#088
“Raise your arms.”
At the sudden request, Eunseok awkwardly raised his arms, and Choi Hanseo swiftly removed his shirt. He then proceeded to take off Eunseok’s pants as well.
In an instant, Eunseok was left only in his underwear. Hanseo reached out his hand. Eunseok’s body instinctively flinched. Despite surely noticing this reaction, Hanseo nonchalantly pushed Eunseok onto the bed and covered him with the blanket.
Eunseok watched with bewildered eyes as Hanseo, wearing underwear that had appeared from somewhere, crawled into bed next to him. After settling in, Hanseo slipped his arm under Eunseok’s neck as a pillow and gently patted his chest.
“Go to sleep quickly.”
“…Aren’t we going to do it?”
When Eunseok asked, Hanseo’s eyes narrowed.
“Did I look so aroused that I’d pounce on an exhausted person?”
“That’s not what I meant…”
“It’s true that I’m always aroused when it comes to you, but I’m not so immature that I can’t control myself. Well… if you want to, right now we could…”
“I’m tired.”
Eunseok cut Hanseo off before he could continue. Hanseo’s eyes crinkled as he chuckled softly.
“Go to sleep. We have to get up early tomorrow.”
Hanseo patted Eunseok’s chest again, like a mother putting a child to sleep. Feelings of awkwardness and embarrassment welled up. But… apart from that, it wasn’t bad.
It felt like this might be the safest place in the world.
“Close your eyes quickly. Before I change my mind and pounce on you.”
Hanseo said something that could have been a joke or serious. Instead of resisting, Eunseok obediently closed his eyes. A small movement came closer, and then soft lips touched his forehead.
“Sleep well.”
Hanseo whispered softly and then rustled as he laid his head on the pillow.
#10
“Whoa?!”
Ji Taeuk cried out in surprise as he sank into the sand. Eunseok grabbed Taeuk’s wrist with lightning speed.
“Uh… uh…”
Taeuk instinctively flailed his legs as he watched the sand pouring down into the dark hole that had opened beneath his feet. The flailing added more weight, causing Eunseok’s arm muscles to bulge tightly.
“Stay still, hyung. I’ll pull you up now.”
At Eunseok’s calm voice, Taeuk became still as he dangled. Eunseok took a short breath and used his arm strength to pull Taeuk up in one go. As Taeuk’s upper body touched the sand, he crawled out of the hole. Then, as if he had used up all his energy in that short moment, he collapsed onto the sandy ground.
“Ha. I really almost died.”
Taeuk mumbled weakly.
“That’s why I told you not to move carelessly from your position.”
“Yeah, sorry. I just took one step to the side, I didn’t think I’d fall in like that.”
Taeuk apologized with a tired face.
Eunseok patted Taeuk’s shoulder to comfort him and then turned his gaze forward.
Dozens of sand golems, about two stories tall, were constantly swarming around Han Cheolyong. While Cheolyong was drawing their aggro, the other team members were continuously attacking the golems. All sorts of sharp attacks sliced, cut, and struck the sand golems’ bodies, but that was all. The creatures, whose bodies were made entirely of sand, only temporarily scattered into sand where they were hit, quickly regenerating their bodies.
“Damn, the core locations are all different for these things!” Moon Bora shouted, seemingly appalled.
She was right. Until now, the same species of monsters had all had their weak points in the same place. But not these sand golems. The location of the core that allowed them to regenerate their bodies was different for each one. In the end, they had to attack each golem’s entire body to find and destroy the core.
They had already been on a forced march without a day’s rest. Perhaps because of this, the team members’ patience and fighting spirit were much thinner than usual. In an atmosphere where everyone wanted to finish as quickly as possible, these sand golems that wouldn’t die no matter how much they were attacked and quickly regenerated their bodies were the worst opponents.
“Jeongho, watch your feet!” Oh Seongeun shouted loudly. Shin Jeongho, who had just landed after cutting off a sand golem’s head, quickly rolled to the side upon hearing the shout.
Fwoosh-
A hole opened where Jeongho had just landed, and sand poured into it. Deep in the dark hole below, a monster was waiting with its mouth wide open for prey.
Above were the sand golems, and somewhere below their feet were hidden holes with monsters waiting. Eunseok frowned as he looked at his struggling team members and the endless desert stretching out behind them.
He wanted to help but couldn’t in this situation. Shooting at golems whose core locations were unknown would only waste ammunition. All he could do was provide wide-area guiding to the team members and wait. It was truly an unsatisfying situation.
It took over two hours to deal with about twenty sand golems. The team members, who had to attack the golems relentlessly, all collapsed to the ground, exhausted.
“Of all the places we could end up, why did it have to be a desert like this?”
Moon Bora grumbled as she opened a water bottle Eunseok had thrown to her.
“But it looks like we’re almost there,” Eunseok said, looking at a destroyed ancient stone temple-like structure in the distance. If his guess was correct, that would likely be the boss’s domain.
“After this gate is over, I’m going to shove my watch and phone in a drawer. I’m not going to move an inch from my room for at least three days.”
Moon Bora crushed the now empty water bottle as if it were her mortal enemy.
“Me too. Me too.” Ji Taeuk raised his hand in agreement.
“Let’s start moving now. The sooner we finish, the sooner we can really rest,” Han Cheolyong said, tossing his empty water bottle on the ground. The team members sighed as they got up.
The path to the boss’s domain was not easy.
The desert sand was already difficult to walk in, sinking with each step. On top of that, one wrong step could lead to falling into a hidden hole beneath the sand. Naturally, their movement speed was slow, and to make matters worse, they had to deal with another group of sand golems.
By the time they reached the stone temple that looked like an archaeological site, everyone was on edge.
“Where on earth is it?” Moon Bora muttered, looking around the crumbling temple. Their guess that there might be a boss similar to the previous gargoyle statues based on the architectural structure seemed to be wrong.
“We don’t have to go further, do we?” Ji Taeuk said in a tired voice. As everyone was looking around, trying to spot anything, the ground suddenly rumbled.
Boom boom boom-!
The ground in the center of the temple, which had been an empty garden-like area, split open, and something enormous emerged. It was an incredibly massive…
“Aah! What is that?!” Ji Taeuk screamed in terror.
Screeeech-!
The gigantic creature opened its enormous mouth and let out a deafening roar.
What should they call this thing?
It looked like an earthworm that had been enlarged hundreds, no, thousands of times.
“It’s a sand worm, you idiot!” Moon Bora shouted, drawing her greatsword from her back and gripping it tightly.
They had seen many monsters before, but this was the first time they’d encountered one so disgusting and creepy. Eunseok frowned at the instinctive revulsion he felt and aimed his automatic rifle at the creature. But once he had it in his sights, he couldn’t find a good spot to shoot. Where the creature’s head should have been, there was only a huge gaping mouth instead of a skull or eyes. And inside that large mouth, there was no empty space, just multiple rows of sharp, pointed teeth densely packed together.
One bite would surely cut a body in half.
“Here I go!” Han Cheolyong charged towards the creature with his shield raised. Moon Bora and Shin Jeongho ran after him as if flying. Oh Seongeun raised his staff and began launching huge fireballs at the creature.
Given how enormous the creature was, even deep cuts from the greatsword didn’t seem to have much impact. Fortunately, Seongeun’s fire attacks were quite effective. Eunseok provided support to his team members by occasionally firing suppressing shots into the creature’s wide-open mouth.
Screeeech-!
The creature’s thrashing became more violent as green blood poured from various parts of its body and its flesh melted from the fire. Eunseok watched quietly and then fired bullets into the creature’s gaping mouth as it opened wide towards Shin Jeongho.
Suddenly, the creature slightly closed its mouth that had been wide open until then. Soon after, its body began to writhe. Eunseok tensed up. This was clearly preparation for some new kind of attack.
The creature, which had curled up tightly with its mouth closed, suddenly opened its mouth like a blooming flower. Like a creepy alien life form from a sci-fi movie, a smaller mouth emerged from the widely opened maw.
“Watch out!” Han Cheolyong shouted loudly. Almost simultaneously with his shout, the sand worm’s hidden smaller mouth spewed a sticky liquid towards Eunseok and Ji Taeuk, who were standing far away.
