The First Hunter

Chapter 34. Freezer, Part III

Translator: Khan

Editor: RED

8.

K-2 Air Force Base…

The house of the fighter planes, the hangar, was set in the background of the wide runway. It was filled with turmoil for a long time.

“There’s a monster.”

“What monster?”

“A monster made of gold smoke-”

“What the hell are you talking about? Are you crazy?”

“I’m not crazy, it’s true!”

The main cause of the disturbance were soldiers and survivors belonging to the Second Operations Command evacuated from Daegu City Hall. The numbers were not small, and there were so many large hangars built to keep fighters that they made the hangers into a mess.

“There was a monster!”

No, it was more like turmoil than a mess. Those who had evacuated from Daegu City Hall were constantly shivering, voicing their fears, what they had heard and experienced, and the fear began to occupy the hangars easily.

“What the hell is going on this time-”

That was the reality. If someone was to say that an elephant with golden smoke appeared in 2016 and threw a streetlight with its elongated nose, he or she would have been taken to a mental hospital under the treatment of a madman. But 2017 was different.

In the world where monsters had appeared, Awakeners were born, and relics existed, the elephant made of golden smoke was now a reality and a fact that everyone should accept. There was no reining in the fear that had begun to spread like that.

“Shit! Stop it, anyway!”

“Brigadier General, the situation is—”

“Don’t talk about the situation, just come up with countermeasures! Countermeasures!”

“Brigadier General, we’re don’t have any way to control it.”

“Who told you to control it? Build up your military power! Get back to Daegu City Hall somehow! How many times did I tell you to make an operation plan and gather troops to recapture Daegu City Hall!?”

The turmoil was because the commanders who should be reining in this fear could not do their part. Of course, no one could blame them simply for their incompetence. Apart from incompetence, the situation was something that no one had experienced or expected.

Daegu City was too calm to anticipate and experience this situation. Daegu City, which was protected by the Tripitaka Koreana, did not even allow the monsters to leave their footprints, and Daegu City Hall did not even allow the Résistance’s footprints. It was too much to ask those who took such safety and serenity for granted to come up with a proper response to the current situation.

“Shit, get it done!”

“Brigadier General Lee Dee-joo, please, calm down-”

“Calm down? If we keep going like this, I will be in danger!”

Crucially, it was Lee Dae-joo who felt the most terrible fear at that moment, not the commanders.

He was the Wing Commander of the 11th Air Force, and he had already been nearly killed by the Résistance. Therefore, Brigadier General Lee Dae-joo knew better than anyone about the Résistance organization.

‘If the Résistance had that power, it is obvious that they would only go after the top leaders!’

The purpose of the Résistance was not to destroy the Second Operations Command but to reveal the truth. So far, the Résistance had focused on the leaders and executives rather than the general soldiers, and they had focused on propaganda rather than war.

That was why the Second Operations Command wanted to capture Lee Yeon-ah, as it was totally different from what the average person said on the propaganda and what Lee Yean-ah said on propaganda. On the other hand, that was all the Résistance could do so far.

The war against the Second Operations Command was not even attempted, and there was an overwhelming power difference between the two forces.

But things had changed. The Résistance now had the power to break down Daegu City Hall in a moment.

‘It’s dangerous.’

Here was another factor that drove Brigadier General Lee Dae-joo crazy. Contact with the Capital Defense Command, which had supported the Second Operations Command, was no longer available.

Even the last contact was to ask for them to prepare, as the Capital Defense Command was in danger and was planning to evacuate to the Second Operations Command. However, since he received that information, he had not been contacted.

‘It’s really dangerous.’

There was no wall to lean on behind Brigadier General Lee Dae-joo. There was only a cliff.

“Goddamn it!” Brigadier General Lee Dae-joo clicked his tongue again, and his men sweated in front of him. There was no answer from the men’s side, and their situation was not so different from Brigadier General Lee Dae-joo because they were all colonels and commanders.

Someone arrived at a run.

“Re, Résistance Lee, leader, Cho Sung-yeon asked for a meeting and a conversation.”

“What?” Brigadier General Lee Dae-joo made a foolish expression at this ridiculous message. “What do you mean?”

“Cho, Cho Sung-yeon came in person.”

At the words of his subordinate, Lee Dae-joo began to comb his dark beard like crazy, with a dumbstruck look.

“What do you mean, that madman?”

Panic was the most obvious word to express his state of mind. Of course, it was impossible for Lee Dae-joo to make a proper judgment.

“Is Cho Sung-yeon here?”

“Yes? Yes.”

“What are you doing?”

All he could do was make an extreme judgment.

“Go and kill him! Kill him!”

“Yes?”

“You crazy bastards, if he is here, you kill him! Are you going to let him live?”

Brigadier General Lee Dae-joo was rather angry at the blank faces of his men, and now he stood up as if he was going to kill Cho Sung-yeon himself. He laid his hand on the pistol at his waist. It was the biggest and last mistake he made.

Swish! An arrow entered the office and penetrated the head of General Lee Dae-joo instantly.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!”

“Huck!”

The men jumped up in fright. One of them fell over the couch he was sitting on. Hardened as they were, everyone looked at the dead body of Brigadier General Lee Dae-joo with a face as white as a corpse, without words.

A few minutes later, a new man came up. “Cho, Cho Sung-yeon wants to make a deal with Lee Dae-joo’s successor.”

9.

The F-15K fighter jets were waiting for a run which would happen some day, and at that moment, something rare to see in the hangar appeared. It was a wheelchair.

Cho Sung-yeon was sitting in the wheelchair. It was unusual in many ways in the hangar, so all of the hundred or so soldiers of the Eleventh Air Force Squad who were filling the hangar were looking at Cho.

‘I’m crazy.’

Of course, the soldiers who looked at Cho were more vigilant than afraid. Some were ready to pull the triggers on him and aimed guns at him.

At this point, Cho was confident that he would accept this fact in his own way, because he had courage and capacity which very few people possessed.

‘I’m really crazy.’

The problem was that Kim Tae-hoon, who had been pushing Cho’s wheelchair until now, acted a little while ago. Kim killed Brigadier General Lee Dae-joo. Cho came to negotiate with Lee Dae-joo, but Kim killed him at once.

Not just that, Kim killed Lee Dae-joo with an Arrow without feathers from a long distance away. The reason was that Lee Dae-joo had no intentions of negotiating.

‘Wow, it’s driving me crazy.’

The reason and the process were all nonsense. At this moment, however, Cho did not look surprised by events, but rather adopted a seemingly unconcerned image, contrary to his amazed thoughts. He looked so calm that it defined his image.

Like an injured godfather of the mafia, he sat in a wheelchair and began to show his weight. The atmosphere of the hangar began to change. In the changing atmosphere, Cho was able to find the approaching crowd and instantly identify the face of one of them.

‘Colonel Baek Ho-seop!’

It was Colonel Baek Ho-seop, Commander of the 110th Combat Squadron. His face was white as a sheet. It was so strange that his face could turn so white. With such a frightened face, he stood in front of Cho and barely managed to ask, “Do you want to negotiate, Cho?”

At that moment, Cho pulled his body a little bit out of his wheelchair and said, sitting like a piece of a chewed string, “Uh.”

It was a leisurely figure. It was a performance. It was acting in which one had to twist one’s mood in conversation. Colonel Baek Ho-seop, of course, frowned.

“You are surely crazy. You wanted to negotiate, but killed the Brigadier General!”

At the remark, Cho shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t want to negotiate the first round, or the second round, of talks that way. We have to negotiate right here, today. But Lee Dae-joo didn’t want to negotiate with a partner. What was I going to do? I had to change my negotiation partner.”

Those who heard the conversation at this moment could see that this was not a negotiation. It was a threat, not negotiation. If it had been usual times, Colonel Baek Ho-seop would never have responded to the threat.

“… so what do you want to negotiate?” However, Colonel Baek Ho-seop calmly asked a question at this moment instead of acting angry.

When Cho saw his face, he was convinced. ‘The game is over.’ He came to negotiate, but in fact, the negotiation was over.

“I will tell you briefly.” So, at this moment, Cho did not waste time or words for an argument. “The blue-eyed monster will come here soon.”

“Nonsense!”

“What doesn’t make sense is sending someone to dig a royal tomb in a world full of monsters.”

“It, it’s…”

“Shut up and listen to me. Sooner or later, there will be a monster with blue eyes in Daegu City, and we will kill it.”

How! Colonel Baek Ho-seop expressed his feelings with a look of dismay, instead of an answer.

At the words of Baek Ho-seop, Cho looked at Kim behind his wheelchair.

Baek Ho-seop’s eyes naturally turned toward Kim. But his gaze did not last long. Baek Ho-seop couldn’t meet Kim’s eyes for long. It was like a rat could not see the snake’s eyes.

“The situation is exactly what Cho said. The monster is coming and I will kill it. So I need your full cooperation,” the snake spoke to the rat.

“Full cooperation…”

“Give me everything you have, not only weapons but also the Bell of King Seongdeok.”

“That’s ridiculous. It’s…”

Kkeoeoeoeong! At that moment, a mysterious and unknown shriek swept through the K-2 Air Force Base.

“Huck!”

In the distance, even though it was a very distant cry, it affected those who filled the hangar. There were a lot of soldiers tottering, falling, and kneeling.

It was the same with Cho. “Damn, damn, damn it… it really came…”

Trembling! Cho began to tremble in his wheelchair, and Colonel Baek Ho-seop and his men, who had been facing them all the time, also struggled to avoid falling down on the floor.

‘With this distance, direction… is it Palgongsan? It came there much faster than I thought. And seeing that it screamed out to cause fear, it doesn’t want to spend any time. It’ll be right here.’ Only Kim stood upright.

Kim, standing so upright, turned to the ceiling. Then he opened his mouth and exhaled the Energy in his gut.

AWWWWWWWWW!

Howling!

The Howling that came out of Kim’s mouth after a long time, began to soften the power of the fear that was filling the hangar.

“Huck!” There were the sounds of breath coming back all over the place. Colonel Baek Ho-seop, who had been trembling all the time in front of Kim, seemed to have calmed down, focusing on his eyes again. Of course, the amount of fear implanted by the pupils of Kim remained.

“I’ll tell you again,” Kim demanded Baek Ho-seop. “We need the M61 and the Bell of King Seongdeok.”

There was no answer. There was only a nod.

10.

The straight distance from the Birobong of Palgongsan to K-2 Air Force Base was about 13 kilometers. The path, situated in a steep mountain range, was a road that literally never had a straight stretch.

But now a road was being built on the mountain range. It was not just a road, but a white road. A broad white road, about twenty meters wide, was being made in real time, at an alarming rate.

Freezing! The white road was the path of Freezer, an ice monster with blue eyes.

Freezing! The chill from its whole body was freezing everything all around. It was an incredible sight. But the amazing sight was not the end of it. There were Wolves running on the white road.

There was constant howling. A group of Snow Wolves was following Freezer with all their might. The numbers of Snow Wolves were hard to measure. In the world that was turned white by Freezer, they were completely hidden. The fact that they were moving in groups was not easily confirmed by the naked eye. This was a scene that could not be seen or trusted.

But the amazing sight was their speed. Even on steep mountains and hillsides, they had no hesitation. On the downslopes, they threw themselves and accelerated down them, and on the uphill, they pulled their strength out.

It took them about ten minutes to reach the city of Daegu after leaving Palgong Mountain. It was a mere instant.

Before the city’s citizens, who were exposed to the fear that Freezer worked its best, could regain their freedom from the fear, hundreds of Snow Wolves led by the Freezer and its teams were in the city.

Of course, there was no battle.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!”

“Sa, save me…”

There was just a one-sided meal. It was also a voracious feast.

Wooguck Wooguck! Snow Wolves ate everything they could to fill their empty stomachs after the explosive race.

Sniff! They bit off what they could see, and then they chased after what they could not see with their noses and bit it.

The white Snow Wolves began to roam through the city of Daegu, leaving traces of red footprints, howling in their eagerness.

Freezer only stared at the scene. It didn’t seem like It was going to stop the Snow Wolves from eating too much.

It was a time of gluttony permitted by the owner. Only the sound of the Bell stopped the gluttony that could not stop and had no reason to stop.

Doo-woo-woong!

Rather than being pure, it was a melancholy, sad, and horrible sound. Instead of impressing the listeners, the actions of Snow Wolves who enjoyed the gluttony stiffened at the sound that made them shiver.

Doo-woo-woong! When the Bell rang again, some Snow Wolves began to back away with terror-stricken eyes.

Yelp! Some began to tremble with their tails drooping as they called out.

Doo-woo-woong! As soon as the third Bell rang, the unsustainable Snow Wolves looked up.

Owwwwwwww! Howling, Snow Wolves gathered their mouths together to fight against the sound of the Bell. It began to spread and grow louder. The drooping tails of the Snow Wolves also gradually began to rise toward the sky.

Tututututu! It was the artillery that stopped the healing.

Tututututu! No, it was more a monster than a cannon. It was an M61 Vulcan. The sound making up something launching 6,000 rounds per minute with six guns rotating, twenty-millimeter-long, adult palm-length shells was a perfect match for the term “monster.”

What was more monstrous was Kim’s shooting of an M61 Vulcan with his hands like a machine gun, and even a barrel full of dozens of kilograms of bullets on his back.

Tututututu! Kim continued his shooting, even aiming at the targets accurately, despite the constant gunfire.

Yelp! There was no such thing as a Snow Wolf coping with the attack.

The 20-mm shell, not just a bullet, ripped them apart, far more than merely piercing the skins of the Snow Wolves.

Tututu… When the M61 Vulcan, which threw out thousands of bullets in one breath, took a pause, Kim looked at Freezer, who was still surveying the whole scene on the road, with his black Eyes. It was not showing any interest in this scene. In other words, it was not feeling any threat at this fact.

Kim aimed at it with the M61 Vulcan. However, he did not immediately fire.

‘The moment I shoot, it’s the beginning. It is impossible to kill this monster with just a few shells from an M61 Vulcan. That would only make it angry. The battle will start as soon as the gunfire begins.’

So, Kim waited for the Bell to ring again.

Doo-woo-woong! As soon as the Bell rang, Hahoetal, the mask, which was gently resting on Kim’s shoulder, settled across his face.

Tutututu! Kim’s M61 finally shot off shells.

Kkeoeoeoeong! Freezer, who had been indifferent until now, vomited fear towards Kim.

The battle had begun.