Chapter 10: Ten Thousand Baht Bounty and a Lesson That Nearly Cost a Life
[ Countdown: 132 hours 24 minutes before dimensional convergence is complete ]
6:47 p.m. Alley behind the market, approximately 1.8 kilometers from Bueng Kaen Nakhon
“I told you I was coming to take a look.”
Bing whispered from behind an old pickup truck, crouched low.
“Then why the hell did I have to come?”
Tum whispered back.
“Because you have a truck.”
“What kind of fucked-up reason is that?”
“A perfectly reasonable one. I don’t have a truck.”
“What about Grandpa?”
They both turned around.
Grandpa Phoeng was sitting comfortably in the sidecar, eating fried bananas.
“I came to give advice.”
Bing narrowed his eyes.
“I haven’t heard a single piece of advice.”
“Don’t die.”
“That’s two words.”
“You old bastard.”
Tum had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.
Ahead of them, almost the entire market alley had been plunged into darkness.
The shops had their metal shutters down.
Two motorcycles lay toppled over.
A long trail of blood dragged all the way to the mouth of a storm drain.
Tum’s phone vibrated.
A local news alert appeared.
Two dead, five injured. Authorities ask the public to avoid the area.
Beneath the article was a new announcement.
Reward for information leading to the elimination of a dangerous creature: up to 10,000 baht.
Tum held the screen out for them to see.
Bing glanced at it.
“Ten grand...”
“Don’t.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“Your eyes already did.”
Bing lowered Tum’s phone.
“I’m not fighting.”
“Swear?”
“I’m a reasonable man.”
Grandpa Phoeng gave a derisive snort.
“A reasonable man who left the house while his wounds were still bleeding.”
“I’m here to collect information.”
“With a knife?”
“Pens don’t write on skin.”
Then—
Scritch...
Something made a noise behind the butcher shop.
Bing raised a hand.
Everyone fell silent.
The world in his vision seemed to slow down slightly.
Time hadn’t stopped.
His brain was simply processing faster.
But the wound in his side still hurt.
His left arm still wouldn’t lift all the way.
And if he had to run right now, he knew his body might give out before his brain got a chance to show off how smart it was.
A shadow crawled out.
It was—
A Corpse-Ripping Dog.
The same species that had nearly killed him that morning.
But this one was larger.
The muscles in its hind legs bulged grotesquely, and seven black spines had grown from its backbone.
[ Corpse-Ripping Dog ]
[ Rank: F10 ]
[ Evolution successful ]
[ Racial abilities: Explosive Muscles / Blood Scent ]
[ Secondary abilities: ??? / ??? ]
[ Warning: The player’s current rank is vastly below the target’s ]
Bing slowly backed away.
“Let’s go.”
Tum blinked.
“Huh?”
“Turn the truck around.”
“It’s ten thousand baht.”
Bing turned to look at him.
“Who was just telling me not to do this?”
“I was just reminding you in case you forgot.”
“Ten thousand baht won’t even cover a coffin and a funeral.”
Grandpa Phoeng nodded.
“Good. At least you haven’t lost your mind.”
Bing was about to back away—
BANG!
A gunshot rang out.
The bullet tore through the alley and slammed into the monster’s shoulder, spraying black blood.
But it didn’t fall.
Bing went pale.
“Who the hell fired?!”
Three men emerged from the shop across the street.
One held a shotgun.
Another held a handgun.
The last held a machete and a phone.
“We got it!”
“Get it on video! We need proof for the bounty!”
Bing closed his eyes for one second.
“Humanity really is gifted at killing itself.”
The Corpse-Ripping Dog whipped around.
The man with the shotgun fired again.
BANG!
This time, the monster—
Was gone.
It wasn’t speed.
It had vanished from sight.
“Shit!”
Bing’s eyes widened.
The secondary ability!
A dark shadow appeared behind the gunman.
SLASH!
The man was thrown hard into the wall.
“Bro!”
The other two fired wildly.
Bullets slammed into the metal shutters with a deafening clatter.
Bing watched the movement.
Gone.
Appeared.
Gone.
Appeared.
It wasn’t invisibility.
“Shadows!”
Tum turned to him.
“What?”
“It moves between dark shadows!”
Bing shouted at the other two men.
“Turn on the lights! Shine them on the ground!”
But it was too late.
The monster emerged from the shadow of a motorcycle.
Its claws swept out.
The man with the machete went down.
Only one remained.
The monster turned toward Bing.
Its nose twitched.
Blood.
Bing’s wounds.
“Shit.”
[ Racial ability: Blood Scent ]
Its eyes locked onto the target.
Tum’s face went pale.
“Should we run?”
“Run.”
“Which way?”
Bing pointed.
“Separate.”
“You bastard! What about me?”
“It can smell my blood. It can’t smell your debt!”
The demon beast charged.
All three split up instantly.
Bing hadn’t run ten meters before the wound in his side split open.
“Ghk!”
Fresh blood poured out.
The smell grew stronger.
He heard claws pounding the ground behind him.
Too fast.
If he kept running—
He wouldn’t make it.
Bing stopped abruptly.
He turned around.
His right hand drew his knife.
Grandpa Phoeng shouted from a distance.
“Bing!”
“I know!”
“You can’t fight it!”
“I know that too!”
“Then why did you stop?!”
Bing looked at the streetlight above his head.
“Because my legs don’t know that!”
The monster vanished into the shadows.
Bing looked up at the streetlamp.
The power lines.
The breaker box.
The construction-supply store beside the road.
Glass.
Paint cans.
LED flashlights displayed in the storefront.
His brain processed it all.
It used shadows to move.
Then—
Remove the shadows.
“Tum!”
“What now?!”
“The breaker box in front of the shop! Flip every breaker!”
Tum ran over and yanked open the box.
Click!
Flicker!
The lights in three adjoining storefronts came on at once.
White light flooded the alley.
Multiple dark shadows disappeared.
A roar rang out.
The monster was forced to appear in the middle of the street.
“It worked!”
But Bing didn’t smile.
Because it was still an F10.
And he was still an injured man holding a single knife.
The demon beast charged straight at him.
Bing saw it.
He calculated the attack.
But this time, he didn’t try to dodge completely.
He raised his left arm.
The claws swept out.
STAB!
The flesh of his arm was ripped open.
Pain exploded, flashing the world white.
But the opening at close range was there.
Bing drove his knife back at it.
STAB!
It sank into the shoulder.
Not a vital point!
“Goddammit!”
The monster shook itself.
Bing was sent flying and rolled across the ground.
The knife slipped from his hand.
[ Warning! ]
[ Critical physical condition ]
“Can you shut up while I’m working?!”
The demon beast walked toward him.
Slowly.
It had learned.
No charging.
No opening.
Bing looked at it.
Then he understood immediately.
“You...”
It hadn’t merely gained new skills.
It remembered.
All its experience from when it was a G remained intact.
This wasn’t a newly born monster after evolution.
It was the same hunter—
Only stronger.
The monster lowered its body.
Bing tried to reach for his knife.
Too far away.
It pounced.
Suddenly—
CRASH!!
A metal cart slammed into the monster’s side at full force.
Tum!
“You planning to lie there all day?!”
Bing’s eyes widened.
“I didn’t tell you to come back!”
“I didn’t sign up to be your lackey!”
The monster flung the cart away.
Tum went pale.
“What do we do now?”
“Run!”
“That’s your only plan?!”
“We already used up the good plans!”
They both ran.
The monster followed.
But before it could reach them—
Grandpa Phoeng stood in the middle of the street, blocking its path.
The old man held nothing but a bag of fried bananas.
Bing shouted.
“Grandpa! Move!”
Grandpa Phoeng didn’t move.
He put the last piece of fried banana into his mouth.
Chewed.
Swallowed.
Then he raised one foot.
And stomped on the ground.
Thud.
There was no explosion.
No spectacular flash of light.
Only a single black rune hidden on the ground flared brilliantly.
The monster froze.
For—
One second.
“Now!”
Bing didn’t ask questions.
He lunged back for his knife.
One second was incredibly short for an ordinary person.
But for his brain—
It was enough.
The head’s position.
The angle of the neck.
Momentum.
The bullet wound.
Its breathing.
And the spot it instinctively protected every time.
Not the heart.
Not the brain.
The demon core lay beneath the breastbone.
Bing threw himself into a slide across the ground.
The knife stabbed upward from below.
STAB!
The runes on the blade flared.
Something cracked.
CRACK!
The monster’s eyes widened.
Its entire body trembled.
Then it collapsed.
Thud.
[ Kill successful ]
[ F10-rank target eliminated ]
[ Cross-rank enemy kill bonus ]
[ EXP +240 ]
[ Acquired: Shadow Demon Core ]
[ Acquired: Evolved Fang ]
[ Acquired: Explosive Muscle Tendon ]
Bing lay on his back in the street.
He didn’t get up.
Tum ran over.
“Are you dead yet?”
Bing panted.
“Not yet.”
“You sure?”
“If I’m dead...”
He turned to look at the F10’s corpse.
“Don’t sell my stuff.”
“You fucking asshole!”
Grandpa Phoeng walked over.
Bing looked at the old man.
“What was that just now?”
“Just a little something left over from the old days.”
“You can fight?”
Grandpa Phoeng fell silent.
Bing narrowed his eyes.
“Then why have you let me get bitten this whole time?”
“Because that’s all I can do to help.”
“My condition isn’t much different from your bank account.”
“What does that mean?”
“I used to have plenty.”
Grandpa Phoeng sighed.
“Now I barely have anything left.”
Bing nodded in immediate understanding.
“So you’re broke.”
“Yep.”
“You could’ve just said that from the start.”
Sirens sounded from the end of the street.
But before the authorities arrived—
Tum’s phone vibrated.
A new announcement appeared on the screen.
The government is preparing to launch a registration system for individuals capable of handling anomalous creatures.
At the same time, another message popped up.
From an unidentified private company.
Buying anomalous creature remains.
F-Class by the company’s internal standards.
Starting price: 80,000 baht.
Tum looked at the number.
Then at the corpse.
Bing, lying on the ground and bleeding, slowly opened his eyes wide.
“How much?”
“Eighty thousand.”
Bing immediately tried to get up.
“Ow!”
“Stay down!”
“Tum...”
“What?!”
Bing pointed at the corpse with a trembling hand.
“Guard it.”
“I know!”
“Don’t let the police take it.”
“You’re about to go into shock!”
“Eighty thousand, you asshole!”
“Is that all your life is worth?!”
Bing thought seriously for two seconds.
“If you include the drop items... it should be over a hundred thousand.”
“I wasn’t asking how much the corpse was worth!”
[ Time remaining: 131 hours 46 minutes ]
As the ambulance came racing down the road—
On the other side of the world—
A G-rank monster devoured the corpse of one of its own until nothing remained.
A black window appeared above its head.
[ EXP sufficient ]
[ G3 → G2 ]
And deep beneath the earth of Khon Kaen—
A creature of a much higher rank opened its eyes.
Only for a moment.
Then it closed them again.
Because for creatures like them—
The war had not yet begun.