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HELIO SCANS
[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Kaya]
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Chapter 45
As Dojun, Hyun Jooyeon, and the Silken Lily Guild advanced while hunting monsters, they soon reached a place where monsters were tightly bound in silk-like threads, hanging from tree trunks or branches.
“Everyone stay sharp. From here on out, this is Belkera’s territory.”
Dojun warned.
It wasn’t just boss monsters—there were even mid-boss-class monsters that would carve out and defend their own zones. One of the most notorious among them was Belkera.
“Whoa… I’d heard about this, but seeing it in person gives me the creeps.”
Someone muttered.
“Yeah, it feels like walking straight into a giant spider’s nest.”
“Just looking at how it changes the environment, it makes haunted houses seem like nothing.”
The Silken Lily guild members threw in their reactions one by one.
“Do you know anything about Belkera?”
Hyun Jooyeon asked.
Dojun nodded lightly.
Even in the world that had fallen to ruin, Belkera had been a serious headache.
Its key trait was that it would attack ANY living thing that trespassed on its territory, whether human or monster.
Then—
“Burn those things first.”
Dojun ordered.
A red mana gathered on the palm of his hand.
“You’re not even a mage—how do you manipulate mana like it’s actual magic?”
Even Hyun Jooyeon, an S-Rank hero, was amazed at Dojun’s mana control.
“It’s just the basics.”
He replied.
He had more to say, but didn’t bother. If he explained any further, he’d probably end up insulting every hero on Earth as clueless fools.
The red mana gathered on Dojun’s palm began to burn the monsters caught up in the threads.
Since it was mana infused with a flame that wouldn’t extinguish, the monsters burned up quickly.
“Aren’t they just prey?”
Hyun Jooyeon asked, as if wondering why bother burning them.
Dojun shook his head.
“That might’ve been true until now. But from here on out, that’s no longer the case.”
As he burned another captured creature, Dojun continued to explain.
“Once Belkera has absorbed dark mana like this, it starts controlling those things like puppets.”
Ryuntena referred to this as Belkera’s hidden ability.
The heroes in France, who hadn’t known about this, had nearly ended up in grave danger.
At BA027 Rift, located 310 kilometers west of Belém, there had also been a Belkera—and, of course, it had already claimed that place as its own territory.
The French heroes had decided to close down that Rift.
When they stepped into Belkera’s ominous and grotesque domain, they had focused all their attention—just as they’d prepared beforehand—on dealing with Belkera, which would appear at any moment.
Even as it was, the French heroes had already suffered heavy losses against monsters whose power far exceeded expectations, and the tension over facing the mid-boss-class monster Belkera had reached its peak.
“Be careful, everyone. Once that thing wraps you up with its threads, it’s not easy to break free.”
Belkera’s silk, fired from its mouth, was incredibly sticky yet tough.
Sometimes it would shoot out thin, long threads like in a famous hero movie, while other times, it would launch a ball of silk that spread into a net right in front of its target.
The second type—the silk-ball—was the real threat.
If you let your guard down for even a moment or got distracted, your entire body would end up tangled in Belkera’s net, and no matter how skilled an A-Rank hero you were, escaping without outside help was almost impossible.
Some of the French heroes, tense to their very cores as they advanced toward the heart of Belkera’s territory, had sweat streaming down their faces.
Sasasasasasa—
The sound of many legs scuttling rapidly pounded in the heroes’ ears like rolling thunder.
“It’s coming!”
“There it is!”
“Watch the perimeter! Cut down any nets in the air before they land!”
France’s S-Rank hero David felt a crushing sense of responsibility—he could not afford to lose any more guild members.
‘Too many have already died! There can be no more sacrifices!’
The Rift’s difficulty was several times greater than expected.
It was far beyond what they could handle with their current forces.
‘Once I get back, I won’t let them off the hook!’
David was convinced that this was all a scheme by the Brazilian Hero Association.
It was true he had underestimated the reason they had decided to shut down this Rift—that was his own mistake, but the Brazilian Hero Association’s underhandedness, in failing to properly warn them from the beginning, filled David with rage.
As soon as they escaped the Rift, he planned to secure official apologies and massive compensation from them, even if it took national support to do so.
But with even the weakest monsters having grown to more than twice their normal power, David couldn’t even begin to predict how much stronger this mid-boss-class would be.
For now, he had to focus on getting out with as many guild members as possible.
Thwip-Thwip-Thwip!
Four silk-balls came flying straight at the guild members behind David.
“Throw!”
At David’s shout, the guild members hurled their prepared daggers right on cue, striking the silk-balls with precision.
Before they could fully unfold into proper nets, the silk-balls tore apart.
As long as they knew about them in advance, they weren’t that dangerous.
Krrrrrrrrr.
A giant spider-shaped monster with ten red, beadlike eyes and eight thin legs appeared before the French heroes.
“Support from the back!”
Drawing his longsword, David stepped forward to face Belkera.
No matter how powerful, it would inevitably crumble before the might of an S-Rank hero.
Even if the Rift was absurdly difficult and Belkera might be far stronger than he expected, he did not believe for a moment that he could lose to a monster that wasn’t even a true boss.
‘As long as I don’t get careless, there’s no way I’ll lose!’
Just as David prepared to rush Belkera with that thought—
Rip! Rip—AAAGH! Rippp!
He began hearing the sound of something tearing apart.
“There! Look!”
“Oh, my god! Its prey—it’s moving!”
“Are those… mummies?!”
“Urgh, gross!”
Belkera’s prey—monsters that had been wrapped tightly in silk bundles—began ripping through their bindings one by one and moving again.
Some had their heads horribly torn apart, some had their guts spilling out, others had lost their limbs and dragged themselves forward across the ground.
What they all had in common was their blank, lifeless eyes—and that they were all headed straight toward the French heroes.
“Wh… What is this…”
Even David, who had seen countless monsters and faced all kinds of situations as an S-Rank hero, was shocked and overwhelmed by this sudden development.
The idea that Belkera’s prey would come back to life and attack was something he’d never even imagined.
Their grotesque appearance, worse than any zombie or ghoul, overwhelmed the French heroes, who were unable to mount a proper defense against their charge.
David tried to pull himself together and move—
Thwip-Thwip-Thwip-Thwip!
Belkera, recognizing instinctively that David was the strongest opponent, targeted him directly.
“Damn monster!”
David’s longsword sliced through the flying silk-balls, splitting them cleanly in half.
Against the sword imbued with the pale glow of an S-Rank hero’s mana, the silk was powerless.
But Belkera’s assault had only just begun, and its power had more than doubled thanks to dark mana, so there was no reason for it to fear even an S-Rank hero from Earth.
As David continued to fight, he quickly realized that Belkera’s strength was nearly equal to his own.
Meanwhile, the French heroes were being overwhelmed by the attacks of the reanimated monsters—creatures that wouldn’t stop moving unless their entire bodies were destroyed—and the casualties began to mount.
‘No… this can’t be… this is… despair…’
A look of utter hopelessness came over David’s face, pinned down by Belkera and unable to help his guild members.
Three hundred ninety kilometers away, in another Rift near Santarém, the French heroes were facing the greatest crisis of their lives.
＊ ＊ ＊
Crash!
Choi Doyeon crushed even a twitching finger underfoot, a grimace twisting her features.
“If Hero Seo Dojun hadn’t been there, seriously…”
She shuddered, as if just imagining it made her skin crawl.
“For real! Just think—all those prey creatures moving around alive! That’s the biggest horror of the year, hands down!”
Hwang Jinju vigorously nodded in agreement.
“But honestly…”
Park Seungho added, jutting his chin forward.
“Even if all those monster corpses HAD started moving, would it really have mattered?”
Where he was pointing, a massive Belkera, its legs all torn off, was sobbing in terror.
Kerururur…
If they’d understood the monster’s language, maybe it was begging for its life.
But there wasn’t a single person there who could understand a monster’s words—and even if they could, Dojun, standing proudly before Belkera, would never leave a monster alive.
Smash!
With a swift kick, Dojun made Belkera’s head explode.
“His whole body is basically a weapon. No wonder he doesn’t bother using a sword. You’d have to be a REAL monster to even make Hero Seo Dojun draw his sword! Until then, everything else is just... bugs. Right?”
Park Seungho never tired of praising Dojun’s overwhelming might, no matter how many times he saw it.
No one in the Silken Lily Guild thought him strange for it, either.
If Dojun ever started a religion, at the very least these guild members would become fervent believers on the spot.
From the remains of Belkera’s crushed head, Dojun retrieved two things:
One was an ash-gray thread pouch, about the size of a five-liter mini beer keg, and the other was a transparent saliva gland pouch roughly a third smaller.
Mixing the fluid in the thread pouch with the saliva from the gland produced the sticky threads Belkera had used.
Finally, Dojun collected a large mana stone befitting a mid-boss-class monster, then burned Belkera’s corpse to ash.
“They’d better warn the other heroes that what they thought were just prey could actually come back to life.”
Belkera existed in quite large numbers within this Rift that had just been decided for closure.
While not half of all monsters, Belkera made up nearly 40% of them.
If people kept dismissing them as nothing more than prey, there would inevitably be heavy casualties.
But there was no way to immediately spread that information right now, so Hyun Jooyeon could only hope that no large-scale sacrifice would happen.
“Don’t worry too much. They’re heroes powerful enough to represent their countries. And you know every Rift always has at least one S-Rank hero assigned. What’s the worst that could happen?”
No matter how strong Belkera was, it was still limited to being a mid-boss-class monster.
That’s why Jeong Injoo believed there was no need for Jooyeon to worry about it to that extent.
“Yeah… you’re right.”
Jeong Injoo had never felt Belkera’s true power firsthand.
And neither had Jooyeon.
After all, Belkera had been neutralized almost instantly by Dojun’s intervention.
“Of course. Not everyone can be as incredible as Dojun, but they’ll still pull their weight.”
To be honest, outside of Dojun, Hyun Jooyeon and the Silken Lily Guild were the weakest among the heroes participating in this mission.
Jeong Injoo found that a little bitter, but at the same time, it meant the rest of the force was that much stronger—so even if something went sideways, the worst-case scenario wouldn’t come to pass.
“Since Belkera’s down, that just leaves Nanocheris, right?”
Having already taken down Blue Croco and Belkera, the only ones left was Nanocheris.
Blue Croco’s population varied from Rift to Rift, so running into more of them wouldn’t be too surprising.
But Belkera only ever appeared one per Rift, so there was no chance of seeing it again—the same went for Nanocheris.
Kuaaaaaah!
Whenever they faced Nanocheris, the heroes always thought the same thing:
’Did I just time-travel to the dinosaur era?’
That was how much Nanocheris resembled a long-extinct dinosaur.
With two enormous horns, plus a third, much smaller one on its head, Nanocheris looked like a living Triceratops.
“It’s at least twice as big as the one we saw in Czechia last year. What on earth is in Brazil that makes its monsters all come out like this?”
“Well… there’s the Amazon, you know.”
Even while knowing the Rifts were otherworldly spaces, it was hard to argue with that.
The Amazon—the lungs of the Earth, the mysterious tropical rainforest.
Strangely, if a Rift existed in the Amazon, it made sense that it might be different from anywhere else.
But even Nanocheris, who seemed to have invited everyone to a dinosaur park, was treated worse than a stray mutt in front of Dojun.
He ripped all three of its horns out by the roots after it died, tongue lolling from its mouth.
Those horns alone were worth at least ₩3 Billion each!
Beyond their price, they were one of the easiest materials for weapon smiths to work with, so heroes made all kinds of custom weapons from Nanocheris horns.
But Dojun didn’t even spare them a glance, simply handing over the three horns to the Silken Lily Guild members.
’If it were Draconian bones, maybe I’d be interested… but until then, the Giant Blackfang Serpent’s fangs will do.’
That’s how much he valued the Giant Blackfang Serpent’s fangs he’d entrusted to Choi Cheol-gwan.
Otherwise, Dojun would never have bothered coming all the way to Brazil to hunt down Blue Croco’s heart.
“More importantly… there’s no sense in leaving behind any loose ends, right?”
Dojun’s gaze rested on the Rift’s core, not far away.
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HELIO SCANS
[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Kaya]
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