Chapter 207

Whoooosh.

An unidentified black sphere plummeted with a terrifying roar as it tore through the air.

The shadow cast over the taxi made its driver, Mr. Park, sense death.

So this is how it ends.

The faces of his daughter, who had entered 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?

And I’d already had such an unlucky day.

He didn’t even wonder what the thing was. Knowing wouldn’t change the fact that he was going to die.

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

Whoooom!

It was time to leave for the afterlife.

Mr. Park squeezed his eyes shut beneath the sphere’s shadow, which had completely covered the driver’s seat, and finally screamed.

“Gaaaaaaaaah!”

Boom! Craaash!

The sheet metal crumpled like paper, and shattered glass flew in every direction. Then, in the next moment—

“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 meters away.

“W-What the hell…”

Mr. Park stared blankly at his taxi, which had been flattened into a sheet of metal, then lifted his head.

His savior was standing there—the person who had rescued him from the brink of death.

“Y-You’re the passenger?”

The sturdily built young man, Jin Taekyung, did not answer. Frowning as he glared at something in the distance, he opened his mouth.

“Sir.”

Mr. Park’s heart pounded. He had already realized it instinctively. Something enormous was happening, and if he wanted to survive, he had to follow the Hunter passenger’s instructions.

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

“Y-Yes, sir!”

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

“T-Tell them what?”

Jin Taekyung pointed ahead.

Unlike the sky, where bright morning sunlight poured down, darkness was spreading over the place his finger indicated.

He spoke calmly to Mr. Park, who stood there with his mouth hanging open in shock.

“A Gate has opened.”

At the same time, a roar that made the hair on the back of one’s neck stand on end erupted from the far end of the road.

—Gwooooooar!

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

Those who realized what was happening abandoned their cars and began running.

“A Gate! A Gate has appeared!”

“Run!”

“Seokjun! Honey!”

The congested road was engulfed in chaos in an instant.

Shrill screams and frantic voices rang out from every direction.

Avoiding the people sprinting back the way they had come for dear life, I advanced 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 inwardly and opened the Quest window. A translucent holographic window abruptly appeared in the air.

Quest

Gate Suppression

An unexpected Gate has appeared!

The monsters that have set foot on Earth are hungry for blood, and delicious prey is spread out all around 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 people on their way to work—not at sea or in the mountains.

The bigger problem was that the monsters weren’t insignificant riffraff like goblins or orcs.

—Gwoooooooooar!

Boom! Krrr-boom!

They were larger than cargo trucks, with fangs bigger and sharper than industrial saw blades. Every time they swung the dark, iron clubs in their hands, concrete and cars were smashed to pieces.

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

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

I muttered under my breath.

“Ogres…”

They were classified as B-rank monsters, but the strength and destructive instincts they possessed were far beyond that.

For example, 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 the strongest among B-rank monsters.

And monsters like that had appeared right here.

The Gate had not fully opened yet, so there were only five or six of them. But even that was an enormous threat.

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

I wasn’t the only one who had thought of that. Eight hundred meters ahead, I saw about twenty figures charging toward the ogres, who were swinging their weapons in every direction.

“Hold the line!”

Clang-clang-clang!

Their identity was obvious from the gleaming armor, shields, and assortment of weapons they carried.

They were Hunters.

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

A Gate… has appeared?

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

After the death of Demon King Asmodeus brought the Great Cataclysm to an end, the number of Gates forming across the world had visibly declined from dozens a day. Leading scholars had rushed to publish papers about the situation.

[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, but this was already the fourth one in the country this year.

The bigger problem was that this fourth Gate had opened at the tollgate Hwang Cheol Soo was responsible for.

And it’s a B-rank Gate, on top of that.

That alone was horrifying enough. But the creatures emerging from the Gate were ogres, classified among the strongest of all B-rank monsters.

Boom! Thud-thud-thud!

“Guh!”

“Healer!”

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

Thud-thud-thud!

The tollgate team, made up of two B-rank Hunters and fifteen C-rank Hunters, was being pushed 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 years old.

He had no particular combat sense or command ability. He was merely a civil-servant Hunter who had been promised a comfortable job and a generous pension thanks to receiving a high rank.

What do I do? What am I supposed to do…?

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

“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 hold out for 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 at the assistant team leader, who had been slammed into a refrigerated truck.

A huge piece of concrete had flown from somewhere and struck him.

“Healer!”

At the same time as he shouted, Hwang Cheol Soo realized the truth.

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

Of the seventeen team members, including Hwang Cheol Soo, fewer than half were still 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.

Yet the ordeal was not over.

“Team Leader!”

“The Gate! Look at the Gate!”

Grkkk, grkkk—

As the team members shouted, the rift in the air began to widen.

Pitch-black darkness. Mana churned within it as it spewed out enormous bodies.

—Gwoooooar!

—Kraaaagh!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Groaning ferociously, the ogres landed on the ground. Sighs escaped from every direction.

“Fuck…”

“A-Ah…”

They had already been overwhelmingly outmatched despite having nearly three times as many fighters.

Now that the number of ogres had grown to ten, despair settled heavily over the Hunters.

“T-Team Leader…”

“W-What do we do now?”

“…”

Hwang Cheol Soo swallowed dryly.

The difference in strength was already overwhelming, and the outcome was no longer something worth debating.

But one thought filled his mind.

Can I survive?

It wasn’t only his question. Everyone here was wondering the same thing.

And they waited for the commander to give them the answer they wanted to hear.

“Team Leader!”

“I-I…”

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

In the past, he had sworn to become humanity’s shield and protect the people from the threat of monsters.

But he wasn’t interested in dying a pointless death like this.

Even if reinforcements arrive, they can’t kill those things.

If so, there was only one option left.

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

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

Whoooooosh! Boom!

A streak of light shot forward.

It passed over the heads of the Hunters who had been slowly backing away, pierced its target with perfect accuracy, and exploded it at the same time.

Splash.

What fell in scattered droplets from the air was not rain, but blood. Then pieces of flesh giving off a rotten stench came pelting down like hail.

“…Huh?”

Boom.

Along with someone’s dazed voice, the ogre’s massive body collapsed like a rotten old tree.

—Gwo?

“What is this…?”

Humans and monsters alike stared blankly at the surreal sight.

Then—

“Whoa. What kind of destructive power is that?”

The bright voice did not fit the situation at all.

Hwang Cheol Soo hurriedly turned around to find the source of the voice, and goose bumps ran down his skin.

“Gasp.”

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

But the figure standing tall on the roof of 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?”

“I’m just someone on his way to work.”

“Y-Yes?”

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

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

At the Hunters’ frantic nods, the young man, Jin Taekyung, smiled.

“If you’re all not going to fight, squeeze yourselves into 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 pierced through a thick jaw.

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

At that moment, iron clubs came rushing in from both sides.

Whoooosh!

The terrifying sound of air splitting.

But I was no longer there.

I had already slipped into one of the ogre’s arms and was driving a dagger from my Inventory precisely into its Huiyin Acupoint.

Stab!

—Gwoooooooooooooooooar!

“Congratulations on opening the Conception Vessel.”

There was a world of difference between clearing a pathway and opening one up.

With a howl that seemed to contain its very soul, the ogre dropped to its knees.

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

Squelch!

The monster’s blood and screams mixed together, while a series of sweet sounds continued tickling 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.