The Closed-Type Gate
The master of this gate has appeared.
That is what everyone thinks.
Because.
“Moo-moo!!!”
The monster that appeared in the distance was crying out, “Moo-moo.”
“Boss! That’s a large-scale monster….”
“Just handle the Jingso!”
“Understood!”
After briefly dividing our roles, I ran straight toward the beast. As I launched myself forward, I scanned the creature from top to bottom. It was so massive that it distorted my sense of perspective. The ground shook with every step it took on its two legs.
‘Does that even make sense?’
Is it truly a creature made of flesh and blood? Facing a monster that defied all standards, a strong sense of doubt welled up within me. Its sheer physical presence was threatening enough, but the bigger problem was the sheer magnitude of the energy I could feel radiating from it.
‘It’s definitely over level 30.’
I had never seen a monster above level 30 before. Well, I had seen them, but I hadn’t been able to gauge the intensity of their energy. That made it difficult to pinpoint the exact level of Moo-moo. It felt like it was somewhere around level 35.
‘Bare-handed… and completely raw.’
I quickly analyzed its physical characteristics. Its lower body resembled a Jingso—covered in mottled fur with hooves for feet. The absurd part was that its upper body was similar to a human’s. Its pectoral muscles were as developed as those of a bodybuilder on steroids. Its skin looked incredibly tough. Its head was a bizarre mix of a cow and a human; it had a long snout and two long, jagged horns on its forehead.
‘Good balance… absurdly so.’
Moo-moo’s running posture was incredibly stable, as if it were used to walking on two legs all the time. Its speed was impressive, too. Despite being in its primal state without any equipment, its reach was naturally longer than mine. Level aside, its strength seemed superior to mine as well.
“Moo-moo!! Moo-moo-moo!!!”
The distance between us closed rapidly. And Moo-moo had recognized me as well.
‘Its weakness….’
It was clearly an extraordinary creature, but it had a weakness. I decided to target that spot and pushed more strength into my legs.
Thud—
Neither Moo-moo nor I slowed down. If anything, we accelerated, gathering speed. We raised our momentum as if fighting were the only natural course of action. Then, just before we collided:
Crunch.
I clenched my teeth and swung my club. I poured as much mana as I could into the strike without worrying about the aftermath. Learning how much mana one can expend in a single instant requires practice and technique. I had studied not only how to maintain my balance but also how to utilize explosive bursts of mana. That research was paying off at this very moment.
KWAANG—!!!
My club slammed into Moo-moo’s shin. The beast had tried to kick me, and the moment it planted its foot, I launched myself forward like a diver. As I expected, Moo-moo lacked any real combat technique.
Crack.
A beast that allows an opening has no further advantage. The timing was entirely under my control. The collision between the speed of the beast’s charge and my mana-infused club created a terrifying sound. It was the sound of Moo-moo’s shin shattering.
“MOOOOOOOO!!!”
With a death-rattle scream, Moo-moo rolled across the floor. It was as loud as a minor earthquake. I clenched and unclenched my stinging hand, quickly recovering my stance. I glanced over to see how the Awakened of Samira were faring.
“Damn it, the Jingso! Hey, you bastards, hurry up and finish them off!”
Chairman Park was floating in mid-air, with a Jingso’s horn jammed into his side. A smaller snout protruding from the Jingso’s mouth was trying to chew on the Chairman’s flesh.
‘They’re doing well.’
The Awakened of Samira were currently analyzing the characteristics of these unfamiliar monsters. They were dodging the charges of the Jingso herd and putting the tank-role Awakened at the front. Chairman Park was leading the charge.
“Thief Secret Technique: Shadow Drop!”
Jang Hoseop suddenly appeared above a Jingso’s head. Falling from above, he drove his daggers into both of the beast’s eyes.
“MOOOOO!!!”
As the Jingso opened its mouth in agony, Yuna’s skill struck. A massive, spear-shaped torrent of water pierced the Jingso’s throat from the inside out. She had been busy gathering water on the way here, and she had collected quite a lot.
‘That side seems fine…’
I lunged toward the fallen Moo-moo, checked the battlefield of my party with a single nod, and then—
Thud.
I took a low jump, gripping my club with both hands and raising it high.
“Moo-moo….”
Moo-moo couldn’t stand due to the shock of its shattered shin. It lay sprawled on the ground, letting out painful groans.
And between its spread legs, I saw a pair of massive, fur-covered testicles.
‘Weakness.’
Falling with gravity, I swung my raised arms downward with all my might.
Whoosh—SPLAT—
“!!!”
A massive amount of blood erupted, and Moo-moo couldn’t even scream as its head slumped forward.
***
I used my mana-infused club to crush Moo-moo’s thick neck until it stopped breathing.
“Extract Magic Stone.”
The skill activated. Its life was completely extinguished.
‘I won.’
It hadn’t even taken a minute to kill Moo-moo. I looked around while the extraction was in progress.
‘Do I have to kill them all?’
The Jingso herd had turned aggressive the moment Moo-moo appeared. I thought they would calm down once it died, but that wasn’t the case. The herd was still charging at Samira’s Awakened with bloodshot eyes.
“HRAAAGH!”
Mr. Jang-su let out a battle cry and attacked a Jingso’s throat with a spear he’d made himself. Since it was made from monster byproducts, it could pass through the gate.
“MOOOO!”
The Jingso, stabbed in the throat, thrashed wildly in pain. Seeing this, Gi Eun-chae approached from a blind spot and swung her axe, severing one of the beast’s legs. As the creature died, it whipped its tail around like a lash, but she dodged it by arching her back. Elsewhere, Ms. Sujeong snared a Jingso’s neck with a lasso made from Big-Ma hide. A tense tug-of-war ensued until another Awakened pierced the Jingso’s forehead with a sharp skewer, breaking the balance.
‘I don’t need to help them.’
Even though these were monsters we were seeing for the first time, Samira’s Awakened were winning easily. The Jingso had excellent physical abilities, but that was all they had. They had no magic to act as a variable, nor could they use cunning tactics. Once the Awakened grasped those traits, they safely whittled down the monsters’ numbers. This wasn’t a battle for survival; it was a hunt.
After watching their fight for a while, the extraction finished. A massive magic stone was now in my hand.
Thud.
I jumped off Moo-moo’s hill-like body. Enduring the stench coming from the beast while extracting the stone had been a nightmare. I headed toward the battlefield where the tide had already turned. Less than half of the Jingso remained.
“MOOOOOOO!!!”
A Jingso that had been charging with its horns lowered broke away and headed toward me. It looked confused for a moment before charging at me. I walked straight toward it.
Swoosh—
As the distance closed, it shot out a tentacle-like tongue from between its snout. The speed of the tongue was as fast as a chameleon’s, and it was much longer than I’d expected.
Whiz—
I lightly twisted my body to dodge it. The beast immediately retracted its tongue. Then, its sharp horns lunged at me.
BANG!!!
I lifted my body slightly to avoid the horns and swung my club downward. I had confirmed several times already that they couldn’t lift their heads upward.
KRRR-RUMBLE—
The Jingso, having taken a direct hit to the crown of its head from my club, collapsed on the spot. It buried its head in the dirt and couldn’t get back up. A short while later, the battle ended.
***
Jang Hoseop was examining Moo-moo’s carcass. He looked at me with an expression of disbelief.
“No, how did you catch this alone?”
“Targeted its weakness.”
“Still, that doesn’t make sense… it’s strange.”
Even with the carcass right in front of him, he kept repeating that it was strange.
“What is?”
“I thought this was a raid boss? So we were trying to finish up quickly to come help you, but…”
“A raid?”
“Yes. You know… there aren’t many closed-type gates.”
Jang Hoseop began to explain his hypothesis.
“Like the statue-type monster we saw in Yeouido.”
“Yeah.”
“Those… what should I call them? Abnormal entities? It seems like closed-type gates are used to contain things like that.”
He thought Moo-moo was of that same variety, though the difference in strength might vary.
“It even has a name attached to it, right there.”
“That’s just because of its cry….”
“The gate’s name here is ‘Moo-moo’s Resting Place,’ isn’t it?”
“I suppose so.”
It wasn’t information I’d confirmed through the System, but Jang Hoseop’s words sounded strangely persuasive.
“Anyway, I thought the intention was for multiple people to join forces to catch them because these entities are too strong.”
“What intention?”
“The entry limit for closed-type gates. There are way more people allowed in than in open-type gates.”
Open-type gates are usually cleared by fewer than 10 Awakened. The limit for individual gates is even lower, and that’s about how many you get when Awakened who have cleared several gates gather in one place. The entry limit for closed-type gates was much higher. Jang Hoseop thought this limit itself was the System’s intention.
“So, you’re saying it was a raid… that multiple people were supposed to combine their strength to clear it? But I caught it, so isn’t that enough? Is there a problem?”
“Ah, yes. Right. I’m not saying anything is wrong. Um… I’m just saying you’re amazing.”
Jang Hoseop gave me a thumbs-up. Then he moved on to finish examining Moo-moo’s carcass.
“We definitely need to take the bones and the hide… huh?”
The other Awakened were dismantling the Jingso herd. Since there were no separate gate rewards, they were busy collecting byproducts themselves. It wasn’t certain yet, but it seemed like there wouldn’t be a single part of the Jingso that would go to waste. The same went for Moo-moo. Even though the upper body was a bit unsettling because it looked human, it was a monster nonetheless. Moo-moo’s horns, in particular, were incredibly hard. The Jingso’s horns were elastic and hard, but I suspected Moo-moo’s would be even better. I planned to take them to Samira to find a way to process them, and I was hopeful that I might be able to craft some new weapons.
“This isn’t… no way, right?”
“What now?”
“Boss. What is this? That thing I’m thinking of….”
Jang Hoseop pointed to Moo-moo’s blood-soaked lower body.
“Testicles.”
“Ugh… crazy.”
Jang Hoseop covered his own crotch with both hands.
“No, when you said you targeted the weakness….”
“It’s a vital point, isn’t it?”
“How could you do that? Seriously, a person without blood or tears… you shouldn’t do that!”
Jang Hoseop was talking nonsense to Moo-moo’s carcass. He said he would apologize on my behalf. Anyway, we spent some time finishing the dismantling work. We salvaged the bones, hide, and meat in large chunks, and the load grew into a mountain. The dismantling had taken longer than the battle itself.
“We’ll just leave it here for now.”
“No one’s going to steal it, right?”
“We have no choice.”
We hadn’t finished clearing the gate yet. Jang Hoseop looked uneasy, but we piled the byproducts under a large tree and began to cross the ridge.
***
A wide field continued for a while. There were no other monsters, and occasionally, the energy of ordinary animals was picked up by my Object Detection. After walking at a brisk pace for about 15 minutes, the field ended. We found a rocky mountain with an increasing incline, and there, we discovered a cave.
“Are these the babies?”
“Looks like it.”
Should I call them Jingso calves? There was a crude fence made of piled-up branches in front of the cave, and inside, a few small Jingso were huddled together.
“Man… no matter how I look at it, we’re the villains here, aren’t we?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean, they were living peacefully, and we’re the ones who invaded.”
Jang Hoseop might be right. But we weren’t in a position to be worrying about things like that.
“Moving in.”
The Jingso calves saw us and ran to the corner. Even so, they didn’t jump over the fence. Confirming they had no aggressive tendencies, I stepped inside the cave.
The cave wasn’t very deep.
“It seems like this is where Moo-moo lived. Wow, but it’s much cooler in here, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
There was no energy detected by my Object Detection. Only traces of wild animals remained, and the stench was terrible. And inside the cave, we found the Gate Stone. It was just stuck in the wall.
“This looks like it, right?”
“Yeah. How should we destroy it….”
It looked similar to an Energy Stone. It looked like a large crystal, but unlike the transparent Energy Stone, the Gate Stone was mixed with a dark gray hue.
“Shouldn’t we just hit it hard?”
“You think?”
I listened to Jang Hoseop and immediately raised my club. Just then, Mr. Jang-su, who had been examining the cave wall, called me.
“Lee Hyun-nim.”
“Yes.”
“For a moment… could you take a look at this?”
I went over to Mr. Jang-su.
“I don’t think this is an ordinary rock.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. If you bring the back of your hand close to it….”
I followed his lead and brought the back of my hand close to the cave wall.
“Oh?”
“It’s cold, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s cold.”
I felt something flowing, and a chill emanated from the wall.
“The entire wall here is like this.”
“Is this why it’s cool inside the cave?”
“That’s a possibility. I’d like to try mining it….”
Mr. Jang-su looked at the Gate Stone. The others approached and touched the wall as well.
“Boss. We still have plenty of time left on the limit, don’t we?”
Jang Hoseop suggested a different idea instead of destroying the Gate Stone.