Chapter 10: The Human Boy of Punk City Part 9

The plasma cutter on the gorilla’s back swung downward from above.

Vwoong.

With the sound of the trembling air, a red line left a lingering trace in the air.

Immediately after, what was once a police officer was split in two.

The gorilla didn’t even glance at the bisected officer.

It simply deflected bullets and magic with its bare body, while its three pairs of arms from its back and its two thick arms moved in unison, ruthlessly slaughtering the surrounding police officers.

Its right eye, like the compound eye of an insect, took in the entire battlefield, and the CPU in its brain analyzed the situation.

When the analysis concluded in just 0.1 seconds, the three pairs of arms moved autonomously, efficiently executing the massacre.

The police who had come to save civilians were dying helplessly.

It wasn’t that the police were incompetent.

They had undergone their own procedures and each had their specialties.

There were wizards, swordsmen, and skilled snipers among them.

With this many personnel, they could have easily wiped out a gang’s branch.

But they were no match for that gorilla.

What the gorilla was using was military-grade equipment.

Not the kind you could find in the civilian market—there was so much of it covering its entire body.

At this point, they needed to call in the army and armored vehicles, not just the police.

“ETA for the special forces?”

“Ten minutes!”

“Those bastards! They’ve got aerial vehicles, so why are they slower than us?!”

“They said the airspace is congested because of the Christmas season!”

“Thanks for the info, you jerk!”

Today again, the role of the lower-ranking officers was to serve as meat shields to buy time for the special forces.

For the police officers, whose talents were mediocre, and who had average connections and money, this was always their fate.

But their existence wasn’t meaningless.

Thanks to the police holding the gorilla’s ankles, the civilians were able to escape the scene.

After confirming that no civilians were left at the site, the police changed their strategy.

From killing through encirclement to stalling for time.

Instead of returning fire aggressively, they shifted to threatening shots from safe cover.

The change in strategy was effective.

Just by switching to a defensive stance, the number of casualties decreased significantly.

Seeing this, the rookie officer felt a flicker of hope.

‘We might survive!’

As a result, he made the mistake of thinking something he shouldn’t have.

He never should have thought it.

But it was too late for regret.

A rocket came flying, blowing the rookie and his cover to pieces.

Several officers bit their lower lips.

But there was no time to mourn the dead rookie.

The gorilla began launching a barrage of rockets in response to the police’s strategic shift.

Boom! Boom!

“Riniii! Rini!!! I’ll kill you bastards, you cops!!!”

At some point, the police had become the gorilla’s mortal enemies for killing its daughter.

The sniper, who had been playing a key role, got caught in the rocket barrage.

The walls of buildings crumbled, windows shattered.

The place had now turned into a war zone.

Amidst the chaos, the rocket launcher was now aimed at the commissioner’s cover.

‘Damn! I’d rather be at home, listening to my wife nagging!’

No matter how much he looked around, there was no other cover to escape to.

Sensing his fate, the commissioner shut his eyes tightly.

That’s when it happened.

Whoosh!

The sound of something flying through the air.

Fwoosh!

The sound of a rocket being launched.

And then—

Boom!

The sound of the gorilla being caught in the explosion came from beyond the cover.

It was hard to make out the situation with the thick dust cloud covering the area where the gorilla had been, but one thing was clear: the gorilla had kneeled for the first time.

As the commissioner struggled to comprehend the sudden change in events, a boy approached him.

Though the boy was covered in dust, his clothes torn to rags, even in that state, his appearance still shone brightly.

Moreover, there was something about him that instilled a sense of trust.

While the commissioner was marveling at the boy’s appearance, the boy asked him a question.

“Do you have a sword by any chance?”

***

Let’s go back a bit.

Right after the gorilla began its full-on rocket barrage.

Several walls of buildings came crashing down.

One of those walls included the one in the attic where Amon and Sonia were hiding.

The wall that had been protecting them collapsed, and the battlefield where the gorilla was rampaging came into full view.

The gorilla’s compound eyes glanced toward the inside of the broken wall.

All it could see were clothes hanging on racks.

Losing interest in the attic, the gorilla turned its attention back to its task.

“Whew.”

From the pile of clothes, a sigh of relief escaped.

It was Amon and his group, who had hidden among the clothes.

Fortunately, the gorilla didn’t notice them.

Amon, confident that the gorilla hadn’t realized they were there, decided to stay hidden under the fabrics.

Fifteen minutes had passed since the barrage began.

It usually took about ten minutes for the special forces to arrive.

Considering the Christmas traffic congestion, it would probably take around twenty minutes.

Amon figured that if they could just hide for five more minutes, they’d be safe.

Sonia nodded, trying to hide herself deeper in the pile of cloth.

The shopkeeper, too, moved toward the pile of clothes.

But before he could hide himself—

“Urgh!”

The old man groaned in pain.

Amon asked him worriedly.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t mind me.”

The old man dismissed Amon’s concern.

But no matter what he said, his limping leg couldn’t be hidden.

Amon’s gaze turned to the old man’s leg.

A pair of scissors was lodged in his thigh.

‘Damn… was it from back then?’

When the wall exploded, all sorts of debris, including a sewing kit, flew into the attic.

The debris hurt, but Amon and Sonia had endured it thanks to their sturdy bodies.

But the old man wasn’t as resilient as they were.

Whether it was unfortunate or fortunate, Amon and Sonia had taken most of the debris, leaving the old man unscathed above the waist.

But a pair of scissors had ended up piercing his thigh.

Amon checked the old man’s complexion in the dim attic light.

He didn’t look good.

Even without any medical expertise, Amon could tell that the scissors had pierced a major artery.

There was no way to carry the old man to safety in this condition.

In his dazed state, the old man kept murmuring something to them in Korean: “Go… quickly… go.”

Hearing the old man’s words, Amon squeezed his eyes shut.

He was a stranger he had never met before.

And in this world, things like sympathy and justice are nothing more than jokes.

Even if they managed to get this old man to the hospital in time, who knew how much chance he had of survival?

And before that, who knew if he could even afford the hospital bills?

So, logically speaking, it was the right choice to just leave him behind.

Amon furrowed his brow and began to pray.

“Lord, look upon me.”

The prayer was short, and the decision was quick.

He left the semi-conscious old man in Sonia’s care and told her what she needed to do.

“I’ll draw that gorilla’s attention. You cross that street while I do. See the bakery? There’s a back door there, and if you go through it, you’ll see the hospital.”

“What do you mean, draw its attention?”

“Sonia, trust me.”

He couldn’t bring himself to explain things like past lives or patterns.

All he could ask for was trust.

The boy’s unwavering eyes met the girl’s golden ones.

Sonia looked at Amon’s face, bit her lower lip, and then carried the old man on her back.

Like Amon, she couldn’t bring herself to abandon the old man either.

With a pout, she spoke to Amon.

“I’ll be right back. Don’t get hurt until… no, just stay safe until I return!”

She swallowed the death flag that almost slipped from her mouth and shouted instead.

Amon, realizing her thoughtfulness, confidently responded.

“It’ll be over before then.”

Right after those words, Amon began assembling the tools around him.

The moment he saw the gorilla, what came to his mind was a one-man army.

Not only did it have thick arms equipped with heavy weapons, but it also had three pairs of arms on its back, each armed.

In terms of firepower alone, it was a monster that could take out two light armored vehicles.

But that didn’t mean it had no weaknesses.

‘Its lower body is weak.’

Of course, its thighs looked sturdy on the surface.

In reality, they were tough enough to withstand bullets.

But Amon wasn’t referring to durability; he was talking about balance.

To wield eight weapons, the lower body couldn’t afford to be burdened with more weaponry.

Its legs likely only served the purpose of bearing the upper body’s recoil.

‘The balance is probably on a knife’s edge.’

A slight disturbance could easily topple it.

That’s why Amon considered the gorilla’s weak point to be its legs.

Luckily, the place he was in was a workshop, making it easy to find materials to exploit that weakness.

Calmly, he tied ropes together and attached a weight to one end.

And thus, his trap was complete.

He waited for the gorilla to prepare its weapon.

When it aimed its rocket launcher at one of the officers and moved forward—

‘Now!’

Amon threw his trap.

The weighted rope successfully wrapped around the gorilla’s legs, tripping it forward.

And though it wasn’t intentional, the rocket fired, and the gorilla got caught in the explosion.

Watching the blast, Amon couldn’t hide his confusion.

‘Why did it remove the safety from the rocket?’

Usually, rockets have safety mechanisms to prevent the user from getting caught in the explosion, but it seemed that wasn’t the case for that small rocket.

The most likely reason was that it had removed the safety to cram more launchers and rockets onto its back, but only the gorilla knew the real reason.

In any case, the unexpected explosion was a stroke of luck for Amon, so he didn’t dwell on it.

Clearing his mind of the word “safety,” Amon approached the commissioner.

As the commissioner sat there in a daze, Amon asked, “Do you have a sword?”

Surprised by the sudden question, the commissioner hesitated for a moment but answered kindly.

He pointed to a body a bit away from the gorilla, where only the lower half remained.

A relatively well-kept katana hung from the body’s waist.

Seeing the sword, Amon clicked his tongue.

“Tsk. That’s not exactly ideal.”

Despite his words, Amon prepared to sprint towards the sword.

The commissioner quickly realized what the boy intended to do.

Normally, he would have tried to stop him, but in such extreme situations, people often chose to believe in miracles.

Especially when considering the fact that the gorilla had kneeled for the first time, it was only natural that the commissioner wanted to trust the boy.

So, instead of stopping him, the commissioner decided to do his part.

“Before you go, take this with you.”

He handed Amon a pistol with only one magazine left.

Amon nodded in thanks and dashed out from behind cover.

On his way to retrieve the katana, the officers who had already received orders via radio fired relentlessly, drawing the gorilla’s attention.

Amon reached the spot where the katana lay.

Instead of holding it upright, he gripped it in a reverse grip and charged at the gorilla.

‘I don’t expect to win.’

That thing was a one-man army.

And Amon, if this were a game, hadn’t even started the tutorial yet.

No matter how much knowledge he had as a seasoned player, he wasn’t reckless enough to act on bravado alone.

He wasn’t aiming to defeat the gorilla.

His goal was to increase their survival chances until the special forces arrived.

Amon recalled the settings of a game from a neighboring city, not Punk City.

When you fought a boss, you could focus on certain parts of its body to either sever or destroy them, a concept known as “part destruction.”

Successfully destroying a part made the boss’s patterns significantly easier.

This feature didn’t exist in Punk City, but now that this world had turned into reality, it was a strategy worth trying.

Amon charged toward the gorilla.

The gorilla, still reeling from the explosion of its own rocket, was in bad shape.

Its right arm was severely burned, and the rocket launcher on its back was wrecked.

Some sensors must have been damaged too, as it was no longer able to scan the entire battlefield.

It was overwhelmed, trying to fend off gunfire from the police while struggling to tear off the rope still tied to its legs.

Thanks to that, Amon was able to approach the gorilla’s back without being noticed.

Once he was in position, Amon thrust the katana, held in a reverse grip, into the base of one of the auxiliary arms.

The blade didn’t go in easily, so Amon hammered the hilt with his fist as if driving a nail.

Crunch!

From inside the three auxiliary right arms, something snapped.

Only after that did the gorilla notice Amon’s presence, and by the time the remaining left arm targeted him, Amon had already dodged out of the way.

The right auxiliary arms groaned, then finally broke down as if malfunctioning.

The gorilla’s ranged weapons were all concentrated on its right side.

With the auxiliary arms disabled, and the original arm holding the machine gun severely burned, its ranged attacks were effectively neutralized.

The burned arm creaked as it tried to aim the machine gun.

But before the barrel could target Amon, he had already taken cover.

The wounds from rolling on the ground stung slightly, but they were bearable.

The gorilla now prioritized Amon as the main threat.

It began moving toward him.

But before it could reach Amon, the police finally made a breakthrough.

Their bullets destroyed the gorilla’s right eye.

Without its targeting system, the gorilla could no longer aim the machine gun with precision.

Its computational system began to overload.

If it targeted Amon, the police were a threat.

If it targeted the police, Amon became a threat.

The system rejected the calculations.

Instead, it chose to go berserk.

Enraged, the gorilla dropped the machine gun and began pounding its chest.

Boom, boom, boom.

“Raaaargh!”

Its magical tattoos began to glow.

In Amon’s words, this was the signal that phase 3 had begun.

Amon wiped the sweat from his brow as he scanned the battlefield.

‘Is there anything around here that can help me survive the gorilla’s phase 3…?’

But there was nothing.

No matter what he picked up, his inexperienced physical abilities would hold him back.

In the end, his only options were dodging and running.

Amon quickly calculated the situation.

The gorilla in phase 3 had its two thick arms and three auxiliary arms on the left.

He roughly estimated the patterns those arms would create.

The real question was whether he could dodge all of them…

‘I can probably manage for one minute…’

After that, he couldn’t guarantee anything.

The frenzied phase 3 gorilla locked eyes with Amon.

Amon tensed, raising the pistol he received from the commissioner.

At the same time, he prepared to roll to the side, anticipating the incoming charge pattern.

However, Amon didn’t have to face the gorilla’s phase 3.

Boom!

A massive figure dropped from the sky, crushing the gorilla and shattering the road beneath it.

Simultaneously, a deafening siren blared from above.

Startled, Amon looked up at the sky.

A flying vehicle, with a large, familiar emblem painted on it, hovered over the gorilla’s head.

Inside the vehicle, a sniper leaned out, using their left arm, which had been modified into a sniper rifle, to take aim at the gorilla.

Amon recognized the logo on that vehicle all too well.

H.O.D.

Hyper Operation Department.

HOD.

They were the elite of the U.S. law enforcement.