Chapter 11: A Sudden Rescue

“Ah… ugh…”

The moment consciousness returned, a searing pain engulfed Jung Hanseol’s entire body, forcing a groan from his lips.

The surroundings were utterly dark, rendering nothing visible, and the faint scent of soil and grass offered no distinct impressions.

Only the agony that dominated his entire being was all Jung Hanseol could perceive.

‘What on earth happened?’

He lacked even the strength to twitch a finger.

Jung Hanseol, who had been lying foolishly staring up at the sky, managed to blink his eyelids a few times.

True to the saying that humans are creatures of adaptation, he slowly adjusted to the pain, racking his brain to grasp the situation.

He recalled encountering a grotesque creature while ascending the mountain path.

The monster, resembling a bullet-riddled grizzly bear, had collapsed, and he had simply tried to climb back to his team.

Then, his body abruptly plunged into the ground, a sensation of being sucked downwards, and he must have lost consciousness almost immediately.

After that, nothing came to mind.

Opening his eyes, this current reality of being left alone was all he knew.

“…”

No menacing breaths or screams reached his ears.

Only the occasional rustle of an eerie wind through the branches made him instinctively flinch.

The sensation of wind proved that he wasn’t buried or completely cut off from the outside world.

He had clearly fallen underground, yet he found himself outdoors now, a mystery he couldn’t unravel. Still, the fact that he was breathing was cause for gratitude.

“Ugh…”

He couldn’t lie there idly forever.

Jung Hanseol instinctively tried to suppress the groans escaping his lips as he struggled to rise.

Laboriously, he propped his upper body against a tree, his eyes, now adjusting to the darkness, slowly scanning the surroundings.

Beyond a few sparsely planted trees, there was nothing particularly remarkable.

Clutching his unusually aching forearm, Jung Hanseol groaned, only then realizing he had been lying with an exposed tree root serving as his pillow.

“…”

An eerie chill quickly enveloped his entire body.

In the ominous calm, as if he were in the eye of a storm, Jung Hanseol suddenly startled and quickly patted himself down.

The gun he had held before falling underground was nowhere to be found, and his coat pocket contained only a jackknife.

His radio and phone were completely shattered beyond recognition, and the grenades Jo Jinwoo had packed for him were missing, having apparently fallen out somewhere.

Though shivering violently from the biting wind that pierced to his bones, he diligently moved his hands, searching his body.

However, the stark reality remained: the only weapon he had to protect himself was a small pocketknife.

A chilling dread coursed down his spine.

‘What now?’

Jung Hanseol bit his lip, gripping the jackknife, his sole means of self-defense.

Both his radio and phone were broken, leaving him unable to contact anyone.

Only then did a belated sense of helplessness wash over him, once again painting his vision black.

He didn’t know how his body, which had plummeted downwards, had resurfaced.

However, one thing was certain: he was still on Inseo Mountain, swarming with grotesque creatures.

How could he possibly move to find his teammates when his body screamed in agony with the slightest movement?

If he were to move rashly and encounter a creature, he might face a truly horrific end.

“…”

Whether due to the steadily dropping temperature or the primal fear born of survival instinct, his body began to tremble for an unclear reason.

He had faced life-threatening situations in the abandoned mine, and it was undeniable that he had been terrified then.

However, he had never been separated and isolated from his team.

The abandoned mine had only one narrow passage, making it impossible to get lost.

But a mountain was different. Hadn’t he just experienced it firsthand?

If he didn’t stay alert, his life could be snuffed out without a trace.

Clutching his phone with its shattered screen, Jung Hanseol held onto a sliver of last hope.

He tapped the screen repeatedly with his index finger, but it remained unresponsive.

Pressing the power button firmly yielded nothing but silence.

His radio had long since crumbled, rendering any attempt to operate it utterly futile.

Before the sigh that involuntarily escaped him could fully dissipate, Jung Hanseol spotted a dark shadow approaching the tree he leaned against.

Even as his body instinctively recoiled and trembled, his eyes tracked the shadow.

A long, thick body coiled lightly around the base of the tree, ascending upwards.

Despite his body screaming in protest, Jung Hanseol demonstrated astonishing reflexes, scrambling away from the tree.

Clutching his pounding heart, he looked back at the tree.

The serpentine creature was indeed winding its body up the trunk.

Perhaps this creature, too, was weakened by the darkness, as its movements were exceedingly sluggish and slow.

‘I have to get out of here quickly. I need to find my teammates.’

Though these thoughts raced through his mind, his body refused to obey, trembling uncontrollably.

Tears he had barely held back began to trickle down, moistening his eyelashes.

Just as Jung Hanseol decided it was better to flee than attempt a hopeless attack and pushed himself up, the creature extended its long body towards him.

“Ugh…”

Jung Hanseol took a step back, but the creature’s movement was slightly faster.

It coiled its tail around the tree for support, then wrapped its middle body around Jung Hanseol’s wrist, constricting it.

The creature glowed faintly white, illuminated by the moonlight filtering through the gaps in the canopy.

Perhaps that moonlight was a form of nourishment for the creature, as the pressure on his wrist steadily intensified.

“Ugh, h-hngh…”

Amidst this terrifying situation, one saving grace was the jackknife clutched in his free hand.

Jung Hanseol bit his lower lip so hard it threatened to bleed, then plunged the sharp tip of the blade into the creature’s body.

A vivid, piercing sensation shot from his fingertips to the top of his head as the skin was penetrated.

It was a deeply unpleasant feeling he never wanted to experience again in his life.

“I… I don’t want to fight you either… So let’s just go our separate ways…”

Jung Hanseol, his voice thick with tears, pleaded with the uncomprehending creature.

He then yanked the jackknife out and plunged it in again, tearing through its slick skin.

He grimaced as if the blade were piercing his own forearm, savagely hacking at the creature.

Hot, viscous blood oozed from the gaping wound, soaking Jung Hanseol’s collar.

The creature, its maw wide open, seemed unable to vocalize, expressing its agony solely through the intensifying pressure on Jung Hanseol’s wrist.

“Ah… ugh… stop…”

The excruciating pain spread, so intense it wouldn’t have been surprising if his bones were crushed.

Simultaneously, his strength was rapidly draining, leaving him on the verge of collapsing.

He recalled Team Leader Joo’s words about the creatures drawing power from light.

Jung Hanseol desperately tried to summon what little strength he had to move towards a darker spot.

However, the creature, firmly braced by its tail wrapped around the tree, held steadfast.

It was a force Jung Hanseol, already injured and struggling to control his own body, simply couldn’t overcome.

Hiss, hiss.

The eerie, serpent-like breathing was menacing.

Jung Hanseol, barely mustering the strength in his grip, plunged the jackknife deeper and gasped for breath.

His hand, slick with sweat, kept slipping, making him fear he might cut his palm on the blade.

‘If I’d known this would happen, I would have properly learned how to use a knife.’

Even as he swallowed another wave of belated regret, the creature’s head, coiling up his arm like a bandage, drew closer and closer to Jung Hanseol’s eyes.

Its glinting eyes intensified his terror.

‘Am I really going to die like this?’

‘Should I have considered it more seriously when Team Leader said it could be dangerous?’

‘If I’d known, I would have just lived a normal life.’

‘I thought if I got a respectable job quickly, I’d meet a good person sooner and get married faster. How did I end up caught in something this huge?’

As Jung Hanseol swallowed a sob, along with these futile regrets, a voice cut through the air.

“Duck your head.”

A low, heavy voice reached his ears.

Though not entirely familiar, Jung Hanseol instinctively squeezed his eyes shut and ducked his head as low as possible.

The mere sound of a human voice, rather than the creature’s terrifying cries, was enough to bring him a sense of relief.

Moments later, a vivid, menacing gunshot echoed in his ears.

Bang!

A bullet, whistling through the air, accurately pierced the creature’s head.

Hot blood and cold shards of ice splattered indiscriminately across Jung Hanseol’s face.

At the same instant, the crushing pressure on his arm vanished, and the now lifeless body, no longer twitching, fell unceremoniously to the dirt.

Overwhelmed by relief, Jung Hanseol’s legs gave out, and he collapsed.

But only for a moment, as his body suddenly lifted into the air.

“Snap out of it. Unless you want to die without even a whimper.”

“H-huh… Yes…”

Neither his arms nor his legs touched the ground.

Jung Hanseol’s lean body floated about a meter above the earth, suspended in the same slumped posture.

Startled by the voice, he hastily replied, then whipped his head towards the sound of footsteps on the dry dirt.

There stood Ryu Yishin, his ashen hair appearing even whiter and more ethereal in the moonlight, exuding a menacing aura.

“Agh!”

With a mere flick of his head, Ryu Yishin casually tossed Jung Hanseol to the ground.

He then picked up the sprawling creature and examined it.

Jung Hanseol, thrown haphazardly without any preparation, let out a rough, short scream, experiencing excruciating pain as if every bone in his body was cracking.

His entire body reverberated from the impact, leaving him only able to groan, yet his mind was involuntarily consumed by disbelief over what had just transpired.

‘What was that just now?’

‘How did I float in the air?’

He tried to calmly retrace the surreal events of moments ago, but Jung Hanseol’s thoughts failed to cohere.