༺ Friendship? (5) ༻
1.
In common folklore, it was often said that at the gates of hell, there were monstrous guardians stationed at it.
But, why wasn’t this particular one staying at its station?
Greek mythology mentioned a three-headed beast being stationed there.
Siwoo knew one thing for sure, though.
If they wanted to put a monster to guard the gate of hell, letting this crazy mutt, which was chasing them wildly, would be much more effective.
Considering the difference in speed between them, it was clear that they’d be caught quickly if they ran along the road towards the boundary of the Interdimensional Barrier.
That was why Siwoo maneuvered through the alleyways between buildings, trying his best to shake it.
-Bang! Thud! Crash!
But that didn’t stop the Homunculus.
It crashed into a stationary bus, sending it flying into the air. Not only that, it demolished the side of a commercial building, it also toppled lampposts and utility poles, as if they were mere obstacles as it relentlessly pursued them.
The thing’s behavior reminded Siwoo of a naughty little doggy wreaking havoc in a meticulously crafted miniature film set.
Anyway, though they could utilize obstacles to spin around and maintain some distance, it still wasn’t certain that they could completely shake it off, or even escape beyond the barrier.
The moment they ventured in a straight line, the gap in their speed would eventually result in the monstrosity catching up to them.
-Roar!
“Damn, this thing’s fast as fuck!”
“Mmph!”
The first thing they heard was its monstrous roar that erupted as the monster became more agitated.
Then, it was followed by Siwoo’s frustrated grunt as he realized how relentless the monster was; It didn’t seem like it would let them escape.
Lastly, amidst their struggle, a strange sound came from Sharon as her cheek bumped against Siwoo’s breastplate due to his position of embracing her.
“Sharon, what the hell is that bastard?!”
“I-I don’t know—! It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like that!”
Despite Siwoo’s inquiry, Sharon, breathing heavily, only shook her head in response.
‘Should we try to fight it at least?’
Siwoo contemplated.
“Can we just take it on? I’ll give it a shot!”
“No! No way! Hell no! You know, the Homunculus who caused the worst disaster in history only had twenty pairs of eyes! There’s no way we can handle something that has even more eyes than that!”
‘That means the strongest one so far had forty eyes?’
Siwoo glanced over his shoulder and looked at the frenzied Homunculus.
“It’s fucking gross.”
Just seeing it made him feel nauseous.
It resembled something hastily shaped out of dark clay, like something a grade-schooler might mold without any thoughts behind it.
The monster’s appearance made it difficult to distinguish its front legs from its hind legs. Hell, even its head resembled something that had been carelessly stepped on.
Foul smell came out of it, and it kept making loud noises that made shivers run down Siwoo’s spine.
But, the thing that made him feel disgusted the most wasn’t its revolting look, even though it did seem like something that would come out straight of hell.
It was the numerous eyes covering its body.
At a glance, the numbers seemed to be reaching four digits at least.
“Who even has the power to take that shit down?!”
“I don’t know! Ugh! Why do these things always happen to me?!”
Nestled in Siwoo’s arms, Sharon began to lament her life’s misfortunes.
“Inheriting my brand in the weirdest of ways! Getting caught in explosions during my experiments! Losing all my research papers and getting into debt! And to top it all… This fucking monster—!”
“H-Hey, calm down! Hold on to me tightly!”
-Grrraaar!
With their pursuer closing in the gap again, Siwoo decided to use nearby buildings as their refuge.
He harnessed his incredible speed, allowing him to cover dozens of meters in a single stride, to leap effortlessly and make powerful jumps.
-Crash!
Siwoo swiftly unfolded his shadow, ensuring that Sharon wasn’t hit by glass shards and leaped to the fourth floor of one of the buildings.
Entering what seemed to have been an office space, he found computers and documents shattered within the building.
Without delay, the monster’s snout pierced through the building, like a woodpecker drilling its peck into a tree to eat.
“Fuck, this is crazy!”
“Aaaahhhh!”
They didn’t have any time to catch their breath.
Siwoo swiftly hoisted Sharon, narrowly pulling her ankle away from the monster’s jaws before darting towards the opposite side of the building.
-Kiiiekkk!
Narrowly missing its prey, the beast made a roar that struck the pair’s eardrums.
Simultaneously, a tremendous gust of wind swept through the corridor, causing everything in its path to flutter.
“Enough!”
Siwoo knew that they couldn’t keep this up.
The thing was still chasing them, and as they ran, breaking through the opposite building’s windows, he realized that the building could serve as a temporary barrier against their pursuer.
As long as they could create a gap in its pursuit and leverage the music box’s effects to conceal themselves or escape, they should be able to break out of the Interdimensional Barrier.
“Fuck… This is crazy—!”
However, as he heard an unexpected noise, Siwoo’s hopes instantly crumbled.
-Creaaak!
-Thump, thump!
Out of nowhere, dozens of black Homunculi pups appeared in the corridor, racing towards the pair, as if trying to present a gift to their mother.
-Awwooo!
-Kiieeek!
Some of them seemed to be signaling his escape route through their howls.
This shattered his hope of trying to play tag or hide-and-seek with the monstrous creature.
The speed of the situation deteriorating left the pair amazed.
No more escape now.
It was only a matter of time before it caught them.
Despite their small stature, the pups were faster than their mother.
And once they caught hold of the pair, they wouldn’t be able to escape anymore.
As the gap between them closed, they would be forced to confront it.
One of the pups made a forceful leap.
Sharon, still nestling against Siwoo’s chest, retrieved something from her sleeve, put it into her mouth and pointed her staff toward that particular pup.
“Balance!”
After the incantation left Sharon’s mouth, Siwoo felt warmth in his ears.
A small ball of fire emerged from her staff, releasing a fan-shaped flame.
It wasn’t like flamethrowers they’d seen in movies.
The flame spread like waves, engulfing every corner of the building, setting the entire floor ablaze.
“That was it… I used up all the mana I gathered while we were running away!”
“Good job, Sharon! Thanks to you, we survived!”
They narrowly escaped the pack of Homunculi and arrived at the building across the street.
Though, they couldn’t just jump down from there.
Right next to their landing point, the Mother Homunculus swiped its massive forelimb, fiercely striking the side of the building.
-Boom!
The whole building shook.
As if it was demolishing Lego blocks, the front legs of the black Homunculus, completely covered with red eyes, tore through the building.
Such a scene unfolded before their eyes vividly, almost in slow motion.
There were strange protrusions in its body, just like maggots squirming on a corpse. Such an eerie sight was something terribly unfamiliar to them.
With its every movement, its flesh and skin tore apart, forming black pups that started to ramp up the wall of the building.
‘What the hell is that?!’
“Sharon, hold on tight!”
“I’m already doing it!”
“Hold on tighter!”
‘If we stay still, we’d get caught—!’
Realizing this, Siwoo firmly held onto Sharon and swiftly extended his ribbon towards the top of the building.
Utilizing the ribbon’s elasticity, they flew through the air and landed swiftly on the rooftop.
Siwoo glanced down, staring at the mother Homunculus, who was ramming its body against the wall. Meanwhile, the black pups clung to the wall, scuttling at an incredible speed, like running cockroaches.
“We need to split up. I’ll distract them so you can escape first.”
“Sharon, that’s not it!”
“What do you mean that’s not it?! If we stay like this, both of us will die! It was my fault that they came to target you, so I’ll take responsibility for it! Hurry up, run away!”
“Sharon!”
Siwoo proceeded to tightly embrace Sharon, who was in a state of panic.
They finally had a chance to converse and devise an escape plan from this dreadful situation.
He believed that there should be a way out of this chaotic mess.
“Anyway, it’ll take time before that giant can reach us. Until then, only the small ones will come.”
Siwoo’s logic was sound.
No matter how fast it was for its size, its sheer bulk would still slow it down.
It couldn’t show the same speed it used when it ran on the ground when trying to climb a building.
“That’s why, listen to me. There’s something off about that thing.”
“Something… Off…?”
He quickly explained the clues he had noticed while he was fleeing.
“Sharon, do you think that creature is really a powerful Homunculus that has thousands of eyes?”
“It doesn’t matter if I think so or not. You saw it too. Its whole body is covered with eyes!”
“But do you really think that it’s dozens of times stronger than the strongest Homunculus in history?”
“That’s…”
“Just look at it.”
At first, Siwoo was just as terrified as her.
After all, it was strong enough to destroy that department store and obliterate anything in its path.
However, as he ran away, he began to suspect something.
It didn’t possess the aura that typical formidable being would have.
Compared to the foes he had faced before, its aura was simply lacking.
Take Ea Sadalmelik, for example. Just being near her already made him hard to breathe.
Similarly, Della Redcliffe had this eerie atmosphere, as if she could dominate anyone who’d dare to drop their guard down for a moment.
Both of them were powerful witches, ranked at 20th or higher in their hierarchy.
Ea, especially, was a 21st ranked witch, and she deserved to be in that rank.
Of course, this Homunculus’ incredible strength that was able to demolish a whole building was breathtaking.
So was its speed and agility as it tore everything around it, leaving them with no space to escape.
But that was all there was.
Siwoo imagined a scene in his head.
If that creature was Ea, for example.
Would he be able to run away this far?
The answer was a definite no.
He might have grown stronger since then, but he knew that he wouldn’t last a single minute facing Ea at her peak.
When he attempted a surprise attack on her, it left him in a pretty bad situation.
“This is just a gut feeling, but did you notice those pups coming out of it?”
“Yeah, I saw them when we leaped up here earlier.”
Sharon’s anxious look slowly disappeared. She, too, noticed something was up.
And so, she perked up her ears and attentively listened to his words.
“A moment ago, I took a glimpse at its mana. It was all over the place.”
“…Huh?”
“So, I thought about it. What if those eyes aren’t owned by a single being? That Mother Homunculus is just a ‘colony?’”
In moments of panic, people’s judgment became clouded.
That was why Sharon couldn’t think of any other possibilities, as she was completely panicking as they fled.
The stronger the Homunculus was, the more important the legacies they carried, thus amplifying their strength.
They’d possess diverse magic abilities, and at times they’d even be as strong as witches, making hunting them even more difficult.
But what about the mother Homunculus?
Apart from scattering its offspring around, it didn’t cast any remarkable spells.
Even when it chased the pair, it only utilized its physical strength.
At this moment, it was no different than a dog failing to chase a chicken; It clawed the building’s wall, trying to climb up, but it ended up falling down instead.
No one would believe such a pitiful being to be a Homunculus with thousands of eyes.
“Now that I think about it… You’re right…”
If the Homunculus really had more than twenty eyes, they should’ve tried to escape instead of chatting like this.
But, when thinking about it logically, it was simply absurd that a single Homunculus could possess that many eyes.
Sharon could see where Siwoo was coming from.
Sadly for them, they didn’t have much time to think things over anymore.
Because the little pups had climbed over the wall, cornering both of them.
Down below, the Mother Homunculus figured that it couldn’t reach the top of the building by just leaping around. Instead, it was hanging a distance away, clinging to the building, trying to help its pups to reach the top quicker.
Every time it hit the building, the whole place shook and cracks started showing all over the place.
“Okay, what’s the plan now?”
Despite knowing that it wouldn’t do anything without mana, Sharon held onto her staff tightly.
Siwoo stared at the pups, aiming his spear toward them and said his piece.
“After all these troubles they’ve caused us. Don’t you think it’s time for revenge?”
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