I Don't Like This Esper - Chapter 167

Squelch!

The gray centipede rolled its body toward the spot where she had been sitting just moments ago.

Everywhere it rolled, the floor became coated in an unidentified gray liquid. Faint smoke even rose from it, accompanied by the sharp, acrid smell of hydrochloric acid.

‘Do you get poisoned just from touching it?’

Kim Soo-Jeong anxiously recalled the centipede’s description, then held the prepared antidote liquor in her mouth.

[Antidote Liquor

By consuming 400,000 points, you can nullify one poison attack of B-Class or lower.

For poison attacks with a duration, only the initial application and the first second will be nullified. Afterward, the Antidote Liquor’s effect will be exhausted.]

Holding the Antidote Liquor in her mouth was nothing more than a desperate attempt to avoid instant death.

Fortunately, however, her booby trap had worked properly, and the fish-man still had not recovered its sight.

The centipede that had emerged from the fish-man’s spine was fiercely charging toward her, but as a telekinesis user, Kim Soo-Jeong could manipulate gravity to make herself lighter and move more quickly.

She had also considered overloading the centipede’s body, but that would require far too much power. Instead, she used her ability on her own relatively light body, which she was already accustomed to controlling.

Using telekinesis in this way was considered a basic skill among telekinetic Espers, and her movements were exceptionally agile.

‘But it’s difficult to land a proper hit…….’

Unfortunately for Kim Soo-Jeong, the fish-man’s wounds were visibly beginning to heal.

It was a monster capable of summoning a giant poisonous centipede from its spine. She dreaded what kind of ability it might reveal once it regained its sight.

‘I need to strike it again before its injuries fully heal.’

She drew her right arm back and wrapped her fist in an invisible force. It was the skill that usually made Lee Hana exclaim, “Nuclear Punch!”

The system message had named it [Big Punch].

At the time, Kim Soo-Jeong had thought the system’s naming sense was terrible. Regardless, this telekinetic attack delivered an impact several times larger than the surface area of her fist, as though the target had been struck by a cannonball.

Even most B-Class monsters would have their insides violently ruptured by the attack and never rise again.

‘I only need to land one effective hit!’

The problem was that she could not launch it from too far away if she wanted it to connect properly.

While lamenting her short arms and legs, Kim Soo-Jeong circled the fish-man, estimating that she had roughly four uses of Big Punch remaining.

[Kyaaaagh!]

The centipede kept trying to ram its body into her, which made things difficult.

However, unlike Kim Soo-Jeong, who had secured some control over the air with telekinesis, the centipede could only lift its body around ten centimeters off the ground at most. At that height, it could not touch her. As long as she maintained a certain distance, she would be safe.

Once again, Kim Soo-Jeong lightly floated into the air with telekinesis, evaded the centipede’s attack, and prepared her first strike at the fish-man’s back.

‘Good. It isn’t even looking this way…….’

But something felt wrong.

Even while looking at an enemy exposing such an obvious weakness, she could feel her heart pounding with unease, making her hesitate. Feeling this way clearly meant……

‘This is dangerous. If I attack like this, there’s a high chance I’ll die…… But why?’

Only after alternating her gaze between the fish-man standing motionless and the centipede charging at her almost convulsively did she understand what was happening.

‘……It’s sharing its vision with that centipede!’

The centipede that had burst from the fish-man’s body had never stopped staring directly at her. And despite losing its eyesight, the fish-man had remained strangely still after its initial reaction.

Only now did she realize it was standing rigidly, as though controlling something.

‘Damn it! Without the potion…….’

She would have been caught by the waiting fish-man, and her bones would have been crushed. Judging from the difference in their sizes, there was no doubt that being caught even once would mean death.

Her relief lasted only a moment. She still could not determine how she was supposed to attack.

‘Do I have to eliminate the centipede first?’

But the centipede was no easy opponent either. She had already seen that its poison was lethal enough to melt concrete, so she could not help hesitating.

Bzzzt—

At that moment, something vibrated inside her clothes.

It was an alarm Lee Hana had set to go off every five minutes on the only phone they had. They had agreed that whenever the alarm sounded, Kim Soo-Jeong would turn her head toward Lee Hana’s hiding place whenever possible so they could exchange hand signals.

Kim Soo-Jeong immediately looked toward Lee Hana. Since they had undergone Esper training together, they could communicate using military hand signals.

Only after seeing Lee Hana’s gestures did Kim Soo-Jeong regain her composure.

‘She’s telling me to aim for the centipede’s eyes…….’

The rest of the centipede certainly looked terrifying, but targeting a single eye did not seem entirely impossible.

After thinking it over, Kim Soo-Jeong leaped toward the cabinet.

She landed on the side farthest from the fish-man and centipede, jumped inside before the centipede could react, grabbed the frame poles from the emergency tent they had prepared earlier, then rushed back outside.

The poles were made from resilient yet sturdy stainless steel. When she suspended several of them in the air and distributed her power between them, they looked like fairly convincing interception weapons.

Whoosh—!

Before the centipede could react, Kim Soo-Jeong poured power equal to a Big Punch into one of the poles and drove it into the ground.

Thud—!

The centipede’s seemingly impenetrable shell was pierced, and thick black fluid sprayed in every direction.

[Kyaaaaaaaaaagh!]

Apparently overwhelmed by sudden, excruciating pain, the centipede curled its body into a circle and released a horrific shriek.

The problem was how potent its poisonous blood was. The stainless-steel pole she had driven into it melted away almost instantly.

Watching the pole bubble, dissolve, and disappear, Kim Soo-Jeong felt a chill of terror. Had she carelessly approached with her bare body, her fist might have been damaged so severely that the bone would have been exposed.

[Kyaak! Kyaaaagh!]

The centipede did not stop there. Enraged by its own pain, it thrashed violently in place.

As the enormous centipede, nearly 1.6 meters long, tore into the ground with tremendous force, the cracking sounds of the floor splitting apart echoed throughout the area.

The poison from the centipede’s blood and the monster’s tremendous strength combined to devastate its surroundings.

‘I should avoid approaching it unless I’m attacking from a distance…….’

Realizing that this was what Lee Hana had been trying to tell her, Kim Soo-Jeong carefully selected another stainless-steel pole. She threw one containing almost no power as a feint.

The struggling centipede had apparently been preparing for another powerful attack from above. It immediately flicked its tail and crushed the descending pole with a crunch, crumpling it like paper.

Whoosh—!

But the real attack was elsewhere.

The second consecutive strike once again landed properly in the centipede’s head, exactly as Kim Soo-Jeong intended.

[Kkweeeek!]

However, it struck slightly behind the eye she had been aiming for. The centipede trembled and convulsed before finally lowering its head.

Like a drowning insect, it twitched its antennae several more times. Then, after creating a pool of black, poisonous blood and convulsing a few more times, it stopped making any sound.

She had not expected to kill it in a single attempt, but she had succeeded in ending its life completely.

‘Then, once I deal with that fish-man…….’

But something was strange.

The fish-man’s gray skin had turned intensely red and was bulging unevenly, as though it might burst at any moment.

[You……]

The creature, which had been clutching its eyes with both hands until moments ago, raised its bloodshot eyes and stared directly at her.