Episode 197 [ New York (3) ]
Manhattan.
Ratmen were gathered at the exit of the Lincoln Tunnel.
They were rat men who had been deployed here under the orders of the monarch some time ago.
These monsters were troops to capture those coming through the tunnel.
Ratmen were watching the inside of the tunnel from the south and north tunnels.
The sun was still high. They were rat men who hated the sun. There was no way the monsters were coming out of the tunnel.
The monsters had gone to places where the sun did not shine and were staring into the dark tunnel.
A little while ago, the sound of a bomb exploding was heard in the southern tunnel, and water was now rising up to the entrance.
The compatriots inside the tunnel had still not returned. If the water had reached this level, it was clear that everyone would have died.
The central tunnel had already been submerged in water, and now the only remaining tunnel was the northern tunnel.
Most of the monsters moved to the northern tunnel some distance away. Only a few monsters remained in the southern tunnel, glaring at the rising water.
Bubbling.
Water droplets began to rise above the rising water.
The monsters grabbed their weapons.
Puhak!
Something rose above the water.
Buuuuung!
A sledgehammer fell down. It was a hammer struck by an elite monster.
Quang!
Water was sprayed everywhere, and flesh and blood were flying.
But the rat man who hit the hammer didn’t like it.
This was because the person who had just made the rice cake was not an intruder but a rat man washed up in the water.
Wow.
The monster frowned and ordered his compatriots to clean it up.
But no rat man followed his instructions.
The monster turned its head.
All of his compatriots gathered behind him had fallen to the ground.
And where his compatriots were standing, there was a robot covered in green seaweed and a small human wearing a wetsuit.
The robot waved its sword, spraying blood, and the girl in the wetsuit raised her spear towards the monster.
The girl rushed towards the Elite Ratman.
Sigh!
*
After a while, Shane and Isabelle left the south tunnel and headed to the north tunnel exit, a block away.
When the two arrived in front of the northern tunnel, Kyung-hoon appeared in a wetsuit inside the tunnel.
Kyunghoon looked at Shane and Isabelle and nodded.
“I see you handled it well.”
“Because it was a surprise attack from behind. Now Isabelle has become good at fighting too.”
Shane answered, hitting the seaweed that was stuck to his body.
“I guess there were no problems there too?”
“Yes, there were more numbers than expected, but it wasn’t difficult.”
While Kyung-hoon was talking, Isabelle checked the northern tunnel.
“Wow…”
She exclaimed in admiration when she saw the inside of the dark tunnel.
Dozens of Ratmen were lying around in the tunnel.
There were more than a few elite-level Ratmen.
Moreover, while she was dealing with so many monsters, she could not hear any sound from outside. No.
She was surprised again by Kyung-hoon’s skills.
-It was thanks to him crossing through the central tunnel. It was a complete surprise.
The southern tunnel was locked, but there was no reason to cross through the southern tunnel. Crossing through the
central tunnel, which had been locked for a long time, was a complete surprise. It was much better to attack by surprise.
-But if you were going to pass through the central tunnel, there was little reason to blow up the southern tunnel.
Kyung-hoon grinned at Eve’s words.
“It was to reduce work.”
He took out a sniper rifle from sub-space, connected the silencer,
and aimed it inside the dark northern tunnel.
Aaaar!
The screams of monsters were heard from inside the tunnel. They were monsters guarding the drain pump worms inside the northern tunnel.
Pow! Boom! Boom!
With the sound of small gunshots, the sounds of the monsters disappeared one by one. And after eight shots were fired, no sound could be heard from inside the tunnel.
“It would be difficult if monsters came out of both tunnels.”
Gyeong-hoon said as he put the sniper rifle back into sub-space.
-Ah, yes….
I had my doubts, but Eve agreed with the owner’s words.
Anyway, the group was able to get out of the tunnel safely.
Isabelle and Gyeong-hoon wore diving suits. I took it off and put it into subspace, and in the meantime, Bailey came down from the sky.
Instead of diving through the tunnel with the group, the puppy flew over the river.
Woof! Woof!
The puppy came down flapping its small wings and rested on Shane’s shoulder. While trying to sit down, he flew towards Isabelle with a scared face.
Bailey, who was in Isabelle’s arms, kept rubbing his nose with his front paw.
-The water that had been trapped in the tunnel for a long time must have a strong smell.
“More than that, Bailey had no problem crossing the river. “It looks like it.”
Kyunghoon turned his head and looked at the skyscraper. The old Manhattan high-rise buildings came into view.
If it weren’t for the gazes from over there, he might have been able to transform and fly over with the car.
-Even if he had Bailey’s help when leaving Manhattan . I think it will work.
“Shouldn’t we move? We never know when more monsters will come.”
Unlike other times, Shane hurried ahead:
“If you go south, there’s a subway station heading to the City.”
At Isabel’s words, the group set off immediately.
Manhattan, with the sun shining, looked very gloomy.
Outside the building, abandoned cars, broken tiles, and plants growing between the broken asphalt gave off a strange atmosphere.
But the group was not fooled.
” Rat monsters rarely come out when the sun is up. They don’t live underground anymore, but they still seem to hate the sun. Even without Isabel’s explanation, Kyung-hoon could feel the mana of the monsters overflowing inside the buildings. “Isn’t it a small number
? ”
“At night, it gets very noisy with rat monsters running around. I could hear it even from my house, which was far away.”
Isabel continued,
“At least there were no monsters roaming around during the day, so I was able to sneak around…”
Isabel became sullen. This was because it was now difficult to be sure whether he had traveled with his own strength alone.
“So does that mean we can still monitor it now?”
Although he was wearing a cloak and moving to a shaded area, it was difficult to be confident that he was completely hidden.
Fortunately, there were no monsters to disturb us until we arrived at the subway entrance.
34th Street Penn Station.
The place Isabelle guided us to was a subway station, one of the most complex in New York and still a complex station in other parts of the world. But now the station in front of me was full of only traces of ruins.
The group followed Isabel down the subway station stairs.
*
As soon as I went down the stairs, the atmosphere changed completely. A damp and gloomy atmosphere filled the subway station.
“Rat monsters don’t come down here.”
The group relaxed a little.
“No bats or anything like that live here?”
Isabel shook her head in response to Kyung-hoon’s question.
“There are no bats. “There are many wandering underground monsters and rats that have not turned into monsters, but…”
Unfortunately, it seemed difficult to obtain guano in this subway.
Although they were digging hard at subway stations around Jamsil, it was not enough to cover the demand for mana bombs.
-Luck does not come with you every time.
Kyung-hoon’s appetite whetted at Eve’s words.
bruise! bruise!
At that time, Bailey looked at the wide underground plaza and barked.
Crumbling.
Monsters were emerging from the darkness.
There are wild dogs with no eyes, cats with three white eyes, and monsters that look so strange that you can’t tell what they originally looked like.
-There are a lot of them. How did you avoid all this?
“When I walked alone, I was very careful and rarely got caught.”
It was her first time seeing monsters like this come out all at once.
“And if I got caught, I used my trait to avoid it.”
It wasn’t difficult to avoid it since I could go through the floor and go downstairs.
But now there was no way to avoid it that way. There is no reason to avoid it.
Kyung-hoon raised his mana.
Wooooow.
A haze rose around Kyunghoon’s body, and Bailey quickly jumped into Isabelle’s arms.
whine.
The approaching monsters slowly retreated. And at some point, the underground square was empty.
All the monsters fled.
Isabelle’s eyes sparkled as she looked at Kyunghoon.
She also got goosebumps at the mana emanating from Kyung-hoon, but even more than that, she seemed impressed.
You let the monsters run away without fighting. It was no different from what she had dreamed of.
“you can do it! Isabelle, you can do it too.”
She muttered softly as she petted Bailey.
-I think I scored points with Isabelle for what happened a little while ago.
Kyung-hoon tilted his head at Eve’s words.
He also heard Isabel muttering, but couldn’t figure out why.
After passing the square where the monsters were, the group went down further.
It was a place where there was a subway platform.
The platform was different from what I expected.
There was an iron bar hanging at the entrance to the stairs, and a trench made of iron plates and sandbags was created behind it.
And the area behind it was full of old facilities. It was like looking at an old military loading dock.
But the loading dock was broken down.
The bars were bent and the trenches were ruined. Boxes were crumbling and equipment was rusty and rolling around.
“Before, this station was also very lively.”
Isabelle looked at the broken Seungjang River with sad eyes.
This station was an important base in New York City, connecting subway stations and building basements.
It was one of the few stations that was not blocked off from the outside world.
When the City was still maintained, hunting teams went out to hunt through this station, and the game they brought was used to supplement the City’s food shortage.
Her family and Los Angeles City survivors were also able to enter the underground city through this station.
“And this station was also where the rat monsters first attacked.”
The floor and walls were covered in blackened blood.
She explained to the group what happened then.
According to her, the Ratman monsters started from this station and took over the underground city one section at a time.
As time passed, news from other stations was cut off one by one.
The adults who were blocking the monsters fell one by one.
There was less food to eat and the adults, terrified, went crazy.
They eventually ate the monsters they were fighting and became monsters.
Polluted adults running wild and the sounds of monsters coming from afar.
Mom and Dad were yelling at her.
And
– come to your senses!
bruise! bruise!
A sudden sound brought her back from the past.
Isabel was standing in the middle of the platform, holding a spear in both hands, glaring at the wall.
[welcome. New York City. Humanity’s last hope!]
On the old wall, the Statue of Liberty gravity and phrases were painted with spray paint.
bruise.
Bailey was at her feet, looking at her with concern.
Uncle Shane and Uncle Kyung-hoon were both looking at her.
“Shall we go back?”
Kyung-hoon, who was watching her, opened his mouth.
Isabel bit her lip. Being around strong adults made me feel relaxed.
I couldn’t stop here. She shook her head strongly.
“are you okay. “I came to my senses.”
Kyunghoon looked at her for a moment and nodded, and Shane patted her on the shoulder.
Bailey ran next to her with a worried look on her face, but Isabelle went down the platform with a stern look on her face.
The railroad ran long from north to south.
Isabelle pointed south.
“Five stops over here is the World Trade Center area. It’s the center of New York City and where my family used to live.”
And it was a place she hadn’t been to since she ran away.
But now it was different.
She glared into the dark tunnel . .
