Axel checked the map again, but other than the zombies, he still couldn't figure out what the other one was. To reveal its name, he first needed to see it with his eyes and identify it successfully.

"Ugh..."

Holding his hurting rib, he glanced at the remaining wooden spears and paused.

'At this rate, the unknown monsters will just break all my spears!'

He couldn't keep using wooden weapons, but metal ones posed a bigger risk to himself. If they hit his weapon the same way as before, he'd definitely end up with a cracked rib next time.

But his biggest fear was something else.

"If the monsters manage to grab my weapon, then..."

They were intelligent enough to hide and break his weapon. For sure, they were smart enough to use one, too.

Axel took a few seconds to think before an idea came to him.

Without delay, he went to the shop and bought a few items. Each cost roughly 500,000 Colts, but he decided it was worth the price.

Then, he stood up and held one of the items in his hand.

"Let's do this..."

Carefully—but quickly—he pulled the safety pin. He let the safety lever disengage first before throwing the item outside.

"Modify!"

He immediately changed the structure of the wall, covering the openings temporarily.

One second, two, three... then—

A powerful explosion erupted, shaking the cave for a moment. Almost like a small earthquake.

When the aftermath had settled, Axel carefully reopened the viewports.

"Haha! That worked better than I thought!"

As expected, the explosion cleared the zombies clinging to the wall. Not only that, even a few figures were thrown in with them, revealing the identity of the "wise" monsters in hiding.

At a glance, the creature looked like a monkey. A baboon, to be precise. But it wasn't normal in any way.

It had dirty black-and-brown fur, like a rough mane around its neck. Eyes red as blood, and fangs longer than its snout. Its arms were thick and long, paired with sharp, deadly claws.

Seeing it, Axel quickly recalled the monster's name.

A cryptid he once thought was only a myth.

"That's a Devil Monkey!"

As soon as he said the name, the map display changed.

Now it showed the space around the entrance, temporarily cleared of red dots. The item he had thrown—a high-explosive grenade—had eliminated all monsters within a 10-meter radius.

Even zombies, almost immortal against anything except holy weapons, couldn't survive after being blown into bits.

But more importantly, he could now see the hidden monsters.

"So that's how they're lined up..." Axel muttered.

The Devil Monkeys had positioned themselves around the blind spots of the viewport and along the cliffside wall. They were ready to jump in and break his weapon while keeping themselves hidden from direct sight.

However, luck ran out for them once Axel knew their location.

His inventory had a neat function: he could place or retrieve items up to 15 meters away. That was the maximum distance where accuracy drops greatly.

With that in mind, Axel sat on the ground and began his operation.

Operation Big Bang!

One by one, he withdrew a grenade, pulled the pin, and placed it back into the inventory before the safety lever could pop out. He did this for all his remaining HE grenades—roughly 35 of them.

After finishing, he made sure the cave entrance was blocked again before—

"Take this!"

He began withdrawing the grenades in rapid succession.

He targeted the farthest location within the inventory's range. And, of course, he didn't drop them one by one—he released them in clusters. The timings were staggered just enough so they wouldn't all explode at once.

It was a risky idea, but necessary. Otherwise, he wouldn't reach the monkeys positioned too far in either direction.

After he finished, he waited a moment.

A powerful explosion broke out, followed by multiple others, their locations scattered far from the first blast.

Because of the staggered drop timing, after the first grenade exploded, the shockwave tossed the other grenades around, causing them to scatter and explode unpredictably.

Axel just smiled as he watched the map, seeing red blips disappear rapidly. In seconds, nearly fifty Devil Monkeys were reduced to fewer than ten survivors.

The zombies mostly survived, except those within the kill radius.

But with this, the battle was practically over.

"All that's left is cleaning up the weakened survivors."

Axel nodded to himself as he fetched his sword from the inventory, drawing it at the ready.

From the map, he could tell the nearest survivor was about fifty meters away, so he could safely open the cave for a brief moment. He bought a powerful LED headlight attached to a mining helmet before turning around.

"Then, Eve, I'll be going out for a bit," he declared.

Although shaken by the explosions, the little princess still voiced her worries. "Please be careful, Sir Axel... and come back soon..."

"I will."

Axel took a deep breath, removed the wall block and placed it in his inventory, ran outside, and returned it back in position.

The rain was still pouring hard, cold, and limiting his visibility, but Axel didn't mind.

He moved as fast as he could, careful with every step.

Relying on the map display, he rushed toward the surviving Devil Monkeys first. They were the most troublesome enemy at the moment. With the map showing only those alive, he didn't have to worry about monsters pretending to be dead either!

Axel rushed forward, identified the monster with the headlight, and then—

"You're all a thousand years too early to think you can beat technology!"

—stabbed his sword through the monster's face.

"KIEEK!"

The Devil Monkey raised an anguished cry before its limbs went limp. It had already received heavy damage from the grenade barrage, so it was already on its last breath either way.

Axel pulled the sword out, placed the corpse and the other nearby corpses into his inventory, before moving to the next one. He was methodically finishing off the survivors.

He could tell that the monsters wished they could kill him, as the burning hate in their blood-red eyes was undeniable. Still, he didn't feel bothered by it.

"Hate me all you want, but winner takes all!"

It didn't take him much time to clean up the Devil Monkeys. But the cleanup of the zombies took a while longer. After all, they have more numbers than the monkeys.

All in all, Axel managed to retrieve 20 intact dead bodies and 16 damaged ones. The rest were already minced meat, so he couldn't even pick up or resell those.

In under 15 minutes after exiting the cave, the battle ended.

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