Exploration (1)
The United States’ Hellfire Team hurriedly searched the surroundings after suddenly hearing gunfire nearby.
Now that they had undergone the M-Type procedure and become mana users, they naturally did not use firearms. Instead, they mostly fought with bare-handed combat or weapons like daggers and hand axes.
Since the most basic M-Type procedure was the ‘Enhancement-type M-Type,’ every mana user in the Hellfire Team possessed almost the same artificial awakened ability.
An artificial awakened ability with strengthening power similar to a C-rank ‘Physical Enhancement’ ability, ‘M-Type [A].’
That was the name of the artificially awakened ability they possessed.
In any case, they searched around their camp for traces of the mysterious gunfire, but nowhere did they obtain any satisfying results.
Because they were all former special forces soldiers, they were even more familiar than most with the sound produced when firearms were used, which made this situation all the more baffling.
In reality, all the traces they were looking for had already been stuffed into Seon Yul’s Absolute Space.
Taking advantage of the characteristics of using Absolute Space as a subspace, Seon Yul had absorbed everything into the monster butchering room without leaving even a single drop of blood behind, which was why the Hellfire Team found nothing at all.
In the end, the Hellfire Team returned to their normal routine without even realizing that they had survived thanks to Seon Yul.
Meanwhile, after dismantling the orc corpses, Seon Yul obtained not only magic crystals and Soul Stones but also one Return Stone.
As expected, the one that looked like an elite orc indeed had one Return Stone.
Now Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu had secured two Return Stones, meaning they could return to Earth-104 at any time.
On top of that, since they would be returning through a different back door rather than using the Main Gate, they could go back whenever they wanted.
However, Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu had no intention of returning immediately.
There was still far too much they didn’t know about Earth-001, so they planned to explore this place further.
“Should we at least warn them?”
Cheon Li Yu spoke with a somewhat pitiful expression as she watched the American Hellfire Team they had saved still staying in the same place, seemingly oblivious to the danger.
“Even if we warn them, it won’t change much. This time we helped because they happened to be in sight, but in the end, everyone who crossed over to this world has no choice but to survive on their own.”
Seon Yul shook his head as he answered.
“I think we can roughly tell what the situation of other mana users is like. From what I know, most teams have similar supplies and manpower… so somewhere in this vast forest they’re probably fighting to survive.”
The mana users sent from Korea likely wouldn’t be much different from the Hellfire Team.
Because of that, Seon Yul decided there was no longer any need to observe the Hellfire Team.
“Let’s move again.”
Leaving the Hellfire Team to survive in their own way, Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu began moving once more.
Seon Yul believed that more and more people like the Hellfire Team would continue to appear in the future, and that most of them would end up dying in this world. Some would survive and return to Earth-104, and the information brought back by those returnees would increase the survival rate of the next group of mana users dispatched here… he expected this cycle to repeat continuously.
Earth-104 had no choice but to adapt to Earth-001 in this way.
There were no others like him and Cheon Li Yu who could essentially conquer Earth-001 through something resembling crack play, so the method above was the orthodox approach.
The Hellfire Team would probably become good fertilizer here in one way or another, helping the second and third expedition teams that came later, but at the very least, it looked extremely unlikely that they would survive here and return to Earth-104 alive.
Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu crossed the Forest of Darkness on foot.
Because they possessed Absolute Space, which could be considered an absolutely safe zone, they were able to traverse the Forest of Darkness without any danger at all.
If this were a game, then while everyone else was playing a hardcore game where there wasn’t even a save zone and safe logout was impossible, forcing them to walk on thin ice where dying once meant the end, Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu were basically enjoying the game in a comfortable situation where saving and logging out were both possible.
To compare the size of the Forest of Darkness with Earth-104, it was roughly similar to the size of India.
In other words, it was unbelievably vast, and Seon Yul was currently crossing this enormous forest slowly.
During the journey, they encountered many kinds of monsters and eliminated all of them with ease.
Orcs, goblins, kobolds, even ogres… nothing particularly special, but a variety of monsters existed throughout the Forest of Darkness.
During that process, they also discovered a few other groups of mana users.
However, Seon Yul merely glanced at them briefly before ignoring them and moving on.
Right now, the most important thing for Seon Yul was escaping this gigantic forest whose end was nowhere in sight.
***
Shrrrk.
Two strands of Arachne thread shot out from the entrance of Absolute Space opened in midair and wrapped around both necks of a two-headed ogre at the same time.
KROOOOOAR!
Naturally, the Twin-Head Ogre resisted fiercely.
The strength of the Twin-Head Ogre was extremely powerful, so it wasn’t dragged away by the wires. In fact, its skin and muscles were incredibly tough and thick, so the wires wrapped around its neck couldn’t strangle it either.
All they could do was hold the Twin-Head Ogre in place.
But that had been Seon Yul’s exact objective from the start.
To stop the rampaging Twin-Head Ogre.
That was the reason Seon Yul had fired the Arachne threads.
“Li Yu! Now!”
Seon Yul shouted while inside Absolute Space, gripping the Arachne threads wrapped around both of his hands and barely holding on, and at that moment, Cheon Li Yu… who had been waiting, pulled the trigger of the GAU-8.
Buuuuuuuuuu, papapapapapapapapapapap!
The GAU-8’s 30×173 mm armor-piercing rounds all slammed into the body of the Twin-Head Ogre.
Of course, living up to its status as an elite monster, the Twin-Head Ogre endured the torrential rain of 30×173 mm armor-piercing rounds with its entire body while trying to tear off the Arachne threads wrapped around its neck.
Creeeak.
The Twin-Head Ogre attempted to rip apart the Arachne threads purely through brute strength.
At that moment, Seon Yul wrapped the Arachne threads he was holding around a pillar he had created earlier when modifying the structure nearby to hold the tension temporarily, then immediately grabbed the spear placed beside him.
‘The elite monsters in this world really do have incredible defense.’
Even at this very moment, the Twin-Head Ogre was barely enduring the concentrated fire of the GAU-8.
If they continued the barrage, it seemed possible to kill it using the GAU-8 alone, but Seon Yul chose a more certain method.
“Huuuup!”
Creeeak, twang!
Seon Yul exploded with strength throughout his entire body and hurled the Spear of Death with all his might.
Shweee, thud!
The Spear of Death shot out from Absolute Space and pierced directly into the abdomen of the Twin-Head Ogre.
Seon Yul felt the thrilling sensation transmitted through the Spear of Death… which was connected by another strand of Arachne thread to maintain the curse effect, and he could tell that the hunt was over.
Thud.
The Twin-Head Ogre collapsed.
Just like that, Seon Yul finished another elite monster hunt.
Shk.
After finishing the hunt, Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu came back out of Absolute Space.
“That makes four now?”
Cheon Li Yu muttered while looking at the fallen corpse of the Twin-Head Ogre.
“Wyvern, orc, troll, and now ogre. Yep, that’s four.”
So far, the two of them had hunted four elite monsters.
The previous three had all dropped Return Stones, so there was a very high chance that the Twin-Head Ogre would drop one as well.
Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu were currently thinking that hunting an elite monster almost guaranteed one Return Stone.
Seon Yul quickly moved the Twin-Head Ogre’s corpse to the butchering room, then took something out from inside Absolute Space.
It was a moderately sized steel door.
It looked like an ordinary door you would find inside a house, except that it consisted of only a door attached to a steel frame.
“You’re installing one here, too?”
“Of course. I’m planning to install them anywhere elite monsters appear, if possible. I made plenty before coming here anyway.”
After finding a suitable spot, Seon Yul laid the door flat on the ground.
This door had been made by Seon Yul back on Earth-104.
Naturally, the reason he had made these doors was for Real Painting [The Door].
For long-distance movement, doors like this were necessary.
If they happened to reach an area without any doors, he planned to install these doors here and there to move around more freely.
For that purpose, Seon Yul had prepared around 100 steel doors before coming here.
He had already installed steel doors at the cliff where they killed the elite wyvern, and in the area where they killed the elite orc.
Because of that, if he wanted to, he could immediately return to the cliff where they had first hunted the wyvern.
“You’re really something for thinking of this kind of thing beforehand.”
Cheon Li Yu genuinely admired how Seon Yul had prepared for something like this in advance.
But for Seon Yul, who always prioritized his own safety and convenience above all else, this level of preparation was simply natural.
The reason Seon Yul laid the steel door down on the ground as if abandoning it was that the Door ability opened outward from the door itself, so it didn’t matter even if the door was lying face-down on the ground.
Rather, if the door were damaged or moved, The Door wouldn’t work, so leaving it flat on the ground and weighing down the frame with large rocks was actually much better.
After installing the steel door, Seon Yul took out a mana-crystal-powered smartphone and took a photo of it.
He did this so he wouldn’t get confused later when he actually wanted to travel.
Of course, smartphones powered by mana crystals couldn’t use functions like making calls, but the camera function was still quite useful.
“Done. Let’s rest a bit and then move again.”
After roughly finishing all the cleanup, Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu went back into Absolute Space.
Since the two of them hadn’t eaten lunch yet, Seon Yul bought two large sirloin steak cuts from the Omnipurpose Tool Shop and began grilling them.
The other mana users who had crossed into Earth-001 had mostly brought dried rations to reduce the volume of food as much as possible.
Because of that, their meals were mostly just about replenishing calories and satisfying hunger rather than enjoying taste.
But Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu always ate plentiful and delicious meals.
Seon Yul could cook a wide variety of dishes at a fairly high level, and he even enjoyed cooking.
Meanwhile, although Cheon Li Yu couldn’t cook, she was extremely good at cleaning and washing dishes afterward, so the two worked together smoothly even here.
“But seriously, just how big is this damn forest?”
Cheon Li Yu said with a slightly fed-up expression while cutting and eating the well-grilled sirloin steak.
“Well… when we looked down from space back then, it was huge. Even compared to our world, it seemed about the size of China or India.”
Seon Yul was estimating the approximate size of the forest based on what he had seen from space, and his estimate was quite accurate.
“Wow… the scale of this world is always amazing. We’re going the right direction, right?”
“When we looked from space, I definitely saw some lights in the northern direction. So we shouldn’t be wrong. But since we don’t know what those lights actually mean, we’ll just have to keep going and find out.”
The reason the two of them had chosen to move north wasn’t just a random guess.
Before attempting to install a reconnaissance satellite, they had gone up into space, carefully observed the surface below, and even taken several photos before deciding on their direction.
“Our next objective is clear. Other races. In other words, we need to meet the other intelligent beings living in this world.”
That was the exact reason Seon Yul was crossing the forest.
“And through them, we need to obtain clearer information about what kind of world this is.”
In the end, Seon Yul believed that knowledge was power, so after finding the intelligent beings of this world, he planned to understand this world more accurately and in greater detail through them.
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