I Became The Rankers’ Number One Pick [EN]: Chapter 58

58.

Seo-ah quietly got up, a toy hammer in her hand.

“…Sunbae [senior colleague or mentor], wake up.”

“What? Why? You told me to stay still a minute ago!”

“Shhh.”

Seo-ah warned him with a serious face, and Gil Gyeong-tae seemed to sense the mood, shutting his mouth. Then, looking around anxiously, he slowly moved away from where he was.

“What is it this time, damn it… can’t catch a break.”

Seo-ah decided to leave him alone for now, as she couldn’t figure out which direction the danger was coming from either.

It was then.

A rustling sound came from the bushes. Gil Gyeong-tae, who was intently watching the source of the sound, suddenly stood up.

“Huh? Hey, look at that?”

“Just a moment, I told you not to move.”

“No, look at this.”

Gil Gyeong-tae walked towards something, staring straight at it. Seo-ah stared at him with a stiff expression.

Gil Gyeong-tae pulled something out of the bushes and lifted it high. A small, black animal wriggled in Gil Gyeong-tae’s hand.

“Hehe, it’s a baby wild boar. I guess it’s not a monster? It doesn’t even have teeth yet.”

“Why are you picking it up!”

“No, it was looking at me first. Ah, but this piglet is awfully chubby. Hey, where’s your mom?”

Gil Gyeong-tae held the baby wild boar in the air, examining it from side to side. Park Seo-ah screamed in shock.

“Put it down quickly, I said put it down!”

“Why?”

“Just do it, ah…!”

At this distance, even an E-grade Hunter could sense it. A chilling sensation ran down Seo-ah’s spine. Seo-ah stiffly turned her head to look behind her.

In her view, a house-sized wild boar was silently approaching and glaring at Gil Gyeong-tae.

There was no doubt. She didn’t even need to use a State Checker [an item or ability used to assess the characteristics of a target] to know. This intense mana energy was definitely a boss. To think they’d meet it this soon.

“Hey, I’m hungry, should I catch and eat this… huh?”

Finally, Gil Gyeong-tae seemed to realize the presence of the mother wild boar. His face was filled with shock.

Even a normal wild boar was very dangerous to ordinary people. But this boss monster wasn’t the size of a normal wild boar. It was almost as big as an elephant.

“I, I’ll give it back, ca, calm down…!”

Gil Gyeong-tae hesitated, bending down to put the baby wild boar down. Seo-ah made a large X with her hands.

Now was not the time to put it down.

The boss wild boar was filled with rage, snorting, but it didn’t rush in easily. It was because its precious baby was in his hands.

Gil Gyeong-tae stopped moving and mouthed ‘why?’, but without team chat, there was no way to explain it to him at length.

Instead, Seo-ah carefully walked to the side to get out of the boss wild boar’s path. And she calmly turned on the State Checker.

[Giant Wild Pig (Boss)]

[Overall Grade: D]

[Characterized by its large size and sharp tusks. It has thick skin that is not easily injured by most attacks. Being rammed by its tusks will instantly kill most creatures.

Usually docile, but especially ferocious when it has young.]

[Items: Wild Pig’s Tail, Teeth]

After reading the description, Seo-ah pressed her parched lips tightly together. Of all things, he had to provoke the baby.

At that moment, the baby wild boar in Gil Gyeong-tae’s hand recognized its mother and began to wriggle.

“Oh, oh, this…!”

As the baby moved more violently than expected, Gil Gyeong-tae panicked, not knowing what to do.

“Don’t let go no matter what! Hold on tight!”

Seo-ah shouted urgently, scanning her surroundings. It would be too disadvantageous to fight it in the plains. And there was no need to fight it necessarily.

There were 8 minutes left until the gate opened. They just needed to hold out for 8 minutes.

“Sunbae, slowly back away into the forest. Don’t turn around. Keep looking at it and move slowly.”

Perhaps realizing the seriousness of the situation, Gil Gyeong-tae didn’t argue this time and moved his legs as Seo-ah instructed. Trembling with fear, he barely moved, relying on his instinct to survive.

However, as he moved away from its mother, the baby wild boar in his hand wriggled even more violently.

[Giant Wild Pig] snorted even louder, pawing the ground with its front legs as if it would charge at any moment.

“Ugh…”

At the sight, Gil Gyeong-tae froze again.

Unable to watch any longer, Seo-ah ran towards Gil Gyeong-tae, and Gil Gyeong-tae seized the opportunity to throw the baby towards Seo-ah.

“Hey, you take it!”

He seemed to realize that the reason the mother was targeting him was because of the baby.

“Ah, wait a minute…!”

Caught off guard by the unexpected situation, Seo-ah quickly reached out her arm. But unfortunately, the throw was too short.

The baby pig brushed past Seo-ah’s fingertips and fell to the ground, squealing as it ran towards its mother.

“Ah….”

After a moment of bewilderment, Seo-ah quickly regained her senses. She saw the baby wild boar disappear from her sight, and the mother’s eyes turned blood red. At the same time, she shouted loudly at Gil Gyeong-tae.

“Run away!”

“Ugh, ughhhhh!”

The mother wild boar, now with nothing to hold it back, began to charge like lightning.

The wild boar was targeting Gil Gyeong-tae, not Seo-ah. No matter how fast the ordinary person Gil Gyeong-tae ran, there was no way he could escape the attack range of a D-grade boss monster.

Seo-ah first took out [Stone Knight’s Pride] and threw it again. As soon as she used the item, a message popped up.

[Effect reduced by 50% when used repeatedly in the same gate!]

There was such a penalty.

‘I shouldn’t have used it on the deer earlier.’

She regretted it for a moment, but there was nothing she could do now. The stone flew straight and struck the wild boar’s flank.

Although the power was reduced by 50%, it was enough to make the wild boar stagger for a moment. And it was also enough for the wild boar to change its target.

The boss wild boar, which had been chasing Gil Gyeong-tae, turned its head sharply to look at Seo-ah.

‘Ah, crap.’

Faced with the enraged D-grade boss monster’s blood-red eyes, Seo-ah gripped the toy hammer tightly.

To be honest, she was scared.

She had faced stronger boss monsters before, but this was the first time she felt so nervous and scared.

The only reason was that Seo-ah was the only Hunter who could face that wild boar.

If [Silent Night] hadn’t calmed her down every time she was gripped by fear, Seo-ah wouldn’t have been able to endure it.

‘7 minutes.’

Could she really endure 7 minutes against that giant monster?

Seo-ah cast [Fighting] and [Love Yourself] on herself. Feeling the mana drain away, she focused on the monster’s movements.

The wild boar, having changed direction, charged towards Seo-ah.

Seo-ah didn’t hesitate and lowered her stance. She rolled away by a hair’s breadth and simultaneously struck the wild boar’s front leg with the toy hammer. Then, she quickly got up and ran towards the wooded area.

Still, it was worth raising her stats to the limit. And with the tremendous item power tailored to the A-grade gate, it was definitely tough, but not as helpless as before.

‘But this is not enough.’

Seo-ah’s judgment was correct. The wild boar, which had been limping for a moment, ran again as if nothing had happened.

Gil Gyeong-tae was nowhere to be seen, having hidden somewhere. She thought it was better that way. But Seo-ah’s sprint was quickly caught up as well.

Seo-ah quickly changed her running direction to the side. The wild boar, running only while looking at Seo-ah, didn’t see the big tree and crashed into it.

Thud!

The moment the wild boar crashed, the giant tree made a cracking sound and fell over. Seo-ah was shocked. To smash that big tree in one hit, the boss was indeed a boss.

Seo-ah ran back into the trees without looking back.

‘How much time is left?’

There was no time to check the time. The enraged boss wild boar was chasing her like crazy. She tried to dodge to the side again, but this time the wild boar was faster.

Seo-ah’s body was directly hit by the wild boar’s head. With intense pain spreading through her back, Seo-ah flew into the sky. And she fell onto a tree branch.

“Cough! Ugh….”

Unable to scream from the shock spreading back and forth, Seo-ah choked.

Fortunately, she narrowly avoided the wild boar’s lower teeth, so her belly wasn’t pierced. And her expensive armor played a big role in Seo-ah’s survival.

It was said that she wouldn’t die even if she was hit by a B-grade rhinoceros, and it seemed that was true. Still, it hurt enough to make her tear up.

[Health 28/55(+5) Mana 28/55(+5) Fatigue 53/80]

Her health dropped by almost half in one hit. One more hit and she would probably die.

“Haa….”

She tried to take out a healing potion, but she dropped the bottle because the tree was shaking violently.

“Ah, damn it.”

Seo-ah looked down with desperate eyes.

The wild boar had crashed into the tree like before. Thanks to the tree being a little thicker than the one it had crashed into earlier, it had withstood it once, but could it really withstand it twice?

The wild boar glared at the tree Seo-ah was hanging from and briefly distanced itself.