Chaotic laughter
“Wow, it’s not just a concept; they really are a C-grade Hunter!”
“But if that’s a C-grade Hunter, isn’t it tough to deal with?”
Laughing with amusement “Eight of them, are you kidding me?”
“Seriously, this is crazier than the chickens at Grandma’s house!”
In all directions.
“No part remains uneaten.”
“No part remains unpressed.”
[Miracle – Great Healing]
“Wow, the streamer is really giving them medicine and poison, isn’t he?”
“??? : Just kill me…”
Heh heh heh.
“Don’t forget, that guy is a stalker who messed with the streamer.”
“Oh right, I remember now.”
“The bad one is that guy! Not the streamer!”
“But why does the streamer look worse?”
Exactly, LOL.
“I feel like I’m dying right now, but just as I was about to collapse, Shia performed the miracle of great healing, bringing Si-hun back to his feet.”
“The crazy red chickens, no matter how much they peck, are fixated on the intruder who keeps recovering. In the end, Si-hun was endlessly pecked until he figured it out.”
“Ugh, what the hell?!”
[Hypnosis – Confusion]
“Oh?”
“Earlier it was only one at a time, but now all of them are under it at once?”
“Guess they won’t be pecking anymore this time!”
Quack?!
H-Hold on…!
“Huff, huff, huff…!”
“I thought my ability activated only when I made eye contact.”
“It really has been that way until now. I believed it.”
“But this time, Si-hun successfully hypnotized all eight crazy red chickens at once.”
“It’s possible if you’ve seen their eyes even once.”
“Don’t ask how it all happened. You’d learn if you experienced getting pecked to near-death about four times in less than ten minutes!”
“Confused crazy red chickens wandered around as if they just smoked some weed.”
“Good! That’s how you use your ability.”
“Heh, heh… let’s go!”
Wham!
Whack!
Having been pecked and torn apart so much, Si-hun began to swing the Hunter-exclusive shock baton, crushing the heads of the crazy red chickens.
The physical durability of the crazy red chickens wasn’t that high, so even Si-hun, as a C-grade Hunter, had no trouble taking out the stunned ones.
“Haah, haah… haah… it’s, it’s over… I’m alive…”
“Do you get it now?”
“…Haah, haah… a little bit…”
“You’ve thought so narrowly that it had to be direct eye contact to use hypnosis, so you haven’t grown.”
“What about now?”
“As Shia said, the limited thinking that hypnosis can only work with eye contact had been hampering his development.”
“And it took several peckings and being pushed to death to finally realize. If it weren’t for Shia’s great healing, Si-hun would still be clueless about his own abilities.”
“I didn’t know I had this power…”
“Of course, I’m happy about it.”
“After living for over 15 years, it took being on the brink of death to achieve this…”
“Is it good? But it’s not over yet!”
“What’s… happening?”
“Shia, standing on a hill, spotted something and grinned. For some reason, it looked like a sinister and scheming fox smile.”
Thud!
Thud!
“What is that sound?”
“You caught a baby! If you put it in chicken terms, it’s just a chick.”
“What…?”
“What do you mean that’s a chick?”
“Sure, I knew that information, but…”
“Those crazy red chickens were so annoying, I momentarily forgot.”
“But we don’t fry chicks as chickens, right?”
“No, no way…”
Kiiiyoooohhh!!
Waaahhh, LOL!
“No, that’s way more impactful than a Bladed Centipede, LOL!”
“That’s huge.”
“How many servings is that as fried chicken?”
“Probably over 100 servings.”
As he cleared the trees, Si-hun gradually raised his head to look at the giant chicken.
“Three meters? Four meters? No, calling it house-sized isn’t an exaggeration.”
“What the hell, why is it so big…?”
“Look at that big one over there? Then let’s go for it!”
“This ain’t good.”
“That’s definitely B-grade!”
“Oh, no! This is really too much! H-Help me! No, please help me!”
“Me?”
With a moment of hesitation, Shia closed her eyes and stroked her chin with her index finger.
“…I’m gonna get that big egg over there.”
“What egg?”
“That has a different taste from wyvern eggs, you know. I’m going to get it.”
“While you’re busy fighting that adult…”
LOL!
“Seriously, laughing right now.”
“You’re more worried about the egg than your own son?”
“Breeding girl…”
“Egg-laying, wow!”
Incredible.
[“Chicken Shop Demise” donated 10,000 won!]
“Nah, those crazy red chicken eggs are cheaper because they lay many at once, but they don’t compare to wyvern eggs in taste.”
“Seriously, I feel like I might die…”
Kiiiyooook!!!!
“Ugh!!!”
At that moment, the three-meter crazy red chicken began to soar at Si-hun, flapping its giant wings.
Boom!
Crash!
“What is that sound? Is it the ground exploding when it peaks its beak down?!”
Feeling threatened for his life, Si-hun barely twisted his body away from the attack of the mature chicken.
“So this is B-grade power!”
“Ah, no! This is really too much; I need help!”
“With me?”
Taking a deep breath, tossing aside his fear, Si-hun determinedly called out to Shia.
“I-I should be used to this before I die!”
Thud!
“Argh!?”
Time skip
After two hours, Shia and Si-hun had gathered in a small clearing in the dungeon, keeping a fire.
Si-hun looked like a mess.
The wounds on his body had been healed by Shia’s great healing, but his clothes were nothing more than rags.
However, it wasn’t all for nothing.
As merely a C-grade Hunter, Si-hun engaged in a blood duel with the crazy red chicken for over an hour, his arm torn, his stomach and legs pecked!
He could hardly say “fighting” as it was mostly just running away.
But Si-hun, facing life-threatening danger, realized how to utilize his abilities. If he could make eye contact once, he could use the confusion hypnosis to run at full speed to the cliff’s edge and once he saw the mature chicken charging toward him, he hypnotized it to dive off the cliff!
While it didn’t feel like a fight, in the end, Si-hun survived, and the crazy red chicken was smashed against the rocks when it fell.
“Heh, heh… heh…”
“Well, well done.”
“…….”
As Shia began to clap, praising Si-hun for his efforts, he ended up fainting, collapsing to the ground.
“Low stamina, it’s embarrassing.”
“Is that really a Hunter?”
“LOL!”
“Being C-grade isn’t just because of nothing.”
“Okay, no big deal.”
After running numerous times on the verge of death, exhausted seemed odd.
“Alright, rest for now. I’ll cook.”
“Let’s see how to butcher the chicken now.”
Butchering that mature crazy red chicken was straightforward.
First, using his tentacle, he split the crazy red chicken in half, removing all the blood and insides, then using Seongnyeok to create fire, burning off all its feathers completely before purifying the dirt with miraculous magic to finalize the preparations.
“Wow, now it looks tiny after being plucked.”
“My house’s old dog shrinks by half after a bath, just like that!”
[“Leaf Tempura for Sale” donated 5,000 won!]
Delicious!
“Yeah! It seems good, a hundred kilograms of meat for sure!”
“Whoa!”
“That’s a lot!”
“So, how many servings is that?”
“Even if one serving is a kilogram, that’s over 100 servings?”
100 kilograms of chicken.
The taste of the crazy red chicken meat closely resembled that of actual chicken.
So, taste-wise, there shouldn’t be an issue, at least.
Whatever, most of the feathers had burned off, leaving only clean flesh. It was time to prepare the chicken.
First, trim off any fatty parts, following the recipe that said to soak it in milk for about 10 minutes.
‘Well, we probably don’t need to eat everything right away. I can save some for those behind me later.’
Luckily, after eating substantial frozen food at Si-hun’s house earlier, I figured this would be enough for today.
Shia cut about 10 kg of chicken into bite-sized pieces, then used the stealth mode to control a floating drone to request additional supplies from her house.
Shia owned not just AI drone cameras, but also a transport drone containing various cooking utensils, seasonings, oils, soy sauce, spices, and pots.
These transport drones were received during the last raid dungeon event from the Hunter Association.
The transport drones sat at her house, waiting for a signal from the AI drone, then flew to Shia’s location in the dungeon five minutes later.
“Wow, how many drones are there?”
“But is it okay if the stalker sees this?”
“I think that was already too late, LOL!”
“Good point!”
“But does it matter? The stalker is currently exhausted, laid out flat.”
“And now we need to brine the chicken… uh, where’s the brining method in the recipe? It only says to brine it.”
Recipe, ridiculous…
“What’s that, did you find something weird?”
“But what’s the streamer cooking now?”
“Fried chicken, I think?”
“Then I guess it’s about brining?”
“Brining? Isn’t it just adding salt?”
“Heyyyyyyy!”
“Stop it, stop!”
“Is this girl for real? She’s seriously making jerk chicken?!”
“Yeah, it’s pricy!”
LOL!
“Um… Is there anyone who knows how to brine? I’m making fried chicken…”
[“Chicken Shop Demise” donated 18,000 won!]
Chopped garlic, salt, pepper, cooking wine, and sesame oil for seasoning, and let it marinate for about 30 minutes.
“Oh, thank you! But is this brining method also applicable for the crazy red chicken?”
Unsure.
Unsure.
I mean… the taste is still very similar to chicken, so I think it will work.
Following the donor’s advice, Shia started brining the crazy red chicken meat.
So far, so good.
Once the brining was done, she soaked the chicken in milk for about 10 minutes.
Since there was so much meat, she used three whole containers of milk.
Then, she chopped the chicken into suitable sizes.
She didn’t know how chicken was typically cut in a fried chicken shop, but she thought as long as it was cut comfortably for eating, it wouldn’t be hard.
After soaking the chicken for 10 minutes, she cracked the egg of the crazy red chicken she brought and mixed it into the milk, playfully kneading everything together.
“Wow, it already looks delicious.”
“That’s gotta taste good.”
“What? We want some too.”
“Where is it? I want to go there.”
“Yeah, but civilians can never enter dungeons!”
Given the materials, the quantity involved was quite significant.
She poured all the frying powder in, mixed it, and when that was done, she added potato starch to properly coat it.
Next, the most important oil.
Pulling from past experiences of frying the Centipede Dragon, she set the oil to around 150-160 degrees.
Of course, she didn’t have a thermometer, but she gauged the temperature by dropping the batter in and seeing it sink before rising back up after about five seconds.
Maybe there’s a function to measure temperature with the drone camera, but to be honest, she still wasn’t quite sure how to operate this drone, so she just tried checking the temperature by dropping batter.
“Alright. Temperature’s good.”
“Seems like a craftsman’s spirit…”
“The only thing she’s always serious about is food, our Shia…”
“Even if there’s chaos during the process, she never messes with food, LOL!”
“Alright, let’s fry it.”
Sizzle!
The sound of the oil bubbling rang out like delightful raindrops to the viewers.
Certainly, it must be the most delicious sound of rain one could ever hear.
For reference, this was the first fry, so she had to prepare another batch of oil.
Once it’s fried to this point, she should ready the new oil heated to about 170 degrees, and only then fry again until the coating takes on a slightly brown hue.
Sizzle!
“Yum, sounds good.”
The rich oil fragrance filled the air, and especially the light brown and golden yellow colors blended harmoniously; this truly was the real deal!
“Is that actually real?”
“I’m gonna grow up to be real someday!”
LMAO!
After taking a bite of the well-fried chicken, the crispy outer layer crunched satisfactorily.
Moreover, the inside was surprisingly tender; while it undeniably looked like breast meat, it didn’t feel at all dry like ordinary chicken breast.
Instead, the whole meat felt as soft and juicy as the thigh or wing meat, delivering exquisite taste!
“Yum! It’s delicious!”
Wow, OMG!
“That’s the real deal!”
“But it really looks good.”
“After eating regular fried things, looking at this is really refreshing.”
“Honey, please just eat regular food from now on, okay?”
“Eh, I don’t want to…”
In terms of less malicious beings.
But whether a miracle or not, the chicken was now ready.
“Alright, up! Get up!”
“Uh, wha… what is it!?”
Are you feeling alright?
LOLLL!
Is that baby still dreaming?
“Your face is hilarious, LOL!”
“That guy has to consider himself lucky this time.”
“It’s tough to let someone like him act all pitiful.”
“Let’s eat!”
Shia forcefully propping Si-hun up began handing him chicken.
“Here. Eat!”
“……..”
“Hey… It’s chicken. Chicken.”
As Si-hun stood silent, Shia grasped two pieces of chicken with both hands and brought it to her mouth.
Chomp! Nom nom… sigh~
Delicious! Absolutely delicious!
Shia smiled joyfully, her feet tapping with excitement.
Though it was her handiwork, this chicken was genuinely awesome.
It couldn’t even be compared to frozen Shurel chicken.
Perhaps it was due to the crazy red chicken egg included, but the chicken coating was notably exquisite.
“Um…”
“Hmm?”
“Uhm… Isn’t it late…? No, never mind…”
Suddenly referring to him formally, Shia tilted her head curiously.
“Munch munch… So, isn’t it late to go back?”
A beautifully loaded statement, right?
Si-hun’s life, which seemed to have gone to waste.
And he had committed crimes like abducting and stalking Shia.
Si-hun now realized Shia had ignored his brainwashing and was not affected by it originally.
Even though the hypnosis didn’t take effect, he hadn’t escaped or beaten him up just because Shia, as a saint, held him back.
Chomp chomp, gulp…
While serious Si-hun felt the urge to cry, Shia chuckled lightly.
“There is no such thing as late in life. Until you die, that’s always the case.”
“…………… Ugh…”
“The moment you decide is the right moment. I was like that, too. Despite looking this way, I was either 84 or 85? Though my mental age is 21… still, from my experience, when you think it’s late, it is. But if you think it’s late and do nothing, then you won’t just be late; you will remain stuck forever.”
“Ugh, sob…”
“Ah, don’t cry. Nothing is more pathetic than a grown man weeping.”
Hug, oh, please comfort me, my love…
Aw, Shia is really a saint, LOL!
It’s differently ugly if a pretty girl were to cry.
Saying so, Shia casually popped the chicken into her mouth.
“Swallowing, as long as you hold a desire to move forward, if you have a resolution, I can help.”
“…Huff, sobbing… Huh…”
“It’s also the saint’s role to assist someone lost down the wrong path.”
Wow, really beautiful.
Shia’s smile, somehow radiating like sunlight.
With that beaming smile, she gestured toward the drone camera.
[Broadcast Ended]
“And now, that timid guy must be wondering what kind of wind led him to abduct me?”
“You heard a voice? Like it actually spoke?”
“The flute that moves the dead. I don’t know beyond that. I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Huh? Why? Tell me.”
“Did I eat two legs?”
“It’s tuition. Do you have a problem with that?”
…
After departing from Shia and trudging home, Si-hun knew better than to plead for further help given the guilt.
From this instant, he resolved to live a proper life.
Even if Shia has forgiven him, what he did was absolutely unforgivable.
He considers this as he straightens his shoulders slightly.
Kek!
“What’s that…?”
Si-hun flinched as a dark unmanned vehicle suddenly blocked his path.
What the hell is happening? Whose car is this?
As he pondered the implications, the window of the black vehicle slid down slightly.
Inside was a woman with icy blue hair that reminded him of a glacier.
She scanned Si-hun top to bottom before speaking in a cold voice.
“Get in.”
“W-who are you…”
“Before I freeze you so solid your body fits in the trunk, just get in quietly.”
“……Wh-what?!”
Crk!
“My… my arm…!!”
At that moment, Si-hun realized his left arm had frozen solid.
Even with no physical contact, merely a glare was enough for his arm to freeze; this indicated levels of mastery far beyond him as a standard Hunter.
“Get in. One more time and it’ll be your right arm next.”
“Y-yes, yes…!”
Si-hun clutched his ice-encased left arm.
How cold must it be, that he couldn’t even feel it?
“Don’t worry. I know well enough how dangerous it can get when a person freezes over.”
“…!”
Si-hun recognized he had no choices, and quietly got into the unmanned vehicle.
Afterwards, she kept silence for a long time.
Just as Si-hun was moaning from the bizarre sensation of his arm frozen, Yeonhwa opened her mouth with a small voice.
“This is separate from what Shia unnie did to rescue you and forgive you. It’s entirely my own decision.”
Wait a moment…
Was she in relation to Shia?!
And then he remembered seeing her face—yes; where had he seen it…?
‘Could it be Yeonhwa? The A-grade Yeonhwa Hunter?!’
That’s right! He remembered.
Si-hun recalled while collecting images of Shia on the Hunter gallery, how the time when Shia was awarded the quarter’s best Hunter, Yeonhwa was seen in the photo receiving a certificate alongside Shia.
Did Shia really have connections to someone so prominent?!
“Had you stalked someone else instead of Shia unnie, it would have resulted in a straightforward crime. Someone like that would have likely induced a true victim subjected to torment by creepy, perverted stalker actions.”
It wasn’t entirely incorrect.
What if the flute worked on Shia as intended?
What if the anesthetics used on her had worked fully?
If Shia had become entirely submissive to Si-hun, the things that may transpire would be quite terrifying for Yeonhwa to envision.
“To be honest, I want to just smash you apart right here.”
At that, Si-hun’s distressed eyes met Yeonhwa’s, unable to make any response.
The very essence of her killing intent seemed to materialize as physical pressure; it prickled against his skin and left him gasping for breath, as if he had been tossed atop a mountain.
“Huh, sob…!”
“You might think if you approached me out of pure fanfare, I could let it slide. If life was hard enough that you considered giving up, sure, I might offer you sympathy. But can you honestly say that’s how it was for you?”
“……..”
“No right?”
Right. Nope, that was wrong.
Si-hun had been seduced by sweet promises and wished to take an easy route.
He thought he was winning the lottery that had landed in his disheveled life.
In that light, Si-hun realized he had engaged in a quite relentless and dirty act.
“I-I was wrong…”
He could only confess his faults and ask for forgiveness.
Yeonhwa breathed a sigh and waved her hand, examining Si-hun.
“Well, it looks like you’ll have to pay the price.”
Crk!
“Ugh?!”
Without the time to resist with magic, ice spreading from his arm quickly climbed up to his shoulder, before completely encasing his body except for his neck.
Si-hun felt a tingling chill around his neck but lost all other senses except for the pain.
Am I going to freeze to death…?
“Is there a single reason you think I should save you?”
……It seems there’s none…
“……..”
Sure, he is a pathetic man.
With no awareness of his own standing, he’d brought upon himself this emotional demise…
Accepting his wretched fate, Si-hun relaxed his body.
Yeonhwa gazed at him for a moment.
“But Shia unnie said it before, right?”
“….!”
“Death is mercy.”
Snap!
“Aghhhh!?”
With a snap of her fingers, the ice frozen around Si-hun melted away instantly.
Of course, not every bit of ice vanished; only enough to allow his legs to move.
No way, just looking at the ice-fixing through a mere snap of her fingers… is she truly S-grade?!
“We’ve arrived. Get out.”
“Oh, okay… yes, yes!”
With her cold, cutting tone, Si-hun opened the car door and stepped out.
Regardless, Yeonhwa leisurely unfolded her crossed legs and followed him outside, where Si-hun soon realized he was at ‘Yeonpung Guild’, one of Korea’s top ten guilds.
“Yeonpung Guild?!”
Wait, wouldn’t that mean she’s part of it?
Is there some secret torture chamber within guild grounds?!
Researching what might happen next…
Yet recall, Yeonhwa was rumored to not be affiliated with any guild.
Gulp…!
But not knowing the nature of what may befall him, Si-hun felt cold sweat trickle down his back.
Just then, someone burst out from inside the guild building.
Three guesses—they were probably waiting for Yeonhwa likely due to her message.
“Hey, Gominjun.”
“Oh, hey Yeonhwa! What an unexpected visit for you to come over first…”
Gominjun, the vice-guild leader of Yeonpung Guild and Yeonhwa’s senior graduate from Hunter Academy.
He was also the individual Si-hun met during the goblin ranger eradication event.
“Before that, I want to apologize for last time. I misspoke then. I’m really sorry.”
As for what last time might refer to, most likely it was Gominjun inadvertently mentioning Yeonhwa’s humorous nickname from her Academy days: ‘The Spear Demon’.
“It’s alright; I don’t mind.”
Truly appearing unconcerned, Yeonhwa shrugged her shoulders, then tossed Si-hun toward Gominjun like some object, and he caught Si-hun with ease.
“Ugh!”
“Huh? Who is this person?”
“Make this guy a human!”
“What?”
At that, Gominjun looked puzzled.
“Remember how you invited me to join the guild before?”
“Uh, yeah…”
“Turn this guy into a real human, and I might debate joining Yeonpung Guild.”
“…..!!!”
“Eh…?”
Hearing that, Gominjun’s eyes lit up.
The fact that Yeonhwa, being the granddaughter of legendary S-grade Hunter Yeonseo, held tremendous value just by lineage. Yet, with her rapidly escalating notoriety as one of the strongest among the rigorous A-grade Hunters, and not long after her achievements alongside Shia in the elf great forest incident, which garnered her selection as the quarter’s best Hunter…
With her status continually climbing in Hunter circles, having her attach conditions to even consider joining the guild was no minor matter!
Gominjun’s mental wrestling was short-lived.
“Okay! I can’t pass up this golden opportunity from you, Yeonhwa, senior!”
“Uh, well about my view on this…”
“Shut your mouth!”
“Yessir…”
Although younger, Si-hun quickly learned to stay silent in the presence of both A-grade Hunters.
“Hey, Yeonhwa! Since we’re already here, should we go grab a drink together…?”
“I’m fine. I’ll head out first. Just remember my words. The moment this guy stops being a ‘piece of debris’ and elevates to being a ‘real human’, I might think over joining the guild.”
“Okay, okay! I got it!”
Thus, Yeonhwa seemed resolute in her stance, climbing back into the unmanned vehicle and whisking away into the distance, leaving Si-hun in complex emotions as he faced Gominjun.
“Ahh, what now?”
Time passed while Si-hun struggled to figure out an explanation, receiving concerned gazes from Gominjun.
“Oh, it’s going to be tough from now on.”
Si-hun genuinely frowned inside as he contemplated his fate tied to the Yeonpung Guild.
“Hey, leave your past behind; it’s our job now!”
