Came Out of the Gate
Came Out of the Gate
Who are you guys?
'.......'
Silence flowed.
Surprisingly, no one answered.
Grind—
I'm getting angry a lot today.
When I unconsciously let out my energy, the surrounding mana churned as if it were screaming.
My depleted patience was now no different from a ticking time bomb.
Still.
I held onto my patience until the very end and thought about it.
Why they were being so uncooperative.
Was the example I set insufficient? Or are they unable to speak due to shock?
Could it be because I made their Guild Master look like that?
Are they protesting now, saying they won't do as I want?
After thinking about various things, I realized.
Ah, I haven't untied them yet.
"Sorry! Was it uncomfortable?"
I withdrew the mana that was binding them.
Only then did I feel their complexions brighten compared to before.
Hmm, hmm, now you can speak comfortably, right?
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"P-please spare me! Please, I'll do anything!"
"M-mommy... sob"
Eek—
"Um... excuse me?"
Why on earth are you crying...?
I told you I wouldn't hurt you, didn't I?
"Sob, hic...."
No, why are you doing this to me?
It was a bit excessive earlier, but I didn't kill anyone, and you guys didn't suffer any direct harm!
"Ugh, alright—! I'm sparing this guy, okay?"
I activated my circles.
The binding magic I used before didn't really require activating circles. Simply put, it was a simple spell that didn't need it.
But the magic I'm about to perform now is on a different level from such crappy magic.
A whopping five rotating circles.
I deployed the spell formula.
The formula for regeneration to restore what was damaged, and the formula for restoration to remove foreign substances embedded in the body. Mixing these two exquisitely was the foundation.
A 5th-circle spell derived from that.
「Recovery」
I reached out my hand toward the Guild Master, who was lying there in a complete mess.
Crunch—
The Guild Master's body twitched abnormally and then soon began to reassemble itself.
Before long, his body returned to normal.
"Th-that's impossible—"
The look of astonishment from the side was very amusing.
Phew....
A woman raised her hand to express a question.
"Excuse me... but, he's not waking up...?"
"He's not dead, he just lost consciousness for a moment, so you can rest easy!"
"Ah...."
I examined their faces one by one with a proud expression.
They seemed a bit more relieved than before, right?
Maybe because the Guild Master recovered, or because they realized I'm quite friendly.
"Then, will you tell me now?"
Everyone knows I'm a good kid now, right?
I'm not scary, so you can tell me whatever you want?
The one who mainly continued the conversation was a woman named Han Seo-yun. The man I crushed was the Guild Master, and this woman was the Vice Guild Master, apparently.
She was also the woman who had set fire to my forest earlier, but I didn't really have any ill feelings about it now.
"So we came to this gate... I didn't know it would turn out like this."
"Oh! I totally understand now!"
It was just as I expected.
They were Hunters, this was a B-rank gate, I was the Gate Boss, and they had come to kill me, the Gate Boss.
A lot of other information poured out, but there was too much, so I'll pass!
When I asked why they had to kill the boss, they said it was because if the Gate Boss dies, the gate naturally dissipates....
"Aha!"
Then that means I have to die?
"Ah... w-well, I'll tell the Management Bureau! Since we've confirmed the Gate Boss is friendly to humans, they shouldn't touch—"
"No~ it's okay."
There's no need for that.
"Because I can just go myself."
"...Pardon?"
Hehe-
I moved with a light step and stood in front of the portal the Hunters had come out of.
I reached out my small hand and placed it on the portal.
[Warning]
[Remove your hand from the portal]
Oh, I can see it again.
[You are the Boss of this gate]
[You cannot leave until the Break]
"Hmm, a Break, huh...."
Gate Break.
According to what Seo-yun said, a Gate Break is a disaster where the gate goes berserk after a certain amount of time and indiscriminately releases the monsters inside to the outside.
And that was also why Hunters clear gates in advance to prevent this Break.
"Then how long until the Break?"
[Calculating time remaining until the Break...]
[Calculation complete]
[103,912 years, 214 days, 07 minutes, 43 seconds remaining until the Break]
"Yeah, thanks for your hard work."
I pushed my hand in further. But the more I did, the more strongly the portal tried to push me away.
"Hmm, I guess I'll have to force my way through...."
[Warning]
[You are the Boss of this gate]
[Please wait until the Break]
"Are these guys kidding me?"
Wait for the Break?
They said it takes over 100,000 years.
If it were about a thousand years, I might consider it, but 100,000 years? They need to make sense.
It's already a proven fact that time flows differently here than outside.
If what Seo-yun said is true, this B-rank gate was definitely scheduled to Break in a week.
A week outside is 100,000 years here.
"What kind of insane time difference is this...."
[Warning]
[You are the Boss of this gate]
You live there, System! I'm leaving!
I ignored the pushing force and kept reaching out.
Meanwhile, a sound came from afar.
"Excuse me, wait a moment!"
"Huh?"
I pulled out the hand I had briefly inserted and listened to what they had to say....
"If the Boss leaves first, the gate might collapse and the portal could disappear...."
It was a valid point.
"And... this might be overstepping, but if you do come outside, could you please hide that leaking mana...?"
"My mana?"
"Yes... I think it could be fatal to ordinary people... they might faint just by seeing it...."
"Hmm, is that so?"
I actively incorporated their opinion.
I controlled the mana that was leaking out unconsciously.
"About this much?"
"Ah, that should be enough."
I got their opinion, so I happily let them go first.
"Thank you!"
The four Hunters carried the unconscious Guild Master and crossed through the portal.
"They really disappeared."
Their mana vanished in an instant.
Seeing with my own eyes that I could leave made me even more excited.
"Now it's just the two of us, right?"
[Warning]
[You are the Boss of this gate]
"Shut up."
The System flickered again.
—Static
[You are the □□ of this gate]
[You are the Challenger of this gate]
"Heh-hum~"
Then the Challenger will return to the original world, okay?
I touched the portal. The deeper I pushed my hand in, the stronger the pushing force became.
I activated the circles one by one.
If the pushing force gets stronger, I just have to pour in an even stronger force.
Two, three, four, five—
The output kept rising.
I activated up to the last, ninth circle like that.
When the pushing force became even stronger, I poured in power many times stronger than that.
Now the pushing force was gone.
Even though I dipped my body slightly into the portal, there was no resistance.
Finally, I'm getting out of this crappy space.
I smiled brightly with a pure, innocent expression.
"We haven't even met for a day, but goodbye, System!"
[I hope you get out of there immediately]
"Are you really going to be like that until the end?"
[H□pe y□u g□t □ut □f th□re imm□di□tely]
The System changing as it pleases, as always.
The sentence that was completed like that was.
[Goodbye]
Hehe-
"Yeah~ goodbye to you too, System! See you later... no, I don't want to see you later either."
Just goodbye!
I put my body completely into the portal.
Meanwhile.
Outside the gate, it was absolute chaos.
A B-rank gate that suddenly appeared in the middle of Seoul.
The Dawn Guild stepped up personally to take on the subjugation of the gate.
That part was fine, but....
It had been about 10 seconds since they went in with such bravado.
Screeeech—
A noise that dizzied the ears.
"What...? Code Zero?"
Code Zero is an emergency call that doesn't ring unless there's a situation like a gate measurement error or a crisis of total annihilation.
But the fact that this rang means.
"Team Leader? W-what should we do first...?"
"Damn it—! Report it to headquarters first! Tell them there's a problem with the B-127 gate!"
"Um... is there a possibility it rang by mistake...?"
"The Dawn Guild, who knows everything about that complex operation, made a mistake? Don't talk nonsense and just report it, you bastard!"
'What a bolt from the blue on a clear day....'
The Dawn Guild's Guild Master, the Vice Guild Master, and three other elite guild members had entered the gate.
It means high-ranking hunters like an S-rank Hunter and A-rank Hunters had entered.
A force capable of clearing an A-rank gate without issues.
In the first place, hadn't the Dawn Guild Master succeeded in clearing an A-rank gate alone?
And yet.
They issued a Code Zero less than 10 seconds after entering.
Something big must have happened.
"Damn, I hope nothing bad happened...."
While they were anxious about what was to come,
"Huh? Someone is coming out of the gate!"
The Hunters came out less than 10 seconds after the Zero was issued.
"What?"
"The Dawn Guild has come out of the gate!"
The Hunter Management Bureau staff waiting at the scene responded quickly.
"Five people confirmed! Four, including Vice Guild Master Han Seo-yun, are fine... and Guild Master Kang Tae-jun is confirmed to be unconscious... uh?"
"What—why do you keep cutting yourself off!"
"...Someone else is coming out of the gate?"
The Team Leader was going crazy. Why was this rookie so dense?
"What kind of bullshit—only the five members of the Dawn Guild went in!"
"No, it's really someone coming out... uh?"
They had no choice but to stare blankly at the one person who came out after them.
"Hi!"
The one who came out of the gate was a young child.
9th-Circle Archmage safely lands on Earth!