Chapter 73
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 073
Chapter Title: Spatial Ability User Kim Geuk - [2]
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The hunt proceeded much like before.
Once I used my mental net to pinpoint the monsters' locations, the hunters would head there, form a firing line, and take them down together.
The only difference this time was that after killing the monsters, I'd scour the surrounding area with my mental net, checking every inch.
I figured it'd take just an hour or two of this to yield some results.
After all, my teleportation range and mental net coverage had expanded dramatically. Even finding monsters to hunt was now ridiculously faster than before. And as the days passed, the Incheon reclamation project was picking up speed accordingly.
So I was sure we'd easily find that little girl.
But two hours passed, then four, with no results from the search.
No sign of the girl, not even a trace.
It was frustrating. I'd thought if she was alive, we'd spot her right away—or even if she was dead, her body would turn up quickly.
At this point, it was starting to piss me off. During hunts and breaks alike, I threw myself into searching for that kid.
I barely touched my lunch, and instead of chatting with the team during downtime, I kept extending my mental net to probe the surroundings. But nothing changed. All I found were a few more monsters worth hunting in the afternoon.
With zero progress like this, my expression must have hardened.
Sensing my foul mood, the other hunters started helping with the search in the afternoon.
"Mirae! Can you hear me?!"
They'd been calling the missing girl's name even in the morning, but now Naito-san and his team were shouting it louder.
Those guys were probably filming for YouTube right now. Normally, I'd curse out the non-awakened trash for hamming it up for the camera, but today I was grateful even for that.
The other roughneck hunters weren't oblivious either. After taking down a monster pack, they'd comb the nearby brush to aid my search. But still, nothing.
"Where the hell is that kid?"
"Did she really get snatched?"
Despite my extra efforts and Naito-san and his crew yelling themselves hoarse, the hunt ended without finding 7-year-old Shin Mi-rae.
As dusk fell and we exited the danger zone, the woman who'd asked us to search for her missing daughter was waiting.
Im Hyeong-taek glanced at me and said,
"Kim Geuk, you look more worn out than usual... Should I handle telling her?"
I nodded silently, and Im Hyeong-taek approached the woman to relay the day's results in my stead.
In other words, that we hadn't found her daughter—or even a single strand of that kid's hair.
The woman seemed to choke up. She approached me with a look like she might burst into tears any second, but she stopped short of speaking.
She just eyed me cautiously before mumbling, "I'm so sorry for making you go through all this today..."
Why was she acting like that? As I stood there blankly, Seong Mun-yeong muttered,
"Your face must look seriously scary right now, hyung..."
"What's scary about it?"
"You look really rough. Dam-bi noona?"
My round girl pulled a mirror from her usual makeup kit and held it up to me.
That's when I saw my face.
My eyes were bloodshot red. Veins bulged grotesquely across my face.
Searching so meticulously today had taken a toll far beyond the norm. My nervous system must have been fried.
But after all that effort, I had no intention of patting myself on the back for doing enough.
"Thank you all for your hard work..."
After everyone dispersed, eyeing me warily, I pretended to head home with the other hunters before slipping away alone, claiming I had somewhere to stop by.
Then I returned to the area we'd hunted all day.
I resumed the search. Extending my mental net, I scanned everything within a 3km radius, over and over.
The other hunters had already risked their lives enough today; I couldn't demand more. Some might have stayed to help if I'd asked, reading my mood, but I didn't tell anyone and did it solo.
I didn't know why I was so obsessed. Was it irritation because something I thought would be easy wasn't? Or disappointment that Naito-san's YouTube wouldn't feature "Kim Geuk rescues missing child!"?
Whatever the reason, it didn't matter.
Incheon was my turf.
I couldn't sleep easy knowing one of my sheep was lost on it. No way in hell.
But no matter how resolute I felt, it changed nothing.
I kept searching until night fully cloaked the sky, but 7-year-old Shin Mi-rae remained unfound.
The next day, as we gathered to hunt again, Seong Mun-yeong took one look at me and commented,
"Hyung, what happened to your face?"
"Pulled an all-nighter grinding Dungeon Fighter."
"That doesn't look like gamer fatigue. Hyung, did you maybe..."
As everyone eyed me again, I waved them off.
"Whatever. Let's get to work."
We passed the woman who'd come looking for her daughter again and entered the danger zone.
The abandoned old town, empty of people. Eyes closed, I spread my mental net, mapping the monsters hiding in derelict buildings like caves.
Then, something living snagged on my mental net. I opened my eyes.
I relayed the info on the catch to everyone.
"Got a weird monster."
"What kind?"
"Emaciated bear? Kinda like that..."
As usual when danger was unknown, Baek Dam-bi took point.
She led with her light machine gun, non-awakened hunters following. A few shots rang out, and it was over.
"Whoa, never seen this one before..."
I eyed the bleeding monster corpse.
As my net had shown, it resembled a bear.
Skinny as hell, fur mostly gone, but the skeleton screamed bear. At a glance, it looked like nothing special from Earth.
"What the hell is this? Anyone know its name?"
"Guess not. New species then?"
Discovering unreported monsters wasn't rare.
Gates made it possible.
The moment a creature enters a gate and becomes a spirit body, aging and metabolism halt. Monsters that would starve or die of old age outside survive indefinitely inside.
So it was common for beasts trapped in gates for decades or centuries to emerge. Even individuals from extinct species lurked in gates, popping out like fossils unearthed from the earth.
As the cameraman filmed the corpse, Naito-san muttered like he was narrating.
"Really looks like a bear, huh? Ominous..."
"What's scary about a bear? Dropped from a few shots. Not as bad as a Deathclaw."
"Bears are scary in their own way."
True to his Japanese roots, Naito-san launched into an explanation.
He said bears killed tons of people. And they didn't always wait for prey to suffocate—people got eaten alive sometimes. Seong Mun-yeong cut him off midway, annoyed.
"Why bring up gruesome shit when a kid's been kidnapped? Especially with one guy already on edge..."
He glanced at me, and Naito-san finally caught on and apologized.
We kept hunting and searching, but only I—and my team and the others watching my mood—grew exhausted.
Unable to stand it, Baek Dam-bi suggested,
"That kid... Want to check inside a gate?"
Opening gates was tough, from what I knew.
"Didn't hear she was an awakener. Non-awakened souls fade out beyond a short distance, right?"
"Still. Worth a shot."
I hesitated, then nodded. Baek Dam-bi opened a gate, stepping into the purple space.
Dozens of minutes later, she emerged.
With a grim look, she shouted,
"Kim Geuk? Come in. Hurry!"
Something was up. I entered the gate, embraced by the violet world.
Her voice—not physical, but mental—echoed ahead.
"Follow me...!"
I followed her glowing silhouette—her spirit body form—deep into the gate.
How long did we walk? I spotted massive sleeping monsters inside.
Like the bear-like one from today.
Several of them. The largest caught my eye.
A little girl clutched in its jaws, her tiny body crushed beneath it...
"Mommy? Mommy, I'm here..."
A childish, feeble voice—or mental wave—seemed to emanate from the girl under the bear.
We'd found her. And she was alive!
I was thrilled at the thought of finally returning the brat to her mother when I sensed Baek Dam-bi's negative emotions.
I looked up as she asked,
"Can you get that bear off her body?"
I nearly said of course, but stopped.
A past hallucination flashed: Baek Dam-bi leaving for Sowol, me grabbing her wrist to stop her, failing.
In a gate where everything was spirit, physical interaction was near impossible.
If I couldn't hold one little round girl, what about that bear bastard?
"Fuck!"
I shoved with all my might, but the bear's silhouette didn't budge.
Shin Mi-rae under it didn't either. But sensing the disturbance, the kid mumbled,
"Mommy, I'm here. Save me, please? Save me..."
The horrific feeling wasn't just from Baek Dam-bi.
I knew I couldn't retrieve the kid like this. That I'd have to tell her mother her daughter was eternal emergency rations, suffering indefinitely under that bear.
"What if we open a gate right in front of those bear bastards? Gates inside pull spirits out whenever one opens nearby—they don't miss a hunt."
"Tried it. They didn't budge whether the gate was open or not. They've got emergency food stocked, no need to rush out. Something like that."
"What about someone lurking near the gate while it's open? Use bait to lure them out..."
"Did that too. Dam-bi said as an ice ability user, they'd go nuts for her, so she went out alone. Still nothing."
Back outside, we brainstormed with the gathered hunters, but no breakthroughs.
I just reconfirmed I couldn't even drag the kid from under the bear, let alone return her to her mom.
My frustration turned to horror.
Finding her corpse would have been less awful. I'd have done my part, shed a tear, gotten over it, slept it off, and maybe enjoyed the next day.
But not now.
I'd given my all, yet it wasn't over. No clue when it would end.
I might never forget this.
Because time wouldn't kill her. That tiny body would stay crushed under the bear forever.
She'd linger undead until the bear decided to sunbathe someday, freeing her at last.
Then devoured. Maybe alive. Maybe screaming "Mommy" in her final moments.
Her end as living rations: swallowed, shat out as monster dung.
When? Decades? Centuries?
No idea. Pray it comes soon? Or never?
I racked my brain for a way out of this nightmare.