Time Solves Everything
Ji-hoon packed up his things.
Poppi and Choco, shrunken down to pocket size, bustled around helping him. Watching them, Baek Kang-hyun asked hesitantly.
“Um… Hunter Ji-hoon, sir?”
“Yes, Branch Chief?”
“Are we… really just leaving?”
Just leaving the boss behind?
Ji-hoon nodded at the question. “Yep. There's no answer right now, so we bail first and figure it out later.”
“What kind of…! If we leave the boss in there, it could come out into the real world! A gate collapse will happen!”
“Have you finally lost your mind? You want to just walk away from the boss? What if it ambushes us and bursts out into reality—!”
“A collapse? Bursting out?”
Ji-hoon pointed at the white snake, cheeks flushed crimson with embarrassment, still coiled tightly around the bound Dark Knight.
“Her?”
“Uh…”
“…Ahem.”
“As long as the boss mob doesn't come out, we're fine, aren't we?”
“I… I suppose…”
“And the Dark Knight can't move, can he?”
The Dark Knight wriggled futilely in place.
“Stay still, worm. Otherwise this maiden's fangs shall pierce you through.”
Jormungandr—Doobu—threatening the trussed-up Dark Knight. Poppi and Choco nodded along solemnly.
“Don't worry, let's go. Come on, it's dinner time. Hurry up, hurry up.”
“Wha—is this, uh, hold on, er…”
Ignoring Baek Kang-hyun's muttered Is this really okay?, Ji-hoon guided the hunters toward the gate's exit.
“Ji-hoon, will you be… okay?”
“Aww, do we seriously just walk out?”
Kim Ji-eun and Kang Gi-tae, the other C-Team members, asked too, and Kim Jin-woo, still panting from the fight, gave an awkward laugh—apparently this was a first for him as well.
“H-haha… Truly a gate that defies prediction.”
Under Baek Kang-hyun and Jin Seo-yoon's direction, the hunters made their way to the exit. Once a good number of them had filed out, Ji-hoon cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted.
“Doobu!!!!”
“Hmph! What is it, dear brother?”
“We'll clear out of your spot! You do your thing!”
Doobu's head swayed slightly.
“You need some time, right? I'll give you plenty of it!”
Yes.
Time solves all hypersensitivity.
After all, don't teenagers need time too? Same thing here.
Doobu, I'll come back tomorrow. Stay calm~Doobu, Doobu. Left you a snack by the door—eat up. See you tomorrow.Doobu, Poppi says to give you this. It's a book—apparently it'll help if you read it.
Just like at Hell Farm.
This time, too, Doobu would need her time.
Ji-hoon pulled a single feather from Poppi out of his necklace.
“Doobu, hold onto this. If there's an emergency, let me know.”
“Dear brother…”
“And this is cheese and jerky I made myself. Eat it if you get hungry.”
“…Hmph. D-don't expect me to thank you.”
“Did I give it to you expecting thanks, huh?”
Ji-hoon grinned. Doobu turned her head slightly away with a fake cough.
“F-fine. I'll eat it if I'm hungry. Or not. Whatever.”
“Good, good. Then I'll come back around the same time tomorrow! Get some rest!”
Having showered Doobu with gifts, Ji-hoon stretched.
“Let's head out~ Agh, I'm exhausted.”
“After you, hyung-nim. Time truly is medicine for Doobu, it seems.”
“Sis is sooo tired, aigoo.”
“Choco, shh. Doobu will hear you.”
With Poppi and Choco in tow, he strolled calmly toward the gate exit. And Baek Kang-hyun and Jin Seo-yoon, who had been watching the whole scene as if entranced—
“Ah, uhh, l-let's go together, Ji-hoon!”
—hurriedly escaped the gate as well.
Meanwhile, Yoon Do-ha, who had observed and heard everything—
“They… bailed on the gate?”
KAHAHAHAHAHA!
Yoon Do-ha doubled over, clutching his stomach as laughter erupted out of him.
Walking out of a gate and abandoning the boss. Unprecedented.
“A variable, a truly, absolutely fascinating variable!”
Mutated gates. Mutated monsters.
And Lee Ji-hoon.
“Haa, you grow more and more curious by the moment.”
Yoon Do-ha's eyes stayed glued to the monitor as if nailed there—until Baek Kang-hyun, Jin Seo-yoon, and the rest of the withdrawn hunters returned.
“Mmm, delicious! This is combat rations? Seriously? Nothing like what I got back in my army days!”
The hunters had returned to the Administration Agency's hunter training camp. Ji-hoon had complained he was starving and demanded food from Baek Kang-hyun, who had hastily dug out some combat rations.
“In my day all we had was rock-hard ration bread, insanely sweet-and-salty stir-fried anchovies, and rice like bricks.”
“Hahaha, now that you mention it, you're a hundred-year returnee, aren't you, Ji-hoon?”
Baek Kang-hyun chuckled across from him.
“I heard Baek Kang-hyun's been dragging an F-rank around with him—guess it was true.”
“How is an F-rank pulling that off?”
“Word is his mana capacity is historically bottom-tier, so apparently the monsters don't see him as a threat.”
“Oh, so he's like a mule?”
“Guess so. He's got a tamer skill too, so they say he actually bonds with them.”
“Whoa, the F-rank hit the jackpot. Hit it big.”
“Must be nice. Bet he's raking in bonuses.”
“Explains the gear, look at that. Probably A-rank stuff.”
Ridiculous rumors like these were drifting around from every corner, but Ji-hoon forced himself to ignore them and asked Baek Kang-hyun.
“How's the gate looking?”
Baek Kang-hyun checked the live footage he'd received from Yoon Do-ha.
“The gate is… still holding.”
So far, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. They could probably hold out another day like this.
“The Dark Knight is still bound inside. However…”
Jin Seo-yoon stopped mid-sentence.
“The mana readings are rising abnormally.”
“…Rising?”
She nodded. “The mana density across the entire gate keeps climbing. Once it passes a certain threshold…”
“…A gate collapse.”
The instant the mana exceeded what the gate could contain, the gate collapsed. That was why boss monsters had to be dealt with inside the gate—usually, anyway.
“It'll be fine.”
Ji-hoon nonchalantly shook out the last crumbs of his combat ration and polished them off.
“It'll be… fine?”
“Yep. When Doobu molts, she gives off a lot of mana.”
“That's right—actually, I've been meaning to ask. How do you two know each other? No, what is that snake, exactly?”
“Hmm…”
At Jin Seo-yoon's question, Ji-hoon fell into thought.
Should I tell her or not?
“Hyung-nim, that woman cannot be trusted.”
Can't be trusted, sure. She had kidnapped him and tried to drag him off by force.
“That woman's rude and she rubs me wrong. Say the word and I'll crush her flat right now.”
Setting aside Poppi and Choco's hostility, there simply wasn't much he could share with Jin Seo-yoon. He shot Baek Kang-hyun a subtle look, and Baek Kang-hyun stepped in.
“We learned of her from the friend Choco mentioned at the previous gate. It seems they had a brief conversation using the tamer skill.”
“Hmm…”
Jin Seo-yoon narrowed her eyes and glared at Ji-hoon.
“Hmmm…”
“Wh-what is it?”
Her face closed in right up to his nose. Close enough to feel her breath. Ji-hoon backed away first.
“Ugh, seriously!”
“Fine, I don't get it! Let's just go with that!”
No matter how she looked at it, it was suspicious—but with no evidence, she had nothing to say. Jin Seo-yoon looked around at the gathered hunters and propped her chin on her hand.
“Anyway, what's the plan?”
Asked whether he had a strategy, Ji-hoon pulled out his phone. Baek Kang-hyun and Jin Seo-yoon's attention snapped to him.
There it is. He's got something saved on there—something he wants to show us.
And then, to the two of them bracing for a revelation:
“What? You two should play too.”
“…Sorry?”
“A… game?”
“Yep. Let's hang out. There's nothing to do today anyway. The molt won't finish until tomorrow at the earliest.”
“No matter how you look at it, this is completely irresponsible! You haven't just given up, have you—!”
The instant Jin Seo-yoon flared up to shout—
Saaa—
the Griffin King's mana coiled around her throat.
“Kgh…!”
“Excuse me. Did I say I gave up?”
Crack—
Jin Seo-yoon bit her lip hard.
“Anyone with eyes can see it looks exactly like giving up!”
“If it looked that way, I apologize. But.”
Ji-hoon fiddled with the accessory made from Poppi and Choco's fur as he spoke.
“Doobu really won't listen to a word we say until her molt is finished.”
“And how would you know that!”
“Guild Master Jin Seo-yoon—could you meet your boyfriend without having washed for a month, looking like a total mess?”
Jin Seo-yoon blinked at the question, then flailed her hands in a fluster.
“I—I don't have a boyfriend or anything like that!”
“It's a hypothetical! Do you not know what 'if' means? IF.”
“Th-that's… obviously I'd want to wash up before going out…?”
Ji-hoon smirked.
“Doobu's the same. She's a monster, but she has her own philosophy, you see.”
Which meant:
A monster. Who'd met someone she liked. But her molt wasn't finished, so her face was an absolute disaster. So she was furious about it, and everyone simply had to wait until she was done grooming herself.
“That's not—she's not some shoujo manga heroine!”
“She is a maiden, our Doobu.”
What on earth are you talking about?
Jormungandr… a maiden…?
“Doobu was also a devoted reader of Helltoon and HellPage back at Hell Farm…”
“Sis is a total otaku.”
Back at Hell Farm, Doobu had been a passionate web novel and webtoon fan… no, an addict. Historical-drama ones, at that. Which was why she possessed the sensibilities of a human maiden.
Wait, why does Hell have things like human civilization?
Demons imitated human culture and built replicas. Plenty of demons actually lived in human society to experience it firsthand.
“Anyway! We're going to protect our little sister's maidenly sensibilities until she's ready~ That's the plan.”
“…A never-ending parade of surprises.”
Baek Kang-hyun rose from his seat.
“Where are you going?”
“Nothing to do, so I might as well train. Guild Master Jin Seo-yoon, I'd appreciate a sparring partner.”
“Ha… Fine. I've got nothing better to do either.”
And so the two S-rank hunters headed off to spar.
“Poppi.”
“Yes, hyung-nim.”
“What did Doobu like again?”
“Doobu does not like snacks, hyung-nim. She fasts to watch her figure, in fact.”
“Anything besides food?”
“Hmm…”
Just then, Choco raised his paw high.
“Back at Hell Farm, when you made her a necklace out of weeds, she praised it!”
“I made her something like that out of weeds?”
“Sis really liked it!”
Right, right, the weed necklace, I did make that…
Wait.
Maidenly sensibilities.
Would something like this work too, if it counted as a maiden's taste?
That day, Ji-hoon stayed up all night making a gift for Doobu.
And the next day.
The hunters returned to the gate and—
“…We're screwed.”
—stared, dumbfounded, at two major changes.
The first: Doobu's appearance. Having finished her molt, she had become genuinely, breathtakingly beautiful.
The second:
“Heheh… dear brother, about that…”
“What… what happened to the boss?”
Hehehehe.
“Her mana exploded while she was molting, and it got caught up in it, and, well…”
“Little sister… you should have held back your strength.”
“I-I did hold back, okay?! You think I killed it on purpose? It was just too weak, that's its own fault! Hmph!”
There, reduced to a pile of powder with only its helmet lying forlornly on top, was the corpse of the Dark Knight.
“…Then why isn't the gate clearing…?”
Silence fell.
Jin Seo-yoon reacted first.
“That's impossible. If the boss is dead…”
“The gate should have closed too.”
Baek Kang-hyun's words followed. And in that moment—
Saaaa—
the mana flowing through the gate's interior changed, unmistakably.
This was no 'residual mana.'
It writhed, as if it were alive—
“This… I don't think it's over.”
Jin Seo-yoon said quietly. Baek Kang-hyun's eyes went wide, and his hand moved to his sword hilt.
Ji-hoon, meanwhile, said nothing at all.
Only:
“…Get ready, Poppi.”
“Yes, hyung-nim.”
Poppi's feathers bristled to their full length.
“The gate… is moving.”
Kugugung—
The gate
warped once more.