Chapter 31 - Beauty Of The World

As the car sped down the lane, passing many more mutated animals, a majority of them tried to attack the car and were run over as they did.

[You've slain…]

"Why are there so many trying to kill us? They're all attacking without a… oh… so that's why they couldn't leave…" Kimsung had realized in a short time that the animals were attacking without regard for themselves. He had initially noticed it a week ago, when he disposed of the wolves' bodies, and the squirrels in the park all worked in an uncanny sync.

Of course, he hadn't thought much of it, but now that he actually saw it, perhaps the reason the animals couldn't leave the park was simply that the park was some monster's sort of range, so the animals would kill anything that entered its grounds, no matter what.

It felt a bit confusing, but Kimsung chalked it down to the amount of food said animals had to eat to be useful to whatever was controlling them, thus eating everything that entered was their best plan to reduce numbers and feed the rest. Soon, after passing 80th street in the park, the animals ceased attacking them, instead swarming and heading hard south, most likely to a downtown park of the park.

In the next moment, the car was hit hard as the lions that were previously held up by the small animals caught up, forcing the car to shake hard before Kimsung was able to hit the gas.

"What? Are they still following us? I thought we had lost them!" Keido exclaimed, having hit his head on the window next to him, rubbing it to soothe the pain.

Passing the balcony bridge and azalea walk, Kimsung couldn't help but feel impressed, even at almost fifty-five miles per hour, the lions were keeping pace, taking swipes and missing, but gaining ground on their car.

Perhaps if he drove out of the park, he could lose them in the streets downtown? Or maybe curve back to the east side? There were many choices, and he didn't know where any monsters were hiding out, so it would be a greater risk to drive blindly through the streets than tire out the lions in the park and then get away.

Of course, Kimsung couldn't finish his thoughts as he saw something on the edge of the Central Park lake, a corpse, to be exact. It was the corpse of the High Tier that had escaped before, dead by the water, its body having numerous holes in it, its blood running dry as it painted the water.

He turned his focus back on the road, his mind already split between that and the corpse. The High Tier, an E-rank monster, was dead, and Kimsung assumed it had to be the monster controlling the park's animals from before.

Perhaps it was a boss that had escaped from a dungeon break, or had simply spawned in the park during the first couple of days, killing all the people in the park after establishing control.

Whatever it was, the monster had to be extremely powerful for an E-rank to have given the wolf wounds the size of a tire.

Kimsung then quickly made up his mind, paying attention to the gas that was thankfully full, and went with the second option, to tire out the lions, kill them, and then leave in search of Achilles. Passing the Strawberry Fields and turning to the left by the Webster statue, he was about to run circles with the lions. Well, that was before a heavily injured lioness, most likely one of the four that had also left earlier, had jumped on the car, making it crash and spin over.

It was wholly unexpected that the lioness had attacked, and even more that it was injured. Perhaps it and the other three had fought with the monster that killed the High Tier wolf from before and won. He saw similar wounds on its body, and it was strange how the park's animals had left so suddenly before. Perhaps they went to help their leader and failed.

As the car spun, the glass broke, and Kimsung covered himself, using his foresight to avoid the glass that would've pierced his face and stomach with his arms.

When the car stopped, Heidi crawled out of the back seat with Keido; fortunately, their windows didn't shatter, so they weren't worried about any glass piercing their skin like Kimsung was before. As Heidi stood up and looked around, she saw their car had landed near the lake and was flipped over completely. Keido crawled out, groaning in pain.

"I really should've put my seatbelt on." He groaned again, rubbing his back and his neck. Kimsung quickly dragged himself out of the front, pulling out a few pieces of glass from his clothes and hair. Thankfully, he wasn't seriously hurt, but he'd be bleeding for a while.

Kimsung's eyes widened, his foresight acting up at the right moment to summon his sword and block two of the remaining sixteen lionesses that were previously attacking them. Keido did the same, taking out his arming sword and going to help Kimsung, leaving Heidi alone.

As more of the lionesses attacked, together, the two of them fought and killed them.

[You've slain a Low Tier Mutated Lioness, you've gained 1+ EXP]

Fortunately for the two of them, the lionesses were quite weak, even as F-ranks. Killing a few of them wasn't much of an issue for Kimsung, and Keido was able to improve his swordsmanship as he fought them.

A couple of minutes later, the duo was forced back near Cherry Hill, the leading lion of the pride joining the fight shortly after. Meanwhile, Heidi stayed near the car, hiding inside it. She herself wasn't suited for combat, and while she promised herself to learn how to fight later, now was not the time.

In fact, even if she joined the fight now, she'd be targeted by the lions, obviously becoming a burden for them. There was no shame in admitting she was practically the weak link among the three of them, meant to be someone away from the danger rather than running to it as Kimsung or Keido could.

If she were someone like Anastasiya, or Astral Zodiac of China's Heavenly Court, she could do something, but for now, all she could do was watch.

After a while, Kimsung finally killed the lion pride leader as Keido killed the final lioness. The fight, granted, had great gains, but neither could let their guard down, especially since the monster obviously controlling the park's animals wasn't confirmed to be dead or alive.

Chapter 31 - Chapter 31