Chapter 207

Whoooosh.

An unidentified black sphere plummeted with a terrifying roar, tearing through the air.

As its shadow fell across the taxi, the driver, Mr. Park, knew he was going to die.

So this is how it ends.

The faces of his daughter, who had started high school that year, and his beloved wife flashed before his eyes. They had planned to go out for seolleongtang after work. Who knew that would be foreshadowing?¹

And today wasn’t even lucky.

He didn’t wonder what the thing was. Finding out wouldn’t change the fact that he was about to die.

All he could do was sit frozen like a statue and stare helplessly as death drew closer by the second.

Whoooom!

It was time to depart for the afterlife.

The sphere’s shadow swallowed the driver’s seat. Mr. Park squeezed his eyes shut and finally screamed.

“Gaaaaaaaaah!”

Boom! Craaash!

Sheet metal crumpled like paper, and shards of glass flew in every direction. Then, in the next instant—

“Whoa, my eardrums almost burst. You’ve got quite a set of lungs on you.”

“Gaaah… Huh?”

A voice pierced his ears.

Mr. Park stopped screaming and blinked.

“Huh? Huhhh?”

He couldn’t tell whether he was dreaming or awake.

He had definitely been sitting in the driver’s seat a second ago—no, half a second ago—but now he was sitting on the shoulder of the road roughly five meters² away.

“W-What the hell…”

Mr. Park stared blankly at his taxi, now crushed flat, then looked up.

His savior was standing there—the man who had snatched him from the jaws of death.

“Y-You’re the passenger?”

The sturdily built young man, Jin Taekyung, did not answer. He was frowning at something in the distance.

“Sir.”

Mr. Park’s heart pounded. He already understood it instinctively. Something terrible was happening, and if he wanted to survive, he had to do exactly as this Hunter said.

“Run back the way we came. Don’t look back. Just keep running.”

“Y-Yes, sir!”

“And don’t forget to warn everyone else.”

“W-Warn them about what?”

Jin Taekyung pointed ahead.

Bright morning sunlight poured from the clear sky, but darkness was gathering where his finger pointed.

He spoke calmly to Mr. Park, whose mouth hung open in shock.

“A Gate has opened.”

At that moment, a bloodcurdling roar erupted from the far end of the road.

—Gwooooooar!

The monster’s roar was more effective than any loudspeaker.

The moment people realized what was happening, panic swept through them. They abandoned their cars and ran.

“A Gate! A Gate has appeared!”

“Run!”

“Seokjun! Honey!”

The gridlocked road descended into chaos in an instant.

Piercing screams and frantic shouts rang out from every direction.

I avoided the people sprinting back the way they had come and raced forward across the roofs of the cars. A System notification rang in my ears.

Ding.

System

• A sudden Quest, Gate Suppression, has been created.

• You cannot refuse the Quest.

• The Quest has been forcibly accepted!

Now it isn’t even giving me a choice.

Couldn’t it at least ask first?

I clicked my tongue and opened the Quest window. A translucent holographic panel popped into the air.

System

Quest

Gate Suppression

An unexpected Gate has appeared!

The monsters that have set foot on Earth are hungry for blood, and delicious prey surrounds them.

Minimize casualties and eliminate the monsters to suppress the Gate.

Grade: Peak
Restriction: None
Mission: Eliminate monsters (Incomplete)
Reward: ???
Failure: ???

This was a goddamn disaster.

Of all places, a Gate had appeared on a road jammed with morning commuters—not at sea or in the mountains.

Worse, the monsters weren’t small fry like goblins or Orcs.

—Gwoooooooooar!

Boom! Krrr-boom!

They were larger than cargo trucks, with fangs bigger and sharper than industrial saw blades. Every swing of their dark iron clubs smashed concrete and cars to pieces.

In both strength and appearance, they were monsters in every sense of the word.

I never thought I’d run into creatures I’d only seen in monster encyclopedias on my way to work.

I muttered under my breath.

“Ogres…”

They were classified as B-rank monsters, but their strength and destructive instincts went far beyond that.

During the early days of the Great Cataclysm, it had been ogres who served as the vanguard of the monster legions and destroyed countless cities.

That must be why they’re considered top-tier even among B-rank monsters.

And now they had appeared right here.

The Gate had yet to open fully, so there were only five or six of them. Even that was an enormous threat.

I have to stop them before the casualties get any worse.

I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Eight hundred meters³ ahead, I saw about twenty figures charging toward the ogres as they swung their weapons in every direction.

“Stop them!”

Clang-clang-clang!

Gleaming armor, shields, and all manner of weapons.

They were Hunters.

B-rank Hunter Hwang Cheol Soo broke out in a cold sweat.

A Gate… appeared?

What were the odds of a Gate appearing? He didn’t know the exact figure, but he had heard they were lower than the odds of most natural disasters.

After the death of Demon King Asmodeus brought the Great Cataclysm to an end, the dozens of Gates that had once formed around the world each day became far less frequent. Leading scholars rushed to publish papers about the change.

Humanity’s Victory: The End of Gates.

The Connection Between Demon King Asmodeus and the Gates.

Complete Peace Within Ten Years.

But they had all been wrong.

Gates had once appeared only once or twice every year or two, yet this was already the fourth to form in the country this year.

Worse, that fourth Gate had opened at the tollgate Hwang Cheol Soo was responsible for.

And it’s a B-rank Gate.

That alone was horrifying enough, but the creatures emerging from it were ogres, classified as top-tier even among B-rank monsters.

Boom! Thud-thud-thud!

“Guh!”

“Healer!”

“Archers, keep firing! Tanks, draw their attention!”

Thud-thud-thud!

The tollgate team—two B-rank Hunters and fifteen C-rank Hunters—was being driven back helplessly.

After only two or three blows from an ogre’s iron club, tower shields shattered and the tanks went flying one after another.

What am I looking at?

Hwang Cheol Soo was only thirty.

He possessed neither combat instincts nor leadership ability. He was merely a public-service Hunter whose high rank had secured him a comfortable job and a generous pension.

What do I do? How am I supposed to handle this…?

As Hwang Cheol Soo stood frozen like a plaster statue, the assistant team leader shouted at him.

“Team Leader! Pull yourself together! We have to hold out until support arrives, no matter what it takes!”

“Y-Yeah. Right. We only have to last five more minutes.”

“We can take them once the special forces regiment and the nearby Hunters arrive. So—”

Wham! Boom!

Hwang Cheol Soo stared blankly as the assistant team leader was hurled into a refrigerated truck. A huge chunk of concrete had flown out of nowhere and struck him.

“Healer!”

The instant Hwang Cheol Soo shouted, he realized something.

The team had only two healers, and the assistant team leader had been the last one still standing.

Of the seventeen team members, Hwang Cheol Soo included, fewer than half remained on their feet.

“W-What the hell…”

Only one minute had passed since the battle began.

But the outcome had already been decided.

The gap between top-tier B-rank monsters and Hunters who had been lulled into peace while playing mobile games at a tollgate was simply overwhelming.

And their ordeal wasn’t over yet.

“Team Leader!”

“The Gate! Look at the Gate!”

Grkkk, grkkk—

At the team members’ shouts, the rift in the air began to widen.

Magical power churned within the pitch-black darkness as it spewed out enormous bodies.

—Gwoooooar!

—Kraaaagh!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The ogres landed with savage bellows, and groans of despair rose from all around.

“Fuck…”

“A-Ah…”

The Hunters had been overwhelmingly outmatched even with nearly three times the numbers.

Now that the number of ogres had risen to ten, despair settled heavily over them.

“T-Team Leader…”

“W-What do we do now?”

“…”

Hwang Cheol Soo swallowed dryly.

The difference in strength was overwhelming. The outcome was no longer in question.

Only one thought filled his mind.

Can I survive?

He wasn’t the only one wondering that. Everyone there shared the same question.

And they were waiting for their commander to give them the answer they wanted.

“Team Leader!”

“I-I…”

Before he could finish speaking, Hwang Cheol Soo’s feet were already edging backward.

He had once sworn to become humanity’s shield and protect the people from the threat of monsters.

But he had no intention of dying like a dog here.

Even with reinforcements, we can’t kill those things.

That left only one option.

“B-Based on the commander’s judgment, we’ll make a strategic retreat…”

The moment Hwang Cheol Soo began speaking in a trembling voice—

Whoooooosh! Boom!

A streak of light shot past.

It flew over the heads of the Hunters slowly backing away, punched straight through its target, and blew it apart.

Splash.

What fell from the air in scattered droplets wasn’t rain, but blood. Chunks of rotten-smelling flesh followed, pelting down like hail.

“…Huh?”

Boom.

As someone let out a dazed murmur, the ogre’s enormous body toppled like a rotten old tree.

—Gwo?

“What the…?”

Humans and monsters alike stared blankly at the surreal sight.

Then—

“Whoa. What’s with that firepower?”

The cheerful voice was completely out of place.

Hwang Cheol Soo whirled around to find its owner, and goose bumps ran down his skin.

“Gasp.”

He hadn’t sensed the slightest trace of the newcomer’s presence. Even now, while staring directly at him, he still couldn’t.

But the figure standing tall atop a tour bus was neither a ghost nor a monster.

His eyes curved like half-moons between his roughly tousled black-brown hair.

“Hello.”

“W-Who are you?”

“Just someone on his way to work.”

“P-Pardon?”

“Uh, may I skip the formalities and get straight to the point?”

That was exactly what Hwang Cheol Soo wanted. The ogres had already recovered from their brief confusion and were approaching, dragging their iron clubs across the ground.

The Hunters nodded frantically. The young man, Jin Taekyung, grinned.

“If you’re not going to fight, all of you go stay tucked away in a corner.”

“…”

“Oh, and if I catch you stealing EXP, you’re dead.”

EXP? Stealing?

Before they could even figure out what he meant, the spear in Jin Taekyung’s hand turned into light and shot forward.

Whoooooosh!

Shriiiing! Crunch!

The spearhead punched through a thick jaw.

It tore through hide, flesh, tongue, and palate in succession before jutting out through the top of the ogre’s skull.

Iron clubs came hurtling in from both sides.

Whoooosh!

The air split with a terrifying shriek.

But I was already gone.

I slipped in close against one ogre’s body, pulled a dagger from my Inventory, and drove it precisely into its Huiyin Acupoint.⁴

Stab!

—Gwoooooooooooooooooar!

“Congratulations on opening your Conception Vessel.”

There was a world of difference between having a pathway forced open and opening one up.

The ogre dropped to its knees with a howl that came from the depths of its soul.

Before it had time to feel any more pain, I slashed its throat with the dagger.

Squelch!

Monster blood and screams filled the air, while a succession of sweet sounds tickled my ears.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

System

• You have defeated Lv.84 Ogre!

• You have acquired a considerable amount of EXP!

• You have defeated Lv.83 Ogre!

• You have acquired a considerable amount of EXP!

Buuuuurp.

Man, I’m stuffed.