---

Chapter 319

The research to bring Nea back was making considerable progress, thanks to Nea’s own cooperation.

With ample funding, connections acquired through collaboration with the Magic Tower and the Academy, and excellent, albeit imperfect, intelligence, it was undeniable that it was moving forward.

However, the reason it was still in the research phase was that the risks associated with the possibility of failure during experiments had not been completely mitigated.

Dealing with the gate was entirely different from using the Academy’s phase shifter. Failing at the phase shift might mean a financial loss, but opening and closing the gate inevitably led to its explosion.

Ultimately, the government’s stance was that without solving that risk, they could not grant permission for the experiments. While the Magic Tower had little regard for such matters and was eager to conduct experiments, the burden of recklessly proceeding without caution kept them in check.

“Is there any countermeasure?”

That was why Riley had to ask about this matter. Being Yeon-woo’s secretary, as well as an associate of the Magic Tower, it was essential to eliminate any potential issues.

“Countermeasures are unnecessary… But they didn’t listen, did they? It doesn’t matter now. The dragon guaranteed it. They can’t refuse that.”

“…That might be so, but isn’t it a bit too much to rely on force?”

“What’s wrong with that? If there’s a problem, I’ll take responsibility.”

Seeing Yeon-woo say this nonchalantly, Riley rubbed her temples, her eyes spinning around before she shrugged and nodded in resignation.

“Since you’ve become an Aura Master, you should be able to handle that much. Got it, I’ll relay that. We should prepare a small gate first, right?”

“Hmm, the gate where Nea is isn’t too big, so if we can stabilize the small gate, we’ll head straight into the main event.”

Though it was too much to slice through dimensions like a Sword Saint, Yeon-woo had figured out how to widen the gate. In fact, it didn’t seem impossible to pry it open by herself if there was even a crack in the dimensions.

While she couldn’t see the flow like Ain, she had gradually gotten used to feeling it through her senses. There was a lingering feeling that mastering a technique might lead her to read the flow.

‘It’s a mystery why it feels like I understand everything but can’t use it…’

Clearly, it felt like she had learned it, yet she hadn’t. Both clairvoyance and teleportation seemed to be stuck in her eyelids and ankles, unable to come out.

Cultivation was precisely like that, but didn’t it differ from Moon Gi’s words? It was said that the Geumomun, centered on desire, had a faster speed of technique manifestation.

“Anyway, let’s try to extract Nea before the vacation ends. Got it?”

“With you saying that, I can’t say no. Understood.”

“Thanks for always working hard. Once we get Nea back, we’ll finally get a break… right?”

“Hmm, will that really happen?”

To be honest, it didn’t seem likely. After all, she had proclaimed herself as Yeon-woo’s secretary, and that meant she was bound to be swept into whatever incidents Yeon-woo triggered.

There was no guarantee that she wouldn’t create her own trouble in the meantime, so Yeon-woo merely smiled without saying anything.

*

A few days later, the first experiment commenced. After all, it was essential to ensure there wouldn’t be any disasters from failing to open the gate.

Fortunately, the experiment could be conducted in the laboratory attached to the research facility. After permission was granted, they requested if they could use the phase shifter at the Academy, and a response came back saying it was no problem as long as they covered the costs.

Certainly, it was expensive, but due to the mana enhancers that started flying off the shelves thanks to the Golden Desire, they had no financial worries.

Yeon-woo silently gazed out of the window. The mana was radiating a blue hue. Speaking of which, Yeon-woo broke the silence.

“It’s still stable for now.”

“Understood. Everyone, let’s increase the load on the gate.”

Upon hearing Yeon-woo’s words, Riley directed the researchers accordingly. The lead researcher slowly turned up the switch. The glass shook like there was an earthquake before coming to a halt.

That was how the experiment unfolded. It would be easy to understand if one said Yeon-woo was putting the nameless dagger she had taken from the Crazy Clown through its paces.

The experiment itself was simple. They would tear at the gate that had shown signs of instability with a dagger. The dagger’s ability to create fissures in space made it quite well-suited for such a task.

‘That thing is more efficient when used by a person, but using one might be like throwing people in…’

Yeon-woo thought about stepping in, but rejected it, wondering what kind of accident that could trigger. Such a precaution was wise.

If the output was lacking, they would stuff mana into the dagger. In that process, various artifacts collected from different places would help manage the situation.

For that purpose, all sorts of artifacts that would be useless to an ordinary hunter were present in this spot. Explaining it in detail would be too tedious, so she decided to skip that.

As she maintained a controllable environment while slowly changing the conditions, just when it started to feel tedious to hear that everything was stable, a change appeared beyond the glass. The gate, which had only had premonitions, began to distort like oil floating on water.

“Whoa! It’s going to blow up!!”

“This isn’t just ‘whoa’!”

“Mana reaction has crossed the critical threshold, gate explosion, incoming!!”

Riley shouted nervously after hearing Yeon-woo’s reactions. Following that, the researcher who had been looking at the instruments screamed.

Yeon-woo hurriedly committed the scene from the gate to her eyes and dashed into the laboratory. If she let it explode like this, the laboratory would get destroyed. No matter how much money they had, wasting it was still unacceptable.

She sensed the flow. She followed the swirling air currents and glowing mana inside the laboratory with her eyes. If she found the core, it would make things simple. After all, the flow was just the pathway to some phenomenon.

Yeon-woo spotted the core slightly away from the phase shifter. She grabbed the dagger fixed to the mana injector. She thought about the method, and this seemed like the most straightforward approach.

She was surprised that she was going to prevent the gate’s explosion, but blocking explosions was something she was reasonably accustomed to. After wandering around in the graveyard war, she got used to it.

That was because when facing a giant zombie filled to the brim with smaller ones—what you might call a zombie horde—she had no choice but to adapt.

‘Alright, this is quite similar to a zombie horde.’

Both gate explosions and zombie hordes had similar causes for their explosions. Speaking of the zombie horde, it pertained to the belly of a massive zombie, whereas in terms of the gate, it referenced the delicate thinness between dimensions that, at a certain point, could no longer withstand the internal mass and burst out.

And for this type of explosion, if left alone, tremendous physical forces would be generated. The wall that had been desperately holding on for dear life would only exacerbate the problem and cause its mass to rise to a critical level.

In a moment of intense focus, Yeon-woo lifted her sword high above her head. It wasn’t about swinging hard. What was needed at that moment was simply precision.

The scene and the accident spiraled infinitely. Like a panorama camera, it went on endlessly. In an eternal moment that felt infinite, Yeon-woo swung down her sword.

What was needed was a hole large enough for the air inside to escape. In the case of a zombie horde, creating a hole the size for a person to escape worked effectively.

If done this way, rather than exploding, it would simply turn into a hole allowing zombies to walk out one by one.

The same applied to the gate. However, there was one issue: knowing what was inside was utterly impossible. Understanding what lay beyond the dimension was beyond human capability.

Still, some predictions could be made. Yeon-woo had data on the size of this gate, its danger level, and where the premonitions had occurred swirling in her mind.

Having gathered so much material for judgment, it was only reasonable that solving the problem belonged to Yeon-woo’s skills. It was a small scale, danger level D, originating from a forest. That meant the internal environment was likely to also be a forest, and it suggested finding the most common monsters that emerged from D-Rank small forest gates.

As Yeon-woo’s dagger finally reached the core of the gate, she felt a slight breeze of air escape due to the external shock not yet leading to the gate’s explosion.

‘It’s humid.’

If it were a swamp forest, insect-type monsters, crocodiles, and goblins might be common. It was likely that the most common would be insects, but a hole large enough for insects to escape would struggle to release the tightly packed air inside.

With the deductions in mind, Yeon-woo’s body executed what her head had analyzed. She precisely created a child-size hole.

The humid air rushed out, and as it tried to widen the gate’s wound, Yeon-woo forcibly held it back using her mana.

Yeon-woo’s mana control at the Master level didn’t allow even a crack in space to slip from her grasp.

The gate, which had been forcefully expelling air like a balloon, gradually began to sound as if it were deflating.

At the same time, upon seeing the gate’s color shift to blue, Yeon-woo sighed in relief. It seemed she had managed to contain it successfully.

“Grrr…”

Without a second thought, she swiftly drove her sword toward the goblin that emerged from the gate, not needing to say more.

Until the last moment, the goblin seemed confused about what was happening, merely staring at Yeon-woo blankly.

*

“Awesome me.”

“Insane, Yeon-woo!”

“Damn, I knew you could do it!!”

Endless praises flowed toward Yeon-woo as she exited the laboratory with a triumphant pose. It was a natural response. After all, she had saved everyone from potentially losing their jobs.

What a boss who pays salaries while working on the field and preventing disasters; perhaps she had become the world’s greatest boss.

Amid her self-indulgence, Riley greeted Yeon-woo with a disapproving look. In her right hand, she wielded her dedicated battle axe. Scary.

“…It probably wouldn’t have been a problem if you’d just let it explode. You didn’t need to take that risk,” she pointed out.

“True, but hey, nobody got hurt, so it’s all good, right?”

“Phew… Had someone gotten hurt, it would have been a disaster…”

“Yup~ I’m stronger now~ Heeheehee~.”

Teasing Riley made Yeon-woo chuckle, but Riley merely waved her hand and stored the battle axe away in the storage. Ugh, my ultimate teasing tactic didn’t work on her.

“Anyhow, thanks to you, the experiment was a huge success.”

“Is that… so? Wasn’t it a failure?”

“While we can’t say it was a scientific solution requiring the presence of a specific individual, we’ve learned that controlling variables can be possible as long as there is one person present. Under these circumstances, we could proceed to the practical application without issue.”

“And that one person would be who?”

…Me?

(To be continued in the next chapter)

 

---