Chapter 75
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 075
Chapter Title: Spatial Ability User Kim Geuk - [4]
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The first day I tried teleporting inside a gate, there wasn't a single achievement worth recording.
Far from teleporting, I couldn't even successfully set coordinates through my mental network. Every time I spread out my mental network, dizziness crashed over me... It was horrifically difficult to focus enough to use my ability.
I repeated futile attempts for about two hours, then had to leave the gate with nothing but terrible vertigo in tow.
Time continued to pass.
"Let's do our best today! And Kim Geuk? Don't push yourself too hard. You've got stuff to do after hunting, so let the other hunters handle a bit more this time..."
On the third day, I couldn't devote myself solely to rescuing the little girl—I still had to do my hunter duties. I rejoined the others in resuming the Incheon reclamation project.
Only after finishing the hunt did I enter the gate Baek Dam-bi had opened and repeat the same attempts.
Of course, no results. Not yet.
On the fourth day, I succeeded in setting coordinates via the mental network.
I had no idea if some trick had clicked or if I'd simply adapted to the gate's interior. And even then, I still failed at the actual teleportation itself.
But it was progress—the only progress so far.
"Incheon forever—!"
On the tenth day, a gate opened in Incheon's Gyeyang-gu.
Behemoth had pushed even deeper into Seoul. The monster hordes trailing it moved along, and the ripple effects reached Incheon too.
The swarm pouring out was enormous. I had to spam teleportation to its limits just to suppress the outbreak.
Exhausted from that, I staggered into the gate.
"No, you should rest today. You're pushing too hard..."
Baek Dam-bi tried to stop me, but she couldn't hold me back. If anything, my male instincts exploded into showing off my toughness in front of a woman.
"I'm fine? I won't die even if I push a little. Watch."
When I finally spread my mental network and attempted teleportation, I realized something was wrong.
Huh? Wha...
Dizziness hit me like a tsunami, sweeping away my consciousness. Just like someone caught in a tidal wave sinking into the depths, that's what happened to me.
And so, I lost consciousness inside the gate.
Well, "lost consciousness" might not be the right way to put it. Out-of-body experience fits better.
My awareness, which I'd thought was vanishing into somewhere, began faintly perceiving its surroundings.
Monsters trapped in gates too long sometimes enter a kind of suspended animation—or so I'd heard. Maybe that's what happened to me.
My consciousness got caught in some current, drifting through the gate's interior. Like a mind in a dream...
The gate's interior—the astral realm—is where the emotions and thoughts of countless intelligent beings accumulate.
Emotions and thoughts built up over ages in the astral realm form a kind of energy. Awakeners are those who absorb that energy to gain power.
My consciousness first passed through an area of warriors roaring cheers and coliseum gladiators bellowing. It was like reliving the vision I'd seen awakening as a physical enhancer.
Then it drifted through realms of people suffering in suffocating situations.
There, I experienced—as if it were my own—a man buried underground, clawing at his coffin lid with his nails, and a prisoner in a cell awaiting execution. Probably the visions force field exoskeleton users see.
Finally, I relived the vision from my teleportation awakening. Scenes of escape and movement from others flooded my consciousness again...
What set this apart from a dream was that my consciousness truly existed in reality during it all.
More precisely, inside the gate. Thanks to that, I could even hear my round girl's panicked roar as I lay unconscious, unresponsive.
"You crazy bastard!"
Since I was aware of my surroundings, I could sense the flow of time too.
I'd been like that for hours, and Baek Dam-bi had stayed by my side the whole time without leaving.
How much longer did it go on?
Finally, I opened my eyes.
"You okay?"
I chatted briefly with Baek Dam-bi in front of me to grasp the full situation, then asked,
"I was out of it for at least nine hours... and you stayed right here the whole time?"
"What, leave you alone and go home to sleep easy by myself?"
"I'm so sorry..."
While Baek Dam-bi opened a gate to return to Incheon, I absentmindedly spread my mental network.
And I blinked at the change I felt.
No dizziness washed over me when spreading it inside the gate. Why?
I had no clue. All I could guess was that drifting through the gate once had let my consciousness adapt better to the environment.
Stepping out, I saw reporters waiting, so I shouted "Incheon forever!" for them before heading home.
Afterward, heartwarming tales about the incident spread. The story of a hunter who, exhausted from fighting all day, still entered a gate to save a kid and ended up staying overnight (Honestly, I thought I was pretty damn cool myself).
I did a rare interview at a broadcast station, and news of the "Shin Mi-rae Rescue Operation" being led by Hunter Kim Geuk aired that day.
On the fifteenth day, some aunties and uncles showed up, offering to help me.
"Looking at you all, you don't seem like awakeners, let alone spatial ability users. How exactly?"
Their absurd answer: They were meditators from some training institute who would teach me to dive deeper into my inner self, making my ability use smoother.
A quick HuntWeb search revealed they were a cult with tendrils in several Seoul Awakener Centers.
I got pissed. Non-awakener trash always pulls this revolting crap.
I almost beat them up but held back. Instead, I tossed them into a gate and pulled them out the next day.
That must've hurt. Gates brim with emotions and metaphors. That's why nearby folks get stirred up every time one opens, flooded by the outpouring.
Non-awakeners are far more sensitive to it. No wonder only Baek Dam-bi and I went in.
Sure enough, they came out screaming about lawsuits, but I ignored them. It just made a blip in some online article.
On the twentieth day, Shin Mi-rae's mother entered the gate with us.
We brought her to her daughter—crushed under the bear, crying for her mom.
In front of her pinned daughter, the woman gripped her whimpering child's hand and began scattering waves of sorrow around her.
After a long while, she refused my order to exit the gate.
"You're staying in here?"
"Yes..."
She wanted to stay by her daughter's side.
She'd probably seen the online article about the cultists trapped overnight and realized normals could endure time in a gate without dying—just suffer.
Unable to find logic to convince her, we left the gate without her.
A month passed since then, and more time slipped by.
Gates opened three more times in that span. I ran around blocking them while hunting Incheon's monsters, but never skipped dipping into the gate daily.
If even a non-awakener would stay with her daughter, how could an awakener like me whine?
And so, one month and seventeen days in...
I finally succeeded in teleporting inside the gate.
"Ah, Kim Geuk. Finally?"
It wasn't a full teleport like I did outside—just a slight hop, maybe ten meters at most.
But for now, that was plenty. I'd proven I could use my ability inside the gate.
With possibility in sight, quitting was no longer an option. I doubled down on my efforts.
A few more days passed. Teleporting solo got easy, so now I needed to try with someone else.
I considered hiring extra help—bring someone into the gate and practice teleporting while in contact.
Baek Dam-bi, hearing this, said,
"Why hire when you can just grab me and practice?"
I hesitated a bit before accepting her offer.
And that's what we did. Holding hands, we kept attempting teleports together.
It flat-out failed at first, stressing me out for days, but giving up after coming this far would've been ridiculous.
I convinced my exhausted self that success was possible.
I'm the Duke of Incheon. Not like that pathetic guy who watched terrorists kidnap his round girl wide-eyed, then couldn't even stop her from leaving later.
And I teleported. With my round girl.
"It worked, right? So now, finally...!"
Her ecstasy spreading around infected me too. I grinned and nodded.
I was ready to reclaim my lamb.
"Hunter Kim Geuk, you got this!"
On the day I launched the rescue op, reporters somehow knew and gathered with cameras. Even fans who filmed me for YouTube clenched their fists, cheering.
Lying that I felt no pressure would've been a lie. Especially since one teleport wouldn't end it.
I spoke to Shin Mi-rae's mother, whom I'd just brought out of the gate.
"Like I said before, your daughter might die. You've seen it—the bear cub's got her gripped tight. Even inside the gate, they won't separate."
And that bear was a physical enhancement awakened being. Maybe as strong as me. I told her that.
"The instant that bear cub exits the gate and hits external stimuli, it might clamp down in shock. Explaining exactly what happens then would be cruel..."
Shin Mi-rae's mother replied with a hardened face.
"Better than her staying like that forever. Please, I beg you."
Thus, under many watchful eyes, the operation began.
Baek Dam-bi opened the gate. While other hunters stood by, I entered alone.
Moments later, I stood before the girl and the bear crushing her.
I extended both hands. Gripping each side of the bear's jaws holding the girl's head (not too tightly), I closed my eyes and focused my mind.
I couldn't fail. Absolutely not.
I teleported—the bear, Shin Mi-rae in its jaws, and me.
Out of the gate.
My vision shifted. The purple world vanished, sunlight poured in, and our ethereal bodies reverted to flesh without delay.
Thus, I felt my heartbeat, the bear's texture through my hands, its foul breath.
Waiting hunters and reporters shouted.
"They're out!"
At that moment, I poured strength into my hands holding the bear's jaws to keep them from closing.
But clamping jaws is far easier than pulling them apart.
The bear spasmed in the sudden situation, and stopping its jaws from snapping was tough.
My heart pounded explosively. Let her die like this? After two months of hell?
The next instant, I sensed a flow through my mental network.
Like when a gate opens, emotions and metaphors poured from it.
And in that moment, I detected the pressure and stress from the gate flooding into Shin Mi-rae's tiny body.
A groan escaped her lips soon after.
"Ah, ah...!"
First time seeing an awakener awaken.
Repeated attempts in the gate had sharpened my mental network, letting me sense things I couldn't before.
It told me of the transparent film covering her skin.
I realized then: the girl had awakened to force field exoskeleton ability. Even if the bear clamped down, she wouldn't die.
And simultaneously, the pressure and stress energy seeping into her flowed into me too.
Visions flashed in my mind again.
A buried woman. A gutter rat in a giant bird's beak. A prisoner awaiting execution. A thief bound to a tree, pelted with stones. A rebel on a cross...
Moments of pressure and stress. All sorts of abstract symbols.
Figuring out the situation wasn't hard. I'd been through it twice before, after all?