Chapter 150: Training the Cats
Joo Joowon simply raised the fire axe and swung it down.
[ Ding! ]
[ Level 0 Zombie Fish has been killed! ]
[ EXP +0.1 ]
"...?"
Although Joo Joowon had expected zombie fish to provide very little experience, he had never imagined the amount would be this pitifully low.
He could not help clicking his tongue in disbelief.
Clearly, farming zombie fish was not a worthwhile strategy.
Even so, Joo Joowon had no intention of giving up.
He immediately used the Spider Web Launcher to bind all of the fish inside the shop, then headed into the storage room to take a look around before moving upstairs to the second floor.
He failed to find the owner of the building.
He had no idea whether they simply did not live there or whether they had already been eaten by zombies.
After finishing his search, Joo Joowon wasted no time.
He immediately headed toward another seafood shop whose rolling shutter had been torn open with a hole in it.
He gathered all of the aquatic zombie creatures inside and brought them outside, wrapping them tightly with spider silk before tossing a Molotov cocktail toward them.
For the current Joo Joowon, Molotov cocktails were no longer some kind of secret weapon.
Instead, they were already on the verge of becoming obsolete.
The reason was simple.
They were too weak against elite monsters, unable to kill them quickly enough.
At the same time, using them against low level zombies felt wasteful because it was difficult to gather enough zombies together in a short period of time to make the effort worthwhile.
After all, by the time he finished gathering zombies together and waiting for them to burn to death, Joo Joowon could have already killed countless zombies with his own hands.
That did not mean Molotov cocktails had become completely useless.
They simply could no longer keep up with Joo Joowon’s pace of growth.
At the end of the day, even burning an ordinary zombie to death took a considerable amount of time.
Zombies felt no pain and were not like humans, who would die once burns covered enough of their bodies.
Unlike elite monsters that possessed health bars, zombies only died once their brains were destroyed.
That meant that even while burning, even after turning into walking fireballs, zombies remained fully capable of attacking people.
In fact, because they now carried fire with them, they arguably became even more dangerous in the short term.
Compared to ordinary zombies, Molotov cocktails were actually more effective against elite monsters with health bars because they could continuously reduce their health.
Unfortunately, relying solely on burn damage introduced far too many variables.
The damage output was insufficient and the time required to secure a kill was simply too long.
Back then, Joo Joowon had not had any better options.
Now that he possessed much more efficient methods of killing zombies, Molotov cocktails naturally felt far less important.
Because of that, using the enhanced Molotov cocktails now did not feel wasteful to him at all.
With the zombie fish firmly restrained by spider silk, he was not worried about them flopping back into the buildings and accidentally setting the surrounding area on fire.
Starting with the shops directly facing the entrance, Joo Joowon began prying open the locks one by one.
The locks on rolling shutters were actually quite easy to open, at least for Joo Joowon.
He could be considered half of an expert when it came to lockpicking.
Back when he had first been tricked and sold away by people from his hometown, that group had actually intended to recruit him into their organization after seeing that he seemed relatively obedient and easy to control.
What they had never expected, however, was that Joo Joowon would turn around and stab them in the back instead.
Perhaps because the sound of lifting the rolling shutter was simply too loud, the zombies inside immediately rushed over the moment Joo Joowon pulled the door open.
Naturally, they were dealt with just as quickly.
Low level zombies possessed no intelligence.
Once trapped inside buildings, it was actually quite difficult for them to find their way back out.
Joo Joowon wandered through the shop for a while before tossing several packs of hot pot soup bases, boiled fish seasoning packets, chili sauce, and various other condiments into the Spatial Waist Pendant, which still had plenty of room remaining.
Because he was worried about unexpected situations, Joo Joowon had intentionally not filled the storage space completely while he was still at home.
That way, if he encountered something valuable outside, he would still have room to store it.
Of course, he was still carrying a backpack as well.
He simply was not using it to carry anything at the moment.
It existed purely as a precaution because nobody knew when it might suddenly become useful.
Byeol quietly watched Joo Joowon’s actions while sitting nearby, prepared to help at any moment if necessary.
However, after observing for a while, Byeol gradually realized that Joo Joowon did not actually seem to need its assistance very much.
It glanced over at Hwi, who was currently playing with its own tail nearby, and began to feel restless.
Since cooperative hunting was apparently unnecessary, did that mean Hwi and it could go off and act independently?
Cats were creatures with extremely strong independent personalities.
At home things were different, but once outside, expecting a cat to remain glued to its owner every second of the day was almost impossible.
After all, cats had thoughts and preferences of their own.
It was not even necessarily about hunting.
Even if all they wanted to do was wander around, climb trees, sharpen their claws on motorcycle seats, or curl up beneath cars to sleep and pass the time, they would still rather do that than remain beside their owner.
Joo Joowon, however, had certainly not forgotten about them.
He was simply trying to figure out how to involve the two spectators in front of him in actual combat.