Chapter 337: Calamity

This abnormal situation made Joo Joowon stop moving forward. Instead, he crouched down in the grass, trying his best to minimize his presence, then activated his enhanced vision and desperately tried to look ahead.

This location had been chosen by Hwi. It was on a hillside and was relatively high, with very little blocking their line of sight, so Joo Joowon could barely make out what was happening.

While they had been inside the area, they had not noticed it. But now that they were standing at a higher point and looking into the distance, Joo Joowon finally discovered that a strange red mist was drifting in the distance. Wisps of it spread outward in all directions, and wherever the red mist covered, the environment had become extremely barren, with almost no plants surviving.

Deep within the red mist, he could vaguely see some figures wandering around.

They varied in size and shape. With the mist concealing them, they looked like hideous and terrifying monsters.

However, Joo Joowon could recognize that they were all wild animals that lived in the Hwarim mountain range.

There were animals with horns growing from their heads, seemingly antelopes or perhaps deer. There were large, tall creatures that looked like bears. There were birds flying through the sky, perhaps eagles or perhaps other birds of prey.

Without exception, all of them moved with a certain stiffness. It was a state that Joo Joowon was extremely familiar with.

Zombies.

They were all zombies!

These zombie beasts surrounded an area that was completely covered by the red mist, making it impossible to see what was really hidden inside.

Because they were too far away, Joo Joowon could not determine their levels either. He could only observe that there were a lot of them, with different species and groups wandering together in harmony. There seemed to be roughly one or two hundred of them.

One had to know that even zombies had their own small groups. Zombies of different species would not gather together.

They seemed to have their own independent way of making judgments. Animals that lived alone would continue living alone even after becoming zombies, while species that normally moved in groups would continue to move around in groups.

Therefore, in some aspects, animal zombies were actually not as frightening as human zombies. At the very least, in cities, there were some areas where human zombies truly gathered in huge, overwhelming crowds, with thousands or even tens of thousands gathered together.

As for animal populations, without human interference, most groups consisting of a dozen or twenty animals would already be considered large populations.

Take wolf packs, for example. In reality, the largest wolf packs only had around eight or nine wolves. If there were more than that, the food available nearby would not be enough to support them. Only herbivores had a chance of gathering in groups of one or two hundred at a time.

Yet among these wandering animals, there were both herbivores and carnivores, which made Joo Joowon even more certain of their identities as zombies.

Moreover, they did not seem to be ordinary zombie beasts either, especially judging from their body sizes.

At such a great distance, everything visible to the eyes would normally appear smaller. Yet the figures Joo Joowon could see still appeared enormous.

Joo Joowon slowly let out a breath, but his mood was not particularly heavy.

To be honest, the journey had gone so smoothly that he had actually started to feel somewhat uneasy. He did not know when or where a truly dangerous situation would descend upon him.

Now that he had finally encountered something difficult to deal with, he instead felt relieved.

Given his situation, it would have been strange if he had gone out once and encountered absolutely nothing.

If this had been an ordinary place, perhaps Joo Joowon would not have thought too much about it. But this was a nature reserve, a nature reserve where many animals were active. Among the nature reserves in the country, its area could rank among the top three, so it was naturally much more dangerous than other places.

If he did not encounter anything at all, that was not something he should be happy about. Instead, he should start wondering whether some terrifying final boss was hiding inside.

After all, it goes without saying which is more frightening between a danger that can be predicted and a danger that is completely impossible to predict.

Now, it seemed that Joo Joowon’s "calamity" was right here.

Once he dealt with this place, he could see when the next major incident would happen again. He could use this as a reference to get a rough idea of when he might encounter another crisis in the future.

One had to know that his fate did not unleash a major disaster every single day. Instead, it was like waves, with highs and lows.

When the wind and waves were strong, even Joo Joowon himself would suffer serious consequences. But when the waves were small, the little disturbance they created could simply be ignored without causing any problems.

The only problem now was, what exactly was inside the red mist?

Was this a dungeon, or was this the territory of a Lord boss?

There was a huge difference between the two.

Joo Joowon had seen on the Player Forum that the game would selectively transform certain places into dungeons. These dungeons could usually be entered repeatedly to farm materials, unlike those monsters that could not respawn after being killed.

However, these dungeons were also much more dangerous. Therefore, dungeons generally would not appear until most players had already increased their strength to a certain level.

Judging from the overall strength of the players right now, Joo Joowon felt that it was still too early for a dungeon to appear.

One had to know that, unlike ordinary monsters, dungeons were completely controlled by the game. When they appeared, the level required to enter them, and the materials they dropped were all adjusted by the game.

And at present, there should not be many players who had reached the level required for their Class Advancement, so the possibility was not very high.

Then, was it a boss?

Joo Joowon fell into thought.