Explore the Gate. Be Despised.

Explore the gate. Be despised.

The moment Team Leader Myo handed over command authority—

the first words Kang Yul spoke to her were neither about entering the gate nor an explanation of the skills he planned to use for the exploration ahead.

Something far more important than either of those.

"From this moment on, Team Leader Myo, you must protect me with everything you have."

Self-preservation. Pure and simple.

If I die, none of this means a thing.

It was an extremely individualistic way of thinking—the kind of mindset you'd expect from a hunter willing to do anything to survive.

The problem was that the person hearing those words was a hunter who shared that exact same mindset.

And not just any hunter—a veteran who had climbed to a position so high that comparing her to Kang Yul would have been an insult.

Which meant that right now—

"…."

—Team Leader Myo staring at Kang Yul in silence after hearing those words was only natural.

From the perspective of someone who had weathered every storm imaginable, he must have looked thoroughly pathetic.

Those eyes are terrifying…

But Kang Yul fought to keep that reaction off his face. A competent underground hunter named Kang Yul would have the shamelessness not to back down over something like this.

Of course, he had no intention of locking horns with Team Leader Myo—who was currently cursing him out with her eyes alone—for the rest of his life.

Covering up his illegal transaction records wasn't the only thing he was after.

As long as I'm tangled up with her anyway, I should at least try to turn this into a useful connection.

It might have been a little greedy, but Kang Yul decided that if he was going to commit, he might as well go all the way.

Team Leader Myo was the representative hunter of one of Seoul's autonomous districts. If he could somehow maintain a good relationship with her, the benefits of living as a hunter would far outweigh the drawbacks.

Things like a discreet sales route for unregistered gate byproducts, for instance.

Selling to the Favorability Merchant is convenient, but the transaction volume is way too limited.

Once a day. Place a payment in the wooden box, make a wish, and something of equal value comes out. The problem was that the wooden box was far too small, and you needed high-value byproducts for the exchange to be efficient.

Kang Yul hadn't discovered any high-value mineral veins or gems yet.

So if I can establish a sales route through this opportunity…

His gate exploration speed would skyrocket from here on out. He might even find a way out of the burrow.

Which meant Kang Yul needed to forge some kind of positive connection with Team Leader Myo, no matter how murderous her glare.

So right here—

Kang Yul looked at the notification windows that appeared as they drew closer to the mountain and thought: solving the problem Team Leader Myo actually cared about would forge a better connection than a hundred pretty words ever could.

"I'll begin the exploration now. Team Leader Myo, just keep watch and step in if things look dangerous."

Without waiting for a reply, he brushed past her and walked straight into the dreamlike forest that seemed to mark the entrance to the quarantine zone.

A competent underground hunter named Kang Yul needed to be just a little bit rude, he figured.

She's following me… right?

Of course, despite the act, his heart was still pure coward Kang Yul—so he fretted inwardly about what he'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠do if she didn't follow.

Thud—

Th-thank god…

Hearing her footsteps trailing silently behind him, Kang Yul breathed an internal sigh of relief and pressed deeper into the forest.

And so began Kang Yul and Team Leader Myo's peculiar exploration of the Suraksan Gate.

Erosion Quarantine Zone — Suraksan.

Its official designation according to the Gate Book was the Forest of the Spore Colony.

True to the description of a forest transformed into a dreamlike landscape by the Spore Colony's mana, the deeper they walked, the more the woods peeled away from reality into something utterly alien.

Looks like a forest straight out of a fairy tale.

Kang Yul surveyed the woods as he walked along the trail. Moss-covered trees glowing with a soft green light lined the path, casting a dreamlike atmosphere over everything. Around those green-lit trees grew plants and mushrooms of every color he'd never seen before.

Flowers shaped like butterflies. Flowers shaped like ants. Mushrooms shaped like cats. Mushrooms shaped like snakes. Mushrooms that, at a glance, almost looked human…

The fairy-tale forest stretched on without end, and Kang Yul followed the trail deeper still.

Anything around here that could raise the exploration rate…?

For a while he wandered the forest under Team Leader Myo's protection, searching for something that might bump up the exploration rate—until a new kind of mushroom caught his eye.

"!"

A familiar chime rang in Kang Yul's ears. Drawing closer, he found a grotesque mushroom utterly at odds with the forest's atmosphere—clusters of human eyeballs packed tightly together, growing like a fungal colony.

So that's a Spore Colony.

He'd heard they looked like human eyeballs, but seeing one in person was far more realistic than he'd imagined. Human eyes formed the mushroom caps, while strands of optic nerves, blood vessels, and muscle tissue dangled below like stems.

In short: extremely grotesque and deeply unsettling.

Someone actually looked at this thing and thought, "I should research that"…

Appearances aside, it was supposedly a key ingredient in psychiatric stabilizers and commanded a high market value. He couldn't help but admire the stomach of whichever researcher first decided to study Spore Colonies.

In any case, Kang Yul glanced around briefly before approaching the Spore Colony up close for a better look.

Ugh, disgusting.

Thankfully, years of browsing every supernatural gore image the Hunter Gallery had to offer had built up a decent tolerance. Without that, he might have lost control of his expression and heaved everything up on the spot.

Right now he needed to play the part of a rude but competent underground hunter named Kang Yul. Leaving a weak impression like that would only invite suspicion from every angle.

On top of that—

I almost got caught for eating coal and dirt mixed into milk this morning.

Before heading out, he'd scooped up dirt like cereal and eaten it. If he'd thrown up just now, they might have treated him like some non-human thing disguised as a person and shipped him straight to a "research lab."

Having to watch every single move is more stressful than I expected…

But what choice did he have? If he wanted his criminal record buried and a new sales route secured, he had no option but to tough it out.

So Kang Yul silently stared at the Spore Colony, telling himself to finish this quickly and go home—

?

Strangely, the Spore Colony showed no reaction at all.

Weird…? I've been staring at it this long. Shouldn't something show up like it did with the worm—whatever it's thinking?

Kang Yul opened his status window and checked the skill.

Nothing's changed.

In that case, he should have been able to see the 【Trait】 of any living being he encountered, just like with the worm. But no matter how long he stared, the Spore Colony's 【Trait】 refused to appear.

Does it not work on plants?

On a hunch, Kang Yul tried the skill on the surrounding trees, flowers, and mushrooms.

The skill activated without any trouble. So it wasn't a matter of plants being incompatible.

Then why only the Spore Colony…

Kang Yul crouched near the Spore Colony for a while, mulling over the skill's conditions—why every other plant worked but this one alone fell outside the skill's range.

Then, suddenly—

Hm? Wait a second. Come to think of it…

Looking over the skill window, Kang Yul noticed something unnatural.

"?"

…When I found the Spore Colony earlier, the notification didn't say I'd discovered anything specific, did it?

Thinking back, that was true. When he'd found the forest entrance, the skill had helpfully labeled it "(Entrance)." But when he discovered the Spore Colony—the very subject of this forest—it only threw up a bare "exploration rate has increased"?

That felt off.

The exploration rate went up, but the notification was stripped down… and it's not even a valid target for 【Trait】… Wait. Could it be?

Kang Yul reviewed the skill window one more time and formed a hypothesis for why the Spore Colony alone wasn't a valid target.

Suppose the Spore Colony in front of him wasn't the main body, but a fragment that had broken off from it.

Finding a living "fragment" would raise the exploration rate—but because it was a detached "fragment" with no sense of self, the skill wouldn't activate.

And at that exact moment—

As if confirming his hypothesis, the exploration rate climbed and a notification packed with new information appeared.

Consciousness Entity?

That was almost certainly the root source eroding Suraksan. Judging by the way it scattered Spore Drones while hiding its true body somewhere in the forest, its intelligence didn't seem particularly low.

The Association's continuous management had made territorial expansion difficult, so it had even attempted to evolve toward causing chaos rather than simple proliferation. That much was clear.

How am I supposed to find this thing…?

Supernatural creatures like that tended to be cunning—once they decided to hide, they were nearly impossible to track down. Even a rude but competent underground hunter named Kang Yul (performance edition) found this case a bit tricky. He was deep in thought for a moment when—

"A special potion that eliminates spores in the body."

Team Leader Myo, who had been quietly watching him, stepped forward and held out a bottle of liquid.

"Why are you giving me this…?"

"Those exposed to spores tend to linger in one place for extended periods."

"Ah."

She had apparently mistaken his deep concentration for spore exposure. Kang Yul was about to explain that no, he hadn't been exposed yet, when—

"I'm fi—"

"Additionally, those exposed to spores tend to exhibit an impulse to put nearby objects into their mouths. So stop eating dirt and take the potion."

"…Excuse me? What on earth are you—"

But Kang Yul couldn't finish the sentence. By this point, even he had noticed something was wrong.

…Marshmallow flavor?

Belatedly, he registered the chewy, fluffy sweetness filling his mouth. And in one hand, he was holding a fistful of dirt—the apparent source of that sweetness.

Only then did Kang Yul understand.

Of all times for the habit I picked up resting after mining to kick in…!

While he'd been pondering how to find the Spore Colony, his bad habit of unconsciously scooping up and eating the surrounding dirt had resurfaced. Seeing such a pathetic display, it was only natural that Team Leader Myo would think what she thought.

"Shall I feed it to you myself?"

"…Team Leader Myo. I think we need to have a conversation."

The ability to view the 【Trait】 of living beings encountered in a gate. So it worked on people too?

His knowledge had grown, but somehow he felt like his humanity had taken a hit in return.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Under Team Leader Myo's contemptuous gaze, Kang Yul did his best to explain the situation in a way that—while suspicious—was at least somewhat believable.

"I'm perfectly fine. I simply have a habit of eating dirt when I concentrate."

"Dirt."

"Yes. I can't go into detail, but let's just say it has to do with the class I awakened as."

It wasn't a complete bald-faced lie. After awakening as a Gate Summoner, he'd received the ability from the worm he met in a gate, hadn't he? Framing a melon with a few lines drawn on it and calling it a watermelon—that level of white lie ought to be acceptable.

For a while after that—

"…."

—Kang Yul had to spend a considerable amount of time persuading her that, for someone who had unconsciously pulled down his mask and shoveled dirt into his mouth, he was genuinely fine.

"The dirt I can set aside. How do you explain the spore exposure?"

"That's because I have a strong stomach. I can chew and swallow minerals. The spores simply dissolve in my stomach acid."

"Then eat one."

"…Excuse me?"

"If you eat a mushroom raw, I'll believe you."

The conversation had dragged on long enough that he now found himself in a situation where he had to chew a mushroom to prove he was fine even when exposed to spores. Having come this far, backing out felt awkward—so Kang Yul eventually picked up a Spore Drone and thought:

Worm, I believe in you…!

Mushrooms were plants that grew on mountains. So if he had How to Eat Mountains, learned from the worm, this shouldn't be a problem either.

No—it had to be fine. Otherwise he was a dead man!

"If anything goes wrong, I intend to perform a gastric lavage with a potion immediately, so you need not worry."

"Ah. Right."

…Well. That was reassuring.

After a brief moment of hesitation, Kang Yul brought the human-eyeball mushroom to his mouth and took a bite.

Crunch—

Ugh… this texture…

Crunch— crunch— crunch—

…Huh? It's actually pretty good? And it tastes decent too.

Kang Yul looked at the mushroom in his hand. The appearance alone was enough to make anyone gag, but the texture was surprisingly chewy and crisp, with a subtle sweetness—like eating expensive squid.

If I closed my eyes, or stir-fried it with some seasoning, this could actually work…

Entertaining that thought in complete seriousness, Kang Yul chewed and swallowed the entire mushroom in his hand.

"…."

Having witnessed the whole thing, Team Leader Myo began looking at Kang Yul the way one might look at the most grotesque supernatural creature on earth.

Hey, you're the one who told me to do it…

But he didn't dare say it out loud. If he carelessly approached her, Team Leader Myo might actually fold him in half.

And as a result—

…He had obtained a clue about where the Consciousness Entity might be hiding.

Ah, I just want to go home and mine with the worm…

Worm, are you doing okay…? I miss you more than usual today.