Jagalchi Market (5)
The anomaly appeared from the sky.
From far away, the sky was being swallowed by darkness.
With human influence fading and artificial lights vanishing, the night sky over the city turned into a jewel box, glittering with moonlight and starlight.
But those lights were now being devoured by thick darkness.
"Are those… all monsters?"
The writhing darkness was none other than a massive swarm of monsters.
Various types of fish were soaring through the sky.
Starting with the sky sailfish, which had been frequently seen on the way here, to the much larger sky whales, they were covering the night sky with darkness.
Boom! Boom!
The scattered wooden giants began gathering under Grandfather's command.
The only relief was that there were thirty of these wooden giants, each capable of taking down a land eel in a single strike.
And then…
Wooong—
As Grandfather waved his hand, a green glow of life energy flowed into one of the wooden giants.
It was a tree that had been wounded during its battle with Ha Dong-geon's party, its body riddled with holes. But the moment it absorbed Grandfather's life energy, its wounds instantly healed.
Grandfather, gazing at the previously injured tree, opened his mouth.
"Was this your doing?"
Ha Dong-geon bowed his head in apology as the representative.
"I'm sorry. We mistook it for a monster…"
"Hmm? Normally, they just stand still like trees."
I turned to Ha Dong-geon's party and spoke.
["The wooden giant attacked because it mistook Owenju for a monster. Show him directly. Since we'll be fighting together from now on, you all need to be aware of this."]
"Understood."
Owenju stepped forward and addressed Grandfather.
"Please take a look at this."
Then, the transformation began.
Crack.
Owenju's body morphed into the form of a bear, and the wooden giants immediately reacted.
Boom!
But as Grandfather glared at them, the wooden giants stopped in their tracks and returned to their positions.
"I see what happened. Our tree was at fault first."
By then, the darkness had crept up close.
As Ha Dong-geon prepared to throw his spear and Kim Ga-young readied her arrows, Grandfather spoke to them.
"Hold your fire."
"Huh? But…"
"Do those creatures really look like they're attacking us?"
"What?"
Looking again after hearing Grandfather's words, something indeed seemed off.
If they were targeting this place, they should have been descending by now. However, the swarm of monsters blackening the sky was merely approaching at high altitudes, hundreds of meters above.
"Look at their movement. They aren't coming to attack us. If we leave them be, they'll just pass by."
"What? Then why…?"
Why were so many monsters rushing in this direction?
"I don't know either, but…"
With a hardened expression, Grandfather continued.
"They look like they're running away from something."
What could possibly terrify such a vast number of monsters?
In any case, Grandfather's prediction was spot on.
The monsters darkening the sky mostly passed overhead without engaging.
The brilliance of the night sky completely disappeared, leaving only the soft glow emitted by the World Tree to illuminate the surroundings.
"Blessing!"
Geum Dajeong's blessing spread to everyone.
"Hmm? What is this now?"
"It enhances physical abilities."
"Does every one of you have some sort of power?"
"Thanks to Jaehyun."
"Jaehyun must be quite something. Haha."
Not all of the airborne fish managed to pass through unscathed.
Thud! Thud!
Sailfish flying too close to the ground got impaled on the walls of tall buildings and apartments.
A few even plummeted to the ground.
Seeing this, Grandfather shouted in a thunderous voice.
"Take cover inside the buildings!"
The people who had been clutching their weapons in preparation for battle immediately scattered at his command.
Some took refuge in the storage where fresh fish had been piled up, while others hid in the underground parking lot of a nearby apartment complex.
And then—
Wooong!
Grandfather began preparing for battle in earnest.
A surge of green energy burst from his body, enveloping all thirty wooden giants.
Crack! Crack!
Their size multiplied several times over, reborn into true giants worthy of their name.
The enormous wooden giants, radiating a soft green light, began to move.
Boom! Boom!
They gathered tightly together, forming a solid wall.
Grandfather shouted angrily at Hadonggeon's party, who were still standing nearby.
"What are you doing?! Why aren't you running away?!"
"We'll help too!"
"No need!"
At that moment, the ground began to tremble.
The enemies had arrived.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
The sheer number of monsters invading made the earth shake as if an earthquake had struck.
[Everyone, even if the monsters' goal isn't this place, there are too many for Grandfather to handle alone. Help him.]
I also intended to give it my all.
Hadonggeon's entire party nodded firmly, their resolve hardened.
"I told you to stay back!"
"You'll have a hard time alone!"
"Hmph! Ridiculous."
At first, I thought Grandfather was being reckless.
But that thought vanished the moment the monsters clashed with him.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
As various types of monsters approached dangerously close—
Boom!
Grandfather stomped his foot hard.
Then—
Crash! Crash! Crash!
The ground trembled violently, and—
Boom! Boom!
"!!!!"
With deafening explosions, thick roots of the World Tree burst from the ground.
Tearing through the asphalt, the roots grabbed the mindless, charging monsters and became solid walls between buildings.
The sudden walls forced the horde of creatures to pile up, pushing against them with their bodies.
With so many flooding in from behind, they had no choice.
If they wanted to survive, they had to break through.
But then—
Shlck!
From within the World Tree's roots, sharp thorns shot out in all directions.
And—
[You have hunted a Land Shark (Lv. 24).]
[You have gained experience.]
[You have hunted a Saw Stingray (Lv. 23).]
[You have gained experience.]
[You have hunted a Blue Crab (Lv. 29).]
[You have gained experience.]
Notification messages flooded my vision.
There were no settlement reward messages—because Grandfather had personally hunted the monsters.
[Bloodline]
(Trust +10%) All stats increase accordingly, and the experience gained from monsters hunted by a Bloodline title holder is multiplied by 10 and shared equally. However, settlement rewards are monopolized by the title holder.
Since Grandfather held the Bloodline title, he monopolized the settlement rewards.
Instead, I received half of the tenfold experience—five times the normal amount.
"Hmm? What's all this? Money? Experience?"
Grandfather looked at the air in confusion.
This must have been his first time seeing system messages after being registered as part of my Bloodline.
Next to him, Hadonggeon's party stood frozen, their faces blank with shock.
I was no different.
'…This is the level of a Rank 55?'
Saying we'd help was laughable.
We'd be lucky if we weren't just in the way.
He had just stomped once and already slain hundreds of monsters—he was a monster himself.
Even while standing still, the massive tree giants continued moving, effortlessly eliminating the incoming horde.
Empowered by Grandfather, the towering tree giants used their tendrils to skewer even the monsters' thick chitin armor as if it were nothing.
[You have hunted a Giant Crab (Lv. 31).]
[You have gained experience.]
[You have hunted a Giant Lobster (Lv. 29).]
[You have gained experience.]
[You have hunted a Sawtooth Crab (Lv. 30).]
[You have gained experience.]
And then—
[Your skill level has increased.]
The flood of experience finally led to a level-up.
'Level-up? Already?'
I hadn't expected to level up this quickly and wasn't prepared for it.
"Ugh!"
A sudden, unbearable pain struck me, and my shared vision with Hadonggeon's party flickered out.
Instead, I sensed my apartment complex.
The dome-shaped barrier surrounding the complex—
It was rapidly expanding.
If I had to describe the sensation of my entire body being torn apart in slow motion—
"Aaaaargh!"
The pain that seemed endless finally came to an end after it swallowed all the roads that had spread out like capillaries and completed the dome-shaped structure with a 1km radius.
"Huff, huff."
[A subject meeting the conditions for citizenship has been detected.]
[Would you like to grant citizenship?]
Due to the sheer range, an overwhelming number of people became eligible for citizenship.
At a glance, there were thousands of them.
'Are Mom and Dad among them…?'
The number was so enormous that checking each individual was almost impossible.
However, considering the case of his grandfather and grandmother, if his blood relatives were present, the message should have been about family rather than citizenship.
'Mom and Dad must be outside this range.'
That was where Seo Yejin was desperately searching.
If she found them, she would immediately receive a response.
"Grant citizenship."
For now, he accepted all the thousands of people.
"Jaehyun!"
Yoo Hyerin supported him as he nearly collapsed.
His mind was in shambles, but he couldn't afford to collapse from exhaustion now.
'The Absolute's Eye.'
He immediately activated the Absolute's Eye to check on his grandfather's situation.
"Strange."
The first thing he saw was his grandfather tilting his head in confusion.
"What's wrong, sir?"
Ha Donggeon's tone had become noticeably more respectful.
Well, after witnessing such overwhelming power, anyone would naturally take a lower stance.
"In the past, the monsters I caught lost all their flesh, but now they disappear entirely, leaving only bones behind."
Ha Donggeon confidently replied.
"That's probably due to Jaehyun's ability. We also used to find monster corpses after hunting, but ever since we came under Jaehyun's influence, the corpses no longer remain."
"Is that so? Then those strange words appearing in the air are also Jaehyun's ability?"
"That's correct."
"What a peculiar ability."
Judging by the situation, it seemed they had successfully overcome the monster wave.
The number of monsters was overwhelming, but as long as they only had to deal with those charging head-on, they managed to hold out.
Of course, that didn't mean it was something a single person could handle alone.
Defending against that many monsters alone…
And yet, his grandfather didn't even seem fatigued.
'Even if his stats increased multiple times due to the opening of the bloodline's power…'
With a tenfold increase in trust-based power, his grandfather's abilities had likely grown nearly ninefold.
Even taking that into account, this was unbelievable.
He had been incredibly strong to begin with, which made it possible.
"So, you're saying that when you hunt monsters, they just vanish?"
"That's correct."
"Then go to the warehouse and bring some people."
"People?"
His grandfather gestured with his chin toward the marine monsters struggling, caught alive by tree roots.
"Yeah, if we want to slice them up for sashimi, we need people to kill them so the flesh remains."
"I'll go get them."
As his grandfather said, when ordinary people hunted the monsters, the bodies remained.
'I never even considered this inconvenience.'
He had never imagined they would actually eat the monsters.
'Item registration.'
As a test, he tried registering the corpse of a dead swordfish.
Bzzz—
A new category called "Fish" appeared in the store.
'Success.'
The price was higher than expected, but considering its size, it made sense.
Just this one could feed nearly a hundred people.
And then, it happened.
[Seo Yejin has encountered the Absolute's bloodline within their home.]
[Unlocking the bloodline's power.]
He immediately focused the Absolute's Eye on Seo Yejin.
And there—
"Oppaya, look over there! Our apartment is still intact!"
"You're right."
『Name: Lee Jisook (Lv. 50)
Title: [Bloodline] [Immediate Family]
Trust Level: 97
Awakening Ability: The One Who Rules』
『Name: Kim Donghyuk (Lv. 42)
Title: [Bloodline] [Immediate Family] [Guardian Warrior]
Trust Level: 93
Awakening Ability: Defensive Aura』
'Mom…! Dad…!'
His longed-for parents were there.
[Citizenship will be granted to the 23 people under the authority of Bloodline Member Lee Jisook (The One Who Rules).]
'Huh?'
And with them, an entire group composed solely of registered individuals.
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