Chapter 172: The Perfect Candidate

Finding Elite Monsters of any other type was almost impossible.

However, judging from his battle against the Big Belly Zombie earlier, spider webs were only effective at restraining melee oriented Elite Monsters.

If the enemy happened to be an Elemental type creature, they could completely ignore the web and attack from a distance.

Because of that, if he were forced to hunt other Elite Monsters, Joo Joowon estimated that three was probably the maximum number he could safely fight at once.

With that number, even if he became surrounded, he would not be overwhelmed to the point of suffering an embarrassing defeat.

Still, if he had a choice, he would much rather fight one on one.

Just as Joo Joowon was beginning to consider settling for a less suitable option, he finally discovered an Elite Monster that looked different from the others.

The Elite Monsters he had encountered so far all retained more human features than animal features.

This one, however, was the complete opposite.

Its beastly characteristics overwhelmingly surpassed its human appearance.

Every inch of visible skin on its body was covered in feathers.

Its face had transformed into a sharp beak.

A fleshy wattle hung beneath its jaw.

A comb had grown atop its head.

Its lower legs were completely bare and ended in sharp spurs.

Its enlarged thumb had extended backward, leaving it walking entirely on its front toes.

If not for those unmistakable legs, Joo Joowon might have mistaken it for a Mutated Beast rather than a Chimera.

The appearance of this Elite Monster was unmistakable.

It was a rooster.

As far as Joo Joowon remembered, chickens often ate ants as a source of protein.

In that case, the choice was obvious.

You are the perfect candidate for the job.

Unfortunately, there was only this single chicken type Chimera in sight, while the ants on the other side numbered in the thousands and tens of thousands.

So even though the match up was professionally perfect, Joo Joowon did not believe this Elite Monster had any chance of winning.

That did not matter.

It had only ever been intended as a disposable resource anyway.

Unlike zombies that wandered aimlessly through the streets, Elite Monsters generally did not roam around during the daytime.

Unless they heard some enormous disturbance erupting nearby, they usually stayed where they were and only moved closer to investigate major events.

Their true hunting hours were almost always at night.

There were several reasons for this.

Part of it was because they instinctively disliked sunlight.

The larger reason, however, was because they adapted themselves to the habits of their prey.

Humans were active during the day and rested at night.

Compared to daytime, hunting at night greatly increased the chances of success.

After all, humans required sleep in order to remain energetic enough to function the next day.

Not everyone in the apocalypse had reliable teammates or companions they could depend on.

Even among those who did live together in teams, not every group organized shifts to keep watch during the night and defend against zombies.

On top of that, Elite Monsters hunted humans primarily to fill their stomachs.

Leveling up was only a secondary objective.

Because of this, they rarely carried out large scale massacres during the night.

Once they had eaten their fill, they simply left.

As a result, even if people heard screams coming from somewhere in the darkness, most simply assumed that someone unfortunate had met their end.

Because of that, even now there were still many people who had not realized that staying indoors at night no longer guaranteed safety.

Many times, danger would come looking for you even if you did nothing to invite it.

This Chicken Chimera, however, was different.

It was clearly not an Elite Monster that lived according to nocturnal habits.

That was probably because the beastly characteristics it possessed greatly exceeded its human traits.

After all, chickens were animals that possessed almost no night vision whatsoever.

Just like humans, they were active during the day and rested at night.

The habits this Chimera followed were clearly those of a rooster rather than those of a zombie.

It did not even live inside a "home."

Instead, it had settled down inside a vegetable garden.

That was right.

A vegetable garden.

Someone had apparently transformed the garden of their small villa into a patch for growing vegetables, and the Chicken Chimera had made its home there, lowering its head to peck at the food growing in the soil.

With a height of at least one meter seventy, bending down to peck at the ground should have been incredibly inconvenient for it.

Anyone looking at it would probably feel their own neck starting to ache on its behalf.

Yet the creature itself clearly felt no such discomfort.

It pecked enthusiastically at the ground over and over again, occasionally scratching at the soil with its feet, perfectly recreating every behavior associated with an ordinary chicken.

Beside the vegetable patch stood a small shed.

Growing over it were climbing vegetables that looked like loofahs or cucumbers.

Support frames had been set up beneath the vines, making the structure look like a place where chickens might rest at night or where flower pots and gardening supplies might once have been stored.

This made Joo Joowon suspect that this Chicken Chimera had perhaps lived here even before the apocalypse.

This was the first time Joo Joowon had encountered a Chimera of this particular type.

Strictly speaking, even the first Orange Cat Chimera he had met had still displayed more zombie characteristics than animal ones.

The reason it moved on all fours was simply because, judging by the child’s age before death, there was a good chance it had never fully learned to walk upright in life.

Up until now, every Chimera Joo Joowon had encountered possessed certain animal characteristics, but they could still clearly be identified as human at first glance.

This one was completely different.

He had no idea what exactly caused such a distinction.