Infinite Evolution Hunter [NOVEL] - Chapter 15

[Strength has increased by 2.]

When a hellhound the size of a small horse clamped onto me and yanked in all directions, loading my whole body with strain, my Strength stat went up.

Enduring the pain, I seized the heads of the ones shaking me and crushed them with my newly boosted Strength. The moment I finished one and smashed the skull of another, the hellhounds realized that sticking to me meant death; they sprang away and opened distance.

Smart and strong.

These things were definitely not F-rank monsters like goblins. But that didn’t mean they were beyond me.

They stopped full-on charges and switched to hit-and-run. Even so, this was different from days 1 and 2. Before, I couldn’t keep up with their speed and only defended; today, whenever several rushed in, at least one or two fell to my hands.

I took plenty of hits and bled a lot, but within an hour I’d cleared most of the hellhounds in the den. A few grabbed the young and fled. Those are the ones that hide deep in the mountains, which is why full eradication is hard in a country covered in hills.

Now the problem was the bodies. I’d come pretty far in. Hauling these big ones to the nearest checkpoint would take until daybreak.

Wondering what to do, I pulled up the Awakening Agency official’s number—the one who’d okayed giving me the key—in the Hunter app and called.

“Hello.”

He sounded half-asleep.

“Hello, is this Officer Kwon Jong-il? This is Lee Jiseok. Could you send a transport helicopter to my location?”

I got straight to the point.

“Pardon? Why do you need a transport helicopter?”

My request surprised him awake.

“If you check my location you’ll see I’m pretty deep in. And the hellhounds here are big and numerous, so moving them to a checkpoint is difficult.”

“I see. However, since the condition is that hunters bring in the carcasses themselves, air support is difficult.”

“I’ll send photos—please show them to your section chief. These aren’t normal-sized at all, and racking up results isn’t a bad look for the Agency, is it? With aerial support I can cull several times more than before. And I’ll only take half the government bounty on the hellhounds you help transport.”

“Hmm. I’ll report it first. Please hold a moment.”

I doubted the Agency would turn down a halved payout. The helicopter would be on standby for emergencies anyway.

I hung up, sent the photos, and sat on a rock to enjoy the night scenery. The weather was good, and with the moon nearly full, the light was nice. The sky was littered with stars—sitting like this for a bit felt oddly pleasant.

The reply came sooner than expected.

“Authorization granted. However, it wouldn’t be fair to do this only for you, so we’ve notified other hunters that if they gather a certain number at one spot, we’ll support them as well. The helicopter will arrive in twenty minutes.”

Officer Kwon now sounded fully awake, relaying information crisply.

Gazing at the moon and stars, the twenty-minute wait passed in a flash.

A large transport helicopter couldn’t land in the mountains, so they dropped a big tarp from above; I loaded the bodies, clipped the sling, and they hoisted it up. The pilot gave a thumbs-up, and I waved back.

With the helicopter handling removals, I could speed up the hunt.

I combed the ridges and cleared another den by dawn. Without support, tonight would’ve ended with just cleaning out that first den and hauling. I’d given up half the payout, but it was a net win. And the bet wasn’t about money. All that mattered was score.

I hadn’t counted precisely as they lifted the loads, but I’d bagged over eighty in the night alone. Once the score hit the app, I’d blow past Choi Cheol-min easily.

Even so, I didn’t relax. Without resting, I kept hunting through the day.

I wasn’t lucky enough to find another den in daylight, but I killed every roaming pack I saw.

I realized something else while hunting: day or night, there were almost no other wild animals around. The hellhounds had probably eaten them all.

At this rate, as winter deepens and their food runs short, it’s only a matter of time before they descend on the villages. You won’t find a more harmful “pest” than this.

Around noon, while I was in the thick of it, Sangheon called.

“Hyung, what kind of magic did you pull? You’ve taken down over a hundred since yesterday!”

He sounded dumbfounded.

“Mm. I can’t lose the bet, can I?”

“I didn’t take you for someone this competitive.”

“Is that so? And there’s money on the line.”

A hundred million won isn’t someone’s pet’s name. I’m the guy who carefully pockets every mana stone in a goblin Gate.

“You’re the one who made that bet.”

His voice carried a hint of exasperation.

“I bet because I’ll win. Anyway—what’s up?”

“Don’t let your guard down. Choi Cheol-min’s grinding his teeth. He’s closing fast.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

I hung up and checked the scoreboard—Choi had hunted more than seventy, narrowing the gap. I regretted not finding a den during the day.

I hadn’t found any more dens deep in the range, so I started working my way down while scouting. At dusk, faint screams and fighting drifted from afar.

The instant I heard it, I sprinted that way.

I practically fell down the steep mountain, bounding drops of dozens of meters at a time; with boosted Strength and Agility and my Hardened Body, there was no impact at all.

I reached the battlefield in minutes. Dozens of small-horse-sized hellhounds had a party surrounded.

The hunters looked injured, but since they were still on their feet, the wounds didn’t seem severe.

Hellhounds at the rear noticed me and turned. I didn’t slow—just dove into them.

Anything my hands brushed, I smashed skulls with my fists, or grabbed the ones biting me and hurled them into the others.

Deciding I was the bigger threat, most of them shifted toward me.

“Run!”

I shouted to the hunters as the encirclement broke.

They flinched at my words, looked at one another, and began pulling back.

‘Huh? Bae Nayoung?’

I caught a glimpse of the fleeing faces—one party member was Bae Nayoung. Terrified and running, she looked like an ordinary early-twenties rookie hunter.

No matter how I looked, she didn’t seem like a villain.

I shook off the thought and focused on the hellhounds.

A few chased the retreating hunters, but they could handle that much on their own.

I cleared the area and caught my breath. About thirty down, maybe. I pulled out my phone to request a helicopter.

“Hunter Lee Jiseok, we can’t provide air support right now.”

Urgency colored Kwon Jong-il’s voice.

“What’s going on?”

“Hellhound packs are converging abnormally. The helicopters are tied up evacuating hunters and civilians; we can’t divert another. Please return as well.”

I told him I understood and hung up. On the app, rescue requests and multiple hellhound sightings had just been posted. Judging by locations and timestamps, large packs were descending from the mountains and edging toward the resort.

Hellhounds usually act in packs, but packs don’t merge. Now they were.

Maybe this cull had agitated them too much and drawn them together.

I happened to be on the route toward the resort. Normally, finding and moving them took more time than the fights themselves—if they were coming together like this, it was actually good for me.

My bet with Choi wasn’t over.

I dragged the ones I’d culled into a single spot, then moved toward the latest reported cluster.

Minutes later, I spotted another pack trotting down the slope.

I accelerated and dove straight into the middle of the running mass. I was fast, they were moving fast—their reaction time was zero.

No need to punch or swing; I just charged full tilt. Those that hit me pinwheeled away like they’d been struck by a truck. Plowing through, I split the herd in two; they stopped and circled me.

We held a brief standoff, and then both sides lunged.

It was one-sided. With the levels, stats, and skills I’d stacked, even the larger specimens weren’t a threat anymore.

They didn’t retreat even as their comrades fell.

A distant howl rose. At once, the ones assailing me pulled back and joined the howling. The sound rolled across the mountains like a blanket.

Keen Senses prickled a warning—staying here was dangerous.

The moment I thought to run, something enormous vaulted the forest and landed before me.

A hellhound so massive you’d only see its like inside a Gate stood in my path. Its body length was easily over five meters, shoulder height around three. How could such a specimen be this close to inhabited areas? A break survivor dodging hunters? Or a mutation grown this big on Earth? In my past life, sometimes giant monsters turned up in odd places, ones unseen in prior Gate surveys.

Whatever the reason, it was here. With a house-sized body and a disturbingly smooth grace that belied it, it took slow, deliberate steps toward me. If it had the same combat power as a Gate hellhound, it was D-rank—something only multiple D-rank hunters together could handle.

If I were a bit higher level, maybe. Right now I was barely E-rank, with stats approaching D-rank.

I considered running, but it would certainly be faster.

Better to land the first hit—so I launched myself at it, and the hellhound yawned wide and breathed fire.

No time to dodge. I barely got my arms up to shield my face. Flames wrapped me, threatening to swallow me whole.

It wasn’t dragon breath by any means, but the pain of my body burning had me gritting my teeth as I rolled across the ground to shed the fire.

The stream stopped, but fire had washed over my face; I couldn’t get clear vision. Keen Senses screamed at me to move, now. But scorched and locked up by heat, I couldn’t react.

A massive forepaw slammed into me. Even with my compressed mass, I was weightless compared to it—I shot off like a shell, toppled two trees, and crashed to the earth.