Infinite Evolution Hunter [NOVEL] - Chapter 14

With the level up and bonus, my Vitality stat jumped by 3 at once, and my body felt lighter.

After fighting for a few more minutes, something felt off. Normally they would circle me at a distance and probe, but today they were charging in as if ready to die. Good for me, since I needed to rack up numbers, but it wasn’t their usual behavior.

I looked around and saw injured or young ones inside the cave. They were protecting their own.

They were monsters, yet it was something worthy of respect. Even so, I couldn’t just leave them. To them, humans are nothing but prey.

In fact, nearby farms and homes had already suffered small but real damage. That’s why I and the other hunters were here. Left alone, the harm would spiral out of control.

After I took down about twenty, the only ones left were those inside the cave. I hunched and went into the cramped cave, far too small for their size and number. Since it wasn’t their mother coming in but me, the pups bared their tiny teeth and growled. My hand hesitated for a heartbeat, but it had to be done, so I ended it quickly and without pain.

When the fight was over, I looked around. A mountain of hellhound corpses and blood splattered everywhere.

Now I had to move the bodies to the checkpoint. It was closer than the resort, but with this many I’d have to make at least five trips. Retrieval would take longer than the hunt itself, but I hadn’t brought porters or a professional recovery crew, so there was no helping it.

I bound the hellhounds tight with rope, slung them over my back, and ran the mountain. After about ten minutes I reached the checkpoint with a storage container. I opened the container door with the e-key, threw the hellhounds inside, and headed back to the den.

A throaty bark rang out as hellhounds burst forth. I saw their reddened eyes cutting through the dark. Someone had probably seen their den razed and even the pups killed. And since I reeked of hellhound blood, I was clearly their mortal enemy.

But my level and stats had climbed, and Keen Senses was fully in my body now. Their attacks were plain as day to me.

I shaped my hand like a claw and smashed the skull of the one leaping in.

A few hours ago I’d allowed them to sink their teeth into me, but not anymore. Their fangs never touched me again.

As soon as I reached the den I hunted eight more. I’d just ferried a load to the checkpoint, yet the pile of bodies here had grown instead. Looked like I’d be sprinting the mountains all night.

—

I shuttled between the checkpoint and the hellhound den over and over until dawn. By morning the container, about the size of a small room, was crammed full, and blood was trickling out under the door.

On the fourth night alone I bagged fifty-four, bringing my total score to 74. Before I set out, Choi Cheol-min’s score had been barely around 40, so I had already overtaken him.

It looked like an easy bet. I waited at the checkpoint for the Agency staff to arrive, feeling unhurried.

A little after sunrise, an Awakening Agency official and a hunter assigned to guard the checkpoint rolled up in an off-road vehicle about the size of a golf cart. Small enough to handle narrow mountain paths.

“Welcome.”

I tossed the key to the official as he stepped out and greeted him. He was the one who’d lent me the key yesterday.

“Rough night, I see.”

The word had gotten around, it seemed, because he didn’t comment on me being covered in blood.

“Got any food and something to drink?”

“Yes, here.”

He handed me bread and milk from the car and moved toward the container.

“Careful. It’ll spill out when you open it.”

“Pardon?”

He turned his head at my warning just as the stack of hellhound corpses I’d neatly piled inside slumped toward the door.

I sprang up and yanked him back by the collar. He wouldn’t be killed by falling bodies, but a normal person could get hurt.

“You took all these down by yourself?”

The official, now seated on the ground, pointed at the corpses with a trembling finger.

“Found one of their dens. I’ll be going now.”

I stuffed the bread and milk into my mouth and turned back toward the mountains.

“Not returning to the resort?”

He asked in surprise when I headed into the trees instead of toward the resort.

“No. There aren’t many days left, right? Gotta get more. I’ll be back soon, so please keep the storage cleared.”

He stared blankly for a moment, not expecting me to head right back out, then snapped to and raised his phone to call for a transport helicopter.

I hunted for a few hours, taking out several clustered hellhounds here and there, though I couldn’t find a pack as big as last night’s. Still, I already had the numbers, so I hunted at an easy pace and returned to the resort around noon. The morning’s haul was twelve. Not bad considering I hadn’t found a den.

Since it was prime hunting time, the resort was empty. The buffet wasn’t operating, so I lined up cup noodles, poured hot water, and ran frozen meals through the four microwaves in a row.

With no one watching, I crammed noodles and dumplings into my mouth. Stockpiling energy was part of the battle for me.

While eating ramen, I pulled up my status window.

—

Name: Lee Jiseok Class: Jobless Level: 10 Strength 32, Vitality 32, Agility 27, Intelligence 15, Life Force 320, Mana 118 Skills: Regeneration E, Hardened Body F, Iron Will E, Poison Resistance E, Keen Senses C

I’d reached level 10 and acquired a C-rank skill. If I finished this cull safely, I could rank up to E-rank hunter.

My Vitality and Strength had already passed 30, and Agility would soon hit 30 as well. I was beyond E-rank hunter stats and close to D-rank. Watching the numbers climb, it felt like my hardships from the last life were finally being repaid.

I finished the meal with the status window as a side dish and took a nap.

After about five hours of sleep I came back down, and the dining hall was packed.

“Hyung!”

Sangheon spotted me first and ran over in a hurry.

“I saw the scoreboard! How did you do that in a single day?”

He was pretty worked up, more excited about my bet than I was.

“Found a den. Wiped it out.”

“A little more and you can catch up.”

“A little more?”

Before sleeping I’d been ahead—so what happened?

“Yeah, Choi Cheol-min racked up a ton too. But judging from his sharp rise and his party underperforming compared to the day before, it looks like they funneled their scores to him. And you didn’t bring porters, right? They brought a few.”

I checked the scoreboard in the app and saw Choi Cheol-min up by 42 to 105. I was at 86, nearly twenty behind.

“Well, well.”

My competitive fire lit up. I must’ve gotten complacent during the day and rested too much.

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

I thanked Sangheon for the info and started eating. From now to the end, I planned either minimal rest—or none at all—so I needed to eat more.

With the buffet already cleared out, I brought over the serving trays themselves and started eating. It took a long time just to chew and swallow, but this reduced the time I’d otherwise spend on rest and meals. A net gain.

After an hour of eating, I left the dining hall. I’d finished what was left at the buffet, and thanks to real-time digestion and compression, my stomach only stuck out a bit. Even that flattened once I started up the mountain.

Like last night, I plunged into the darkened slopes to look for hellhound dens.

I went farther from the resort and deeper into the mountains and began taking down hellhounds. The terrain got steeper, an area other hunters tended to avoid.

I killed everything I saw, and after about ten more, I found another den.

Normally the adults leave the den at night to hunt, so like the den I culled yesterday, you’d expect only small or sickly ones inside. But this time, adults were actively keeping watch.

Just from their guard posture you could tell they weren’t that much dumber than goblins.

And these hellhounds were bigger than the ones I’d been hunting. Most had been large-dog sized; a few of these looked closer to small horses.

In the Gate, hellhounds are much larger and vastly more powerful. A D-rank monstrosity a mere F-rank awakened wouldn’t dare face. But breeding on mana-less Earth had shrunk them.

Whatever these ones had been eating, they’d grown larger, though still far from their original size.

I approached the sentries without hiding.

The first one to spot me let out a howl to warn the den.

Its howl rolled through the mountains. When it finished, they didn’t come one by one—they formed up and encircled me like a battle line.

If they didn’t scatter, that only made my job easier.

Ignoring their encirclement, I strode straight at the nearest hellhound. Their formation shifted with me, and then, all at once, they charged.

Despite their size, they weren’t faster.

I swung at the first to attack. I’d thought I could end it in one blow, but despite its bulk it deftly turned its head with my strike and slipped it. My fingers raked a long groove across its face, but it wasn’t fatal. It snapped back around, baring its teeth at me again.

I threw my left fist at its torso. Midair, it couldn’t dodge and took the hit. Its body thudded like a drum bursting and slammed into the ground.

But I’d spent too long on one. Four more came in from all sides at once. A bite to the neck would leave me briefly immobile, so I blocked only the one going for my head with my forearm.

They clamped onto my arms, legs, and waist, shaking their heads like dogs with a toy, trying to tear off flesh. The good news was that the meat didn’t just rip away as they chewed, but compared to the smaller ones their bite force was much greater, and their teeth were slowly driving deeper.