Episode 169 [ Age of Mana (1) ]
“Phew. “Have you planted everything?”
Kyung-hoon threw the last mana bomb into the ground and looked back.
Twenty mana bombs, including the last planted mana bomb, were buried at 2m intervals.
Total 40m. It was a street where a mana bomb had been planted.
Gyeonghoon took out the Samjeonggeom from his backpack. He clicked his tongue while pointing his sword diagonally at the ground.
“This is my first time launching a mana storm in an empty land.”
-Mana bombs cannot be detonated with a detonator. Mana Bomb alone is weak in power.
“I know.’’
The Samjeonggeom was pointing at a long line of mana bombs.
Mana Bomb. It was a bomb that would not explode unless mana was charged.
But for that reason, Mana Storm was perfect to use as a catalyst.
Kyunghoon turned his head and looked at the distant horizon.
Clouds were slowly rising above the quiet horizon.
Clouds made of sand.
A swarm of monsters was running.
“It looks like we were really successful in enticing him.”
-Bailey was very helpful.
“ok? Bailey?”
Kukuku Palace.
I felt a vibration shaking the ground.
Clouds of dust rose above the horizon and hordes of monsters began to run.
In front of the group of monsters resembling buffalo, a monster resembling a lion and a car were running. It was the car driven by the transformed Bailey and Shane.
However, the location of the car and Bailey was a bit strange.
The car drove ahead and Bailey chased after it. And a swarm of monsters were chasing after them.
It looked like they were playing some kind of game of tag.
“How did you make me follow you?”
Kyung-hoon tilted his head as he looked at the approaching swarm of monsters.
After avoiding the flock of monsters, Shane put Kyung-Hoon down and chased the monsters again with Bailey.
Shane’s strategy was simple. Gyeong-hoon said that he would lure the monsters in, so he should set a trap and wait.
It’s an easy trap to make, but the idea of luring a horde of monsters back here was difficult to understand.
Shane himself answered Kyunghoon’s questions. Shane’s voice came through the earphones.
-Chichik…. Buffaloes are transformed monsters, so their tendencies are similar. Buffaloes move in groups following the leader female. All you have to do is attract the leader female. Even with Shane’s words, all my questions were not answered. Kyung-hoon asked again.
“Then how did the female leader attract…”
But the question stopped when I heard a sound coming through the earphones.
– Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
The sound of a calf bleating was heard through the earphones. It was an extremely loud sound.
Again . I heard Shane’s voice.
It was the sound of a buffalo calf. I had the recording data, so I tried it, and it
worked. There was no need to ask where I got the data. Shane had all the Western movies he had seen in his head.
‘ So you’re saying you’re running while making calf noises with your mouth?’
It may have been coming from a speaker rather than from his mouth, but it didn’t seem that different to Kyung-hoon.
“Then the current arrangement is…”
– Ummmm, I’m the running calf and Bailey is the monster chasing the buffalo calf.
Kyunghoon shook his head.
At first glance, it was a poor plan. But if it worked this well, there was nothing left to say.
-It certainly seems like there are different experts. The probability of success was very low, but it seems like he had some confidence.
Kyung-hoon differed from Eve’s thoughts. There was no way I could be sure.
Monsters with glowing green horns were running at the head of the group, perhaps to catch Bailey.
Unfortunately, the leader of the monster horde was not visible. And now was not the time to catch the boss.
While we were talking, a group of monsters came right in front of us.
Hehehehe.
The vibrations got louder and the sound of footsteps filled the room. It was difficult to stand.
“I thought the people in the City had turned it into a wasteland, but that wasn’t the case.”
It was clear that those buffalo monsters were destroying Los Angeles. It passed by not once, but dozens and hundreds of times, destroying the building and leveling the ruins.
It was clear that if it was that monster, it would have destroyed anything that stood in its way.
“People gathered in places where monsters didn’t pass and built a wall to prevent monsters from passing, and that’s how the city ended up like that?”
It was a correct prediction, but Kyung-hoon just shrugged his shoulders. It was an unimportant issue at the moment.
Mmmmmmm! Mmmmmmm!
A cry was heard through the monsters’ footsteps. The jeep was right in front of us.
Gyeonghoon pushed Mana into his sword with a nervous face.
I planned to blow it up as soon as the car and Bailey passed by.
But Shane had different ideas.
-Blast it now! You can stop when you see that we got through safely!
-If you do that, Shane and Bayley are in danger!
Eve shouted in surprise, but Kyung-hoon followed Shane’s words.
“Assist!”
At Kyung-Hoon’s words, Eve poured mana into her sword.
She shouted in surprise, but Kyung-hoon’s orders took priority for Eve.
Kwaaaaaaaa!
Mana poured out from the sword.
Hundreds of blades made of mana cut through the ground.
And the mana blades clawed and destroyed the mana bombs buried in the ground.
The bombs caught in the mana exploded on the spot.
bang! bang! Quang! Quang!
Twenty bombs exploded almost simultaneously.
The overturned ground exploded once again. Thousands of tons of dirt rose into the sky.
A wall made of earth rose up in front of the monsters.
The walls settled down immediately, but the dust got worse.
The site where the bomb exploded created a long, deep hole as long as 40 meters, but it was completely invisible due to the dust.
All of Shane’s jeeps didn’t stop.
The car accelerated even more. It almost looked like he was thinking of jumping over a hole. But it wasn’t possible.
The car plunged into the dust.
And Bailey jumped into the dust, following the car.
Buuuuuu!
The buffalo monsters didn’t stop either.
The monsters screamed and ran toward the dust. And jumped into the dust.
puck! thud! Puff puff puff!
From the dust, the sound of monsters falling into a trap could be heard.
I heard the monsters ahead hit the ground, but the swarm of monsters didn’t stop. The monsters rushed into the dust without stopping.
“That’s amazing.”
Kyung-hoon clicked his tongue as he looked at that.
-That’s really great.
Eve also made the same exclamation, but it was addressed to a completely different person.
Huge wings fluttered through the dust cloud
.
It was Bailey.
A lion with wings was flying in the sky, holding a car.
-I guess this was the plan from the beginning. There was no word, so how did you know?
To be honest, I didn’t know that. I just trusted Shane.
However, Kyung-hoon frowned when he saw the car flying towards him.
“It was a new car that had just been pulled out…”
The car was full of flames and dust. Moreover, the lion’s claws had pierced the roof of the car. The frame was supporting the weight of the car, so there was no way it would have been fine even if it was an off-road car. “To Shane
. “I feel like if I go, everything will be broken…”
This time, Eve couldn’t refute it either.
The car stopped where Kyunghoon was, and Kyunghoon made a silver door before the dust settled.
Kyunghoon, Shane, and the car disappeared into the hole.
When the hole disappeared, only Bailey remained.
Unfortunately, Kyung-hoon’s dimension gate and space gate did not allow Bailey to pass through.
bruise.
But Bailey didn’t seem too worried.
Bailey, who returned to being a puppy, flapped his little wings and headed toward LA City.
This was where the friend and human who had just left were headed.
*
Time has passed.
The herd of monsters that had stopped in the wilderness began to move again.
The number of monsters was smaller than before. Although there wasn’t a big mark, the reduced number made it look like the momentum of the monster horde had subsided.
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.
A swarm of monsters disappeared over the horizon, raising a cloud of dust.
With the monsters gone, only the 40-meter-long crack that Gyeong-hoon created remained in the desolate field.
Sigh.
After the monsters disappeared, an old jeep stopped next to the crack. The Jeep, which was almost a wreck, was a shiny new car just a few hours ago.
Kyunghoon and Shane got out of the car.
Bailey was also in the car, but he was tired and was sleeping in the back seat.
Kyunghoon and Shane looked down at the crack.
Kyunghoon frowned. It wasn’t a very nice scene.
Inside the trap, the corpses of monsters that had been crushed by other monsters were piled up.
It was an incomprehensible sight. They weren’t monsters who would die if they fell into this trap.
Although we used Mana Storm and Mana Bomb to dig deep enough, there was no way monsters with strong bodies and shields could have been crushed to death like that.
Kyunghoon sighed.
“The characteristics of these monsters also apply to their species, as expected.”
“There is no way that characteristics can determine race.”
The reason the monsters that fell into the trap died was because of the characteristics of the green-horned monsters that jumped into the trap at the forefront.
The characteristic of those monsters was to destroy defense shields.
Monsters that jumped into the trap destroyed each other’s shields, and monsters without shields were unable to block their compatriots’ falls and body attacks.
Of course, more than half of the monsters did not fall into the trap, and many of the monsters that fell into the trap escaped, but the monsters at the bottom could not survive.
And most of the monsters at the bottom were the ones with green horns that were at the forefront.
“Now then, shall we look for the mana stone?”
While Kyung-hoon and Shane were mining mana stones from under the trap, Bailey was having a pleasant dream in the old car.
It was a dream where I was playing with my owner.
***
Congo. Wallikale Village.
Even after the country of Congo collapsed after the cataclysm, the village continued to hold on.
It was all thanks to EV’s help. But that support also had its limits.
The boy Rava stood by the river and looked around the village for the last time.
The village was empty. There was no sound of people, no soldiers or awakened people.
Everyone had left town on a plane.
“I guess you’re sad to leave the village.”
Lava shook his head at the words he heard next to him.
“no. Anyway, this is the village that Kay saved. “If it weren’t for Kei, our village would have disappeared like other villages a long time ago.”
Marcelo shook his head at the boy’s words.
Although he believed in and liked Gyeong-hoon, the trust of the boy and the people of this village was difficult to follow.
But it wasn’t that I didn’t understand.
Congo and many other countries in Africa were collapsing.
Everyone was forcing themselves to look away, but Africa might no longer be a human continent.
It was entirely thanks to Gyeong-hoon’s will that this village survived until now.
And Kyung-hoon prepared a place for them to stay.
“Let’s go now, life on the island won’t be so bad.”
“Yes.”
Marcelo and the boy headed to the seaplane parked at the dock.
His family was on the seaplane that was the last to leave.
His father, the village chief, protected the village until the end.
“Oh, that’s right. Let’s take a temperature reading before getting on for a while. .”
Before entering the plane, Marcelo held the thermometer to Lava’s forehead.
Beep.
36.5 degrees. Body temperature was normal.
“Why are you measuring this?”
Marcelo shrugged his shoulders at Lava’s words.
“They say it’s because of some virus. I don’t know exactly. We’re all checking it every day, too.”
Since he’s an awakened person, he doesn’t catch colds or anything, but EV checked his body temperature every day. Although he
didn’t quite understand it, Marcelo thought it was for his health.
After a while, the plane broke through the water and took off.
It was the moment when the last village left in the Congo jungle was abandoned.
The village was quiet. There was
a rustle.
A small mouse jumped out of the warehouse. The mouse had become fearful because there were no people around.
Squeak.
The mouse was thrown away and ran all the way out of the village.
But the jungle When it saw this, the mouse stopped walking.
It instinctively knew that it was not a place where it dared to go.
Squeak.
The mouse turned around again. The empty village was the best.
But the mouse could not move.
Chichik.
In front of the mouse, there was a small thing the size of a fingernail. A hole appeared. It was an empty black hole.
The mouse looked at the hole and tilted its head.
At that moment.
Pwaaah.
Something like squishy jelly jumped out from inside the hole.
The jelly covered the mouse’s body.
Squeak! Squeak. ! Jeez!
The mouse screamed, but it began to gradually melt inside the jelly. The
black hole disappeared.
All the mice in the jelly were melted and no longer visible.
The jelly hanging on the floor began to wriggle. .Jelly
gathered.
The transparent body became opaque.
Hair grew on the smooth skin.
After a while ,
a rat raised its head.
It
looked exactly like the rat that had just melted.
The rat looked at the jungle. Mana was flowing.
Grinning.
The corners of the rat’s mouth rose.
The rat ran towards the jungle.
