Evolution Theory of the Hunter Chapter 101

Evolution Theory of the Hunter (ETH)
Volume 1 Chapter 101
 

Just as the t.i.tle hinted, it was a simple list of items. They were generally level 1 and level 2 items, but I spied a few level 3 items in there as well.

What was most surprising though was the quant.i.ty of items. I tried to roughly add them up in my head. All I knew for sure was that there were over 500 unique items in all.

With this many items, it would be safe to a.s.sume that all of items gathered by all their hunters stationed here were recorded in this book.

If we could just take possession of all the equipment written in this book…I couldn’t even imagine how much that would be worth.

There was a catch though. The book didn’t say anything about where they kept all of the recorded items.

Manager Kim sidled up to me and peered into the book as he asked.

“What’s that book about?”

“It contains written record of all the items they took possession of from this land. If I include the number of ores too….there is over 100 million items in all.”

“100…100 million?”

Sohn Aram asked with rounded eyes.

That number was definitely something unfathomable to us…I couldn’t imagine what it sounded like to someone who wasn’t a hunter.

“I say this but the problem is that we lack the time and the means to find all of those items.”

“Hm….that’s a pity….”

“Can’t we find some way…it really is a pity.”

Manager Kim and Cho Youngoo whispered to themselves.

I agreed 100%. To know that there was a fortune gathered somewhere….ready for the taking…this was extremely appealing.

My priority took a slight shift. The truck became a smaller worry in the scheme of things. If we could just find their stash of items, the loss of items from that truck was trivial.

“Can’t we just send out Kelby to look for them?”

Yeonkyoung asked.

“Hm? Why do you say that?”

“Well….items are like sustenance for him. I have a feeling that he would be able to track and find them.”

“You know what…now that you say that…it does make sense.”

It was just as she said. But what was this dog doing still not coming down from the trees?

In order to get up to the building that was sitting 30 meters above ground, I had to climb up the tree of climb up the hanging rope.

Both were annoying options, but I had to go up to bring Kelby back down.

During that time, we agreed to have everyone else to bring back the other vehicles to this spot.

Crunch. Crunch.

When I finally reached the top, I found Kelby. He was leisurely chewing on a sword. It probably belonged to the hunter who fell down to his death early, but from this angle it looked like a doggy treat.

“Hurry up and finish that so we can get down. We have something for you to do.”

“Gulp..”

At my words, Kelby pawed at what remained of the sword before swallowing it in one gulp. Is there some kind of black hole in that small body of his or something? How is he able to swallow half a sword in one bite?

He is definitely not normal.

While I was up here, I decided to look around a bit. But there was nothing useful here. Those two books that dead hunter had on him were the only things we could really use.

I wondered if he came to steal the books while everyone or if he were a.s.signed caretaker of the books…either way, they were now ours.

“I need you to find where they hid all of their items.”

Yeonkyoung asked Kelby as she hugged him to her chest. As soon as she gave the order, Kelby immediately put his nose to the ground and began sniffing.

A dog’s sense of smell is 1000 to 10 million times stronger than a human’s.

Since a dog is able pick up the scent of food from several kilometers away, it wasn’t unbelievable that Kelby might locate the items.

Woof!

Kelby gave one loud bark before he started running into the forest. Everyone in their respective ATVs revved our vehicles and quickly gave chase.

“If….there are over 200 hunters…which I suspect from the number of treehouses…this could end up being  bloodbath between the Chinese hunters and the Ezekiel group.”

Sohn Aram said from the pa.s.senger seat.

“Nothing is for sure yet. But, I can say that the possibility of that is very high. Both sides will suffer a lot of casualties.”

“I want to say I’m rooting for the Ezekiel guys…”

“Why is that?”

“What?”

Sohn Aram exclaimed in surprise as she looked at me.

“…I’m sorry. I only asked because I had some bad run ins with the Ezekiel group.”

“Ah…I see. I didn’t know…”

“No that’s fine. You’re right. If I had to pick a side to win, it would be better for an enemy of mine but a fellow countryman to win.”

This isn’t because I am giving them a break. It’s because if the Ezekiel group won, they wouldn’t be able to do whatever they wanted on our land as opposed to the Chinese hunters who wouldn’t be bound by our country’s laws.

In the end, we’d probably have to fight with whoever won though…no matter who it was.

“Do you think they can win?”

“I don’t know. Nothing is for sure…”

“But there is a variable that could mean everything.”

“What’s that?”

“Firearms. If the other side uses firearms, the Ezekiel team could get pushed back fairly easily.”

This was true. Firearms were of no use to hunters because they had almost no effect on monsters. But if the Chinese were armed with firearms that the Ezekiel most likely did not have…it could be a game changer. The Chinese would be able to attack while Ezekiel would only be able to defend themselves using armor. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as an armor that covers every inch of your body.

The only saving grace was that the Chinese would not have too many among them with firearms since that isn’t how hunters fight.

Rustle!

It was then. A hunter emerged from within the trees along our path. Because Kelby didn’t warn us, we had been unprepared.

He had a long bow in hand.

“s.h.i.t! It’s dangerous…”

Woosh!

Plop!

Just when I was about to let out a yell of warning, another hunter from behind a tree emerged to throw a spear. The spear lodged squarely into the first hunter’s forehead.

In the next instant, a sword had sliced across the throat of the hunter who had thrown the spear.

We all quickly got out of our ATVs and hid behind it.

“Kelby!”

Yeonkyoung called out to Kelby. He had run off somewhere and didn’t come back. Seeing how he didn’t give us any warning from this recent events or come back from Yeonkyoung’s call, he was probably distracted by something significant.

Did he find the items already?

But there was something else I wondered. Just where on earth were several hundred hunters fighting?

I don’t feel like there is anywhere in the forest open enough for such a thing to happen.

Then the answer came to me.

There wasn’t such an area.

This was how they were fighting the whole time.

Hiding. Ambushing.

Now that we had lost our scout, Kelby, we moved more carefully. As we moved in this manner, whether it was the Ezekiel or the Chinese, we took care of each and every one of them.

The number of hunters we took care of in this way slowly began to add up until they hit the double digits.

But we had yet to find neither our stolen truck nor the stash of items.

The enemies remained in the cover of the forest and short of having omniscience, we would not be able to get them all.

“It would be nice if we knew where we were…I lost my sense of direction because we were just following Kelby.”

“Ok let’s settle on a goal and move towards that.”

There was no point in just wandering around, hoping to luck on something. I looked for the tallest tree in the vicinity and climbed to the top.

If I were the Chungo group, where would I be?

Hm. If I had several hundreds of hunters attack me, the first thing I would think to protect would be the h.o.a.rd of items.

I would probably try to drag on the time so that I could move all the items to a safe location little by little.

I knew I was on the right track now because then it made sense why they would steal out truck.

Now we just had to find the spot where they were most concentrated.

The problem was that the dense forest prevented me from being able to see where there were concentrations of hunters.

I got down from the tree and said to my party members.

“Let’s continue following the path. If my thoughts are correct, they will have stored all the items in a place accessible by a truck.”