FLIA 60

***

According to Lee Hyunmook, life in the area they called the Reed Sea zone was mind-numbingly monotonous. Understandably so, everywhere you looked, it was nothing but endless grass and reeds. Aside from the occasional monster leaping out from hiding in the reed forests or the unsettling cries of strange birds flying overhead, it was eerily quiet. The only real upside was that the seeds of vegetables and fruits they’d brought from the Japanese zone, now hardened and more resilient due to contamination, were growing surprisingly well here.

In this zone, Ju Hoyoung had gotten quite busy. After their experience of being trapped by the Flood in the Japanese zone, he’d made long-distance scouting a daily routine to prevent a repeat. Aside from occasional hunting trips for food, there wasn’t much for the others to do. To pass the time, Yohan decided to focus on refining his abilities.

“Ah! I did it! It worked!”

Yohan shouted with delight, nearly jumping with joy. Sitting nearby, Hyunmook smiled as he watched the training.

“That’s a nice, clean shape.”

Yohan had just formed a small, round, flat cluster of light, no bigger than his palm. After a week of concentration, he had finally managed to shape the light particles–once scattered like watering can spray–into a specific, stable form. Grinning with pride, Yohan quickly returned to a serious expression.

“Alright. Focus… focus…”

The softly glowing light cluster shifted in shape under Yohan’s control. It started as a crude, lopsided triangle, then gradually transformed into the shape of a long, thin rod. He gritted his teeth with effort, and once the shape was solid, he threw it with all his strength.

Fwoosh

The glowing rod flew weakly through the air toward Yoon Seungryong, who was lying flat on the ground. Just before it could hit his chest, Seungryong nimbly caught it in his mouth.

“Wow.”

Yohan smiled awkwardly as Seungryong’s face lit up, literally, as the light sparkled in his mouth.

“If I keep training, do you think I’ll be able to hit birds in flight?”

“Of course. You absolutely can.”

Hyunmook encouraged him, but the next rod Yohan created crumpled like a bent paper airplane and floated off somewhere. Where it landed, part of the reed field glowed green from purification. A bird, suddenly reverting to its original form, squawked in alarm and flew away.

“I can flatten it well enough, but I can’t seem to make it stick together…”

“Well, every ability has its own nature.”

Just as Hyunmook said, Seungryong’s poison naturally spread outward, Hyunmook’s lightning struck unpredictably, Hoyoung’s frost condensed tightly… and Yohan’s purification had a different nature of its own.

Still, Yohan didn’t give up. He gathered the light again and threw it. His goal was to purify corrupted entities from afar using his ability. That way, in emergencies, he could purify his teammates from a safe distance. He wanted to hone his power so that one day, he could restore Seo Yakrin, even from far away.

“I wonder where Ms. Seo Yakrin is now…”

As he tried to mold the light, which always wanted to branch outward, into a sharp, arrow-like shape, Yohan murmured. Seungryong replied with a halfhearted tone, chewing idly.

“Yeah, guess the old hag’s laying low. Can’t blame her, she’s probably scared of the Team Leader.”

Since both Seungryong and Hoyoung frequently mentioned how scary Hyunmook was, Yohan glanced at him. But Hyunmook looked completely unfazed.

‘Well, sure, when he’s in a frenzy, he’s kind of scary… but I wouldn’t say he’s that bad.’

As a teammate, wasn’t that a bit much…? Maybe it was the distraction, but just when the purifying rod was almost neatly compressed into an arrow, the tip popped and flared out, with a distinct pop, into the shape of an umbrella. Sprawled out on the ground, Seungryong burst into laughter.

“Pffft! Yohan-ah, you are definitely not a damage-dealer.”

“It turned into an umbrella… Would’ve been nice if it actually worked in the rain…”

Purification light had no physical substance, so even if it took the shape of an umbrella, it couldn’t actually block water. Yohan looked gloomily at the umbrella-shaped cluster of light, when Hyunmook reached out and, with surprising ease, plucked it from the air.

“Huh?”

Yohan’s eyes widened. Wait–he can take it from me?

“It’s a beautiful umbrella.”

Hyunmook smiled beneath the gentle spray of light filtering through the umbrella’s shape. For a moment, Yohan stared blankly at him. The light caught in Hyunmook’s silvery hair, making it gleam like threads of silver. Yohan quickly masked his awe with a mumble.

“W-well… I guess umbrellas aren’t so bad…”

Right on cue, the ever-unpredictable black rain began to fall again. Yohan moved to shield Seungryong, still sprawled on the ground, with another umbrella-shaped light cluster.

Through the shimmering spokes of the light umbrella, purified rain fell onto the three of them. Hyunmook, clearly enjoying the sensation, closed his eyes peacefully under the light. As the droplets passed through the glowing arc, a faint rainbow formed above his wet hair. It was the most beautiful color Yohan had seen in the Abyss.

‘These light umbrellas are actually pretty nice…’

I’ll make sure to give them out every time it rains. Feeling rather pleased with himself, Yohan glanced over at Hyunmook, who stood serenely under the rain. As the downpour faded and Seungryong got up to prep food, Ju Hoyoung returned from scouting. Still purifying ingredients, Yohan greeted him cheerfully.

“Hoyoung-ah, welcome back. Nothing happened out there?”

“Yeah. No signs of the Flood or anything trying to surround the area.”

Yohan let out a sigh of relief at Ju Hoyoung’s report. After everything they’d been through, even hearing the word “Flood” made his heart race with fear.

“Why are you all soaked? Oh right, guess what I found!”

Hoyoung lifted something high over his head, proudly showing off what he held in his hand…. It was a bundle of strange life forms, letting out eerie sounds and dripping toxic slime. The fumes rising from the mucus were so acrid that even from a fair distance, they made their eyes sting. Wait, stinging eyes? No way. Yohan slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Ch-chili peppers!”

“What? Chili peppers?! Where?! Where are they?!”

Yoon Seungryong, who had been busy prepping food, ran over at once. As he knelt down eagerly, Yohan carefully purified one of the pods from the bundle. When he split it open, he was overcome with emotion. It looked kind of like a long bell pepper, but what sat in his palm was, no matter how you looked at it, a spicy chili pepper.

“Hoyoung, you bastard! You did amazing! Come here, hyung’s gonna kiss you!”

Seungryong lunged to hug Hoyoung, who recoiled in horror and backed away. After receiving a round of Yohan’s purification, Hoyoung coolly sat down with his game console, pretending not to care.

The food, sprinkled with freshly ground chili pepper, was downright moving. As long as they kept some seeds with them, they’d never again have to mourn the absence of chili peppers. With just chili and garlic seeds, they could comfort the soul of any Korean cast into the Abyss.

After that spicy, heartwarming meal, and a dessert of some unknown tropical fruit, Hyunmook, who had been quietly deep in thought, finally spoke.

“It’s been about a month since we came here, right? Then Yohan’s probably adjusted to the climate. Maybe it’s time we head down and take a look?”

Yohan, who had just picked up a piece of fruit Seungryong had carefully sliced, blinked in confusion. With nothing but flatlands all around them, he had no idea what “head down” was supposed to mean.

“Down? Down where?”

***

Following Lee Hyunmook’s lead, the group packed their important supplies and left the hollow tree they had called home. After about three days of walking across an endless field, Hyunmook suddenly stopped.

“There, looks like we’re almost there. I see a herd of deer.”

Well, “deer herd,” he said–but like all corrupted lifeforms in the Abyss, they were so grotesquely mutated it was hard to tell what they’d once been. Each one was several times larger than a normal deer, almost giraffe-sized. Their antlers stretched like tree branches.

“Ugh…”

Yohan grimaced as he squinted at them. On top of some of the antlers were other deer heads. Heads, eyes wide open, rolling around as if still alert. Whether they had been severed in a fight and somehow survived, or if these upside-down heads had regrown from the antlers themselves, he couldn’t tell. Either way, it was horrifying.

Hyunmook gave a nod to signal they should follow. Swallowing dryly, Yohan stuck close to his back as they moved forward.

Despite the corruption, the deer still grazed and wandered slowly, apparently unchanged in diet. The herd was so large, dozens in number, that other monsters didn’t dare approach. That made sense. Some of them even had dead monsters’ corpses impaled on their antlers. Tense as ever, Yoon Seungryong muttered in a stiff voice.

“Think deer meat tastes good?”

…Maybe Yohan was the only one actually nervous. Seeing how calmly the other three handled it helped him ease up, at least a little.

How long had they followed the herd? Suddenly, Yohan’s eyes widened.

The nearby reeds reached all the way up to his thighs, but for those enormous deer, they barely came up to their knees. Yet, strangely, the deer seemed to sink as they walked, until only their heads were visible. Even the eyes of those upside-down heads, swinging from their antlers, swiveled alertly before vanishing beneath the reeds.

“Did they just… hide?”

“No, they moved somewhere else.”

Hyunmook answered casually, then gave a subtle glance. Seungryong raised his spear, shaped like the Green Dragon Crescent Blade, and slashed several times. The surrounding reeds and grass fell away in neat cuts, revealing the dark red earth beneath. Except, where the deer had vanished, there was no earth at all, only more reeds. The terrain there was slightly lower than where they stood.

Seungryong jabbed the spear into the ground.

“This is the start of the Reed Sea.”