The falling Mutans flailed its limbs in a final desperate attempt to grab onto something, and in the process, it grabbed the Mutans that had descended nearby, causing them both to fall to their deaths together.
"Huh... huh... huh... This time I almost really died..."
Before I even had a chance to properly think about how difficult it was, the Mutans that had circled around to the side entered the safe range within which I could move while tied to the rope.
So, without hesitation, I kicked off the cliff and charged at the closest Mutans first. I could predict almost perfectly which path it would take and which corner it would step on.
'The most efficient and safest path.'
The experience of climbing countless cliffs made it so that even a casual glance would naturally map out the path I needed to take in my mind.
The Mutans' movement paths were inevitably limited, but thanks to my body being much lighter than theirs and my skilled experience of climbing cliffs over thousands of times, any place I reached out to became a safe path.
That was the fundamental reason why a confrontation with the Mutans could even occur on the cliff, and moreover, with a sturdy rope, my mobility in certain positions was amplified beyond imagination.
Soon, when the Mutans' and my rough breaths met and faintly shattered in the cold air, I briefly lowered my gaze from our intense stare.
Then, I slightly recoiled my left arm, which I had extended forward, as if frightened.
At that, the Mutans, as if it were the most natural thing, became excited and placed its foreleg on the corner where I had just had my foot, lunging fiercely to attack me with its other foreleg.
The creature hadn't even properly checked the unstable corner where I had just been.
On that spot, a relatively round rock was placed.
Under its thick foreleg, that rock was shaking uncontrollably and precariously. There weren't any other safe routes for the Mutans to take, so I had placed that rock there beforehand.
Barely dodging its swiftly flying sharp claws, the Mutans, having placed its foot on the unstable support, lost its balance and staggered as the round rock wobbled severely beneath its foreleg.
In that very instant, I quickly reached out and forcefully pushed its torso. The unbalanced Mutans fell straight off the cliff.
As one Mutans disappeared, another one behind it came into view. I pulled the sturdy rope with all my might, making it taut, and then wrapped the rope tightly around my right arm once.
This allowed my body to hang diagonally at a 45-degree angle to the cliff. Kicking off the cliff forcefully with both feet, my body sprang out away from the cliff and then immediately returned safely towards it thanks to the taut rope.
Using this elasticity, I walked freely across the cliff face as if the cliff were ground with weak gravity.
In that state, three times,
*Ta~ Da~ Dak~*
I moved forward, wrapping the rope tighter and pulling it, and powerfully kicking off the cliff. The shortened length of the rope quickly moved me to a much higher altitude than the Mutans.
From that position, like a flying squirrel spreading its limbs wide, I entrusted my body to the air and leaped downwards, landing precisely on the back of the Mutans that was helplessly clinging to the cliff.
It didn't even dare to attack me, who had suddenly appeared on its back. All it could do was shake its back violently.
With one hand, I grabbed the thick fur that grew densely on the Mutans' back. I firmly wedged the fur between my fingers and twisted it strongly, as if pulling it out by the roots. With the other hand, I took out the sharp dagger and persistently stabbed at the claws it was barely using to cling to the cliff.
The Mutans, which had been shaking its body violently, eventually slipped and fell off the cliff, and I was pushed by the falling creature, bouncing out sharply away from the cliff.
*Whoosh-*
However, the sturdy rope tightly wrapped around my body endured the tremendous force of the fall.
*Gwaaaaaack!*
As I bounced, the strong pressure of the rope tightening and constricting around me made the joints of my entire body creak, and my cheeks swelled as if they would burst, triggering violent nausea.
"Ugh!"
The rope that had wrapped around my body as I soared high into the sky pulled me back down with the force of gravity, and I slammed fiercely against the cliff again.
*Thwack!*
"Keuheuk..."
Hot blood burst from my forehead and flowed down, and a pain that felt like my ribs and skull were shattering pierced my entire body.
Without even a moment to groan, I saw another Mutans right next to me.
I firmly gripped the rope near my navel and pressed the soles of both feet forcefully against the cliff. Then, I drew my thighs as close to my stomach as possible and extended my legs with all my might.
*Whoosh-*
I narrowly avoided its sharp claws, floated in the air for a moment, moved away from the cliff, and then, as my speed gradually decreased, I rapidly returned towards the cliff as if drawn by a powerful magnetic force.
The spot where I regained my footing on the cliff was right behind the Mutans that had been pressed close beside me, its defenseless rear end that it couldn't turn to see due to the cliff.
'Even if you are a demon that rushes to kill me, I'm sorry.'
Without hesitation, I deeply stabbed and burst its genitals with the dagger.
At that, the Mutans convulsed violently all over its body and fell powerlessly off the cliff. Having dealt with all the nearby Mutans, I paused to catch my breath and looked around.
'No Mutans approaching from the left side, three above, two to the right... so five in total now.'
It was only now that I belatedly realized it, but my body had already reached its limit.
Leaving aside physical stamina, my mental strength, or rather, the concentration I had maintained so sharply, felt noticeably duller compared to the beginning.
'My hands and feet are trembling.'
While clinging to the sheer cliff face, meticulously observing the movements of the relentlessly moving Mutans without missing a single one, and simultaneously facing multiple ferocious creatures, was accompanied by an unimaginable amount of mental anguish.
Each time I tried to dodge its sharp claws even once, every nerve in my body became extremely tense.
"Hoo... hoo... hoo..."
Overwhelmed by the excruciating pain and fatigue, suppressed groans involuntarily escaped my rough breaths.
'This is the final stage. If I don't succeed, it's over. But right now, I will win!'
I flung my body to the left side of the cliff as far as the rope would allow. Then, the Mutans approaching from the right and those coming from the left converged at the midpoint, forming a group and simultaneously advancing towards me.
I took a deep breath and waited in suffocating tension until their sharp claws were right in front of my nose.
'A little more, a little more, a little lower!'
Just before the last gap in the dense encirclement of Mutans disappeared.
"Now!!"
I suddenly pulled the rope downwards with all my might with both hands and frantically churned my legs, rapidly soaring upwards as if leaping into the sky. I narrowly passed by their surroundings and instantly approached the rock face where the hook was firmly embedded at the end of the rope.
Then, I shook the hook with all my strength to dislodge it from the tough rock, quickly wrapped the rope around my body several times, and kicked off the cliff upwards at full speed.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!"
As the prey they had almost caught vanished before their eyes in an instant, the Mutans cried out in confusion and hurriedly chased after me. But on the rugged cliff, I was much faster.
I deliberately kicked off the cliff wildly, sending unstable snow or stones under my feet cascading down to slow down their pursuit.
Finally, having completely escaped above the cliff before the Mutans, I quickly threw off the heavy bag I had been carrying on my shoulder.
Then, I turned out all the junk inside the bag and frantically stuffed it with anything that seemed hard and heavy lying around – stones, cold ice shards, sharp branches, and so on.
Lastly, I untied the rope that had been around my body, tightly bound the mouth of the bag, and dragged the heavy bag as I ran at full speed towards the cliff teeming with the creatures.
Looking down the cliff, I could see the white heads of the Mutans stubbornly crawling upwards.
I fixed a fierce gaze on the one at the very front and hurled the heavy bag with all my might.
The bag, having left my hands, possessed destructive power capable of instantly ending the life of an ordinary creature if struck directly, due to the immense mass of the stones and ice shards crammed inside and the exponentially increasing acceleration during its fall.
*Sss ssss sssss! Ssssss!!! Screeeeeech-!!*
Hot friction smoke rose from my leather-gloved hands, and I felt tremendous heat inside, as if a small dragon was raging madly. Even if my hand shattered, I couldn't let go of this rope.
The moment I lost this heavy bag, I would no longer have any means to counterattack those creatures.
"It's hooooooot!!!!"
*Thwack!!* I heard a gruesome sound like a ripe fruit bursting, but it felt smaller than I had expected.
Below the cliff, I faintly saw two Mutans being flung away.
I overlapped my two hands gripping the rope, pulling them taut in a crisscross pattern to prevent the rope from slipping out any further.
Suddenly, a spine-chilling sensation as if every hair on my body was standing on end ran through me, and
"Huh!!"
An unimaginable, tremendous weight pressed down on my two hands holding the rope, and my body, which had been firmly standing on the ground, momentarily lifted slightly into the air before collapsing powerlessly.
*Grrrrrrr!*
Along with a gruesome sound like my entire body scraping against the snowfield, an indescribable, violent pain as if my ribs were being crushed pierced my entire body.
I even felt a terrifying sensation as if my shoulder had completely dislocated.
"Keok keu-keu-keu-reu-reu-eu-geuk!!"
Fortunately, the extent of the pain I felt was just that, my ribs hadn't actually broken and pierced my organs, nor had my shoulder dislocated.
However, the extreme pain that felt like my entire body was being crushed caused groans to escape involuntarily.
"Ugh-heuk! Ugh-heuk! Ugh-heuk! Ugh-heu-heuk!"