Chapter 99. Rumor (4)
Well then, Ahn Yoon-seung must have been persuaded; there’s no need to hesitate any longer.
‘Since we’re talking, shall we get started right away?’
I lifted my phone and dialed the contact at the top of my list.
I had something to ask Seonwoo-yeon.
*
Today is November 10th.
It’s the second day since the start of winter.
While everyone else is making a fuss about feeling the winter chill, I haven’t had a moment to enjoy this weather.
It’s not just the wind that’s the problem; it’s that the blood festival is approaching.
“Hello? Ms. Seonwoo-yeon, are you available for a call right now?”
It’s been three months since the mysterious disappearance of the boss.
It’s a time when things could go wrong at any moment, so I decided to immediately try the Imugi tracking method that popped into my head.
This time, I’d take a more logical approach.
“Ms. Seonwoo-yeon, do the association employees have access to the gate bid records?”
– Of course. Gate transactions are always public, so Mr. Kim Gi-ryeo can view them if he searches.
“Is that so? But I’m outside right now, so I’m sorry, would you mind searching for me?”
– Right now?
“Yes. Right now.”
Thinking back now…
The Nachalsawon must have carefully chosen a place to hide the Imugi well in advance.
No matter how they are, they wouldn’t just stash a rare being like a growing boss anywhere.
But even if there’s a desired gate, depending on the location, it may be hard to occupy it as they please…
In the end, they probably chose this method to reliably own a specific gate.
‘Formal title transfer through the association.’
So what were the conditions for the gate they sought?
I’d narrow it down to the following four items:
◆ Transactions before August
First of all, the Imugi disappeared during the terror incident in August, so they would have needed to prepare a location before then.
◆ Personal bids
All corporate transactions are excluded. There’s no profit in using a company name to acquire a gate meant for terror.
◆ Water property-friendly environment
Of course, this condition is essential when considering what type of monster they would raise.
◆ Sufficient size to hide the boss
This one doesn’t really need explaining.
“Hmm.”
Anyway, I deduced what the Nachalsawon would have chosen for the gate based on their thought process.
– The search yielded 13 results.
Then a total of 13 gates matching all the conditions came up.
But if we exclude the ones that still have their entrances open…
– The results have been narrowed down significantly. There are 5 types left.
Right. 5 types.
Of those gates sold to individuals, already reported as cleared dungeons to the association, a ‘closed gate’ from the Nachalsawon could be mixed in.
That’s just a probability.
“…”
But I cut the possibilities down even further.
If I were Su Ye-hwi…
If Dungeon Shock is a punishment from the heavens,
And if humanity should rightly perish at the hands of monsters…
Then they might have considered this condition when selecting a cradle for the Imugi.
◆ Densely populated area
The most populated city in this country is Seoul.
[Search resulted in 1 case]
And among the gates suitable for growing an Imugi, there is only one location that occurs in Seoul.
[Damp Cave]
[Grade: E]
[Description: The boss appears as the poisonous frog that uses deadly poison.]
Of course, my speculation could be wrong from the get-go, so I can’t definitively say the Imugi is here…
“Alright, I’ll hang up now.”
If I’m confused, I can just check it myself.
I ended the call with Seonwoo-yeon and set off immediately.
*
The Nachalsawon might think they know the gates better than anyone in this world.
But that kind of thinking is dangerous.
Even aliens have already figured out the rules.
‘Dungeons will try to expel Earthlings from inside.’
The creators of the gates didn’t want hunters to be meaninglessly isolated in that strange world.
So whenever a boss is killed, an exit always appeared.
It was designed with the intention to guide hunters back to Earth, even shining brightly to help them return.
“Hmm.”
However, the ‘exit generated upon killing the boss’ here was different from a typical passage.
Destruction immunity.
It was specifically designed to remain open until all the survivors inside returned.
‘How considerate.’
The bosses in the cult’s closed gate must be alive as well.
It had to be.
If you apply this specialty, the moment the boss is killed, an irremovable hole will collapse into the cult’s hidden space, creating a passage connected to Earth, so no matter how much they try, they can’t completely evade police tracking.
“According to the coordinates Seonwoo-yeon provided, it should be around here…”
With the deduction complete, it’s time to verify.
“Ah! Here it is.”
I stood in an alley in Seoul.
This was the place where the gate known as [Damp Cave] had appeared.
But instead of the glowing blue gate, all I saw was empty asphalt.
Reportedly, that dungeon had already been cleared back in September.
‘Hmm.’
Of course, it’s still uncertain whether the owner’s report is true or not.
So I decided to check if the Nachalsawon had manipulated the Damp Cave myself.
Specifically, by using the characteristics of the gate I thought of earlier.
‘The boss should be… a poisonous frog, classified as an E-grade monster, right?’
Once again, the most critical key related to the dungeon’s exit is the boss monster.
All bosses are connected to specific coordinates on Earth so they can create an exit at any time.
Even in situations where the entrance is destroyed and the space is severed, that specific coordinate remains unchanged.
‘Put simply, a living boss always means there’s a trace connected to that coordinate.’
And judging by my experiences so far, most dungeons tend to have exits very close to the gate’s appearance location…
A reverse assumption.
I thought about where the exit of [Damp Cave] should appear, connecting this coordinate to trace the magical residue of the poisonous frog.
‘……’
Well, anyway, that’s the theory…
‘But will Seonwoo-yeon understand this concept if I explain it to her, being an Earthling?’
I rolled my eyes but soon stopped thinking.
There’s no real need to inform her of this entire process.
Honestly, this tracking method has a pitifully low success rate.
It’s like trying to find a single drop of ink in a lake.
‘The traces are too weak…’
I needed to detect faint magical power that would be unimaginable with Earth technology.
But still, I decided to give this method a go.
– Tap.
Failure is the mother of success…
Of course, that’s not some enlightened reasoning.
Feeling mana is a talent of the soul.
But whether then or now, I’m the soul that’s favored the most by the mana of this world.
‘There’s no way I can’t do this.’
Being naturally blessed was enough to make a person arrogant.
*
24 hours later.
I sat in the consultation room of the Hunter Association.
Looking like a mess with blood-stained tissue pressed to my nose.
“Kim Gi-ryeo Hunter.”
“Yes.”
“Uh… are you hurt?”
“No.”
To explain how I ended up like this, I had to go back a full day.
I had spent an exhausting 24 hours in order to make my plan succeed.
“Just overworked, and got a nosebleed.”
I’ll get straight to the conclusion.
After tracking the [Damp Cave], I discovered that the boss there, the poisonous frog, is still alive.
That gate was, in fact, the secret cradle occupied by the Nachalsawon.
“Overworked?”
But if I told Earthlings about this sophisticated tracking method, it would reveal too much of my capabilities.
So now, I was in the process of creating evidence, based on everything I gathered to report to the police and the association that ‘the Damp Cave has a very high possibility of being dangerous’…
“By the way, it’s a bit shocking. Does it mean the association isn’t going to do anything in the end?”
“Well, I’d say it’s more accurate to say they can’t do anything…”
“Ugh, I went to the police and the association, and all they could do was install a single CCTV at that location.”
Well, as you can see from the result.
It seems that the higher-ups here believe they need to actually be bitten by the Imugi to wake up.
No matter how much new information I bring in, nothing seems to change.
‘Argh.’
Why is it that they don’t believe that the Imugi is going to show up, even though they clearly know those cultists are terrorists, and that the bosses are gone?
Shouldn’t they at least arrest the Nachalsawon from the get-go with this much information?
But these folks keep saying that since no incident has happened yet, they have nothing to act on.
“Gi-ryeo?”
That’s enough.
I really can’t trust those inferior mammals.
I clicked my tongue and got up from my seat. At the same time, I opened the airline company’s website on my phone.
I was thinking of booking a ticket to Jeju Island immediately.
‘Let’s see, what’s the fastest flight…’
In that moment, I resolved to spend this winter on the island.
But then…
Suddenly, a loud bang echoed from afar.
“Hmm?”
It sounded as if a factory was exploding.
Seonwoo-yeon and I looked up simultaneously.
“Was that sound from outside?”
“Seems so.”
And when we went out into the corridor to check the situation, others were also looking around with startled expressions.
“What’s going on?”
“Did an accident happen?”
“Is it a dungeon break?”
“Oh no! Look, there’s smoke!”
Soon, a man pointed towards the window.
As he said that, the passersby started to shift their gazes, and as soon as I looked in the direction he pointed, I felt my blood freeze.
That place was…
The exact spot where I had spent a whole day.
“Oh no.”
“Could it be…?”
Seonwoo-yeon must have had the same thought as me at this moment.
Right. We found the location where the dungeon break would occur, yet we didn’t know the most crucial information yet.
“Could it be happening now?”
The exact time when the terror would strike!
Realizing that, one unfortunate assumption immediately popped into my head.
‘Damn it!’
I quickly checked the corridor’s window.
“Ugh!”
In the distance, I saw an unbelievable sight unfolding on a high-rise building.
A massive long black creature was twisting around a 70-story building, getting closer to the sky.
‘Agh!’
It was overwhelming.
The A-Class boss, the Imugi, was originally a slim monster about 12m long, but what the hell is that? It’s not even meters; it’s practically kilometers!
“Hey, hey! Turn on the analyzer!”
“What kind of monster is that huge?”
In that moment, I wondered if that wasn’t the Imugi.
And it looked like the PIXY’s analysis device was thinking of the same thing. Soon, the Earth’s machinery described that creature as follows.
[???]
[Grade: ?]
[Description: No registered description.]
People in the corridor began to get scared of that unknown presence.
Not knowing brings fear, especially to intellectual beings.
But then, the hidden function of the analyzer kicked in.
If the people gain fear from not knowing, it implies that merely classifying that existence can alleviate some of that fear.
The International Hunter Federation, responsible for uploading the analyzer’s information, had set up a system in case similar newly emerged monsters occurred simultaneously.
Namely, giving temporary names to new monsters.
And this system combined random words for quick classification…
[Mi□□□]
Buzzing.
The monster’s name field began to fill in, one character at a time.
[Mi필연한□□□]
Those empty spaces soon transformed into specific words, naming the beast.
[Unavoidable Malice]
Yes.
This was the new name for the black disaster.
[Unavoidable Malice]
[Grade: S]
[Description: (*Real-time update) Estimated grade surpasses A-class range based on magic detection results.]
“AAAAH!”
“What is that?!”
The first S-Class Dungeon Break in Korea had started.
