088 – A New Family Has Been Formed! # 4
“Not at all. I said anyone could come along, but this one is a bit─.”
Dawn.
Lee Jin-A frowned as she loaded cargo into the back of the truck.
“Why are you looking at that Illinois like that…? That Illinois is also interesting in the ‘cracks’…! We’re going together…!”
This was because Illinois had started insisting on going to the crack.
However, I thought maybe it would be fine─.
According to Lee Jin-A, the place we were heading to this time, the “Dragon’s Nest,” wasn’t infested with demons or overrun by harsh vegetation.
There really isn’t such a thing as ‘absolute’ in this world, but if we brought Kkungkkungi, Ahn Ahn, and even Illinois, our combat power would already be more than sufficient.
I could easily take care of just one Illinois.
Of course, Illinois shouted with confidence.
“That Illinois doesn’t need any help…! Every Nymph should have the strength to protect their own body! Those Nymphs that can’t do that are all dead…!”
Indeed, there was a lot of passion.
Reluctantly, we decided to take Illinois with us.
Flap—
Just then, from somewhere, it sounded like a large flap of wings, and a huge owl Kalilnoi landed in the truck’s cargo area.
This meant only one thing.
“Kalilnoi, are you going too?”
Maybe it wanted to try riding in the back of the truck?
The problem was that Kkungkkungi got angry about Kalilnoi hopping on.
━Grrr…
Among my newly formed animal family, there was a sort of compatibility.
For instance, Kkungkkungi and Bang Bang would collide and fight like crazy whenever they met, as if they were testing each other’s strength.
Lately, it had calmed down somewhat, but not long ago they were fighting like crazy, you know?
So it was difficult to take them along together.
These days it had gotten somewhat better, though.
However, Kkungkkungi and the tiger owl Kalilnoi couldn’t get along well enough to be friends. This was because the tiger owl Kalilnoi was a fearsome top predator!
It was positioned higher in the food chain than the top Squirrel Beast, Kkungkkungi!
It could even be called a natural enemy.
“Squirrel Beasts and tiger owls can’t be together…! If Kkungkkungi were to evolve into a more powerful type, then it would be a different story…!”
Until Kkungkkungi evolved, it meant I couldn’t take Kkungkkungi and Kalilnoi together.
What to do?
There was no one else who projected stable firepower like Kkungkkungi.
However, Kalilnoi had already settled firmly in the truck’s cargo area, showing no signs of getting off or flying away to another place.
I had no choice but to let Kkungkkungi down.
“Oinoi, take good care of Kkungkkungi.”
“I got it…! Just trust this Oinoi…! But it’s still too early, so this Oinoi needs to sleep more…!”
4 AM.
It was indeed too early to wake up.
Brrrrrring—
Finally, Lee Jin-A’s truck started moving.
# # #
The crack we were heading to, “Dragon’s Nest,” was located deep in the mountains of Gangwon-do.
A cool stream of water flowed through the area.
I kept climbing towards the jagged mountain area.
“Hey, Lee Jin-A. How much longer do we have to climb? This place doesn’t even seem to be properly marked on the map. Is there really a crack here?”
“Yep. We’re almost there.”
“Mmm, that Illinois is a mountain Nymph…! Climbing in the mountains makes me feel an overwhelming surge of power…! Everyone hurry up and come this way…! Everyone is taking too long…!”
Illinois claimed to be a mountain Nymph born in the mountains.
While Oinoi gained strength in the forest, Illinois gained even more energy from the mountains.
As we busily climbed the mountain, Illinois discovered something.
“Ahh…! Look at this…! There’s something like an abandoned temple here…! It looks really old…! It seems to be full of germs…!”
An abandoned temple?
I was curious about what it could be, and saw a huge rock and a structure nearby that could be called a ‘shrine.’
Inside, there were old, dirty statues or dolls in a seated position, and talismans were stuck on them.
It felt somewhat eerie.
Yu Ara, who seemed to have no breath even while carrying heavy equipment on the high mountain, spoke up.
“It looks like a shrine made by shamans. It seems abandoned. It looks like something we shouldn’t touch carelessly. Doesn’t it feel like a scene from a horror movie, Senior?”
She was shaking and gripping my arm.
Yu Ara had some girlish traits like a high school girl, so it seemed she felt anxious upon seeing such a terrifying sight.
In fact, I felt uneasy too.
Well, it wasn’t because of curses or that it felt like a scene from a horror movie, but because it was an abandoned place, so it seemed dirty and infested with bugs.
“Is what’s here the god of this small land…? It’s ridiculous to serve dolls as gods…! When you say ‘god,’ it should be someone like Zeus who can summon lightning…!”
Clench—
Illinois clenched her fist.
Soon, Illinois began smashing the abandoned dolls and statues in the shrine with her fist.
“By the name of Zeus, I condemn these foreign gods…! It’s punishment…!”
Boom, bang bang bang—
All the statues and dolls that were hit by Illinois’s fists were shattered.
Shaking, Yu Ara said, “It really feels like there’s going to be divine retribution.”
“There’s no god stronger than Zeus…! These dolls’ gods are inferior to Zeus, so that Illinois can’t harm her at all…!”
It was a bizarre story.
When I heard from Illinois, it was said that Zeus was such a powerful god that even all the gods in the world combined couldn’t take him down.
Could that really be true?
I imagined the scene where the dolls’ god fought against the lightning god Zeus, but I struggled to imagine it.
Anyway.
We continued climbing the mountain and finally discovered what could be called an abandoned ‘building.’ The peeling paint had patterns one would only expect to see in a military camp.
Lee Jin-A said.
“It’s a building managed by a nearby engineering unit. It was abandoned when the unit was disbanded. It seems cracks open every dawn. You know the Flower Gang? They discovered it and commissioned me.”
Indeed.
It seemed that gangs were starting to find and privatize cracks.
Whoosh—
I opened the rusty iron door and stepped inside.
And there indeed was a big blue portal swirling open inside the building.
It was exactly the entrance of a C-grade crack.
“Then let’s go in.”
# # #
When naming cracks, they would often be assigned numbers like ‘T-234’ based on their scale.
However, there were times when they were named intuitively, like “Dragon’s Nest.”
The C-grade crack “Dragon’s Nest” was literally like a dragon’s nest.
It was a place inside a structure filled with sculptures of dragons, with a high ceiling and grand pillars, and the floor was littered with treasures like gold and chalices.
“Everyone, look at that…! There are lots of gold coins…! With this, we could play machine snails for ten rounds…!”
As she brightened at the sight of the overflowing coins, Illinois looked elated.
Both Yu Ara and I were equally astonished.
“It’s totally a treasure trove, isn’t it?”
“Can we take it?”
Whoosh—
Yu Ara picked up a gold coin.
But Lee Jin-A shook her head.
“The moment you take it out of the crack, it turns to dirt and disappears. The only things we can take from here are flowers. That’s what we came here for.”
I see.
There were plenty of items in the crack that couldn’t leave the crack. It was so disappointing that we couldn’t take all these treasures in front of us.
It was truly a pie in the sky?
Whoosh—
Soon, platform tiles that looked like a chessboard appeared before us.
“There are lots of traps from here on. Just follow my steps and you won’t get hurt. If you step on the wrong tile, the spikes on the ceiling will shoot down like skewers.”
It was a place devoid of monsters but filled with traps.
We walked along the traps already set according to Lee Jin-A’s lead.
After walking for a while, we saw figures of short, bearded men carved into the walls.
“This is a sculpture of a foreign species…! Now that I look closely, this place is definitely a temple site for the foreign species…! I can tell…! It’s just like the abandoned shrine we saw earlier…! It’s an abandoned temple site…!”
Illinois evaluated this place as a temple.
What kind of god was worshipped here?
I didn’t care too much.
“Kalilnoi. You keeping up well?”
Whoosh—
I turned around.
The large owl Kalilnoi was amusingly following me closely.
It listened well after I fed it beef.
Pat—
We successfully passed through the traps and dove deeper into the underground of the structure.
And we were astonished.
Flowers.
There were an astonishing number of flowers blooming before us.
A flower garden located underground?
The high ceiling was adorned with glowstones glimmering against a deep blue background like sparkling stars, and from somewhere, an artificial breeze gently blew.
It was indeed a beautiful sight.
Soon Illinois also marveled.
“It’s quite a magnificent scenery…! These flowers remind me of my homeland…! They’re so gorgeous…! The stones embedded in the ceiling look just like the stars in the sky…!”
It was a wonderful view in many ways.
I looked at flowers with five red leaves and said.
“Lee Jin-A. Is that the flower you wanted?”
“No. I’m looking for the path to the next room. This is the last room of the crack. There must be some device here that leads to the next room, but I haven’t found it yet.”
“Really?”
“If we find the next room, we might be able to locate the core of this crack. Then perhaps we could take those massive gold coins with us.”
That made sense.
Soon, Lee Jin-A added.
“By the way, it’s better not to smell the flower’s scent too attentively. They’re not normal flowers. These flowers have a special effect that prevents you from lying. That’s why we named them the ‘Flowers of Truth.’”
A flower that prevents you from lying, huh.
It seemed quite odd, and Yu Ara trembled.
“Ari, what’s wrong?”
“I… I already smelled the flower! I felt instinctively there’s no poison! What if this flower holds the hint to the next room? Also, I like flowers!”
Ding—
Ari spoke up about things I hadn’t even asked.
It felt like I’d given her some confession drug.
Ari’s innocent girlish sensibility had led to this explosion.
“It’s okay. Ari, you don’t lie.”
Shaking, Yu Ara covered her mouth and shouted.
“I lied too!”
Ari lies a lot?
What on earth could she have lied about?
“Ari, did you lie to me too?”
Shiver—
Yu Ara trembled as if she were battling with her inner self.
The force of her palm blocking her mouth strengthened—.
Finally, Ari squeezed her eyes shut and said.
“…Yesterday I ordered a pizza and shared it with a friend. That was a lie! In fact, I ate the whole pizza by myself! I was planning to go on a diet! But since I started working out again, I got so hungry…!”
Ding—
Ari ate a whole pizza by herself?
Whoosh—
Soon, Lee Jin-A placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Hey, Haildo. Don’t ask unnecessary questions. Everyone has secrets they want to hide.”
That was true.
Still, I felt somewhat relieved.
“I was wondering if Ari really could be fine since she always seemed to eat like a little bird in front of me, but I’m glad. It’s good for people to eat well. It’s a sign of health.”
Ari’s face turned bright red, and she seemed flustered and restless.
Hahaha—she shook her head so much.
“Senior, I’m so embarrassed right now…! But at the same time, I feel a strange sensation…! This flower seems to sharpen my senses…! Over there…!”
Whoosh—
Yu Ara pointed at something with her hand.
There was nothing there, but soon the ghost spider Kkungkkungi slowly revealed itself.
━Hiiiii…?
“Wow.”
Did Ari just perfectly sense Kkungkkungi, who was hiding in the flower garden?
That was truly an incredible thing!
This “Flowers of Truth” was tailored to enhance Ari’s sensory abilities as a sensing ability user!
Just then.
Illinois shouted.
“Everyone, look here…! That Illinois has definitely found the path to the next room…!”
