Chapter 156
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 156
Chapter Title: Ex-Girlfriend
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A-rank hunters' mouths gaped wide open.
"Tha... that..."
It was the moment their weapons in hand—swords and staves—felt pathetically like toys.
Even I couldn't move.
The most shocking part was the monster's appearance, but...
The important thing was...
This place was Entropy Earth.
In other words, the Earth where I had lived.
There was no such thing on the Earth where I had lived.
It was just an ordinary world without any hunters.
My heart pounded.
Did a monster like that destroy Earth?
I felt a terror as if I were facing the unknown truth of the world's destruction.
At that moment when no one could utter a word...
Someone spoke up.
"Baek Joo, what do you think?"
Jahwa-yeon calmly asked Yi Seo-ryeong.
"Well."
Yi Seo-ryeong responded indifferently as well.
Her eyes scanned the sea where the monster had submerged, utterly devoid of emotion.
"......Not particularly... impressive."
"Is that so?"
The corner of Jahwa-yeon's mouth curled up slyly.
"Then, let's do it."
"Sure."
The moment that brief exchange ended...
- Swoosh...
Jahwa-yeon's body slowly rose into the air.
Crimson-black demonic qi erupted behind her like an explosion.
- Rumble...
The sky darkened.
Behind Jahwa-yeon, a colossal shadow began to manifest in the empty air.
A spear?
No...
A harpoon.
A black-tinged harpoon the size of a building floated in midair.
Jahwa-yeon gestured, grasping the spear, then spoke calmly to Yi Seo-ryeong.
"Light the way."
And then...
- Rustle...
Yi Seo-ryeong, standing beside her, hiked up her long skirt hem, exposing her pale thigh toward me.
- Stroke...
Yi Seo-ryeong slowly caressed her smooth thigh with her palm, eyes locked on mine.
Green intaglio markings engraved into her skin and began to glow.
- Rooooar!!
The internal energy Yi Seo-ryeong released surged into the heavens.
The light soon transformed into the shape of a massive dragon.
The enormous dragon coiled tightly around the harpoon Jahwa-yeon had conjured.
Perfect harmony of black and white.
No one present could comprehend the attack those two were unleashing.
The two women extended their hands toward the sea simultaneously.
- Boom!
The massive harpoon entwined with the dragon slammed into the whirlpool's center.
- Splash!
The ocean surface exploded.
And moments later...
- Crunch! Screeeeech!!
Gruesome sounds of flesh ripping and bones shattering reverberated from the seafloor.
The purple seawater began staining red amid agonized screams.
Jahwa-yeon yanked back the hand she had thrust toward the sky.
"Come up here, you wretched beast."
- Rumble...
The monster that had fled into the ocean depths was hauled to the surface, the giant harpoon piercing its back clean through.
- Screeech!!
Its struggles were futile.
And then...
That whale...
- Crash!
Was hurled onto the island while still skewered on the harpoon.
Fishing success.
- Squeak... Screech...
The moment it writhed...
- Whoosh!
The harpoon lodged in its back ripped free and swam through the air.
It immediately surged toward the beast's massive body once more.
- Crack! Thud! Stab!
The enormous harpoon pierced its head, body, and tail dozens of times in an instant, riddling it with holes.
- ......
The monster, instantly reduced to a pincushion, went limp.
"My first time whaling."
Jahwa-yeon dusted off her hands and sauntered past us as we stood there stunned.
The hunters around us were too shocked to speak.
A single strike.
S-rank hunters.
Each one was a being akin to a calamity.
The moment we witnessed that off-the-charts power with our own eyes.
Then.
Yi Seo-ryeong lightly rolled her neck and approached me.
- Step, step.
She positioned herself right beside me.
And, ensuring everyone could hear clearly, she deliberately raised her voice and spoke distinctly.
"Counselor. We have a duty to prioritize your protection above all else."
Jahwa-yeon had sidled up beside her by now.
"We" most likely referred to Jahwa-yeon and Yi Seo-ryeong.
"With our lightness skills... crossing the sea would be child's play."
She turned her head slightly, glancing sideways at the team leader and the hunters.
"Escorting just one counselor back to the Association right now probably wouldn't be difficult at all."
"...!"
The hunters before us faltered, their eyes trembling.
The team leader's face drained to a muddy pallor.
Her implication was straightforward.
'Let's just the three of us slip out.'
Why was Yi Seo-ryeong saying this to me—and loudly, for all to hear?
I tried to discern her hidden intent.
Her posture leaned excessively toward me.
She clung so close my arm nearly brushed hers, and Jahwa-yeon was the same.
Right beside me, arms crossed, staring defiantly at the Association hunters.
Staging a deliberate distance from the team.
It was practically a show of exclusive connection to me alone.
In this situation, what benefit came from flaunting that they answered only to me?
Probably...
This.
"That won't be possible."
I refused with a soft smile.
"Until support arrives... let's focus on searching for Otherworlders as much as we can."
Yi Seo-ryeong closed her eyes briefly at my response, then gave a slight nod.
"As you command."
The corners of her mouth lifted as she bowed her head.
But she didn't stop there—she hammered in the final nail.
"However, we do not follow the Association's chain of command."
"... "
The team leader listened in silence.
"We're here as personal bodyguards. Unless it's your order, Counselor... we won't obey anyone."
In other words, unless I said so, they wouldn't lift a finger.
The instant I grasped the meaning...
- Dash!!
The team leader bolted in front of me.
He seized both my hands.
"C-Counselor!"
He glanced nervously at the two women beside me and shouted.
"From this moment on... can I entrust you with full on-site command authority?"
"... "
Back in my days as a hunter...
Once time passed and I was no longer the rookie...
The role I naturally assumed was always the same.
Team leader, of course.
Coordinating team members' mental states, leading so no one got left behind.
My talents shone brighter in binding them together than in combat.
It's been a while.
"I will."
I released his grip and turned toward the team members who had fallen back.
"The boats are sunk. Return... is impossible right now."
To the murmuring crowd, I stated firmly.
"So, we're revising our objective. Not escape, but damage control until support arrives."
Fortify the base camp.
Carry out missions from within it.
"Let's move."
We headed back to the base camp site.
The concern was the operator suffering mental erosion.
How long he could hold out was uncertain.
I activated PIN to check his status.
Eh?
More leeway than I expected.
Normally, mental breakdowns like this last three days at most.
Yi Seo-ryeong must have treated him expertly with her internal energy.
That was when.
- Stroke.
A white shadow sidled up beside me at the rear.
It was Yi Seo-ryeong.
She cautiously matched my stride, stealing glances at me.
"...Counselor."
She softly brushed my collar.
And whispered in a hushed, almost timid voice.
"I'm sorry. I think I overstepped a bit."
"Pardon?"
"I thought it was for the best, but... I arrogantly steered things without consulting your wishes."
Yi Seo-ryeong bowed her head deeply.
"If I was presumptuous, please punish me."
She gazed up at me with damp eyes.
"I'll... gladly accept it."
"No."
I shook my head immediately.
Quite the opposite—she had efficiently sorted the chaos.
The team leader was floundering anyway, so it was better I took charge.
Plus, by playing the villains, they gave me solid justification.
I was now in the position of their savior.
"You've done well. It's much smoother thanks to you."
At my gentle smile, delight bloomed on her face.
"Thank you..."
I turned to Jahwa-yeon on the other side as well.
She too stood with arms crossed, feigning indifference.
"Thank you too, Heavenly Demon. We survived thanks to you."
"No big deal."
Jahwa-yeon waved it off dismissively, but the corners of her mouth were upturned.
In that way, we smoothed over the mood and arrived at the abandoned building lot slated for our base camp.
But...
"...Huh?"
The lead A-rank hunter halted.
At the camp site that should have been empty...
Someone was standing there.
An Otherworlder.
We rushed toward the Otherworlder.
In case it was someone we had to exclude, we formed an encirclement and approached cautiously.
The surrounded figure was a man in a tattered hoodie pulled on haphazardly.
His face was ashen, hands thrust high as he trembled.
His face was filthy, body gaunt like he suffered from malnutrition.
"H-Hey!"
He looked toward us, voice breaking with tears.
"B-By any chance..."
"... "
"The ones who just... killed that monster whale... that was you, right?"
I signaled the hunters to hold and stepped forward.
"Yes."
My calm affirmation made the man's legs give out—he crumpled to the ground.
"Ha... Thank goodness... really thank goodness..."
He sighed in relief, head hanging low.
We exchanged glances.
No hostility, no killing intent, no unnatural dissonance that came with human disguises.
He didn't seem like an exclusion target.
I knelt to meet his eye level.
The manual for first Otherworlder contact—explaining the situation upfront—was backed by vast data.
The phrasing minimized confusion while conveying the current reality fastest and most accurately.
I began the explanation right away.
"This place is another dimension."
Your current situation.
This wasn't the world you knew, and what kind of world it was.
Presumably, a chunk of Seoul had been ripped away and dumped here.
And that returning...
was impossible.
The man's eyes grew wider with every word.
I pressed on without pause, delivering the core message.
"And we are... hunters dispatched to rescue Otherworlders like you."
The explanation was simple.
But accepting reality was always hard.
The rest of the buffering was for the operators.
I stepped back and watched as the other operators attended to him, helping him stabilize.
After a short wait.
The man, having drunk some warm water and calmed, hesitantly spoke up.
"...There's a survivor camp nearby."
He finally opened up.
"Where?"
"About ten minutes' walk from here... in the basement of a shopping mall connected to the subway station."
Good.
If they had formed a group rather than being alone, identifying and escorting rescues would be far easier.
"Can you guide us?"
"Y-Yes... but if there are too many people..."
"If there are many?"
"...They'll hear. The monsters will come."
"Don't worry about that."
If anything, we'd welcome them.
We set out with the man in the lead.
The group moving: me, Jahwa-yeon, Yi Seo-ryeong, and the former team leader.
The rest stayed to guard the base camp.
Ten minutes away.
Even on that short trek, my mind grew increasingly tangled.
Collapsed roads.
Buildings torn asunder.
Up close, the devastation felt even more brazen.
'A survivor camp.'
The world I knew really had perished, then.
"Th-That's it."
The spot the man pointed to was a subway entrance.
Barricades of debris cluttered the surroundings; the only open path was the halted escalator.
We descended the escalator slowly.
Basement level 1.
The entrance to the massive shopping mall linked to the subway station came into view.
The man stepped ahead first, as if to reassure them.
"I'm back! It's the recon team!"
He waved both hands, announcing himself.
That was when.
A sharp gunshot rang out underground.
- Bang!
"Argh!"
The man screamed and collapsed.
And then.
A bullet struck at our feet.
A warning shot.
- Creak...
The shopping mall entrance's shutter rolled up.
As the entrance opened, someone slowly emerged through the gap.
A petite figure with a crudely modified shotgun slung on their back.
I narrowed my eyes, observing the opponent.
No mana registered.
The gun...
At best, a relic of gunpowder weaponry from a bygone era.
Probably just a sting if it hit.
No real threat.
Negligible damage even if struck.
I kept advancing slowly without pause.
The opponent frantically leveled the shotgun at me.
Evidently hadn't expected approach after the warning shot.
But I closed the distance regardless.
Ragged clothes layered haphazardly, face swathed in a hood exposing only the eyes.
Judging by build and voice... seemed female...
But then.
"...?"
The closer I got, the stronger the sense of wrongness.
Something.
Something was off.
Not unfamiliar.
I halted abruptly.
The opponent, who had been aiming at my approach...
Froze solid the instant they confirmed my face.
- Drop.
The barrel drooped limply downward.
Trembling breaths leaked from beneath the hood.
"...Seon-woo?"
She called my name.
I'd forgotten.
That this was my hometown.
And that in my hometown, the ties I'd left behind still lingered.
- Swoosh...
The hood slipped down.
A haggard face.
But... features unchanged from memory.
She was...
My ex-girlfriend.