"......Seriously?"
A Sudden Dimensional Gate is opening today of all days? And on the road I'm taking? Timed exactly to when I'd be passing through?
'It's not as if the day I set out has to be market day!'
The original was no help at all in this situation. Unlike me, the original's Ya-hwi would have been sprawled out asleep in the orphanage in Sejong City or off at school!
So right now I had to overcome the crisis purely by my own strength. My legs turned their back on the intersection first of all.
Right after, a sound like car striking car hit my ears.
It seemed a vehicle that had stopped in a hurry at the sight of the Sudden Dimensional Gate had been struck by a car behind it that had not kept a safe distance. Or an Otherworld Creature that had burst out of the Sudden Dimensional Gate had abruptly hurled a car and hit another vehicle.
'No, the odds of the latter are small.'
By the setting, Sudden Dimensional Gates mainly produced individuals of low Grade, meaning relatively weak and common ones.
Also, low-Grade Otherworld Creatures generally followed common sense. Their bulk was proportional to their muscle strength, or they held no separate special ability, that sort of thing.
So an Otherworld Creature capable of throwing a car would be about the size of an elephant, and something in the elephant weight class would have produced a loud sound, the ground shaking and so on.
Given the circumstances it was clear the Sudden Dimensional Gate had opened over by the corner of the intersection, so noise on that scale would have reached me easily enough.
But after the screams rang out, there had been the sound of car hitting car and no sound of the ground shaking. That was the clue.
'Actually, elephants barely make any footfall sound because of the fat pads in their soles, and there's a chance an Otherworld Creature is that sort of case too.......'
Even if it were an individual whose steps made no sound, at that bulk wouldn't it have been colliding constantly with the cars stopped all over the road?
But not even that sound reached my ears. So the Otherworld Creature that had burst out would be, at minimum, small enough to pass between one car and another. That was the judgment I was making at present.
"AAAAAH!"
"EEEEEK!"
THUD!
HISSSSS!
Then new sounds began to layer themselves over the screams.
The subtle impact sound of something heavy dropping onto the thin steel panel of a car. The hissing that creatures with undeveloped vocal cords are prone to making. The seething hack that only comes out when the lungs have filled with water.
AWOOOOO!
......The howling that canine beasts usually let out.
'Ah, this feels really bad.'
Information from the comic ran through my head in a rush, information carried not in the main work but in the fan book, to be precise. It was called 《The Phantasm & Otherworld Creature Compendium》.
'What canine Otherworld Creatures were there again?'
The fan book of 《Codename: Baby》, 《The Phantasm & Otherworld Creature Compendium》, was fairly rich in information. Meaning it was not one of those commercial products that call themselves a compendium and in practice slap down one picture and a name and nothing else.
Thanks to that it was as thick as an encyclopedia, and the price was outrageous for a fan book...... but right now I could not have been more grateful for it. A fan book made for promotion and profit was helping me more than the main work, which was no help at all because the time period was different.
'Gnoll, Dire Wolf, War Hound, Sweeper Dog.......'
But maybe because there were so many canine Otherworld Creatures, nothing came to me with any certainty.
'No, I can at least rule out the Gnoll. It said Gnolls cry closer to a yipping because of their vocal cord structure——'
Just then, four legs came racing across the paving blocks, making a pat-pat-pat sound. It was a sound I had often heard when watching videos of dogs who take their walks at a sprint.
But a sound heard through a screen and a sound heard in reality felt quite different. Naturally, since the thing making the sound was different and the situation was different.
'——It's coming!'
Something is approaching. The moment I sensed it, my head spun taut.
'A low-Grade canine Otherworld Creature that runs on four legs, then......!'
Naturally I possessed no divine skill for identifying an enemy by sound alone. But the moment the target's identity narrowed to a canine Otherworld Creature running on four legs, I could at least recall the countermeasures for it.
'They're all bastards that struggle to change direction at a full sprint!'
My body twisted sharply in an instant. My speed dropped for a moment, but I managed to get one step off the path I had been running.
My body left the middle of the sidewalk and met a car parked on the road. The part between the front door and the hood, where the side mirror was.
The folded side mirror touched the small of my back.
GRRRK!
Right after, something enormous grazed past the spot I had been standing in. It was a canine beast with striking ash-gray fur.
Pat-pat. The hurried footfalls of an emergency stop stabbed at my ears. The bastard's massive body came to a halt only after it had overshot me by two or three more strides.
Saliva dripped from between the teeth that had bitten empty air, and the beast's head whipped around. Bright yellow eyes, belonging to what was probably a wolf, looked at me.
What sort of mind I moved with after that, I do not know.
One of my hands braced on the car's hood and pulled my body in. I had no capacity to think about whether this was a movement this body could perform or not.
My body passed over the hood as if rolling sideways, and the lunging wolf bit the empty air where I had just been.
ROWF, WOOF!
CRASH!
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Maybe because the car sat high. Or maybe it had not expected me to dodge. Instead of climbing onto the hood, the wolf collided with the vehicle.
The car let out its alarm on the spot. At the sound suddenly blaring out, not only I but even the wolf flinched and backed away.
'Now......!'
I ran in the direction opposite the wolf. Perhaps because it had all broken out so suddenly, there were plenty of cars on the road to serve as obstacles and as cover.
Five steps in, a car appeared with the design that comes to mind first when you say 'sedan.' My hand braced on the hood again and I vaulted the car as though sliding across it. This was faster than going around.
'Damn, this body really is good!'
I had never once thought such movements would be possible, yet even to my own eyes they came off far too easily. Setting aside the fact that the physical ability itself was good, it felt as though these movements were embedded in the flesh itself.
So, to put it more plainly, should I say that 'Ya-hwi's' sense for using his body had not been reset and remained in this body?
If that was really the case, it was a relief. Talent or no talent, there was no way someone like me, who had spent half a lifetime shut up in a hospital, could use his body well.
AWOOO!
'......It's coming!'
But however excellent the physical ability and however much the sense for handling the body remained, that did not break this situation open on its own. I needed an additional plan.
ROWF!
"Hgk!"
I rolled across the asphalt road. CRUNCH! The wolf, which had somehow caught up by vaulting the hood as I had, chewed air once more.
In the instant the bastard, having failed its bite, turned its head to check my position, I went over a car hood one more time. An unfolded side mirror caught my eye.
"Ah!"
My hand reflexively grabbed the door of the car beside me.
By then the wolf had put force into its hind legs for a great leap, stepped on the hood, and sprung once more, bringing it level with me.
BEEEEP! BEEEEP!
A car that had registered an external impact cried out again. This was the umpteenth car making this racket, so neither the wolf nor I was startled.
CLUNK!
Instead the car door swung open and became a shield blocking the space between the wolf and me.
How did I know the car door would open? Honestly, it wasn't an action I took with a hundred percent certainty. It was closer to a gamble staked on the unfolded side mirror and on a guideline in the fan book's disaster evacuation tips: 'When evacuating in an emergency, leave the car doors open and go.'
One way or another I was about to be caught, so it was a gamble worth taking.
SLAM!
Around the time I grabbed the handle on the inside of the door panel, the wolf lunging to bring me down finally struck the opened car door.
The impact was so great that the door was pushed back and my body nearly got caught between the panel and the car.
'Fuck, seriously!'
I hurriedly shoved my body into the car. But before I could even shut the door, the wolf rammed it once more. SLAM! Thanks to that the door was forced shut.
GRRRRRR!
My body, which had been in a posture with my rear stuck out from cramming my upper and lower halves in at speed, flopped over between the driver's seat and the passenger seat. Glaring at me in that state, the wolf raked the car wildly with its claws.
SCREEEECH! Claw marks were carved into the clear glass several at a time. A chill ran all down my spine.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
At this point it could have just gone away, but the wolf kept glaring at me and clawing at the car or ramming it with its body. Each time, the car, which by no measure was a compact, rocked from side to side.
'It's low-Grade, so a car should be enough to hold out for now.......'
That was what the information written in the fan book said. Was it not described there that if you truly had nowhere to take shelter, evacuating into a car was also a method?
Still, there was nothing to be done about the visual pressure of it. My back went damp with cold sweat.
'Ha, I'm seriously rattled.'
Even knowing the car door was still holding, I reflexively pulled my body back. My body, which had been sitting across the driver's and passenger seats, moved fully over to the passenger side.
Clatter. Something caught against the leg I was pushing off the seat with to pull myself back.
BAM!
GRRK! WOOF!
As the wolf crumpled the car door bit by bit, my gaze landed on the thing that had clattered. It was a multi-purpose knife of the kind people commonly call a Swiss Army knife.
'Borrowing this!'
My hand snatched it up in a hurry. I did not know how much help this tiny knife would be, but it had to be better than nothing at all.
AWOOOOOO!
Just then the wolf suddenly howled. A chill ran down my spine at once. It was a foreboding felt by instinct, not reason.
OOOOOOO!
And my gaze turned slowly away from the wolf and landed on the car's rear window. Far down the road, a bipedal creature with pale green skin and a tail was faintly visible.
'......This wolf son of a bitch was a Lizard Hound.'
Lizard Hound.
A wild dog tamed by Lizard Men and driven as their hunting hound. Put a little differently, a certified check whose very appearance guarantees the appearance of Lizard Men.
And the Lizard Man.
An Otherworld Creature whose individual combat power is on the low side, but whose intelligence is high enough to use wild dogs as hunting hounds, and which, owing to its trait of hunting in packs, carries a fairly high danger rating despite being low-Grade.
'So I ran into the most vicious bastards even among the low-Grades......!'
For the record, the low individual combat power was a relative expression as well. A Lizard Man's height reached an average of 2m 20cm, and the strength that came out of that frame naturally exceeded the human average.
In other words, the chance of a civilian surviving in front of that combination converged endlessly on zero. It was a horrific thing.
AWOOOOO!
While the knowledge the fan book had given me was driving me to despair instead, the Lizard Hound diligently called for the Lizard Men. The resonance that came out of its frame was tremendous, and it cut through the car alarms blaring in surround from every direction to reach its master.
The golden eyes of a Lizard Man running about the road found me in one stroke. Our gazes tangled.
HISSS! HSS!
The Lizard Man hissed out sounds that plainly carried intent and waved its hand about. It was the gesture people commonly use when trying to shoo something away.
WOOF!
Whether that really was the meaning or not, the Lizard Hound barked once and moved away. Whether that was fortunate or unfortunate, I could not tell.
Having the enemy reduced to one was good, but it also felt like an expression of confidence that it could hunt me down without the Lizard Hound.
SHAAAAA!
As it approached, the Lizard Man threw the wooden spear it was holding.
THUD! The wooden spear struck the glass on the side I was leaning against and scratched it. My body scrambled away from the car door.
My heart pounded like mad.
HSSAAA!
Beyond the glass, the Lizard Man pressed right up against the car. Bracing both hands on the vehicle, the bastard put its face close against the window and looked me over slowly.
SCRRRRK. The claws of the hands braced on the car scraped the exterior and then went groping at the seam of the door.
SKRAAK!
......The fan book had indeed described Lizard Man intelligence as being on the fairly high side. Though I had no wish to become newly aware of it through the sight of one hunting for a door seam.
'This punk has already learned that a car door is a structure that opens.'
It was intelligent enough to set my teeth chattering. Enough to make me wonder whether something like that should be allowed to be low-Grade.
'......No, even so, one Lizard Man is manageable.'
Its intelligence is high, but it is not smarter than a human. Its physical ability is superior, but because of its body structure some movements are worse than a human's.
A Lizard Man unaccompanied by a Lizard Hound left me a surprising prospect of resistance.
'The problem is that Lizard Men have the trait of hunting in packs. Right now it came alone because I look like easy prey, but the moment it's at a disadvantage it'll call the Lizard Hound or its companions.'
Regrettably, I was in no position to have obtained a superpower, that is, a Phantasm, yet. My physical ability was not bad, but my capacity to fight back had not escaped the level of a mere civilian.
And in that state the enemies increase? Then I would truly die. Utterly powerless, and wretchedly.
'Now...... what do I do now.'
Simply running is not enough. Because a Lizard Man calls for backup even when it looks like it might lose its prey.
'Before it calls for backup, I have to deal with it.'
So I kill it.
For me to live, that was what it took. There was nothing else.
'The problem is the method for killing the bastard——'
SHAAAAA!
The Lizard Man suddenly roared. It seemed to have realized that although it had found the seam, getting its fingers in through it was rather a distant prospect.
The bastard vomited out a monstrous cry like an enraged human and hammered at the window with its fist. It was a relief that the window was truly sturdy. No matter how the Lizard Man hammered with its arm, it didn't brea——
CRUMBLE!
The glass shattered along with a sound somewhat less crisp than the one people generally imagine. The cause was the Lizard Man's foot.
Something that struck me as closer to a lizard's or a bird's foot than a human's was thrust right in front of my nose.
SKRAAAAK!
Rather than shattering cleanly, the window was in the sorry state of having only its middle torn out, like a sticker peeled off badly. Thanks to that the Lizard Man hopped about in an awkward posture trying to retrieve its foot.
Grip. It was in that very moment that both my arms seized the bastard's leg.
My hands, moving without passing through my head's judgment, wrenched the Lizard Man's leg around. Objectively speaking the Lizard Man's muscle strength would exceed mine, but its posture was what it was.
As the leg joint rotated against its will, the bastard staggered.
SQUELCH!
Seizing the opening, I drove the Swiss Army knife, with only its blade extended, into the leg.
Otherworld Creature or not, this was the first time I had acted to kill a living thing, but the instinct to survive covered over the unpleasantness of the sensation of harming a creature.
"Hh......!"
The Swiss Army knife, which I was handling for the first time in my life, was more awkward than I expected, and strangely easy.
The structure that made it hard to put weight behind it because of the short handle was solved by my thumb, which instinctively braced the spine of the blade.
Even the blade's attempt to fold back inward under my thumb did not become a serious problem. In the blade's folding direction lay the Lizard Man's leg.
SLASH!
The blade drove through fierce resistance and split tough hide and flesh.
In an instant a wound running from the ankle to halfway up the shin was carved open. Blood sprayed in every direction.
SHAAAAA!
Right after, the Lizard Man yanked its foot back in a flash. It was a movement that accepted its foot being cut on the remaining glass.
CRUNCH! Sure enough, its foot must have caught on the leftover glass as it pulled out, because glass fragments scattered everywhere.
"Ugh!"
Fragments flew at me too. As the foot was withdrawn, its claws grazed my arm lightly as well.
But the damage was not great. It was a relief that I had dressed thickly against the cold.
Recovering the breath I had briefly held, I hurriedly drew my other hand back. Clunk. The hand that grabbed the passenger door handle pushed the door slightly open.
Of course, now that the window had been breached, the inside of the car was no longer a safe place. A space cramped enough to make movement difficult was a penalty in itself.
HISSS!
The Lizard Man, which had rolled once across the ground as the price of yanking its leg out, rose with its spear. Considering the length, it was a weapon that could hit me with a mere throw through the broken window.
BAM!
I put my weight into my back, which had been leaning against the door. Since the lock was released, the door opened just like that.
My body spilled outside as if falling, and in the process I rolled with good technique. Whether the inference that the sense remained in the body was true or not, a movement I had never even imagined came off as naturally as flowing water.
THUD!
Before even lifting my rolled body, I shut the door first. Half a beat later came the sound of wood striking the car door. The Lizard Man had clearly thrown its spear into the car.
'Any other enemies——'
The Lizard Man I had been facing off with was on the other side of the car, and with a large wound in one leg it would not be able to go around the vehicle in one stroke.
On that basis I rolled my eyes quickly. The thumping of my heart kept goading me on.
'——Definitely none.'
From right to left. My eyes, turning along with a faint movement of my head, took in the scenery all around.
Luckily, no being that might attack me was in sight. For the moment, at least. It was an environment where I could focus on the bastard in front of me for now.
'Then I can do this.'
Inside my thumping heart, someone was laughing. A being who probably has golden eyes. A person who, unlike a certain someone who lived shut up in a hospital ward, would have lived cutting through battlefields.
'A Lizard Man on its own, I can kill.'
The Swiss Army knife, regripped, wound into my hand like an old friend.