Chapter 89
".....Huh?"
Something was wrong. The feeling was wrong. My heart hammered against my ribs, and every hair on my body stood on end. It felt as though someone was watching me from somewhere out of sight — as though some enormous monster were crouching in wait inside this gate. My legs trembled. My breath came short and shallow.
Had I ever been this tense before? I whipped my head toward Ichie. She was staring back at me with the same startled expression. Five minutes into the gate, the two of us stood atop a heap of Jungle Cat corpses, facing each other, trying to swallow down the dread rising in our throats.
"Su-hyeon. Are you okay?"
Ichie's voice was shaking — a rare thing for her. Her wide eyes quivered as she seized my hand. I gripped it tight and pulled her into my arms, stroking her back while I felt my own heart thrashing like a wild animal. Her small shoulders trembled violently against my chest.
"Su-hyeon. Aren't you scared?"
"It's okay. It's okay."
This wasn't the street. Right now I wanted nothing more than to drop where I stood and hide anywhere I could, but I wasn't alone, and this wasn't the street. There was someone I had to protect. There were people waiting for me. I clenched my teeth and forced myself to hold it together.
My vision blurred, then snapped back into focus. Ichie clung to my shoulder, her whole body shaking without stop. She trembled like a lost kitten I'd scooped into my arms — and at the same time, she seemed to be thrashing against the fear itself, trying to claw her way free of it.
I racked my brain desperately. Why were we suddenly drowning in terror, shaking like leaves? In every bestiary entry I could remember, there was no D-rank monster with psychological manipulation this powerful. The cause had to be somewhere else — but I couldn't begin to guess what it was.
"Why can you not collect yourself?"
His voice rang out from deep within my chest. Before I could even answer, a heavy force bloomed from my heart and swept through my entire body. A clean, bracing sensation washed over me — like hauling myself free of a swamp — and I felt the terror drain away, plunging straight to the floor. My strength left me in a rush and my limbs went slack, but simply being able to think clearly again was victory enough.
"H-how...?"
"A curse that agitates the emotions was affixed to thy body."
"Where?"
"Thy hand."
At the Omnipotent Emperor's words, I looked down at my hand. Nothing seemed different. I turned it over, examining it from every angle — and only then did I realize the stamp the staff member had pressed onto me was gone. The violet ink had bled outward like watercolor, and the spider-shaped mark had vanished without a trace.
Ichie was still clinging to me, trembling. I pulled her hand free and found the stamp. In the exact same place as mine, a spider-shaped mark sat on her skin. I dug through her pack, found a water bottle, and splashed it across the back of her hand.
The stamp dissolved the instant the water touched it.
"Haaah......!"
Ichie let out a long breath and looked up at me. She seemed a little dazed herself, feeling her emotions settle so abruptly. Still nestled against my chest, she glanced around and asked,
"H-how did you do that?"
"The stamp. The stamp was the problem."
I looked toward the gate in the distance. Should we just leave and come back? Now that the stamps were gone, wouldn't it make more sense to finish the promotion and then get out? According to the tracker, the boss was right ahead of us. The boss's mana stone was blinking brighter and clearer than ever.
"Ichie. What do you want to do? Should we step out for a bit and come back later?"
"I'm fine. Try contacting headquarters. We have a radio."
Right — we'd been given radios. I switched mine on, wanting to get a handle on the situation. Better to understand what was going on than to walk out on our own.
"Ah, this is Gate Team. Gate Team."
No answer came. The radio spat nothing but grating static, with no intention of producing anything resembling a reply. We looked at each other again. Ichie's face was so close that I could have kissed her just by leaning in. She spoke first.
"Let's just go."
"You sure?"
Ichie slipped free of my arms. Fatigue showed on her face after that brief ordeal, but the way she held her blades — edges ready — still burned with fighting spirit. She said it again.
"Let's rank up fast and go home."
If she was fine with it, then I had no choice but to push forward too. I nodded and checked my gear again. Nothing had been dropped in the panic, and no monsters had surrounded us in the meantime. Counting our blessings, we moved on.
The closer we got, the clearer and more frantic the tracker's signal became. Beyond a line of tree shadows planted as straight as a national border, we could make out the boss. Ichie and I looked at each other and nodded. We switched off the tracker, dropped low, and crept forward to get a proper look.
Planning would come after that.
We pressed slowly ahead, crushing waist-high grass underfoot. The smell of earth rose from somewhere nearby — and with it, a thick stench of blood and the distinctive raw reek of meat. The buzz of insects filled the air.
Through a sudden spill of light, my vision went hazy. A massive corpse lay sprawled across the ground. Both Ichie and I knew what that monster was. A Gorbas — a D-rank that typically lived in shaded forests.
And here it was, a corpse, collapsed in the middle of an open plain. Without thinking, both of us scanned our surroundings. Had another gate instability event occurred? They weren't supposed to happen in regulated gates — but if not, who had killed the boss? The tracker was pointing squarely at the Gorbas's body.
The corpse was ringed with earth, almost as if it had fallen into a trap and died there.
I looked at Ichie and asked,
"What do we do?"
"I don't know."
Without killing the boss, we couldn't complete the promotion. Today's gate run was a wash. I clicked my tongue and stood up. Ichie checked that nothing was nearby, then rose as well.
"Ah, looks like we'll have to come back."
"We'll come back in peak condition."
"Yeah. Ah, this is Gate—"
I scratched my head and pulled out the radio. At that exact moment, the earth surrounding the Gorbas's corpse erupted upward. I froze with the radio still in my hand. Ichie flinched and stumbled a step back. The mass of dirt that had shot into the air came flying straight at me.
"Fuck!"
I threw myself aside, barely dodging the flying earth. But the radio in my hand took the full hit and shattered into pieces. Watching it disintegrate midair was a chilling sight.
"Stay still, you bastards."
The dirt began to crawl past the corpse like a swarm of ants. From the grass behind it, a man in a suit stepped out at a leisurely pace. He had a cigarette clenched between his teeth and was looking us over with a sharp, cold expression. I knew exactly who he was.
The D-rank hunter from the Diamond Club — the one who'd been covering for Kim Ju-sung.
Ichie recognized him too and narrowed her eyes.
"What are you staring at? Never seen a D-rank hunter before?"
Ichie didn't answer. I adjusted my grip on my shield and spear and glared at him. Between the attack aimed at the radio and the way he was carrying himself now, nothing about this felt friendly. He went on.
"See, I really hate little shits like you. Huh? Fucking names that sound like garbage from the start, huh? Why the hell do you go around wrecking other people's business? Huh?"
"What's wrong with 'One'?"
"Not you, you fucking bitch."
When Ichie shot back, the hunter's irritation flared. She glanced at me once, then called out again.
"I think it's a cool nickname."
"Yeah, sure. Real fucking cool."
As he said it, the man raised his hand. The dirt gathered around him rose and unfurled into a thin sheet, like a curtain or a blanket. I jerked my chin at Ichie. The spread of earth compressed into a spike and came hurtling toward me. Ichie ducked behind me as I thrust my shield forward and clenched my teeth.
BOOM!
A heavy, piercing impact slammed into me. The shield dented inward, and my body was shoved a full step back. Dirt sprayed in every direction. When the man lowered his hand again, the shattered fragments of earth dropped straight to the ground.
The hunter clenched a fist in midair once more. The dirt scattered across the floor whipped around our ankles like a snare and snapped back toward him.
"Whoa—!"
We both lost our balance and hit the ground. The hunter laughed and drew a blade from his belt. He came charging at us with every intention of cutting us down where we lay.
His blade crashed against my shield. Ichie burst out from behind it, aiming for the hunter's head. He swept his hand, and the dirt on the ground surged up and smashed into her.
Caught midair, Ichie was crushed flat against the ground under the weight of the earth. While the man's attention locked on her, I drove off hard with my legs and shoved his blade aside with the shield. His stance broke under the push, and I thrust my spear into the opening. From the impacts it had already absorbed, the spear was glowing faintly.
THUD!
A heavy resonance ran up my arm with the recoil. The man clutched his stomach and staggered backward. A mound of dirt had piled up across his midsection like a cummerbund. The cone-shaped depression in the earth crumbled away, revealing a tear in his suit. He looked down at the ripped fabric, then back at me.
"You little shit......"
His face twisted with rage as he scattered dirt again. The earth on the ground unfurled into thin sheets and rose into the air. The hunter locked eyes with me — then suddenly snapped his gaze sideways, flinging the dirt upward as he ducked. A crimson trajectory punched through the earthen barrier by a hair's breadth and grazed past his head.
Flat on the ground, the hunter looked up at us, cold sweat beading on his face.
I tapped my shield with my spear and called out,
"Not so easy, is it, you bastard!"
This fight — we could take it.