The Training Gate (3)
To claim I hadn't pinned extravagant hopes on this prisoner would be an outright lie.
With my very life on the line, I had summoned the entity that seemed the most efficient solution available. Yet the moment it manifested, I realized even my wildest imagination had fallen short of reality.
“Kh-hekk… kkek…?”
A cerulean tongue, bursting straight from the narrow corner of the grimoire in my grip, skewered the maw of the white beast leaping for my throat. What trickled down its slick surface wasn't blood, but a viscous, pitch-black fluid far thicker than gore. Like a mosquito draining blood or a parasite gorging on bodily fluids, the inky slurry flowed ceaselessly down the tongue, vanishing into the crevice of the book’s corner.
“Uh…”
I stood there staring like an idiot.
Had I actually summoned it right? Or was "hound" some esoteric slang for a giant tongue? Bewilderment sprouted in my mind, one absurd question after another. But contrary to my confusion, a sudden, heavy weight dragged at the grimoire in my hands.
“Urgh?!”
Kzzzzzt—!
Violet sparks sputtered violently from the very angle where the tongue had shot forth. Moments later, a pale, hairless limb emerged. With its elongated tongue still skewering the beast, the creature slowly stepped out from an angle of space-time that physically shouldn't have had room for anything to exist.
Rustle.
Its footsteps made scarcely a whisper.
Corpse-pale flesh devoid of a single hair stretched taut across bone, clinging so tightly the skeleton seemed barely covered. Roughly the size of a large dog with an elongated snout, it bore a passing resemblance to a canine, yet... the alien presence dwelling within those hollow, obsidian eyes was something no living creature on Earth could ever possess.
“Hound Crouching in the Angle…”
Its sinuous tail still tethered to the corner of the grimoire, the hound turned its head silently toward me.
“Fsssh-heck—”
It let out a raspy wheeze, a sound like wind scraping against rusty sheet metal, before snapping its gaze back to the impaled beast.
Aside from the tongue impaling its jaw and the steady stream of black fluid pouring forth, the monster bore no other wounds, yet something was profoundly wrong with it.
“Kh-hekk… kkek… g-gurk…”
It wasn't resisting. No—could it even resist? The beast that had been about to tear me apart moments ago now stood helpless, frozen with its jaws agape, paralyzed by nothing more than a single tongue.
“Ch-rrrr… ch-haaaak—!”
The hound I had dredged from the book made the first move.
Shwuuuck—!
The impaling tongue snapped back in a blur, dragging a dense clump of black sludge with it straight into the hound’s waiting gullet.
Gulp.
Schlurp… smack…
Licking up every stray drop smeared around its lips, the hound sat back on its haunches and adjusted its jaw as if its business were completely finished. Watching the spectacle unfold, I looked even more stunned than before.
“…Is that it?”
The words slipped out before I could stop them. Sucking out some weird black liquid with its tongue? Doesn't it do actual attacks? Swallowing down the unspoken questions, I glanced from the resting hound back to the white beast in front of it.
“…?”
Even though the tongue had retracted, the monster didn't budge. Its eyes had already turned milky white, glazed over and lifeless. Frozen like a statue with its mouth hanging open, it lingered in place for a brief beat before crumbling into black dust with a dry rustle, leaving behind a single blue magic stone.
“…What on earth just happened?”
The only guess I could hazard was that the black liquid the hound had gulped down was the monster's mana. Deprived of the energy that sustained its physical form, it simply couldn't hold itself together anymore.
“Fsshh-heck… grrr-k…”
I stared down at the hound as it let out another indecipherable wheeze. Honestly, can I speak my mind? In situations like this, wouldn't it kill the universe to summon a cute female character instead? Why did it have to be some pale, skin-and-bones hound that looked like it had been starved for a week? Why not a blue-skinned dog-beastfolk big sister?
“Well, at least I know Master Cthulhu and I don't share the same taste.”
Letting out a halfhearted grumble, I leaned back against the cave wall and sank into thought. The blood that had gushed from my left arm had long since clotted. It hit me anew how vastly an awakened hunter's regenerative capacity surpassed a normal human's. Looking at the hound whose tail remained plugged into the grimoire's edge, I figured bringing it along might keep me safe... but once I stepped out of this cave, I had no clue what to do next.
Should I search for my party members, or head back to the entrance? Or maybe... clearing this gate on my own was an option. Since I couldn't accurately gauge the grimoire's power or my own standing, going on the offensive made me uneasy, but sitting in a dark cave waiting to be rescued seemed just as hopeless.
“Should we head out and explore a bit?”
“Fsshh-heck—”
I tossed the question to the mute hound, and when it answered with the hiss of a deflating balloon, I nodded solemnly, affirming its resolve. So you agree with me. Yes, that’s the spirit. If I keep stuffing you with that weird black fluid and you grow stronger and stronger, who's to say you won't suddenly evolve into a gloomy, pale-skinned goth big sister with boobs the size of her head? You can't rule it out. Brilliant idea, hound.
With that noble goal in mind, I stepped out of the cave with the tethered hound in tow.
“Ah, right. The magic stone.”
Moments earlier, just before Baek Chan entered the gate alongside the training squad.
From across the vast auditorium serving as the practical training hall, Lee Yu-seul stood watching Baek Chan and his team gathered before the portal.
“How does he look to you?”
“Ms. Su-ri.”
A woman with vibrant purple hair and a pointed black witch's hat sauntered casually up to the watching Lee Yu-seul. It was Ma Su-ri, the Hunter Association's magic training instructor—an eccentric witch hailing from an other-dimensional gate who had fallen in love with modern conveniences, formally immigrated, and even legally changed her name.
Lee Yu-seul crossed her arms and slowly shook her head.
“I'd imagine you have a far better grasp of that than I do, Ms. Su-ri.”
“Hrmmm~ I wonderrr. Our dear Chan, you see—”
Poking a slender finger against her own cheek, Ma Su-ri tilted her head playfully. Whether intentional or not, every gesture of the witch race exuded an innate, intoxicating sensuality. Though naturalized as a citizen, old habits died hard; she had tailored the standard hunter uniform to fit skin-tight, accentuating every curve of her voluptuous figure. While Lee Yu-seul had long grown accustomed to it, the rookie trainee Baek Chan had suffered considerably under that very sight.
“Hehe~ He seems... ordinary, maybe?”
Ma Su-ri recalled his conduct over the past two weeks of training. Hearing the higher-ups designate him as a Grimoire Mage, curiosity had driven her to observe him from afar. When she initiated slight physical contact during basic mana manipulation drills, he had grown flushed and flustered just like any other young man. The sheer panic on his face when his knuckles accidentally brushed against her chest had been quite a treat to witness.
“I feel the same way,” Lee Yu-seul murmured. “He's registered as a Grimoire Mage, yet I haven't noticed anything particularly unusual about him…”
“Still~ that grimoire of his looked like the real deal.”
Just once during training.
Ma Su-ri had caught a fleeting glimpse of the book's edge when Baek Chan accidentally dropped his canvas tote bag. The instant a sliver of that pitch-black cover imprinted itself onto the witch's retinas—
Thud.
For a split second, she had vanished from the world.
The illusion was so overwhelming that she felt swallowed whole not by mana, but by an incomprehensible, alien force. In a void steeped in pure obsidian, she had stood utterly alone, infinitesimal and insignificant.
…Ms. Su-ri?
“Ms. Su-ri?”
Lee Yu-seul’s voice yanked her back from the suffocating memory. If Chan hadn't hastily scooped up the grimoire back then, she might have remained trapped in that infinite dark.
“Well, I understand why the executives are anxious, but... I'd really prefer we don't provoke him if possible.”
After all, I'd like to live a long life.
A rather flippant remark coming from a 120-year-old witch. Yet coming from someone who had honed her sorcery for over a century, cold sweat beading on her skin at the mere thought of antagonizing him, the weight behind those words was undeniable.
Lee Yu-seul studied her colleague's strained expression, then gave a quiet nod.
“Hopefully, it won't come to that.”
Right then, Baek Chan’s squad finished their brief pre-entry briefing and began stepping into the gate.
Hummmmm—
Before them stood an artificial gate generator, the pinnacle of modern gatology. Bulky and intricately engineered, it was notorious as a tax-devouring monstrosity. The rifts it produced were strictly constrained to E-rank or lower, spawning only low-tier monsters with minimal mana density—ideal for training fledglings. Furthermore, an instructor had already entered beforehand to oversee the exercise, guaranteeing their safety.
At least...
That had been the plan until the anomaly struck.
KZZZZZZZZT—!
“What?”
“Ah?”
The instant Baek Chan stepped through the threshold, the placid blue shimmer of the portal erupted into violent static, mutating into a ghastly, flickering purple.
“…A Gate Overload! Contact headquarters immediately, Ms. Su-ri!”
“Already on it!”
A Gate Overload—a catastrophe triggered whenever the mana threshold a gate could contain was breached. The danger level spiked by at least two full tiers, mutating the terrain and causing the monsters within to warp into lethal horrors.
“Have you ever seen this happen to a training gate before?!”
“I've seen plenty of low-tier wild gates overload, but training gates are calibrated to hold the mana capacity of an entire B-rank party!”
Even as she shouted her reply, a blackened wooden staff had already materialized in Ma Su-ri's hands.
“I'm raising a barrier first, Team Leader Lee! If this causes a Dungeon Break, it'll be a massacre!”
“Understood. I'll prepare as well.”
Given the scale of the emergency, hunters across the Association headquarters who were sensitive to mana fluctuations began rushing toward the auditorium.
Vwooom—
Slamming the butt of her staff against the floor, Ma Su-ri spread a circular, geometric ward of ominous gray glyphs across the perimeter of the spacious hall.
“You're treating a Dungeon Break as a foregone conclusion, aren't you, Team Leader Lee?”
“….”
Lee Yu-seul drew her blade in silence, but her grim composure was answer enough.
The instructor overseeing the raid inside was merely C-rank. Baek Chan's party consisted entirely of fresh D-rank novices. Because the gate's mana threshold was already breached, sending even a single additional hunter inside to attempt a rescue would instantly trigger a Dungeon Break. Yet leaving them to their fate meant five novices would have to somehow clear a gate that had instantly mutated to C-rank difficulty or higher.
If left unchecked during a Gate Overload, the average window before a Dungeon Break occurred was roughly twenty-four hours.
“Assemble every hunter who isn't currently deployed on a raid, along with all standby combatants prepared for a Dungeon Break!” Lee Yu-seul barked at the panicked staff sprinting into the hall.
Bzzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzz—
The frantic buzzing of emergency disaster alerts vibrating on every smartphone in the room drove home the sheer peril of the crisis.
Yet even amid the pandemonium, a single nagging thought gnawed at both Lee Yu-seul and Ma Su-ri.
…Among everyone who entered, there's only one person capable of carrying the mana equivalent of an entire B-rank party.
Baek Chan.
His personal mana pool barely edged out a standard D-rank's. It fell hopelessly short of what was required to trigger a Gate Overload on its own.
Except for one thing.
The single object no one had paid attention to.
The single object no one could have properly accounted for.
“Could this be... because of that grimoire?”
“….”
Lee Yu-seul offered no reply, her suffocating silence speaking volumes.