The Forest Where Erosm Gather

However it had come about, the strange inner intimacy that had formed among us — something no outsider could ever quite understand — finally carried us out on our first commemorative Gate expedition.

We arrived at the Center early that morning, linked up with the monitoring team the Association had assigned us, and made ready to depart.

The only real change from the original plan was the addition of a rather exacting-looking manager to the party.

"A pleasure to meet you. I'm Sim Jin-seo, the manager."

"Hello. I'm Lee Seha — party leader."

Thinking about it, it was only natural. Aside from Lim Hana and me, more than half the group had some kind of connection to that agency.

Lim I-jin had only just finished her Awakener registration, so for now she was coming along purely as an observer — but given the inexplicable bond we already shared, it was only a matter of time before she formally joined the party.

With things standing as they were, the agency had apparently decided to send a manager along to support their artists.

"I thought so watching the broadcast, but you really are a beauty. Have you ever considered expanding into the entertainment industry?"

"I'm sorry. This work alone keeps me more than busy enough."

"A shame. Still, if you ever change your mind, please get in touch."

"I will. I'll keep that in mind."

I took the business card he offered, stuffed it roughly into my wallet, and climbed into the car.

Sim Jin-seo took the wheel. I had a license myself, but it was a long-dormant paper license with no car attached, and the others were in much the same situation. That practical reality had been part of why the manager had been added to the party in the first place.

"So this is the kind of car celebrities ride around in? Weird."

It wasn't the usual celebrity van but a limousine-style SUV — still a novelty to anyone who had never ridden in one before.

"When the group gets larger we do take vans, but for individuals or small parties we use cars like this more often."

"Ah, got it!"

The Gate we were set to explore sat near a quiet rural town in Gangwon-do.

It had once been a fairly bustling place thanks to the coal mines, but various troubles had shut the mines down, and more recently even the nearby military base had relocated — leaving the area thoroughly deserted.

At first the mood in the car had been almost festive, as if we were heading out on a picnic, but after about an hour things settled into quiet. I sat still, reviewing the materials on the Gate we were about to enter, and as we neared our destination I glanced out the window — then, sensing something through my instincts, I spoke to the manager at the wheel.

"Could you pull over onto the shoulder, please?"

"Pardon?"

"Hurry."

"Ah — understood."

Thinking I might simply need a restroom, Sim Jin-seo checked the rearview mirror — then saw the set of my face and realized something was genuinely wrong. He brought the car to a stop on the shoulder.

The moment our lead vehicle pulled over, the monitoring team that had been traveling with us from the Center pulled onto the shoulder as well.

I stepped out. Their team leader climbed out with me.

"What's going on?"

"There's a beast nearby."

"What?"

There was no need to explain further. From the underbrush beside the shoulder, something faint and dusk-like suddenly lunged straight at me.

It hadn't been a particularly strong beast. One outstretched punch was enough — it burst with a wet pop.

"This is…"

"Its presence is so faint it's hard to detect casually, but there's no question — it's a beast."

"I'll contact the Center immediately."

The team leader's expression turned grave. He hurried back to the car to report in, and I called my instructor to explain the situation from the start.

"How far are you from the Gate at your current position?"

"Looks like about ten kilometers."

"You think these came out of the Gate in question?"

"We'd better hope so. If they didn't, the problem gets considerably more serious."

"True enough."

The instructor gave a wry smile.

"We handed this to you counting on that magnet constitution of yours, Seha — but at this point I'm starting to think we should call you a vacuum cleaner instead of a magnet."

"Haha."

Honestly, I wasn't thrilled either. Even trash like this saw me as prey and came running.

Or maybe it was precisely because they were so low-intelligence that they charged even harder.

Either way, with things as they stood, continuing by car was clearly no longer viable.

"What? Right here?"

"Manager, please stick with the monitoring team for now."

"Ah — understood."

Getting out of the car ten kilometers earlier than planned was one problem. The other was that the beasts we'd found were so feeble that the standard beast-response manuals simply didn't apply.

Ordinarily, when a beast was discovered outside a Gate, a beast advisory or alert would be issued at once according to its threat level, and corresponding measures would follow.

But this one, no matter how you looked at it, didn't seem strong enough to kill a person. Even if you were unlucky enough to have one latch on, the worst you'd get was a mild body ache.

In principle you were supposed to restrict traffic and limit access in the surrounding area — but the inconvenience that would cause far outweighed the actual danger, and people would never accept it.

The fact that the Gate had already been open for a full year was another problem. It was far too late to contain the spread through perimeter control.

"Think we can catch them all?"

"Hard to say."

With no way of knowing how far they'd spread, a clean sweep wouldn't be easy. If we were unlucky, we'd end up wasting months playing vacuum cleaner for nothing.

Still, our party — fitted out with monitoring gear — decided to press on toward the Gate for now.

On the way down the emergency stairs, another of those dusk-like shapes lunged at me the same way as before. I swatted it like a fly with my palm and it burst instantly with a pop.

"Ah! That startled me."

"Be careful. If you take a tumble here, no medicine in the world will help."

"Okay."

I cautioned Lim Hana, who had jumped at the sudden appearance, and at last we reached the bottom of the emergency stairs — where a dense forest opened before us.

I quietly extended my senses and focused. Before long I could map the countless Erosm hidden throughout the woods.

"We're screwed."

"What?"

"The numbers… there are way too many."

I'd only scanned the immediate vicinity and already my senses were picking up numbers in the hundreds.

The others seemed to have caught the strange atmosphere as well. At this density even people without my particular gifts should have been able to notice them — but this was a sparsely populated forest well removed from the Gate, so they had simply gone undiscovered until now.

"For now, we should head back and—"

I was about to say we ought to request more support when every Erosm around us began to move at once.

"Damn it. Incoming! Combat ready! Form up around Hana!"

At the sudden order the other party members clustered around Lim Hana — and in that same instant a black tidal wave of something pitch-dark came crashing toward me.

I triggered my finishing move on perfect timing. A massive tail of fire materialized and smashed through the oncoming Erosm.

Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!

They burst one after another with a sound like a string of firecracker charges going off. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠But there were far too many for a single finishing move to wipe them out.

A short distance back, the other party members — already formed in a circle around Lim Hana — moved at once.

Fire-butterflies Lamia had conjured winged toward the Erosm, and right behind them Han Sul-ye charged out to strike the ones on my right flank.

This being her first real combat, Lim I-jin didn't rush forward the way Sul-ye had. She stayed at Lim Hana's side and activated Aura of Benevolent Holy Light.

An aura that restored stamina and health was a massive help simply by existing.

Lim I-jin held her position beside Hana, focusing on smashing any Erosm that drifted that far with swings of a small mace.

Lim Hana watched the battlefield thoughtfully for a moment — then suddenly cupped both hands toward the sky and cried out.

A radiance as bright as a miniature sun bloomed and began to illuminate the surroundings — and astonishingly, the moment the Erosm were exposed to that light they burst with the same pop-pop as if they'd taken a direct hit.

"Nice!"

It was originally a healer skill whose primary purpose was simply to light up the area, with a secondary effect of weakly repelling evil energy.

Even so, that "repelling" was closer to driving things off than dealing direct damage — but against Erosm whose individual power was so feeble, even that proved fatal.

As the charging Erosm melted away in an instant under Lim Hana's light skill, I immediately contacted the monitoring team.

"You saw that?"

"Yes. We saw it. We'll report to the Association right away."

Trying to crush them one by one would have been absurdly exhausting — but this way, a few healers would be more than enough to clean them out.

"Can you keep that skill up?"

"Yep! As long as you need!"

Lim Hana flexed an arm in a little show of strength, as if to say leave it entirely to her.

Well — she was someone who had inherited skills from a goddess's reincarnation, after all. It wouldn't surprise me if that quietly amplified the power of her other abilities too.

"Good. Then we keep going."

Vacuum cleaner and area-of-effect magic, both online. There was no longer any reason to fear advancing.

We moved carefully, reading the terrain and combing every spot where Erosm might be hiding.

They weren't distributed evenly — clustered thickly in some places, vanishingly sparse in others. I had no idea why for now, but later teams sent out for cleanup would hopefully find something useful in the data we left behind.

After roughly two hours of sweeping the surroundings, we finally reached the Gate in question.

"Want to rest a bit first?"

"I'm fine."

Thanks to Lim I-jin keeping Aura of Benevolent Holy Light running the whole time, Lim Hana showed no real signs of fatigue even while maintaining her light. It wasn't a skill that burned through mental energy or stamina to begin with — and with constant replenishment from right beside her, of course she was fine.

The nearby town and other regions would need separate decontamination later, but that wasn't something we could take responsibility for. We had identified the cause and found a solution. The rest was the Association's job.

"All right. We're going in."

Inside the Gate, a barren rocky hillscape stretched out before us — not so much as a single tree in sight.

"They said they'd cleaned the interior as thoroughly as possible, just in case…"

They really had cleaned it thoroughly.

On one side the foundation traces of a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠temporary structure remained, but beyond that there was nothing particularly noteworthy.

"Let's do a quick sweep of the area first. You never know."

If nothing was left inside, the only remaining option would be to hunt down and destroy every last Erosm that had escaped outside.

Still — unlike before, we had at least picked up a lead. Even if this hadn't been a job anyone expected much from, producing results and producing nothing were two very different things.

We had been wandering the Gate interior for about ten minutes when something suddenly snagged on my senses.

I felt something flying toward me and reflexively reached out and caught it.

And there, dangling by the neck in my grip with its eyes sparkling, was a single white cat.

"This is…"

At a glance it looked like an ordinary cat — but the moment I saw it, I was certain.

This was a beast.

"A cat? In here?"

"What is that? Did it wander in by accident?"

"No. This is a beast."

"A beast?"

I hadn't sensed its presence even when it was right next to me. That meant ordinary senses would have a very hard time detecting this thing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at all.

This was probably the reason the Gate wouldn't close. The thought came to me on pure instinct.

Should I kill it?

The instant the thought crossed my mind, the cat's eyes welled with tears and its face turned pleading. Apparently it was a rather sharp little creature.

With that kind of talent for concealing its presence — and the ability to read a room on top of it — hiding from Awakeners would have been trivial. Whatever supplies had gone missing, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this thing had almost certainly eaten them.

What should I do?

I sat with the thought for a moment — then remembered that my second class, Succubus, included the ability to take familiars.

In fact, the clothes and shoes I was wearing right now had all been created through my butterfly familiar.

Could I make this one a familiar the same way?

The moment the idea formed, I focused on the cat with the same sensation I used when handling the butterfly. A connection sprang up between us far more easily than I'd expected.

"Huh? There's a butterfly ribbon on the cat's neck?"

And at the same instant, a message appeared before everyone's eyes announcing that the Gate had been cleared.