Chapter 101
I lowered the tip of my spear toward the floor and approached the snake beastkin lying flat on the ground.
Every time I took a step toward them, they hunched their scaly bodies tightly and pressed their heads against the floor.
If they had been monsters, they would have struggled until the moment they died, but perhaps because they were an intelligent species, they understood the situation well.
Even I had no desire to kill snake beastkin who had surrendered so completely.
“Squeak! Squeak-squeak—!”
The rat beastkin's eyes grew round when it saw the snake beastkin lying flat with their weapons discarded on the floor.
The creature looked close to tears with emotion, grabbed the hem of my pants, and repeatedly bowed its head.
“Yes, yes. It isn't over yet, though...”
I looked down at the snake beastkin.
“Hmm... How should I communicate with them from here on out...?”
The large snake beastkin raised its head, desperately flicking its forked tongue.
“I-I can speak.”
The large snake beastkin opened its mouth.
The voice leaking through its forked tongue was rough and mixed with a metallic rasp, but it was unmistakably clear Korean.
“Huh? You can speak...?”
It nodded.
That made things easier.
I told it to guide us to where the rat beastkin and mana stones were.
Watching me carefully, it slowly rose to its feet.
I asked cautiously as it stood up.
“If you're planning to fight—”
The creature frantically waved its hands.
“I-I was going to guide you...! I don't want to fight!”
“Ah.”
I nodded at its aggrieved explanation.
Guided by the large snake beastkin, we headed to the supermarket's basement.
When we descended underground, a damp, fishy smell stabbed at my nose.
In a corner of the supermarket, I saw the rat beastkin imprisoned behind a crude barricade made from old shopping carts.
“Squeak! Squeak-squeak—!”
The rat beastkin spotted us, grabbed the bars, and cried out desperately.
Beside them, mana stones, treasure chests, and all sorts of weapons were piled high.
At the center of that treasure heap, a one-eyed snake beastkin sat in a chair.
The snake opened its mouth.
“I can more or less guess what happened.”
The one-eyed snake beastkin also spoke fluent Korean.
The dwarf, Nabi, and even these snakes.
Perhaps when otherworldly races discovered and opened treasure chests, some sort of effect caused them to acquire the region's language skill as a top priority.
Should I test that later with an elf?
The one-eyed snake understood the situation with a single glance at the unarmed snake beastkin and my spear.
Flicking its tongue, it unexpectedly tossed the dagger from its waist onto the floor without resistance.
“I surrender. You may take all the mana stones and items piled over there as well. It's excessive payment for trespassing on our territory... but our young ones must have resisted excessively too.”
It spoke calmly, then nodded toward the other snake beastkin lying in the corner.
“What are you doing? Move the items to the connecting passage upstairs so these people can carry them away easily.”
“Shaaah—!”
At the one-eyed snake's command, the snake beastkin began moving without complaint.
They hoisted sacks full of mana stones onto their shoulders and began climbing the stairs, their bodies coiling as they went.
The situation unfolded so quickly and so peacefully that we could only stare at it in bewilderment.
Contrary to the rat beastkin's warning, they were being far too cooperative.
“Let's free the rat beastkin first.”
I shook off my uneasiness and approached the barricade.
I had just raised my spear to smash the lock.
“Ah, that barricade requires a certain trick. I'll open it for you.”
The one-eyed snake beastkin had somehow come up beside me.
It naturally reached toward the barricade's lock, pretending to open it.
Crack—!
It happened in that split second.
The one-eyed snake, who had seemed obedient only moments earlier, twisted its head at an unnatural angle and lunged toward the back of my neck with its fangs bared.
It was an attack I had no chance of evading with my guard down.
“Urgh?!”
I felt a heavy impact at the back of my neck, along with the sensation of its fangs sinking in.
Unfortunately, its fangs bit into the windbreaker I was wearing over my skin rather than my flesh.
Fwaaash—!
The surface of the windbreaker emitted an iridescent glow and perfectly repelled both its fangs and the impact.
Only after the flash burst out did I realize that it had ambushed me.
“Damn...!”
I reflexively shoved the one-eyed snake's chest away with my right hand.
KWAANG—!
The problem was that after obtaining Level 2 Strength and the Strong Bones skill, I had never tried pushing anything while using all that force.
“Shaaah—?!”
The one-eyed snake beastkin flew horizontally and slammed headfirst into a thick concrete pillar in the basement.
Peeeok—! Crack—!
Cement dust burst in every direction with a violent crash.
The one-eyed snake, crushed against the pillar and rolling down to the floor, twitched as though convulsing two or three times before becoming completely still.
It had died instantly.
“Huh?”
The underground storage area fell silent as if someone had poured cold water over it after the tragedy that had unfolded in an instant.
Even I hadn't expected it.
My strength had grown considerably, but snake beastkin were light-bodied by nature.
“No way...”
The rat beastkin beyond the bars, the snake beastkin carrying the mana stones, and even Nabi and Ms. Ha-seon stared blankly back and forth between the shattered pillar and my right hand.
“Mew...? You killed him.”
“S-Squeak...?!”
“No... I was only trying to push him a little. And he bit me first...”
I muttered in a daze, flustered myself.
As I looked around while making excuses, the large snake beastkin returning from upstairs after delivering a sack of mana stones stopped on the stairs.
“Uh... w-why did you kill the boss...? He was clearly cooperating...”
It looked at its boss's body crushed beneath the broken pillar, then slowly turned its head toward me, flicking its forked tongue.
Its pupils held neither anger nor a desire for revenge, but only terror and fear.
“P-please spare me...!”
“No, I mean... I was startled because it attacked first, so I pushed it—”
“You just pushed our boss...”
I smiled awkwardly and lightly shook out my right hand.
Now that things had come to this, I would have to ride the momentum.
Pointing calmly at the large snake beastkin standing on the stairs, I declared.
“...From now on, you're the boss.”
At my words, the large snake beastkin hesitated for a moment, then came down the stairs without complaint and prostrated itself before me.
“I-I understand...”
Did it really understand?
That was hardly the posture of a boss.
***
Scritch, scritch—
Walking along the gravel laid between the rails, Junwoo adjusted the weight of the rusted ax slung over his shoulder.
The surest and safest way to reach Seoul was to walk along these railroad tracks.
There were no trains on this route, and relatively few raiders or monsters.
They had been walking along the tracks for several days now.
“Hey, what's that over there?!”
Seongtae, a party member walking ahead, stopped and pointed forward.
The gazes of Junwoo and the other two turned toward the same spot.
What entered their view was a gigantic black train stopped on the tracks, so ferocious that there was no better way to describe it.
The crusher mounted on the front of the train was enough to make them shudder just by looking at it.
“Should we run...?”
“Are you stupid? That's the mod's train we saw on the Gallery!”
“Ah...”
At Seongtae's words, Junwoo swallowed hard.
The Gallery's train, which they had heard about only in words, was right before their eyes.
In person, it was much larger than the train they had imagined, with a design that immediately drew the eye.
Looking around, they saw that the train was parked right in front of a mart.
“Looks like they went inside to loot that mart.”
“When they come back, should we ask them to take us along too?”
“Let's go help them first. Maybe they'll give us a ride then.”
With a glimmer of hope, the party cautiously headed toward the large supermarket building next door.
Junwoo was stealthily peering inside through the broken first-floor windows when he suddenly doubted his own eyes and hurriedly ducked out of sight.
“...Hey, be quiet. There's something inside.”
Unable to overcome their curiosity, the party members poked their heads through the gaps in the windows and looked inside.
Then a low gasp escaped their lips.
An indescribable scene had unfolded inside.
“Those cat ears... They're not a headband, are they?”
“Looks like beastkin.”
“What about that rat and snake?”
“Are those beastkin too...?”
“They look so different...”
There was a cat-eared beastkin, a gigantic rat watching everyone nervously, and snakes glinting with grotesque scales.
It looked as though every kind of otherworldly race had been gathered in one place.
And at the center of it all stood the assistant mod they had only seen in photographs on the Gallery, holding a spear.
Behind him stood an unidentified beautiful woman, drones with sleek designs, and the crude steel mass known as Dragoon.
“That... I mean...”
“What kind of combination is that?”
“They look strong, at least.”
“Yeah.”
Junwoo instinctively realized it.
With trembling hands, he pulled a smartphone from his pocket and aimed its lens through the gap in the window.
He felt as though he had to record this moment.
Just then, the snake beastkin shaman at the rear raised a large wooden staff.
A fireball about the size of a volleyball began forming instantly at the tip of the staff, radiating explosive heat.
“...A fireball!”
“Isn't that dangerous...?”
Just as the party members gasped and held their breath,
A drone floating in the air smoothly opened its front armor as if transforming.
A small barrel protruded from inside, and a blue laser shot out like lightning.
Pew—! KWAANG—!
“Whoa!”
“The heat's reaching all the way here...”
Before the shaman could fire the fireball, the laser pierced its brow, and the exploding fireball swallowed the surrounding snake beastkin.
The savory smell of roasting chicken wafted through the window on the breeze in an instant.
“So that's what it smells like...”
“...That smell is making me hungry.”
“...Oh!”
Enraged by their companion's death, the snake beastkin charged like lightning toward the cat-eared girl, sharp daggers in hand.
“Watch out...!”
Before Junwoo could even shout in horror, the beastkin girl sprang lightly into the air.
The girl flexibly twisted her body and drove both feet in a powerful dropkick straight into the chest of the charging snake beastkin.
Peeeok—! Crash-clatter!
With terrifying destructive power, the snake beastkin smashed through three or four of the mart's steel display racks and crashed into the distance.
Even as that scene unfolded, the mod standing at the center didn't move an inch.
She stood with her arms folded, looking down at the remaining snake beastkin with a cold gaze as though it were only natural.
'She isn't surprised.'
Perhaps they had been completely subdued by that chilly gaze.
The remaining snake beastkin simultaneously threw down their weapons and knelt, then began bowing and guiding the mod's group deep into the mart's basement.
When they disappeared into the darkness, a discussion erupted among Junwoo's party, who were hiding behind the window.
“Hey, did you see that? ...What happens now?”
“What do you think? The snakes only pretended to surrender and led the mod to their boss underground. Now the real fight will—!”
“I think they lured the mod into a trap. Maybe they're planning to corner him and self-destruct together!”
About ten minutes passed while they argued over the possibilities.
Their opinions were divided, but none of them seemed to think the snake beastkin would actually surrender just like this.
Heavy footsteps came from the stairs leading down to the basement.
“They're coming out!”
Junwoo hurriedly adjusted the camera's focus.
But when the party members saw the figure walking up the stairs, they were momentarily overcome with shock.
The first one to appear was not the mod.
It was the large snake beastkin.
It was struggling out while carrying a large number of boxes in both hands.
“No way... Did he lose? The mod lost, and the snakes are coming out with the spoils?!”
“Really...?”
Just as Seongtae muttered in a despairing voice, the other snake beastkin began filing out behind him, one after another, reverently carrying items and sacks.
And finally, the mod emerged leisurely at the very back of the procession, his spear resting on his shoulder.
“Huh?”
The mod looked perfectly clean, without a single wound.
Even while making the snake beastkin work like slaves, he maintained an impassive expression without changing his face at all.
The large snake beastkin, seemingly the newly appointed boss, repeatedly bent at the waist and groveled whenever he caught the mod's eye.
“Did he tame the snake beastkin into slaves?”
“As expected...”
“Scary...”
Junwoo and his companions were left speechless with admiration.
So this was the assistant mod who controlled the Survivor Gallery.
They nodded.
They decided to upload this news to the Gallery along with the footage as soon as possible.