Leveling Up Alone

Chapter 116: The Club (4)

Dum! Tss! Dum! Tss!

Hongdae was the hottest place for youngsters in South Korea, and it was also the most active commercial area.

South Korea’s top three commercial areas were Gangnam, Shinchon, and Hongdae. Gangnam was the most expensive one among the three, so most shops there were leased by expensive brands or shops focused on luxury goods. On the other hand, Shinchon was focused on hospitals, department stores, and motels, so young people slowly stopped going there.

However, the streets of Hongdae were filled with buskers, clubbers, and delicious food. Naturally, it evolved into the hottest hangout spot for young people. On top of that, the celebrities largely followed by teenagers and young adults in their twenties often appeared in Hongdae, which further fueled the area’s fame among youngsters.

The club that Han-Yeol and Sung-Jin went to was quite a famous one in Hongdae.

“Welcome!”

The club’s reception was not located inside but rather outside the building, and there was quite a long line of clubbers waiting to get in.

“Wow, this is quite a crowd. I guess we can expect some excitement tonight, ” Sung-Jin said.

“Huh? Do you go clubbing often?” Han-Yeol asked, feeling a bit awkward as this was his first time coming to a club.

As for Sung-Jin, he appeared to be comfortable and right in his element.

There was a tall man standing at the entrance of the club, and he seemed to be the one in charge of managing who got in or not.

Checking the ID of a woman, he said, “Is this really you? You look a bit different from the picture…”

“Ah, that’s before I got plastic surgery, handsome oppa,” the woman replied with a wink.

“Hmm… This is a bit troublesome…”

“Why, oppa? I came here to play with my friends because I heard this is the best club in Hongdae! Can’t you let me in, oppa?”

The woman looked a bit young, but she somewhat resembled the picture on the ID. Thinking so, the man let her enter the club.

“Alright, you can go in.”

“Alright! Thank you, handsome oppa!”

“Don’t mention it. Haha!”

The group of women went down the stairs while excitedly chatting with each other.

The door opened, blasting out the loud music that shook the floor inside the club. An area decorated with balloons could be seen between the doors, as well as a DJ playing songs on a platform. Men and women could also be seen mingling with each other as they danced to the music.

“Wow, this is awesome…” Han-Yeol muttered in amazement.

He had only seen videos of clubs on the TV. Now that he was here to check it out by himself, he found it looked much more exciting.

Tak.

“You think so?” Sung-Jin said as he tapped Han-Yeol, who looked like a lost country bumpkin, on the shoulder and motioned him to smile.

Han-Yeol was mostly serious and level-headed, but he sometimes donned this innocent dumb look when he was taken aback.

“Doesn’t this look like a corrupted underground city…?” Han-Yeol commented.

“What the hell are you talking about…? Forget about that, let’s go and book a room,” Sung-Jin replied.

“Huh? I thought you had to reserve those in advance?”

“You’re sort of right, but today is a weekday. There should still be some empty rooms. I’ll go book the room, so sit tight and have a pint of beer while waiting for me.”

“Okay,” Han-Yeol replied while waving his hand.

Dum! Dum! Dum! Dum! Dum! Dum!?

Han-Yeol could not help but love the club’s atmosphere despite it being his first time. The loud music automatically made him want to dance even while sitting still, and the dozens of semi-clad women dancing on the dance floor as if they were in a trance was quite a refreshing sight for him.

He had a prejudice that clubs were dark and corrupted places where one would participate in vices before their eventual downfall. Now that he was here himself, he could not help but feel embarrassed for having thought that way. It turned out that a club was a place where people mingled and danced to their heart’s content.

‘I should come here quite frequently,’?he thought.

Sung-Jin finally returned while Han-Yeol was busy looking around the club. He said, “Hey, let’s go up. I got us a room upstairs.”

“Sounds good.”

Han-Yeol glanced up and saw quite a lot of people leaning on the handrails while leisurely chatting and drinking beer. There were a lot of men among them, but the women with them were so unbelievably beautiful that his eyes were busy scanning all of them from head to toe. He thought, ‘So this is why so many men come here.’

The entire club seemed to be full of beautiful women. The ones upstairs were astonishingly beautiful, while the ones dancing on the dance floor below possessed sexy bodies that they further flaunted with their skimpy clothes. It was basically a sight that would make men salivate and have their primal instincts incited.

The men probably frequented this place in hopes of getting lucky with one of the women here. The club knew this was their key selling point, so they made sure to set a certain standard for their guests and hosted a lot of events targeting women.

“What are you doing? Hurry up,” Sung-Jin called out when he saw Han-Yeol spacing out.

“Ah, I’m coming,” Han-Yeol replied.

They entered the room Sung-Jin had booked and started their night with a glass of whiskey before continuing the discussion they had at the wine bar.

“Keuh!?Whiskey definitely has a different charm compared to wine,” Han-Yeol said after drinking the whiskey.

“Look at this bastard. Can you stop pretending you know how to taste alcohol?” Sung-Jin sneered.

Perhaps it was because of his dirt poor upbringing that Han-Yeol had never had the chance to enjoy expensive drinks such as whiskey or wine. However, he was still the type of guy who would always prefer to drink beer or soju no matter what the occasion was.

That was why Sung-Jin found Han-Yeol’s pretentiousness to be quite hilarious right now.

“Shut up. You need to drink stuff that complements where you are,” Han-Yeol snapped back.

“Keke! Sure, sure, drink to your heart’s content then,” Sung-Jin said with a snicker.

Clink!

The two of them clinked their glasses before downing them to get drunk. Then, they went down to the stage.

“Now, shall we go?”

“Sounds good!”

After drinking their whiskey and starting to feel slightly tipsy, Han-Yeol and Sung-Jin prepared to make their way to the stage to mingle with the crowd.

Drinking and dancing at the club was always a fun experience, but the main event would always be mingling with the crowd and going wild.

However…

Dudududu…!

“W-What?!”

“Is it an earthquake?!”

A sudden tremor shook the ground, and Han-Yeol immediately sensed the trace of a strange unsettling mana in the air. Then, what he feared the most ended up happening.

“Kyaaaaahk!”

“Gwaaaak!”

As screams reverberated across the club, Sung-Jin asked, “What’s going on?”

“I’ll lead the way!” Han-Yeol shouted in response.

“S-Sure.”

Sung-Jin decided to trust Han-Yeol as they currently had no idea what was going on.

Han-Yeol carefully opened the door and went out.

“Kieeeek!”

“Help me!”

“Argh!”

“Guoh… Gege… Gege…”

The dance floor on the first level was no longer filled with dancing clubbers. It was now covered in blood.

“M-Monster?!”

A group of green-skinned monsters had managed to somehow enter the club. They were massacring the civilians.

‘Demon Eyes!’?Han-Yeol hurriedly activated his skill to scan the area within a ten-kilometer radius around him.

Just as a sense of uneasiness settled in his heart, he exclaimed inwardly in horror, ‘T-This can’t be!’?

The monsters were not only present in the club, but more of them were spread across the ten-kilometer radius all around Han-Yeol. In other words, the entire city was overrun by monsters without a single warning from the association or the government.

“H- Han-Yeol!” Sung-Jin urgently shouted.

“Hmm?”

“O-Over there!”

Han-Yeol turned his head toward Sung-Jin and found his friend pointing somewhere.

“Euaaack!”

There was a group of men filming the carnage with their smartphones before they were chased by the monsters. Then, they hurriedly hid in a room and locked the door… However, that was a big mistake.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Kwachik! Bam!

“N-No!”

Bam! Kwachik! Pukeok! Kwachik!

“Aaaaack!”

“It hurts! Stop!”

“H-Help me!”

There was no way that an ordinary door was going to be able to stop a monster that used mana.

The monster punched the door three times before smashing it open on the fourth one. It quickly entered the room.

What followed was the desperate cries and screams of the men.

The second floor was still safe for now, but that did not last for long. After all, the monsters slowly started to ascend the stairs one by one.

Gruduek…!

‘These bastards?dare?to disturb my night out…?’?Han-Yeol gritted his teeth in anger.

Today was supposed to be his reward for having worked so tirelessly these past few days, and it was supposed to be peaceful, fun, and hot.?So, with the monsters’ sudden appearance ruining everything, he could not help but have his temper flare up.

Han-Yeol was emitting powerful mana from his body because of his anger.

Shwaaaa…!

A monster that resembled a praying mantis scaled the walls. After landing near Han-Yeol and Sung-Jin, it tried to attack them with its scythe-like arm.

“Heup!”?Sung-Jin held his breath in horror at the monster’s attack.

He might be a Porter who hunted at the hunting grounds, but he had never experienced fighting one-on-one against a monster.

Whoosh!

All of a sudden, Han-Yeol dashed forward and crushed the monster’s head with his knee. That was quite a powerful blow now that his Martial Arts had reached the M Rank, and it was impossible for the low tier monster to withstand it.

However, more and more monsters came up to the second floor. They started to gang up on Han-Yeol.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!?

A monster exploded every time a boom resounded in the air.

“Damn it… Why did these weaklings have to appear now of all times and ruin my night?! Fuck!”

Boom! Boom! Boom!?

Han-Yeol threw kicks and punches to vent his anger, and he painted his entire surroundings with bluish blood. Thanks to him, the monsters at the club were quickly neutralized.

Han-Yeol scanned the club with Demon Eyes one more time just to make sure that there were no more monsters in it.

The problem now was Sung-Jin.

“Hey, Sung-Jin,” Han-Yeol called out.

“Ah…? Oh, right… What’s up…?” Sung-Jin replied while looking slightly disoriented.

He might have gained quite a bit of experience while working as a Porter, but this was the first time that he had such a close encounter against monsters. In addition, the fact that this happened at a club in the middle of the city further shocked him.

Tak! Tak!

Han-Yeol reached up and tapped Sung-Jin’s cheek twice. He was asking his friend to get a grip right now.

“Are you alright?” Han-Yeol asked, but he could tell that Sung-Jin was not doing so well right now.

“Ah, I’m alright… Hoo… I should get a grip…” Sung-Jin replied before he slapped himself awake.

Pak! Pak!?

He reminded himself of a saying that one could survive getting bitten by a tiger as long as one did not panic.

Han-Yeol and Sung-Jin decided to leave the club before anything else. There were still a lot of injured people in the club, but they did not have the luxury to care for them. They would have stayed behind and tended to the wounded if the monsters’ appearance had been limited to the club, but the whole ten-kilometer radius around them was currently in chaos.

The whole area descended into madness as monsters massacred the civilians while the deployed Hunters tried their best to control the situation.

The only silver lining was probably the fact that the monsters that appeared were not that strong, so the Hunters did not have to struggle for a long time just to kill one of them. Unfortunately, the monsters were just so great in numbers and they were spread out all over the place, making it difficult for the Hunters to take control of the situation.

‘Not to mention… All of the Hunters are currently fighting only in their respective areas,’?Han-Yeol thought while scanning his surroundings.

It was not that there had been no Hunters in Hongdae when the monsters first appeared. However, the problem was that the total Hunter population of South Korea was a mere fifty thousand, and not all of them were present in this place.

On top of that, the monsters were so scattered around. Some were even in the buildings nearby, so it was extremely difficult for the Hunters present in Hongdae to neutralize all of them.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The police fired their guns in hopes of making a stand against the monsters. Unfortunately, there was no way that a mere revolver used by ordinary people was going to make a dent against the monsters even though they were low-tier weaklings.

Whoosh! Kawdeuk!

“Kwaaargh!”

“I-It hurts! Save me!”

The two police who bravely resisted against a monster were instantly gobbled up by it.