Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 47

47. Cauldron Bottom (1)

“Huh? What? Wait a minute. What’s delicious?”

[Remaining survival time: 47 hours, 59 minutes, 56 seconds.]

Hyeon-woo asked again, but of course, there was no answer. Instead, only the dry, emotionless narrator’s voice was heard.

Hyeon-woo couldn’t figure out what was happening to his body. There were no immediate changes, but what did it mean to become delicious? Was that something you said about a human body?

‘Nah, no way.’

Hyeon-woo sniffed his wrist. He could only smell a faint, salty sweat; he couldn’t find anything particularly different. Then, Hyeon-woo’s eyes met Renian’s.

Renian was looking at Hyeon-woo from the window frame, eyes sparkling.

“You, stay right there.”

Hyeon-woo quickly warned before Renian could move. Renian pouted.

“I was finally going to taste my delicious butler, but you’re not going to let me?”

“You always say I’m delicious. Wait, do you know what this curse is?”

“Yep.”

Renian said with a beaming smile.

“It’s a spice only available at Yog-Gulem’s banquet. If you get that curse, you emit a scent that stimulates the appetite of those around you. The butler was seasoned directly by Yog-Gulem, so the scent must be amazing. The taste is superb too. Once you’re hit with the delicious curse, you become addicted to the taste and turn into a ravenous ghoul constantly searching for it. Most of the starving star’s people are like that. A gluttonous hell where they eat and are eaten by each other.”

Renian explained in a cheerful tone, as if introducing a famous restaurant. Hyeon-woo thought he had been hit with a truly ridiculous curse.

A curse that stimulates the appetite of those around you. And the target is Hyeon-woo himself.

“Have you ever eaten it? Is it okay?”

“Fairies are fine. Because they are the promised beasts who will devour all worlds.”

She said proudly, but he didn’t understand what she meant. Anyway, Renian seemed to be planning to maintain her non-violent principles.

Hyeon-woo quickly turned to Kirson. Kirson wiped his mouth with a flustered expression and shook his head.

“Keeuk. I wasn’t thinking anything strange.”

That statement itself meant he was having strange thoughts. But it didn’t seem like he was losing his mind, probably because he was under Hyeon-woo’s control.

He didn’t know how it would affect other monsters. Hyeon-woo quickly prepared to move. If the scent was spreading, hiding would be useless.

“You said Yog-Gulem’s followers would be tracking me. Renian, do you know where they are?”

Hyeon-woo didn’t need to wait for an answer.

Bang! Something slammed into the barricade on the window. The sound was like throwing a boulder, and Hyeon-woo tensed up, ready to jump out.

Then, a familiar sound came from outside the window.

The sound of rapidly flapping wings.

Woo-oong─ Bang, Kwakwang! The sounds of repeated collisions were heard, and soon the barricade was shattered. Mosquitoes poured in through the hole. Hyeon-woo gritted his teeth and swatted at the mosquitoes. There were hundreds of mosquitoes, but Kirson and Hyeon-woo’s abilities were enough to handle them.

But even so, the mosquitoes rushed at Hyeon-woo with strange intensity. Then, they repeatedly forced their proboscises into his skin.

The mosquitoes that sucked Hyeon-woo’s blood fell to the floor, staggering and crawling. Even so, they didn’t try to get away from Hyeon-woo’s feet.

Hyeon-woo stomped on the crawling mosquitoes.

“It’s not mosquito season, is it?”

“Mosquitoes are the most basic underlings of Yog-Gulem’s followers. Yog-Gulem’s followers are always busy filling their bellies with something. They smelled the delicious butler’s blood, so they’re going crazy now.”

Hyeon-woo frowned at Renian’s answer. But his face turned pale at the words that followed.

“Um, and the butler should run away. Mosquitoes are also Yog-Gulem’s youngest spies. Now, all of Yog-Gulem’s followers in the vicinity will flock here. Oh, the fairy has to run away too.”

Renian quickly picked up the mosquitoes that had fallen to the floor, passed out from eating Hyeon-woo’s blood, and disappeared. Kirson hesitated, looking at Hyeon-woo, then quickly bowed.

“I don’t think my strength will be helpful right now, so next time…”

“Stay right there.”

Hyeon-woo gritted his teeth and glanced out the window. He wanted to see what was coming after the mosquitoes. And when Hyeon-woo looked at the sky, he realized that this situation was more complicated than he thought.

The black clouds covering the sky were swirling down.

***

Hyeon-woo hid in a crumbling building a little away from the intersection. It was a building he had been eyeing for a long time to use as a second shelter in case of emergency.

Looking down at the intersection, the once-clean area with almost no monsters had turned completely black.

It was a swarm of mosquitoes that had been forming part of the cloud layer above.

But even though so many had come down, the cloud layer hadn’t thinned out at all.

“Goddamn it…”

Hyeon-woo remembered something he had seen in a documentary about dungeons a long time ago.

There were several criteria for dividing animals and monsters, but the two main ones were:

The first is diet.

Monsters hardly eat. It’s not that they don’t eat at all, but they eat surprisingly little compared to their size. It was speculated that they get the necessary calories from mana.

Hyeon-woo thought that was probably right. Otherwise, there was no way to explain why the mosquitoes were alive even while maintaining that insane number.

The second is hostility towards humans.

Most animals run away when they encounter humans. Even carnivores that can easily eat humans avoid them if possible.

The ancestors of mankind have hunted and driven to extinction more than 90% of the large terrestrial mammals. That memory must be engraved in their DNA.

But monsters are different. They show almost unconditional hostility towards humans.

‘Still, the reason I was able to hold out was because they had a bug-like side to them.’

The reason Hyeon-woo was able to survive was because they knew his blood was toxic and avoided him, not because he had become stronger. He felt it to the bone this time. Anyway, there’s no beating numbers.

“No, with that number, they could attack a dinosaur and turn it into a mummy.”

Hyeon-woo carefully looked around. This place wasn’t safe either. If the mosquitoes realized Hyeon-woo wasn’t there, they would slowly spread out, and there was almost no chance that Hyeon-woo could safely escape from that dense encirclement.

“Kirson.”

“Keeuk, yes.”

Kirson fidgeted and quickly answered. He seemed worried about the survival of the tribesmen.

“What do you think would happen if I hid in your village?”

“Kehk, keeuk. I, I don’t think it would be easy. Our village smells a lot, and, you know, the ‘delicious’ curse…”

“It applies to you guys too, huh? I see.”

It was a curse that made him a lovable charm for all monsters, not just Yog-Gulem’s followers. Kirson muttered with a slightly embarrassed face.

“Also, if you eat the ‘delicious’ target, you become addicted and automatically become a citizen of Yog-Gulem. Keeuk. You become a constantly hungry ghoul. Kit, those guys can’t even starve to death, so we have no choice but to lock them up and make them eat themselves. Mosquitoes are nothing compared to them.”

Hyeon-woo looked surprised at Kirson’s explanation.

“What, you know about the curse too?”

“Aside from knowing or not… Keeuk, hungry guys are commonly seen everywhere outside this area.”

Hyeon-woo’s expression became subtle.

Commonly seen?

Yog-Gulem’s followers were said to be tracking Hyeon-woo. The mosquito swarms found Hyeon-woo and rushed at him first, and now that his location had been revealed, other followers would flock to him.

In other words, the mosquito swarm was just the prologue, not the main event.

“No, shit. Why are you telling me this now!”

Kuguguguk!

Hyeon-woo turned his head at the strange sound. Birds he had never seen before were sitting on the outer walls of the high-rise building, since when he didn’t know.

Feathers glistening with black grease, grotesquely swollen bodies, and eyes the color of rotten green algae.

Hyeon-woo’s mind was telling him that he remembered seeing that, but he couldn’t connect it to its name.

[Plague Pigeon (LV 9)]

Kuguguguk!

He wanted to ask what kind of joke they were playing since earlier. But the moment the pigeons flapped their wings all at once, swarms of black fleas poured out of their wings.

Hyeon-woo immediately turned around and started running. The pigeons flapped their deformed wings and ran, thumping instead of flying.

A delicious curse, mosquitoes, even pigeons.

It was a series of situations that were impossible to take seriously. Of course, it was a matter of life and death, so he had no choice but to be desperate.

He had prepared so hard, but it was all for nothing because he had become delicious. He couldn’t accept it.

Two legendary weapons and skills were useless. Hyeon-woo suddenly remembered that Yog-Gulem had been watching him closely lately.

‘No, could it be that he anticipated that I would accept it and put this out to screw me over?’

Hyeon-woo gritted his teeth.

“Just give me someone to fight properly!”

Hyeon-woo shouted and jumped out of the building. At that moment, Hyeon-woo realized that there were quite a few things standing outside besides him.

[Predator Ghoul (LV 33)]

[Mad Ghast (LV 41)]

[Hungry Zombie (LV 24)]

Innumerable humanoid monsters, probably over a hundred, were looking at Hyeon-woo. They looked like they were straight out of a horror movie, but their levels were staggeringly high.

“…No, I’ll go back in.”

[The ‘Hell’s Strongest’ title increases stats relative to level.]

The narrator’s voice was heard, without a sense of timing.

The hungry ones screamed without hesitation and rushed towards Hyeon-woo.

[You have died.]

[Total survival time: 02 days, 1 hour, 16 minutes, 15 seconds.]

***

“Haha, this is bullshit.”

Hyeon-woo started running as soon as he resurrected. There was no other way but to run with the mosquitoes swarming at the intersection. But even so, he had already been bitten several times.

He didn’t even know what happened to Kirson when he first died. Now that he thought about it, it seemed like he had run away in a completely different direction from Hyeon-woo.

‘That son of a bitch.’

He was despicable and fierce, just like someone he knew. Just like Renian. He didn’t know why there was no one he could trust around him.

But the most untrustworthy of all was this world itself.

‘How the hell am I supposed to clear this?’

It was the same thought he had every time he encountered a quest, but he had no choice but to repeat it this time as well.

It was the same when he fought Kirson, but at that time he could at least come up with a strategy. Even while repeating defeats, he had the confidence that he was approaching victory.

But this time, he was facing an overwhelming number of monsters with overwhelming levels, with his level completely blocked.

There were already more than a dozen ghasts, monsters that were twice Hyeon-woo’s level. This wasn’t a quest made to be cleared.

It was a quest made to die.

[The Starving Star, Yog-Gulem, is watching you.]

“Yeah, it’s fun, isn’t it, you son of a bitch! The shit you fed me is so sweet!”

Hyeon-woo ran, flipping off the middle finger anywhere, because he didn’t know where Yog-Gulem was watching.

“Why didn’t you put salt and pepper on it too, you son of a bitch?! Why don’t you just cook it, huh? Grill it, stew it, slice it into sashimi! If you want to eat it so deliciously!”

But of course, there was no answer from Yog-Gulem.

That’s how the stars were.

They would just watch emotionlessly, or convey very minor emotional expressions, or only intentions, and never get deeply involved.

Nevertheless, Yog-Gulem’s malice was felt very strongly in this trial.

‘If I don’t do something about this goddamn situation…’

‘You have to turn right.’

Hyeon-woo almost sprained his leg. He stumbled because he suddenly tried to turn right. If he had sprained his leg like this, he would have been bitten by the mosquito swarm and turned into a mummy [completely drained corpse].

Hyeon-woo barely regained his balance and ran straight ahead instead of going to the right.

He wondered what the hell he was doing.

‘You have to turn right.’

Hyeon-woo thought so.

No, he didn’t think so.

‘No, I thought so.’

Hyeon-woo thought of the low laughter of an unfamiliar woman in his head.

Someone was thinking instead of him.