Resurrection Chapter 94 - There’s a Strange Scent

The path the unidentified one-night stand had shown me did indeed lead outside the Oleander Alleys. The sewer was connected to the Geum River, which flows through Sejong City. After getting out onto the riverbank, I washed myself with the river water, but the stench had not completely gone away. I brought my numb nose to my forearm and sniffed.

Just then, the voice I had been waiting for came from above my head.

“Am I late?”

When I quickly raised my head, Heesoo hyung, who must have arrived at some point, was standing on top of a tall streetlight, and he lightly jumped down. He landed on the asphalt with his colossal physique, but there wasn’t even a thump, let alone a patter.

I was surprised by his agility and lightness, then quickly put some distance between us and said.

“N-no. More importantly, did you meet Tae Yeongwoo? Is Yaksha really coming here now?”

Heesoo hyung nodded his head and threw back a question.

“It is the word of a great shaman, so it must be certain. I think Min Gongchan and Yoon Younghyun have also come this way. Have you seen them by any chance?”

“No. I haven’t seen them, but I think they’re in there. The barriers are all broken. Someone has infiltrated the inside.”

“Let’s follow them in. Have you contacted Team A?”

I nodded my head. Although I couldn’t call the Special Operations Unit, support was essential in a situation where Yaksha might appear. So I had contacted Kim Mina and called for Team A.

“Kim Mina will lead the team members here soon. If the situation worsens, those guys will call Kang Cheoljun or do whatever. Before that, it seems highly likely that the Special Operations Unit will notice something is up and flock here.”

“It seems we’ll be late if we wait for them, so let’s enter for now.”

I nodded and held out my hand to Heesoo hyung. My plan was to teleport directly to the institute’s basement as soon as he grabbed me. But Heesoo hyung, who I thought was about to take my hand, gently pulled me. I leaned toward him in spite of myself.

Heesoo hyung brought his head close to me and smelled my scent.

My face instantly flushed. The stench of the sewer must be reeking, so why was he smelling me? Embarrassed, I hastily blurted out.

“It smells awful, doesn’t it? It’s because I was wandering through the sewer. I tried to wash in the river, but the river water was dirty too… Sorry.”

“I don’t smell a stench…”

Muttering as if puzzled, Heesoo hyung took a deeper breath. I wondered why he was sniffing so intently at a scent that couldn’t be pleasant, so I tried to twist my shoulder to pull my hand free.

But Heesoo hyung didn’t let go of my hand and practically buried his nose in the side of my neck. The tip of his cold nose brushed against my ear, and he muttered as if to himself.

“You met someone.”

“Huh? Uh, why?”

The fact that I had met my one-night stand got caught in my throat, and I stuttered. Heesoo hyung suddenly lowered his head, then looked at my face, which was red with embarrassment and bewilderment, and said.

“You have an unfamiliar scent on you.”

I was startled and swallowed dryly.

The one-night stand did touch my ear for a moment. But it was just for a second. Did his scent transfer that quickly? Even after I was covered in the sewer stench?

The perfume of that one-night stand guy must have been stronger than I thought. Or Heesoo hyung’s intuition had developed to the level of clairvoyance.

I didn’t know which it was, but in any case, I couldn’t tell Heesoo hyung that I had coincidentally run into a guy I had a one-night stand with years ago and received his help. I mumbled a lie.

“It’s probably someone I met in the Oleander Alleys. Park Gyu, he’s an informant. He’s my old employer, so we have a bit of a connection… He’s the one who told me Shinrion is here.”

“You wandered through the sewer to find that out?”

“Ah, well…”

I didn’t tell him that Park Gyu had tried to catch me, so I had to escape through the sewer. I had escaped safely, so that was that, and I didn’t want to worry Heesoo hyung, who had a tendency to be overprotective.

But at this point, I had no choice but to speak. I thought it would be better if I could hide the one-night stand with that story, so I spoke honestly.

“Since Park Gyu is an informant, he seemed to have noticed that I was hiding something.”

“He realized that you have the resurrection skill, Mr. Yitae?”

“I don’t know about that. It seems he just saw Yaksha clinging to me and thought there was something. It would have been a huge problem if he knew I had Resurrection, but it wasn’t to that extent.”

Heesoo hyung, as always, blamed himself rather than me for going to the Oleander Alleys alone.

“I really shouldn’t have sent you alone, Mr. Yitae. We should have moved together, even if it caused some delay.”

“I’m safe, so it’s fine. We don’t have time to waste. Yaksha might be in there by now. In that case, Min Gongchan and Yoon Younghyun alone won’t be enough. We have to go.”

Heesoo hyung didn’t tell me I should stay back in a safe place, now that we were here. If Yaksha was there, I absolutely had to be by his side.

I immediately grabbed him and teleported.

👑

Boom!

Yoon Younghyun knocked down the last dragon-tooth warrior and was dumbfounded.

‘What? Why was that so easy?’

He knew his skills had improved drastically thanks to the item Min Gongchan had given him. But his level hadn’t even gone up, yet it was surprisingly easy to fight.

‘Is this what they call the power of items!’

Yoon Younghyun admired the knuckle dusters on his hands, but it was too effective to be attributed solely to the power of items; Min Gongchan’s advice had been valid. He had always thought that swords and blades were better for targeting vital spots since they extended attack range and allowed for stabbing and slashing, but it seemed that wasn’t the case.

The tension of facing the enemy bare-handed had doubled his concentration, and the power of each punch was no less than a cannonball. Dragon-tooth warriors, in particular, had tough bodies that were hard to injure with ordinary weapons, but they couldn’t withstand being hit by fists like cannonballs. Even if they didn’t bleed on the outside, their internal organs were all ruptured, so they couldn’t last long and died.

His level went up after he knocked down ten dragon-tooth warriors by himself. His leveling speed had been excruciatingly slow since level 40, but a large amount of experience had accumulated in a short time.

Since it was a level-up that happened not long after his class change, a large number of combat-related skills were unlocked. Yoon Younghyun looked back at Min Gongchan, feeling proud.

He, too, was in the process of returning to his original form from being a bat after having just finished off the poisonous insects. But his appearance, once he became human again, was a mess.

“Ugh!”

Yoon Younghyun quickly supported the staggering and collapsing Min Gongchan. Holding onto his arm, Min Gongchan let out a ragged breath.

A dark, almost black light dripped like water from his eyes, and his complexion was bluish; anyone could see he was in very bad shape. Unsightly veins, like spreading tree branches, popped out all over his body, and even his hair was turning a whitish, faded color.

“Hey, hey! Are you okay?”

Min Gongchan spoke, hissing.

“Do you think I’d be okay?”

Yoon Younghyun realized that no matter how much he had transformed into a royal vampire, he was originally an ordinary person. If an Awakened had transformed into a royal vampire, they would be invincible. This was because famous vampire guild leaders were at most nobles, but they were so strong it was questionable why they weren’t S-rank.

But in an ordinary person’s body, there were surely limits, even if one became a vampire. Moreover, Min Gongchan had not consumed a single drop of blood since transforming.

Yoon Younghyun noticed that he was suffering from a terrible thirst and hesitated. He was worried about what to do if he were to be bitten, when Min Gongchan spoke in a metallic voice.

“Move.”

Yoon Younghyun let him go without realizing it. Min Gongchan, spreading a frigid aura everywhere, staggered toward Shinrion.

Shinrion was lying with his eyes closed as if dead, with all sorts of tubes attached inside a life support device. As Min Gongchan approached, all the magical devices that prevented bedsores and infections lost their power due to the bloodline he had spread. He didn’t stop there and pulled out all the tubes connected to Shinrion’s windpipe and esophagus.

Just as Yoon Younghyun was flinching, wondering if that was okay, Min Gongchan opened his mouth wide, revealing his long, protruding fangs. Then, he bit down hard on Shinrion’s neck.

“Ugh!”

Yoon Younghyun let out an indistinct groan. As Min Gongchan buried his head in Shinrion’s nape and gulped down blood, all sorts of thoughts raced through his mind.

Could Min Gongchan have deceived him? Was the story about Yaksha being resurrected as Shinrion a lie to get blood? Had he been used by that guy?

In an instant, those thoughts flashed through his mind, and Yoon Younghyun rushed at Min Gongchan to pull him off Shinrion. Then Min Gongchan, still with his teeth sunk into Shinrion, glanced up and swung his hand. An invisible wave shot out from it and struck Yoon Younghyun.

“Gah!”

Yoon Younghyun was sent flying backward and landed among the corpses of the dragon-tooth warriors. Undeterred, he immediately got up, the hair on his entire body standing on end. His skin roughened as a transformation began to take place. Simultaneously, with the sound of clashing metal, the armor he was wearing also began to change.

Yoon Younghyun gritted his teeth and suppressed the transformation.

Min Gongchan had given him the circlet and told him he could transform as much as he wanted, but with the situation like this, he couldn’t trust all of his words. No matter how much it was to restrain Min Gongchan, a full transformation in a place that wasn’t a dungeon was not an option.

If the Special Operations Unit were to be dispatched and see him in his man-eating beast form, they would kill him on the spot. With the thought that he couldn’t die like that, Yoon Younghyun rushed at Min Gongchan with only his two arms transformed.