Something Keeps Appearing in My Subspace - Chapter 269

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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269. Australia Subjugation (5)
“…?”
The moment I smoothly drew the S-rank spear into my Subspace, the Lion-Human twisted his head at a forty-five-degree angle.
“…??”
Then his eyes widened as if he’d been struck by shock. Though truthfully, he wasn’t the only one reacting this way.
“Ahhhhh!”
The incoming javelins moved at considerable speed. Not all Advance Team hunters could evade them.
Especially not those gathered in the rear—the Healers and mages.
Behind me stood rear-guard members who had watched the javelins with their eyes but whose bodies failed to respond, screaming in terror.
Their expressions mirrored the Lion-Human’s bewilderment.
“Huh?”
“What?”
“Eh?”
Their reactions varied wildly—eyes wide as saucers, mouths agape in perfect circles. They looked like cartoon characters.
“Shouldn’t you say thank you first for saving your lives?”
I flashed a grin at the Lion-Human. This irritating yet capable creature. I’d put him through his paces, but it was worth it.
Everyone remained intact, and I’d secured the S-rank spear. Of course, he wouldn’t be fine.
“Kraaagh! Kroogh!”
The Lion-Human thrust his right hand violently toward the space where my Subspace had unfolded before vanishing.
A peculiar force manifested—divine power, the same energy used to retrieve spears.
“As if that would work.”
But how could it possibly succeed?
“Where’s your spear? It’s disappeared into another dimension’s Subspace.”
I’d already learned from experience that nothing entering my Subspace could ever be recovered, divine power or not.
“Kroogh!”
Yet he refused to give up, thrusting his hand forward several more times. A hollow laugh escaped me at his futile efforts.
I understood, though. When a spear of that magnitude vanishes, you’d try anything.
“Kraaahhh!”
Rage finally erupted. The reality of my swallowing his spear had been so surreal that he’d only now accepted it.
The Lion-Human kicked off from the Hill and charged downward.
‘Well, we’re grateful for that.’
New flesh was sprouting from the punctured wound in his flank, but he hadn’t fully recovered yet.
In fact, the moment he moved, blood burst from the injury site.
He possessed intelligence, though not quite human-level. Considering the beast-humans I’d encountered before, maintaining even this much was remarkable.
To retain any semblance of reason while operating on pure instinct was extraordinary.
‘Still, I need to be careful.’
The final moments of a wounded animal are always the most dangerous. A creature with nothing left to lose charges forward prepared to forfeit its life.
Though confronting him now, wounded, was preferable to facing an uninjured Lion-Human.
“Form ranks!”
Shin Chang shouted upon seeing the creature’s charge. The hunters’ formation remained scattered.
That creature rampaged through our center before Shin Chang could drive it back with his spear.
I thought we’d die trying to stop it. With the beast targeting our rear guard relentlessly, I was consumed managing the spatial jumps and Subspace. That’s why Shin Chang ended up with a hole in his abdomen.
But I realized the Lion-Human before me now was different from moments ago.
“Roooar!”
Its eyes locked directly onto me. As the vanguard charged forward, I quickly activated a spatial jump.
-Whoosh!
My spatial awareness had expanded to 60 meters. A single jump now allowed me to cover an enormous distance.
The instant I vanished, the Lion-Human threw its foreleg down like a brake, skidding several meters despite the effort.
Its head whipped around frantically, searching for me.
It seemed genuinely agitated—the fact that it couldn’t locate me immediately proved that.
I unleashed a light burst of flame, not to deal damage but to reveal my position.
“Snarl!”
The creature that had been on all fours suddenly charged forward on two legs again.
“Hold the formation!”
I shouted the order to the hunters. Monsters were converging from all directions anyway.
Some hunters were dedicated to handling those creatures, but the Lion-Human’s rampage had thrown everything into chaos.
“Right here, you beast.”
While I engaged this thing, stabilizing the rear guard was the priority. Only then could we capture the wounded Lion-Human more easily.
* * *
“Team 3’s formation is collapsing!”
“The Lion-Human is on the move!”
The Command Center erupted into chaos. The Space Mage’s arrival was critical to capturing Catoblepas.
Everyone’s attention was fixed on Team 3. But Team 3’s situation was deteriorating.
“Does it possess intelligence?”
“Absolutely. Few monsters target the rear guard so deliberately.”
“It’s not just targeting the rear guard. Did you see that? It even deceived Shin Chang and the Space Mage.”
The retired hunter had immediately grasped the Lion-Human’s true threat level.
“Was Team 3 actually assigned the hardest position?”
Trimbo’s battle was proceeding smoothly. Catoblepas presented a different kind of difficulty.
They were fighting safely from range, which made it hard to “break through” their defenses.
Of course, even if dangerous, Catoblepas wasn’t tearing through the hunters’ ranks at the Lion-Human’s incredible speed.
Team 3’s formation was visibly crumbling in an instant. The situation was deteriorating rapidly.
“I thought this would be the easiest…”
That assessment was based on having Shin Chang plus the Space Mage, who rivaled the Advance Team’s elite.
The Space Mage had even faced a similar enemy in a previous Gate, hadn’t they?
“I read the report—it wasn’t this severe.”
“Right. This creature is boss-class or higher from an 80+ level Gate.”
“That spear is no ordinary weapon. It clearly possesses special abilities.”
“Whether it’s an ability-infused weapon or enhanced physical prowess, both are problems—but intelligence is the biggest issue.”
“Yes. The vanguard should hold and attack, but now we can’t even do that.”
There was nothing the Command Center could do for the hunters locked in combat.
“I’m going to lose my mind.”
“Damn it.”
“Shouldn’t we retrieve the hunters now, even if it costs us casualties?”
“Now?”
“If we continue like this, casualties are inevitable. We need to accept the losses, stop Catoblepas first, then subjugate the Lion-Human again.”
“Are you insane? Do you think we can run this operation again? How many countries are cooperating with us….”
“Is that what matters right now?”
The battlefield shifted in real time, and the Command Center erupted into a cacophony of conflicting opinions.
“Quiet! Keep monitoring Team 1 and Team 2!”
“If Team 3 is the problem, then we can’t subjugate Catoblepas!”
Amid the bickering, a sudden hush fell over the room.
“This is insane.”
“Shin Chang….”
Someone’s murmur silenced the chaos in an instant. Shin Chang? Why Shin Chang? Heads snapped toward the monitors.
….
Shin Chang was impaled on a spear. It was a moment of collective shock. Shin Chang—the third-ranked hunter in the world.
No one had imagined that Shin Chang, a master of the spear, would be pierced by someone wielding one.
Of course, it was to protect Seo Seung-yeon, and a calculated move for the next phase, but few in that chaotic Conference Room understood that much.
A heavy silence descended. They opened their eyes wide again only because Shin Chang wasn’t simply taking the blow.
-Kyaaaah!
Light flashed across the monitor. Shin Chang’s skill pierced through the Lion-Human and struck Han Hye’s Subspace.
Everyone held their breath, waiting for the dust to settle.
“Did… did we finish it?”
“What? This crazy bastard….”
“It’s alive!”
“Because of this bastard!”
Someone got smacked on the back of the head, but it didn’t last long. They were all professionals. They focused on assessing the situation.
“We… we got a hit!”
“What about Shin Chang!”
“He’s fine! Healing skill activated!”
Shin Chang’s injuries were painful, but the Lion-Human’s damage wasn’t insignificant either. It seemed like a reasonable trade.
“Insane…!”
The Lion-Human recovered behind a holy barrier and prepared to throw its spear again.
“Can we break through that?”
“We don’t know!”
“The rear guard…!”
And then Han Hye stepped forward.
-Whoooosh!
The opened Subspace swallowed the thrown spear whole.
“Huh?”
“?”
“???”
The moment the Lion-Human’s spear vanished, everyone in the Conference Room froze for roughly two seconds. It was the time it took to tear their eyes from the screen and face the person beside them.
No one could immediately grasp the situation. Still, the team leader was the first to make a judgment call.
“Helicopter! Send a helicopter!”
“Sir?”
“I said send a helicopter!”
* * *
“Roaaah!”
The Lion-Human’s front paw, consumed by rage, lunges toward me. Whoosh—. The violent sound of claws tearing through air sends shivers down my spine.
With a frame standing three meters tall, its hands are massive and its arms impossibly long. And those claws on top of it all. The reach is beyond imagination.
‘If that connects properly, I’m done for.’
Without its spear, the Lion-Human is definitely weaker than before. That’s an undeniable fact.
Setting aside the S-rank spear itself, the spear technique it wielded was clearly an S-rank skill as well.
However, that doesn’t mean I can bring it down immediately. Its physical capabilities haven’t diminished, so I need time to observe and adapt.
In some respects, it’s proving rather troublesome.
‘The spear technique I can roughly predict.’
Though I have some understanding of martial arts through combat experience, the mixture of bestial instincts makes it difficult.
The maddened Lion-Human has already thrown itself at me, trying to tear me apart with its jaws.
Its mouth is so enormous that if it had bitten me, my entire neck would have been shredded. Of course, I’m adapting.
Fighting is one thing, but there’s another crucial difference I’ve noticed.
“This thing! It’s losing its sanity more and more!”
The relentless targeting of me stems from rage, but the attack patterns themselves are becoming simpler.
Even with its senses intact, it’s gradually resembling the other Lion-Humans I encountered before.
-It seems that spear’s divinity was preventing the loss of intellect.
That was Chun-bae’s assessment. A reasonable deduction. The previous Lion-Humans all lacked intelligence, so there had to be a reason this one was different.
‘Did I actually encounter the Goddess?’
-I don’t know. Perhaps it found a relic of the Goddess and managed to endure the Twilight God’s influence to some degree.
Either way, that spear was the key point in maintaining this creature’s intellect.
It’s been deteriorating steadily ever since the spear disappeared.
“Space Mage! We’re clear on this side!”
The vanguard around me shouted. Our formation had already stabilized.
The rear guard was being protected flawlessly.
“When you leap! We’ll strike!”
“Understood!”
There’s no need to keep drawing its attention anymore.
-Pop!
I leap twenty meters in an instant. The moment it lunges toward where I was.
-Crash!
-Boom!
Seo Seung-yeon’s bullets, the dragon-scale piercing spear, and magic cascaded down in torrents.
“Screeeech!”
The creature shrieked. But one thing became certain—the divine protection barrier that had been shielding it no longer held.
It seemed Chun-bae was right about the spear’s connection. That thing must have succeeded in finding traces of the Goddess after leaving the Labyrinth.
“Keep hitting it! More!”
The ensuing battle didn’t last long. Perhaps because I’d stolen the spear from it…
The Lion-Human, now devoid of intellect, continued pursuing me relentlessly.
Whenever I evaded with a leap, the hunters would attack in turn—a pattern that repeated endlessly.
All I’d done was steal one spear, yet the difficulty had plummeted to an absurd degree.
‘I never imagined the strategy would be this straightforward.’
No, it wasn’t simple at all. If I thought about how to snatch the spear as it kept returning, it bordered on impossible.
Eventually, the Lion-Human collapsed to the ground, drenched in blood. It trembled uncontrollably, unable to move.
“Hye!”
At that moment, the Mister who’d been safely hovering in the sky descended urgently.
Right. I had work to do. I hastily opened a Subspace and retrieved the Twilight God’s Mane.
The reason I hadn’t given this to the Mister beforehand was my concern that it might trigger a seizure in this creature.
I didn’t want to accidentally draw its aggression toward him.
“Be careful.”
I approached the creature alongside the Mister. Just in case. Though it seemed this one had exhausted its stamina as well.
Unable to move, it stared at us with eyes burning with murderous intent.
“It seems to recognize something?”
“Yes. It recognizes it.”
Even in its mindless state, it reacted upon seeing the Twilight God’s Mane. Its wide eyes trembled.
A mixture of fear and hatred seemed to blend within them.
-Thunk!
And the Mister pierced the creature with the spear. That was the moment.
-Whoosh!
The spear underwent a transformation. The Mister’s eyes widened.
“We got it!”
“We got it?”
“S-rank!”
Though I hadn’t checked the specs yet, just from the Mister’s expression, it looked quite exceptional.
In the moment another S-rank spear was added to the Mister’s collection alongside the one I’d stored in my Subspace.
Now the rewards from the Shin Chang Martial Arts Tournament itself had become irrelevant.
I figured I could compare the two spears I’d obtained this time and use whichever had better specs.
“Hey, what did you do?”
“The weapon seems to have undergone some change?”
Combat concluded. Before I could answer the hunters approaching with interest, the sound of a helicopter echoed from afar.
And an unwelcome sound came with it.
-Team 3, excellent work! We need your support for Team 1 now!
Wait, you want us to support Team 1?
“What kind of insane request is that?”
“Did they actually see what we just went through?”
Complaints erupted among the hunters who had just endured that chaos.
“Shin Chang is wounded too!”
However, the next words that followed forced me to nod in agreement.
-Without the Space Mage who destroyed Ja-tan, it seems difficult to penetrate Catoblepas!
So this wasn’t just busywork after I’d finished my duties—it was something only I could do?
Well, I suppose I have to go. What else can I do?
‘Before that, though.’
Let me rest in the Subspace for a bit. I’m exhausted beyond belief.
Truly.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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