The Hell Market and the Golden Thread
Before stepping into the fully cleared Gate, Ji-hoon stood with his hand buried in the pocket of his work uniform, staring at the translucent window floating before his eyes.
Demon Castle Management Records: Access Denied
Demon Castle Furnishing Purchases: Access Denied
Hell Market Shortcut: Connection Available
A UI resembling a worn leather ledger unfolded across the transparent pane. Pages flipped over on their own with a light flutter, and a tidy list of entries scrolled out like a table of contents.
“Hell Market?”
Ji-hoon tilted his head.
“There was a market like this?”
He'd lived in Hell for a hundred years, and yet this was the first he'd ever heard of a Hell Market. Muttering to himself, he tapped Hell Market Shortcut.
Ding—
“…A wisp? What?”
Is this Abel's account?
A new member starts at 99.9 degrees, huh.
Could that be it? It was the Hell Market, after all—maybe being too friendly worked against you, and the meaner you were, the lower your temperature dropped and the more popular you became?
Just then, a voice came flying from behind him.
“Trainee Lee Ji-hoon?”
“Yes, sir!”
Ji-hoon slammed the Hell Market shut, heart lurching.
“What are you doing?”
“Ah, that is, uh… it's my first time in a Gate, so it's all pretty fascinating. Haha.”
“I understand being fascinated, but if you space out too long and fall behind your team, that's a real problem.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry.”
“Focus on the mission.”
The on-site supervisor let out a long sigh.
“The only reason I'm worried is because you're F-rank. F- and E-rank hunters who died for ignoring instructions aren't exactly rare.”
“Ah….”
“Don't even glance at the area near the boss room. Collect only within the marked zones.”
“Yes, understood.”
Ji-hoon tightened his grip on his collection tongs and a small pickaxe. It was an F-rank Gate that had already been cleared. As he stepped inside, the damp smell of earth mingled with the tang of metal. Chunks of blue mineral studded the walls here and there, and across the floor lay the byproducts that had come loose from monster corpses.
The workers split off into their assigned sections.
“Low-grade mana stone shards over here!”
“That one's cracked—bag it separately.”
“Leather byproducts get a contamination check first!”
“Trainees stay off the walls and start with floor collection!”
Ji-hoon crouched down too and began scooping up the mana stone shards scattered across the ground.
“Will this even cover a meal?”
He figured he'd earn enough for a pork stir-fry rice bowl today, at least. He was just rising to move on when—
A single golden line appeared before his eyes.
“Huh?”
Golden Milestone (S) is responding.
Searching for the highest-value object in the vicinity.
Oh, this. It was that skill that had popped up alongside the Demon King's ledger earlier. Ji-hoon narrowed his eyes at the suddenly activated skill.
“Hmm….”
Taking care not to be seen, he walked slowly toward the wall the golden line pointed to. He tapped the small mineral chunk embedded near the base of the wall with his pickaxe.
Knock— knock-knock—
Something stone-hard. This time he put real force behind it and brought the pick down hard.
Crack—
A fissure spread across the wall, and blue light bled through.
Quality: Good
“Oh?”
Mid-grade instead of low-grade—that had to fetch a much better price. Where the low-grade stones had the murky look of frosted glass, this one glowed as though a faint blue flame lived inside it. Like an LED light sealed inside a snow globe, maybe.
“What's next?”
The golden line swung toward the wall beside it. Another swing of the pickaxe.
Crack—
Quality: Good
“Oh-ho?”
“Trainee Lee Ji-hoon?”
The supervisor's voice cut in. “You've left your zone, what are you… hold on. Is that a mid-grade mana stone?”
“Huh? Ah—yes, sir.”
“What? A mid-grade mana stone?”
“Since when did this Gate produce anything besides low-grade?”
The supervisor clapped Ji-hoon on the back, beaming.
“Excellent work! Even F-rank can make a success of it when you gather byproducts and collectibles this well.”
“Are mid-grades that expensive?”
“Of course they are! And look how cleanly you extracted it, too. Have you done this kind of digging before?”
Outside of the army, the only digging I've ever done is— oh.
Trimming a dragon's claws. Scrubbing between the scales of a Jormungandr. Plucking the weeds wedged between a griffin's wing feathers.
Well, if that kind of grunt work counted, he'd done a hundred years of it.
“Ahaha, I guess I just got lucky.”
“Luck is a skill too. Anyway, if you keep collecting like this—”
Just then—
Vuuuuuum—
A violent wind roared up from deep inside the Gate.
“What the—?”
“A wind out of nowhere…?”
“Is this a wind-attribute Gate?”
“It shouldn't be….”
The crowd buzzed with unease—and at that very moment, a system window materialized before every pair of eyes.
The Gate's mana is destabilizing.
The Gate is re-activating.
Vuuuum—!
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA—!
“Uwaaaaagh!!!”
The sudden gale hurled bodies into the air.
“Everyone run!” The moment the supervisor screamed—
“…S?”
At the message burning in the air, every body went rigid.
“R-run! Ru-run, RUN!”
“It's S-rank! The boss is coming back to life!”
Every worker flung down their tools and bolted for the entrance. The supervisor clutched his communicator and bellowed into it.
“This is an emergency! A cleared F-rank Gate just re-ranked to S! This is not an April Fools' prank, I swear it's real! Get an S-rank out here, NOW!”
Before the words had even left his mouth—
A colossal shadow surged upward from the direction of the boss room.
THUD—
One footstep, and the ground shuddered as if it might cave in.
THUD—
The mana stone shards rained down from the walls in a rustling cascade.
And then, at last—
Tearing through the darkness, a pair of massive wings revealed themselves.
KREEEEEAAAAAGH!!!!!
A golden mane. The body of a lion. The head of an eagle. A razor beak and razor talons. And spilling out from behind its back, an overwhelming tide of golden mana.
“A gri…ffin…?”
The griffin parted its beak slightly and spread its wings wide.
KREEEEAAAAGH!!!
With the roar, golden mana erupted from its wings. The tide smashed through everything around it, and the workers scattered in blind terror.
Everyone ran. The supervisor on his radio, the collection teams, the trainees clustered near Ji-hoon, even the C-rank hunters stationed there as a contingency.
But one man didn't move.
“Trainee Lee Ji-hoon! Run, NOW!”
“….”
“Not that way, you lunatic! Are you trying to die?!”
Ji-hoon didn't hear him. He hurled the tongs to the ground. The pickaxe followed. He even shrugged off his bulging, stone-heavy collection bag and let it drop.
“You… is it really you…?”
Golden feathers. That tearful little cry it made whenever it thought it had done something wrong, the one that sounded half-panic, half-apology.
It was him. Without a doubt.
The one he'd fed every single day for a hundred years. The one he'd brushed every morning. The one he'd soothed every time it threw a tantrum or burst into tears. The eldest brother of the Hell Farm monsters—the first to approach him when he'd fallen into Hell, the one who'd accepted him as the farm's new manager.
“POPPY!!!!!!”
How could I ever forget you?
“POP! PY! IT'S ME!!!!!”
An S-rank boss monster. The sovereign of the skies. A king among griffins.
“Hey! Poppy! It's me! Your hyung Ji-hoon, you little punk!!!”
And then—the griffin raised its head.
Those savagely gleaming eyes turned toward Ji-hoon. And—
Krrrrr….
Woven into the monster's roar, something achingly familiar emerged.
“There, there. Don't cry.”
[Hyung… nim…?]
It was him. The eldest brother of Hell Farm—POPPY!!!!
“You recognize me, don't you, Poppy?”
[Hyung… nim… it's really… hic…!]
Something about him looked pained. Had he fallen into some kind of trap? Or been attacked by hunters?
“Poppy!”
[Hyung… nim… I will des…troy….]
Destroy?
“What do you mean—”
[Des… troy… every… thing….]
There had been times, back on the farm, when Poppy lost his grip on himself and his destructive instincts took over. Was that what was happening now?
“Calm down first, Poppy! Come on!”
While Ji-hoon was doing his best to soothe the farm-brother he hadn't seen in a century, everyone else was scrambling with everything they had to get out alive.
“Let us out! Get us out of here!”
They'd fought their way to the entrance, only to find the Gate's exit sealed shut.
“I-it's no use! Outside crews can come in, but from the inside it won't open!”
“Those absolute—!”
The three C-rank hunters who'd been the first to run stared at each other, cold sweat streaming down their faces.
Hoo… hoo….
“Sh-shall we… try…?”
“Are you insane?! It's S-rank!”
“But it's not attacking that F-rank guy, is it?”
“Maybe it's actually weak? All rank and no bite?”
The supervisor and the workers piled on to the deliberating hunters.
“Th-that's right! That boss might be weaker than it looks! I'm at least C-rank myself, I'll help!”
“Do something, please! They said it was safe, that's why we came!”
“Just get us OUT!”
The voices were climbing toward a fever pitch when—
TWANG—
“H-hey! Hold on!”
“We can't get out anyway! Dying trapped or dying fighting—what's the difference?!”
A long-range sniper type drew his bow.
TWANG—!
Shweeee—
The arrow flew. From far away, its trajectory was dead-on for the griffin's brow—
TING—
It struck the golden mana barrier shimmering around the griffin's body and clattered harmlessly to the floor.
“Ha… haha….”
The hunters collapsed where they stood.
Ji-hoon's gaze bounced between the fallen arrow and the hunters behind it, and he pressed a hand to his forehead.
“You idiots…!”
You attack a worked-up animal and it gets MORE worked up!
“Poppy! Easy now, let's take a deep breath first—”
Krrrk— krk—
“Good, that's it. Just like that—”
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE—!!!!
Ugh. Dammit.
“That's why you don't rile the animal up! Why would you do that?!”
“W-we were, we were trying to save people….”
“Oh, for crying out loud!”
What do I do now? The moment Poppy worked himself up, his mana detonated like a bomb. His true destructive instincts were about to come out!
Krrrrrr—
“…Hey. Why are your eyes like that?”
Something was wrong with Poppy. His eyes were red. Contaminated, somehow—as if something had seeped into them.
“Don't tell me—”
Threads of crimson mana were creeping through the golden feathers like veins. It wasn't Poppy's mana. Someone had forced it onto him.
“Who the hell dared to lay hands on our Poppy—”
Kr… AAAARGH!
FLASH—
KWA-KWA-KWA—!
Golden mana burst from Poppy's body. Caught in the raging torrent, the workers clutched their chests and crumpled to the ground.
“Ghk…!”
“Just his… presence alone….”
“Save… us….”
“No!”
Ji-hoon planted himself directly in front of the griffin.
Psst—
“If you're going to kill me first, then go ahead and leave.”
Krrr—
“Because I will absolutely tell every single one of your Hell Farm little brothers and sisters how pathetic and embarrassing you look right now, and THEN you can drop dead! Go on, kill me if you dare!”
Krr— krrr—
[Rum… ors are… not… accept… able….]
Wait, he's back to his senses?!
“Then hurry up and purge that weird toxin already, you dimwit!”
[The toxic… mana is… rapidly….]
“Finish up quick so we can have snacks, come on!”
FLASH—
Light washed over the griffin's body once more. But this time, there was not a trace of menace in it. Simply looking at him was healing. Being wrapped in that golden mana brought a deep, settling calm—a warmth that soothed you whether you asked for it or not.
[Hyung… nim….]
“Back with me now?”
[Hyung-ni…! It really IS you, hyung!]
“That's right, you little punk!”
Ji-hoon sprinted toward the colossal griffin.
WHUMP—
“YOUR HYUNG IS HERE!!”
[I missed you, hyung!!!!!]
An F-rank tamer hunter, Lee Ji-hoon. An S-rank boss monster, the Griffin. Two beings that should never, under any circumstances, share the same frame—standing in the heart of the Gate, holding each other in a fierce embrace.
“Tam…ing…?”
“No way…?”
Unable to accept the reality in front of them, all they could do was blink.
Ding.