The First Hunter

Chapter 41. Pyongyang, Part I

Translator: Khan

Editor: RED

1.

“Everyone, check your clothes again!”

“Yes!”

Busan Port.

Like a wall that had collapsed in a brutal attack of barbarians, the voices of the people were echoing for a long time in the place where container boxes collapsed by the monsters were scattered around like playing cards.

“Hey! Put your hat on right!”

“Yes!”

At the heart of the activity were soldiers. They aligned in straight rows with strict discipline, each dressed in a neat military uniform that showed their belongings. The tightness of the strict discipline was so sharp that it seemed to cut their skin.

“Pay attention!”

The person they would face from now on was a man who had no shortage of achievements compared to anyone in the history of the Republic of Korea, and even in the history of the Korean Peninsula.

“It’s the first time for us to meet the master who has conquered the archipelago! Don’t look distracted!”

“Yes!”

Kim Tae-hoon was the man who took over the dark blue monster, the Eight-tailed Fox; who crushed Japan alone, when it claimed itself to be an empire and showed an unbelievably arrogant ambition toward the Korean Peninsula. Finally, after finishing the conquest of Japan, he would arrive at Busan Port with his spoils. He was the man who the soldiers gathered here now had to meet.

It was a historic moment. In the future… No, it was a moment that would be a legend tomorrow morning, not to mention in the future.

Maybe it would be no wonder that today would be established as a national anniversary, in about ten years. So, it would be strange to be without strict discipline.

“They are in sight!”

Soon, a ship showed its presence in Busan Port. The type of the ship was an Aegis Destroyer. It was the youngest of the Aegis ships owned by Ashigara and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces. It was a treasure that could not be exchanged with anything in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces. But the flag above the Aegis Destroyer was not the Rising Sun flag of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces.

The Taegeukgi, the Korean flag, which could not be confused with the Rising Sun flag, was flapping on the top of the Aegis Destroyer’s mast, and indicated intensely and fiercely about who the owner of this ship was.

‘Oh, my God!’

‘Something more incredible than the monsters happened.’

Gulp! Some of the people who checked it through the telescope first swallowed without knowing it.

‘He has really brought back warships… Has there ever been anything like this done in the history of war?’

An Aegis Destroyer.

In truth, the utility of the Aegis in the present situation was definitely worse than before the monsters appeared. The best value of the Aegis was not only its combat capability of a simple battleship, but also the ability to respond after processing the information through a supercomputer, acquired through a high-performance radar system.

It was clear that the value of the Aegis Destroyer was not the same in a world where radar didn’t work well. However, for that reason, no one deprecated the value of the Aegis ship approaching Busan Port. Bringing a battleship worth over a billion dollars in as spoils of victory was hard to find anywhere in the history of human war.

‘That’s the beginning…’

‘Since all the warships of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces have become ours… how much is that?’

Moreover, the Aegis ship that was now coming to Busan Port was just the beginning. In fact, all of Japan’s warships had become spoils of war, and their value was virtually beyond the level of money.

Who would have expected the Republic of Korea to take these spoils from Japan?

‘Huck!’ Sitting on the Aegis was a monster’s body that chilled their spines.

‘The Eight-tailed Fox!’

‘Wow, he killed it by himself?’

The dead body of the Eight-tailed Fox.

Although it was cut off and bloodstained, the remains of the Eight-tailed Fox, who still had its charming white fur, were decked out, and those who identified it could no longer think straight.

“Ah…” They were blank, forgetting that they had to report the facts they had checked with a telescope in real time. As soon as the Aegis arrived at the port, the soldiers’ discipline reached their peak.

‘Here he is.’

‘I can finally see him!’

Even the officers, who were watching for those who were disorganized in posture and uniform, were dumbed down. So, they waited for the appearance of the man who would mark the end of this historical moment.

‘Why isn’t he coming?’

But the man they were waiting for did not appear. Rather, the man who got off the ship was the first person they saw. Even the man who got off the ship began to run in front of the soldiers, showing an urgent appearance. The man stood in front of Colonel Yang Jung-hoon, the conductor directing the scene at Busan Port.

“… the master is not coming.”

Colonel Yang’s eyebrows wriggled when he heard that. “What do you mean? It was only a little earlier that I was told that the Master was on board.”

It was yesterday that he was informed that Kim Tae-hoon would come to Busan Port with his spoils, and of course, Colonel Yang prepared to welcome Kim with all his might. The soldiers had also prepared all the cameras for the historical scene, fearing it might not be recorded properly due to lack of historical records.

But Kim Tae-hoon was not coming?

“Didn’t he get on board?”

“Oh, no, I’m sure he was there a little while ago.”

“A little while ago? And now?”

“Well…”

The talking soldier looked up at the sky.

‘Ah.’ That was enough explanation. There was no one in Korea who did not know how Kim Tae-hoon appeared. Of course, Colonel Yang did not intend to finish the story there.

‘Let’s say he flew into the sky.’ “Where did he go, then? Didn’t he leave any words?”

Where the hell had he gone?

“No, he told me where he was going.”

“Where is it?”

He replied with an expression that he who was speaking words even he could not believe. “Well, he is going to Pyongyang…”

2.

When the monsters appeared, Kim Tae-hoon thought, “We can be self-sufficient on the Korean Peninsula, but it is impossible to maintain military power through self-sufficiency. To survive, we must eventually take over North Korea and then advance to the continent.”

‘In order to secure the future, not for our immediate survival, we must go through North Korea and to the continent.’

This idea was not for just Kim Tae-hoon.

There was another man who thought the same thing: Colonel Lim Hyun-joon. He, who had taken control of the 8th Mechanized Infantry Division and succeeded in winning the forefront power and Gangwon’s military forces sequentially, knew that he could never guarantee the future with having North Korea as it was above South Korea. So, he started preparing to advance to North Korea early on.

He dispatched a search party to the border, as well as the Military Demarcation Line, to collect information, and worked to secure a route to advance to North Korea at any time.

The work was accelerated when Kim Tae-hoon occupied the Capital Defense Command, in fact, and when the Republic of Korea began to function again and confirmed that the North Korean regime had collapsed.

Under the command of the 8th Mechanized Infantry Division, the entry into North Korea began.

Tututu! Tutututu!

“Keep shooting!”

“Yes!”

“Don’t stop! Shoot without being seen! If the shots stop, the damn Goblins will come in flocks!”

The advance to North Korea that started like that was not easy. Once, the route itself to North Korea was basically limited. It was not easy to get past the demilitarized zone right now.

Passing through one of the densest minefields in the world was virtually the same as crossing a bridge between two cliffs. It was not easy to move armored power, and supply was not easy. It certainly proved true here.

“There seems to be no end to the damn monsters, no matter how many we killed.”

“I’ve never seen a North Korean before.”

North Korea was full of monsters. It was because no monster hunting had been done. This was a natural thing.

It would be strange to expect the right preparations for an unprecedented disaster which no other country in the world had responded to, in a country with an abnormal dictatorship that did not control even its own people.

“Perhaps the demilitarized zone stopped the monsters from coming south, or we would have been no different than North Korea.”

“I agree.”

Moreover, the monsters in Manchuria, China and Russia also flocked to the Korean Peninsula. In the position of monsters who recognized humans as food, it was natural for monsters to follow survivors, and it was also natural for such monsters to be driven to the Korean Peninsula, where many people still survived.

If the minefields in the demilitarized zone had not prevented the enormous number of monsters from stepping into South Korea, Korea would have become no different from North Korea, which was now a world of monsters.

In other words, they could no longer rely on the protection of the demilitarized zone, as they stepped onto the North Korean land beyond it.

“When is backup coming?”

“Master Sergeant Kim, we are running low on ammunition.”

They could not expect protection, support, or supply.

“Mas, Master Sergeant Kim!”

“What’s going on?”

“Smoke! There’s smoke!”

“What color is it?”

“It’s green.”

“Goddamn it!”

Of course, there was no such thing as freedom to avoid the fear and despair that would dare to challenge them.

“Hoo!”

And they had no intention of avoiding this fear and despair.

“There is no backup, no ammunition left, and what are the chances of running away and surviving?”

“When we throw a coin, we’re going to get a chance of the coin standing.”

“Really?”

If they had intended to avoid fear and despair in the first place, no one would have come here.

“How many stimulants do you have?”

“There is only one doping left.”

“Okay, let’s buy some time for others to run away.”

At the words of Master Sergeant Kim Se-hyung, all of his troops began to smile at the firm expression. It was not a pretentious smile. They smiled sincerely. The fact that they had to face death now only made them harder.

“I’m sorry, guys.” Kim Se-hyung asked for forgiveness for such troops.

“It’s okay, you know that.”

“Well, it was good to survive. How many of the GOPs have survived and stepped on North Korea?”

The troops were willing to forgive Kim Se-hyung. Finally, they were silent for a moment.

Tututu! Everyone prepared for a worthy death among the scattered shots to check the crowd of Goblins. They took out a plastic wrapper that reminded them of candy. They took the edge of the sawtooth off by hand and peeled off the wrapping paper, and the pill hidden in it appeared.

Arousal.

It was made from a monster as a material, and it had the effect of raising resistance against monster fear for a time. It was not something easily made.

It was virtually impossible to hold on against the fear of a green-grade monster. They just didn’t lose their temper. The moment they faced a green-grade monster, their whole body would shake, and at that time they would not even be able to pull the trigger of the gun, or even shake their legs.

Gulp! But no one hesitated to swallow it. Everyone ate the stimulant at the same time. A yellowish aura began to circulate in their eyes.

“Hoo!” There were strong breaths everywhere. Their actions were not over yet. Everyone put their hands in their pockets again. They brought out something that reminded them of candy. No, it was candy. It was coffee-flavored candy.

The brands were different, but all of them were coffee-flavored candy. Everyone took out the coffee flavored candy carefully, with a more serious look than when eating the stimulant, and they ripped the wrapping paper off and put it in their mouth.

And they wished, ‘Please, let us have luck. Please let our sacrifice be the basis for our colleagues, not the struggle. Please be a survivor and enjoy the sad luck of telling our child or grandchildren what we are doing today.’

When everyone was so eager to speak, something fell from the sky. Thump! It fell like a lightning bolt, and without looking around, it approached Kim Se-hyung, who was the highest-ranked here, straight away. “Report the situation.”

Kim Se-hyung, who was chewing a candy, was so surprised by this sudden situation that he swallowed the candy.

‘Kuck!’ His esophagus and stomach screamed. Kim Se-hyung’s instincts also screamed. Of course, the scream of instinct was not a scream of pain.

“I am, Master Sergeant Kim Se-hyung of the 22nd Division, and I am reporting now. There is a green-grade monster ahead and we are working on buying time to help the troops retreat.”

“Did you take the stimulant?”

“All of us took it.”

“Then we’ll resume fighting.”

“Yes?”

At the words, the men, who were making surprised expressions, stood up without knowing it.

Kkiii! At the same time, the Goblins who had been after them began to rush toward them. Everyone turned their heads in surprise. Some of the quicker responses in the crowd immediately moved to point their rifles at the Goblins. But there were no gunshots.

Thud! The thirty Goblins that were approaching began to fall on the dirty ground, with blood dripping through the holes in their heads.

‘Huh?’

‘What, what?’

Kim Tae-hoon stepped forward to the scene.

Keueoeoeo! At that time, a scream that could not be produced without a monster burst out from a place not far away.

Keuaaa! There were two screams, not one, bursting out at the same time. The cry reminded everyone of what they had learned: the information that among the green-grade monsters, the Twin-headed Ogre was the most powerful!

‘T, Twin-headed Ogre!’

‘The green-grade monster is Twin-headed Ogre!’

‘Ah!’

They remembered the story of the hunter who had first killed the Twin-headed Ogre. So, in front of it, Kim Se-hyung and his troops smiled instead of crying.

Kim Tae-hoon also smiled gruffly. ‘If I stay this way, I will be fooled by the tricks of the Six Snakes.’

Kim Tae-hoon was convinced that the Six Snakes would not stay still. He knew that they would use all means and methods to destroy him and the Republic of Korea. Of course, he was going to stop their work.

‘Being hit is not in my personal history.’

Of course, he didn’t want to be satisfied with the blockade. No, Kim Tae-hoon was not such a man in the first place. He was a man whose job had been to destroy impregnable fortresses and to destroy the elements of hostile groups.

The essence now was no different. The best defense was an attack, and Kim was willing to carry out the needs of the war. He would be beaten, but would pay back as much as he had taken, and would further infringe their territory so that they would not even think of doing it again.

‘We take over North Korea and then we go to the continent.’ North Korea was a bridgehead for it, and that was the reason why Kim crossed the Military Demarcation Line without wasting time at the parade of Busan Port. Of course, there was no time to waste against a Twin-headed Ogre.

Kim turned toward the direction of the Twin-headed Ogre. “We will take Sariwon today, and cross the Daedong River tomorrow.”

At those words, Kim Se-hyung and his troops shouted with all their might, “Yes!”