee, who was preparing to go out immediately, I was lost in thought.
I had to be cool. Don’t be swayed by emotions and look at the situation objectively. I didn’t know that maybe that was the biggest role I had to play while forming a team with Yeonhee.
‘B to D grade fighting power…’
The reason why hunters and monsters are divided into grades is to respond quickly to such situations.
We are kids who have just been raised to D-class. And there was a high probability of meeting an opponent who was one or two steps stronger than us.
‘As wide as possible…’
After finishing my thoughts, I spread the waves of my senses as far as I could.
uuu-
I tried my best, but all I could grasp was a radius of about 250m.
Hundreds of ordinary people felt it first. People screaming at the sound of sirens. I felt several people hurriedly entering the house and falling.
Even though he must have gotten used to this kind of situation in his own way, this is the reaction.
It is a world full of mana, and even ordinary people who have not awakened have a very small amount of mana in their bodies.
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First of all, I erased the small emotions of ordinary people and small animals from my head. This is also possible because I have trained my senses since childhood.
Then, the waves spread like a mini-map in my head became clear and easier to see.
‘It hasn’t appeared here yet.’
Fortunately, they weren’t around yet. In a way, it was natural.
I sent a disaster message to the hunters in the location where they fled, but I couldn’t precisely pinpoint the range.
If we were lucky, it could have been an incident that had nothing to do with us.
‘Let’s turn off stealth…’
Excluding other abilities as much as possible while specifying the range. It was to keep the feeling sharp.
Now, I should be able to immediately detect any creature that comes within my range. Of course, these tasks would be meaningless to a monster like Yeonsu Kang.
“Sunwolah!! Let’s go out immediately!”
Nod-
After Yeon-hee went outside, she seemed to be worried about various things. First of all, only Ran and Neos Harpy ‘Nefi’, who did not have much objection to the summons, were summoned.
“Hey, climb upstairs and see if there are any suspicious guys!”
As soon as the command was given, Neffi flew up into the sky and began to examine the surroundings with sharp eyes.
“Sunwol, can you detect anything?”
“Crackle.”
“Whew… Shall we observe the situation for a moment? It may already be being dealt with elsewhere.”
Nod-
Fortunately, Yeon-hee didn’t seem to be overdoing it to find them. In the first place, the text also said to protect the area in charge, so it would be a priority for the naive Yeon-hee to follow it.
I stood there nervously waiting for about a minute.
We are standing in an alley with villas on both sides.
I could see the neighbors opening their windows one by one to see the situation outside.
– What are you doing standing there? Is it Hunton?
– A man and a woman in strange armor… A hunter, right?
– Oh, there was a hunter in my town too.
Since it is such a narrow alley, their voices mixed with worry and relief were heard quite clearly in the night air.
It would have been nice if it had passed without incident, but soon a strange creature was detected in the wavelength.
‘I’m short… Tsk…’
Although it was caught at the end of the wave and its shape could not be clearly seen, it was about the height of a lower grade in elementary school and was close to walking on four legs. And the body… Split into many… Ha…
‘You scumbags…’
I just found a mutant, but I want to tear the adults who have already done bad things to death.
[Calm]
However, he felt bitter in his calm heart, and sent a signal to Yeon-hee.
“Hu… That’s the other way around. Let’s catch him and see. You don’t know? Maybe there’s a way to get the child back.”
“Just…”
“Neffi! Please!”
“Kiak!!”
‘Neffi’ floating in the sky flew along the path of the mutant I pointed at. He has good eyes, so he will find him soon.
‘I wonder if Yeon-hee will be okay…’
She seemed to still have hope. Even if it’s a mutant child, it’s as if anything can happen if you capture it…
‘Let’s grab it and see.’
While I was in the lead, Yeonhee also sang ‘Chehwa’ and ran in that direction together.
On the way, there were traces of mutants running on walls and broken windows in several villas.
Perhaps there has never been a more terrifying moment for the people in this area. It would have been less if it was daytime, but it was such a deep night.
And we soon found a mutant trapped in an alley driven by the threat of ‘Neffi’.
“Cruel roeol-!”
“Awesome! Ah…”
Yeon-hee, who saw the mutant for the first time, could only let out a cry of despair.
I heard that it was a child who transformed, but I couldn’t find a human form even after washing my eyes.
Worms with a wooden texture, fleas, aliens, sloppy tentacles, bulging orange eyes, spiders…?
If you dare to describe it after seeing the mutant, it was.
I thought it was a quadrupedal walk, but the forked legs were in the shape of a tree root pulled up, and the wriggling tentacles on the face and back further doubled the physiological repulsion.
The elongated face was still connected to the back, and the legs were full of small thorns.
I couldn’t see the mouth because of the tentacles hanging from its snout, but it was expected that there might be a lot of hidden things that could harm people.
“Keit!!”
– Kyaaa!!
Nefi threatens by clawing in the air, and the mutant counterattacks with short tentacles.
At that time, the people hiding in the nearby houses did not know what to do, so they just crouched down and hoped that this time would pass quickly.
“That, that… Was a child… Really… Is that right?”
“……”
As if Yeon-hee was in shock, she stopped as she turned into ice at the point where she entered her alley.
As far as I know, mutants change their appearance depending on which monster they use the materials obtained from.
However, that appearance made it difficult to identify a single monster.
Looking at the split leg like a tree root, the rune obtained from the Ent must have been inserted, but since the rest are in a state that is difficult to identify, it seems that dozens of runes were used randomly.
I briefly recalled the information about ‘Evolutionary Stone’ that I had heard from Mr. Kang in the past.
Since she is in a high position, she received all the information about the stars, including information about evolutionary fossils.
In that information, it was written that the success rate is high when the grade, type, and value are the same when feeding the ingredients to the children.
I heard that if you don’t tune it that finely, there’s a high chance that you’ll become a mutant when you convert to an ‘evolution stone’. And looking at the previous variant, I was able to confirm that the information was quite accurate.