“Damn it, there’s too many of them!”
One of the Awakened shouted with a horrified expression.
Everyone agreed with him. The number of monsters in front of them was overwhelming. At a glance, there were more than ten.
The sight of human-sized rats charging toward them was utterly grotesque.
Moreover, the rats running along the tracks leapt in all directions as soon as they spotted people. Then, they began running along the walls.
Some even ran upside down, hanging from the ceiling.
“Knock them down! Don’t let them through!”
At Kim Junghyeon’s command, the mercenaries fired their grenade launchers at their designated targets. The six-shot launchers rained rubber rounds on the monsters.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
The rat monsters couldn’t break through the barrage of rubber rounds.
All the monsters running on the ceiling and walls fell to the ground.
“Attack!”
Eunseo shouted to the others. Then she sprang forward.
The mercenaries pulled back and quickly reloaded. They had to push back the monsters slipping through the Awakened.
Yonghoon had no choice but to run alongside Eunseo as she charged forward.
A rat that had fallen from the ceiling was getting back up in front of him. He stomped and launched upward. Leaping over two meters, he tackled the rat from above. Yonghoon’s hand pierced through the rat’s back.
“One.”
Yonghoon severed the rat’s spine with a knifehand strike and stood up. Meanwhile, Eunseo knocked away an oncoming rat with her shield.
‘Good combat sense.’
Yonghoon quietly admired Eunseo’s movements.
There was a reason she had been famous in the other world. If she continued to grow like this, she might become one of Korea’s top Awakened here too.
‘But first, she has to survive.’
Yonghoon shook off his stray thoughts and rushed toward another rat monster.
Fortunately, the battle ended without any casualties.
Thanks to Eunseo and the mercenaries. Eunseo swung her glowing shield to send the monsters flying, and the mercenaries fired rubber rounds whenever the Awakened were in danger.
‘Four.’
Yonghoon counted as he finished off the rat monster in front of him. He had taken down four in total.
Out of twelve monsters, that meant he had taken out a third. While the other Awakened mostly finished off monsters that had been stunned by rubber rounds or knocked down by shields, Yonghoon had fought the ones still in good shape.
Yonghoon stood up and scolded himself. He must have gotten a little too excited. He worried that someone might have noticed.
But when he looked around, everyone was too busy bragging about their achievements. The mercenaries, too, were red-faced and chattering excitedly.
Yonghoon sighed in relief. It seemed no one had paid particular attention to him.
Pretending nothing had happened, he walked over to the group.
Seeing him arrive, Eunseo spoke quietly.
“Four, right?”
Apparently, someone had been watching him closely. Yonghoon gave a bitter smile.
After the battle, the group moved on. They were supposed to meet in front of Mapo Station. Fortunately, no more rat monsters appeared after that.
The captured monsters would be handled by the company staff following behind. Since they had already given up on collecting Dimensional Cores this time, Yonghoon moved with ease.
Before long, they were able to meet up with Instructor Seo’s team at Mapo Station. His team had been waiting on the tracks toward Yeouinaru.
Today, Instructor Seo seemed to be in his bad-tempered mode.
He shouted loudly when he saw Eunseo.
“Damn, good job. Those damn rats running off scared the hell out of me. Anyway, great work catching them all.”
Eunseo shook her head.
“We all worked together. Everyone did their part.”
Instructor Seo waved his hand as if he didn’t want to hear it.
In his hand was a shield that looked like the one Eunseo carried. Just as she said, it seemed his level had gone up too.
Instructor Seo looked up at the platform.
“Is this the last area we need to search?”
The platform’s safety doors were heavily damaged.
“Looks like there were quite a few rat monsters here.”
The mercenary captain on Yonghoon’s side said as he examined the broken safety doors.
“Damn, is there a Singularity here or something? There’s way too many of them.”
Now Instructor Seo was casually talking about knowledge from the other world. Then again, maybe he figured it didn’t matter since no one would understand.
Singularity.
A place where a lot of monsters appeared. It was a term used in the research published by scientists studying monsters and dimensions.
Dimensional Power wasn’t evenly distributed across the world-some areas had much, some had little. A Singularity was a place with low Dimensional Power, making it easier for monsters to break through.
In the other world, many things happened after Singularities were identified.
Grit!
Yonghoon ground his teeth unconsciously.
He was reminded of the scum who had toyed with Singularities.
“Focus! We’re starting the internal sweep of Mapo Station. Some of you will stay here and guard the damaged safety doors, while the rest will go inside and search. Those entering will move in two teams of four.”
Including Instructor Seo, there were six company members, so they needed two more.
Instructor Seo looked around at the people.
“Awakened, please volunteer to enter.”
Everyone looked at each other nervously. It was clear they all preferred to stay here. The pay wouldn’t change anyway, so there was no reason to take unnecessary risks.
But Yonghoon had his reasons.
“I’ll volunteer.”
He raised his hand. Eunseo’s face lit up.
After a bit of back-and-forth, one more person was selected. They were split between Instructor Seo’s team and Eunseo’s team.
Yonghoon ended up back with Eunseo’s team.
He didn’t really mind. Just in case, the two teams agreed to stay within each other’s line of sight.
As long as he could observe the fighting, there was no need to be in the same team.
The eight Awakened entered Mapo Station through the broken safety doors. The mercenaries stayed behind. They were nearly out of ammo, and in an open area like this, regular people were too vulnerable to monsters.
Mapo Station had a central platform with tracks on both sides. In the middle, there was a staircase leading upward.
The group headed toward the stairs.
As seen from the tracks, the platform was eerily quiet. If not for the broken safety doors, it could have passed for a normal day.
Thankfully, it seemed they hadn’t been too late in detecting the monsters. Otherwise, there would have been massive casualties on the platform.
Mapo Station had a tunnel beneath the Han River connecting it to Yeouinaru Station, so its platform was located very deep underground.
It was five floors below ground from the surface to the platform.
The distance to the surface was so far that people sighed.
There were two stairways going up. The group split by team and began ascending one each.
“B4 level clear.”
The B4 level was empty. Just then, they spotted Instructor Seo’s team coming up from the opposite side.
There wasn’t much of a place to hide here, so the group kept climbing.
“B3 level clear.”
B3 level was also clear.
Eunseo decided to keep going. Just above was B1 level.
Yonghoon looked up the stairs-it was a really long climb. There was an escalator beside it, but of course, it wasn’t working.
After a long climb, the group reached the B1 level concourse. While they kept watch, Instructor Seo’s team came up from the adjacent stairs.
Now all that was left to check were the station office and the restrooms. The exit shutters were closed, so this was the final area.
In the end, the rats that had entered were found in the station office.
Inside the office, the rat monsters had taken up position.
Three rat monsters resisted, darting between walls and cabinets, but they were knocked down by Eunseo’s and Instructor Seo’s shields.
The rats were eventually finished off by the other Awakened.
“The question is, what do we do with this one?”
Everyone seemed to be relaxing. People sat on the floor chatting, while Eunseo and Instructor Seo discussed how to handle the captured rat monster.
“Can’t we just leave it here? I heard it won’t rot unless the gem is removed, right? How about we shove it into a corner and contact the recovery team?”
Instructor Seo nodded at Eunseo’s suggestion. There didn’t seem to be a better option. They couldn’t exactly carry the rat back down.
After finishing the conversation, Eunseo plopped down next to Yonghoon. Bit by bit, the Eunseo from the other world was starting to show. The prim career woman was turning into a rugged warrior.
“Yonghoon, how much experience do you have? You’re not far from E-level, right?”
The Awakened referred to the Dimensional Power number on their smart watches as experience points, since it resembled how experience was displayed in games.
Yonghoon shook his head.
He had no reason to explain. If she got offended and left, that would actually be a relief.
“Hmph! You think I won’t figure it out just because you won’t tell me?”
Eunseo pouted at Yonghoon’s refusal. The problem was, she wasn’t pouting in the way he’d hoped.
“Alright, then let’s head down.”
Instructor Seo, who had rested for a moment, spoke to everyone.
His personality had changed again.
Yonghoon looked around at the others, but the Company Team Awakened seemed used to it.
As the group began descending the stairs, a sound rang out from everyone’s wrist. They all stopped and looked at their wrists.
A radar had appeared on the screen of their smart watches. It was a detector. A small white vortex was shown at their current location.
“Where have I seen this before?”
One of the group tilted their head while looking at their smart watch screen. The others did the same. They couldn’t recall it immediately. They had learned it during training, but it didn’t come to mind right away.
However, two people recognized it instantly.
Yonghoon frowned.
It was a Dimensional Movement Mark. That meant a dimension was currently breaking through into this place.
“It’s a Dimensional Movement Mark! Monsters are about to pop out here!”
Instructor Seo shouted to the group.
“Everyone run! Judging by the height, it’s the platform. We don’t know how many will come out!”
Everyone started running. Yonghoon ran with them. He also felt that Instructor Seo’s judgment was correct.
This was clearly a Singularity.
“Damn it, the phones are dead too!”
Instructor Seo threw away the phone he was holding.
There was always severe signal interference at Dimensional Movement points. It was normal for phones not to work.
The group quickly descended.
The Awakened standing guard on the railway looked confused as they checked their smart watches. They didn’t recognize the mark on the screen either.
“Ah! The Dimensional Movement Mark!”
But one of them finally remembered. Captain Kim Junghyeon frowned. That meant monsters were appearing here.
The mercenaries on Instructor Seo’s side had no team leader, and with Eunseo not present, he was the one in charge here.
“Everyone prepare for battle! Monsters are coming!”
People began moving quickly. Even though the Company Team wasn’t here, these Awakened had hunted many times before. They all formed up into a formation.
Unfortunately, the Dimensional Movement was happening right on top of the railway.
The air in front of them began to ripple.
It looked like a shimmering mirror. Then the mirror shattered.
Thud!
A heavy object dropped in front of the group. The hole in the air vanished.
Gulp.
The sound of someone swallowing echoed.
The object that had landed on the ground began to move. Its black body had six slender legs, and its antennae swept the surroundings.
It was an ant.
A three-meter-long ant approached the group.
As Yonghoon followed the frantically running people, he suddenly shouted.
“The monster color on the detector is different!”
At Yonghoon’s words, everyone checked their smart watches.
The vortex mark had disappeared from the screen, and a blinking yellow light they hadn’t seen before was flashing.
“Everyone stop!”
At Instructor Seo’s command, the group halted in place.
“It’s an E-Rank monster.”