The First Hunter

Chapter 43. Dragon Slayer, Part I

Translator: Khan

Editor: RED

1.

“Hoo, hoo!” Kim Tae-hoon’s world, which was seen between rough breaths, was shaking red. The redness was due to the blood flowing from the burst veins in his eyes, and the shaking was due to the power of the low Energy which could no longer endure the presence of the monster in front of him.

Krrrrrrrrrrr…

And the monster was the dragon.

‘Just looking at it, I feel I have a long ways to go.’

The dragon.

The body of the monster, which did not tolerate any enemies, was covered with wounds that did not suit its dignity. Among them, the biggest wound was its right eye. The blood was dripping out through its closed right pupil. It was a wound created by Kim Tae-hoon’s Sword of the Imperator.

At that moment, the dragon opened its right eye. The eye which reappeared was scarred, and the pupil of dark blue had cracks like spiderwebs. The lines were gradually fading, just like rainwater wet dry rice fields after an endless drought.

‘It’s really a long way to go.’

In the end, the dragon’s dark blue eye was restored to its original form, the wounds were gone, and the center of its normal dark blue eyes began to split vertically. It looked at Kim Tae-hoon with eyes that had returned to normal.

In front of its eyes, Kim once again recalled the battle. ‘Surprising defense and amazing resilience.’

The dragon was very special. The skin of the dragon was strong enough to be barely hurt by the Sword of the Imperator, which had the full power of the Energy of Kim Tae-hoon behind it, but even so, the wounds that were inflicted were recovered surprisingly quickly.

“The defense of its scales is natural, and ts amazing resilience is the result of the formidable level of Mana of the dragon’s heart.”

It was a long way off. ‘What amazing resilience the dragon has! It is hard for me to hurt!’ Even worse, it was just the beginning.

Keuooo! The dragon fear it was crying out was already a formidable weapon in itself.

Fear… no matter how high his Energy level was, he would be hurt, and if he was exposed to the fear when he ran out of Energy, no more battle was possible. It was really a long way to go.

It was not easy to hold on against the fear with a low Energy rank, and even if the Energy rank was high, the amount of Energy consumed to withstand the dragon fear each time was terrible. The worst thing was that it was a dragon.

It had wings. ‘This sight is so embarrassing.’ It had unbelievably huge wings which lifted the colossal body and made even ridiculously acrobatic flight possible.

Cuu! Cuu! Cuu! Every time it flicked its wings, it created a small whirlwind around it. It created a gale that was not easy to hold on against, and it began to fly with the wind. This alone was already despairing. The ways a wingless man could hurt a monster who had just started to fly were extremely limited and weak. But as always, the worst was more terrible than he had imagined.

Krrrr!

It did not allow the wounds, it did not tolerate the scars, it demanded a terrible price just for revealing his hostility to it, and now the neck of the dragon, who did not tolerate any adversary in the sky, began to heat up. Eventually, the dragon opened its tightly closed mouth.

‘It is really impossible to defend the Dragon Breath. If it grazes me, it would be over.’

Dragon Breath!

The worst peak and the ending, the Dragon Breath flew toward Kim Tae-hoon, who was standing on the ground and who had lost his power at that moment.

An attack that no creature could withstand, a spear that could penetrate any shield, had come. Kim closed his eyes to the fact.

‘End.’ His recollection ended right there.

—

Kim opened his eyes. He saw the dragon sleeping with its huge body sprawled across the top of Mt. Halla, where he could see Baekrokdam Crater Lake.

2.

The first death Kim Tae-hoon dreamed of was a battle with the dragon. He fought hard, but he was defeated in the battle. It was not a defeat to be desired much. The gap between that Kim Tae-hoon and the dragon was so big that he could not feel sorry for the loss.

It had become a valuable defeat, and through the defeat, Kim Tae-hoon knew what he needed to kill the dragon and how to kill it.

So he set three of the most important details.

‘One, if I fight from a distance, I die.’

The most important thing was not to keep away from the dragon.

The moment the distance was far, especially when the dragon started its fly, he could no longer chase it. The dragon’s movement in the sky was astonishing, and the dragon, once it began to move, was a weapon in itself.

‘A massive body three hundred meters long. It is not the physical power of its body, even if it is calculated by tons, but a body weighing that much flying at hundreds of kilometers per hour.’

‘I can be killed if the dragon just passes by. So, to hunt the dragon, whatever it does, I have to stick to its body. And I have a very good ability to make that possible.’

‘I will use the Golden Web.’

The Golden Web, the power of the Golden Horn Spider!

The Golden Web, which was made up of Energy, was strong, very adhesive, and ultimately its bond with Kim Tae-hoon was crucial. The Golden Web was actually like his skin. It conveyed the feeling of something being touched to him, even far away.

Thud! Kim landed on the body of the dragon, and immediately began to apply the Golden Web created on his palms to the body of the dragon.

Flash! It was at that moment that the dragon’s eyelids rose. The dark blue eyes showed up, split again vertically, and the darker blue light inside appeared.

Keuooo! At the same time, it began to straighten itself out, roaring out the dragon fear.

The intense fear attacked Kim’s body.

“Hoo!” At that moment, Kim’s eyes were shaking. But the tremor calmed down quickly.

‘Two, the power to withstand the fear.’

The power of various relics, including the Energy of A rank, made it possible.

‘I can hold on.’

Kim was satisfied with the fact.

The dragon noticed that. It grasped the existence of Kim, who was not afraid of the fear it had given voice to.

Keuooo! It let out the Dragon Fear again. But the fear was no longer a threat, it was the proclamation of war. Kim Tae-hoon was not just an annoying fly, but a threat to itself, and now it was announcing that it would start a war to crush the threat.

Kuu, Kuu! With that, the dragon began to flap its wings to drop Kim Tae-hoon and kill him surely as he fell. That was the way the dragon did things. The winged dragon never fought on the ground. There was no reason to fight like that. The moment it started to fly, everything was in the Dragon’s favor.

He would die to the dragon’s breath if he remained on the ground because he was afraid. Clinging to the body of the dragon who started to fly up in the sky, meant death from a fall the moment he was thrown off.

Of course, Kim Tae-hoon had no intention of falling down. Furthermore, he hoped that it would fly higher and higher. He hoped it would fly closer to the sun.

As if answering his wish, the dragon began to fly high into the sky. The sunlight in the clear sky of Jeju Island began to shine brightly on the dragon’s black-red scales and his white hair clinging to it.

‘Three, a weapon sure to hurt him.’

Kim began to shine the golden sword in his hand. His second dragon hunt began.

3.

“We have succeeded in securing the legendary relic Gandhibagh, and luckily we figured out Vasavi Shakti. We believe it’s in the Elora Caves. We’ll move right there and secure Vasavi Shakti.”

Mao smiled lightly as he listened to the constant mutter of an Okjo. Then, as the story of the Okjo stopped, Mao immediately wrote something in his pocket notebook.

Tap tap! Another Okjo appeared at his desk and immediately spoke.

“We found the Qin Shi Huang Sword.”

The words from the Okjo’s mouth were short, and Mao immediately wrote something down in his pocket notebook and recorded what he had gained in a new code letter he only could recognize.

‘It’s going smoothly.’ There was a smile on his lips. But the smile began to contort at some point. ‘I’m sorry I missed the Kusanagi.’

It was because of the name of a man who came to his mind. His smile was so distorted that it didn’t come back easily.

Mao clicked his tongue briefly, his face crumpled. ‘If it was anyone else, but the Kusanagi is in the hands of such a man.’

Mao knew how to survive in the age when monsters appeared. Furthermore, he knew how to rebuild the order of the world that had collapsed with the appearance of monsters.

‘That’s why I missed the crystal of the Eight-tailed Fox. The damage is already severe.’

The key was to get as many monster stones as possible. In short, the world had a limited number of monsters, and the man who secured as many monster stones as possible would be a king. The world was not like a game.

‘In the case of the Kusanagi, I can retrieve it anytime, but I can’t replace the monster stone…’

The problem was that no matter how many monster stones were eaten, it was impossible to raise the ability above a certain level of monsters. It was necessary to have a powerful relic to hunt monsters of the dark blue grade, which was hard to even label as a mere monster.

In other words, monopolizing the powerful relics was like monopolizing the opportunity, ability, and conditions to hunt dark blue-grade monsters.

Mao gave the answer when the monsters appeared and exactly a week had passed. He, who found the right answer sooner than anyone else, immediately put his answers into action. He contacted survivors from all over the world through Okjo, and the community that was created was named the Six Snakes. The activities of the Six Snakes that were born like that were going smoothly.

‘The plan is still being distorted because of Kim Tae-hoon.’

It was successful until Kim made the Mac Guild and actively moved.

‘He is a monster.’ Kim Tae-hoon’s performance was tremendous. No, beyond the tremendous level, he denied the new providence that had arisen since the monsters appeared.

Of those who had survived the appearance of the monsters, those who gained strength and power were lucky. Luckily, those who had acquired powerful relics and legendary relics in the world had become men of power.

Musashi was typical of them, and that was no strange thing. Human beings were originally animals with tools, and surviving in a world full of overwhelming beasts was easier for humans with better tools.

But Kim Tae-hoon was not. He survived, eating strong monsters even when he was thrown into the wild with his bare body.

‘No, he’s already a monster.’ In the end, Kim became a monster.

That was why Mao wanted to wake up the dragon. In order to remove the monster Kim Tae-hoon, he had to borrow the power of a more dangerous monster: the dragon!

‘So, we gave up the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese islands because of him.’

In addition, it was a pretty big loss for the Six Snakes.

‘As soon as the dragon wakes up, the Korean Peninsula and Japan will actually become the territory of the dragon, and there is no guarantee that the anger of the awakened dragon will be satisfied with the Korean Peninsula and the archipelago alone.’

‘But this is the end.’

In other words, there was no more definite method than this one.

‘He can either abandon them all and run away, or he can fight for everyone and die.’

The only choice Kim Tae-hoon and Korea could choose against the awakened dragon was desperate. The fact let him smile again.

‘We have a problem, but it’ll be settled.’ It was a new Okjo that interrupted his smile. Unlike other Okjo, Mao’s expression wrinkled as soon as the Okjo made of red jade appeared. ‘

‘The red Okjo!’

As soon as the red Okjo stood on Mao’s desk, it said in a trembling voice, “Some, some, someone is fighting with the dragon!”

In front of that voice, Mao rose immediately.

‘No way!’ His racing footsteps brought him over in front of the globe, the Globe of Martin Behaim!

‘No way!’ He stood in front of the globe and immediately brought his eyes close to the globe with a magnifying glass. He could see that two small lights were glittering at the end of the Korean Peninsula, so small they could not be seen without a magnifying glass!