Beyond the Eternity

The battle proceeded more smoothly than I thought. Jung Yeonhee and Lee Jongho were the main MVPs.

Lee Jongho's main focus point was his strength and he also possessed the skill 'Giantification'. On the other hand, Jung Yeonhee was an assassin with a quick movement skill.

The battle become much simpler with those two involved. I wasn't just sitting idle as well. I was performing my duty as the group's long ranger. And in less than a minute, more than half of the man-eating rats had already fallen.

Crack—

"Chweeeek—!"

A painful cry. A man-eating rat was overwhelmed by Lee Jongho's strength and got its head crushed by the metal pipe.

"They are much weaker than I thought."

Although the man-eating rats were known for their speed, not their strength. It didn't mean they were easy to kill yet Lee Jongho's spoke as if it was nothing.

To be able to effortlessly crush their head. Was it the result of his strength stats or a skill? It doesn't matter. He was not the only main actor.

Slash, slash—

Jung Yunhee moved and a thin line was drawn over the necks of the overgrown rats. The heads of the rats started dropping one by one.

"How disgusting."

Jung Yunhee made a disgusted face as she shook the blood off the sashimi knife.

She was the opposite of Lee Jongho. If he was focused on strength, then she was focused on speed. Even so, it didn't mean her power was lacking.

Swish—!

The sashimi knife moved in a terrifying manner and then...

Peok— Slash—!

"Chweeeek—!"

... Found its way inside the eye of a man-eating rat. The knife must have pierced the brain because the rat dropped to the ground without resistance.

"Hah…. Hah..."

Jung Yeonhee released an exhausted breath. Although she was somewhat strong, her only weakness was that her endurance was low. She should really invest in her physique stats after this.

Grrr!

As if accessing the situation, the man-eating rats sprinted through the strong members. They were moderately smart so when they saw the battle was unfavourable, they changed their battle strategy.

They went after the weakest members of the party. Angelica was one of their prime targets since she looked weak. However, that person was more frightening than she looked.

Puok, Puok, Puok—!

Three man-eating rats jumped towards Angelica, aiming for her face. They were fast but she simply side-stepped and began to pierce their heads one by one.

The pierced man-eating rats twisted several times on the floor as if they were having a seizure.

Angelica was holding a new weapon. It was a thorn. It looked like a bone from a monster. Maybe she got it when I was not around. It seems she has been busy.

Despite the sight of the overgrown rats twisting on the floor, Angelica showed a satisfied smile.

"Ha! ha! Ha! I did it. I can fight."

It was a creepy smile I have never before now. Was she slowly running insane? She's not originally a character from the novel so I didn't know if I should be worried or not.

In any case, the battle was nearing its conclusion. But it was not going as smoothly as I thought.

"Ahhh! Stay away!"

"Die! Die! Die!"

The problem laid in the newcomers. They were struggling against six man-eating rats. It was almost laughable. Weren't they supposed to be the assassins of the mainframe group?

Gnaw—! Slice—

Lee Gyeong got bitten as she tried to push the man-eating rats away with a knife. Meanwhile, Kang Manshik got attacked from behind while fighting against two man-eating rats.

If this continued, I'm sure they will perish. Although I was planning on getting rid of them, it was too early for them to kick the bucket.

Therefore, I raised the handgun and shot down the six man-eating rats one by one.

Burst— Crack—!

Several magic bullets crossed the air and popped the heads of six man-eating rats like a balloon.

"... Eh?"

Lee Gyeong looked surprised. She was not the only one even the man, Kang Manshik, was also surprised.

It happened so fast that they couldn't help but be surprised. Well, that was none of my concern. At least the immediate danger has been dealt with.

As I approached both of them, they looked at me and opened their mouths.

"Ah! Th-Thank you."

"Thank... Ugh..."

Before Kang Manshik could finish speaking, he had to groan and grabbed his shoulder where he was bitten in pain.

I removed an ointment from my inventory and tossed it over to Kang Manshik.

"Rub that on your shoulder, it will relieve the pain a little. Although you might not use that arm for a while."

"Excuse me, can you say that again?"

"Why are you asking questions? Rub it quickly. Do you want to lose that arm?"

Kang Manshik was devastated to hear the possibility of him losing an arm. In an apocalyptic world, losing a single limb was nothing but a death sentence. He quickly rubbed the ointment on the bitten shoulder.

[A few constellations are pleased by your goodwill.]

[200 coins have been sponsored.]

I ignored the message and looked around in order to gauge the situation. The place fell quiet as the last man-eating rat was pierced. With the exception of Kang Manshik, everyone had minor injuries.

It was a great performance.

Everyone relaxed as they laid on the floor one by one. I stabbed into the body of a man-eating rat with a knife. There was no instruction manuel but all I needed to do was open up the center then I will find that.

Jung Yunhee looked at me with curious eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for something. It was supposed to be inside here somewhere. Ah! Here it is."

My hand grabbed onto something and I pulled it out from the body of the man-eating rat. It was a glowing orb covered in blood.

"Is that..."

"Yes. This is a Core."

When I placed the core inside my storage pouch, a system notification popped up.

[One monster core obtained.]

[1 / 50]

50 Cores. They were the amount required to pass the third scenario. But finding 50 cores was a much harder mission people required.

"What are Cores anyways?"

I sighed. I summarized everything and gave a simple explanation.

"Cores are basically magic organs for monsters. If you open up their chest like this, you should be able to find them."

"I see."

"Everyone, you can find cores if you open up the chests of the monsters."

"Really?"

"Then..."

Everyone looked at the monster corpses. Without me trying them what to do, they started working in the earnest.

My attention was shifted towards Angelica who was skillfully tearing apart the dead monsters with a knife.

"Angelica, when did you..."

"Oh, this? Don't you already know? I used to stay at the countryside in London before I came to South Korea. My father used to take me out to camp and taught me some hunting skills."

"What an interesting story."

"It was really fun. I miss those peaceful days."

It was here when Angelica made a somewhat sad expression. Now it seemed like a peaceful world was a fleeting dream.

"This..."

"It's glowing."

Each person pulled out a core. It took about 30 minutes for everyone to gather their share of cores.

Lee Jongho looked at me and walked over.

"Jakga-ssi, how many cores did you get?"

"Seven."

"I got four. Wait, come again?"

"I got seven cores. The numbers are rather low, I killed around 15 ground rats yet I only got 7 cores."

I frowned slightly. This was the hard part. Even if you killed 20 monsters, it was not guaranteed that you will get 20 monster cores. After all, not every monster have formed cores in their bodies.

"How many did you get, Angelica?"

"I only got two."

"What about you, Yunhee?"

"I got five."

"Hmm."

As I thought, it was not enough. If we continued to hunt down monsters at this pace, we won't be able to gather enough cores for everyone.

"More importantly, what are we going to do about food?"

This time, it was Lee Gyeong that spoke out.

"If we want to survive, we need to find a good food source. We can't mindlessly hunt monsters all day long, we'll eventually get tired. How about we split up so we can cover more ground?"

[The character 'Lee Gyeong' has used the skill 'Charm' on you.]

[Personal Skill, 'Black Box' has activated.]

[The Skill 'Charm' has been negated.]

Her manipulation was on a cute level.

She was saying some reasonable words in order to win favour from the group and she even used the skill 'Charm' to reinforce her act.

I simply shook my head.

"There is no need. We won't be able to find any good conference stores or standing restaurants at this hour."

"Then what should we do?"

"It's pretty simple. We don't necessarily need to search for food. We just need to change our source of food."

I looked at the dead monsters scattered all over the floor.

"Hold on now... don't tell me?"

"Yes, we will have to eat the monsters."

Everyone looked at the dead man-eating rats with a complicated expression.

"Jakga-ssi, are you sure we can really use this for food?"

"Well, we have no choice whatsoever except you guys want to starve."

"Even if you say that... Eating those thing is just..."

"I don't really mind." Angelica spoke nonchalantly. "But how are we going to cook it? Should we make a fire?"

"No, not right now. We need to acquire two things before that. A temporary place to camp and a good hunting ground. There's also the problem about our hunting method as well.*

I began to think of a good solution. What to do? What to do?

"Ah!" Suddenly, a brilliant idea emerged. Why didn't I think of this sooner?

I looked at the newcomers, Lee Gyeong and Kang Manshik. For some reason, they appeared to be nervous when I was looking at them.

"W-Why are you looking at us like that?" Kang Manshik trembled for some reason.

"Sorry, I just thought of a brilliant idea."

"What do you want us to do?"

Lee Gyeong's question made me smile. What a smart girl.

"It's not a big story. You guys just need to do a simple task for me and in return, you can get cores without having to kill monsters."

"Get cores?"

"Without having to kill monsters?"

Their expressions lit up. Who would pass up the offer to get cores without killing monsters? It was an irresistible offer with no possibility of refusal.

"What do we need to do?"

Gyeong asked a slight excited tone. My smile widened even more.

"It's very simple actually."

A very simple yet dangerous job.

"You guys will be bait."