BXBX NOVEL Chapter 165
Editor: Hungry Panda
Papat!
It knows that it has been discovered, and moves away. It jumps between trees with the speed of a flying squirrel.
“No! Catch it!”
“Ugh!”
Cha Jun Sung’s group activated their boosters to catch the Blade Weasel with confidence, but they cannot make the worst possible scenario.
Blade Weasels live in packs. If they lose it here, Heinkel will find out that its area has been invaded. There is nothing worse than having the enemy expect them in a situation where they need to annihilate everything.
If they can discover the enemy first, they can lead the battle to their advantage. There are countless scenarios that come to mind. They can set up a trap in an appropriate place or throw a bomb into the center of the nest.
“Ah! Damn it!”
“Jun Sung! I can’t catch it! Ack!”
Park Jin Hyuk was only looking at the Blade Weasel’s rear as he ran and was not able to avoid a thick branch nearing him, hitting him in the face.
The branch breaks and Park Jin Hyuk does a half turn. He is not hurt because the battlesuit absorbed the impact, but he can see the blue sky.
Papapapat!
Koharu, Violet, and Basil overtake him once he has fallen. Even the slowest Kyoko is not an exception. She went from 2nd to 6th.
Boom!
Cha Jun Sung blocked the Blade Weasel’s movement with his reinforced rifle and grenades, but they were of no use. It only put more distance between them.
[Overbooster activate!]
16 boosters burst on at the same time and Cha Jun Sung’s body flies forward. But that is all.
The jungle is the Blade Weasel’s homeground. It knows the terrain like the back of its hand, so it moves only in the areas where there are no obstacles.
Cha Jun Sung is not able to use his normal speed. He went back and forth between getting faster and slower, and the Blade Weasel grew smaller every time he reduced the speed. He is already far from his party members. Their battlesuits are unrelated to boosters, so they are in no condition to catch up to Cha Jun Sung.
Cha Jun Sung leapt into the sky. He is going to fly. The energy consumption is severe, but it is not a problem because he has a rapid charging device.
“Ugh! What is that!”
He flew at a reasonable height because he will lose the Blade Weasel if he escapes the range of the forest. Thin branches hit him, but he passes by them. The distance narrows once the obstacles are gone. He will catch it soon.
“Huh?”
It went into a tunnel hidden by leaves. It does not matter whether it was just dug or if it was dug in advance. It is important that it went inside, meaning he lost it.
“Ugh!”
Wiing!
Pew pew pew pew!
Cha Jun Sung set up the automatic cannon, set it to manual, and made the hole into a honeycomb. It is a heavy machine gun that could even get through a steel plate several centimeters in thickness.
The dirt floor might as well be made of jelly. But he does not get a notification that he acquired points. It seems it ran away in that short period of time.
“Jun Sung, did you catch it?”
“No.”
Koharu arrives behind him and looks at the automatic cannon and hole. It is so wide that they can go in, but they do not want to do that.
“How long has it been there? Oy! I guess Heinkel will go around looking for us.”
Their plan had been to search the jungle, find the Blade Weasels’ nest, reduce their numbers, and then face off. Now that this has happened, Heinkel will either let the Blade Weasels loose to find them or expand its area to prepare for an attack.
“Seeing how it was going around alone, do you think it could be some kind of scout?”
It is similar. It is a lookout to be more exact. Blade Weasels establish an order and take turns going far away to serve as lookouts. The one that had discovered Cha Jun Sung’s group was the one that had come the farthest.
It was not there from the beginning. It was on lookout in the location assigned to it but came to see what the unfamiliar sound was when it found Cha Jun Sung’s group.
“Ugh! We should have paid more attention.”
“What can we do. There’s no point crying over spilt milk.”
“Let’s get moving since no good can come from staying here.”
“Alright.”
Cha Jun Sung packed up the automatic cannon. They need to establish a base camp. If they come swarming while they are unprepared, they could be put in a terrible situation.
“The scan doesn’t work either.”
“Let’s go.”
He tried a field scan just in case, but the Blade Weasel must have gone deep because the scan did not pick up any traces of it. It must really have run away.
Cha Jun Sung left it behind and decided to go back to his party.
Swish swish.
Had it been about 10 minutes since Cha Jun Sung’s group passed by? Something slowly pokes its head out of the shady hole. It is the Blade Weasel that they thought had run away. It looked around suspiciously and after deciding it was safe, carefully came out of the hole.
The Blade Weasel licks its thigh. It has been wounded by a hit from the automatic cannon. It is severe because it was hit while going into the hole. This hole does not connect to somewhere else like Cha Jun Sung’s group thinks it does. It is like a bunker where they can hide from enemies.
The Blade Weasel drags its injured leg back to the nest. It witnessed Cha Jun Sung’s group facing off against the Eclipse Trees and lost the will to fight, running away instead. If it had discovered them before the Eclipse Trees did, it would have mistaken them for prey and gone after them.
They are creatures that it has never seen before. Each one of them is strong, so it seems like they will be a threat to the tribe. It must notify the head of its tribe.
***
Wiing!
Cha Jun Sung’s group made a relatively flat and wide opening into their base camp. There is a greater variety of items as the store level goes up.
Battle is one thing, but rest is also important. Level B store items provide comfortable resting environments for Lifers.
6 automatic cannons aim in all directions that mutants could appear from. They also installed bombs that would go off at a 100 meter point, and an alarm to notify them of the enemy’s appearance. They are being fully prepared.
“We started off wrong.”
“Ugh.”
Park Jin Hyuk sucks in his breath. It is not the worst situation, but it is not optimistic either. They cannot kill as they go as they did in missions of level C through E. Until level C, Lifers with battlesuits and mutants had similar power, but mutant growth surpassed that of Lifers starting with level B.
Even with modified battlesuits, facing off with a level 7 one-on-one is a suicide mission. There is no chance with 8 or 9 combinations, and nothing can be guaranteed with 10 either.
‘It would be so easy if I just awaken.’
One roar and it would put its tail down and crawl on the floor. But as soon as I do that, Life Mission will cling to me to try to test me. It doesn’t matter if what happened to me is discovered if I decide to leave all of this behind and live normally, but it’s still too early for that.
How many top level users are there who have the potential to see the ending of the game? It looks like only 99 out of 100 will give up before seeing the end!
Cha Jun Sung has the confidence and ability to go past level A to S.
That does not mean he has the confidence to fight a disaster, level 9s. He realized after gaining strength from level 8, how crazy level 9 monsters are.
The virtual was a game, so they were immortal and did not die even if they lost lives. It was okay for them to be fearless and treat their lives lightly.
But they only have 1 life in reality. If there is as much of a gap to level 9 as there is between 7 and 8, he cannot win even if 10 people like him get together.
‘Could I become a level 9? I feel like something is missing. The Oriax says it doesn’t know the cause either, and I can’t ask someone.’
The Oriax has brought Cha Jun Sung’s body to its limit and is currently sleeping. It has given over total control of the body so it can only intervene, but it is better to just sleep in that case.
It would have been bored if it were like when it was drifting in the mission, but there is no feeling of absence because of the party members. And strictly speaking, it is not really sleeping. They are connected by the mind and body, so it wakes up if called.
‘Let’s see the limit to know much I can let out in this state while fighting Heinkel.’
Since he cannot awaken or transform, he cannot help but be weak even with the battlesuit. Heinkel’s overall ability is higher than the Red Heart and Twister he killed before, and lower than Metal Giant.
He does not think that he will lose, but it is better to be sure. He will have no choice anyway because it is not like he is going to stop while fighting a level 7.