Chapter 149: Chapter 149
‘Huh…!’
He had been using his Class-specific skills constantly, but they showed no
signs of budging until now. But then, their levels all went up in one go?!
Ba-thump, ba-thump!!
Jin-Woo’s heart began pounding really hard for the first time in a while.
Currently, there were only two other people inside the boss chamber, and that
would be Yu Jin-Ho and Woo Jin-Cheol. Since both of them weren’t the type
to needlessly complain about small matters, he decided to not to mind their
presence and summoned out his Status Window.
‘Stat Window.’
Tti-ring.
Along with the familiar mechanical bleep, all the information about him,
starting from his level to every item he was wearing, and even his current
physical status, appeared to fill up his view.
Jin-Woo’s gaze stopped at the ‘Class-specific Skills’ list.
[Class-specific Skills]
Active Skills
– Shadow Extraction Lv. 2
– Shadow Storage Lv. 2
– Sovereign’s Territory Lv. 2
– Shadow Exchange Lv. 2
‘It’s for real.’
Hearing about the truth and actually seeing it were two different things. JinWoo clenched his fist tighter, especially from the fact that the level for
‘Shadow Exchange’ had gone up.
‘Nice!’
The Shadow Exchange skill possessed such an endless potential but he was
feeling frustrated by the limitation posed by its lengthy cooldown time.
‘The description said that cooldown will change according to the skill level,
right?’
With this, his frustration should go down a little.
This was today’s biggest gain for him. He was far more pleased about the skill
Shadow Exchange being enhanced rather than his stalled level rising up
again.
‘Should I see how much of it has changed now?’
Feeling like a kid pulling the wrapping off his new present, Jin-Woo accessed
the information on the skill Shadow Exchange.
Tti-ring.
[Skill: Shadow Exchange Lv. 2]
Class-specific….
….Once activated, you must wait two hours of ‘cooldown’ period before being
able to use the skill again.
The ‘cooldown’ period will change according to the Skill’s level.
‘…..!!’
Reduction of one hour!!
Just by going up one level, the cooldown time had decreased by one-third.
Jin-Woo could barely hide his excitement now.
‘One hour’s gone after going up one level.’
A simple calculation told him that there was a high possibility of yet another
hour being chopped off from the cooldown time with the next level up of the
skill. And, what if he raised the level of this skill one more time after that?
‘It means, regardless of where I am, mom and Jin-Ah will never find
themselves in trouble….’
Just thinking about that made his entire body shiver. That was the most
important thing for Jin-Woo, after all. Maybe his excitement showed up on his
face, Yu Jin-Ho asked him a question with a jovial smile.
“Hyung-nim? Did something good happen?”
“Mm?”
Only then did Jin-Woo realise that Yu Jin-Ho had come closer to him.
‘I was too focused on the Status Window, wasn’t I….?’
He also could see Section Chief Woo Jin-Cheol walking towards this way
behind Yu Jin-Ho as well. Jin-Woo grinned and closed the Status Window.
Even if these two men weren’t the types to raise a fuss over every single
thing, there was no reason for him to look like a madman to their eyes, either.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“That’s cool, hyung-nim.”
Yu Jin-Ho’s wits had become a lot quicker after following Jin-Woo around for a
while, so he didn’t try to dig in anymore. Instead, his attention shifted to the
sight right next to them.
“Wowsers.”
This would be Yu Jin-Ho’s first time ever seeing an actual rank A dungeon’s
boss. This monster’s upper torso looked human-ish, but the lower part looked
like a sea snake.
It looked so nonsensically huge from afar, but now that he got to take a look
up close, it seemed even bigger and really disgusting to behold, as well.
It was only natural that he couldn’t close his slack jaw after seeing such a
humongous monster.
‘I know that hyung-nim has entered several other high-ranking dungeons prior
to this one, so does that mean….’
Did that mean he killed creatures like this one every time he entered such a
Gate?
Gulp.
Yu Jin-Ho swallowed some dry saliva. For some reason, his hyung-nim looked
even more imposing and cool to his eyes today. And he felt incredibly proud of
himself, as it was him and not someone else standing beside such an
incredible man.
“Hyung-nim!!”
“Mm?”
“I respect you.”
“What?”
“It’s nothing.”
‘Silly kid.’
Jin-Woo stared wordlessly at Yu Jin-Ho, and the latter averted his gaze after
realising how embarrassed he was feeling right now. Meanwhile, Woo JinCheol next to them was also stewing in a bottomless shock at the moment.
‘I knew Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s skills were amazing, but this….’
To think, he’d be able to easily take care of a boss-level Naga like this.
Other raid teams would begin tearing their hair out after seeing this spectacle.
Especially when they would need the full participation of tankers, damage
dealers, and Healers just to barely bring down a monster of this magnitude.
‘……..’
Woo Jin-Cheol walked up close to the remains of the boss-level Naga and
lightly tapped on the monster’s scales. He could definitely sense the steel-like
hardness through his fingertips.
Scales of Naga boasted amazing hardness and they were often used in the
manufacturing of all sorts of defensive items, such as various armours and
shields.
‘But, such scales were….’
Some part of the scales on the lower torso of the monster were crushed and
torn into pieces as if they were made out of paper. That was the aftermath left
behind by Jin-Woo’s skill, ‘Violent Slash’.
‘Being able to produce such devastating destructive power, while using
nothing more than a couple of shortswords.’
Cold sweat formed on Woo Jin-Cheol’s forehead as he observed the
monster’s corpse. What a great relief that the youth was their ally and not an
enemy.
It was then, Jin-Woo’s voice came from behind him.
“….Can you step aside for a bit, please?”
Woo Jin-Cheol was too deep in his thoughts and couldn’t properly hear that,
so he quickly looked behind him in a fluster.
“Y-yes?”
“I’m trying to create another summoned creature, but Chief Woo, you are too
close, you see.”
“Ah.”
Yu Jin-Ho had already moved to a far enough location and was busy gesturing
at Woo Jin-Cheol to come over there.
“M-my apologies.”
Woo Jin-Cheol offered an appropriate-sounding apology and quickly stepped
aside. He kept staring with great anticipation, though. He had seen how the
summoned creatures were created during his trip here, but this would be the
first time seeing a boss-level monster become a summon.
‘Could this huge thing become a summoned creature as how it looks?’
Even Yu Jin-Ho’s eyes were sparkling as he waited for the result. Even though
he was subjected to two men’s boiling anticipation, Jin-Woo was utterly
relaxed as he activated Shadow Extraction.
‘Rise up.’
The shadow of the boss-level monster answered the call of its new owner.
Kiiiaahhh-!!
A hand emerged out from the shadow and grabbed hold of the ground, before
dragging its body out from the darkness. However, the newly summoned
creature was way smaller in size than what the audience was expecting to
see.
As a matter of fact, it was only about the same size as the summoned
creatures created out of regular Nagas. Maybe, it was slightly larger, but that
was about it.
‘Haha….’
Woo Jin-Cheol was so tense that his palms were soaked in sweat, but now,
he could let off a wry chuckle. This result was perhaps an inevitable one.
How could a summon created from borrowing the dead monster’s powers be
similar to the actual thing? That would be just about the right size, whether
that criteria being its actual power or the physical size.
Woo Jin-Cheol felt relieved for some reason after seeing the summon and its
comparatively miniaturised size.
‘Maybe, Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s powers have a defined and clear ceiling?’
Even if that was the case, Hunter Seong’s own combat abilities easily
exceeded one’s imaginations, so one could never see him as an easy
opponent at all.
Quite different from Woo Jin-Cheol’s thoughts, though, Jin-Woo was shouting
out in elation at the unexpected jackpot he just stumbled onto.
[The Sovereign’s voice has roused the fighting spirit of the deceased.]
[You have succeeded in strengthening the shadow!]
[The shadow’s level will start from 13.]
‘Nice!!’
Was this because of the Shadow Extraction had levelled up? For the first time
since Igrit’s case, the message regarding the strengthening of a shadow
popped out. Jin-Woo quickly checked the new soldier’s information.
[?? Lv. 13]
Elite Knight grade
It wasn’t that surprising to see the grade ‘Elite Knight’ pop up like Fangs
before since this guy used to be the boss of the rank A dungeon. However, its
starting level was 13!!
Jin-Woo confirmed that level and could barely keep his happy chuckles in
check.
‘Is it because its level is so high? Its power is not all that different from the
original.’
Unlike the soldiers he had extracted so far, he couldn’t sense many
discrepancies between this guy’s stats and those of the dead original. He
picked up on the massive magic energy hidden deep within its smaller body.
He was actually puzzled by its different size, but he could make one
hypothesis here.
‘Maybe, this is how it looked originally?’
That made sense, seeing that they were all Nagas, to begin with. So, how
could the boss be that much bigger than the others? If it used magic like
Fangs to balloon up its size, then that made perfect sense.
His hypothesis was supported by the fact that this new guy was ably
controlling its own magic energy just like how Fangs did, and also from its
great reserve of magic energy as well. That reserve wasn’t as huge as Fangs,
though.
It was then.
[Please assign the soldier’s name.]
Just like before, the message urging him to name this new soldier popped up
to his view. Jin-Woo didn’t give it much thought and named it ‘Jima’.
[Will you name the soldier ‘Jima’?]
‘That’s right.’
And so, a powerful new mage had been added to his Shadow Army, as well
as to his new Naga troops, as well. With the extraction process now over, JinWoo absorbed Jima back into his shadow.
Right on cue, the dungeon began sending out warning signals now that it no
longer had an owner.
Rumble…..
A faint tremor rose up from the ground. It was the signal that the Gate would
close in one hour. Yu Jin-Ho stopped staying back and quickly ran over to his
hyung-nim’s side.
“It’s time for us to leave this place, hyung-nim.”
“Right.”
Yu Jin-Ho took one last sweeping look around him and smacked his lips as if
he was feeling regretful over something.
“But, hyung-nim. This is a bit of a waste.”
His gaze was now fixed on the corpse of the boss-level monster.
“That thing would’ve fetched a handsome amount on the market, you know?”
A Gate would close soon after the dungeon’s boss was killed off. Meaning,
one would have to take on a huge risk to bring out the body of the boss
monster outside the dungeon.
If you made one mistake and got trapped in here, then you’d literally become
‘missing in dungeon’ forever, so to speak.
Perhaps that was why it was rare to see the corpses of boss monsters outside
of the Gates. The first problem being, because they were so much bigger,
transporting them itself posed a significant challenge.
Of course, their rarity ensured that the price they fetched was quite
substantial, as well. Strangely enough, Jin-Woo replied nonchalantly to Yu JinHo and his wistful longing.
“What’s the problem? We’ll just take it with us.”
“Eh?”
Yu Jin-Ho’s eyes opened up wider as he hastily asked a question.
“Hyung-nim, isn’t that too big to take with us?”
Jin-Woo smirked softly.
“It’s fine.”
He didn’t know how strong his guy was physically, but well, didn’t he have
someone on his side who was way bigger than that corpse?
‘Come out.’
When Jin-Woo issued his order, a former High Orc Shaman Shadow Soldier
decked out in a black robe made a soundless appearance.
Shururuk….
Fangs lowered his head as his greetings, and Jin-Woo pointed at the corpse
with his chin.
‘Go ahead.’
In the blink of an eye, Fangs grew back into a giant. He then began dragging
out the boss-level Naga, which wasn’t even half his size, out of the boss
chamber.
“Heok!!”
Woo Jin-Cheol’s eyes shook hard after witnessing such a shocking spectacle.
‘Wasn’t that thing…..??’
Without a doubt, that was the High Orc Shaman from the Hunters Guild raid
not too long ago that Jin-Woo killed in one hit. He clearly witnessed it back
then.
But now, that thing was at least twice the size than when it was still alive. And
it wasn’t just its size that had grown bigger, too. The emitted waves of magic
energy coming from its body when it grew to that size was far, far scarier
compared to back then as well.
Woo Jin-Cheol was genuinely astonished by this new development.
‘What is this?! Didn’t the monster’s power drop when turning into a
summon??’
If that was the case, then how should he go about explaining that summon
created out from the High Orc Shaman?
Jin-Woo could create summons out of the boss monsters from rank A
dungeons, and he could even strengthen them, too?
‘How can this make any sort of logical sense…..??’
Jin-Woo asked a nonplussed question to Woo Jin-Cheol and his slack jaw.
“Chief Woo? Aren’t you coming as well?”
“Ah….”
If one were to lose some of their lifespan through mental shocks, then Woo
Jin-Cheol must’ve lost half of his life here today.
He had a mountain of questions he’d like to ask. But then, he was actually
afraid of the kind of answers he might get, so he felt disinclined to ask them,
as well.
Woo Jin-Cheol hesitated, but in the end, could only reply with a tired look on
his face.
“…..Yes, let’s get going.”
***
Reporters were thinking of leaving for early lunch but then, their eyes nearly
bulged out of their sockets after Jin-Woo leisurely walked out of the Gate.
“What the heck? Has he finished already?!”
“No way??”
He cleared a rank A dungeon in less than three hours?!
A big lightbulb got switched on inside the heads of the gathered reporters.
‘This is a huge scoop! A jackpot!’
The reporters gripping their cameras tightly began flooding towards the Gate,
fearing that they might miss Jin-Woo if they didn’t hurry up. Too bad, the
Hunters from the Monitoring Division waiting there quickly blocked their
progress.
“Argh, let me go! We aren’t going to interview him, you know??”
“I just want to snap a photo! What the heck, will you take responsibility if I get
fired for failing to take a single picture today??”
“It’s just one photo, so why are you all behaving like this??”
And just as the desperate scuffle between the reporters and the Monitoring
Division’s agents intensified….
THUD.
The sound of something heavy stepping on the ground resounded out.
“Uh…”
One of the reporters dropped his camera in an utter daze.
Crack.
He didn’t even realise that his fallen camera was stepped on by other
reporters. No, he could only point towards the Gate and stutter out in pure
shock.
“L-look over there…”
Or, more specifically, he was pointing at the massive, hulking giant of a
monster stepping outside the Gate.
“R-run away!! No, no wait! Take its pictures first! Hurry!”
“Are you filming this??”
“Ah, yes!!”
The reporters quickly forgot about the physical confrontation of a second ago
and hurriedly began snapping away with their raised cameras.
They were inwardly fearful of the monster suddenly attacking them, but at the
same time, their fingers continued to move at a blinding pace as if they had
been bewitched by something.
Clickclickclickclickclickclick-!!!
Fangs was diligently dragging the boss-level Naga’s corpse outside the Gate,
but when he felt quite a lot of stares landing on his back, he slowly turned
around to look.
‘…..??’
And he found that, not just the reporters, but the police, Association
employees, and even the passersby on the street stopped in their treks to look
up at him.
Fangs was now suddenly overcome with embarrassment and sheepishly
scratched the back of his head.
< Chapter 149 > Fin.
Chapter 150: Chapter 150
A certain man was sneaking into a large hospital.
There was only one reason why he was making d*mn sure that no one saw
him. And that would be because of the jerry can full of petrol he was carrying
at the moment.
In the past, one couldn’t find any sort of desire or drive within this man’s eyes.
But now, they were burning with vigour.
‘So, you dare to look down on me, huh?’
He was already resolved to die today.
This man wandered about silently for a long while, before finally choosing a
suitable location. His steps came to a halt in one of the hospital’s many
corridors, although this particular one didn’t seem to enjoy all that much foot
traffic. He began cautiously pouring the petrol on the floor.
‘You think I’ll die all alone?’
It happened one week ago.
He got p*ss drunk and wandered around the streets, before picking a fight
with some random passerby. And as a result, he got beaten up black and
blue. So, he ended up in this hospital.
He regained his consciousness a bit later and declared to the doctor busy
treating him. He said, ‘I don’t have enough money for the hospital fees, so
might as well stop what you’re doing and let me go’.
It happened then.
He saw it.
He saw the doctor’s eyes, looking down on him as if he was a pathetic fool.
That d*mn doctor b*stard. This man couldn’t quite remember the face of that
doctor, but even after all this time, he could never forget those eyes.
That’s why he made up his mind.
‘I’ll get my revenge on you.’
And that was his reason for seeking out the very hospital he once visited as its
guest.
He wasn’t planning to live any longer, anyway. So, he poured the petrol all
over this corner of the hospital, and then, dumped what little remained on
himself.
“We’ll all go together.”
His voice was thickly laden with spiteful rage.
Of course, this hospital was pretty d*mn huge, so something like this wouldn’t
even be able to burn it down completely. However, he should still be able to
take a few with him. It’d be very good if a handful of doctors were included in
that ‘few’, but if not, there’s not much he could do about that.
He already ruined his life through gambling anyway. But, he wasn’t planning to
quietly disappear like everyone else.
He threw away the empty jerry can, and after rummaging through his pockets
for a while, pulled out a lighter. The moment his thumb spins that flint, this
f*cked-up life of his would come to an end.
“….”
He became expressionless and was about to press down with his thumb, but
then, an eerie breeze suddenly brushed him by.
‘….There’s a breeze?’
The man felt something was off and scanned his vicinity. This corridor didn’t
even have any windows, so where could have that breeze come from?
‘What was that?’
He tilted his head while looking around himself, only to abruptly realise that
something felt rather empty down there. He lowered his gaze to his hand.
The lighter he held in his hand was gone.
‘….!!’
What an incredibly puzzling thing that was.
He wondered if he dropped the lighter while he was preoccupied, so he
carefully combed over the floor, but that turned out to be a waste of time.
‘Just where did it disappear to….?’
Feeling utterly puzzled now, he raised his head and then spotted a large,
black something standing right in front of his eyes.
It was an ‘insect’ with hands and legs.
The man was greatly taken by surprise, his eyes bulging out until they were
almost popping out. Before he could scream, though, the ‘insect’ reached out
and grabbed his mouth.
“Euph!!”
“Kiikiik.”
The ‘insect’ raised the index finger of its free hand and pressed it against its
mouth.
“Shush.”
This human shouldn’t raise a commotion like this. The human female his king
told him to protect was sleeping in a room nearby, after all.
The man struggled bitterly, but he couldn’t even budge a single finger of the
monster off his face.
“Euph, eupphhh!!”
The man’s eyes now saw the ‘insect’ - no, Beru’s open mouth slowly growing
closer towards him.
***
Why did ‘it’ happen on level 101?
As Jin-Woo drove back, he thought back to how his skills abruptly went up a
level earlier in the day. Even though his mind was occupied with something
else, his hands holding the steering wheel remained steady and controlled.
‘It’s not even level 100, too.’
He thought that, if something about him were to change because of the level
ups, then that should happen on level 100. However, his expectation was a bit
off the mark.
His Class-specific skills all got an upgrade after he reached level 101.
A few guesses fleeted in and out of his head, but currently, only two of them
held the strongest possibilities of being right.
The first one was about what the number ‘1’ signified. ‘1’ meant a new
beginning.
Could it be that, when his level reached 101, all restrictions on his Classspecific skills were removed and he was now free to upgrade them at will?
‘If that’s not it….’
Jin-Woo’s expression hardened when he thought about the second theory.
Personally, he’d have much preferred for this one to be wrong, though.
‘Could it be because I got my Class at level 51…..?’
There was a possibility that the Skill levels rose up because he was exactly 50
levels higher than when he got his Class. Which also kind of implied that he
needed to reach level 151 if he wanted to upgrade his Skills again.
‘…..I don’t want that.’
If he thought about his levelling up speed lately, then indeed, he could only
dearly pray that this remained nothing more than his hypothesis.
Soon, the building with his Guild office came into his view. Jin-Woo drove the
van into the underground parking lot. He was the only passenger riding on the
trusty steed of the Ah-Jin Guild, ‘Bonggo’. Yu Jin-Ho chose to stay back in the
Gate’s location, saying that he’d wrap up the proceedings before going back
to the office.
The raid might have ended, but there was still one more step of handing over
the recovered loot to the brokers to think about. Since it was Yu Jin-Ho who
had contacted these brokers, it seemed that he wanted to personally take
charge of handling this matter.
[“Please, leave everything to me, hyung-nim!”]
Jin-Woo thought that he could still hear Yu Jin-Ho’s voice filled with
confidence even now.
‘I wonder, will he be okay?’
It was all good and well for a Vice-Chair of the Guild to be full of drive and
energy, but wouldn’t it be better still to hire dedicated staff members for
matters like this? Jin-Woo told himself to search for more employees and
walked out of the underground parking lot.
But then….
‘Mm?’
He spotted a familiar figure walking towards the Guild building from afar. And
that familiar person also discovered Jin-Woo staring back at her.
“Ah….”
Her steps came to an abrupt halt right then and there.
Cha Hae-In formed a shocked expression and began to backtrack one step at
a time before she turned around completely, and began running away.
‘…HUH??’
Jin-Woo was utterly dumbstruck by what just happened.
The thing was, though - he could gloss over the reason why she suddenly
started running away after seeing his face, but he simply couldn’t….
‘….You think you can escape from me because you started running?’
Just who did she think she was dealing with here?
Jin-Woo was suddenly overcome with a streak of stubbornness and pounced
forward with everything he had after activating his ‘Quicksilver’ skill.
Time slowed down to a crawl, and only the background images seemed to
move at a blinding pace. The distance between him and Cha Hae-In
decreased quickly enough, and then he began thinking to himself.
‘If I grab her from the back or try to touch her, she might get hurt, so….’
Jin-Woo lightly jumped up in the air, spun around once, and landed in front of
Cha Hae-In’s escaping figure.
‘….!!’
Her eyes grew super wide in an instant.
Her escape route had been cut off, and before she could do anything else, her
shoulders were caught by Jin-Woo’s hands.
“Kyahk!”
And so, the foot chase between two rank S Hunters came to a very anticlimatic end. Now that she was caught by him, she couldn’t even bring herself
to look into his eyes.
Jin-Woo continued to stare at her with deeply puzzled eyes, before calmly
asking her the important question.
“Why did you run away after seeing me?”
“…”
Well, he could concede a bit here and say that it was possible for her to bolt
like that. Fine.
“If you were going to run, then why did you even bother to come to my office?”
If she wanted to avoid him that much, then she shouldn’t even come
anywhere near him, no? Jin-Woo’s pointed question elicited Cha Hae-In to
reply in a voice that was smaller than a buzzing mosquito.
“My car is… still in your parking lot….”
‘Ah. Right. There was an unfamiliar car parked in the lot for the last couple of
days, wasn’t there?’
That day, when Cha Hae-In came to the office, saying that she wanted to join
his Guild….
After they ‘teleported’ directly to the Association’s gymnasium from the Guild
office, she forgot to take her car back and left it in the underground parking lot
until now.
‘Looks like she came sneaking back in to get her car back because our Guild
was supposed to be on a raid today.’
Too bad for her, she couldn’t have imagined that he’d only need a little over
two hours to complete the raid of a rank A Gate. As a result, these two young
people got to meet each other again. She quickly tried to get away from him,
but in the end, was apprehended by him instead.
‘……..’
Jin-Woo’s wordless stare continued, and Cha Hae-In’s head drooped lower
and lower. He let out a helpless sigh and slowly let her shoulders go.
“There’s no need to run away from me, you know.”
Jin-Woo spoke as he formed an amiable smile.
“A person’s mind can change all the time, am I right?”
Indeed, wouldn’t people lose their interest, or suddenly gain interest when
there was none, to begin with? Wasn’t that how a person’s heart operated?
There was no reason for them to go out of their way to avoid each other like
this.
“…..”
However, Cha Hae-In didn’t even try to refute him, her head still remaining
lowered.
‘Maybe, she doesn’t even feel like talking to me?’
It was possible that she was unhappy about suddenly being grabbed like that.
“Well, then.”
Jin-Woo turned around to leave with a little nod as his goodbye. No, he was
going to turn around. But before he could, Cha Hae-In hurriedly held on to his
sleeve.
“Excuse me…..”
“….?”
By the time four, five question marks floated over Jin-Woo’s head, she finally
stopped hesitating and opened her lips to speak.
“Can you free up some time so we can talk for a little while?”
Only a minute ago she was fleeing for her dear life, but now, she wanted to
speak to him?
Perhaps she sensed Jin-Woo’s flustered confusion, Cha Hae-In quickly
explained herself.
“Actually, Min Byung-Gu Hunter-nim wanted me to pass on a message to
you.”
Jin-Woo’s expression changed once he heard that unexpected name come
out of her mouth.
“A message for me?”
Nod, nod.
Cha Hae-In’s head bobbed up and down.
“He said, there was something he wanted to say about your powers, Seong
Hunter-nim.”
But, how could that be? Jin-Woo didn’t have any point of contact, private or
otherwise, with Hunter Min Byung-Gu. And their one and only meeting came
around when Jin-Woo revived Min Byung-Gu into a Shadow Soldier for a short
while back then.
The deceased Hunter carried out his job perfectly and thanks to that, Cha
Hae-In was able to survive. It was all due to that man’s efforts that these two
young people could talk to each other like this.
But then, just when did he have the time to leave a message behind?
Jin-Woo didn’t display his power until the Jeju raid, and when he did, Min
Byung-Gu was already long dead.
Something like that couldn’t have happened.
Jin-Woo stared at her with a disbelieving expression. Cha Hae-In cautiously
continued on.
“Your power, Seong Hunter-nim….”
But, when her words reached there, Jin-Woo quickly cut her off.
“Hold on, please.”
Didn’t matter if what she wanted to say was true or not, this topic didn’t seem
well suited to be discussed in the middle of the street.
Jin-Woo scanned his vicinity once, and then continued to speak to her.
“Let’s continue our discussion somewhere more private, shall we?”
***
Chairman Yu Myung-Han received the files containing certain information from
his Secretary Kim.
“These are?”
“They are information gathered from Seoul Il-Sin hospital, sir.”
Il-Sin hospital was where Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s mother had been staying
until recently. Yu Myung-Han’s eyes sharpened instantly. Without saying
anything else, he began reading the documents.
‘The nurse entered in the morning and she was already wide awake? And
Hunter Seong Jin-Woo was found right next to his mother?’
There was another strange thing mentioned in the file.
The hospital staff recommended an in-depth analysis of the patient’s
conditions to be carried out as they were concerned about her health, but
Hunter Seong strongly demanded for her release, instead.
Chairman Yu Myung-Han unconsciously shook his head.
‘That doesn’t sound like him….’
That man possessed such a strong filial love that he risked his life and limb by
entering dangerous raids in order to earn enough money for her hospital fees.
However, such a man one-sidedly demanded his mother’s release, when he
couldn’t have been sure of her physical condition?
‘No, it’s the exact opposite.’
This could only mean that Hunter Seong Jin-Woo had already confirmed his
mother’s status by then.
But, how did he do that?
The longer Yu Myung-Han read the data sent in from the hospital, the deeper
the frowns on his forehead became.
Everything about Hunter Seong Jin-Woo was shrouded in mystery.
‘The dual dungeon incident, his sudden Re-Awakening, his mother’s abrupt
recovery, and even his mysterious ability to create countless summoned
creatures…..’
Wouldn’t a series of serendipities eventually become inevitability?
There was definitely something here. There was absolutely no doubt about
that. Yu Myung-Han’s sharply-honed senses were telling him such. His
resolution became even firmer than before.
“Looks like I’ll have to talk to him face to face.”
“I shall send over someone before the end of today, sir.”
“No need for that.”
Secretary Kim was taken aback from that reply.
“Sir, are you planning to go see him personally?”
“Secretary Kim. Who do you think the man I’m trying to meet is?”
“….”
That was enough to shut Secretary Kim’s mouth.
It was then.
Vrrrr….
Secretary Kim’s phone suddenly began vibrating. Chairman Yu Myung-Han
returned his gaze back to the files and gave his permission.
“It’s fine to answer it.”
Secretary Kim bowed his head slightly and quickly checked his phone. It was
a text message carrying urgent breaking news.
“Chairman, sir.”
Yu Myung-Han raised his head again.
“There’s breaking news coming from Japan as we speak. Would you like to
see it, sir?”
Secretary Kim wasn’t someone to get easily agitated over a simple matter. If
he was asking you about whether you wanted to see something or not, then
that was the same thing as you needing to see that something immediately.
Nod.
Yu Myung-Han nodded his head, and as if he was waiting for that, Secretary
Kim quickly switched on the giant TV hanging on the wall.
– Yes, this is foreign correspondent Park Seong-Woo reporting. As you can
see behind me…..
The real-time live broadcast of Japan’s most bustling downtown area filled up
the TV screen as the device flickered into life.
***
Shinjuku, located in Tokyo, Japan.
A gloomy shadow was being cast on the busiest, liveliest avenue in Tokyo, the
one often referred to as the beating heart of Japan. That wasn’t a simple
figure of speech, though.
Every single car, bicycle, and person - didn’t matter who or what, they were all
standing still beneath this massive shade cast over them.
People began climbing out from their stopped vehicles one by one. The road
was becoming uncontrollably clogged up, but not one honked their horns or
yelled out in irritation.
It was as if everyone here had been bewitched by an unseen force.
Every single gaze was directed to one particular spot.
“Oh, my god…”
“Dear Lord….”
There was a Gate so huge that it blocked out the sky to cast an enormous
shade onto the ground below.
The people below saw this common-sense-shattering Gate that easily
matched a regular skyscraper in sheer size, and fell deep into the state of
indescribable shock.
“….”
“…..”
The avenue once bustling with overflowing people was now being gripped
tighter and tighter by a silence so wretched that it almost induced some of the
witnesses to start vomiting.
***
The atmosphere in the Japanese Prime Minister’s official residence was rather
poor, as well.
Slam!
The Prime Minister couldn’t hold back his rising tide of anger and threw the
remote control hard at the TV busy showing the breaking news.
“P-Prime Minister!”
His adjutants hurriedly got up, but they shut their mouths and sat back down
once the Prime Minister’s dagger-like eyes landed on them.
“Why isn’t the Hunter’s Association saying anything?”
The President of the Japanese Hunter’s Association, Matsumoto Shigeo,
weakly lowered his head. He had become a lot more haggard ever since
returning from his trip to South Korea.
The Prime Minister’s expression hardened.
“God d*mn it….”
Something that horrifying had appeared in the middle of Tokyo, yet the
Association who should be in charge of such things, were keeping their
mouths shut?!
“A rank S Gate has appeared right in the heart of Tokyo! But, do you think it
makes any sort of sense for the Association to not have a single
countermeasure in place? How??”
The Prime Minister cried out in anguish.
Unfortunately for him, everyone present kept their mouths shut as if they had
agreed to do so beforehand. The Prime Minister’s expression crumpled
unsightly, like a man carrying the weight of all the suffering found in this world,
before he collapsed down onto his chair.
“Be honest with me, Association President.”
He then pointed at the cracked TV screen.
“What will happen if that thing opens up on us?”
“…..It’ll be the end, sir.”
As he thought - the Prime Minister hugged his head and muttered out
helplessly.
“So, that’s how it is….. Just one Gate, and the city of Tokyo is finished, is that
it?”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Prime Minister.”
“….?”
The Prime Minister raised his head to look, and Association President
Matsumoto Shigeo continued on with an emotionless voice.
“I meant to say that the entirety of Japan will be finished, sir.”
< Chapter 150 > Fin.
Chapter 151: Chapter 151
“Somewhere…. private??”
Embarrassment began dyeing Cha Hae-In’s expression beet red as she took
a look around where they were. Jin-Woo’s own expression hardened as well.
‘How come all the buildings around here are so….’
Indeed, they were now in a location where everything around them was illsuited for a pair of young people to casually walk in.
Before this awkward situation could get any worse, Jin-Woo quickly came up
with a solution.
“You need to get your car anyway, so why don’t we go back to our Guild
office?”
“Ah, yes.”
Nod, nod.
He briefly thought that her nodding like that with a reddened face was rather
adorable to look at. But still, he quickly turned around in the direction of the
office.
“Shall we?”
“Okay.”
Jin-Woo began retracing the path he and Cha Hae-In took and was reminded
of the fact that she was indeed a rank S Hunter like him.
‘Wow, we really did run far, didn’t we?’
Although it felt like only a brief moment for him, they needed ten minutes of
regular walking just get back to his office.
The Guild office was located on the third floor. Jin-Woo placed his thumb on
the electronic lock, and the door clicked open to allow them inside.
He was about to head straight into the conference room, but then, he had to
stop in his treks and take a look behind him, at Cha Hae-In still standing by
the doorway.
“…..?”
Jin-Woo stared at her with eyes asking “Aren’t you coming in?” which
prompted her to ask back at him, instead.
“Isn’t it too dark inside?”
“….Ah.”
Only then did Jin-Woo realise that the interior of the office was pitch-black.
His vision wasn’t hindered by regular levels of darkness, so stuff like this
would happen every once in a while. As for Hunter Cha, maybe she wasn’t as
good with darkness as he was.
Click.
He flipped the switch and the interior was brightly lit up. She took a look inside
the illuminated interior and cautiously asked him again.
“There is no one in the office?”
“The Vice-Chair wanted to remain behind in the Gate’s location, you see.”
“Could there be only two people in this Gui…”
Cha Hae-In stopped her words there and quickly shook her head when she
saw Jin-Woo and his expression that said, “So, what’s the problem with that?”
“…..No, it’s nothing.”
Cha Hae-In was very quickly coming to an understanding that the common
sense of the world didn’t seem to apply to the man in front of her eyes.
‘Hold on.’
Her steps taking her into the Guild office suddenly came to an abrupt halt.
‘Doesn’t that mean there are only me and Mister Seong Jin-Woo inside this
Guild building??’
The light of tension quickly filled up Cha Hae-In’s eyes. At the same time, she
also realised that it’d been a while since she felt this tense as well.
‘Maybe, it’s my first time since becoming an Awakened….’
How many men out there in this world were capable of making her feel this
tense? Especially when she was acknowledged to be one of the highest
levelled among the ranked S Hunters, at that?
For some reason, the words of ‘somewhere private’ kept repeating in her head
and she became even more conscious of herself because of that. Her heart
was palpitating faster and faster.
She began giggling then, suddenly thinking that she was no longer acting like
a rank S Hunter, but like a regular girl now.
“Keuk, keuk.”
Jin-Woo gazed at Cha Hae-In trying hard to suppress her giggles and tilted his
head.
‘Is it that funny to have only two employees in a Guild?’
But, then again, she was a part of the top Guild in South Korea, so from her
perspective, this arrangement must’ve come across as totally inconceivable.
So, Jin-Woo stopped paying any mind to that and entered the conference
suite. He made her sit close by and settled down on the opposing chair.
He started talking only after the air in the conference suite felt a bit more
familiar to both of them.
“Please tell me. What happened?”
Just those simple words were enough to change the atmosphere within the
suite completely.
“How is it possible for Hunter Min Byung-Gu to leave you with messages for
me?”
Jin-Woo’s expression was serious. He didn’t know her all that well, but still, he
got the impression that she wasn’t a type to start spewing baseless lies just to
get some attention.
That was why he became so much more serious now.
“…”
Either she needed some time to recall her sleeping memories, or didn’t know
where to begin her tale, because she needed a bit of time before she was
ready to open lips.
“That day…..”
Cha Hae-In finally raised her head and looked deeply into his eyes. Her gentle
eyes were now filled to the brim with tears. When Jin-Woo saw her
expression, he thought he could more or less tell where she’d start her story.
She quietly spoke.
“I heard his voice.”
***
Cha Hae-In was getting sucked deeper into the unending darkness, but it was
none other than the hand of Min Byung-Gu reaching down to stop her falling.
“Min Byung-Gu…. Hunter-nim?”
Min Byung-Gu slowly nodded his head.
Cha Hae-In had to confirm that it was him multiple times because he was
currently decked out in unfamiliar black armour. If it weren’t for his uncovered
face, she’d never have figured out that it was him.
Cha Hae-In asked him in confusion.
“Where…. Where are we?”
“I don’t know myself, but I do know what will happen if I let go of the hand
holding you.”
Cha Hae-In was about to take a look below her, but Min Byung-Gu hurriedly
stopped her.
“Don’t look!!”
“Excuse me??”
Cha Hae-In got startled and she quickly looked up at him. Min Byung-Gu
explained to her with a sombre look on his face.
“If you look down there, you might not be able to come back up again.”
As he said those words, she got to read a certain emotion that almost felt like
a longing of some kind within his eyes.
‘No, it can’t be….’
She began recalling the scene taking place seconds before she lost
consciousness.
The Jeju Island raid.
The ant queen.
And then, the sudden appearance of a truly terrifying mutated ant monster.
She sensed a scary something approaching her, and then, the darkness came
over her.
“Did I… Am I dead?”
Min Byung-Gu shook his head.
“No, not yet.”
“But then, what about you, Min Byung-Gu Hunter-nim?”
He didn’t reply. Instead, Min Byung-Gu stopped her line of questioning there.
“We don’t have much time left, so allow me to get to the point.”
This was likely his one and only chance. If he missed it, then he’d never be
able to get this message across. Min Byung-Gu’s expression became urgent,
pleading even, as he spoke to her.
“Please pass this message to Hunter Seong Jin-Woo.”
‘Seong Jin-Woo….?’
Cha Hae-In could only briefly stew in her confusion arising from that name
unexpectedly being mentioned here. Min Byung-Gu carried on.
“You must tell him that he needs to be careful with the power he possesses.”
“What, what do you mean by that?”
“You must’ve noticed it by now, but I’ve already died once. I fell to the bottom
of this place, but someone pulled me back up. He pulled me back out of this
endless darkness.”
“Could it be that man is….?”
“Yes, it was Hunter Seong Jin-Woo.”
Cha Hae-In’s eyes began quaking powerfully now. Even if Hunter Seong JinWoo was ridiculously overpowered, was he really powerful enough to revive a
dead person??
However, Min Byung-Gu continued to recount the experience he had gone
through without holding anything back.
“Truth is, even though it was indeed I that got revived, that wasn’t really me,
either. I possessed my will and my consciousness, but I was also prepared to
do anything for him…. It felt like I have become an unquestioning,
unconditional slave only existing to serve him and nothing else.”
There was no reason for Cha Hae-In to ask who this ‘he’ was in Min ByungGu’s explanations. She swallowed her nervous saliva.
“I was scared as well, because the mere idea of serving him made me feel so
happy.”
Min Byung-Gu formed a bitter expression.
“You must let Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim know this.”
His expression then hardened into a sombre one.
“His powers are absolute, and it was incredibly scary. He needs to know this,
as well.”
However, what was even more horrifying than that was…
His expression now shifted to the one of sheer terror as he recalled the
memories of only a few moments ago.
As he stood up from the ground after becoming the new Shadow Soldier
through Hunter Seong’s command, he got to see the welcoming cheers of the
countless black-armoured soldiers lining up behind Jin-Woo.
Their numbers were in the tens of thousands. No, millions.
As if they were faithfully waiting for the commands of their Sovereign, the
innumerable number of soldiers were ‘hiding’ quietly behind Jin-Woo.
And when Min Byung-Gu’s gaze met the eyes of their general standing before
them, he lost all his sense of self and Cha Hae-In’s lying body filled up his
view, instead. He already knew what he needed to do by then.
Not only that, he also understood that there was something else he had to do
on top of saving her. And that would be letting Hunter Seong Jin-Woo know of
how terrifying the power sleeping within him was.
In that brief moment when his mind was connected to Jin-Woo’s, Min ByungGu got to see the true identity of that power - as well as the extent of his true
army.
He sensed that his time was rapidly running out and shouted at her.
“You must remember!! The real army of Hunter Seong is…..”
It was then.
A blinding light came from somewhere above and enveloped Cha Hae-In. Min
Byung-Gu’s expression stiffened.
“His real army is….!!”
Unfortunately, his voice was buried within the empty echoes, and it flickered
dimmer and dimmer, eventually sinking deep into the void below.
***
“….”
That was as far as Cha Hae-In could remember. Her memories had become
faint and indistinct like a fading dream, but they somehow managed to return
to her not too long ago.
Jin-Woo’s expression was understandably heavy after hearing her tale.
‘Her consciousness seconds before dying met with that of Hunter Min ByungGu’s, who actually did die and became a Shadow Soldier??’
It was a truly hard-to-believe story.
Was it possible that her subconscious mind created a false memory with the
stuff she picked up from the surroundings, all because she received a heavy
mental trauma after facing the imminent threat of death?
Jin-Woo raised this point with her, and she replied with these following words.
“Yes, I also thought that could be a possibility.”
Why wouldn’t Cha Hae-In consider such a possibility? That was why she
found herself in a deep dilemma over the last few days, before she finally
worked up enough courage to tell him about the message.
Jin-Woo nodded his head in understanding. He then pushed forward his
phone towards her.
“Let me give you my number. In case you remember anything else, please,
can you give me a call right away?”
Cha Hae-In nodded her head.
“Yes. If I do, I’ll contact you immediately.”
Her complexion seemed to have brightened just a tad now.
***
Japan immediately sent out requests for help to the international community.
As they had lost over half of their combat force ranked S, this somewhat rapid
decision had an air of inevitability to it.
Unfortunately, the international community’s attitude was rather icy, to say the
least.
Japan wilfully ignored the dangerous situation developing in the neighbouring
nation of Korea. But then, the Japanese got all worked up about putting out
the fire only after the flames landed on their feet.
The international community hadn’t forgotten that.
The Japanese were left baffled and lost after the United States, already well
known for never, ever letting their rank S Hunters work overseas, as well as
the most powerful Hunter nation in Asia, China, abandoned them to their
devices.
[The USA abandons Japan.]
[Will China do nothing and let the destruction of Japan happen?]
[The Tokyo Gate: two days since its appearance. The remaining time is….]
[What will Korea choose to do?]
The world’s attention began focusing on Japan; sensational articles were
being published every single day.
It was at precisely at this point that a lone Hunter extended his hands of
salvation towards the Japanese public being overwhelmed by despair and
terror.
His name was Yuri Orlov, a rank S Hunter of Russian nationality.
In order to negotiate the terms with the Japanese government, he invited over
the related representatives to his place. The Japanese Hunter’s Association
President Matsumoto Shigeo jumped aboard a plane taking him to the
Russian Federation at the first chance he got.
Yuri Orlov didn’t even bother to greet the Japanese representatives at the
airport and instead, received them in the living room of his palace-like
mansion.
“My name is Matsumoto Shigeo.”
A middle-aged blonde Caucasian man arrogantly greeted back.
“I’m Yuri Orlov. You should probably know this by now, but I’m called the best
Support-type Hunter in the world.”
After that brief introduction, the two men settled down on the opposite side.
Yuri Orlov had asked for all the related data concerning the Tokyo Gate before
this meeting. After getting his hands on those files, he began to leisurely
browse them.
And so, how much time passed by like this?
He kept nodding his head as he calculated the cost, and eventually opened
his mouth to name his price.
“Ten million US Dollars per day. You pay me the money properly on time, and
I will block the Gate for you for as long as you want.” (TL note at the end)
Ten million per day??
The Japanese representatives almost flew into rage from that outrageous
price, but Matsumoto Shigeo didn’t. He raised his hands and gestured them to
calm down, prompting the flinching Japanese Hunters to settle back down in
their seats.
“Looks like I can hold a civilised conversation with you.”
Yuri Orlov grinned, his gold-plated teeth now on full display.
“3.6 billion in a year. That money will save your nation. It’s not even 36 billion,
either. So, how about it? Will you save your country with 10 million per day, or
will you give up on your country because you think that’s a waste of money?”
Officially, the wealth of the richest man alive was supposed to be just over 100
billion US Dollars. So, 3.6 billion per year was definitely not a small sum by
any stretch of the imagination.
‘But, when compared to the nation of Japan, it truly is a negligible amount.’
Matsumoto Shigeo had come to a decision and opened his mouth.
“We are willing to pay you that amount.”
“Very good. Then, let’s sign the contract right now, and my signing fee….”
“But before we do that,”
Yuri Orlov was busy ordering his underling to bring along the contract, but he
stopped and took a long hard look at Matsumoto Shigeo.
“….?”
Even though he was being subjected to that blatantly criticising glare,
Matsumoto Shigeo remained collected as he carried on.
“Please, can you demonstrate your abilities to us, at least once.”
Yuri Orlov heard the translation from the interpreter and began guffawing out
right away.
“Euhahahahahahat!!”
He laughed his head off until tears came out of his eyes. He eventually
collected himself enough to speak up.
“You think you’re in any position to get picky here? When licking my boots and
pleading on your knees might not even be enough?”
It was then – two Japanese rank S Hunters tasked with guarding Matsumoto
Shigeo during this trip to Russia could no longer endure this insult and shot up
from their seats.
“Stop, you two!!”
Matsumoto hurriedly shouted out, but it was too late; the eyes of the two rank
S Hunters were burning in rage and they weren’t backing down.
However….
Thud!
Thud, thud!!
The rank S Hunters did try to make their moves but, as if they were stuck
behind invisible walls, couldn’t even budge an inch from the spot. They were
like rats trapped inside a glass bottle, only being able to exchange shocked
glances with each other.
Yuri Orlov cackled again while looking at the two men.
“Free yourselves if you can, alright? But then, you won’t be able to move a
single foot without my permission.”
Yuri Orlov was the ‘master’ of placing barriers. Not just the two trapped rank S
Hunters, but even Matsumoto Shigeo couldn’t hide their shock from this
development. The corners of Yuri Orlov’s lips arched up as he made his offer
again.
“For the price of ten million per day, I’ll block the Gate for you, plus I shall add
the lives of these two morons on top, as well. So, how about it? Isn’t this
enough to satisfy you now?”
His teeth reflected the living room’s light and glittered in gold.
He had just demonstrated the power of his restrictions that could tie up two
rank S Hunters as if they were nothing much at all.
‘Is trusting this man the best option we have at this point….?’
Matsumoto Shigeo’s head slowly bobbed up and down.
“May I use the phone for a little while?”
“But, of course.”
And on the following day.
The name of Yuri Orlov filled up the news broadcasts from all over the world.
< Chapter 151 > Fin.
Chapter 152: Chapter 152
The first thing Jin-Woo did after he got home was to bring up his Status
Window.
‘Stat Window.’
What he wanted to check out was the newly updated info on his Skills. His
gaze scrolled past his current level, his Class and Title, and eventually arrived
at the Skill Window.
[Skills]
Passive Skills
– (Unknown) Lv. MAX
– Tenacity Lv. 1
– Master of Shortsword Lv. MAX
Active Skills
– Quicksilver Lv. MAX
– Intimidation Lv. 2
– Violent Slash Lv. MAX
– Dagger Rush Lv. MAX
– Stealth Lv. 2
– Ruler’s Reach Lv. MAX
Almost all of his bountiful skills displayed in the Skill Window had reached
their level limit and evolved into their ultimate forms, or were about to evolve
into one.
The level cap for a skill was 3. And when a skill reached the level cap, the
number would change to ‘MAX’ and stopped rising any further than that.
However, if he continued to increase his proficiency with the skills, they would
eventually evolve into their ultimate versions. The gap between the skill’s
effectiveness before and after its evolution was noticeably huge.
The skill ‘Dash’ had evolved into ‘Quicksilver’.
The skill ‘Vital Points Targetting’ had evolved into ‘Violent Slash’.
And ‘Dagger Throw’ had morphed into ‘Dagger Rush’.
Even the passive skill that aided with handling daggers and shortswords,
‘High-Grade Dagger Technique’, had evolved into ‘Master of Shortsword’.
The result of that last evolution was something like this. Jin-Woo summoned
‘Demon King’s Shortsword’ out and began manipulating it this way and that on
his hand.
He spun the weapon seamlessly around his index finger before letting it glide
up to the palm of his hand. It then smoothly slithered around to the back of his
hand.
The near-acrobatic silky movements continued on for a little while, before he
lightly tossed the weapon over his head and snatched it back in his grip. JinWoo slowly smacked his lips afterwards.
‘What a pity that there is no one here to appreciate this.’
The shortsword felt like an extension of his own limb, and that was all due to
the passive skill, ‘Master of Shortsword’.
Jin-Woo shifted his gaze over to the Skill Window while repeatedly tossing the
shortsword up and down.
‘So, ‘Intimidation’ and ‘Stealth’ are the only two with realistic chances of
getting stronger, huh.’
Regretfully, there didn’t seem to be much room for the ‘Tenacity’ skill to
improve beyond level 1, where it had been stuck ever since he got the skill.
But, that was inevitable, really.
[Skill: Tenacity Lv.1]
Passive Skill.
Mana required to activate: None.
You possess untiring tenacity. When your stamina drops below 30%, this skill
will automatically activate and reduce all damage received by 50%.
….Because, ‘Tenacity’ was a skill that only activated when his stamina
dropped below 30%. Obviously, he wouldn’t endanger his own life just to level
up one of his skills, now would he?
Also, Jin-Woo had experienced a fair number of close shaves after that
passive skill became part of his arsenal. Even then, it hadn’t changed from
being level 1, so that could only mean he’d need to go through an
extraordinary situation just for a chance to upgrade this skill.
Besides, Jin-Woo becoming far too strong also played a factor here. Just how
many enemies out there could realistically drive him to a desperate corner
now?
All things considered, he had no choice but to forget about upgrading
‘Tenacity’ altogether.
He then decided to increase his proficiency with both ‘Stealth’ and
‘Intimidation’, the latter of which he hadn’t had a lot of chances to utilise until
now and was stuck at level 2 as a result.
Unlike ‘Intimidation’, which was rather difficult to activate willy-nilly anywhere
as he pleased, he could activate ‘Stealth’ even when he was going through his
daily routines.
But, right now, Jin-Woo’s gaze was fixed to a spot up above those skills.
‘Just what could this guy be?’
He was looking at the skill simply labelled as ‘Unknown’ found within the
passive skill list.
This skill had been with him ever since he became the ‘Player’. But up until
now, not even its basic information had been revealed to him.
‘I thought it’d eventually disclose its secrets after a while, but….’
Did this skill also require him to meet some kind of a condition to be unlocked
as well? Because it was labelled ‘MAX’ from the very beginning, he was really
looking forward to finding out just what kind of skill it was, but this….
A lot of time had passed since those days, but his curiosity only managed to
grow larger and larger in the meantime.
‘……..’
Jin-Woo continued to stare at the ‘Unknown’ skill until he almost bore a hole
right through it, but in the end, he shook his head in defeat. Besides, what he
really wanted to confirm couldn’t be found within the regular Skill Window,
anyway.
No, they were right below it.
Indeed, he wanted to check his Class-specific skills that had all gone up a
level earlier in the day.
[Class-specific Skills]
Active Skill
– Shadow Extraction Lv. 2
– Shadow Storage Lv. 2
– Sovereign’s Territory Lv. 2
– Shadow Exchange Lv. 2
‘So, what changed, and by how much?’
Jin-Woo took a closer look at the information on the skills, excluding ‘Shadow
Exchange’, which he had already taken a gander before.
[Skill: Shadow Extraction]
Class-specific skill.
Required Mana to activate: None
Creates a shadow soldier by extracting Mana from the recently deceased
lifeform.
The odds of extraction failure will rise higher depending on the target’s original
Stat values, as well as the length of time since its death.
Number of shadows that can be extracted: 590/1,300
Level 2 effect ‘Boost’: Increases the odds of enhancing the Stats of the
extracted shadow.
Perhaps as a reward for such a tough levelling up process, the number of
shadows he could extract had shot up to a shocking degree.
‘The maximum number of shadows is now 1,300?!’
As long as his surroundings were filled with targets for Shadow Extraction,
he’d be able to increase the number of his allies by well over double the
current size. Not only that, there was the special added effect to consider as
well, which raised the odds of the extracted shadows starting off at higher
levels.
‘So, that’s what it was….’
The reason for the boss-level Naga ‘Jima’ to start from level 13 was most
likely due to this ‘Boost’ effect. It wasn’t a coincidence at all.
‘What would’ve happened if I possessed this Boost effect before I made Beru
into a Shadow Soldier?’
Without a doubt, he might have gotten his hands on an even more terrifying
monster.
‘Heh, and the wise old ‘they’ say that a man’s greed knows no bounds, didn’t
they?’
Jin-Woo smirked softly to himself and confirmed the details of his other Classspecific skills one by one. The other two skills had also received a lot of
enhancements, and a new, never-before-seen effect was added to each of
them, as well.
A wide grin settled on Jin-Woo’s lips as he read the explanations of his
upgraded skills, ‘Shadow Storage’ and ‘Sovereign’s Territory’.
‘This is great.’
He closed the Skill Windows with a satisfied grin on his face.
There was no doubt that his growth had slowed down recently. Even then, he
still managed to keep moving forward, and when he thought about the fact
that there was still more room for him to grow, his heart began pounding even
harder.
He wanted to climb even higher and higher.
‘I don’t know where the summit is, but….’
Every time he managed to reach and exceed his goals, his heart was filled
with this indescribable happiness, a powerful bliss.
Ba-thump, ba-thump!!
Jin-Woo returned the shortsword back to Inventory and placed his hand
quietly on his chest.
Ba-thump, ba-thump.
His heart issued pleasant noises as it continued to beat steadily.
It was then, he abruptly remembered something else that happened earlier in
the day.
‘…..She said it was a scary power, didn’t she?’
He recalled the tale he heard from Cha Hae-In a few hours ago.
Min Byung-Gu left a warning for him. He said that Jin-Woo was in possession
of a scary power, and he needed to be circumspect about it.
‘Was he talking about the System?’
Jin-Woo also was scared of the things happening to him initially as well. He
felt fearful towards the System capable of creating all these unexplainable
phenomena around him.
However, his fears didn’t last for long.
He adapted to the ways of the System in no time at all. And the System
quickly became the single greatest tool he possessed.
Sure, there were still far too many mysteries left unanswered, but that was
about it, really.
‘…..’
Jin-Woo’s gaze drifted towards the empty air in front of him.
“Just what are you?”
Of course, he didn’t get an answer in return.
“I mean, isn’t it okay to tell me what’s going on already?”
He quietly stared into the empty air as if he was expecting an answer to arrive,
but rather obviously, nothing came.
‘Inventory.’
Jin-Woo opened his storage to extract the black key.
[Item: Key to the Karutenon temple]
Rarity….
….has been reached.
Remaining time: 249:25:07
Here it was, the invitation sent out by the System.
A week’s worth of time had flown by already, and only around 250 hours
remained.
‘What kind of answers will I find in that place?’
Half of him was filled with expectations. And the other half, deep curiosity. His
heart rate that quietened down for a bit began beating faster again. Jin-Woo
lifted his hand off his chest.
His thoughts of doing everything he could during the remaining time hadn’t
changed at all. He picked his phone up and quickly made a call.
– “What can I do for you, hyung-nim?”
Yu Jin-Ho replied in a cheerful voice over the phone. Jin-Woo wasted no time
and got straight into the main topic.
“Hey, Jin-Ho?”
– “Yes, hyung-nim?”
“You think we’ll be able to book every single high-ranking Gate opening up in
our area from tomorrow onwards?”
– “Just like back when we were booking all those rank C Gates, hyung-nim?”
“Yeah, like that.”
Yu Jin-Ho thought for a little while, before replying back with a bright-sounding
voice.
– “Got it, hyung-nim!”
***
A huge crowd had gathered in the Japanese airport where the Russian rank S
Hunter, Yuri Orlov, made his landing, and there was hardly any space left to
even set a foot inside.
The corners of Yuri Orlov’s lips arched up as he took in the sight of the
massive throng of Japanese people coming to see him.
On the other hand, the high-ranking members of the Japanese Hunter’s
Association bringing the Russian home walked around with their heads
lowered as if they were criminals going on a trial.
‘The country lacking enough talented Hunters to stop a calamity by
themselves, so they must borrow the strength of Hunters from another nation.’
Those words were what Japan used to ridicule South Korea only a few weeks
ago. Yet, the exact same situation was playing itself out within the Japanese
border now.
The Association President Matsumoto Shigeo, as well as the Association’s
representatives, recalled their own past indiscretion and couldn’t even dare to
lift their heads up again.
‘If only we didn’t lose our Hunters on Jeju Island….’
Matsumoto Shigeo bit his lower lip.
“It’s Yuri Orlov!!”
“It’s him, Yuri!”
The reporters from all corners of the world discovered Yuri Orlov’s triumphant
figure and began madly snapping away with their cameras.
Click, click, click, click, click, click-!!
The Russian Hunter stood before them and formed a wide grin as if to proudly
advertise his gold teeth.
His entry procedure was taken care of in a flash. The first request Yuri Orlov
received from the Japanese government was to assuage the fears of the
country’s citizens. And he agreed to do the request easily enough.
His nickname was the ‘Saviour’. This moniker came about because he had
blocked up countless Gates on the brink of entering the dungeon break stage
up until now.
As for Yuri Orlov himself, he definitely didn’t shy away from this nickname
which held the potential to earn him all the wealth and fame in the world.
“Are you ready, Mister Yuri Orlov?”
“Of course.”
That evening, he was moved to a certain TV station for a live interview. It was
quite obvious that the attention of the entire nation of Japan was focused on
this broadcast.
Once the proceedings got underway, the interviewer asked the Russian.
“How will you block the Gate, Mister Yuri?”
“In the same way that I’ve been doing until now, obviously.”
Yuri Orlov’s expression was overflowing with relaxed, assured confidence. He
raised both of his hands in the air and drew a large circle.
“I’ll be creating a huge magic circle. Like so, around the Gate itself.”
The screen changed for a brief moment to show the Gate in Shinjuku. And
then, the 3D diagram of the magic circle was superimposed with the image of
that massive Gate.
“And then, everything will be finished after I pour my magic energy into it.
Whatever is inside that Gate, they won’t be able to come out ever again.”
Unfortunately, such a simple explanation wasn’t enough to calm the fears of
the Japanese people. The interviewer tilted his head, looking unconvinced.
“Pardon me, but… is that even possible?”
Yuri Orlov’s brows twitched slightly.
“What is?”
The interviewer cautiously studied the Russian’s mood as he asked again.
“Well, the claim of one rank S Hunter being able to block up an entire rank S
Gate is…. Shall I say that, it’s a bit hard to believe?”
Suddenly, Yuri Orlov began smirking derisively.
The Russian Hunter was famed for his short fuse. So, the interviewer felt quite
relieved inside when Yuri Orlov chuckled instead of flying directly into an
enraged state. But at the same time, the Japanese interviewer became even
more unnerved then before, wondering if he had inadvertently touched that
man’s reverse scale.
Fortunately enough, Yuri Orlov kept his smile.
“If I were to continue spending my magic energy to maintain that barrier, then
sure, even I wouldn’t be able to pull that off.”
He wouldn’t be able to do it?
Gulp.
The interviewer swallowed his dry saliva.
With the Japanese rank S Hunters having effectively announced their
intentions to give up on the raid, if Yuri Orlov himself also decided to forget
about the Gate, then there were no other solutions left for the Japanese
people.
The Russian took his time and enjoyed the sight of the stiff face of the
interviewer before continuing on with his words.
“However, the thing with my ability is…. The barrier magic circle I use absorbs
magic energy from its surroundings to maintain itself.”
“….!!!”
In an instant, the interviewer’s expression changed.
“If that’s the case, then what did you mean when you said your own magic
energy was needed….?”
“It’s the same principal as switching on the ignition of a car. Once my barrier
gets going, it will start absorbing the magic energy and become an even
sturdier and bigger fortress wall.”
A certain ray of light descended on the faces of the interviewer as well as the
filming crew after they heard that explanation.
Yuri Orlov’s leisurely voice was filled to the brim with undeniable selfconfidence. And as if that confidence had begun spreading around like an
infection, the Japanese TV crew felt their fears slowly melt away.
According to his explanation, wouldn’t his barrier grow tougher and stronger
when there was a great amount of magic energy present in the surroundings?
There was no need to even mention the simple fact that the magic energy
being emitted by a rank S Gate was absolutely enormous. So, what would
happen when such a barrier was to wrap around a Gate of that magnitude?
It’d get all tied up by its own power, that’s what. Where would anyone find a
situation that better fit the idea of one falling into the trap it made itself?
At this rate, the hardness of that barrier would become the greatest in the
recorded history of mankind.
Yuri Orlov pointed to the camera. He was probably pointing at the unspecified
number of viewers at home with his finger. Thick veins bulged in his neck as
he shouted out.
“I will save all of you! So, all you have to do is to remember who is saving
you!”
***
Beep.
The giant TV was switched off.
The President of Korean Hunter’s Association, Goh Gun-Hui, put the TV
remote down, but his expression wasn’t very good at all. Woo Jin-Cheol
standing next to him asked.
“What do you think, sir?”
“I can’t be sure.”
Goh Gun-Hui leaned against the couch, his expression now full of worry. He
was different from his Japanese counterpart; he definitely wasn’t some lowrent villain who’d deride the misfortune of his neighbouring nation.
Although, that didn’t mean he was willing to help them out while taking on the
harsh cost his own nation might have to bear. He deliberated for a short while,
before opening his mouth again.
“I don’t know whether Yuri Orlov will be successful in blocking up that rank S
Gate or not, but….”
The eyes of the Association President Goh Gun-Hui became a lot sharper.
“….But, I am well aware of what will happen if he fails in his task.”
“…..It’s such a relief, sir.”
“…..?”
Goh Gun-Hui looked up at Woo Jin-Cheol with a surprised face. Only then did
the latter realise that his boss had misunderstood his words. Woo Jin-Cheol
hurriedly waved around his hands.
“I wasn’t referring to the situation in Japan, sir. But….”
Woo Jin-Cheol stopped for a second or two before finishing up his
explanation.
“Unlike how it is with the Japanese, I’m relieved by the fact that we have a
Hunter we can wholly place our trust in. That’s what I meant, sir.”
Nod, nod.
Goh Gun-Hui nodded his head greatly. There was no need for him to
specifically ask who that Hunter was, either. That Hunter’s presence alone
imparted such a sense of security in him.
“Oh, by the way. How goes it with Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim nowadays?”
Woo Jin-Cheol wordlessly pushed forward a piece of printed document to his
boss.
On it, one could find the listed locations of all the high-ranking Gates that had
appeared recently around the city of Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi
province.
“Why are you giving me this, all of a sudden….?”
“Sir, can you see how many of the locations have been circled in red?”
“Looks like it’s about half of all the dungeons.”
Woo Jin-Cheol quickly wiped the cold sweat streaking down his forehead and
replied.
“Ah-Jin Guild wants the raid permits of all of the highlighted Gates, sir.”
Goh Gun-Hui’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
“These…. All of them?!”
“Yes, sir. That’s correct.”
< Chapter 152 > Fin.
Chapter 153: Chapter 153
Woo Jin-Cheol was among the very best within the Hunters ranked A, and
could be considered the core fighting force of the Monitoring Division.
There was no one within the Association, save for Goh Gun-Hui, who could
win against him in a fight. He was that strong.
However, Hunter Seong Jin-Woo was capable of controlling not just one or
two summoned creatures, but several hundreds of them at the same time,
each one of them strong enough to shock someone of Woo Jin-Cheol’s
calibre. In that case, a schedule like this one shouldn’t be seen as strange at
all.
However, why was he in such a hurry like this?
‘H-mm.’
Deep frowns formed on Goh Gun-Hui’s forehead.
If it were someone else, a different Hunter, then he’d pack his lunch and follow
them around to dissuade them. He was even prepared to whip them until they
changed their minds, but now….
‘But, I can’t imagine Hunter Seong Jin-Woo getting hurt inside measly rank A
and B Gates at all.’
If he were to borrow Woo Jin-Cheol’s description from earlier, than wouldn’t it
be ‘pitying the monsters’, instead? Goh Gun-Hui smirked softly and nodded
his head.
“If there isn’t any serious problem, do as he wishes, please.”
From the perspective of the Association President, he was thankful for the fact
that there was a Hunter taking lead in subjugating monsters all on his own.
Especially when that person was a powerful being who’d not get injured during
the process, too.
However, Woo Jin-Cheol apparently didn’t agree.
“Sir, I believe it could lead to problems.”
“You mean, his activity will overlap with the jurisdictions of other large Guilds,
is that it?”
“Yes, sir.”
There were three major Guilds operating within the Seoul Capital Area: the
White Tiger, the Hunters, and the Reapers.
These three Guilds took care of high-ranking Gates that appeared within the
districts they were in charge of.
But, if Ah-Jin suddenly butted their heads in among them without notice and
start expanding rapidly like this, then the three Guilds would obviously grow
unhappy rather quickly. It’d be basically the same thing as old nails being
driven out by a new one.
‘They might end up in a conflict.’
That was Woo Jin-Cheol’s opinion and Goh Gun-Hui certainly agreed with
that. Still, a smile floated up on the Association President’s lips.
‘I thought President was on Seong Hunter-nim’s side?’
Woo Jin-Cheol formed a puzzled expression as he asked.
“…..Did you come up with a good idea, sir?”
“No, not that. It’s just that, I can’t stop smiling when I think about how a newly
established Guild with only three members and one combatant on their roster,
have managed to exceed the major Guilds and are already coveting their
territories like this.”
“Ah…..”
Only then did Woo Jin-Cheol understand.
“I agree, sir.”
It was Goh Gun-Hui’s turn to ask, that smile still etched on his lips.
“Did Ah-Jin provide an explanation on why they want to do this?”
“They said that they have a personal reason and wants us to entrust them with
the Gates nearby only for the next week or so, sir.”
“A week, is it….”
During the Jeju Island raid, the Masters of the three major Guilds ended up
owing their lives to Hunter Seong. It’d not be hard to get their understandings
if it were only for a week.
‘If there’s one thing that I’m still puzzled about, then it’d be….’
That would have to be ‘why Hunter Seong Jin-Woo was willing to put himself
under such a strenuous schedule’ - or, at least, when viewed from someone
else’s perspective.
‘It can’t be… about money.’
If he wanted wealth, then there were other ways. If he negotiated with either
the United States or China, he’d have gotten his hands on astronomical sums
of wealth.
However, Hunter Seong Jin-Woo decided to remain in South Korea, and he
didn’t even bother to bargain with any of the Guilds, either.
‘Then, just why….?’
Goh Gun-Hui’s gaze was soon directed to Woo Jin-Cheol guarding his side.
The former asked as if it was in passing.
“In your opinion, why do you think Hunter Seong is trying to clear this many
Gates in such a short time?”
Woo Jin-Cheol thought about it for a moment, before answering his boss.
“There is one thing I can think of, sir.”
Goh Gun-Hui expected an answer along the lines of “I don’t know” or “Can’t
be sure”, so he couldn’t help but pay more attention to this somewhat
surprising reply.
“What would that be?”
“I remember seeing how delighted he was during the process of hunting down
the monsters.”
“He was ‘happy’ hunting down monsters?”
“Yes, sir.”
Woo Jin-Cheol dragged out the memories of the recent past to the fore.
Even back when Jin-Woo was helping out the Hunters Guild by fighting the
High Orcs, he was carrying an expression of delight as he cheerfully moved
around.
“And he was especially elated when taking down the boss-level monster, sir.”
“He feels delight at hunting down powerful monsters, is it….”
Goh Gun-Hui remembered listening to Jin-Woo saying something similar in
the past.
[“I wish to fight against the monsters.”]
And ever since he made that declaration, he had been diligently keeping his
promise.
‘What an interesting fellow he is.’
That man was certainly a lot exceptional than being merely interesting, too.
It was then, the office of the Association President was suddenly filled with the
noisy ring of the telephone.
– “President, sir.”
It was a call from one of his adjutants.
“What’s going on?”
– “There’s a call from the American Hunter Bureau waiting for you, sir.”
“From America?”
Not only that, from the Hunter Bureau, too? Goh Gun-Hui tilted his head
slightly.
‘Why would the Hunter Bureau contact me, the President of the Korean
Hunter’s Association?’
A country like the United States wouldn’t request South Korea for cooperation,
so what could this possibly be about?
“Connect me through.”
The call was connected right away. It didn’t even take one, maybe two
seconds for the voice coming out from the phone’s receiver to change.
– “Hello, this is Adam White from the Hunter Bureau speaking.”
“Hello. This is Goh Gun-Hui from the Korean Hunter’s Association.”
The basic language for any aspiring businessman was English. And
unsurprisingly, fluent English flowed out from Goh Gun-Hui’s mouth. He was
far more confident of this language then he was with Japanese, the latter of
which he only dabbled with when he was much younger.
“What business does America’s Hunter Bureau have with us?”
Adam White didn’t tarry and got right to the point.
– “We’re planning to hold an event early next month and wish to invite some of
the most prominent Hunters from throughout the world, Mister Goh.”
“…..Okay, so?”
– “And we’d like to have Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim as Korea’s
representative.”
***
Before he got going properly with his raids, Jin-Woo searched for the
appropriate Guild first. He needed a Guild that could painlessly handle the
disposal of various loot he’d get from the high ranking dungeons.
‘I mean, it’s not like I’m planning to clear a raid once every few days here, is
it….?’
It’d be quite tough for a newbie Vice-Chair to get through the tightly-packed
raid schedule all alone, after all. Besides, he thought that it’d be far more
advantageous to form a partnership with another Guild and work together with
them, rather than letting the middlemen deal with the loot every single time.
‘The question is, who should I go with?’
He initially thought of the White Tiger, which he had interacted with often in
the past, or with the Hunters Guild where Cha Hae-In was a member, but in
the end, he settled on the Knight Order, instead.
He only had one reason for doing so. And that would be because they had
worked together recently.
Also, some part of his decision was influenced by the fact that one was
located in Seoul while the other one was in Busan, and therefore their
activities wouldn’t overlap with each other.
Jin-Woo made his call during the early evening that day.
Chairman of the Knight Order Guild Park Jong-Su was lying on the couch in
his living room, busy giggling away while watching the TV.
Vrrr…. Vrrr…..
He picked up his vibrating phone resting on the couch’s armrest without giving
too much thought.
‘Mm??’
[Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim]
But then, he confirmed who the caller was and his eyes rapidly grew wider. He
shot up from his lying-down position and quickly answered his phone.
“Hunter-nim? Is that you?”
– “Hello, this is Seong Jin-Woo from Ah-Jin speaking.”
“Ah, yes. It’s Park Jong-Su from the Knight Order.”
– “Do you have time to discuss something important?”
“Of course.”
Park Jong-Su’s complexion gradually brightened as he heard Jin-Woo’s
explanation.
To be honest, Park Jin-Su had been feeling dejected lately, after his plans of
building a very close relationship with Jin-Woo went down the crapper after
the regulation had changed overnight.
Combining the know-how of the Knight Order Guild and the strength of Hunter
Seong Jin-Woo - what a dang waste of time….
Even his trusted Vice-Chair Jeong Yun-Tae looked severely disappointed
when the whole thing went sideways pretty quickly.
But then, what kind of jackpot was this? A phone call he didn’t even expect
came his way all on its own volition?
Forming a tie with a strong Guild, nay, a Hunter, was probably one of the most
important acts for any Guild out there.
“Yes, yes! There will be no problem at all.”
A bright smile didn’t want to leave Park Jong-Su’s face as he continued to
chat away on the phone.
“Leave everything to us.”
The matter of processing various loot from a dungeon was not that hard for
the Knight Order Guild and their extensive prior experience.
Normally, the Guild’s processing team would be doing nothing but sucking on
their thumbs when there was no raid in sight. So, how good would it be to
utilise them in this situation?
The smile grew with wider as Park Jong-Su spoke up.
“We’ll see you tomorrow!”
***
The lunch box Mom packed was indeed quite delicious. Even if the location for
their meal turned out to be in the middle of a dungeon overflowing with
monsters.
Yu Jin-Ho raised his head and spoke, his mouth still full of chow.
“With us being like this, I can’t help but think back to how we were clearing all
those rank C dungeons, hyung-nim.”
Jin-Woo smirked and replied back.
“Hey, finish chewing your food first before talking, alright?”
“Ah, my bad, hyung-nim.”
It wasn’t as if Jin-Woo couldn’t understand what Yu Jin-Ho was talking about,
though.
In the past few days, they kept themselves real busy by raiding every single
Gate they could book, one after the other, with barely any rest in between.
The only thing that had changed since then would be that, rather than rank C
dungeons, they were raiding rank B or higher dungeons this time.
And, if he were to think of yet another difference, then that would be….
‘…….’
Igrit met Jin-Woo’s gaze and bowed slightly in a dignified manner.
‘Well, I now have a lookout during the meal times? Is that about it?’
It didn’t matter if he had one or not, though. Because of his Perception Stat,
he didn’t have to concentrate hard to sense all the movements within the
interior of the dungeons. Meaning, he could deal with any monster daring to
approach him, even with his eyes closed.
It was just that, he didn’t want to be disturbed during his mealtime, and also,
wanted to decrease Yu Jin-Ho’s fears a bit so he had a lookout like this.
Jin-Woo shifted his gaze to the other side.
‘……’
Iron also met his owner’s gaze and powerfully pounded on his chest as if to
say “Leave everything to me!”
Thud, thud.
Metallic thuds filled the interior of the cavern. Jin-Woo wryly shook his head.
‘It’s a problem that this guy’s enthusiasm still gets the better of him.’
Yu Jin-Ho looked in the direction of the noise, before asking Jin-Woo a
question out of the blue.
“Hyung-nim?”
“Yeah?”
“Can’t your summons act on their own?”
“Well, yeah. More or less.”
Hunter Min Byung-Gu did say that, didn’t he? He said that each of the Shadow
Soldiers possessed their own ‘ego’.
‘Not sure how much of that story I can believe, though.’
Whatever the case may be - Yu Jin-Ho continued on with his question.
“Doesn’t that mean it’s fine to let the summons clear the raids by themselves
during when we are having a meal, or otherwise can’t move around for some
reason, hyung-nim?”
“Nope, that I can’t do.”
The amount of experience points he’d earn decreased when the distance
between himself and the soldiers increased. He couldn’t really explain what
the experience points were and all that to Yu Jin-Ho, though, so Jin-Woo
simply formed a sombre, serious expression and replied.
“These guys, who knows what they will do when I’m not looking?”
“Hiiiick?!”
Jin-Woo thought that he could hear the noise of Yu Jin-Ho’s falling appetite in
real time. That’s how far he was prepared to take that joke, however.
‘Okay, should I try ‘that’ one more time?’
Jin-Woo finished his meal and quietly put the spoon down.
[Skill: Shadow Storage Lv. 2]
Class-specific skill.
Mana required to activate: None.
Stores the shadow soldiers inside the summoner’s shadow.
The stored soldiers can be summoned back into the open or absorbed back at
any time the summoner chooses to.
Number of stored shadow soldiers: 840/840
Level 2 effect ‘Sensory Sharing’: You can share your sensory perception with
a single designated Shadow Soldier from your storage.
The newly added effect to the skill ‘Shadow Storage’ was called ‘Sensory
Sharing’. It was a rather unique ability that let the summoner, him, feel what a
Shadow Soldier was sensing.
Since it was possible to choose a Shadow Soldier far away from him and see
what was going on around there, he ended up using it rather often in the last
couple of days. Such as now.
Jin-Woo quietly closed his eyes.
‘Sensory Sharing.’
He picked up on the signal sent out by the Shadow Soldiers spread all over
outside the dungeon, within the nation of South Korea.
‘I sure have spread around quite a few, haven’t I?’
Without worrying about it too much, he selected one of them to see. Quite
coincidentally, it just so happened to be a soldier hidden with Hunter Cha’s
shadow. And when he connected with that soldier…
Splash…..
….He heard the sounds of water falling on the floor.
‘It shouldn’t be raining today, so what’s up with all the water noi…..?!’
His confusion lasted only for a brief second.
Jin-Woo’s eyelids shot up open in haste as soon as he saw the pale nude
figure enshrouded in the rising steam.
Yu Jin-Ho was taken by surprise alongside him.
“Hyung-nim?? What happened? Were you taking a nap just now?”
“….No, it’s nothing.”
Jin-Woo shook his head.
He inwardly told himself to buy Hunter Cha a hearty meal as soon as possible
as a gesture of apology.
“Oh, right. Hyung-nim, have you heard the news?”
“Which one?”
“About that massive rank S Gate in Japan’s Shinjuku, hyung-nim. I heard that
the dungeon break should be happening sometime around tomorrow.”
Did the time move along that much already? Jin-Woo slowly nodded his head.
‘That means, it’s already been six days since we began clearing these highranking Gates.’
During these past six days, Jin-Woo hadn’t been static at all. Although moving
at a snail’s pace, his experience points were steadily going up. The result of
that being his level having moved to 103 from 101.
That was his reward for focusing on levelling up while forgetting about
everything else.
Jin-Woo summoned the black key stored within his Inventory.
Shururuk…
The black key materialised on his palm.
[Item: Key to the Karutenon temple]
Rarity…..
….has been reached.
Remaining time: 26:51:49
‘One more day left.’
Jin-Woo wordlessly grasped the key tightly. His heart began beating faster
every time he looked at this thing.
“….Hey, don’t make a move.”
“Eh?”
Yu Jin-Ho had been sneaking glances at both Iron and Igrit more and more
while barely managing to eat his meal, after Jin-Woo cracked that joke.
However, he nearly jolted upwards after Jin-Woo suddenly issued that order.
“I wasn’t talking to you, though.”
Actually, Jin-Woo was giving an order to his soldiers. The Shadow Soldiers
were about to make a move, but when they heard Jin-Woo’s order, they all
stopped at the same time.
“Kururururu….”
“Kururuk.”
From the other side of the cavern, beasts baring their fangs walked out into
the view while carrying weapons like sickles and longswords. Jin-Woo slowly
stood up from his spot as he kept his gaze locked on these monsters.
There was still one more day to go.
‘Right, I still have one more day to kill.’
He summoned the ‘Demon King’s Shortsword’ from his Inventory and smiled
as he gripped the weapon tightly.
***
The evening before the dungeon break.
A massive magic circle was drawn within Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, according
to Yuri Orlov’s instructions. Its scale was truly enormous; completely
unprecedented in history.
All the residents within the area had been evacuated by now. Yuri Orlov
remained in the location to inspect the barrier’s formation right up until the
end.
The Japanese representatives quietly watched him, not even daring to
swallow their saliva. Every single word the Russian said, every little action he
took, all of them were under close scrutiny.
Yuri Orlov frowned and rubbed his chin over and over again, before finally
opening his mouth.
“…..This is so weird, you know?”
The interpreter’s eyes opened wider.
“I beg your pardon? Is there some kind of a problem with the formation?”
“No, it’s not that.”
The magic circle drawn was perfect. Without a doubt, he was confident of
having laid down the greatest masterpiece of his life down here.
No, the barrier formation wasn’t the weird one here.
“It’s like, there’s someone nearby, watching us.”
“Ehh?”
If that weren’t the case, why would Yuri Orlov’s heart tremble non-stop like
this? The Russian opened his eyes wider and scanned his vicinity, before
angrily shouting out at the top of his voice.
“Who the hell are you? Where are you??”
Too bad, no one replied back to him. No, only the echoes of his voice
reverberating within the deserted streets came back to haunt him.
“…..”
One of the Japanese representatives wiped the cold sweat off his forehead
and forced out a smile.
“Mister Orlov, the dungeon break is happening tomorrow so there shouldn’t be
any foolhardy person waiting around here. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Yuri Orlov snorted out derisively.
“When did I say it was a person?”
“Pardon??”
Yuri Orlov looked at the Japanese representative getting paler by the second
with disproving eyes, before tilting his head again.
“Was I mistaken….?”
Unfortunately for him, there indeed was the figure of a person staring at him
from the roof of a tall building far away.
‘He’s got a pretty good perception.’
But, then again - when considering where Yuri Orlov drew his powers from,
that wouldn’t be such a strange thing.
‘More importantly…..’
The mysterious man’s gaze shifted over to the rank S Gate. The silence was
so eerie that it induced a certain disgust in all who looked as it circulated
around that giant Gate.
‘……’
The man slowly pulled back the hood covering his face. It revealed the face of
an Oriental man in his late thirties. The unkempt and bushy beard covering
most of his face told the man’s identity rather clearly.
He was none other than Seong Il-Hwan.
He continued to gaze at the massive Gate with a regretful expression, before
pulling the hood back up.
‘Finally… it’s starting.’
Everything was moving according to the schedule.
< Chapter 153 > Fin.
Chapter 154: Chapter 154
The reporters from all over the world descended on Japan.
If there was one thing in particular about that, then it was that most of those
reporters were war correspondents used to covering various conflicts
happening across the globe.
This was as good a proof as any that the event about to unfold here was as
dangerous as an actual war.
The security cordon built around the Gate was incredibly heavy. Reporters
raised their cameras and pointed towards the building-sized Gate and the
barrier formation drawn around it, as well as the army of men and women
surrounding them both.
The whole location was chock-full with palpable tension only seen just before
the outbreak of war.
The assistant reporter swallowed his nervous saliva and asked his boss, the
famed English war correspondent William Bell.
“Modern firearms don’t work against monsters, so why are the army present
here?”
William Bell replied, while he continued to capture each and every determined
face of the soldiers present today with his camera.
“To buy us more time.”
“Excuse me?!”
“Their job is to draw the attention of the monsters so the Hunters can get
ready for their counteroffensive. Also, to act as baits, so those higher-ups
spectating from over there will find enough time to evacuate from this place,
too”
Click.
The next person’s face to be captured in William Bell’s lens was the President
of the Japanese Hunter’s Association Matsumoto Shigeo, currently standing
close to the barrier. He was conversing with several staff members, his
expression hard and sombre.
‘Sure, this is no time for him to crack a smile, isn’t it.’
Click.
“Which means….”
The assistant reporter, who wasn’t as experienced as William Bell was, spoke
with a tense gleam in his eyes.
“They are… cannon fodder.”
“Look, man. You’re putting me in a spot here if you think that’s someone else’s
fate.”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, if something were about to happen to me, it’s your job to stand before
me, right?”
“Ehhhh?!”
The young assistant reporter got startled and quickly looked back, prompting
William Bell to lightly rib the kid with his elbow.
“If you remain tense like that, you won’t even get a chance to run away before
you are dead, okay? What I’m trying to say here is, loosen up a little.”
The assistant reporter realised that it was just a joke from that knowing wink
William Bell threw his way and patted his trembling chest down.
‘Mister Bell…. He can still crack a joke in a situation like this.’
The relaxed air thickly laden with the seasoned reporter’s commanding
presence seeped into the younger reporter and that helped to soften the
tension he felt.
However, the assistant was acutely aware of the truth. Whenever William Bell
began smiling like that, that was when you should be most nervous as well.
The assistant shifted his gaze back to the Gate standing tall into the sky.
“Just what kind of monstrosity would come out from there, I wonder?”
William Bell stopped snapping pictures and looked up at the same spot as his
assistant.
That thing sure as hell was huge. So huge, in fact, one could easily get
overwhelmed just from its sheer size.
After Gates began appearing in the world, the second battlefield these war
correspondents went to had become the locations of various Gates. Meaning,
William Bell had come across his fair share of terrifying Gates before.
Hell, he even had the misfortune of reporting from the actual location of a
dungeon break, too….
But then, the Gate floating before his eyes was on another realm altogether.
Just looking up at that d*mn thing made him break out in cold sweat.
‘This was probably why no advanced scout party got dispatched.’
Not one high-ranked Hunter volunteered to enter the Gate to see what was
inside, so currently, no one knew what might jump out of that thing once it
breaks open wide.
William Bell’s lips, closed shut in a straight line until then, slowly parted ways.
“Not sure what’ll come out of there, but….”
A bitter smile formed on his lips next.
“But, whatever comes out, let’s just pray that Yuri Orlov’s barrier is strong
enough to hold them back.”
The last place his camera headed to was Yuri Orlov’s direction, busy
inspecting the barrier’s formation for one last time. The Russian Hunter was
beaming from ear to ear at the moment.
“It’s perfect. Very good.”
Yuri Orlov was deeply confident of the resulting barrier now.
Because, well… his barriers had always been exceptional. Besides, that
wasn’t the only thing motivating him, either.
The Association President Matsumoto Shigeo was worried about the
Japanese citizens strongly rebuking them for the deal, so he kept everything
hush-hush, on the down low. As a result, the Japanese public was under the
assumption that the Russian came here out of the goodness of his heart, and
began showering him with lots of donations.
And so, he got to earn an even greater amount of wealth that way. Besides
that, there was even more! Countless reporters had braved the dangers to
come and snap his pictures.
Wealth and fame. The two things Yuri Orlov went crazy for had fallen into his
lap in one fell swoop.
He emphasized himself one last time to the crowd.
“It’s perfect!!”
After today, he’d go down in history books as the first man ever to block a rank
S Gate all by himself.
‘I’d much prefer to be remembered as a man clearing a rank S Gate all alone,
though….’
Too bad, he couldn’t get too greedy here, since another Hunter better suited
for that title had appeared already. What could he do about that, realistically
speaking? That guy was a melee-type Hunter, while he was a support-type,
after all.
One only had to become the best in their chosen fields. That’s all there was to
it.
‘Right, right!’
Slightly carried away by his own thoughts, Yuri Orlov pulled out a flask the
size of his palm from his inner pocket. When he opened the lid, the pungent
smell of vodka wafted out.
“M-Mister Yuri!! Alcohol…?!”
The Association employee in charge of minding the Russian freaked out and
tried to stop him, but Yuri Orlov angrily glared at the hapless Japanese,
instead.
“This is a celebratory toast, get it? A toast! So, let go of your tension, okay?
Because I’m going to put on the greatest show on earth very soon.”
“E-even then….”
“Hey, you want a sip? I’m telling you, your worries and tension just fly away in
one shot.”
Yuri Orlov wrapped his arm around the employee’s shoulders and began
offering up the vodka. The Association President Matsumoto Shigeo frowned
deeply as he stared at that spectacle from afar.
‘To think, the fate of Japan depends on such a man….’
He silently clicked his tongue and asked one of his entourage next to him.
“How many rank S Hunters are on standby?”
“It’s a total of three, sir.”
“Three, is it….”
Out of the ten still surviving rank S Hunters, only three responded to the
summons of the Association. The frowns on Matsumoto Shigeo’s face
deepened by another level.
After the Jeju Island raid landed a calamitous blow to the community of
Hunters in Japan, his influence had waned greatly until it hit rock bottom.
Some quarters were now loudly claiming that it was Matsumoto Shigeo who
drove rank S Hunters to their deaths, having been blinded by his own greed.
And, the majority of the remaining rank S Hunters had turned their backs on
him.
They even left an ultimatum saying that, as long as he remained the
Association President, they would not heed the orders of the Association
again.
‘If only Goto-kun was still here with me….’
Matsumoto Shigeo’s clenched fists trembled hard. Goto Ryuji’s death was far
too painful a loss for the Japanese Association President, who used him as
his right-hand man.
‘But, that is why….’
….That was why today was doubly important for him.
If the concerted efforts of the Association resulted in the rank S Gate being
blocked off, then he’d use that to aim towards the top once more.
‘Goh Gun-Hui… and then, Seong Jin-Woo.’
Along the way, he might find a chance to pay back all the humiliation, with
interest, to those men who had ruined his future.
‘I shall, definitely…..’
Definitely, this had to work.
The Association President Matsumoto glared at the Gate again, his
expression becoming even graver than before. One of his attendants looked
at his watch and whispered to him.
“Sir, it’s three minutes before the dungeon break.”
“I see.”
Matsumoto Shigeo nodded his head. Countless thoughts swirled within his
gaze now taking in the sight of the massive Gate.
Two minutes, one minute, 59 seconds, 58…..
Time, filled with taut tension, ticked down seemingly at the rate of knots. And
soon enough, the black ‘wall’ covering the giant Gate’s surface began to get
blurry.
The reporters all cried out in unison.
“Uh, uh?!”
“Hey, the Gate’s opening up!!”
“They… they are coming out!”
***
“Son?”
Jin-Woo was about to sneakily get up, but sat back down quietly again when
his mom called out to him.
“Yes, Mom?”
Mom took her eyes off the TV and looked at Jin-Woo. The TV news had been
constantly showing the special broadcast related to the rank S Gate in Japan
for a while now.
The story currently on was something about the dungeon break that would
happen in a few minutes or so.
“You weren’t trying to… go somewhere, were you?”
His mother’s sixth sense could sometimes be even sharper than that of a
high-ranking Hunter’s, Jin-Woo mused inwardly. He flinched just a little, but
replied as if nothing was amiss.
“I have a promise to keep, you see.”
“A promise? On a day like this?”
“I made that promise a while ago, Mom. I thought that, since that Gate is
opening in Japan anyway and it won’t affect us, I didn’t cancel it.”
Mom was still staring at him with unconvinced eyes, though. However, he
wasn’t lying here, technically speaking.
‘In a way, this is a promise I made with the System, isn’t it?’
Mom continued to stare at Jin-Woo for a little while longer, before asking her
son again.
“I don’t have to worry about you, right?”
Jin-Woo replied confidently.
“Of course, Mom.”
He worked hard to achieve this strength precisely for that purpose. Mom
formed a gentle smile only after looking deeply into Jin-Woo’s eyes
overflowing with palpable confidence.
“Be careful on your way out, Son.”
Jin-Woo smiled refreshingly as well.
“I’ll be back soon, Mom.”
Jin-Woo got up and left the house pretty soon afterwards.
His family’s apartment was located on the ninth floor and, for the first time
ever, he got to learn today how slow the elevator taking him to the ground
floor was.
He felt anxiety creeping in as his expectation ballooned, wondering just what
kind of a dungeon this black key of his would unlock.
Ting.
The elevator door to the ground floor slid open. An ahjussi he’d never seen
before raised his head without thinking too much, and their gazes locked for a
brief while.
He must’ve been one of the very few people who didn’t know that a rank S
Hunter was living in this building, because as soon as he recognised JinWoo’s face, his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
“HUH???”
Jin-Woo quickly brushed past him and pulled up the hoodie attached to his
top. His steps were quick, perhaps owing to the fact that his mind was also
racing really fast, too.
Jin-Woo was able to leave the apartment complex in no time at all and while
standing on the street, looked all around him.
‘….Is this because of the Gate in Japan?’
For some reason, the streets were oddly deserted. But, thanks to that, JinWoo didn’t have to mind the stares of the surroundings as he leisurely
confirmed the information on the black key.
[Item: Key to the Karutenon temple]
Rarity: ??
Type: Key
‘You have met the required conditions.’
A key allowing you entry into the Karutenon Temple. It can be used in the
designated Gate.
The location of the designated Gate will be revealed after the predetermined
time has been reached.
Remaining time: 00:01:02
Only one minute remained now.
‘….It’s almost here.’
His heart, calmly submerged deep below the cold surface, began to quietly
pick up its pace now.
Ba-thump, ba-thump!!
Jin-Woo stood still and focused his hearing on the pulsing beat of his heart
while waiting out the remaining minute. He didn’t even need his watch, either.
The biological clock within him, honed to the extreme, was more accurate than
any time measuring device known to man in this world.
‘….3, 2, 1.’
Exactly one minute later, Jin-Woo opened his closed eyes.
Click.
[Remaining time: 00:00:00]
[The location where the key can be used will now be made available.]
Jin-Woo’s eyes widened greatly.
‘Isn’t this place….?’
The location of the Gate appearing within the System’s message wasn’t too
far from here. As a matter of fact, he was rather familiar with that place.
Jin-Woo quickly used one of the features his Hunter-only phone possessed to
log onto the website of the Hunter’s Association, and checked the information
on the Gate in question.
Sure enough, its location was exactly where the Association’s warning notice,
issued some time ago, said it’d be.
He didn’t expect the location this key was supposed to ‘unlock’ would be
there. As if someone had smacked him in the back of his head, Jin-Woo felt
somewhat dizzy.
‘I made a mistake.’
In reality, the key’s description wasn’t lying to him. The System said that the
information on the Gate would be made available, but said nothing about a
Gate appearing somewhere.
He got blindsided just now.
Jin-Woo’s hands manipulating his phone became a lot busier. He checked the
info on the Gate some more, and found out that there was a Guild already
busy with clearing it right now. The rank of the Gate in question was ‘C’.
‘It’s not a high rank, but….’
The real problem was with not really knowing what was hidden inside.
‘It’s a small relief that the location isn’t far.’
It was about ten minutes away with a car. If he ran with everything he had,
he’d get there in less than 60 seconds. Jin-Woo hid with ‘Stealth’ and began
running at full tilt. He even activated the skill ‘Quicksilver’ for good measure,
too.
His new destination was actually the athletics field of Jin-Ah’s former high
school. The school remained closed ever since the Orc incident, so there was
no danger of unaware civilians getting hurt just in case, but….
‘…But, it’s the raid team clearing the dungeon in danger, instead.’
Jin-Woo recalled the moments he was visiting that underground temple.
He recalled all those close shaves. He clearly remembered several moments
he almost got killed on that day.
But, what was the reason for this? Without a doubt, those were startlingly
terrifying memories in his life, but when he looked back, his heart began
racing quicker in excitement. Even now.
It probably had something to do with the fact that, inside that temple, Jin-Woo
got to feel for the first time what it felt to be alive. Back then, he wasn’t some
useless, powerless rank E Hunter, but a challenger going up against
impossible odds.
In the blink of an eye, he rounded up several streets and the sight of the
familiar school was caught in his eyes. He really only needed a few dozens of
seconds to arrive at the school.
He stepped through the front gate and spotted the Gate floating in the air just
above the athletics field to the side. A handful of Association employees and
staff members from the Guild doing the raid were standing around the Gate as
if to guard its surroundings.
They were all carrying on in a quiet atmosphere, perhaps because they hadn’t
heard any news of something major happening inside yet. But that quietness
was shattered immediately by Jin-Woo’s sudden entrance. Because… he
chose to undo his Stealth near the Gate.
“Uh, uh??”
One of the Guild’s staff members belatedly discovered Jin-Woo’s presence
and tried to cut him off.
“You’re not allowed in here.”
Jin-Woo pulled back his hoodie and revealed himself. And that elicited a loud
“Heok!!” from the side.
“It’s you!!”
The Association employee immediately recognised Jin-Woo and cried out in
surprise. It was the same bespectacled female employee he ran into back
when he took care of the rank B Gate that popped up in the middle of the
road.
Jin-Woo figured that it’d be quicker to talk to her instead of this Guild staff
blocking his way, so he ignored the guy altogether and spoke directly to her.
“You need to stop this raid right now.”
“Pardon me??”
She got flustered as she tried to make her reply.
“B-but, the measurement result came out as only C….”
Jin-Woo shook his head and told her in no uncertain terms.
“If you don’t stop the raid now, they will all die.”
“…..!!”
Jin-Woo raised his head and glared at the Gate.
Couldn’t these people pick up on that?
An eerie aura so sickening that it gave him goosebumps, was slowly oozing
out from the Gate.
< Chapter 154 > Fin.
Chapter 155: Chapter 155
"How long has it been since they went inside?"
Jin-Woo urgently asked the female Association employee. The longer it had
been the deeper these Hunters would've gone inside, and that significantly
decreased their odds of returning safely.
The female Association employee answered in her bewilderment.
"It's been about two hours."
Two hours, she said. It was one of those in-between time that could neither be
called short nor too long. It was then.
"Who the hell are you? You from the Association??"
The Guild staff member grabbed Jin-Woo by his shoulder and tried to turn him
around. It seemed that this guy wasn't happy with this newcomer's attitude.
After all, this unknown youngster proceeded to not only ignore him, but he
even went on to spew out some pretty abhorrent bullsh*t on top as well.
The strength gripping his shoulder was nothing to write home about, but JinWoo still turned around to face the Guild member, regardless.
He figured that, rather than starting a lengthy explanation of containing
hundreds of words, simply showing his face once would be far more effective
in a situation like this.
"You should answer back when people are ta…."
The Guild staff member's words came to an abrupt halt as soon as he locked
gazes with Jin-Woo's eyes.
'Hold up. Haven't I seen this guy's face before, like, a lot?'
But, from where?
The staff member combed through his memories before finally recalling a
certain name. He gasped out in disbelief and stuttered out a question.
"H-Hunter S-Seong Jin-Woo?!"
Who'd have thunk that he'd run into a rank S Hunter in front of rank C Gate?
Not only that, but he also rudely grabbed the shoulder and glared at such a
guy, too??
The Guild staff member was frightened out of his skull and reflexively took his
hand away before taking two, three quick steps back.
"I-I'm truly sorry."
"…."
Even now, time continued to tick down. There was no time to waste on this
Guild Staff; Jin-Woo shifted his gaze back to the female Association
employee.
"I'm going inside to bring those people back."
The flustered female employee found herself in a bind now.
This very man walked out with a face full of smiles even when the rank B Gate
he entered changed into a Red Gate. But such a person was now telling her in
an urgent manner that people inside that seemingly-normal rank C Gate were
in great danger.
"Just what is going on here that makes you say that? If you could just explain
what…."
"There is no time."
Jin-Woo cut her off.
In all honesty, he could've just maintained 'Stealth' and strode right inside the
Gate. In fact, there were many ways to distract these people and walk inside
the Gate unnoticed.
The sole reason why he didn't do so was because he had no idea what might
happen in there. He chose to cover his bases to some degree so he could
avoid getting swept up in annoying problems later down the line.
The female employee's lips bobbed up and down several times. She was in a
genuine dilemma now.
Would it be fine to let a Hunter waltz right into a Gate without any clear
evidence, when another Guild had officially been sanctioned to raid it in the
first place? Originally, something like that would have been unimaginable.
However, seeing the light in Jin-Woo's eyes, she couldn't bring herself to say
no.
"….Please, go in."
"I'll see you later."
Jin-Woo nodded once to her and ran inside the Gate right away.
[You have entered a dungeon.]
He quickly located various corpses of monsters with their magic crystals
removed, discarded here and there on the dungeon's floor.
The thing was, there wasn't that much loot to find in lower ranked dungeons.
Which was quite different from higher ranked ones, where the remains of the
monsters alone would fetch quite a sum of money.
The only real source of income found within low ranked dungeons was the
magic crystals. And this scene was a rather familiar sight to him.
Jin-Woo closed his eyes and concentrated. For some reason, he couldn't
sense the presence of the raid team.
'Could they already have been….?'
Jin-Woo quickly shook his head. Even if he was too late, magic energy still
leaked out from the bodies of the freshly deceased. But he couldn't even pick
up on that magic energy.
Jin-Woo quietly studied the interior of the dungeon, before a certain sense of
deja vu hit him. Indeed, this place seemed familiar for some reason.
He had seen a dungeon like this one before.
'….Ah.'
If his memories served him right, then this dungeon was roughly the same in
layout as the dual dungeon he got his powers from.
'If that's that case….'
Jin-Woo quickly made his way over to where the entrance of the dual dungeon
was last time. And sure enough, there was another 'entrance' within the
dungeon.
'It's the same as before.'
Only then did he realise why he couldn't sense the presence of the raid team's
Hunters.
'This dungeon… it was nonsensically huge, wasn't it?'
That was the case back then. Sure, it was the walking speed of low-ranked
Hunters, but still, they needed almost one hour to get to that strange doorway.
If this dungeon's structure was similar to the one he knew, then it'd not be all
that surprising for the Hunters to be really far away now. And, it was also
almost impossible to sense the presence of the Hunters who possessed only
a negligible amount of magic energy individually.
Jin-Woo looked deeper into the cavern.
There was only one path. And, just like back then, it was enshrouded in total
darkness.
But he wasn't worried. His Perception Stat he pushed to the extremes,
showed him the path within that inky blackness. Jin-Woo's eyes glowed in a
pale, cold hue like those animals of the night caught on camera.
'I can see it.'
His eyes rapidly got used to the lack of light and he could see one object after
the other hidden within the darkness.
'Fuu-woo….'
Jin-Woo took a short but deep breath before shooting forward like a bullet.
The background images fell back in an instant, over and over again.
It was indeed one long passageway. Even then, his speed was fast and he
didn't need a lot of time to get to his destination.
'And we had to walk for one hour in this place back then…..'
What dramatic progress he made when compared to the first time he walked
on this road.
Soon enough, he could sense the presence of people up ahead. They were
the Hunters of the raiding party. They were also standing around in one spot.
Jin-Woo initially thought that they were involved in a battle or were all dead,
but thankfully that wasn't it. When he got close enough, he could hear their
voices.
"You wanna go back when we came this far??"
Taht.
When Jin-Woo stopped not too far from them, he heard some words that
sounded oddly familiar and let a wry chuckle leak out of his mouth.
What a relief it was, though. It seemed that these people hadn't stepped foot
inside yet. If they did, then they wouldn't even have enough time to waste their
breaths on useless banter like this.
He heard a woman's voice next.
"So, what do you want to do, then? The door didn't budge even when we
poured magic on it."
"Wouldn't it be better to go back outside and get the cooperation of a larger
Guild?"
"Yeah, I think that might be for the better."
These people were busy arguing back and forth in front of the door that would
not open regardless of their efforts.
Jin-Woo could understand where they were coming from. After discovering
that this was actually a dual dungeon, they must've been dreaming of getting
their hands on an untold amount of wealth. Meaning, they would never choose
to go back empty-handed after walking non-stop for nearly one hour.
However, here was the surviving witness from that time. Jin-Woo could
confidently say the truth out aloud without any reservation.
"This is a trap, everyone."
Hunters hadn't picked up on Jin-Woo's presence well until he was near their
position. Understandably, they were jolted back to their senses from a sudden
voice coming out from the darkness behind them.
"Oh my gosh!! That surprised me!"
"W-what the heck? Who are you?"
Jin-Woo pointed at the steel door he had seen before with his chin and
replied.
"I'm a survivor of a dual dungeon incident."
A survivor of a dual dungeon incident?
Hunters exchanged glances and whispered softly among themselves.
Because it was so dark inside, they needed a little bit of time to recognise JinWoo's face.
"…Uh?"
"What?"
"Isn't he Hunter Seong Jin-Woo??"
"What was that?"
The attention of the raid team members descended upon the Hunter who
identified Jin-Woo. And the next direction their gazes shifted to was, naturally,
Jin-Woo's face.
"N-now that you mention it…"
"It's really him??"
"But, but, why would a rank S Hunter even come here?"
Jin-Woo strode closer towards the doorway. Hunters surrounding the
unknown door parted ways to make room for him. He lightly placed his palm
on the door and spoke to the Hunters.
"I know what's behind this door."
Jin-Woo was overcome with a reminiscence of the past as he finally got to
stand before this very doorway after what felt like a genuinely long, long time.
This place was the location the System had invited him to.
For the sake of these Hunters, as well as for himself, he couldn't have any
uninvited guest loitering around. Jin-Woo turned around and looked at each of
the Hunters present, before speaking up with a heavy voice.
"This place is incredibly dangerous. I'll take care of things from now on, so
please, you must return outside."
Noisy, noisy….
The surroundings became rather chaotic.
If it weren't for the fact that Jin-Woo was a super-famous rank S Hunter, these
people might have exploded in dissatisfaction right away, as the looks on their
faces attested to that.
Out of all of them, the man who earlier stated that he couldn't go back emptyhanded, just had to step forward to say something.
"Excuse me, Seong Hunter-nim."
He just so happened to be the Master of this small-to-medium Guild who had
been pushing forward with this raid.
"We at the Bravery Guild bought the permit to raid this dungeon fair and
square. You simply don't have any right to tell us to leave."
"T-that's right! Being a rank S isn't everything, you know!"
Jin-Woo closed his mouth in a straight line as his reply to the opposition
coming from these Hunters.
'…….'
They were behaving this way, even though he was doing them a favour and
was trying to help them. However, that didn't mean he was planning to explain
the situation to them one by one, either.
'I don't have the obligation to do that, anyway.'
He had done what he could do for these people. So, Jin-Woo decided to leave
it for them to choose for themselves.
If he were honest, he wasn't so keen on that idea either, because he still
remembered the terrible cost he and his fellow bottom-dwelling Association
Hunters had to pay when they made the same decision as these people were
about to make.
Jin-Woo wordlessly faced the door and tried to turn the doorknob.
Thunk!
Jin-Woo pushed down, but even with his Strength Stat, it didn't want to budge.
'Does it have some kind of restrictive magic?'
Without that, measly steel door like this would've moved already by now.
It was then - along with that familiar 'Tti-ring!', a new System message
appeared before his eyes.
[The door to the Karutenon temple is currently locked.]
[Please use the key provided.]
'Ah, so that's why I needed the key.'
Jin-Woo took out the black key. Simply by him slotting it in the keyhole, the
door slid open all on its own volition.
Clunk.
The raid team members of the Bravery Guild had already confirmed how
tightly locked the door was before he got here. So, when such a stubbornlylocked door opened easily like that, their collective brows shot up in shock.
'Heok?!'
'What the heck? How did he open it?'
Jin-Woo ignored their whisperings and spoke to them in a cold voice.
"I won't try to stop you. If you want to follow me inside, then go ahead."
Of course, he didn't forget to warn them, too.
"However, you must remember that it'll be hard for you to come back out alive
if you decide to do so."
That one sentence managed to freeze these Hunters to their spots. This was
advice given by a rank S Hunter. Who'd scoff at that and ignore it?
However, the Master of the Bravery Guild still stepped forward as if he was
trying to act according to the name of his organisation.
"I'll go in."
"…."
Jin-Woo didn't reply to that.
It was up to them to make the choice. He was going to let them bear the cost
of their decision, as well.
The Guild Master looked back to his raid team members while walking
towards the doorway, but none of them followed after him, only choosing to
sheepishly look at each other's reactions. The Guild Master glared at his socalled comrades with disproving eyes and eventually stopped before the door.
In order to make it easier for him to enter, Jin-Woo opened the door slightly
wider.
Rumble-!
The heavy-looking door moved without too much trouble.
There was a look of determination writ large on the Guild Master's face when
Jin-Woo briefly met his gaze. His hesitation lasted only for a few moments;
after mustering up enough courage, he took a step inside.
It was then.
Several messages cascaded up in front of Jin-Woo's view.
Tti-ring, tti-ring, tti-ring!!
[An individual not holding the key has entered the temple.]
[This entry has been disapproved.]
[Failure to comply will result in the immediate retaliation from the
gatekeepers.]
Several dangerous-sounding, important messages popped up, but as these
Hunters were not a 'Player', their eyes and ears failed to see or hear the
warnings. Only Jin-Woo could hear the warnings of the System.
The completely-unaware Guild Master took yet another step forward, and
then….
SWISH-!!
….A large hammer fell on top of his head.
Crash!!
The hammer smashed down to the ground and shattered the stone slab into
pieces.
"Keok!!"
If it weren't for Jin-Woo hurriedly yanking at the scruff of the Guild Master's
shirt and pulling him out, his head would've ended up in that state, instead.
"Uwa, uwaaahk?!"
The Guild Master freaked out as the gatekeepers reached out to him. Jin-Woo
grabbed the hapless Hunter and tossed him outside the door before closing it
quickly.
"Things found inside are all like that."
Jin-Woo turned around to face the other Hunters.
"So, you still want to go inside?"
The Guild Master on the ground shook his head like a madman. His fellow
Guild members quickly helped him up and they escaped from there, double
time.
Only after confirming that the Hunters had left for good, Jin-Woo made his
way back inside.
Tti-ring.
[The holder of the key has entered.]
Slam.
The door closed shut behind him with a loud thud.
The massive scale of this chamber; stone statues filling up the walls; and
then, the huge statue of a 'god' located in the deepest recess of this chamber.
Everything matched his memories.
'I've… returned.'
His heart began pounding really fast.
However, there was also a clear difference from back then, as well. That
would be none other than himself. The current Jin-Woo, different from his past
self, could easily decipher the truth of these stone statues now.
'These statues are not monsters, nor are they lifeforms to begin with.'
No, they were just puppets tied to strings, connected to something else.
There was only one creature emitting magic energy within this chamber. Even
then, it was concealing its magic energy so expertly that, even Jin-Woo found
it impossible to directly sense it. He could only trace the ominous and eerie
aura, instead.
Jin-Woo slowly walked over to that b*stard in question.
"So, you were the real one, huh."
Jin-Woo tried to engage it in conversation, but the creature didn't display any
reactions whatsoever.
"Oh, so you want to play it like that now, huh?"
The corners of Jin-Woo's lips arched up.
He suddenly raised his speed greatly and stabbed the shortsword into the
chest of the 'creature'.
But then….
Crack!
His attack was stopped by the stone tablet the creature was holding.
The blade of the shortsword deeply stabbed into the tablet.
There was only one stone statue among many in here that held a stone tablet.
"….Finally."
The stone statue with six wings on its back looked at Jin-Woo over the stone
tablet with a grin etched on its face and spoke.
"You've arrived."
***
Tokyo, Shinjuku.
Monsters began walking out one by one from the Gate, as tall as the high-rise
skyscrapers.
Thud.
Thud.
"Heok…."
"W-what the hell are those?"
These monsters were Giants. Monsters often serving as bosses in many of
the highest-difficulty rank A Gates were pouring out like common creatures
now.
"Giants!!"
"It's the Giants!!"
While every observer watching this spectacle was freaking out and was taking
hasty steps back, only Yuri Orlov remained calm as he took another swig from
his flask.
'There's no problem if it's only this much.'
These monsters were scary enough to bring a chill down anyone's spine.
However, Yuri Orlov was deeply confident of the barrier he had created.
"Come at me!"
And, his prediction proved to be right on the money.
Boom!
Bang!!
Giants began pounding on the invisible 'wall' surrounding the vicinity of the
Gate, but it stood firm and didn't even budge an inch at all.
Boom!! Bang!!
They pushed with their shoulders, and even threw their entire bodies against
the wall, but Yuri Orlov's barrier formation proved to be as perfect as he
claimed earlier.
"Euhahahahaha!!"
Yuri Orlov exploded in a fit of laughter while ridiculing the Giants trapped
behind the barrier. About 30 minutes passed by like that.
The Giants must've been tired out after going on a rampage to break the
barrier, because they suddenly began walking back into the Gate. People
witnessing that scene all cried out in pure shock.
"Oh, my god!!"
"Monsters coming out of the dungeon break are going back inside the Gate?!"
Such a thing was completely inconceivable. Not one person present here ever
heard of anything like this before. These reporters with their countless years of
experience were now operating their cameras non-stop, as if they were left
feeling truly exhilarated by the unfolding spectacle.
And when the last Giant walked back inside the Gate, the Association
President Matsumoto Shigeo stood up from his seat and hurriedly clapped his
hands.
Clap, clap, clap, clap!
Not too long after that, the lone clapping sounds became many, and it
morphed into excited cries, and eventually, transformed into loud cheers of
joy.
Waaaaaah-!!!
Receiving the passionate adulations and cheers of everyone present, Yuri
Orlov turned around to face the throng of the reporters.
"Only I can do this! I am the one blocking a rank S Gate!"
Thick veins bulged on his neck as he made his declaration.
"That guy who hunted down a couple of those measly ants, and this great me
who shoved those giants back inside the Gate!! You don't need me to tell you
who's even more amazing, right?"
He didn't even bother to hide his face now getting even redder from the
influence of booze, and toothily grinned at the reporters, his gold-plated teeth
fully on display for all to see.
But then, this happened.
THUD!
The ground rumbled hard quite suddenly.
THUD!!!
Even the tanks on standby bounced up and down.
'……??'
Only then did Yuri Orlov realise that the reporters were no longer looking at
him. No, their gazes were unilaterally focused on the Gate. The Russian also
slowly looked behind him.
And then…. the flask he held in his hand slipped out of his grasp.
'Oh, oh my god….."
Yuri Orlov's eyes grew wider and wider.
A truly humongous Giant that made the previous Giants small by comparison,
stepped out of the Gate and stood straight up.
Indeed, it was standing upright after exiting from the huge rank S Gate.
Yuri Orlov blinked his eyes several times, unable to tell whether this scene
playing out was real or not.
'How…. How could there be a monster so big that it needs to crouch to pass
through such a humongous Gate???'
No one needed to explain anything, but everyone intuitively knew that they
were now looking at the boss monster.
The Giant monster finished standing upright and took a long sweeping look
around its surroundings, before slamming into the barrier's walls.
BOOM-!!
Far, far heavier noise than before resounded out and the earth itself began
quaking rather precariously.
BOOM-!! BOOM!! BOOM-!!
Yuri Orlov's eyes could clearly see everything. And that would be the sight of
the magic barrier only he could see, gaining spiderweb-like cracks.
'How can this be…..'
His legs began shaking uncontrollably.
The Giant monster pushed hard at the wall with its shoulder, before taking
several steps back as if it realised that was enough. It sprinted at full tilt and
threw its entire body at the barrier.
It was then!
KA-BOOM-!!!
The sound of an explosion filled up the air as the motes of light illuminating the
magic circle on the ground dissipated away.
"Uwa-uwaaaahhk?!?!"
Yuri Orlov started screaming around at the same time.
The Giant monster, as soon as it destroyed the invisible wall, reached down
and picked up the Russian still trying to send in his magic energy to the
barrier.
Now caught within the Giant's hand, Yuri Orlov screamed out as bonebreaking pain wrecked his entire body. He desperately thrashed around.
"Uwaaaah!! Uwaaahahhk!!"
Gulp.
However, his screams could no longer be heard when the Giant monster
opened its mouth again.
And then….
Behind the Giant monster that swallowed Yuri Orlov in one go, all those
Giants that returned back to the Gate were pouring out again.
< Chapter 155 > Fin.
Chapter 156: Chapter 156
Creak, creak!
The stone statue began moving as weird creaking noises came out from its
various joints. Jin-Woo glared at this 'creature'.
There were several differences between this guy and the other stone statues,
but the biggest one had to be the wings attached to its back, which made it
look somewhat like an angel.
Indeed, this guy was the only one among the statues designed to resemble an
angel. Not just any angel either, but one with six wings on its back, too.
The angel statue slowly stood up from its sitting position and straightened its
bent back. As it turned out, it was over three metres tall.
Paht!
Jin-Woo quickly retreated and summoned the second shortsword into his
other hand, before lowering his stance to get ready.
When he made up his mind to fight against that thing, every single strand of
sensory receptors on his body awakened in full; every part of himself, from his
mind to all corners of his body, had become fully optimised for the upcoming
battle.
'…..'
However, the angel statue showed no signs of wiping that smile off its face,
even though it must've clearly sensed Jin-Woo's desire to fight. That smile
was so disgusting and unnatural that it sent a shiver down his spine.
The angel statue took a look at the stone tablet damaged by the shortsword
and simply tossed it away, as if it meant nothing to the 'creature'.
….As if, it was doing the most obvious thing in the world.
Crack!
The stone tablet clattered on the floor and shattered into countless pieces.
The angel statue stiffly laughed as it took in the sight of the now-useless
tablet.
"….Hahaha."
Jin-Woo narrowed his eyes.
'So, from the very beginning…..'
Just then, he realised that there was no meaning behind them from the very
beginning. That stone tablet, and the so-called laws written on it, none of them
meant anything.
'If not, there's no way that thing would've treated it so recklessly.'
In that case, just what exactly was this place? And what did this thing want
from him?
'And….'
All those quests, levelling up, instant dungeon keys, etc. All those strange
events that took place after he left this temple - what did they even signify?
Finally, an opportunity to get the answers for all of his burning questions had
come. When he thought like that…
Ba-thump, ba-thump, ba-thump!!
His heart began madly pounding away in his chest. Usually, it beat in a regular
rhythmic pulse most of the time. But now, right at this moment, it shook and
rumbled and revved harder than a race car's engine.
'This thing knows everything.'
Jin-Woo didn't lower his vigilance and threw out a question in a low voice.
"Were you the one calling me here?"
Jin-Woo was asking about what the statue's relationship with his System was
through that question.
"That's correct."
The angel statue moved its individual fingers before carrying on.
"You have done well to get here."
Next up, its neck. The 'creature' rotated its head from side to side.
Creeeak.
Creak.
The d*mn thing was busy loosening itself. It didn't take a genius to tell why it
was loosening up like that.
Now normally, Jin-Woo wouldn't hesitate to get the first strike in when finding
himself in a situation like this one. However, he was making an exception this
time.
He had far too many questions to ask this angel statue and didn't want to end
the little conversation that he got going here.
Jin-Woo threw out another question.
"Are you a monster?"
The waves of magic energy being emitted from the angel statue were certainly
different from the ones emitted by the regular monsters.
However, meaning behind the term 'monster' was simply created by humans
for their own convenience. If that term was used to denote a true monster,
then yes, that statue was without a doubt, a real 'monster'.
A stone statue that could speak and move around - where would anyone even
hope to find a monster more monster-ish than that?
So, what Jin-Woo wanted to find out here was whether this thing was in
cahoots with the regular monsters or not.
Craaack.
Creak.
The angel statue bent down to loosen up its back before standing straight up
again.
"That's the wrong question to ask."
"…..?"
"Rather than asking what I am, you should be asking what you are, instead."
Jin-Woo was frozen for a brief moment there, but he couldn't stay flustered for
long.
Clap!
The sound of the angel statue clapping its hands wiped all distracting thoughts
out of his head.
"Well, then. This will be your final test."
The smile was long gone from the angel statue's face as it finally finished
loosening up.
"If you still manage to stand on two feet by the end of the test, then everything
you wished to know will be revealed to you. That…."
The angel statue snapped its fingers, and almost immediately, a red glow
appeared within the eyes of the countless stone statues within the temple.
"….Will be my reward to you."
It was then.
Every single head of the stone statues densely packed into this chamber all
snapped in Jin-Woo's direction.
Thud.
And they all uniformly stepped off their pedestals.
Clack!
All the statues raised the weapons in their grasp.
Jin-Woo swept his gaze around the stone statues. Even if they were puppets,
they still seemed quite tough opponents to deal with. He actually almost died
several times because of them in the past, too, didn't he?
Jin-Woo remained calm as he summoned out his Shadow Soldiers.
'Come out.'
But, then….
Tti-ring!
[For the duration of the final test, all of your Class-specific skills have been
sealed.]
[Usage of various potions and the Store's functions have been prohibited, and
status recovery effects from levelling up and quest completion bonuses will be
inapplicable during the duration of the test.]
[You can not exist this chamber until the end of the final test.]
'What??'
Jin-Woo's forehead creased up as mechanical beeps continued to go 'Tti-ring,
tti-ring' in his ears, but even those lasted for only a short while. Because the
stone statues had begun sprinting towards him right then.
Their movements were eerily silent, yet also incredibly fast as well. This was
on a whole new level compared to back when he faced down hundreds of
'knights' during the Class Advancement test.
'Oh, so you want to play it like this, is that it?'
All the hidden cards he had come prepared with, just in case - various potions,
quest rewards, etc. - had become useless in one fell swoop. The System had
been with Jin-Woo ever since the beginning, and knew how he operated the
best.
'In that case, I shall overcome this with nothing but my own power!'
Jin-Woo firmed up his resolve and gripped his shortswords even tighter.
The easiest way to get out of this dangerous situation was to eliminate the
main body enabling the stone statues to move. And that would be the angel
statue. However, he'd not be able to get what he wanted if the angel statue
was killed off. So, that would have to be consigned as the final resort for now.
For the time being, he decided to go along with this 'test' thing the statue
talked about.
'And that is why, I….'
….That was why he never stopped getting stronger right up until now.
He never once stopped polishing his skill levels, just so he could achieve
everything he aimed for regardless of what sort of situations tried to hinder
him.
Fuu-whoop-!
Jin-Woo spat out white-hot air from his nostrils and mouth.
The things he initially couldn't see, the stuff he had missed when he first set
foot in this place began entering his field of vision. His naked eyes could
chase the movements of the stone statues that looked like instant
teleportation to him back then.
'From my left.'
His shortsword blocked the spear of the stone statue stabbing forward from
his left.
CLANG!!
'Left, again.'
Another stone statue launched itself in the air by stepping on the shoulders of
the statue with the spear, and slammed down with a war axe.
It was inefficient to defend against an attack falling from above head-on, so
Jin-Woo tilted his body halfway to the side and let the axe simply brush past
him.
Kwa-boom!!
Broken bits of rock spat up from the floor, now shattered by the force of the
axe. Meanwhile, Jin-Woo powerfully kicked the face of the axe-wielding stone
statue.
Ka-boom!!
The moment its head came in contact with his foot, it got crushed into fine
powder. However….
Swish-!
Jin-Woo bent backwards and dodged an arrow. It flew straight past him and
got embedded in the wall on the far side.
He didn't even have time to feel happy about eliminating one enemy - the
proper assault was only just beginning now.
'Right.'
This time, it was a sword.
Swish-!
Clang!
Jin-Woo used his physical strength to shove away the blocked sword of the
statue and at the same time, drew a diagonal line in the air with the
shortsword held in his other hand.
Tuk!
The stone statue, now missing an arm, fell away while writhing around as if it
could feel crippling pain.
From his left, right, right, left, front, front, right, and left.
'I can do this.'
The more he concentrated on the battle, the slower the movements of the
stone statues became. On the other hand, his own movements got
progressively faster and faster.
It was then - he sensed a chill right behind his neck.
'Behind me!'
Jin-Woo jumped up above the head of the stone statue trying to ambush him
from behind and while still in the air, easily sliced its head off.
Slice!
He let his Perception Stat cover him from the enemies that tried to attack him
in his blindspots.
Ha-ah!
His exhaled breath exploded out.
His body, trained to the absolute limit, and every cell within his flesh, were
reacting to the movements of these stone statues. Light burned fiercely within
his eyes.
He began gradually thinning out the horde of the statues while blocking,
slapping away or shaking off their persistent, annoying attacks.
'As if, for this very moment….'
It felt as if the 'Demon King's Shortswords' were solely created for this
moment. He held them tightly in his hands and easily sliced up the limbs and
body parts of the statues made out of solid stone.
Jin-Woo sensed his body, his mind, his cells and even his shortswords
become a single entity. He endlessly moved, fleeted in and out, and continued
to slither around without rest.
The angel statue, silently observing Jin-Woo's remarkable movements with a
great deal of interest, began to shudder greatly.
'How could he move like that with the physique of a mere human…..?'
The smile that was gone momentarily on the angel statue's face was back in
full force now. It knew it had made the right choice.
However - it was still far, far too early to end the test.
The angel statue looked behind itself. With that, the eyes of the humongous
statue of the god sitting on the throne and silently waiting for its turn, began
glowing an eerie crimson hue.
It gripped the armrests of the throne tightly and slowly lifted up its
unimaginably huge frame.
Kuuuggguuuuuugung!!!!
Because it was so gigantic, simply seeing it stand up sent shivers down one's
spine.
THUD.
The god statue took its first step, and the vast interior of the temple shook
hard from the resulting noise.
THUD, THUD, THUD.
The god statue's strides were so enormous that it didn't need to walk for long
before arriving where Jin-Woo was. The rubble of the fallen stone statues was
forming small mountains all around him by then.
The god statue stopped walking in front of him and raised its right arm.
It was also around this time that Jin-Woo, in the midst of a maddened melee
among the stone statues, felt something change around him.
He realised that the surroundings had become dark for some reason and
raised his head.
'…….?'
A giant descending palm was rapidly filling up his entire vision. The god statue
slapped down on the ground as if it couldn't care any less about the well-being
of the stone statues surrounding Jin-Woo.
RUMBLE-!!
He hurriedly flung himself away to get out of the range of that gigantic palm
strike. He rolled on the ground several times, before shooting right back up on
his two feet. His expression hardened as he glared at the god statue.
'Right, there was that guy, too.'
This was definitely the case of one headache after another.
Jin-Woo lowered his gaze to see around a hundred or so still-surviving stone
statues busy sprinting towards him right this very moment. These tireless
enemies arrived in front of his nose in no time at all.
He lightly tipped away the iron mace flying his way at a frightening speed with
the end of his shortsword; he then slid forward as if he was skating on ice and
sliced off the head of the mace-wielding statue.
Thud.
As if the head of the statue crashing to the ground was the signal, the rest of
the statues following right behind pounced on Jin-Woo like a pack of wild, but
well-organised, animals. However, the truly dangerous opponent wasn't one of
these statues.
It felt as if every hair on his body was standing up straight. Jin-Woo flinched in
nasty shock and hurriedly raised his head.
'….!!'
Sure enough, the bone-chilling red light was coagulating in the two eyes of the
god statue.
'Dodging it…. it's too late for that.'
His brain quickly calculated that his escape routes would be blocked off by the
stone statues if he were to make a wrong move now. The odds of him getting
melted down to nothing by that laser beam or whatever would be too high for
his liking if that happened.
'In that case….'
Jin-Woo quickly put the shortsword down and immediately extended his nowempty left hand at the stone statues pouncing on him.
'Ruler's Reach!!'
Five of the stone statues got caught in the skill 'Ruler's Reach' and were
stacked up together in the air.
Tti-ring!!
[Skill: 'Ruler's Reach' has been upgraded to its ultimate version, Skill: 'Ruler's
Authority'.]
'Nice!'
Too bad, he still didn't have a single second of leeway to bask in the
happiness of his skill getting an upgrade right now. Jin-Woo quickly moved the
make-shift shield made from the stone statues into the trajectory of the god
statue's glare.
Buzzzzing-!!
Just as he expected, red laser beams shot out from the eyes of the god
statue.
Chiiiiii-jick!
It didn't even take one second for the shield made out of the stone statues to
melt away, but Jin-Woo successfully used that brief respite to safely get out of
the attack range of that beam.
He withdrew the skill 'Ruler's Authority', and the smouldering remnants of the
statues dropped to the floor.
Tumble-!
Jin-Woo rapidly revised his battle plan as he confirmed the power of the god
statue capable of completely evaporating these stone statues.
'As I thought, getting rid of the god statue should be my priority.'
His next goal had been set now. Before the god statue could fire the second
laser beam attack, Jin-Woo kicked the ground hard and dashed forward.
'Quicksilver!'
Tadadadadadaht-!!!
Jin-Woo's movement was already fast, but with that skill activated, his speed
immediately shot past what the god statue could actually follow with its
perception.
Jin-Woo arrived at the foot of the god statue in the proverbial blink of an eye
and tensed up his leg muscles to the extreme. An unbelievable amount of
energy, reserved solely for jumping up, condensed within his crouched
position.
He had only one shot.
Without a doubt, it'd become much harder to dodge the red laser beams flying
in at a terrifying speed once he was airborne. It was impossible to move freely
in the air, after all.
But then again, hadn't he learned that valuable lesson already?
If he weren't willing to take on some risks, then he'd not be able to find himself
with any opportunities.
'That is why….'
Jin-Woo's lips shut tight in a straight line as he powerfully leapt up from the
ground.
His entire frame flew up like a fired rocket.
'….Just get destroyed already!'
< Chapter 156 > Fin
Chapter 157: Chapter 157
Jin-Woo arrived at the god statue’s eye level instantly.
This was at the highest point of the jump before one’s body would begin its
descent due to gravity. It felt as if everything around him had come to a standstill.
The drops of sweat flying off of his body as he jumped sparkled under the
light. Although slow, they were definitely getting further away from him.
He was in the state of peak concentration right now. The undeniable threat of
losing his life from the smallest mistake pushed all of Jin-Woo’s abilities to
their absolute limits.
‘This is the true power of the Agility Stat….’
His heart pounded hard and fast as the realisation dawned on him that this
was what the peak state of the Agility Stat could produce when pushed to the
extreme. However, he obviously did not have the leeway to revel in the fruit of
his labour.
Even now, the eyes of the god statue were moving towards him, albeit at a
crawling speed. Seeing up close the crimson light coagulating within the d*m
thing’s eyes sent shivers all over his body.
Just getting brushed by that thing would mean his end.
Sensing the dizziness of the danger, his mind re-focused on the task at hand.
‘Stay calm…..’
He reached out with his left hand, still not holding any weapon.
‘Ruler’s Authority!’
The upgraded skill based on ‘Ruler’s Reach’ began pulling at the shoulder of
the god statue. He was thinking of reeling himself in, rather than actually
dragging the god statue and its incalculable body weight towards him.
Wuuoong-!!
However, his expectation was somewhat shaken up as the upper body of the
god statue actually did creep forward just a little.
‘…..!!!’
What an incredible force of attraction that was!
The power of the skill must have gone up several notches when it evolved
from ‘Ruler’s Reach’ to ‘Ruler’s Authority’.
And all thanks to that, Jin-Woo got to land on the god statue’s shoulder far
easier than he anticipated. He quickly raised his head to look behind him.
Buzzzzing-!
The scarlet-red laser beam exploding out accurately pierced past the location
in the air he was floating in, only a moment ago.
‘Nice.’
For the next few seconds, he was safe from the god statue’s laser beam
attacks.
Feeling unburdened now, Jin-Woo sprinted on top of the statue’s shoulder
with all his might and arrived near its neck. His right hand gripped the hilt of
the ‘Demon King’s Shortsword’ tightly.
‘Violent Slash!!’
Several silver streaks of blade light rained down on the target like the shells of
a shotgun.
Dududududududu-!!
Dozens upon dozens of slashes landed on the statue’s neck. However, there
was barely any visible damage.
Not one slash managed to inflict a heavy enough wound; they all stopped at
simply causing negligible, superficial nicks on the skin.
‘So, the shortsword doesn’t work, is that it?’
It was that moment that the ‘Demon King’s Shortsword’, previously capable of
slicing up the steel-like scales of the boss-level Naga into ragged bits, came
across as an insignificant and shabby toy.
It was then.
Jin-Woo discovered a giant hand busy flying in his general direction. Before it
could grasp him, though, he ran on the back of the statue’s neck and changed
his position to the other shoulder.
He took a quick look down as he ran and saw how dizzyingly high he was right
now.
He raised his head up and glared at the side of the god statue’s face. This god
statue wouldn’t be the first enemy that his blades failed to inflict any damage.
As a matter of fact, he had dealt with a countless number of them so far.
‘If I can’t stab it, then I’ll just pummel it!’
He didn’t invest all those Stat points in his Strength Stat just for fun. Jin-Woo’s
eyes gleamed brightly with determination. He lightly jumped up and thrust his
left hand at the temple of the god statue’s face.
Crack!!
All five fingers of his left hand dug deep under the surface.
‘It’s done!’
Jin-Woo clenched his left hand into a fist. With that, he was firmly secured
onto the god statue’s face like a rock climber hanging onto the surface of a
cliff with one hand. All this was simply him getting ready.
The real thing was starting now.
Jin-Woo’s right back, his right shoulder, and then his right arm all began to
balloon up to an unnatural size. That was the result of an incredible amount of
magic energy enveloping his right arm.
As a test, he threw a single punch first.
Ka-boom!!!
The god statue’s head, that didn’t even budge from the shortsword’s attacks,
suddenly and visibly trembled.
‘…..!!’
The angel statue observing the unfolding situation was shocked beyond words
from that.
The enormous amount of magic energy spreading out from high up above
managed to shake the air within the entire underground temple. The angel
statue continued to look up while not even bothering to hide its extremely
excited state at all.
To think, that a human would deal with its masterpiece in such a manner.
An even greater level of anticipation bubbled up within the gleaming light of
the angel statue’s eyes.
Ka-bboooom!!
Jin-Woo’s fist punched the god statue’s face for the second time.
Stagger.
For a brief moment there, the god statue lost its balance. The attacks were
definitely working.
However, the god statue wasn’t planning to stand still and not do anything
while getting punched to death by him.
Vuwoong-!!
As if it was trying to catch a mosquito, the god statue slapped its own face
with that giant hand.
BOOM-!!
Jin-Woo dodged that giant palm strike and safely landed back on the god
statue’s shoulder, a mocking grin etched on his face now. That was no
different from this thing busily slapping itself.
He didn’t wait and sprinted back towards the god statue’s face as soon as its
hand went away. And then….
Boom!! Ka-boom!! Kwang! Kwang!! Kwa-boom!!!
Terrifying, deafening booms reverberated continuously throughout the large
dome-shaped temple.
Crack, craaack….
Cracks formed on the face of the god statue and spread all over the surface
like a spider’s web. The tottering god statue tried its best to maintain its
balance before it began running towards one of the walls in this massive, open
space.
Thud, thud, thud!!
The ‘creature’s huge legs viciously stomped on the ground. It was trying to
crush Jin-Woo still sticking to its face by ramming into the wall.
‘But, before that happens….’
….He’d finish this fight!
Jin-Woo’s fist began pounding faster, harder, and with even less mercy onto
the face of the god statue.
Kwang!! Kwang!! Kwang!! Kwaaahng!!
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The god statue increased its running speed and the gap to the wall was
reduced in seconds.
Sneak.
Jin-Woo confirmed the remaining distance with his eyes and, for the purpose
of landing the final blow, sent all of his power to his right arm.
Thick veins bulged on his ballooning arm muscles as a horrifying amount of
magic energy filled his limb up.
‘….Very good.’
The physical strength of a level 103. Jin-Woo poured all of that into this single
fist of his. Just before he was about to collide against the wall….
KWA-BOOM!!
CRACK!!!
Along with the loud noise of a ripened watermelon shattering into pieces, half
of the god statue’s face was blown away. It eventually faltered and fell down
on its knees.
RUMBLE-!!
The entirety of the empty dome-shaped arena rumbled spectacularly. And
then, the gigantic body of the god statue powerlessly tilted over to the ground.
RUUUMBLE-!!
A thick, choking cloud of dust kicked up into the air as the massive figure
collapsed, hard, to the dry ground. Jin-Woo walked out from there while
waving away the dust covering up the room like a thick fog.
“Fuu-woo.”
Jin-Woo let out a soft sigh under his breath.
Ba-thump, ba-thump, ba-thump….
Even now, the sound of his wildly beating heart noisily rang around in his ear
canals. The god statue that nearly made him wet his pants the first time he
stood before it, had fallen face down on the ground, unmoving.
No one else did that. He was responsible for this spectacle.
‘I can definitely do this.’
….Regardless of what that was.
He recalled the Hunters who lost their lives inside here and a powerful
emotion welled up from deep within his heart. Unfortunately, the remaining
stone statues continued to move quickly, as if they didn’t want him to have this
quiet moment to himself.
They surrounded him in a circle and closed the distance. Just before they
were about to pounce on him, though….
Jin-Woo stopped looking at his two hands… and raised his head.
“Ruler’s Authority.”
BOOM-!!
Every single stone statue slammed their heads down on the floor and stopped
moving altogether. This was the power of the invisible hand, also known as
the skill ‘Ruler’s Authority’.
Jin-Woo returned his gaze back to his hands.
‘I’ve become even stronger through today’s battle.’
He clenched his fists and unfurled them, before repeating his actions again.
An incredible power was overflowing out of his fists, no, from his entire body.
He could clearly sense this flow of power now.
At the same time, his heart showed no signs of slowing down at all. It felt as if
something sleeping deep within him had awakened through this life-or-death
struggle.
It was then.
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.
He heard slow handclaps. Jin-Woo raised his head in the direction of that
clapping noise. The angel statue was clapping its hands in an exaggerated
manner, that repulsive smile still etched on its face.
“Truly excellent.”
Quite unlike the words leaving its mouth, though, the light oozing out of its
eyes were of rather nefarious origins. Jin-Woo calmly spoke to the statue.
“Don’t you have an agreement to uphold, first?”
The d*mn thing clearly announced that, as long as Jin-Woo managed to stand
on his two feet after the end of this final test, all the answers he wanted to
know would be provided to him.
So, he wanted to hear them right now.
Unfortunately, a stiff smile formed on the angel statue as if it had no intentions
of letting him know that easily.
“Hah, hah.”
It took a step closer to him.
“Your test isn’t finished yet.”
Then, another step closer.
“In here….”
Yet another step.
The angel statue closed the distance with several large strides and eventually
stood before Jin-Woo’s nose.
“….I’m still here, aren’t I?”
Dududuk, dudududuk!!!
The lengthy wings on the back of the angel statue suddenly twisted and
writhed around before transforming into arms. Two arms coming out of its
shoulders, and six more sprouting from its back - eight hands in total began
clenching into tight fists.
“I am your final test.”
Jin-Woo frowned deeply. Before he could say anything, though - the angel
statue cut him off.
“There is no need to worry about my ‘life’.”
Flinch.
Jin-Woo’s eyes widened in surprise. This thing knew what he wanted to say in
advance. He was about to raise his voice in irritation, telling the creature that
its death would result in him not getting any answers in the end.
“Are you surprised?”
The angel statue raised one of its hands and pointed at its own head.
“All of your information is in here.’
‘….Could it be?’
Cold sweat drops rapidly formed on Jin-Woo’s forehead.
“As expected of a quick-witted human. Hah, hah.”
The angel statue issued out more of that stiff, mechanical laughter. And then,
carried on with what it wanted to say.
“If you try to control your power to prevent me from dying, that will make it
difficult to properly measure your true strength. So, to prevent that…”
Right in that moment - the angel statue’s lips moved at a quick pace.
However, the voice of the angel statue didn’t come out from there. It came out
from somewhere else.
[An ‘Emergency Quest’ has been issued.]
[If you fail to defeat the enemy within the designated time limit, your heart will
stop operating altogether.]
[Remaining time: 10:00]
Just as the quest message finished saying its piece, one second ticked down
from the remaining time.
Tick.
[Remaining time: 09:59]
Jin-Woo’s eyes began trembling hard as he stared at the angel statue.
“That’s right.”
[That’s right.]
Whenever the angel statue spoke, he also heard the System’s voice at the
same time as well.
Jin-Woo’s heart that seemed to have recovered some calmness just now
began madly pounding away again. His breathing quickened and his fingertips
trembled.
The angel statue studied Jin-Woo’s reaction before answering one of the very
first questions he asked earlier - “What are you?”
“I am the architect of the System.”
[I am the architect of the System.]
***
“Mister Kim, you’re a reporter. There’s a dungeon break happening in Japan
right now, so is it okay for you to be camping out here like this?”
Woo Jin-Cheol threw that question out as if he was feeling greatly annoyed by
something at the moment.
The reporter named Kim yawned grandly while scratching the area around his
sideburns.
“That place is already packed full of other reporters. Nothing will change even
if I show up there, wouldn’t you agree? It’ll be better for me to stick with the
folks of the Monitoring Division and get myself a scoop or two.”
“…”
Woo Jin-Cheol was tempted to advise this reporter that he should either stick
to yawning or scratching his face, but gave up and sighed inwardly.
This was because Kim was one of a very few reporters that wrote favourable
articles regarding the Association when everyone else seemed to be hell-bent
on ‘uncovering’ wrongdoings of the organisation or coming up with provocative
gossip pieces on the private lives of various Hunters.
‘No need to turn an ally into an enemy, now is there….?’
That was why Woo Jin-Cheol was keeping this reporter named Kim company
as the latter paid a visit to the Monitoring Division’s offices.
Kim finally finished his lengthy yawn and threw a question back.
“Besides that, Chief Woo. Our whole country is going through a bit of
upheaval right now, so is it fine for you to be sitting here and doing nothing in
the office like this?”
Woo Jin-Cheol closed the cover on the file he was working on and spoke in a
soft voice that sounded almost like a gentle sigh.
“Someone has to stay behind to guard his assigned station, you see.”
“Ohhh.”
Reporter Kim’s eyes opened up wider in understanding and replied while
quickly pulling out a palm-sized memo pad and a pen.
“You know, that’s a cool soundbite. I want to make sure not to miss out on a
single word, so can you repeat them for me, please?”
“Mister Kim, you really….”
Woo Jin-Cheol was about to raise his voice higher but with excellent timing,
his smartphone went off.
‘…Mm?’
It was a call coming from the report centre. If it was a call not coming through
the hotline of the Monitoring Division but to his personal phone, then that
could only mean the matter at hand wasn’t simple in nature.
Woo Jin-Cheol quickly answered the call.
“This is Section Chief Woo Jin-Cheol speaking, Monitoring Division.”
– “Chief, we just received a report, sir. Looks like your presence is required on
this one.”
Woo Jin-Cheol’s eyes narrowed to a slit.
“What happened?”
– “Do you remember the high school where those Orcs came out?”
“Did something happen in that place again….?”
– “It doesn’t seem like anything major had gone down there yet, but a Gate
appearing in that school’s athletic field a few days ago turned out to be a dual
dungeon, sir.”
‘A dual dungeon?’
Woo Jin-Cheol’s eyes grew wider.
– “But, the thing is….”
It seemed that the employee charged with receiving the reports still had
something else to say. Woo Jin-Cheol’s voice became more urgent.
“Okay, so what else is there?”
– “I heard that Hunter Seong Jin-Woo has entered the Gate, sir.”
< Chapter 157 > Fin.
Chapter 158: Chapter 158
He didn’t even have enough time to get surprised.
The angel statue suddenly began its attack. A large, tightly-clenched fist came
flying at him like a flash of light.
The attack was coming from too close a distance and its speed was also too
fast to evade cleanly - that’s what his brain, trained to near-perfection through
countless battles, had told him.
Jin-Woo urgently raised his arms to block the attack. It was not an incorrect
decision to make, but that didn’t mean it was the correct one, either.
SLAM-!!
The power behind that punch was so incredulous that both his legs
momentarily became airborne as he flew to the wall on the far side before
ungainly crashing into it.
Crack-!!
The debris from the broken wall tumbled down to the floor.
‘…Keu-heuk.’
Jin-Woo swallowed back the pained moan. From that unexpected attack, he
ended up receiving an unexpectedly large amount of damage. Unfortunately,
the angel statue had already arrived in front of Jin-Woo’s nose, evidently not
keen on giving him any time to reorganise himself.
Boom!!
Jin-Woo tilted his head to the side and evaded the fist of the angel statue. It
left a massive hole on the wall behind him, instead.
That was just the beginning.
Jin-Woo’s back was up against the wall. The angel statue blocked off his route
of retreat and then, its eight fists ruthlessly rained down on him.
Attacks poured down without a single break in between, each punch powerful
enough to kill a high-ranking Hunter in a single hit.
Tudududududududu-!!
As time wore on, though - the eyes of the angel statue were growing wider
and wider, instead.
‘He’s… blocking my punches?’
The bombardment of attacks from eight separate arms was being blocked,
deflected, or was redirected by just two arms. His movements were so fast
that he simply looked like a collection of afterimages now.
The angel statue was inwardly impressed by this display.
From the very beginning, the end result of this battle was already set in stone.
No, this was just one of the formalities to go through. And that would be the
statue performing a once-over of Jin-Woo for the last time whether he agreed
to it or not. Normally, this process itself should have been a rather boring one
to go through. But now….
‘Isn’t this amusing.’
To think, it’d start enjoying a fight against a human like this. The angel statue
had never once thought that a mere human could ever be an even match in its
long, long life.
The moment its thoughts reached there, a light suddenly flashed in its vision.
No, it wasn’t actually light.
It was a punch the human threw at the statue.
Boom-!!
Jin-Woo jumped up and threw a punch. It hit the face of the angel statue,
resulting in it being unceremoniously deposited on to the ground and rolling
away in the dirt. It still stood right back up again, though.
There were minute cracks developing on its still-smiling face.
[Hahah.]
How long had it been since it felt this joyous?
The angel statue was so excited that it began to shudder in regret from the
shortness of the remaining time.
“Fuu-woo….”
Jin-Woo managed to land a good-looking hit on the angel statue, but he didn’t
bother to celebrate his feat. He instead spat out heavy, laboured breaths.
‘It’s strong.’
Indeed, his opponent was way stronger than any enemy he had faced so far.
This ‘thing’ introduced itself as the architect of the System.
The questions of why it created the System, why he was chosen as a Player,
and just what was going on with this world - the questions he wanted to ask so
badly were already forming a small mountain in his head.
‘If I want to ask them….’
He needed to prioritise bringing that thing down first. Jin-Woo clenched his
fists tightly. It was then.
He felt a warm, sticky liquid sliding down his face. It was his blood.
It was trickling out from a tear on his forehead.
‘I guess I didn’t dodge everything, huh.’
He thought that he perfectly countered all those attacks, but it seemed that
one or two did get through to him. What bad luck it was, his blood seeping into
his eye and interfering with his vision.
On the other hand, the enemy was completely fine. It’d be very hard to
describe this situation as a good one for him, even if he were to exaggerate
somewhat.
‘Fighting up close puts me in a disadvantage.’
That was a rather obvious assessment to make. The enemy’s physique was
several times larger than his, and it also enjoyed the benefit of having six
more arms, too.
Realistically speaking, it was nigh impossible to evade or defend against
speedy attacks coming in from all sorts of angles. The wound on his forehead
attested to that fact.
‘In that case.’
It was time to change the look of this battle just a tiny bit.
The moment he made up his mind as thus, the angel statue flew in like an
arrow and swung its big fist at him.
Ka-ka-boom!!
The punch sliced open the air and crashed into the wall. It collapsed into
countless pieces of rubble. The angel statue tilted its head to the side.
Jin-Woo had taken some distance away from his enemy even before the
statue had the chance to consciously realise it.
‘I certainly am a match for it in terms of speed.’
So, if he maintained this distance and damaged it from afar….
Jin-Woo immediately activated ‘Ruler’s Authority’ towards the angel statue as
it turned around to face him.
Pow!!
The powerful attack pressing down from the sky to the ground!
The technique used to swat the king of the ants, Beru, off the air swooped
down on the angel statue’s head. However….
‘….?’
Jin-Woo did a quick double take.
The skill that managed to tilt the torso of the massive god statue only
managed to tilt the head of the angel ever so slightly. He couldn’t be sure, but
the opponent seemed to have activated a skill of its own to defend itself.
There was no other explanation he could think of other than that one.
‘What could it be?’
His confused state couldn’t be maintained for long.
[How amusing. So very amusing.]
From some time ago, the angel statue’s low voice and the System’s
mechanical female-like voice were overlapping in his ears. That unnatural
combination was really getting on his nerves a bit.
[This is so very amusing.]
The angel extended all of its eight arms out, and the weapons previously held
by the stone statues began vibrating on the ground.
‘Isn’t that….?’
Jin-Woo’s eyes widened greatly.
The weapons of the stone statues soon rose up in the air and flew towards the
angel. Eight different weapons were now tightly grasped in the angel’s eight
hands all at once.
‘That’s Ruler’s Reach.’
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the angel statue also knew how to use the skill
‘Ruler’s Reach’. Its power seemed to be below Jin-Woo’s own skill, but
whatever the case may have been, he now knew what the angel used to
counter the attack earlier on.
Indeed, this thing was not an ordinary opponent at all.
Tick.
Abruptly, Jin-Woo’s gaze shifted up.
[Remaining time: 06:19]
And now, he only had roughly six minutes left.
‘I need to finish this quickly.’
He learned that long distance attacks weren’t going to work. Jin-Woo revised
his plan once more and summoned the ‘Demon King’s Shortsword’ again. The
other one that he tossed away in a hurry was currently nowhere to be seen.
‘Fighting against eight weapons with a single shortsword, is it?’
Ba-thump, ba-thump!!
The more he was pushed to the corner in a fight, the faster his heart beat.
Taht.
The angel statue jumped up high as if it wanted to touch the ceiling, before
landing back down in front of Jin-Woo.
Craaack!!
The stone tiles on the floor couldn’t endure against the falling statue’s
momentum and spat out bits of debris as it shattered into countless pieces.
Jin-Woo pointed forward with his shortsword as he felt the small pebbles
pelting him on his ankles.
‘I can do this.’
He definitely could do this. Jin-Woo stared into the angel statue’s eyes and
calmly drew his breaths in. Immediately, he felt a chill brush run down his
back. Sure enough, eight disparate weapons, such as a sword, a spear, a
blade, an axe, a war hammer, etc., flew at his way as if they all possessed
individual wills.
Fuu….
Jin-Woo spat out heavy, white-hot breaths, his brows shooting up high.
Under the glare of the interior that was neither too bright nor too dark, the light
in Jin-Woo’s eyes left behind long shimmering trails that chased after his
movements.
Kwagagwahk-!! Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-gwa-gwahk!!
Would blocking countless flying bullets with bullets fired from an opposing gun
create a cacophony of noise similar to this?
The deafening roars continued on unabated as Jin-Woo and the angel statue
exchanged innumerable attacks and counterattacks in an instant.
Within the world slowed down to a crawl, only these two writhed and struggled
mightily as if to rebel against the flow of time itself.
There was no one superior or inferior; just an evenly-matched battle of blades
where only one would emerge as the victor. Even then….
‘I can feel it.’
Jin-Woo’s shoulder moved ever so slightly. The sword wielded by the angel
statue brushed past his shoulder with a gap that couldn’t be detected by the
naked eyes.
He stopped caring about his other eye that couldn’t be used anymore. His
sensory perception that had exceeded the extreme limits and stepped into a
whole new realm helped him to read the trajectories of every weapon his
enemy held.
He began dodging every attack the angel statue threw at him by truly paperthin margins and accurately landed his counters one by one.
More and more wounds appeared on the statue. The angel’s speed remained
constant, yet Jin-Woo was getting faster and faster.
Naturally, the angel statue was deeply astonished by this.
“…..!!”
If it was only for the purpose of a test, there was no reason to go this far.
However, this human had managed to draw out the angel’s full power.
Indeed, just as the term implied - it had to fight with everything it had.
But then, a human was able to fight evenly against the angel statue going at
full tilt?
The angel’s puzzled, suspicious eyes began peering deeper into Jin-Woo
now. And then, it realised the reason for this.
‘It’s only by a little, but… it’s mixed in there.’
Flinch.
The shoulders of the angel statue trembled in shock. Was that the reason why
he could freely wield the immense power so naturally like this?
However, that was also another thing this ‘creature’ wished for from the
beginning, anyway.
Just as the look of elation formed on the angel statue’s face, a cleanly sliced
off arm flew up into the air. The statue’s head was raised up to look at it.
The arm let go of a weapon as it flew away…. it was the angel’s right arm.
[Kuuuwaaahhk!!]
Even if this statue was not its real body, the pain still got transmitted in full.
The angel statue tottered unsteadily and retreated after losing its arm in the
blink of an eye.
[How dare a measly human!]
The colour of the angel statue’s eyes reddened in an instant. Its true nature
woke up and it forgot its true purpose, its duty, for being here.
[You dare!!]
It cried out in anger, and the fallen, destroyed stone statues all stood right
back up.
BOOM!
Even the god statue and its partially-destroyed head began pushing off the
ground as well.
Jin-Woo could sense all the enemies being reanimated, but he didn’t fall into a
panic and simply pounced on the angel statue again.
Clang!!
The four arms of the angel were used to block a single shortsword, yet it was
shoved far, far back from the impact force.
Agility, Perception, Strength, and even Stamina - all of Jin-Woo’s Stats had far
exceeded the expectation of the angel statue.
[Kuwahk!!]
The angel statue roared out like a wild beast, and the reanimated stone
statues pounced on Jin-Woo. And so, the fight between every single thing
within this temple and the lone human commenced.
Tick.
[03:02]
Even in the midst of all this chaos, the timer was still resolutely ticking down to
zero.
Jin-Woo’s shortsword sliced away yet another of the angel statue’s arms. This
time, it was one of the six created out of its wings.
[Kuwaaahhk!!]
Unfortunately, the resistance of the reanimated stone statues was nothing to
scoff at.
There were far too many of them surrounding him now and it became too
much of a task to dodge every single attack coming his way. He focused on
attacking the angel statue and dodged only those attacks that might critically
injure him while ignoring the rest.
His HP and Stamina were cut down in double time.
Stab!
A stone statue slammed down with its shield on his left shoulder.
‘Keuk!’
Jin-Woo diverted his attention towards this particular statue.
It was preparing to strike for the second time with its shield. Jin-Woo’s
expression crumpled into something unsightly. He didn’t really care about
others, but he simply couldn’t forgive this b*stard.
Only then did Jin-Woo move slightly away from the angel statue; using the
elbow of his left arm not holding a weapon, he stomped the head of the
offending statue.
CRACK!
The elbow drop containing magic energy ensured that the statue’s head
exploded into tiny bits and pieces.
In the meantime, other statues quickly surrounded him and tried to jump on
top of him. However, Jin-Woo simply activated his skill and pushed them all
away.
‘Ruler’s Authority!’
BOOM!!
A group of stone statues were flung away as if they were thrown off from the
centre of an explosion.
“Pant, pant….”
Unfortunately, even before Jin-Woo had time to catch his breath, the god
statue threw its massive fist down on his head. He lightly leapt to his side and
avoided it.
Vuuwuong-!!
The gigantic fist only managed to sweep away dozens of stone statues from
Jin-Woo’s vicinity. He ran in a wide arc to lose the stone statues mindlessly
trying to jump on him and approached the angel statue again.
And the angel greeted him with a deeply crumpled expression. That was the
expression of pure rage.
For the second time today, Jin-Woo, the angel statue, and the stone statues
all fell into a frenzied melee. His blood and sweat danced in the air and flew
everywhere. But, all of that lasted only for a brief moment.
Soon, blood and sweat evaporated from the sheer heat generated and red
mist rose up from Jin-Woo’s shoulders.
The stone statues were forced back, the god statue slammed its fist down,
and the arms of the angel statue busily moved about. And in the middle of it all
stood Jin-Woo.
[Kuwaaahhk!!]
Another one of the angel’s arms flew off, and Jin-Woo’s shortsword found
itself pressed tightly against the angel statue’s neck. Way above both of them,
the god statue was about to pound down with its two hands locked together.
Jin-Woo calmly strengthened the arm pressing the blade to the angel statue’s
neck to cut it off in one go.
At that moment, the angel statue announced its surrender.
[I lost.]
Simultaneously, the god statue and the rest of the stone statues all froze up
and stopped moving.
[Your test has ended.]
Tick.
Like a lie, the timer ceaselessly ticking down also froze up along with the
angel’s words announcing the end of everything.
[Remaining time: 02:11]
Red hot steam was rising up in a fine mist from Jin-Woo’s entire body.
Only after confirming that the timer had stopped for real, he lowered his head.
His glare was locked onto the angel statue.
“I have a question.”
[You can ask anything. I shall answer if it’s within my knowledge.]
Rather unexpectedly, the now-expressionless angel statue agreed to his
demand without offering any resistance.
‘…..’
Jin-Woo didn’t say anything and thought to himself.
When he asked the angel statue ‘What are you’, the thing mocked him for
asking the wrong question.
However, his confusion got more confounded after he heard the identity of this
‘thing’ from its own mouth, and now, he had more questions than ever before
burning a hole in his head.
That was why Jin-Woo decided to heed the advice the angel gave him earlier
on and ask the right question.
“Who am I?”
< Chapter 158 > Fin.
Chapter 159: Chapter 159
The Hunters of the Monitoring Division arrived on site. There were a total of
seven high-ranked Hunters. Woo Jin-Cheol had scrounged up the top elites of
the Association that could be mobilised on such short notice.
However, he knew the truth. He knew that this little fighting power would not
be of any help to Hunter Seong.
‘Even still, for the worst case scenario….’
These Hunters from the Monitoring Division would buy enough time so Hunter
Seong would be able to escape from the dangers. They came to this location
with such a resolve in their hearts.
“Is that the one, Chief?”
“Looks that way.”
Hunters from the Monitoring Division stepped out of the minivan and entered
the school’s athletics field.
They found the Hunters from the Bravery Guild who had made the report
earlier waiting for their arrival. Their expressions brightened once they saw the
members of the Monitoring Division.
“Over here, mister agents!”
The Master of the Guild came running and greeted the Hunters of the
Monitoring Division. However, Woo Jin-Cheol’s gaze remained fixed on that
Gate in question.
He could pick up on an ominous aura coming out of it already. Woo Jin-Cheol
looked at his subordinates and issued an order.
“Let’s hurry.”
“Yes, sir.”
Their steps became hurried and they crossed the field to arrive before the
Gate in a proverbial heartbeat.
But then, Woo Jin-Cheol’s steps came to an abrupt halt.
“Chief?”
“Senior?”
The subordinates behind him naturally came to a stop, as well. Woo Jin-Cheol
cautiously took off his sunglasses. His hand holding the accessory was
trembling imperceptibly.
‘This… what the hell is this….?’
He picked up on the utterly horrifying maelstrom of magical energy all around
the Gate. As a matter of fact, the magical energy leaking out was so savage
and brutal that the space around the portal looked as if it was being distorted
to his naked eyes.
He was startled by what he saw and quickly took a step back.
Was this simply an optical illusion, or the sign of an impending ill omen?
He thought that, all of a sudden, a dark veil seemed to be enveloping this
Gate from above. He had seen this somewhere before. It was the looming
shadow of death.
All the hair on the back of his neck stood up.
Woo Jin-Cheol instinctively knew it.
He knew that the fight taking place inside was not something he or his boys
could possibly butt in on.
The subordinates saw his complexion getting paler and gasped out in
surprise. They hurriedly asked him.
“Section Chief?? Are you alright?”
“….”
Rather than an answer, Woo Jin-Cheol threw out a question, instead.
“Is there a… major Guild with a team ready for a raid nearby?”
One of his subordinates checked the Association’s database and quickly
made his reply.
“Yes, sir. The Hunters Guild is getting ready for a raid at the moment.”
“What about their two rank S Hunters?”
“According to the data, both Choi Jong-In and Cha Hae-In Hunter-nims are
scheduled to partake in the raid, sir.”
Choi Jong-In and Cha Hae-In. If it were those two, then they might be able to
do something.
Woo Jin-Cheol shifted his gaze back to the Gate. That imperceptible trembling
that started from his hand had slowly but steadily spread out to the rest of his
body.
Gulp.
Dry saliva slid down his throat all on its own.
Woo Jin-Cheol barely managed to rein his trembling voice and spoke to his
subordinate.
“Send… the emergency cooperation request to the Hunters Guild.”
***
He finally asked it.
Just as the angel statue had recommended it, he changed his question from
“What are you?” to “Who am I?”
In that short moment, Jin-Woo’s heavy and laboured panting relaxed to his
usual rhythmic breathing. The sound of his breaths was so measured and
calm that it was hard to believe he was involved in a fierce life-or-death battle
just now.
Even his panting shoulders had stopped quivering completely.
[….]
The answer from the angel statue seemed to be getting delayed for some
reason, and Jin-Woo pressed the shortsword deeper against its skin as a
reminder. The blade dug into the neck of the stone statue.
If this thing was a human, its skin would’ve been cut open and began bleeding
by now. Since it was seemingly made out of stone, it didn’t bleed, but he knew
there was no problem with cutting its head off like this.
Perhaps the angel statue also knew this truth? It belatedly opened its mouth.
[Finally.]
Hearing it from such close proximity, this thing’s voice sounded even more
freakish than before.
[You have asked a proper question.]
It then formed a smile next. There was not one hint of fear on its face even
though several of its arms were sliced off and there was a blade pressed just
below its chin.
‘Maybe, its real body is somewhere else?’
Jin-Woo’s exceptional sensory perception scanned his surroundings but he
couldn’t pick up any other aura. If the real body was indeed somewhere else,
then the current him couldn’t even begin to imagine just how incredible the
technique being employed here was to conceal the connection this perfectly.
The angel statue carried on with what it wanted to say while that smile
remained etched on its stony face.
[The answer is within you.]
‘…In me?’
Jin-Woo had been glaring at his query until now, worried that this thing would
try another petty trick on him. But when he heard that, his eyes became even
sharper than ever before.
He spent four years of his life as a lowest-ranked Hunter and had to fight
against countless enemies that were stronger than himself and could have
killed him instantly.
Even though he was classified as a rank E Hunter, and not only that, as the
lowest even among the rank Es, Jin-Woo still managed to survive in those four
years as he bravely roamed around in various dungeons. That was no mean
feat, indeed.
It was only possible because of his sixth sense, honed through experiencing
several life-or-death moments, helped him to pick the best possible option
available during the worst of all the worst situations.
And his ultra-sharp sixth sense was warning him of a certain shift in the
atmosphere. Sure enough…
Tti-ring!
The mechanical beep abruptly rang out in his head, accompanied by the usual
voice of the System. It was definitely not the angel statue’s voice - he only
heard that of a mechanical-sounding female.
[Recalling the stored data in the System’s memory.]
[Will you consent to its playback?] (Y/N)
It wasn’t just the voice this time, but even the actual message window also
popped up, as well. It was asking him ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
The alphabets ‘Y’ and ‘N’ lazily blinked in front of his eyes as if they were
patiently waiting for his answer.
‘Just what on earth is this….?’
Just what was this d*mn thing trying to pull this time?
Jin-Woo’s gaze shifted away from the message and landed on the angel
statue. The smile was long gone from the statue’s face. It spoke to him with a
completely emotionless face.
“The decision is up to you.”
Unlike before, its voice was now separated from the System. The machinelike, stiff male voice grated against his eardrums. Jin-Woo shut his mouth tight
after seeing that face.
‘Data saved in the System’s memory, is it….’
Just like how it was with various video games, did the System also possess a
save file or something similar to that? And, he could view what that save file
contained, right now?
‘…..’
In this short span of time, all kinds of thoughts raced in and out of his brain. Of
course, his answer had already been decided.
He finally earned what could be his one and only chance to confirm the truth
for himself, so why should he back out of it now?
If the System wanted to trick him into a trap, then well, it didn’t have to go
through such an elaborate process, either. After all, the System possessed the
power to decide when his heart would stop beating, didn’t it?
‘Just as the angel said, if all these were just the processes of a test, then….
Then, I have earned the right to view this data.’
He suddenly recalled what the angel statue told him before the battle
commenced.
[“If you still manage to stand on two feet by the end of the test, then everything
you wished to know will be revealed to you. That will be my reward to you.”]
Most likely, the reward the angel talked about meant his right to view the data.
He finally arrived at this conclusion.
Jin-Woo made his decision and slowly opened his mouth.
“….Yes.”
When he did, darkness immediately enveloped him.
Tti-ring.
The familiar mechanical beep hit him in the eardrums, and the voice of the
System followed right after.
[The saved data has been successfully uploaded.]
***
It felt like he crossed an endless tunnel at a speed very close to that of infinity.
He flew past the space filled with nothing but darkness; the light seeping into
this space from such a long distance away slammed into him in an instant.
After the blinding by the light dissipated away….
Jin-Woo was greeted by the immense spectacle laid out before his eyes - no,
below him - and spat out a shocked gasp in his mind.
‘Oh, my god….’
An army consisting solely of innumerable monsters stretched far beyond the
scope of vision below him.
From where he was, all the way to beyond the horizon. Countless monsters
completely covered up the ground until there was no uncovered patch left.
In all honesty, that was one hell of a terrifying sight to behold. If this many
monsters jumped out of a Gate all at once, humanity wouldn’t have a chance
in hell at winning against them.
Just from seeing this, he felt his innards tighten as if he was having
indigestion.
‘Hold on… Where is this place, anyway?’
It couldn’t have been Earth. He could see thin, tall, and bizarre looking rocky
outcroppings jutting out from here and there on this reddish-brown, dried up
plains where not even a single blade of grass grew.
This was a completely foreign landscape that he had never seen before.
His eyes could catch the sight of the reddish-brown ground, those strange
rock formations, and then, the great army of monsters standing on top of said
ground.
Jin-Woo shifted his gaze over to these monsters.
He spotted weaklings commonly seen in low ranked dungeons, all the way to
the powerful monsters that could only be seen in much higher-ranked
dungeons, such as High Orcs, White Phantoms, and even Giants.
This disparate gathering of monsters that ignored their ranks and species
were busy looking up and waiting for something to happen.
‘What are they all looking at?’
Jin-Woo followed after their gazes and raised his head to the sky above. And
then… he discovered it.
‘…..!!’
He saw a jet-black lake, quietly floating high up in the sky.
No, it was actually not a lake. He mistook it for a lake because of its sheer
size. But, it was a Gate so big that he couldn’t even begin to guess its size.
And it was silently looking down on the ground.
This black ‘hole’ was blocking up the purple sky beyond it.
‘Purple sky, is it…..?’
Seeing the colour of the sky that should not exist, he became doubly sure that
this was not Earth anymore.
In a world that was clearly not Earth, something major was about to happen
between the monsters and that Gate.
He unconsciously swallowed his saliva. Trapped within this eerie silence, his
nervousness also increased as the time wore on.
Gowooooh….
Just what would come out from that Gate?
Jin-Woo began wondering if he’d get to see the weapons of humanity or the
armies of humans stepping out of that huge Gate, just like how monsters
would step onto Earth through those portals.
However….
CRACK!
What came out of the cracked-open Gate’s mouth was soldiers decked out in
silver armour, with wings attached to their backs.
These silver-armoured soldiers poured out of the Gate like agitated bees
rushing out of the disturbed beehive.
While monsters covered up the entirety of the ground, these soldiers in turn
utterly blotted out the sky.
It was truly a spectacular sight. Jin-Woo couldn’t stop admiring this incredible
view.
However, the monsters must’ve thought rather differently. They began howling
at the top of their lungs upon seeing the silver-armoured soldiers covering the
sky and began bucking around in agitation.
He didn’t even have to be a genius to figure out what would happen next.
It was war.
Swahhh-!!
The flying soldiers became silver drops of light and descended to the ground
below. As it turned out, there was more than one Gate in the sky. There were
several of them, and silver soldiers poured out of them one after the other.
Monsters on the ground versus the soldiers of the sky!!
Two groups, clearly burning with hostile intentions against each other, soon
collided just above the ground. And a battle of an indescribable scale and
proportion unfolded next.
ROOOAAAR-!!
The beastly roars of the monsters shook the land below, and….
Vuuoooo–!!
….And, horns being blown by the silver-armoured soldiers thunderously
resounded out.
Weapons collided with other weapons; the sounds of armours shattering
noisily rang out. The beastly roars soon morphed into screams and pained
groans. The ground below was steadily being dyed the colour of blood.
The superiority in this battle was established very quickly.
The silver-armoured soldiers were very powerful. These guys easily sliced off
the necks of the monsters that were strong enough to rip high-ranked Hunters
apart with their bare hands.
Such powerful beings had formed a massive invading group, so perhaps it
was only inevitable that the monsters were being swept away.
The balance was tilting noticeably now to their favour. Even then, silverarmoured soldiers continued to pour out from the Gates non-stop.
The waves upon waves of the silver soldiers crashing forward like the
incoming tide erased all traces of living monsters off the dried plains in no time
at all.
Kuwaaahk!
Kiiiehhk!
The war began as a fierce clash between two forces, but now, it descended
into a blood-soaked massacre, instead.
Just like how Jin-Woo was with his foes, the swords and spears of the silver
soldiers knew no mercy. Because of that, the number of monsters decreased
quite rapidly.
Jin-Woo watched this scene of the horrifying monsters being killed off with
little to no resistance and was overcome with a puzzling mixture of emotions.
‘Am I mourning all those people who lost their lives to these b*stards, or am I
feeling rueful for humans not being able to possess powers like that….?’
Such trivial thoughts remained in his head for only a short while. The truly
extraordinary event only happened afterwards, that was why.
With the complete annihilation of the monsters mere moments away…
The silver soldiers of the sky that violently pushed their enemies back
suddenly stopped moving one at the time.
‘What’s going on?’
Could they possibly have developed a sense of pity for these things now, of all
times? But, there was just no way. If they did, then they shouldn’t be gripping
their weapons even tighter like that.
They were gripping their weapons so hard, in fact, their hands were beginning
to tremble noticeably, too. On top of that, the emotions filling up the faces of
these silver soldiers were as far from the ones of compassion as you could
get. No, they were definitely filled with terror.
Their collective gazes were focused in a certain direction. And that was
somewhere behind him.
Jin-Woo suddenly had a hunch. He felt that something extraordinary was
about to happen behind him, one amazing enough to overturn this situation on
its head.
However, his gaze didn’t immediately look behind him, but instead, to the
ground below.
On top of this reddish-brown land, a black shadow was spreading out. This
shadow rapidly spread beyond the blood dyeing the land red, as well as the
mountains of corpses. And when this darkness sped past underneath these
corpses, mysterious screams could be heard.
Screams that no one could tell where they were coming from.
Jin-Woo knew of a skill that was eerily similar to this - no, make that pretty
much identical.
‘Sovereign’s Territory….’
A powerful chill ran down his spine immediately.
He slowly, agonisingly slowly, turned his head around to take a look.
And there he found an impressive knight covered in jet-black armour from his
head right down to his toes. From this knight, and the horse he was riding on,
black aura-like strands of energy continuously rose up.
Why did this happen? No one told him, yet Jin-Woo could think of only one
title when looking at that black knight.
‘….The Shadow Sovereign.’
Just by being in front of this being subjected him to an incredible pressure that
was heavy enough to strangle him.
Whether it was the silver-armoured soldiers from the sky, monsters with
intelligence, or even those without it, they all forgot to breathe and simply
stared at this Shadow Sovereign.
Every single gaze within this battlefield was now looking at only this black
knight.
[…..]
The Sovereign glared at the soldiers of the sky, before extending his hand out
as if he wanted to grasp something.
Flinch.
Jin-Woo now could see the sight of the silver-armoured soldiers flinch and
start to back away in fear. The intolerable stillness that stifled one’s breaths
pressed down on the shoulders of every single being under the heavens.
And soon….
The Sovereign’s solemn voice shattered that stillness.
[Rise up.]
< Chapter 159 > Fin.
Chapter 160: Chapter 160
Ba-thump.
His heart beat louder just then.
‘Rise up.’
The ripple generated from those two words spread out at a frightening speed
and roused up the shadows. The battlefield dyed in the colours of monsters’
blood roiled and tumbled in black waves.
Uwaaaahhh-!!
The Shadow Soldiers leaping out of the ground roared out in what could have
been either loud cheers or screams of horror. They then shifted their
blackened eyes towards their enemies.
Those eyes carried not one trace of fear towards their enemies now.
For the silver soldiers of the skies supposed to deal with this new army, the
scene before them was worthy of sending cold shivers down their spines. Too
bad for them, the Sovereign’s powers didn’t stop there.
[Wuoooohhhhh-!!]
The Sovereign bellowed heavily towards the skies. That powerful roar didn’t
attack the eardrums of the listeners, but directly shook their hearts, instead.
Hearts, legs, and even the ground shook from his roar.
The land began crying as its response.
Jin-Woo didn’t need a lot of time to figure out what that roar was meant for.
Because… the Shadow Soldiers raised their weapons up high and roared
alongside as well.
WUUUOOOOHHH-!!
Just that single roar alone, and the Shadow Soldiers all transformed into
completely different beings in an instant.
From this corner of the land, all the way to the other side - the dead monsters
were instantly reorganised into Shadow Soldiers.
Jin-Woo had been quietly observing this process while holding his breath. A
powerful shudder ran through his entire body from the combined roars of the
Shadow Soldiers.
Ba-thump!!
His heart loudly beat again.
If this scene was supposed to demonstrate the true pinnacle of the Shadow
Sovereign Class, then it certainly succeeded in letting him know just how
much further he still had to walk to get there.
Eventually, the soldiers of the sky stopped hesitating and began moving
again. They gathered into one large mass, and like a gigantic swarm of bees,
descended on the black soldiers below.
However, the monsters that were reborn as Shadow Soldiers didn’t fall as
easily as before.
Weapons clashed against weapons.
Soldiers collided against soldiers.
The silver army and the black army got tangled up on top of this expansive
land.
Explosions rang out constantly, and the ground quaked over and over again.
The battle that should have ended as a one-sided massacre reverted back to
full-on warfare.
Just the entrance of a single individual had changed everything. Now that was
the display of truly shocking power. Jin-Woo didn’t know why this scene was
being shown to him, but nevertheless, he found himself unable to tear his
eyes away from it.
The violent, fierce clash continued on.
A desperate and bloody engagement, incomparably fiercer and more violent
than the first battle that took place, unfolded before his eyes.
Monsters were unable to contend with a single soldier of the sky while they
were still alive, but after becoming Shadow Soldiers, they were now able to
stand their ground and not get pushed back.
But, well, the truly terrifying thing about these Shadow Soldiers weren’t their
fighting spirit or their combat potentials.
The soldiers of the sky drove the Shadow Soldiers back with their powerful
attacks and excellent martial prowess. The ferocity of the Shadow Soldiers
that rebelled against death itself wasn’t enough to bridge the gap of strength.
The balance of the battle seemed to tilt in favour of the soldiers of the sky
once more. However, the Shadow Soldiers regained their original
appearances almost right after they were destroyed.
Kuwaaahhk!
A Shadow Soldier writhed and screamed out as a spear belonging to a soldier
of the sky pierced through it.
The silver soldier sensed that its victory was near. It let go of its spear and
unsheathed the sword on its hips to slice off the head of its enemy, the
Shadow Soldier.
Slice!
However, right after the head flew off….
‘….!!’
The head of the Shadow Soldier falling to the ground and the headless body
all transformed into black smoke, before combining back to one form a couple
of steps away.
As the soldier of the sky flinched, the Shadow Soldier used the sword it held to
stab the chest of its silver-clad enemy.
Crack!!
The blade broke through the chest armour, dug into the internals, broke
through the back skin and emerged out in the open again.
The silver soldier of the sky powerlessly fell to the ground.
Plop.
As the light of life within the fallen silver soldier’s eyes faded away, someone’s
dignified voice entered its ears and woke it back up.
[Rise up.]
In an unknown instant….
The soldier of the sky discovered the black spear being held by its hands.
What came to visit this soldier wasn’t death, but a new beginning.
Its now-blackened eyes shifted towards other soldiers of the sky who used to
be its comrades only a few breaths ago.
Flinch.
When their gazes met, it saw the trembling shoulders of its former comrades.
Even then, the reborn soldier knew what it had to do.
“Wuuoooouhhh!!”
It joyously accepted the brand new fate bestowed upon it.
Jin-Woo tore his eyes away from these soldiers and took an overview of the
entire battlefield and its situation.
The battle taking place between the soldiers of the sky endlessly pouring out
from the Gates in the air, and the Shadow Soldiers reborn through the orders
of the Shadow Sovereign, was incredibly even.
Many poured out of the Gate to match the number of the dead, and just as
many stood up from the shadows to match the dead, too.
If war broke out in hell, would it resemble something like this?
Horrifying warfare that a human’s intuition couldn’t even properly tell what
would happen next breathlessly continued on in this vast land.
However, the balance between these two opposing sides broke in a single
instant.
The flow of the war shifted very quickly when the Shadow Sovereign stopped
issuing commands to his troops from far back and personally stepped forward
to enter the fray.
The black horse carrying the Sovereign dashed into the battlefield.
Whenever he swung his sword, thousands of enemy troops fell to create a
pathway. And the dead enemies, without an exception, became Shadow
Soldiers and stood back up.
Just one flick of the Sovereign’s hand and all those enemy soldiers flying
away to safety had their wings broken and they all crashed back down to
earth.
‘Ruler’s Authority…..’
The areas the Sovereign dashed through got utterly swept away as if a storm
rampaged past there. For the first time ever since the two opposing camps
started clashing their weapons - the soldiers of the sky were being forced
back.
Hundreds of thousands, no, millions of silver-clad soldiers couldn’t deal with a
single enemy and were constantly pushed back.
Jin-Woo could only gasp out in admiration at this sheer marvellous spectacle.
He thought that the war would come to an end like this.
However…
Just as the Shadow Soldiers began pushing back the tides of the silver
soldiers of the sky, an ominous, eerie wind that was hard to describe in words
blew in from somewhere behind him.
Auras powerful enough to send a shudder down his spine rushed in.
The Sovereign temporarily disregarded the enemies to his front and looked
behind him. Two ginormous Gates had been generated in some place far
behind the Shadow army. Their sizes didn’t lose out to the ones floating up in
the air.
And from these two Gates, two disparate groups of monsters poured out in
droves. On one side, beast-type creatures being led by a wolf the size of a
mountain.
And from the other one, knights and soldiers rushed out with countless
banners proudly announcing their clans being waved about in their midst.
Jin-Woo’s eyes grew wider and wider.
‘Huh….??’
The clan crests embroidered on those banners were all familiar to him. From
Ricardo’s, Faestos’s, Rokan’s, Ingreyace’s, and even Radiru’s.
‘….Esil.’
Those crests belonged to the aristocratic clans of demons he ran into as he
was climbing up to the top floor of the Demon’s Castle.
His confusion regarding why those demons appeared here could only last for
a short while. The beasts and the demons began attacking the shadow
soldiers together as if they had a prior agreement.
The back line of the Shadow Soldiers was immediately torn up into shreds
from the combined assault of the two monster armies.
That wasn’t the end, however.
Their front was occupied by the soldiers of the sky, still alive and ready to
battle. These silver-clad beings changed their strategy and began striking
back once more.
The soldiers of the sky to the front and the armies of monsters at the back
surrounded the Shadow Soldiers in a pincer attack and closed in on them. The
flow of the battle had changed once more.
Ba-thump.
Jin-Woo grasped his chest tightly.
His heart was aching now.
His gaze slowly shifted towards the Sovereign standing next to him.
Why was this? Why could he sense the Sovereign’s emotions so clearly like
this?
Just like when he was reading the thoughts of his Shadow Soldiers, the
Sovereign’s emotions were vividly transmitted to him. The emotion welling up
thickly from the deepest depths of his heart was none other than indignation.
No, it had already exceeded past the level of indignation and into the territory
of pure wrath.
Now that they were surrounded by enemies from all sides, the Shadow
Soldiers had to endlessly repeat the cycle of destruction and regeneration.
Although they seemed to have possessed a never-ending power of recovery,
Jin-Woo too possessed the same ability and he knew its fatal weakness very
well.
‘It can hold up as long as there’s MP….’
When MP ran out, the Soldiers would not be revived again. Meaning, the
Sovereign wouldn’t be able to use his army again. He sensed the Sovereign’s
magical energy that felt bottomless and vast in the beginning, slowly reaching
its limit.
The Sovereign changed the direction of his mount away from the army of the
sky and towards his rear. His black horse kicked the ground and rushed
forward.
The ensuing battle was truly intense.
Corpses formed mountains. Blood formed oceans.
This conflagration called ‘war’ created by countless soldiers swallowed up
every single lifeform still standing on this land and continued on its horrific
path of destruction.
But, even then - this stubbornly persistent battle that didn’t seem to end was
slowly marching towards its inevitable conclusion.
Not too many remained standing on the battlefield now.
The Sovereign lost his mount during the battle. He wasn’t hindered in the
least, however. He cut down two demon knights blocking his path and stood
before a certain demon breathlessly panting away as it leaned against a
bizarre rock formation.
The demon’s face was hidden behind its helm, but the Sovereign seemed to
know its identity as he glared down at his feeble prey.
[We could have ended the war with them today.]
“…”
[But, why did you betray me?]
The demon weakly faltered its head, but it forced himself to look up. It had
already suffered grievous wounds and it seemed unlikely it’d be able to
survive its injuries.
The voice coming out from beneath the helm sounded precariously close to
being cut off.
“So…. regrettable. We could have ended you for good today, but….”
The Sovereign’s voice became even icier as he asked again.
[I said, why did you betray me?]
“Keuk, keuk.”
The demon’s shoulders trembled as it painfully cackled, before it raised its
head up again. And then, it replied.
“#$%#^#%#%@$.”
For some reason, Jin-Woo couldn’t properly hear that answer. Did he lose his
concentration and miss it somehow?
No, that wasn’t it.
“@$^$##.”
The demon said something else, but he still couldn’t understand a single word
of it.
However, it must’ve sounded different to the Sovereign’s ears, because as
soon as he heard the reply, he extended his hand out and sucked the demon
in. The creature spat out a pained moan as its neck was tightly grasped by the
Shadow Sovereign.
“Keo-heok.”
Crumble!
The piece of armour protecting the neck crumpled up. Even in the middle of
this, the demon continued to say the things it wanted to say.
“….%^&*$@%^&.”
Stab.
The Sovereign’s thumb plunged into the throat of the demon.
Cough!
The demon spat out a mouthful of blood. And that was precisely the moment
when his gaze met with the demon’s eyes staring back from within that helm.
But, how could this be?!
Jin-Woo freaked out and let go of the dying demon’s neck.
Plop.
Its life had ended by then and its body limply crumpled to the ground.
‘But, that doesn’t make any sense.’
Those eyes in hidden in the helm - he had seen those eyes before. But, such
a thing could not have happened.
Ba-thump!
His heart began pounding madly now.
Jin-Woo shook his head hard and cautiously approached the dead demon to
take its helm off. Even in death, the creature was maintaining the same glare it
shot him back when it was still alive.
How could he ever forget that glare?
The removed helm fell out of Jin-Woo’s hands and clattered to the ground.
Clang.
The wide-open eyes of the demon were still filled with the light of pure rage. It
was the exact same light he saw back on the top floor of the Demon’s Castle.
‘The Demon King… Baran?!’
The moment he realised this fact, he also discovered one more strange thing.
He saw his hands decked out in black armour. He then saw his feet, his legs,
and his own chest. From a certain point in time, he had been using the
Shadow Sovereign’s body as his own.
Ba-thump, ba-thump, ba-thump!!
The pounding beats of his heart grew even heavier and louder, assaulting his
eardrums. Jin-Woo placed his hand where his heart was.
Ba-thump, ba-thump, ba-thump!
His eyes grew wider and wider.
‘How… How come I haven’t noticed it until now?!’
He had grown more conscious of his own heartbeat after surviving the events
of the underground temple. Even then, he had failed to notice it until now.
Jin-Woo’s trembling hand moved to the right side of his chest. He sensed the
tremor there. One coming from the left, and then another coming from his
right.
Ba-thump!
Two hearts were issuing exact same sounds.
His shock-filled eyes were lowered immediately, but then, he discovered four
shadows on the ground, slowly growing larger. Some things were approaching
him from above. His head hurriedly rose up to the skies.
And, right above his head…
Four angels with six wings each were slowly descending towards him.
The ‘memory’ lasted only up until then.
Tti-ring.
Along with that mechanical beep, darkness blinded him again.
He heard the clear, concise voice of the System as his consciousness grew
further away.
[Playback of the saved data has concluded.]
< Chapter 160 > Fin.
Chapter 161: Chapter 161
Telling the Master of a Guild that best represented the Republic of Korea to
show up before a rank C Gate?
When he got the call from Section Chief Woo Jin-Cheol, Choi Jong-In initially
wasn’t feeling too pleased by its contents. He even thought about not
bothering to go there personally and simply send out an assault team
consisting of just a handful of higher ranked Hunters.
However, he heard the detailed explanation next, and he had no choice but to
personally make the move.
‘Hunter Seong Jin-Woo had entered the dual dungeon by himself?’
The dual dungeon alone was enough to draw his attention, but now, Hunter
Seong Jin-Woo was in there, too? How many Guild Masters, no, Hunters out
there would remain aloof and unimpressed after hearing those revelations?
At Chief Woo Jin-Cheol’s urgent request that emphasized time was of the
essence, Choi Jong-In immediately delayed the raid they were preparing to go
on and summoned the elite Hunters.
“We received a request for assistance from the Association. Looks like we will
have to get involved on this one.”
Hunters began whispering to each other because these people knew very well
through experience, that this sort of summons only happened in extraordinary
circumstances.
And the fact that the Hunters Guild had to be summoned, who were just about
to raid a rank A Gate - was there a need to even mention the seriousness of
the occasion?
On top of this, these Hunters also had to hear about the breaking news
coming out from Japan not too long ago, so the commotion within them could
only grow larger.
“Did something happen?”
The woman who possessed the second highest authority behind Choi Jong-In
as the Vice-Chair of the Guild, asked her boss for clarification. He looked back
at Cha Hae-In and replied.
“A dual dungeon was found within a rank C Gate.”
‘A dual dungeon?’
Cha Hae-In tilted her head in confusion.
Of course, it was not everyday one gets to hear about a dual dungeon. A
dungeon found within another one - there was no way such a thing could
happen all the time.
However, the Hunters Guild was being summoned because there was another
dungeon attached to a measly rank C Gate? It was hard to understand from a
common-sense point of view.
Choi Jong-In still got ready to move out regardless of her puzzled stare but
still spoke to her to dispel her confusion.
“It sounds like Hunter Seong Jin-Woo is fighting something inside all by
himself. Since it’s none other than that Chief Woo Jin-Cheol from the
Association requesting us for assistance, and he sounded rather frightened
out of his wits too, so… Hunter Cha? What’s the matter?”
Choi Jong-In asked her after spotting the abrupt change within her eyes.
“No, it’s nothing.”
“…..Well, yeah. It’s Hunter Seong we’re talking about, so nothing serious
would happen to him, but still, let’s go take a look anyway.”
Nod.
Cha Hae-In nodded her head, and other Hunters listening in on their
conversation also quickly packed their gear and got ready. Their gear
consisted entirely of weapons they were to use within the raid, but that didn’t
mean they could be lackadaisical with their preparations.
“Uh? Why is there one person mis…”
A Hunter was taking the headcount, but someone lightly tapped on his
shoulder. He looked behind to see who it was, and his colleague was pointing
at a certain corner with his chin. A man with a devastated face was on his
knees there.
“…Suzuki?”
“Leave him be.”
“Ah…..”
That Hunter immediately understood it.
Suzuki was a Hunter who got scouted recently and left Japan for a life here in
South Korea. It was only obvious that he couldn’t tear his eyes away from his
smartphone that kept issuing breaking news one after the other regarding the
dungeon break taking place in his home country.
“We gotta do what we gotta do. Let’s get going.”
“Ah, yes.”
Two Hunters let Suzuki be and climbed aboard the Hunters Guild’s private
van.
And so, vehicles carrying the elites of the Hunters Guild quickly travelled
towards their new destinations.
***
“Argh, hot, hot!!”
A reporter named Kim freaked out and hurriedly discarded the cigarette butt.
The ground beneath was sand, but still, his foot stomping on the butt to kill it
carried all of his bared emotions.
That lasted only for a little while, though. This was no time to waste his
attention on some stupid cigarette butt.
Reporter Kim’s gaze returned to the parked vans again. He thought that every
single person climbing out of those vehicles looked familiar, but when he took
a second look, weren’t they the top elites from the Hunters Guild??
He didn’t even notice that his fingers were getting burnt off while he was
searching for all the famous aces in that Guild.
‘Choi Jong-In and Cha Hae-In? Yun Jeong-Ho too? Uh, uh?? Even Sohn KiHoon’s here?’
With these folks here, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the top faces
of the Hunters had all shown up. He chased after Woo Jin-Cheol without a
plan to speak of, but to think, he’d stumble into a location filled with such
bigshots like this?
And, the Gate in question was only a rank C.
Reporter Kim swallowed his nervous saliva. He couldn’t even begin to imagine
just what was going on inside there right now.
Section Chief Woo Jin-Cheol would normally let the cat out of the bag pretty
easily, but even he shut his mouth tightly while saying that it was top secret.
So, Kim didn’t have much of a choice but to suck on one cigarette after
another to soothe his anxious mind.
Indeed, butts he discarded since a while ago formed a small mound near his
feet.
Woo Jin-Cheol paid no heed to Reporter Kim’s longing expression and
hurriedly approached Choi Jong-In. The latter couldn’t tear his eyes away from
that Gate, just like how the former had reacted earlier.
“What the f*ck…?! D*mn it…! What the hell is that thing??”
Cusses jumped out all on their own from Choi Jong-In’s mouth. That was how
ominous the aura emitted from the Gate was.
Unlike Woo Jin-Cheol, who possessed exceptionally good senses for a meleetype Hunter, Choi Jong-In was South Korea’s most powerful Mage.
After Baek Yun-Ho and his ‘Eyes of the Beast’, as well as Seong Jin-Woo and
his otherworldly level of sensory perception, one could confidently say that
Choi Jong-In was the best in the country when it came to sensing the flow of
magical energy.
“Can you do it?”
That’s how Woo Jin-Cheol framed his question. Choi Jong-In didn’t miss the
subtext of ‘It was impossible with just us’ in that question.
He replied with a bitter expression.
“You said that Hunter Seong Jin-Woo is inside, yes?”
“Yes, that’s been confirmed.”
Nod, nod.
Choi Jong-In nodded his head gravely.
But, of course. If it wasn’t him, who’d be capable enough to participate in a
fight of this scale? No, who else besides him was capable of defending
against an opponent that emitted this much magical energy?
“Is he trying to save this planet all by himself or something?”
He meant to say that in his head but his words still came out of his mouth in
the end.
Rather than asking for the clarification, though, Woo Jin-Cheol simply nodded
his head with a heavy expression. To him, that sounded quite plausible.
“Whether we can do it or not, we still need to go inside anyway. We owe a
debt to Hunter Seong, after all.”
If the monsters inside were something that couldn’t be stopped by the
combined might of Hunter Seong and the Hunters Guild, then no one else in
South Korea could stop them. Meaning, there would be no second opportunity
if they couldn’t kill the monsters by aiding Hunter Seong today.
‘What was that? Hunter Seong??’
Reporter Kim was standing a little further away and was doing his best to
eavesdrop, but after hearing something incredible, his eyes rapidly
transformed into a pair of round dots resembling those of a rabbit’s.
‘Hunter Seong is inside that Gate??’
Kim’s shocked gaze quickly shifted towards the Gate, before scanning the
vicinity around it.
There were two rank S Hunters here, and as for the number of rank As, he
had already lost count. But then, Seong Jin-Woo Hunter was inside that Gate,
too??
‘My, my…. my memo. Where’s my d*mn memo pad?!’
Reporter Kim’s nose picked up on the trail of a huge scoop and hurriedly
sought out his memo pad.
From this point onwards, he could not afford to miss a single word muttered
nor a single event happening before him. He found himself with a god-sent
opportunity to report on a massive scoop involving three rank S Hunters as
well as the Association itself when everyone else was too busy with the events
taking place in Japan.
‘That’s why Chief Woo kept his mouth shut, wasn’t it?’
Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s private information was a closely-guarded secret, not
to mention he was a super VIP under the special supervision of the Hunter’s
Association.
Kim now could understand the reason why Woo Jin-Cheol was not willing to
talk about what was going on here.
While Woo Jin-Cheol and Choi Jong-In were sharing a brief conversation, the
elite assault team had finished getting ready. The Tankers picked up their
defensive armaments, damage dealers picked up their weapons, and Healers
held on to magic tools filled with magical energy.
As befitting the top Guild in the country, their preparation was quite fast.
Choi Jong-In briefly exchanged glances with Cha Hae-In and nodded his
head. Cha Hae-In swept her gaze over the rest of the team once and nodded
her head as well. That meant that the preparation and inspection were
finished now.
The elites of the Monitoring Division had already finished their preparations a
while ago. Woo Jin-Cheol received confirmation from his subordinate and
turned around to face the others with a heavy expression.
“Let’s get going.”
***
The passage before them was incredibly long.
They moved at the fastest speed they could afford, but they didn’t break into a
full-bore running. Even if they were all nominally high-ranked Hunters, their
individual running speeds were vastly different, that was why. Among them,
Cha Hae-In was especially fast.
She was about to run ahead, but Choi Jong-In next to her grasped her wrist in
a hurry.
“Hunter Cha. What do you think you’ll achieve by going there alone?”
“…”
He understood that she wanted to go and save Seong Jin-Woo from danger,
but if she went ahead, the whole team might end up falling into grave danger,
instead.
“If we try to keep up with your speed, there’s a good chance that the entire
team might become disorganised, instead.”
Cha Hae-In’s expression hardened as she stood still, but eventually, she
returned to the rear of the team. Woo Jin-Cheol watched her make her way
back and whispered softly to himself.
“I guess the rumour was true.”
“Pardon?”
Woo Jin-Cheol mumbled some excuses out when Choi Jong-In questioned
him.
“Ah… No, it’s nothing important.”
Choi Jong-In tilted his head slightly but shifted his gaze back to his front
anyway. The ominous magic energy that caused goosebumps to break out on
his skin was still flooding out from the deepest part of this dungeon.
He had to keep his wits about him here.
He also thought that it’d be the same story for Hunter Seong Jin-Woo who had
entered in here ahead of everyone else.
‘I pray we aren’t too late….’
For the time being, there was nothing he could do to help other than pray for
Hunter Seong’s safety - while moving as quickly as they could without
lowering their vigilance, of course.
However, it was also true that too much tension would in turn dull one’s body,
as well. In order to dispel some of this tension, he engaged Woo Jin-Cheol in
a conversation.
“How did Hunter Seong come across this place, anyway?”
“I also don’t know the details. But, by piecing together what the people making
the reports said, it seems that Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim knew that this Gate
was a dual dungeon even before entering it.”
“H-mm.”
Choi Jong-In’s expression became circumspect. This time, it was Woo JinCheol who asked the question.
“By any chance, can you think of something suspicious?”
“No, it’s not that, but….. Just that, this feels quite strange, doesn’t it?”
“Strange as in how?”
“I did some research on Seong Hunter-nim in the past, you see.”
Choi Jong-In was a Master of a huge Guild. It was his duty to build a Guild
with highly capable individuals, so it was only obvious that he’d hold an
extreme amount of interest towards Jin-Woo.
“There was an event similar to this, wasn’t there?”
Woo Jin-Cheol did personally investigate the event Choi Jong-In was talking
about so, he indeed knew a lot about that incident. He quickly figured out what
the Master of Hunters Guild was trying to say here.
Less than half a year ago, Hunter Seong Jin-Woo experienced going into a
dual dungeon. And now, after all this time, he sought after another one and
entered it.
Those who knew this truth would not see today’s event as a mere
coincidence. Just like how Woo Jin-Cheol had predicted, Choi Jong-In’s next
words were about that.
“Experiencing dual dungeons twice by himself, when it’d be near impossible
for anyone to see it once in their lifetime… Not just that, he willingly walked
into the second one on his own volition? Don’t you find that strange?”
Woo Jin-Cheol didn’t immediately make his reply.
Just as Choi Jong-In had alluded to, many things about Hunter Seong were
shrouded in a veil of mystery. The dual dungeon. The Re-Awakened. And
possessing a unique ability.
However, there was one indisputable fact, and that would be Seong Jin-Woo
being utterly indispensable to the Association, no, the entire nation of South
Korea.
And that was why Woo Jin-Cheol requested the Hunters Guild for their
assistance without waiting for the clearance from the higher-ups when he
found out that Hunter Seong had walked right into this Gate.
No matter what, they had to secure Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s safety. It’d not be
too late to ask him the necessary questions afterwards.
Woo Jin-Cheol swam inside his thoughts, before raising his head.
‘So, over there…..’
The distance that would have taken nearly one hour for regular Hunters to
cross was bridged in less than ten minutes by the rapid marching of these
high-ranked Hunters. They could finally see the end of this cave in the far off
distance.
“Looks like we’re here.”
“Yes, I can sense it.”
Indeed, they could sense something horrifyingly massive in there. Choi JongIn’s face stiffened hard as he replied. The colour of blood was slowing draining
out of his complexion right now.
The only consolation he could think of right now was the fact that he could
also sense Hunter Seong Jin-Woo’s presence.
‘As long as Hunter Seong is fine, it’s okay.’
Combining his abilities with the support from these elite Hunters, they’d win
regardless of what the monsters within this dungeon were like. Choi Jong-In
assured himself with that line of thought and called out to the rest of the team.
“Let’s hurry!”
The elite Hunters from the Hunters Guild and the Association rushed past the
massive doorway reminiscent of an ancient castle.
And then….
The sight waiting for them beyond was a spectacle none of them had ever
seen before during their lengthy and illustrious careers as Hunters.
“This… What on earth is this….?”
“What the hell is this place?!”
First, they found innumerable destroyed stone statues strewn about the floor.
Their debris was piling up into small hills all over the place.
“Look, look!!!”
One of the Hunters raised his finger high up.
And in the direction his finger was pointing at, everyone could see a truly
gigantic statue of an unknown god standing frozen still, its hands interlocked
in the gesture of slamming down. Its head, with half of its face blown away,
especially caught their attention.
Woo Jin-Cheol’s heart began racing like crazy as he remembered the
testimonies of the survivors from the previous dual dungeon incident.
‘It was all real… the god statue and the stone statues were all real…!!’
The survivors all said the same thing - that this place was filled with a
monstrous god statue that could melt down a rank C Hunter with nothing but a
glare from its eyes, as well as countless stone statues whose movements
couldn’t be picked up by the naked eye.
This whole open area was pockmarked with clear signs of desperate battle
having taken place recently.
‘Wait a minute. Where is Hunter Seong Jin-Woo?’
It looked as if all the enemies had been eliminated already. Their priority was
to confirm the status of Hunter Seong Jin-Woo.
Choi Jong-In shifted his head this way and that to locate Jin-Woo’s presence,
and eventually found him.
“He’s over there.”
Jin-Woo was quietly lying on his back just below the god statue as if he was
asleep.
“Seong Hunter-nim!!”
Hunters were about to run to his side, but this time, it was Cha Hae-In’s turn to
raise both of her arms to stop them in their treks. Feeling urgent now, Woo
Jin-Cheol turned to look at her.
Her rather shapely facial features were soaked completely from cold sweat
right now.
“Cha….. Hunter-nim??”
She bit her lower lip and spoke up.
“Over there… there’s something over there.”
It was then. A certain stone statue kneeling next to Jin-Woo slowly stood up.
The wings on its back were all torn up, and it only had one remaining arm.
“I don’t remember inviting you humans in here.”
The angel statue stood up completely and swept its gaze over at the Hunters
intruding into the temple. The corner of its lips suddenly arched up.
< Chapter 161 > Fin.
Chapter 162: Chapter 162
“Ah…..”
They all became utterly speechless. There could not have been a more fitting
description than that.
Choi Jung-Hoon forgot what he wanted to say. But, he was certain of
something. The origin of that ominous energy he sensed before entering this
Gate was that living sculpture.
The magic energy leaking out of that thing was so great that the space
surrounding the d*mn creature seemed to twist around in his view.
He was simply staring at it from far away, yet goosebumps were breaking out
on his entire body.
Glance.
His gaze was redirected towards Jin-Woo.
It made some sense to see someone as strong as Hunter Seong lying
unconscious if he had been in a battle against a ‘thing’ like that.
No, hold on.
Fighting against such a ‘thing’ while also finding enough leeway to destroy all
these other enemies - the stone statues - was only possible precisely because
it was Hunter Seong Jin-Woo and not someone else.
He felt nothing but admiration in his heart. However….
‘It’s our turn to fight against such an opponent now.’
A thick drop of sweat slid down the side of his face and stopped on his chin.
The strength of this one monster easily exceeded that of the mutated ant that
appeared on Jeju Island. No, it was unknown whether this enemy was really a
monster or not, to begin with.
Gulp.
His dry saliva painfully slid down his throat.
Choi Jong-In glanced to his side and found that the complexions of Cha HaeIn and Woo Jin-Cheol were utterly pale from fright as well. These two had also
figured out the depths of the enemy’s power and were in the middle of
inwardly freaking out.
On the other hand, the Hunters behind them were getting surprised by
something else entirely.
“That thing… did that thing just speak??”
“Wait, I didn’t hear incorrectly just now, did I?”
“A monster can speak our language?”
Hunters exchanged glances with one another, their faces filled with incredulity.
Something like this seemed impossible.
It was already public knowledge that the monsters with intelligence spoke the
language of their own.
Back when these Gates began appearing for the first time, some tried to learn
the language of the monsters. Of course, their attempts all ended in failure.
The sole reason for that was the violent tendencies of the monsters. Monsters
captured alive through great difficulties couldn’t seem to endure being around
humans the longer they remained in contact.
Even if their entire bodies were restrained, they tried to rampage around trying
to attack humans – even when under the intense pain of their flesh being
ripped apart and their bones snapping in half. In the end, either they were
killed off by their human captors, or died naturally after being unable to win
against the tides of their rage.
– It is impossible for monsters and humans to coexist. It is also impossible to
communicate with them.
This was the unanimous conclusion reached by the scientists researching
monsters from all over the globe, one they were completely certain of.
However, the monster in front of their eyes was speaking in Korean as if it was
the most natural thing in the world.
A monster that could be seen as the find of the century had made its entrance,
but for some reason, these Hunters all felt this inexplicable sense of dread in
their hearts.
That was the warning bell rung by the primal instinct only detectable by the
first-class Hunters such as these people.
Flinch.
The angel statue took one step forward, causing the trembling Hunters to
hurriedly back away. The creature slowly shifted its gaze left to right as if to
appreciate the sight of these humans and their expressions of fear and terror.
“Oh, strong humans.”
The statue spoke up as it began looking at the Hunters with the eyes of
someone finding a delicious snack.
“It seems that there are no shortages for the first sacrifices prepared for the
king.”
If a snake could smile, would that be as disgusting as the one on this
creature? The movements of the Hunters froze stiff from the smile forming on
the angel statue’s face.
‘….The king?’
Could there have been yet another monster here?
Choi Jong-In’s head slanted to the side briefly, but too bad for him, now wasn’t
the time to dissect what the monster was saying.
The angel statue ripped up the arm of one of the stone statues strewn about
on the floor.
Crack!!
‘What is it trying to do?’
Hunters and their confusion didn’t last for long. It placed the torn arm in its
right shoulder socket that was already missing a limb, and the two parts
suddenly began fusing by themselves.
‘Heok…!’
As the Hunters gasped out in astonishment, the angel statue moved the
newly-regenerated arm around this way and that. It was then.
Shooph.
The statue suddenly appeared before the Hunters. They didn’t even have any
time to respond. The angel statue took a swing with its right arm. The face of
the Hunter standing in front of the group was crushed inward.
Peo-geok!!
The Hunter and his crushed face flew backwards and slammed into the wall.
Other Hunters nearby threw out urgent counterattacks, but by then, the angel
statue was already gone.
“Where…?!”
“Over there!!”
The creature was now standing on the same spot as before as if it never
made a move in the first place. As a matter of fact, it was busy fidgeting with
its newly-attached right hand and its fingers. It looked like it was testing out
whether its new limb was functioning properly or not.
“M-Myung-Cheol-ah!!”
“Euh, uwaaaahh!!”
Hunters belatedly discovered the casualty among them and began crying out
in anguish. He was killed instantly. A rank A Tanker working for South Korea’s
best Guild had died in a single hit.
Choi Jong-In’s eyes as he stared at the angel statue began shaking unsteadily
now.
‘Hunter Seong Jin-Woo fought against such a thing all by himself…?’
Rather than the pain of losing one of his comrades, his mind was overcome
with this hopeless sense of vagueness at not knowing how to break out of the
current situation.
Unfortunately, not everyone was capable of rational thought process like Choi
Jong-In.
“You son of a b*tch!!”
One of the female Hunters, the lover of the deceased Hunter, screamed out
and dashed forward in anger. A pair of flames were burning brightly in both of
her hands as she did so.
Just as she was about to launch those flames, someone grabbed her wrists
from behind. The female Hunter looked to her side and discovered that Cha
Hae-In had approached her before she noticed it. The female Hunter shook
her arm and yelled out.
“Let me go!”
“Unni, you must hold it back.”
“I said, let go of me, right now!!”
“Please, you gotta hold it back!”
The female Hunter glared straight at Cha Hae-In’s face. The latter carried a
grave but determined expression as she bit her lower lip.
“I’m also holding back, you know….”
Cha Hae-In’s hardened expression caused the female Hunter to stop writhing
around in anger. Because… even she knew it was unwise to agitate a
monster that no longer showed any interest in their group after making that
initial attack.
It was just that, she found it nearly impossible to hold herself back. Someone
she loved was met with a horrific death, yet she was unable to do anything.
The female Hunter began sobbing under her breath.
“Heuk….”
Once she stopped displaying hints of making a rash decision, Cha Hae-In
shifted her attention over to Jin-Woo lying on the ground far away. The female
Hunter wasn’t the only one holding herself back, indeed.
For some reason, the monster had stopped attacking the group. And Jin-Woo
looked unhurt as he continued to breathe normally. His expression was
peaceful, as if he was simply asleep right now.
‘For now…’
….She and others had to buy as much time as possible until Jin-Woo woke
up. That was the best they could do.
It was then.
The angel statue moved its body this way and that before laughter abruptly
broke out from its lips.
“Haha.”
The empty interior of the underground temple was suddenly filled up with the
echoes of the angel statue’s voice. It kept its laughter short and shifted its
gaze over to the Hunters.
“Well now, should I get the fun started?”
The colour of the angel statue’s eyes suddenly reddened up.
Was that the beginning of the assault? The Hunters strengthened their grips
on their chosen weapons and prepared for battle.
If it was only one… if it was only one enemy, couldn’t they be able to do
something here? Not only did they have two rank S Hunters present, but there
were also dozens of top local Hunters gathered here at the moment, too.
As such an optimistic outlook quickly raced past the minds of the Hunters, this
happened.
Dududududududuk.
Suddenly, an earthquake broke out inside this huge, open chamber.
“Ah…. No, this can’t be….”
The dark shadow of despair drew upon the faces of the Hunters. The broken
stone statues were beginning to stand up one by one, that was why.
The b*stards without heads, b*stards with holes in their chests, and even
b*stards with limbs missing all began standing up. But the absolute worst
among them all was the statue of the unknown god that could only be
described as truly gigantic.
“….Oh, my god.”
The god statue and the stone statues were standing upright and glaring at the
Hunters as if they had never been destroyed in the first place. Their
expressionless faces only made the already creepy atmosphere that much
more bizarre.
Hunters began to backtrack a step at a time, only to run into something solid
behind their backs.
“Uh….?”
It was the door.
Even before they had realised it, the doorway to this once-empty arena was
closed shut tightly. It seemed that the angel statue had no thoughts of letting
these humans go at all.
The angel statue spoke to them.
“Those who manage to survive until all of my dolls have fallen will be given the
opportunity to witness the glorious rebirth of the king.”
The monster kept saying ‘king’ this and ‘king’ that for a while now.
‘Just what is it trying to say here?’
Woo Jin-Cheol’s brows creased up.
He just couldn’t understand the words the creature was busy spewing out.
However, one thing was for certain. He knew that this creature was trying to
kill everyone within the chamber.
He gritted his teeth.
He spent the last four years of his life in the Association.
He had faced plenty of hair-raising situations, but still managed to pull through
by bitterly struggling till the end. Today would not be any different. He wasn’t
planning to die as easily as the monster wanted him to.
‘Even I can’t make it out of here….’
At least, he’d try to save Hunter Seong.
His thoughts reached there and he glanced at Jin-Woo. Rather coincidentally,
the angel statue also pointed at the youth lying unmoving on the ground.
“This person was able to destroy all my puppets in less than five minutes.”
The pointed finger of the angel statue was then locked onto the rest of the
Hunters.
“How many minutes will it take for all of you to die today, then?”
Just as the words of the angel statue came to an end, Woo Jin-Cheol cried out
at the top of his lungs.
“Everyone, get down!!”
Hunters hurriedly bent down to the ground.
A red laser beam sliced right past just above their heads with almost no gap to
spare. The casualty was zero this time. It was almost a miracle in and of itself.
The red energy beam shooting out from the eyes of the god statue slowly
dissipated.
‘Ho-oh.’
The angel statue stared at the Hunters with eyes of some interest as it took a
step back. It seemed that these humans might be able to provide some fun
distraction before the king awakens.
“Pant, pant, pant.”
Woo Jin-Cheol panted out heavily. Cold sweat poured out from his pores.
If he hadn’t heard about the special trait of the god statue beforehand, would
he be able to survive that blast? His entire body shuddered from sheer horror.
Still, they managed to somehow live through the first attack.
Of course, that wasn’t the end.
‘No, it’s merely the beginning.’
Woo Jin-Cheol raised his head.
The stone statues were rushing towards them now. They were so quick that
only the high-ranked melee-type Hunters would be capable of following their
movements.
Fortunately, Woo Jin-Cheol was one of the very best within the rank A
Hunters. He rose up from his spot in an instant and while rotating his waist,
sent out a powerful punch. The specially-constructed glove slammed hard into
the face of a stone statue.
Boom!!
Woo Jin-Cheol’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
‘….??’
He genuinely believed that one punch would be enough. However, the stone
statue was unscathed.
Because he saw that one of this statue’s shoulders was completely destroyed
from an unknown attack, he ended up making a mistake on his enemy’s
durability. It was a gaffe he shouldn’t have made when thinking back to just
who it was that destroyed all these statues in the first place.
The stone statue’s face was pushed back only by a little bit, but it recovered
from the impact force almost right away and thrust forward the sword in its
hand.
‘Tsk.’
Woo Jin-Cheol inwardly clicked his tongue.
He threw that punch out without taking into consideration the possible
counterattack so he was unable to dodge. Besides, the enemy wasn’t slow
enough for him to evade at such a close distance, anyway.
But, then.
Ka-boom!!
A powerful explosion wrapped the statue up and it flew away.
Woo Jin-Cheol frowned and shook his head hard to recover from the buzzing
sensation in his ears. Only then did he get to hear the voice coming from his
side.
“Are you alright??”
It was none other than the ‘ultimate weapon’, Choi Jong-In. Woo Jin-Cheol
nodded once to express his gratitude. They simply didn’t have enough time to
leisurely share a conversation.
Boom!!
Because, the god statue began moving in earnest, and…
Dudududu-!!
…And, the stone statues had already arrived right before their noses by then.
“Chairman Choi!! Aggro skills don’t work against these things!!”
Tankers loudly cried out.
“What was that??”
Choi Jong-In’s expression hardened considerably. If the aggro skills didn’t
work on them, then these creatures would instinctively start targetting the
physically weakest Hunters present.
If the Healers were killed off first, then their line of defence would collapse in
no time at all. It was nigh impossible for them to fight against powerful
enemies without some sort of a defensive line to back them up.
Not only that….
Right behind these d*mn stone statues, the massive god statue was now
raising its equally massive fist as well.
‘Can we really get out of this place alive?’
Their situation was despairingly critical.
However, he still could think of one final method. And that would be waking up
the unconscious Hunter Seong.
The angel sculpture b*stard said it, didn’t it?
‘That thing said that Hunter Seong was able to destroy them all by himself. In
less than five minutes, too.’
Their situation could change greatly if his guess was correct and the only
reason why Hunter Seong lost to the angel statue was that he became too
fatigued from destroying all these stone statues.
Indeed, weren’t there dozens of first-class Hunters present here that could aid
Hunter Seong right now?
That is why….
‘I need to wake up Hunter Seong Jin-Woo.’
Flames alighted on Choi Jong-In’s hands. It was not for nothing that he was
called the ‘ultimate weapon’. Not only his firepower, but even his accuracy
didn’t lose out to any of the modern firearms.
It was now ‘sink or swim’ time.
Choi Jong-In fired the magic he cast in Jin-Woo’s direction.
Hunter Seong might experience some discomfort, but he wasn’t weak enough
to get injured greatly by this level of magic. But, if he did wake up from the
impact of the explosion, then the human Hunters would stand a good chance
of surviving this event.
‘That is why, please…!’
The flames flew towards their target while leaving behind a long trail.
However….
Boom!
The flames simply exploded on the torso of the angel statue that stepped into
the trajectory in the blink of an eye.
‘….??’
Choi Jong-In was greatly taken by surprise from the unexpected interference
from the angel statue and hurriedly raised his head.
Every muscle on the face of the angel was distorted unsightly until they
couldn’t be twisted any further to form a truly terrifying expression.
“How dare…..”
For the first time ever, the angel statue stopped smiling and bared its fangs.
“How dare you try to interrupt the slumber of the king!?”
< Chapter 162 > Fin.
Chapter 163: Chapter 163
The king? Who was?
Choi Jong-In couldn’t even begin to figure out heads or tails of what the angel
statue was saying and asked back in a daze.
“What did you just say….?”
However, the angel statue didn’t reply.
Would a human bother to converse with insects? The same principle applied
to the angel statue, too.
For now, it simply had to assume this form due to some unavoidable
circumstances, but it was still a superior creature nonetheless. It had no
thoughts of having a Q&A session with this insignificant human being.
If an insect proved to be annoying, swat it to death and that would be the end
of it.
The angel statue raised its fist up in the air and smashed it down like a
hammer. It descended at a super-high speed straight towards Choi Jong-In’s
head.
Swish-!!
Choi Jong-In’s heart tumbled down to the pit of his stomach. However, he
didn’t turn his head away. Do not give up, right up until the very last moment that was what he always told his teammates, after all.
Before the fist landed on top of his head, though, a flash of light streaked past
his eyes.
Boom!!
He opened his eyes to see the blade made out of pure light wavering in front
of his face. Choi Jong-In’s eyes went extra round.
“Hunter Cha?!”
Cha Hae-In was standing there, blocking the angel statue’s fist with the skill
‘Blade of Light’. If she was late even by a millisecond, Choi Jong-In’s head
would have been splattered into a gooey mess.
While he inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, she spoke to him in no uncertain
terms.
“I’ll take over from here, so please go help out other Hunters, Chairman.”
“Got it.”
Choi Jong-In went away and began providing support to other Hunters busy
battling the stone statues. Meanwhile, the angel statue stared down at Cha
Hae-In’s sword, now glowing with light, and its eyes quickly filled up with
curiosity.
“Haha.”
To think, there was yet another human besides Jin-Woo that could block its
attack.
“You are very amusing. Very amusing, indeed.”
The angel statue put more strength into its fist. Cha Hae-In’s knees bent down
slightly. She had managed to stop its attacks, but still, she was losing out in
terms of raw strength.
“Euh-euhk….”
A thin, weak moan leaked out of her finely-shaped lips. Her wrists began
trembling imperceptibly, as well.
“There, there.”
The angel statue smirked derisively and applied more and more power as if it
was turning up the heat on the stove. The ground beneath her feet shattered
and cracks spread out on the stone surface.
Just a single arm, yet it was laden with a nonsensical amount of power
already. Cha Hae-In bit her lower lip.
‘At this rate… I won’t be able to endure it.’
She determined that she’d not be able to last long at this rate, and focused all
of her strength in an instant and forced the angel statue’s fist back.
As expected of the explosive strength befitting Cha Hae-In, ranked as one of
the very best even among the rank S Hunters!
The angel statue smiled again as it was forced to take a step back.
“Haha.”
It considered her as a simple fun distraction, yet she managed to entertain the
statue beyond its initial expectations. It seemed that there was more
enjoyment to derive out of this human after all.
“Very good, very good.”
This time, magic energy began pooling on both hands of the angel statue.
Gulp.
Cha Hae-In swallowed down her dry saliva. An immense level of power was
oozing out from the clenched fists of the angel statue. She wanted to escape
from this place if that was at all possible right now. That’s how scared she felt.
‘However….’
With Jin-Woo lying on the ground unconscious, there would be no one
capable enough to face off against this monster if she were to turn her back
and run.
Her glare became even sharper than before.
In complete contrast to her, the angel statue grinned carefreely and took a
large stride forward to stand before her. The huge enemy nearly three metres
tall kept forming that loose grin. And then, the b*stard’s attacks commenced
for real.
Just like what it did against Jin-Woo, the angel statue punched out
indiscriminately with both of its fists. It was somewhat regretful that it now had
only two arms, but that was still more than enough for the level of this human.
The clenched fists rained down like a barrage of bullets.
Dududududu-!!
Cha Hae-In’s brows shot high up.
‘Sword Dance!’
Her movements quickened up significantly as if she was performing a dance,
and her sword drew stylish arcs in the air. Unfortunately, the punches of the
angel statue were far too quick and, instead of attacking back, she could only
defend herself desperately.
The flurry of fatal attacks rained down on her constantly, with each one
powerful enough to kill her if she made just one mistake.
Khang! Ka-gang!! Khang!! Khang! Khang! Khahang! Ka-gang! Khang, kahng!
Khang! Ka-gang! Khang! Khang! Khahang! Khang!
“That’s right. Right, like that. Haha.”
The angel statue was really enjoying itself as it continuously poured out the
types of attacks that regular Hunters would never be able to follow with their
naked eyes.
Cha Hae-In was being pushed back bit by bit, her entire body soaked in
sweat.
Was that why? Or did she finally reach her limit?
Her wet hands slipped and she missed one of the attacks from the angel
statue. It was a painful mistake on her part. Her sword failed to deflect the
punch, and it hit her on the shoulder before sliding past her altogether.
Pah-gahk!!
“…!!”
Cha Hae-In quickly retreated while gritting her teeth. Unfortunately, her bones
must’ve broke, because she couldn’t feel anything from her shoulder.
And so, she lost her left hand in that fashion. She looked at her limp left arm
with a dismayed, regretful gaze.
“Haha. So, is that all? Is that as far as you can go?”
The angel statue rapidly closed the distance again. The b*stard didn’t even
give her a small break. The attacks that were briefly paused for a moment or
two, rained down on her again.
Khang! Ka-gang! Khahang!!
She had trouble defending against these attacks when both of her arms were
still functioning. Therefore, having only one arm was simply not going to be
enough. She missed more and more attacks and gradually, her body got
destroyed.
Puhk! Puh-buck! Puhk!
Her bones broke, and her flesh tore away. And then, the deciding blow landed
on her.
Puhk!!
The angel statue’s fist dug deep into her lower belly, and her feet left the
ground. She coughed out a mouthful of blood.
“Keok!”
Her bent figure rose up in the air.
Obviously, her movements in the air would be restricted, and her preparation
to deal with the next attack would be left incomplete.
The angel statue had finally lost its interest with the broken toy at this point.
To finish the proceedings off, the angel statue approached the woman falling
head first to the floor. It straightened its hand into a blade and took aim at her
chest.
But then….
A wave of blue light suddenly surged out and enveloped Cha Hae-In.
She suddenly opened her eyes wide in the midst of powerlessly falling to the
floor. She rotated her body once and swung her sword, hard.
Flinch.
The angel statue quickly came to a stop and leaned its head back, but the tip
of the blade still managed to brush past its brow.
Slice.
A thin line was drawn on the face of the angel statue.
Taht!
Finally succeeding in landing a single counterattack, Cha Hae-In regained her
balance with some difficulty and landed back on the ground. Thanks to that
timely healing spell, she was able to somehow get out of that really sticky
situation.
She got really lucky on that one.
However, what was a fortunate event for Cha Hae-In didn’t prove to be as
fortunate for everyone else.
Swish!
The angel statue’s head swivelled in the direction where that healing spell
came in from.
‘D*mn it!’
Cha Hae-In quickly looked at the Healer and cried out.
“Get away from there!”
The main Healer standing behind the Tankers and casting various healing
magic spells until then heard her cries and flinched grandly.
“Pardon me?”
But, by the time he looked to where Cha Hae-In was, the angel statue was
blocking his line of sight already.
“Ah….”
The mouth of the main Healer went slack.
The angel statue unhesitatingly did what it wanted to do to Choi Jong-In
earlier.
BOOM!
The Healer’s head was smashed down straight into the ground. His legs
quivered and trembled for a short while, before ceasing their movements
altogether.
“Oh god, no!!”
The Hunters surrounded the angel statue and pounced at their enemy while
not even bothering to hide their rage. Unfortunately, they were going up
against an impossible force. Their measly strength couldn’t defeat the angel
statue.
Pow, pow!!
Every time the angel statue threw a punch, rank A Hunters died powerlessly
as if they were low ranked Hunters standing before a powerful monster.
“This is no fun. This is boring, humans.”
Now that the fun time was over, this superior being didn’t feel the need for
mercy anymore.
Once the number of Hunters standing towards the rear decreased, the line of
Tankers dealing with the god statue as well as the stone statues began
collapsing in no time at all.
It was pure pandemonium.
The balance of the engagement broke down in an instant.
Boom!!
The god statue avoided the Tankers and slammed its huge fist down, resulting
in the immediate death of two Hunters on the ground.
Afterwards, stone statues carrying weapons surrounded the Hunters with a
scary efficiency and began rushing forward.
‘God d*mn it….!!’
Cha Hae-In rapidly cut down four of the stone statues persistently sticking
close to the Hunters and pounced on the angel statue. No matter what, this
b*stard had to be stopped.
However, the angel statue lightly blocked her descending sword with its wrist
and kicked her unguarded side.
SLAM-!!
Now that the angel statue decided to get serious, she too could no longer be
considered its opponent anymore.
Having witnessed Cha Hae-In fly away helplessly like that, Choi Jong-In tightly
grasped the shoulder of Woo Jin-Cheol next to him. The latter had just
finished pounding one of the stone statues down to the ground and quickly
looked behind him in surprise.
“I’ll try to gather their attention to myself. Chief Woo, you go and wake up
Hunter Seong. That’s the only way.”
“Excuse me? But, I thought Seong Hunter-nim is unconscious because he
was defeated?”
“No, he’s not. He’s simply asleep. Both his breathing and the flow of magic
energy are stable. The way I see it, he’s not injured, either.”
Could it be that he got done in by sleeping magic or some such?
Choi Jong-In thought that the reason for the angel statue not allowing any
attack to fall on the sleeping Hunter Seong was probably because it didn’t
want the youth to wake up.
‘I don’t know anything about this king’s sleep or that, but….’
Choi Jong-In recalled the angel statue desperately moving to ‘protect’ Hunter
Seong. Without a doubt, the youth waking up would prove to be somehow
fatal to the monster.
“Hurry!”
Woo Jin-Cheol nodded his head.
Meanwhile, Choi Jong-In roused up every ounce of magic energy he
possessed.
Soon, a giant circular shaped mass of flames formed on top of his hand, and it
began spitting out countless sparks to all over the place.
Each of these sparks flying in a straight line caused powerful explosions to
resound out every time it touched an object.
Swish-!! Swish-!!!
Boom!! Ka-boom!! Boom!! Kwa-boom!!
Naturally, the attention of the stone statues was directed on Choi Jong-In.
While he was buying time in this fashion, Woo Jin-Cheol hurriedly ran to
where Jin-Woo was.
He prayed that Choi Jong-In’s estimation wasn’t off the mark.
Just as Choi Jong-In and Woo Jin-Cheol were doing their best to wake JinWoo up, the angel statue stood before Cha Hae-In as she lay on the ground
while panting heavily non-stop.
Every rib bone on one side of her body got broken when she was kicked just
now. She still tried to reach out and grasp the sword she had dropped.
However, the angel statue stepped on her arm before that happened.
Kwajeeck!
“Aaaaahk!!”
Cha Hae-In grabbed her broken arm and screamed out.
The angel statue had already killed off all those humans possessing the ability
to heal others, and this woman had received a grievous wound that disabled
her from fighting anymore.
This was the moment that the lone threat among the humans had been
eliminated.
“Haha.”
The angel statue formed a blade with its hand again.
“This is the end, then.”
The human female glared at the statue, her breathing still rough and heavy.
Everything was indeed over, yet she didn’t show one hint of giving up on her
struggle here.
She certainly resembled that man in this regard. That man named Seong JinWoo. When the angel statue met that man for the first time, he too carried
around those eyes.
Smirk.
The corner of the angel statue’s lips arched up, and it thrust its hand at Cha
Hae-In’s chest. No, it tried to. It had to stay its hand just before piercing into
her heart.
The angel statue flinched slightly and took a step back. Because… it only now
discovered that there was a lone Shadow Soldier hiding in her shadow.
Because of the rule in this chamber, that soldier couldn’t come out of her
shadow, but regardless, its existence was not in question.
Seeing the surprised face of the angel statue, Cha Hae-In formed a puzzled
expression of her own.
‘…..??’
That b*stard could’ve ended her at any time it wanted to, yet now, it looked
like it was hesitating somewhat.
Indeed, she was correct. The angel statue was really hesitating right now. This
was a human that the king had chosen to plant a soldier within her shadow.
Did he have a special plan for her?
Of course, there was a possibility that the human did this, not the king.
However….
‘Without a doubt - the king and the human are currently mixed as one,
although it is only by a small amount.’
In that case, how was the statue to know whether this action was from the will
of the king or from the will of the human? If the king had a plan and planted
the Shadow Soldier in her, then the statue knew it couldn’t carelessly touch
her.
That was why the angel statue asked the human female.
“Why did you come here?”
“….”
Cha Hae-In didn’t reply. When the silence deepened, the angel statue decided
to change the question.
“What is your relationship with Seong Jin-Woo?”
“….”
There was no reply from her, still.
Cha Hae-In knew very well that she had no obligation to answer her enemy’s
questions.
At this rate, it’d be impossible to make her talk. The angel statue figured as
much, thus deciding to change its tactic.
Snap.
The angel statue snapped its fingers. And that brought about the immediate
stop to the screams of the Hunters.
As if the god statue and the stone statues had received a command, they
stopped fighting all at once and slowly turned around, before walking to one
side of the chamber. Then, the angel statue extended its hand.
Woo Jin-Cheol, busy approaching Jin-Woo, was pushed down by the ‘invisible
hand’ and got planted on the ground.
“Keu-heuk!”
He tried his best to resist against the power pressing down on him from
above, but he couldn’t even move an inch. Woo Jin-Cheol’s tightly-clenched
fist trembled noticeably as pained moans escaped from his lips.
The angel statue pulled its hand back.
It didn’t miss a single movement taking place within the chamber. No matter
how much these humans struggled, they were all trapped within its palm,
anyway. That was the difference between the superior existence and these
measly humans.
It was almost impossible to bridge that gap.
“I shall ask again.”
The tip of the angel statue’s finger now pointed at Woo Jin-Cheol.
“If you do not answer me this time, I shall kill that man, as well as every single
one of your comrades.”
“….Fine.”
Cha Hae-In nodded her head.
If she could buy more time this way then that alone was already a good result.
The angel statue stared at her as she forced her upper torso up, and quietly
asked her.
“What is your relationship with Seong Jin-Woo?”
“….A friend.”
“And, why did you come here?”
She thought for a little while, before making her answer.
“To save Hunter Seong Jin-Woo.”
After hearing that answer, a deep smile formed on the face of the angel
statue. Just who was saving who now?
The statue was sure of it. These humans had no idea what was going on.
It felt embarrassed for even suspecting that the king had a plan for her. No,
these humans only knew about the human ‘Seong Jin-Woo’, and that’s why
they came knocking in this place.
The angel statue could no longer hold back and began guffawing out loudly.
And then, it spoke to her.
“I shall bless you with an opportunity.”
“….What opportunity?”
“Today, in this place, one of the noble Sovereigns shall descend upon this
world. I shall bless you with an opportunity to witness this glorious moment in
history.”
Until the angel statue could confirm the intention of the king, it couldn’t do
anything to Cha Hae-In. So, it had to keep her alive. However, she was the
sole exception and it didn’t plan on letting other humans live.
“But, every other human beside you….”
The smile was gone from the face of the angel statue, and its expression
became incredibly murderous.
“….Will die here today.”
Indeed, it wouldn’t do for all these uninvited pests to be present in this glorious
moment, would it? However, the reply didn’t come from the front but from the
back, instead.
“Says who?”
“…..?”
Before the angel statue could even turn around, a fist flew in and punched its
face, hard.
Ka-boom!
The statue flew away and crashed into the far wall.
BOOM!!
Cracks ran against the surface of the wall from the sheer impact force and
rubble tumbled down to the floor. Just before the angel statue could slide
down to the ground, Jin-Woo stood before the creature. He tightly grasped its
neck and growled at it.
“You.”
Jin-Woo’s other hand was pressing against his right chest.
Indeed, he wasn’t dreaming of it.
There was one more heart beating away within the right side of his chest. JinWoo clenched the neck of the statue even harder and asked.
“What the hell did you do to my body?”
< Chapter 163 > Fin.
Chapter 164: Chapter 164
For a moment then, within the recalled data, Jin-Woo had become THE
Shadow Sovereign. And that’s when he realised it.
He realised that there was another heart of magical energy beating within his
chest. He felt powerful surges of energy ceaselessly flowing out from this new
heart.
Could he have made a mistake? It was rather easy to confirm the truth,
actually.
‘Status Window.’
While keeping his hand firmly locked around the angel statue’s neck, he
summoned his Status Window. What he wanted to see out of the many listed
values in there was his current reserves of magic energy, which the System
had designated as ‘Mana Points’ or ‘MP’.
[MP: 109,433]
Jin-Woo’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
‘Over one hundred grand?!’
He confirmed the truth with his own two eyes, yet he still couldn’t believe it.
The last time he checked, he definitely only had around nine thousand or so.
He confirmed it before arriving here, so he couldn’t have made an error on
that one.
But now, it was over ten times greater?
However, that wasn’t the only surprising thing he discovered.
‘My Title has changed?’
As if to let him know of a big change that had taken place, the ‘Title’ column
was blinking continuously. He didn’t even change his Title, yet it had been
swapped out to something else.
And the new Title was ‘Demon Hunter’.
He had been putting this Title in the background because its information was
hidden from him until now. Jin-Woo quickly confirmed its newly unveiled info.
[Title: Demon Hunter]
‘You have satisfied its requirements.’
You have recovered the memories of defeating the King of Demons, Baran,
Sovereign of the White Flames. An immense power has acknowledged the
Player as its new owner.
Effect ‘Black Heart’: Additional MP +100,000
‘Black Heart!!’
This here was the reason why his MP reserves had shot up to a nonsensical
degree.
Additional MP of one hundred thousand - that was enough power to
regenerate his Shadow Soldiers almost infinitely.
Abruptly, Jin-Woo recalled the sight of the Shadow Sovereign from the
recalled data. The beings that fought against the silver soldiers blotting out the
entire sky were part of the immortal army led by that person.
They went through an endless cycle of destruction and revival while managing
to gradually overwhelm their enemies.
The silver soldiers, strong enough to easily suppress roughly the same
amount of monsters, couldn’t endure against the regenerative abilities of the
Shadow Soldiers and, in the end, were forced into retreat.
If it weren’t for the timely arrival of the reinforcements, those silver soldiers
would not have avoided the fate of being annihilated. And that was all due to
the bottomless amount of magic energy the Shadow Sovereign from the data
had possessed.
‘If that’s the case….’
‘….As long as I have the effect of this ‘Black Heart’, then my own Shadow
Soldiers can become the immortal army, too…’
When his thoughts reached that far, Jin-Woo’s entire body shuddered from the
shock.
“But how….. can you be….??”
Jin-Woo raised his head. A trembling voice was leaking out of the angel
statue’s mouth.
For the first time ever, Jin-Woo saw another expression besides that
disgusting smile or the one of anger from this statue’s face. The emotion
revealed by its new expression was clearly fear.
The angel statue looked at Jin-Woo with true fear and spoke as if it couldn’t
believe what had happened.
“How can you still retain your former ego, even with the Black Heart beating
within you?!”
‘What was that??’
Jin-Woo heard the creature’s mutterings and quickly realised two important
things.
One, the angel statue was definitely not responsible for this ‘Black Heart’
appearing within his body. Two, the result of it waking up within him shouldn’t
have ended well for him.
Crack!
Jin-Woo strengthened his grip on the angel statue’s neck, and deep cracks
formed on its neck.
“Keu-heuk!!”
The face of the angel statue distorted in pain.
“What is this ‘Player’ thing? What were you trying to do to me?”
Jin-Woo didn’t lower his vigilance, so he could shatter this thing’s neck at any
given moment. However, it seemed that the angel statue wasn’t of the right
mind to provide an answer.
“Could it be….?! Y-you, you d*mn Shadow Sovereign, you dare to… against
us….!! You think other Sovereigns will take this lying down?!”
The angel statue glared at Jin-Woo and kept muttering out some nonsense.
Crack!!
Jin-Woo’s fingers dug quite deep into the angel statue’s neck. If he simply
pulled his fingers back, the creature’s neck would shatter into pieces. The
enormous pain was transmitted in full to its real body somewhere.
“Keuaaahk!!”
The angel statue screamed to the high heavens.
“Answer my questions.”
That was why he went ahead and gained the right to ask for the result of the
test. So, it was only right that he demanded the promised rewards be handed
over.
At that time, red lights flashed from the angel statue’s eyes.
“Heok?!”
“What’s this??”
Jin-Woo heard the Hunters’ shocked cries and looked behind him.
“T-those things!!”
“They’re coming back!!”
Red lights were burning within the eyes of the god statue and the stone
statues that were moved to one corner of the chamber. And then, they began
moving again.
“Haha.”
The angel statue guffawed out loudly.
“If you kill me, no one will be able to stop my dolls.”
‘So, can you really kill me now?’ The angel statue glared at Jin-Woo with eyes
that screamed that question at him.
Inferior beings possessed far too many weak points. Since this man was also
human, this would be one of his weaknesses, too. Without a doubt, he’d have
the so-called friends among those humans. However, quite different from the
angel statue’s expectation, Jin-Woo suddenly formed a smile.
‘He’s… smiling?’
Jin-Woo asked the dazed statue.
“So, what will happen if I kill you first, and then destroy those dolls
afterwards?”
The angel statue hurriedly replied in a panic.
“If you kill me, the architect of the System….!”
“You know, I also thought about that.”
Jin-Woo cut the words of the angel statue off. The look in his eyes was rather
similar to what the statue had when it was looking at the human Hunters
earlier on.
“Here’s the thing. Just because the guy who created the System disappears,
that doesn’t mean the System will suddenly start breaking down, does it?”
The bluff was called.
This human already knew the truth that the angel statue deliberately failed to
mention.
This was a serious miscalculation on the angel statue’s part. It had forgotten
with what criteria this particular human being had been selected in the first
place. This man, even in the past, was capable of seeing through the set
rules.
‘If that’s the case, you’ve forced my hand!’
The angel statue activated the final hand it possessed.
Tti-ring!
[System has denied the System Administrator’s access.]
[System has denied the System Administrator’s access.]
[System has denied the System Administrator’s access.]
Tti-ring! Tti-ring!!
Several more mechanical beeps rang in his head. The exact same Message
repeated itself again and again, however.
[System has denied the System Administrator’s access.]
The face of the angel statue hardened considerably.
It attempted to use the System and do something to Jin-Woo, but
unfortunately, even the System itself had turned its back on the creature.
Jin-Woo shrugged his shoulders, causing the angel statue to go berserk in
rage.
“Uwaaaahk!! You b*stard!”
If this thing wasn’t going to answer, then….
‘….Then, no point in keeping you alive.’
Jin-Woo let go of the angel statue’s neck, but at the same time, injected
magical energy to his left fist and punched out.
KABOOM!!
The immense impact force broke past the angel statue and left behind a
massive crater on the wall behind it.
Guooooh….
For a moment there, silence filled the surroundings.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Jin-Woo bestowed an appropriate level of punishment to the angel statue that
tried to use him.
Not just its head, but the entirety of its upper torso had been obliterated. What
remained of the creature slid down against the wall and sunk to the ground.
‘It’s a bit regretful that I didn’t get to hear any answers, but…’
But, this thing was trying to deceive him from the get-go, anyway. Could he be
able to believe anything such a creature told him?
‘With this, it’s done.’
As if he was shaking off the regret, Jin-Woo lightly shook the dust off his left
hand. It was at this moment that he heard the desperate voice calling out to
him.
“Seong Hunter-nim!!”
“…Ah.”
Jin-Woo quickly turned around. He was far too focused on the angel statue
and had forgotten about the other stone statues. These things were
indiscriminately attacking the Hunters as ordered by the angel statue just
before its death.
“Hunter Seong!!”
Choi Jong-In pitifully sought out Jin-Woo as he used his magic to keep the
stone statues at bay.
Even then, even as he called out, these statues were still descending on them
in their droves like a black storm.
Pow!
Woo Jin-Cheol was struck in the chin by a stone statue and he unsteadily
staggered on his feet. He tried to maintain his balance with his faltering legs,
his eyes searching to his left and right.
He caught the sight of the blood and sweat belonging to his fellow Hunters
spraying into the air as they desperately mounted a resistance against the
monsters pouncing on them.
The inside of his head blanked out.
‘Wait. What was I doing just now?’
Ah.
When he regained his senses, the stone statue was already right in front of his
nose.
He confirmed just what had struck him on the chin just now. It was actually a
d*mn book with a thickness of several encyclopedias stacked together. Of
course, it was made out of stone so it was only obvious that his head would
spin like that.
‘No, hang on a minute… can a thick book be considered as a deadly
weapon?’
For a brief moment there, Woo Jin-Cheol recalled watching a certain televised
criminal law amendment process and smirked to himself. In any case, he no
longer possessed any strength to block the book, nor could he avoid it now.
He definitely didn’t have any strength left to throw a counter, either.
And that’s why he finally gave up with a wry smirk, but then….
Ka-boom!!
The stone statue’s head split into two and the monster was flung away as if it
got swept up in an explosion.
“Huh….?”
His mind abruptly woke up from that. He blinked his eyes and shook his head
to clear his mind, and finally spotted a familiar man standing next to him.
“Are you alright?”
“Ah…..”
Woo Jin-Cheol could only gasp out at that moment. That familiar man was
none other than Seong Jin-Woo.
Woo Jin-Cheol kept that look of surprise on his face as he managed to leak
out a question.
“By any chance, you only used bare hands to…..??”
“Let’s talk about the details later.”
Jin-Woo left behind the dazed Chief of the Monitoring Division and dashed
away to elsewhere. Even then, he never stopped searching and eventually, he
spotted a certain something reflecting the light just over yonder.
It was his missing ‘Demon King’s Shortsword’.
‘Found it!!’
Jin-Woo extended his hand out to the weapon. He activated the ‘invisible
hand’ and sucked his shortsword back into his grip.
Grab!
The sense of grip transmitted through his hand remained top-notch.
Boom!!
First of all, he kicked away an annoying stone statue blocking his path and
began slicing all the statues that had been tangling with human Hunters.
Fuu-woop.
In the midst of doing that, he took a deep breath.
Time slowed down greatly, but only he remained unbound and free. Right
afterwards, Jin-Woo seemingly vanished from the spot and, while using the
movement that not even the top-ranked Hunters could follow, he began
destroying all the stone statues.
Slice!!
Thud!!
Four stone statues fell apart simultaneously.
The Hunters who barely made it out alive thanks to Jin-Woo’s timely
intervention could only look on dazedly as their jaws dropped to the floor.
“Uh….?”
Woo Jin-Cheol eventually made his way next to these Hunters and quietly
spoke to them.
“That’s all you can think of, am I right?”
“….Yes.”
Hunters nodded their heads.
“Yes, I’m the same as you.”
Woo Jin-Cheol had seen this spectacle a few times by now, but even then, the
only thing coming out of his mouth was a gasp of astonishment. He grinned
wryly and placed a cigarette between his lips. A Hunter from the Monitoring
Division stood next to him.
“Chief, will it be alright for us to step back like this?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Right now, Seong Hunter-nim is still engaging the monsters…..”
The Hunter from the Monitoring Division turned his head towards Jin-Woo, but
even his jaw fell.
“Huh…..?”
Woo Jin-Cheol placed another cigarette in the slack mouth of this guy and
even lit up for his subordinate.
“Can you see how should we go about helping him?”
“No, sir… I can’t.”
“So, stay here and quietly smoke that.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Hunters gazed at Jin-Woo with eyes of awe but still, didn’t forget to swarm
around Woo Jin-Cheol. And as a result, his stash of cigarettes ran out very
quickly.
But, for some reason, his nose began stinging just a tad.
‘I can’t even remember how many times I nearly died in this place.’
He thought those monsters were a wall he could never overcome, no matter
what he tried. But now, seeing Jin-Woo single-handedly sweeping those
things away, the sense of relief and powerful emotion of delight were flooding
into his heart.
“Section Chief? Are you crying, sir?”
“No, I’m not, you idiot. It’s just this spicy cigarette. Okay?”
“Right. It’s also too spicy for me.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Me three.”
Maybe this batch of cigarettes tasted far too spicy for them today since
teardrops were clearly visible within the eyes of all these Hunters.
SLAM-!!
Sohn Ki-Hoon managed to block the punch of the god statue with his shield
and gasped out a pained grunt.
“Keo-heok!”
His knees were bucking hard. With no Healer around, he had no choice but to
take on the impact force all by himself, but he knew that anything more than
this was asking for too much.
“S-someone…. Anyone!!”
He painfully turned his head to the side and spotted a quiet gathering of his
fellow Hunters sitting over there.
What the hell.
He was sh*tting blood trying to block the attacks of the god statue all by
himself, yet why wasn’t anyone trying to lend him a helping hand here??
Sohn Ki-Hoon was royally p*ssed off and angrily yelled at them.
“What do you all think you’re doing?!”
When he did, the Hunters all pointed above him. Sohn Ki-Hoon interpreted
that as them warning him of another attack, so he flinched greatly and raised
his shield up again.
However, the expected attack didn’t materialise.
‘……??’
He finally noticed that the surroundings had become eerily quiet for some
reason.
‘What’s going on here?’
He sneakily scanned his surroundings below his shield, and finally noticed that
all the stone statues in the vicinity had been destroyed.
“What’s this?!”
He got startled out of his skin and hurriedly lowered the shield. And that
allowed him to see what was going on above him. He saw the sight of the god
statue, as tall as a skyscraper, and Jin-Woo standing on the d*mn thing’s
shoulder.
“Huh….??”
Even before Sohn Ki-Hoon was done with his surprise…
Ka-boom!!
Jin-Woo’s punch blew away the other remaining half of the god statue’s face.
With its head gone now, the massive statue began unsteadily tottering around.
“….Uh? Ehhh?”
Sohn Ki-Hoon sensed something awry was afoot and ran as if his back was
on fire. And just as his senses had warned him, the god statue crashed down
right where he used to be standing a second ago.
Kwa-boooom!!
A choking dust cloud kicked up and filled the entire interior of this place.
“Cough, cough!”
Choi Jong-In coughed out repeatedly and while blowing away the dust from
himself, he quickly made his way to Cha Hae-In.
“Hunter Cha.”
“Chairman….?”
“How are you feeling? Can you stand up?”
She was still lying on the ground, moaning in pain. She shook her head at his
question. Not one part of her body was okay right now. Choi Jong-In’s brows
furrowed as he felt somewhat helpless at this.
“Let me help you. Try to slowly stand up.”
Just as he was trying to support Cha Hae-In, Jin-Woo arrived next to him,
having finished off all the stone statues in the room.
“Will it be fine if I aid Cha Hunter-nim?”
“Pardon me?”
Choi Jong-In shifted his gaze towards the direction of that voice. It was then,
he thought that for a little bit there, Cha Hae-In was pushing his hand away.
He replied in somewhat of a daze.
“Oh. Uh, yes. Why not.”
Jin-Woo quickly lifted her up in an embrace. Cha Hae-In’s face reddened
instantly.
“Please, hold on for a little while longer.”
Jin-Woo promptly ran over to the exit and kicked the closed door, hard.
BOOM!!
A locked door such as this only needed a good kick from him. The sturdy door
that didn’t even want to budge an inch when these high-ranking Hunters
pushed at it got destroyed in an instant.
He cautiously laid her down outside the chamber and summoned up his Store.
Her current condition was considerably bad. Jin-Woo quickly purchased a
superior grade healing potion and carefully emptied the vial in her mouth.
Gulp, gulp.
Her wounds began recovering at a scarcely-believable rate.
“But, how…??”
“Shh.”
Jin-Woo raised his index finger and pressed to his lips. Right now was illsuited to explaining himself, wasn’t it?
Hunters emerged from the chamber one by one. Could this be called a silver
lining within the sea of misfortune? Their current appearance was truly
wretched, but thankfully, none of them required emergency medical
assistance.
Jin-Woo closed the Store’s interface.
Not knowing the existence of the healing potion, Hunters and their eyes could
only pop out of their sockets when Cha Hae-In stood back up as if nothing
was wrong.
“Huh?? But, Cha Hunter-nim, weren’t you…..?”
“Well, I….”
She was about to answer back reflexively, only to sneak a glance at Jin-Woo
and quickly diverted the conversation away.
“This isn’t the right time to discuss that, so let’s get out of here first.”
Hunters all agreed with her.
“Are there any more survivors?”
She asked Jin-Woo, who possessed the best sensory perception among the
group. He looked into the interior of the chamber and shook his head.
Only seventeen remained standing outside the chamber. Over half of who
stepped inside had died. Their joy at surviving this encounter only lasted for a
short while and the atmosphere grew gloomy and heavy.
“In that case….”
Cha Hae-In turned around with a stiff face, but Jin-Woo reached out and held
her wrist. She turned to face him.
The reason why the Hunters Guild came here was secondary. He was a lot
more curious about something else at the moment.
“Excuse me, but… what happened to Japan?”
Jin-Woo had entered here just before the dungeon break of the rank S Gate
occurred and so, he was getting legitimately curious of the news coming out of
Japan.
Cha Hae-In hesitated slightly, but eventually, came up with a suitable
description.
“They have been destroyed.”
< Chapter 164 > Fin.
Chapter 165: Chapter 165
So, that’s what happened in the end.
The plan to block up a Gate sounded quite dangerous from the moment Yuri
Orlov came up with the idea. Besides, wasn’t he trying to deal with a rank S
Gate?
Didn’t matter whether it was a Hunter or Gate, rank S denoted that something
was impossible to evaluate.
“Impossible to evaluate” - meaning, no one knew exactly what would pop out
from the Gate, nor what kind of events would happen next. Even then, Yuri
Orlov greatly overestimated his strength. And, in the end, his stupidity led to a
truly horrifying result.
Jin-Woo’s expression became deeply complicated.
Association President Goh Gun-Hui had told him about what the Japanese
Hunters were trying to do back in Jeju Island. It was unknown what their real
goal was, but nevertheless, they commenced with their plan anyway.
If Jin-Woo didn’t show up on time, it’d have been extremely difficult for the
Korean Hunters to get out of there alive even if the mutated ant monster
hadn’t shown up.
And, even after trying something underhanded like that, the b*stard of the
Japanese Association’s President had the gall to visit South Korea to threaten
Goh Gun-Hui.
‘That man deserves to be punished, no doubt about that.’
However, that was the story only for the brain trust of the Japanese
Association as well as the top-ranked Hunters who took part in the stinking
scheme.
The innocent Japanese citizens not included in that story certainly didn’t
deserve this.
There might have been some unresolved historical ‘feelings’ between the two
nations, but that wasn’t a sin so grave that whole masses of people had to die
because of it.
What’s even worse, this particular dungeon break occurred in the middle of
the city.
Just because of some Orcs that came out from a Gate within a school, nearly
half of all the students there had lost their lives. However, what would happen
if a rank S Gate opened up in the middle of a huge city with a population of
over 13 million? Obviously, it’d lead to a truly gruesome end result.
Not to forget, this result was partially brought upon by themselves, as well.
‘If Goto Ryuji and the other top Japanese Hunters were still alive, the end
result could have been different.’
Goto Ryuji was strong. He was strong enough to endanger Jin-Woo for a
moment back then. Even he felt greatly startled when the Japanese Hunter’s
attack barely missed his eye by a hair’s breadth.
Would that be all?
Every single dead Japanese Hunter he found on Jeju Island was an
exceptional individual that surpassed Korea’s own rank S Hunters.
He might not have known their fighting styles, but at least, that’s the
impression he got after checking out the amount of magic energy still
remaining on their corpses.
Back then, Jin-Woo didn’t want to turn blameless humans into ‘undead’ so he
gave up on them. But they were such exceptional Hunters that he was greatly
tempted to turn them into Shadow Soldiers.
‘Turning them into Shadow Soldiers would’ve been perfectly fine when I think
about what they were trying to do, though!’
Too bad, he only got to learn the truth a long time after the fact, so there was
nothing he could do about that.
In any case, such powerful Hunters got massacred in one go so it was only
obvious that Japan simply lacked enough personnel to deal with a rank S
Gate appearing within its borders.
In the end, this event wasn’t a calamity engineered by the heavens, but
something called upon by the greed of humans, instead. A man-made
disaster, in other words.
“Seong Hunter-nim?”
Cha Hae-In worriedly called out to him. Even now, Jin-Woo was still holding
her wrist.
“I’m sorry. I was thinking of something else just now.”
“Ah.”
Jin-Woo let go of her arm.
The reason why Cha Hae-In called out to him wasn’t because of the wrist, but
his complexion had darkened considerably out of the blue, that’s why.
Did he have family members or relatives living in Japan? Such a question
fleeted in and out of her mind, just then.
She still had no idea that the Japanese Hunter’s Association had cooked up
such a dastardly scheme. So, she thought of the events unfolding in Japan as
merely an accident - no, more correctly, a horrifying incident, instead.
He got to solve his first question of what had happened to Japan. Jin-Woo
asked the second thing he was curious about.
“What brought you guys over here, anyway?”
Currently, there were Cha Hae-In, Woo Jin-Cheol, and then, Sohn Ki-Hoon
and his team members, who Jin-Woo met when fighting against Fangs,
present here.
High-ranking Hunters from the Hunters Guild and the members from the
Monitoring Division, the ones that didn’t really seem to have a common reason
to form a team, had gathered all around him.
Woo Jin-Cheol finished checking up on the injuries of his subordinates and
took a step forward to clarify the situation.
“Actually, we came here first after receiving a report from this location. But
then, we learned that you had entered the Gate, and the magic energy leaking
out from the dungeon itself was so great that….”
Jin-Woo shifted his gaze over to the Chief of the Monitoring Division. Perhaps
the number of casualties had been far too great, Woo Jin-Cheol’s expression
was really stiff right now.
“We thought that our strengths would not be adequate enough so I requested
for assistance from the Hunters Guild that had been getting ready for a raid
nearby.”
The right to request assistance in emergencies. It was the highest form of
authority the Association possessed over the Guilds. Even the Hunters Guild
wouldn’t have been able to reject the request.
Many had come to aid him, and in the process, many unfortunate sacrifices
had to be made. Jin-Woo felt his heart begin to ache.
As the youth grew quieter in contemplation, Woo Jin-Cheol cautiously raised a
question.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Yes?”
“How did you know that you’d find the dual dungeon in this particular Gate,
Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim?”
That was a very pertinent question to ask.
As the Chairperson of the Hunters Guild, which had suffered huge losses
today, Choi Jong-In was deeply curious about this, as well.
How did Seong Jin-Woo know that there was a dual dungeon hiding within a
rank C Gate, and that a monster capable of exceeding everyone’s imagination
was waiting for him there?
Hunters who had heard of this before coming here were all feeling quite
puzzled from this unanswered question.
Rumble….
The cavern they were in trembled. The Gate sent them the signal that it’d
close not too long from now, yet the attention of these Hunters were solely
focused on Jin-Woo’s answer.
“The dungeon….”
Jin-Woo decided to be as honest as he could be.
“…It summoned me here.”
“…..Wait, it summoned you here?”
Woo Jin-Cheol asked back, his expression showing his disbelief.
“Yes. I received a message telling me to come here.”
“Can we view that message, as well?”
Jin-Woo shook his head. Then, he pointed to his temple with his finger.
“I’m sorry. It was a message that appeared in my head.”
The answer nobody expected to hear rendered everyone utterly speechless.
Jin-Woo didn’t lie here, though. It was just that he chose to omit a few other
unnecessary details and simply delivered the core of the truth, that was all.
His straightforward expression of hiding nothing managed to overpower other
Hunters.
Woo Jin-Cheol could legitimately claim that he knew Jin-Woo the longest out
of this group. Even then, he had no choice but throw up the white flag with a
shake of his head.
‘He’s… not someone I can read with my common sense.’
The dungeon summoned him through his head?
Could this youth be some kind of an incarnation of a godly being sent to this
world so he could smash apart all the dungeons that appear here?
‘Why am I even thinking of such nonsense….?’
Woo Jin-Cheol inwardly gave a wry chuckle. While he was doing that, Jin-Woo
soundlessly brushed past him.
He walked past the broken doorway and re-entered the chamber. Cha Hae-In
panicked and called out to him in a hurry.
“Hunter Seong?? If we don’t leave right now, it could get dangerous!”
Jin-Woo turned around after hearing her worried voice and made his reply.
“I know.”
How could he not know of the dangers?
Jin-Woo had walked on this lengthy passageway to get here twice already. It
was almost an hour’s distance even with the walking speed of Hunters. If they
wished to get out of here before the Gate closed, they certainly couldn’t tarry
any longer.
Not only that, Jin-Woo’s own old man went missing inside a Gate, too.
He heard that his dad, despite getting grievously injured, still managed to
carry out his comrades from the boss chamber one by one before he himself
got left behind as the Gate closed.
There was no one out there who understood the dangers of a dungeon better
than Jin-Woo. That was why his reply of “I know” was filled with his conviction.
Even then….
“I can’t leave behind the Hunters who came running for my sake, now can I?”
Hunters getting anxious to leave all froze up in their spots after hearing his
words. Every single one of those who lost their lives inside that chamber was
a comrade to them. If possible, they didn’t want to leave anyone behind.
However, there simply wasn’t enough time to take all the deceased with them.
Not only were these Hunters far too exhausted, but trying to locate the
remains buried under the debris of the stone statues would mean they had to
search through all corners of the chamber, as well.
And that was why they turned around to leave with bitter tears in their eyes,
but now….
“I’m taking them back with me.”
One sentence from Jin-Woo and the Hunters began shuddering as if a bolt of
electricity was travelling within their bodies.
No one argued that there was no time, that they had to get out of here. No,
they simply watched on in a daze.
Choi Jong-In, who had been silently enduring until then, spoke with a
powerless voice.
“Can we… ask you for this favour?”
These Guild members were like his family. If it was possible, he didn’t want
them to rot away stuck in a cold corner of this d*mnable cave.
Jin-Woo nodded his head and turned around.
Ba-thump, ba-thump!
His hearts were quietly beating away.
‘I need to sense a little deeper.’
Basically, his two hearts always beat as one. He needed to concentrate really
hard to separate the sound of the Black Heart beating from his regular heart.
Jin-Woo gathered the magical energy sent out by this mysterious heart
towards his fingertips.
‘Did he do it like this?’
Jin-Woo tried to mimic the hand gesture of the Shadow Sovereign he saw
within the data’s playback.
His hand reaching up as if he was grasping something - without a doubt, he
could sense enormous magical power going crazy within his hand right now.
‘I can do this.’
Jin-Woo felt this powerful self-assurance enter his mind.
He immediately located the whereabouts of the deceased Hunters through
their magic energy emission. His eyes gleamed brightly. Shortly afterwards,
he stopped silently studying the interior of the chamber and spoke up.
“Ruler’s Authority.”
And when he did….
Dududuk….
All the remains of the Hunters buried under the rubble of the stone statues all
uniformly rose up into the air.
“Heok!!”
“But, how?!”
Hunters watching Jin-Woo with bated breaths all cried out in shock.
Never mind the fact that he was able to locate all the dead Hunters in such a
short span of time, he even managed to lift them up without touching them?
Wasn’t this like one of those telekinetic superpowers often seen in movies?
The floating Hunters were carried out of the doorway via invisible hands.
‘How can this be….?’
‘How can something like this even be possible?’
Just like how normal people would get surprised by the Hunters, these
Hunters were getting even more astonished by Jin-Woo’s feats.
Even Choi Jong-In, who could be called very knowledgeable when it came to
the manipulation of magical energy, couldn’t quite believe what he just
witnessed with his own two eyes.
‘Just what kind of a skill is that?’
It was certainly a skill he had never even heard of before.
After seeing Jin-Woo’s powers personally, Choi Jong-In realised that he had
been greatly mistaken about something. When he saw the angel statue for the
first time, he thought that such a ‘thing’ would obviously be able to defeat JinWoo.
However, his thoughts were wrong. It was a complete miscalculation.
Which monster would be able to deal with a Hunter capable of wielding
powers like this as if it was nothing to him? Not realising that he was doing it,
Choi Jong-In began shaking his head.
‘Utterly impossible….’
In actual fact, the angel statue was eliminated in an instant almost as soon as
Jin-Woo opened his eyes. Only sighs of amazement could come out after
seeing this young man’s capabilities.
Jin-Woo carefully moved the cold, unmoving corpses of the Hunters to one
side and summoned out his Shadow Soldiers. The restriction only applied
within the temple itself so he could call them out no problem outside the
doorway.
While the living Hunters couldn’t close shut their slack jaws, the Shadow
Soldiers proceeded to pick up the dead Hunters. Everyone forgot what they
wanted to say and simply looked at Jin-Woo as he addressed them.
“Let’s get out of here.”
It was then, the dungeon rumbled one more time as if it was waiting for this
moment. The Hunters all nodded their heads.
Soon after they set off, the Shadow Soldiers ran right behind them. Jin-Woo
remained behind and watched them move, before turning around to face Cha
Hae-In who also hadn’t left yet.
Although her physical wounds had been healed, her expression showed how
fatigued she was.
‘That is obvious, though.’
Even he himself needed to put in a lot of effort to defeat that angel statue.
She’d definitely be exhausted trying to defend against such a creature all by
herself.
Jin-Woo walked over to her and asked.
“Would you like me to carry you?”
Cha Hae-In formed a thin smile and shook her head.
Grasp.
He reached out to grasp her wrist again, and she quietly stared at him. He
wanted her to feel at ease, at least by a little bit, so he relaxedly spoke to her.
“We should get going, too.”
Nod.
Cha Hae-In, depressed by the deaths of her comrades, wordlessly nodded her
head.
***
Hunters began emerging one by one from the Gate.
Right up until then, those waiting around outside the Gate had no idea the
scale of the event taking place within. However, they all realised that
something really bad had happened after seeing the deceased Hunters being
carried out by the Shadow Soldiers.
“Oh, my god….”
“Are those all….?!”
The members of the Bravery Guild who had reported this matter, and the
female Association employee standing by, all saw this procession and their
complexions turned ashen in an instant.
The number of casualties was just far too great.
Weren’t these people the elite Hunters of the country? The Hunters belonging
to the Hunters Guild and the Monitoring Division were called some of the very
best, yet….
After everyone had emerged, Jin-Woo and Cha Hae-In simultaneously
stepped out of the Gate. Enough time had passed on the outside and it was
night-time already.
Reporter Kim had been staying put until then to keep an eye on the situation,
and when he saw the conditions of those two, his eyes grew extraordinarily
wide from sheer shock.
The heavy traces of intense battle were clearly visible on the bodies of these
two rank S Hunters - dried up, caked blood; torn, ripped clothing; their
dishevelled hair.
Sure, Cha Hae-In still looked quite lovely even then. But Hunter Seong JinWoo gave off a feeling that he’d been through a bitter war all by himself.
‘This is it…. This really is it!’
Reporter Kim raised his camera with his trembling hands.
This was the reason why he became a reporter in the first place. And that was
to document event such as this one.
He wanted to let others know that there were some people who willingly put
their lives on the line to fight for the masses in some forgotten corner of their
country, even though everyone’s attention was focused on the events taking
place in Japan.
Almost twenty of the country’s top Hunters had perished here today. If such a
Gate had broken open, then the scale of destruction and losses to life would
have exceeded imaginations. These people and their sacrifices had prevented
a future tragedy.
However, if Reporter Kim wasn’t here, would others ever get to know about
these folks and their heroic battle today? He had been circling around the
Association just so he could stumble into a story like this one day.
Click, click!!
He was so emotionally moved that tears were forming in his eyes as he busily
snapped away photos.
Woo Jin-Cheol lost all the strength in his legs right after leaving the Gate and
settled down on the ground. Jin-Woo looked for him and walked closer.
“….Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim.”
Woo Jin-Cheol tried to get up, but Jin-Woo stopped the older man. Instead,
the latter pointed at Reporter Kim over yonder.
“He’s taking my photos, but is that allowed?”
Woo Jin-Cheol smirked and made his reply.
“It is indeed disallowed to film you in an individual capacity, Seong Hunternim. However, just like how it was back in the Jeju Island raid, it’s impossible
to block the report on the incident itself.”
Jin-Woo nodded his head.
Mom would get worried if she saw his messed-up appearance, though. He
was sort of worried about that happening, but then again, it didn’t mean he
could forcibly stop the reporter from doing his job.
Indeed, that reporter was doing what he was supposed to be doing.
He also wished for someone to let the world know of the ultimate sacrifices
these Hunters made while fighting to ensure that no tragedy would unfold in
the near future, as well.
A quiet wind seemed to blow by. The sounds of distant sirens from
approaching ambulances were carried by the winds.
Next morning.
Every newspaper carried the front-page headline of the dungeon break
happening in Japan, except for one publication. It was the only one that
carried the news of the dual dungeon incident.
This paper sold the most number of copies that day.
< Chapter 165 > Fin.