Evolution Theory of the Hunter Chapter 76

Evolution Theory of the Hunter (ETH)
Volume 1 Chapter 76
 

“Well does that mean we dealt the Ezekiel Team a huge blow? I mean, we unblocked the road they were barricading, “got rid of” close to 40 of them….they must be mad.”

“And? There’s only so much they can do to us on this large land. There’s no reason to be scared of them.”

The Southern Marsh was a much larger territory than the other areas.

How are they going to find us? They don’t even know my face.

I mean, the only ones who would recognize me are the guys we tied up at the barricades. But it’s not as if they’re going to draw my face and pa.s.s it around for a reward.

If they did something like that, they would end up being investigated by the government.

“All we need to focus on is hunting and collecting items.”

My primary focus while at the West Sea was growing my power, my team’s power, and even Kelby’s power now.

This meant instead of wasting our time pondering over stupid things, we should just hunt monsters. Simple.

“Sunbeh Oppa! Big news!”

While I was resting after eating a simple dinner, Sooah screamed as she shoved her smartphone in my face.

As the latest model with a great big screen, it was a huge thing. But that wasn’t what was important here.

My picture was on the giant screen.

“What is this. When did you take a picture of me?”

“I didn’t take this one! All the ones I took are safely saved somewhere else. But look at this. This is a post from a blog that covers all things about the West Sea and someone put your picture up including what happened recently!”

“What are you talking about?”

I took the smartphone from her and started to look it over.

Not everything was recorded in the blog.

But at the very least, it described how team Delta and I had pushed past the barricades that Ezekiel had set up.

And the fight was recorded via video.

I guess this was to be expected. There were over 1000 hunters behind us at the time. Of course someone among them would have thought to record it.

“Wow..nice filming. Looks like you’re going to become famous huh?”

Manager Kim said.

“I did expect something like this to some extent, but now that it really happened it’s a bit embarra.s.sing. But it’s lucky that it didn’t show up on the news…”

“Party head, you come up as a top search now.”

Han Joonseok started shaking his phone and laughing.

Oh. My. G.o.d.

“Luckily it was taken from far away though so people won’t be able to identify you easily.”

“But it’ll still spell trouble – I mean they have his name and the team name too.”

We had given those Ezekiel guys a good beating and even took their items. They had enough to report us now.

“Who’s going to bear witness and testify though? I don’t think anyone would do it.”

“Who knows. Hunters follow the money no matter what.”

Now I was starting to get nervous. I expected to gain a bit of fame – but this was a bit much.

“What do you think those Ezekiel guys will do now?”

Han Joonseok asked.

We were still unclear as to how strong the Ezekiel team was a whole. Raid teams are usually required to register and reveal their member count but, because that team is constantly adding to their number, it was hard to know.

I could only guess they were about 3-400 in number based on what a stranger had revealed.

If we were to just go off numbers alone, they were bigger than team Mercenary. But their ability was a mystery.

“They’ll probably be looking out for us. But as I said, the land is big enough that finding us will be difficult.”

“But won’t they just have to spread out and look for us since they have a lot of members?”

Sooah asked. Of course that’s a possibility. But seeing how they operated up until recently, I don’t see that happening. They liked to move in numbers.

“Team Ezekiel likes to move in big groups to accomplish tasks. They rely on this so much that they don’t even mind if a bunch of their hunters die during a fight. Think about what happened at the Baeksapyoung dungeon.”

“So?”

“If they find it hard to look for us by moving in large groups, they will resort to other methods. Worst case scenario….hunting other hunters.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you feel something was off that last fight?”

“Not really…just that they fight well? I think we would have been in trouble if Sunbeh Oppa and Kelby weren’t there.”

“The overall fighting levels on both sides were very similar. And we even had more men on our side. But we were losing the first half of the battle. What does that tell us?”

“Good coordination?”

“It was something else. That they were familiar with fighting in such situations.”

“Then…”

Sooah gulped after a moment. I nodded.

“Since they’ve stepped foot into this new land, they haven’t just been hunting monsters…”

“Surely not…”

“Of course I’m not going to a.s.sume they were purposely putting themselves in such situations…yet. Because on the other hand, if that was their goal, they wouldn’t have blocked off the Southern Marshes to start with.”

“But I guess this changes things now…”
I nodded at Han Joonseok’s murmur.

“When you succeed on this kind of hunt, you can earn about 100,000 worth of items from one hunter. Of course it could be even more than that if there are hunters with level 2 items or higher. “

100,000 dollars. If you were lucky, you could do several times that from hunting another hunter.

Since they always work using their numerical advantage, hunting humans would not only be easier than hunting a monster…but it would net more profit as well.

Any reservations they might have had in killing a fellow human being, probably flew away with the wind as soon as they smelled the money.

They might even console themselves by saying those hunters were bound to die soon anyway – it was a dangerous career.

Crackle.

The bonfire crackled and the flames seemed to dance.

The reason for the bonfire was because monsters didn’t like them.

Of course there were a select few monsters who were actually attracted to light. And the team Ezekiel would probably be attracted to the fire as well.

But it was better for us to have the light so we can see our enemy.

We had hung a large LED lamp on the b.u.mper of the car as well.

“Hm….”

Everyone else had fallen asleep already.

Having drawn first shift for lookout, I searched the portal news on Sooah’s phone.

The main news was about the friction with China.

It seems the Chinese had sent out their own hunters into the West Sea as well.

There were increased tensions between the high level hunters from both sides, but it seemed Korea and China were being careful.

The two countries couldn’t afford a full out war. But that didn’t mean that either side was going to let the other take control of this new land either.

My plan was to keep going south. I didn’t want to hunt in the north and accidentally b.u.mp into a high level Chinese hunter.

I had no interest in any of the politics involved. The Southern Marshes weren’t the end of the new land. If you went even further, there was a dense forest – I’m sure there are plenty of monsters to be hunted there.

I ex’ed out of the portal and logged into the hunter market community.

People here were still on the topic of the barricades in the Southern Marshes. Oy vey.