I Became a National ‘Disaster’ Level Monster

Chapter 153 Season 2 – Dawn of the Counterattack

The spear of the gods, carved from Mount Everest, had been destroyed.

However, the moment of joy for the human rebel forces was fleeting.

“We must evacuate the people of the underground village immediately.”

Descending into the depths, Shin-woo quickly assessed the situation and addressed everyone who had remained aboveground.

In any case, the fact remained that the underground village, the last bastion of the human rebels, had been discovered.

He urged everyone to evacuate before the next attack came.

Perhaps it was also due to using his divine liberation for the first time…

“Hoo…!”

“Father, your body!”

“It seems I’ve used up all my strength in that last attack.”

Shin-woo’s body quickly reverted to his original human form.

In other words, if another massive attack like the earlier one were to fall on the underground village, there would be no way to block it.

“Everyone, hurry to the underground village!”

“Yes!”

“Understood, Father!”

“But, what about the time machine…?”

“Uh… Well, some of you stay here and keep watch. I’ll go quickly and bring the people here.”

“Oppa! I’ll help too!”

“Uh, okay. Thanks, Ria… Huh?! Your body, your clothes…!”

“Hehe. I grew bigger. How do I look? Pretty?”

The team remained at the time machine, keeping guard while waiting for the people of the underground village to arrive.

Those who had been to the village before would return and bring up the roughly 1,000 citizens to the surface.

Of course, the immediate concern was Ria, who, having grown larger, was now naked…

“For now, please wear this, Mother.”

“Wow! Thanks, son.”

“It’s nothing…”

Leon quickly snatched the cloak that Cria and Kartina had been covering themselves with and draped it over the former Ria.

Was she always this reckless in the past?

Leon sighed deeply at the sight of his carefree and mischievous mother, while the present version of his mother watched on with a blank expression.

“Mother…”

“…See you later, son.”

With a sorrowful look, Lady Ria briefly gazed at Leon and the past Shin-woo, who had once been in good health.

Then, with her two daughters and her estranged son, she turned and quietly walked away.

“?! Shouldn’t we catch them?”

“…No. Even if we did, it wouldn’t benefit us, and fighting now would only cause unnecessary damage.”

“Is that so?”

“Leon! Stay here and guard the time machine with Yulian! I’m sure Katarina is nearby! She’s not the type to die from just that!”

“Yes, understood, Father.”

“Father, let’s head to the underground village quickly.”

“Right, Jae-hyun. Let’s go right away.”

Truthfully, Shin-woo still had many things he wanted to say to Lady Ria.

But now wasn’t the time, as time would not wait for the two of them.

***

The underground village, once ravaged by destruction.

Its current state was nothing but chaos.

“Everyone must evacuate to the surface!”

“Proceed one by one through the dimensional gate!”

“To the surface?!”

“If we go outside, we’ll all be monster food. Is this really the right thing to do?”

“Would you rather stay underground and be buried alive?”

A national-level Hunter from China.

Through Xiao Ling’s power, a dimensional gate connecting the underground and the surface had been created, allowing the residents of the underground village to escape safely—well, not exactly.

As soon as they were told to leave for the surface, where they could become monster prey, everyone was terrified, refusing to listen to Dorothy, the village leader.

“Is there even another settlement outside?”

“Captain Dorothy! The only people here are children and the elderly!”

“Going out with these people means you might survive, but we’ll all be dead!”

Dorothy had no rebuttal to the villagers’ complaints.

Because everything they said was true.

Even if they managed to survive on the surface, what would come next?

It would take too long to rebuild a base like the underground village.

And while fleeing from future Shin-woo’s grasp, they would have to fend off the Imperial Army and the monsters that inhabited the surface.

It was practically impossible to protect all the residents from these threats.

“But if we stay here, we could be buried alive again!”

“Maybe that would be better!”

“What did you say?”

“Being eaten alive by monsters or taken by the Imperial Army for horrific experiments sounds much worse than being crushed to death!”

“Even if the oxygen supply underground is cut off, we’d all pass peacefully.”

“So… are you all saying you want to commit suicide here?”

Dorothy asked in disbelief, her voice rising.

And the response she received was silence.

An ominous silence that seemed to confirm their acceptance of the inevitable fate awaiting the underground village.

“We’re already exhausted.”

“…!”

“The children wouldn’t be any different.”

“Aboveground is already hell.”

“We’re at the age where we’ve seen humanity lose to monsters countless times, with every breath.”

The elderly of the underground village had witnessed humanity, once rulers of Earth, perish at the hands of monsters.

They had seen the last of the human rebel forces get easily wiped out, and now they were nothing but tired old souls, living only because they hadn’t yet died.

They wanted to rest now.

To abandon their current human lives and seek a new existence.

But then, a voice cut through the despair.

“What about the children?”

“?!”

“…!”

“What about the children who have to die with you?”

“Shin-ah…”

Shin-ah stood on the platform where Dorothy had been speaking, looking down at the humans who had forgotten how to fight, her expression fierce.

“The children said they want to see the sky!!”

With that simple outcry, something began to flicker in the eyes of the elders who had been resigned to peaceful death.

“Do you really not want to go to the surface anymore? Do you really want to die? Don’t you think you’d regret it if you died without doing anything?”

“No matter what…”

“If the monsters see us, we’ll all die…”

“Especially the Empire… those bastards treat humans like bones and flesh to devour.”

“Yes, rather than being captured by them…!”

“No. The people of the Empire aren’t much different from you.”

The people of the underground village, who saw those like Shin-ah as ‘monsters.’

And the people of the Empire, who saw humans as savage and terrifying creatures.

Where had these prejudices come from?

Shin-ah didn’t know the answer to such complex questions.

But there was one thing she did know.

That all these assumptions were wrong.

“I was taught that humans were wicked, brutal, and evil from the moment I was born.”

“…?”

“From the moment you were born?”

“But I realized that was wrong.”

With those words, Shin-ah let out a roar from the platform.

Then, black horns sprouted from her head, transforming her into a monster, shocking all the underground village residents.

“Eek?!”

“A m-monster!”

“No, before that, isn’t that…!”

“Han Shin-woo! Han Shin-woo’s child!”

“What? But Shin-ah wasn’t…”

“She was never a bad villain!”

Shin-ah proudly revealed her true identity to the underground village.

But she didn’t shrink back at all.

Instead, she confidently continued her speech, showing that this appearance was just superficial and that she was no different from them at heart.

“I don’t think the people of the Empire and the people here are any different.”

“We and those monsters…”

“Are the same?”

“In the Empire, humans are taught that we’re monsters. Meanwhile, here in the underground village, you’re taught that we, the people of the Empire, are monsters.”

But despite the differences in appearance and race, if they could speak, laugh, cry, and share emotions together, wouldn’t it be possible to carve out a new path that differed from the past?

“Don’t call us monsters. And don’t fear us.”

“…!”

“In return, we’ll do the same. Because we are all the same ‘humans.'”

“You’re saying we and you…”

“Are the same humans…?”

Of course, convincing the underground village people wouldn’t be easy.

From the perspective of the humans, Shin-ah’s race, which had just begun to emerge, was the embodiment of heresy.

Still, Shin-ah had learned much about humanity and wanted to share these thoughts.

The first step might be awkward, and it might fail.

But if they kept moving forward, success might one day follow, because that’s what a ‘challenge’ is all about.

“How can we be the same…!”

“Even if we’re different! Shin-ah is still our friend!!”

“…! You guys…”

At that moment.

The three little rascals who always played with Shin-ah in the underground village.

Among them, Park Hyuk, who had claimed leadership before Ria had beaten him, stood up and supported Shin-ah.

“I don’t want to die like this! I want to see the sky! Even if I die, I want to do something before I go!”

“That little brat…!”

“I-I want to go outside too!”

“Me too! Princess Lyra said if we go to the Empire, we’d get lots of tasty food!”

“…Idiots.”

Then, Alfonso and Aya also stood up, backing Shin-ah and quietly aligning themselves with Lyra, who was standing silently behind her.

At their sight, Lyra simply smiled softly.

“Let’s fight together.”

Following Shin-ah, Lyra climbed onto the platform and made her proposal to the huddled underground village.

“If we’re going to die here anyway, shouldn’t we at least do something for the kids? You old geezers!!”