Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 277

277. The Sky is Falling (8)

Yu-min’s eyes were stained black, clouded with dark smoke.

Gazing into the inky darkness, Yu-min trembled.

The idea of placing the hand that used the ‘Beast of the End’ on Cheonru’s heart wasn’t born from careful consideration.

It was out of desperation, a need to do anything, and the unique characteristics of the ‘Beast of the End’ suddenly came to mind.

No, rather than coming to mind, it whispered.

‘Call me, friend of the Butler.’

Yu-min knew almost nothing about the ‘Beast of the End’ that she had copied from Hyun-mu through Skill: Blank Slate.

However, the information she had heard from Hyun-mu, the existence of Renian, and the ominous yet powerful force felt from this skill strongly stimulated Yu-min’s curiosity.

Yu-min conducted all sorts of experiments to try and control Skill: Beast of the End.

One of the things she learned through this was that this skill was a type of summoning skill, not enhancement or transformation.

It summoned a very powerful and high-dimensional being.

Yu-min had never seen Renian since she first copied the skill, but she complied with its whisper.

“Yu-min, what’s happening right now? Are you really okay?”

Song Yeo-un’s worried voice reached her. Yu-min wanted to answer that she didn’t know either, that she didn’t know what was happening.

But now her lips wouldn’t move.

Song Yeo-un’s voice was clear, but at the same time, it felt faint and distant, like a shout from hundreds of meters away.

In reality, Yu-min’s body was close, but her mind was completely somewhere else.

The smell of the sea filled her senses.

Yu-min was in the sea.

Bubbles rising and the movement of the currents shaking her body, the sound of waves crashing on the surface could be heard.

In the swaying water, Yu-min momentarily felt suffocated, but soon realized that she didn’t need to breathe.

This is not reality.

Yu-min looked for the bottom. But the bottom was only a darkness that felt distant, and it was difficult to even estimate the depth.

She raised her head, but it was the same. She could see the surface of the water rippling from a great height, but she couldn’t imagine reaching it.

Suddenly, Yu-min saw countless clusters of something floating near the surface of the water.

It was an enormous number. An endless group, enough to cover the sea, was covering the sea like a school of anchovies.

Yu-min carefully examined what it was. And instantly, a chill went up her spine.

It was Cheonru.

An uncountable number of Cheonru were floating on the sea.

The Cheonru each emitted colorful lights and wriggled their tentacles. Considering the enormous size of Cheonru, it was unimaginable, but the shape was the same.

She suspected that it might be a reduced form or that this appearance might be real, but Yu-min dismissed the thought.

Right next to her, one Cheonru was passing by, bubbling.

Only the bright surface of the water was clearly visible, but even in the deep sea where she was, countless Cheonru were floating around.

Yu-min couldn’t even guess the size of this sea. At least it wasn’t Earth.

The depth of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Earth, is about 1 kilometer [0.62 miles]. But this place seemed to be several times that.

Yu-min felt her sense of distance becoming strange.

In fact, at this depth, at this distance, Cheonru shouldn’t be visible. The sea isn’t as transparent as you think.

But Yu-min soon dismissed her logical worries. She thought it would be better to just think of all this as a dream.

Then Yu-min heard something. It was a whispering sound.

At first, she just thought it was the sound of bubbles. But the whispering sound was getting closer and closer, as if gnawing at her brain.

Suddenly, Cheonru brushed past her. Of course, it’s ambiguous to use the expression ‘beside’ for a monster with a diameter of 18 kilometers [11 miles].

But the current it created was enough to turn Yu-min upside down.

Yu-min, who was swept away by the current, felt a gaze.

The Cheonru were staring at her.

It was a strange feeling to be stared at by countless eyes of huge beasts that would consider her like dust.

Imagine thousands of people staring at an ant.

The ant wouldn’t feel the gazes of the people, but now Yu-min felt like she was that ant.

[Among ■■ Amom Ago ■■■ Ra Gos ■■■■ ■.]

The Cheonru, staring at her from the closest place, suddenly made a strange noise.

Most of it was just a bubbling sound that was hard to understand, and even the sounds that could be understood were difficult to understand the meaning of.

Yu-min opened her mouth to say something, but all that came into her mouth was salty seawater.

[Iam Ama ■■■]

At that moment, Cheonru wrapped Yu-min with its tentacles.

Countless teeth attached to each sucker inside the tentacle rushed at her.

***

“Oh my god, Yu-min. You’re really doing it. Cheonru has stopped!”

Lee Seo-yeon said, looking at the unbelievable scenery below.

The tentacles embedded throughout the city were preventing Cheonru from falling. Now, rather, Cheonru was stretching out its tentacles as if trying to fly into the sky.

But there was no answer from Yu-min.

She stopped emitting black smoke and was just standing there like a totem pole.

“Yu-min?”

Lee Seo-yeon carefully approached Yu-min from behind and tried to touch her body. But at that moment, Yu-min suddenly opened her mouth.

“Among ■■ Goge Asur ■ ■■■ Laa Ago.”

Everyone in that place froze.

The voice now was Yu-min’s voice, but the pronunciation was clearly not human.

No, they were sounds that didn’t seem possible with human oral structure.

“Yuge Am ■■■■ Atsul.”

“This is messed up.”

Yu-min’s complexion was bluish like a drowned corpse, and foam was dripping from her mouth.

Lee Seo-yeon’s complexion turned pale at the clear abnormality. The Jeonneungryeon hunters were the same.

“Yu-min, get a grip!”

Song Yeo-un grabbed Yu-min’s shoulders and shook her in a hurry.

But Song Yeo-un, who met Yu-min’s eyes, realized that Yu-min was no longer in her body.

Yu-min’s hand instantly grabbed Song Yeo-un’s face.

“■ Eha ■■■ Ago.”

Yu-min’s fingernails scratched her face, but Song Yeo-un’s face, who was at a higher level [referring to her enhanced abilities], wasn’t even scratched. But Song Yeo-un instantly got goosebumps.

This wasn’t an attempt to attack with fingernails.

It felt like an octopus was stickily wrapping around her with its tentacles.

The being occupying Yu-min’s body also looked at its hand as if it was puzzled.

It was as if something completely different from a human was struggling to control a human body.

Fortunately, Yu-min’s body was weak. But that was only for a moment.

“■■ Ehaga Yugur ■ Amam.”

Gururuk. With a strange gurgling sound, a greenish tentacle flicked out of Yu-min’s mouth.

The tongue had been transformed into the shape of a tentacle.

In the shocking sight, everyone froze, and as if responding to Yu-min’s incomprehensible words, the inside of Cheonru began to wriggle.

“Ago Amam.”

Jjeoeok. [Sound of something cracking or splitting]

As the wall cracked, long, earthworm-like things began to crawl out from inside.

They were Cheonru’s parasites.

The hunters began to fight the parasites in confusion. The parasites were at the 4-star level [a measure of their power]. Moreover, the number was rapidly increasing.

In the smell of the sea, Yu-min was eerily muttering the language of another world.

“Get a grip, Yu-min! If something goes wrong with you here, I’ll die!”

At that moment, before anyone could stop her, Lee Seo-yeon swung her iron mace. With a thud, Yu-min’s head was thrown back.

Seeing that, Song Yeo-un screamed.

“What are you doing! Do you want to die!”

“I heard that if something is broken, it gets fixed if you hit it once!”

She didn’t hit her with the intention of killing her, so only the side of Yu-min’s head was slightly scratched.

However, Yu-min was just staring at Lee Seo-yeon with unfocused eyes. Her eyes flashed ominously around.

The moment Lee Seo-yeon met those eyes, she couldn’t move anymore. Yu-min’s mouth opened again.

“Ah, sorry.”

Lee Seo-yeon was suddenly embarrassed by the understandable words that came out of Yu-min.

But she still didn’t feel like the other person was Yu-min at all.

It was something else, not Yu-min, that was controlling her body.

“Butler’s friend went in deeper than I thought. It’s okay now. It’s resolved.”

Lee Seo-yeon couldn’t understand what the being occupying Yu-min’s body was saying.

Then Yu-min’s gaze turned to the iron mace Lee Seo-yeon was holding. Lee Seo-yeon quickly hid the iron mace behind her back. At the same time, Cheonru’s parasites began to writhe and convulse in pain.

And people felt a sudden pressure.

Cheonru was rising rapidly.

***

Yu-min couldn’t believe the scene before her eyes.

The moment the tentacle wrapped around her and tried to pull her, the Cheonru in front of her was pulled away and disappeared into the deep sea.

A huge current threw her body again. But Yu-min couldn’t take her eyes off the deep sea.

From the depths of the sea, countless beasts were soaring up.

It wasn’t just Cheonru.

They were all kinds of bizarrely shaped marine creatures that she had never imagined. There were also guys that looked similar to or bigger than Cheonru.

Yu-min was overwhelmed by the sight of countless beings soaring up like sea bubbles. Then, at some point, Yu-min realized what their movements meant.

They were running away.

Yu-min looked down at the abyss, the source from which they were running away. Suddenly, a white gap appeared in the abyss.

It was only after the red flesh and tongue were revealed that she realized it was teeth.

Jjeoeoeoeok. [An intensified version of Jjeoeok, suggesting a larger crack]

The mouth opened as if it would drink all the seawater.

It was already a sea of a size that would make your head go crazy just with the number of Cheonru.

But even that sea seemed narrow to the huge being that filled the deep sea.

The sea beasts that were running away were helplessly swept away along with the seawater. Yu-min was the same.

Yu-min, who was being dragged down as it was, met the huge eyes of a whale, the size of dozens of Cheonru combined.

It whispered to Yu-min.

“Go back.”

***

“Cough, heok!” [Sound of gasping and retching]

Yu-min collapsed on the floor and vomited out a lot of contents. A salty taste lingered on her tongue.

She barely caught her breath and looked around.

It was a bit chaotic and there were some unidentified white earthworm-like things dead, but nothing seemed to have changed much. However, the way people were looking at her was unusual.

“Why?”

Yu-min looked at Lee Seo-yeon, who was nearby, and asked.

“You… where did you go?”

Yu-min wondered what she was talking about. Then she suddenly found the vomit she had vomited.

She could tell that it was seawater from the salty, fishy taste in her mouth.

But she didn’t know why there were seashells, half-crushed small crabs, and clumps of jellyfish in it.

“…It’s complicated to explain.”

She didn’t have the confidence to explain.

Yu-min roughly wiped her mouth and looked at the floor.

The floor that should have been showing the lower part of Saint Petersburg was not visible. It was just black.

“What happened? Did Cheonru move?”

“You have no idea at all?”

“Yeah. I don’t know, so can you explain it?”

Lee Seo-yeon showed her watch and said.

“…It just passed 36 kilometers [22 miles] in altitude. I was worried that it would break through the stratosphere and go into space, but I’m glad that the person responsible for the situation seems to have come to her senses.”

Yu-min was speechless.

Even though she had lost consciousness, 36 kilometers [22 miles] in altitude? She couldn’t tell how quickly it had risen.

What was certain was that Saint Petersburg was safe.

Yu-min’s gaze suddenly turned to Cheonru’s heart. She still couldn’t be sure what she had seen in that sea.

But now Cheonru’s heart was the same color as the purple eyes of the huge whale she had seen in that sea.