Black Badger - Chapter 26

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

◈ Black Badger ◈

Chapter 26: Outside the Core (4)

──────

Where was the pig?

I quickly pulled out my bestiary. Using the light from its screen, I swept it around the area. Hessi and Tom, both tense, turned on their watch lights and shone them around as well.

If the bestiary had sounded, it meant the creature was here.

“Ugh.”

Hessi spotted it first.

Our heads snapped around.

We quickly saw the creature standing where Hessi’s watch was pointing.

In one corner of the underground parking garage stood something with an overwhelming presence.

“Why is it so big?”

Tom blurted out reflexively.

I wanted to say the same thing, but I was too stunned to speak.

A pig. It was not the size of any pig I had imagined. It was nearly as large as a midsize SUV.

The dozens of eyeballs embedded in its pig head rolled toward us.

“Contact the seniors...”

Thoom!

A shock loud enough to rupture my eardrums struck my ears. We had not even heard its footsteps, but it was already beside us. We narrowly avoided the collision. Like Tom and Hessi, I threw myself sideways and rolled across the parking garage floor.

“Why is it so fast?!”

Hessi cried out in alarm and loaded his gun.

Bang!

The bullet seemed to hit its mark dead on, but it had no effect.

The pig, which had slammed magnificently into the parking garage wall, twisted around. Its eyeballs rolled, then locked onto Tom, who was right beside it.

He had not even gotten up from the floor yet.

“Tom!”

“Hey! Why are you shooting?!”

Bang!

Rather than dodge the pig, Tom chose to fire. His bullet hit one of the pig’s eyes. Pop! One eyeball burst and sprayed fluid.

It was impressive that he had hit an eye so precisely in this darkness, even if the thing had dozens of them.

But instead of stopping or screaming, the pig raised a foreleg as if it meant to crush Tom.

Thud!

If I had not thrown myself at Tom and slid across the floor with him, he would have been flattened into paste.

Hessi shouted from across the room.

“Nice!”

“Hey, run!”

I pulled Tom to his feet, then shoved him behind me.

“Guns don’t work!”

“What about you?”

Tom did not move away and instead asked me,

“Why are you...”

Thoom!

The spot where Tom and I had been was filled by the pig.

We had narrowly dodged it, but now the pig was right beside us. I instinctively drew my sword from its sheath. With the target right there, there was no time to hesitate.

I gripped it tightly and swung.

“Ah.”

The horizontally swung blade sank into the pig’s hide.

I could feel how tough its outer hide was through my hand. I had swung in a hurry, so there had not been enough force behind it.

And I had cut at the wrong angle. To pierce this hide, I would need to swing vertically instead of horizontally. If I pulled it out and drove it in vertically, it would go in much more easily...

My body flew through the air.

“Hilde!”

Thud!

A heavy impact swept over my entire body.

I rolled along with a drum. The pig had swung its body and struck me in the stomach. Heat spread through my abdomen. It had hit me squarely. My legs gave out, and I could not get up right away.

If my recovery ability had been as outstanding as the other Badgers’, I would have gotten up immediately.

Crash!

I had not been crushed under the pig’s foreleg only because Tom had run over and rolled away with me.

“Can you run?”

“...Not yet.”

Fortunately, I was still holding the sword I had driven into it.

“Give me the sword!”

Hessi shouted, shining his watch light at us.

“Keep running! I’ll try stabbing the pig with it.”

Right. There was no use in me having the sword right now.

I held it out to him. The moment Hessi took it, the pig rammed into us with a Thoom! Tom and I rolled to the right, while Hessi rolled to the left.

The pig turned toward Hessi because he let out a cry.

“Raaaaaagh!”

Why was he yelling?

I was embarrassed on his behalf. Tom glanced away beside me, so he seemed embarrassed too. Still, I appreciated that he had worked up the courage to draw the creature’s attention.

Hessi ran straight at the pig.

Thunk!

He was holding the sword strangely.

Thoom! My brown-haired peer flew through the air. Like me, he had been struck by the pig’s body and sent flying into the wall.

It made an enormous sound.

But Tom, who was supporting me, did not seem very worried about Hessi.

“He’ll be fine.”

Hessi did, in fact, spring right back up.

Hessi’s watch, which had been turned upside down and shining at the ceiling, quickly righted itself. The pig, which had blended into the darkness for a moment, came into view again. It stood still and made a strange noise. It seemed to have taken some damage.

The problem was that the sword was still stuck in the pig.

Biting his lip, Hessi raised his gun.

“If I shoot out all its eyes, it won’t be able to see!”

“Keep watching. I’ll pull the sword out.”

As the heat burning inside me slowly cooled, I forced strength into my legs.

Tom turned to meet my eyes.

“Keep the pig lit up until then.”

“No. Your recovery ability is weaker. I don’t know how badly you’ll be hurt if you collide with that thing again.”

“If things keep going like this, there’s no reason for me to be a Badger.”

At my calm retort, Tom pressed his lips into a straight line.

I straightened up from where I had been leaning against Tom. My recovery ability was not as outstanding as my peers’, but it still seemed useful enough. My battered body had already started recovering. I could run again now. I could even pull out my sword, which was embedded near its ear.

The sword is too thin and short.

A thought surfaced somewhere in my mind. That sword was good quality, but I had the instinctive sense that it was far too thin and short compared to the swords I preferred.

Next time, I should carry a thicker, longer sword.

But what kind of sword had I used before?

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I came back to my senses.

Hessi was firing at the charging pig. Several eyeballs burst, splattering liquid. Within my limited field of vision, my eyes, accustomed to the dark, caught the charging creature.

The pig did not stop.

Thoom! Hessi narrowly avoided another collision.

“Now.”

Tom whispered beside me.

A strong light cut a path through the underground parking garage. At the end of it, I saw the creature turning its massive body.

I ran toward it.

More precisely, toward the sword stuck in its ear.

The blade gleamed as it reflected the light of our watches in the dark underground parking garage. I grabbed the sword.

“Hey! Watch out...”

Pssshhh!

Blood sprayed.

I pulled out the sword and slashed vertically. Red blood seeped from the straight cut.

Right. This time, it went in well.

The creature shrieked and turned toward me. I gripped the blood-soaked sword tightly.

It was thinner and shorter than I wanted. I could not swing it the way my body remembered and drive back my target.

Still, a sword was a sword.

“It’s coming again!”

“Dodge!”

Thud.

Rumble, thud! I took the charging pig’s weight against the flat of my blade.

Ah, it was strong. There was nothing wrong with my stance, but it was stronger than I had expected. My body was shoved back and crashed into the parking garage wall.

But the impact was not like before.

“This is”

I put strength into my arms and knocked the creature away with the blade.

“the last one.”

I pulled the sword back toward my body, drawing a half circle through the air.

The creature staggered backward. In the darkness, my two peers illuminated it precisely at the same time.

The pig was reeling from the impact, and I clearly saw the opening it created.

The moment it tries to regain its balance is always the best chance.

Slice!

I ran forward, raised my sword, and slashed downward.

“Gyaaaaaah...”

The sound of the pig’s throat being cut.

Its high, sharp death cry echoed through the underground parking garage. My swing had been long. I brought the sword down from above like I was chopping firewood. Flesh split apart, and blood drenched my body. Blood burst before my eyes. I was soaked from head to toe in merciless red blood.

Coughing up blood, the creature tipped over.

Thud.

It bounced off a drum and collapsed in the underground parking garage.

Silence fell amid the sharp scent of blood stinging my nose. All movement disappeared from the underground parking garage. My peers kept their watches pointed at the creature, but neither moved. They stood frozen in place, breathing hard.

Their eyes fixed on the creature’s corpse, which still radiated an overwhelming presence.

Lost in the aftermath of an unexpected battle.

The sound of someone entering a password broke that stillness.

“What?”

Click! The lights came on.

“What the hell are you doing... No, what the fuck is this? Why is there a pig here?”

“Why is this pig so big?”

Jason Tvein cursed as he looked down at the pig. Lee Ho came in behind him, then stopped short.

The two seniors stopped before the dead pig.

That was how we safely found the reason the food had been disappearing.

*　　　*　　　*

The underground parking garage’s population density increased.

It seemed the senior partners had arrived while we were running around the underground parking garage with the pig.

Familiar faces entered behind Lee Ho. The two senior partners who had gone to catch the witches had come looking for the newcomers, their faces as neat and unruffled as when Kal and Angela had left.

They soon entered the underground parking garage and began talking.

The place, once filled with darkness and blood, was now filled with light and voices.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Hessi. How did you get down here?”

“Well...”

My peers spoke with their respective senior partners.

Something like an ordinary atmosphere returned. I let out a breath of relief as the tension drained from the air. I stood there blankly for a moment, then relaxed my tensed muscles and turned toward the seniors.

My eyes were still squinted against the lighting, which had become unfamiliar in the meantime.

Lee Ho and Tvein stood by the pig’s corpse with twisted expressions, muttering, “I’ve never seen a pig this big before.”

I wanted to go home.

I let my shoulders droop and thought wearily.

Until I heard Yoon’s voice from a corner of the room.

“You’re good.”

I jumped in surprise.

“Ah, seriously!”

“Looks like my guess was right.”

When I turned around, I saw Yoon with a faint smile.

The instant I looked back at him with tired eyes, goosebumps rose all over my body. In his right hand, he held a sword similar in size to the one I was holding.

Why was he walking toward me with a sword?

And wait. How did he know I was good? There had only been the three of us in the underground parking garage while we fought that creature.

No, why was he walking toward me with a sword?!

While the other senior partners were warmly reassuring their trainees!

Clang!

I quickly blocked Yoon’s swinging sword with the sword in my hand.

Everyone’s eyes snapped toward us. I could feel their gazes flying toward me and sticking into my skin. But I had no room to care about their reactions, and Yoon did not care about them either.

The nasty smile on the man’s neat face did not disappear.

Without loosening his grip on the sword, my senior partner asked in a low voice,

“Anything you need to say right now?”

“Pardon?”

“If not, we’ll have a light sparring match.”

Yoon’s cold smile widened.

“You need to drill it completely into your body before you forget.”

Crazy.

Crazy, no, wait!

“A bigger one!”

Yoon stared at me.

I could feel everyone staring at me in confusion. The air seemed to ask what the hell I was suddenly talking about.