Chapter 62
Professor Kim Yi-hak shoved me lightly.
"Get us out of this goddamn gate and prove with actions that you're not a liar."
I nodded.
'Proof.'
Then the performance had to be as flashy as possible.
I closed my eyes, then opened them.
A faint red thread flowed through the empty air.
It passed straight through the wall of the living room across from us. Not just the neighboring units on either side, but the entire floor of the apartment complex.
At the left end was Sparkle.
At the right end was Namgung Hyuni.
Each holding the start and end points of the red thread.
'Hemo.'
I asked my companion.
'Is the blood sufficient?'
〔……!!!!〕
More than enough, it seemed. Just moments ago, blood had been gushing out like a hole had been drilled in my sole.
'Now.'
I could feel blood coursing even through my capillaries.
Good.
I gripped the red thread.
The next instant, Uncle Choi flinched.
"Huh? A red line just appeared out of nowhere?"
The 'blood bond' visible only to me was taking on physical form. Hemo was coating the red thread using my blood as a catalyst.
I induced more bleeding. The red grew deeper. It spiraled crudely, shifting from thread to rope.
Anemia hit me. I'd just had a transfusion, but already it felt like my blood was drying up.
Kiiiiieeeek!
I ignored the monster's shrill cry.
I plucked the rope with my fingers.
Twing.
It gave a taut, elastic sound. I curled my middle finger and thumb into a circle and pressed it to the red rope.
"Red Flame."
I snapped it.
Whoosh!
Sparks ignited. The flames tore in both directions from the ignition point, racing along the rope at a blistering speed.
Boom!
The living room wall exploded. Through the dust cloud, I could see the stunned neighbors.
The flames didn't stop. They surged along the rope, blasting through the neighboring wall.
Boom!
Again.
Boom!
Once more.
One after another, the walls crumbled. The boundaries between units vanished, forming a long, horizontal tunnel-like space.
I flicked my gaze to the far end. My stare slapped Han Biyeol across the cheek.
"……!"
He visibly startled. No surprise there.
"Now!"
I shouted.
"Get out!"
Namgung Hyuni froze for a split second. Then he swiftly drew his sword and kicked the steel door with his foot.
Kiiik—hic?
The grating noise that had been nagging us stopped dead.
Jangsanbeom twisted its head in a grotesque motion.
At the end of the corridor, Han Biyeol was glaring with bulging eyes.
"Ugly son of a bitch."
Namgung Hyuni might not match the original in prowess, but even as a doppelganger, he was an elite hunter.
Bam!
Namgung Hyuni launched himself like lightning.
Shiiiing!
His blade scattered light.
The slender curved sword whipped through the apartment corridor like a lash, carving sword marks everywhere.
It was a bizarre sight—a human moving more like a tiger than the tiger-like beast itself.
The monster.
Jangsanbeom couldn't keep up with Namgung Hyuni's attacks. At first, it bared its teeth to fight back, but...
Kieeek!
From some point on, it was getting utterly demolished. Screams, blood, and beast fur sprayed across the corridor.
"A-amazing."
The civilians, peeking out with just their heads through half-open doors, marveled.
They were right. Namgung Hyuni might lack personality, but his swordsmanship was impeccable. In his past life, he'd claimed the title of Korea's first S-rank.
I dragged my exhausted body to a corner of the corridor and watched the fight.
The golden beast that had tormented our minds was now the one suffering.
There was a strange pleasure in it.
But I felt an even sharper thrill not from Jangsanbeom, but from elsewhere.
《……!!》
From Mephistopheles.
Even through my mask, I could sense the shock radiating from beneath his.
You're probably thinking something like this:
How is a hunter landing effective hits on a monster like that?!
Monsters and anomalies were treated separately. Anomalies were closer to 'phenomena' than individual entities.
'You can't cut water with a sword.'
It was a similar principle.
If Jangsanbeom were just a regular monster,
we wouldn't have been trapped in this apartment, enduring mental torture.
'Anomalies can't be fought head-on.'
That's why even top hunters struggled with ∅∅-grade gates. This rank featured anomalies far more than monsters.
You had to defeat anomalies within their rules. ∅∅-grade gates forced this formula on hunters.
Rules.
The gate's enforced rules bound the hunters' feet.
'But.'
What if those rules were broken?
The phenomenon created by the gate's rules—
the anomaly itself—could then be physically harmed, couldn't it?
《This... impossible……!》
The Ruler reigned as an absolute in ∅∅-grade gates. Or at least, it appeared that way.
No gate had an internal 'absolute.' They only observed from outside.
'The Constellations.'
They created the rules. The Ruler merely monitored whether the hamster-like hunters ran the wheel properly.
"What's so impossible about it?"
Leaning against the doorframe, I sneered at Mephistopheles.
《You primitive sapien!》
"Primitive or not, in the end, you and I are both trapped in this same gate."
《How dare you put me, on the same level as a monkey like you?!》
"Who knows. Not me, anyway."
I nodded toward the sunset settling over the mountain ridge beyond the corridor railing. The Milky Way draped across the undulating peaks.
Each of those stars.
Was an eye of the Constellations.
"Since the Constellations aren't lifting a finger, seems they see you and me as equals."
《……!!》
"The moment I blasted through these apartment walls, I broke the gate's rules."
Kieeeek!
Jangsanbeom's piercing scream. Its bulk, which had filled the corridor's width, had shrunk considerably—flesh shaved off by the blade.
Jangsanbeom was an anomaly worthless beyond clawing at souls. To a skilled hunter, it was just a snack.
It tried fleeing in a flurry of fur, but it was futile.
Slash!
Namgung Hyuni's eyes flashed like fluorescent lights. He pressed against the narrow corridor's ceiling and floor to target Jangsanbeom.
Splatter!
More blood sprayed.
Jangsanbeom would fall soon.
Kieeeek!
Listening to its screams, I started walking.
"If I'd pissed off the Constellations, I'd be dust by now. But."
You can't split water with a sword.
"Do I look like dust to you?"
《This... monkey...!》
But if the water freezes into ice, it can be sliced.
"You know how the Constellations are reacting right now."
No need to obsess over the prescribed rules.
"Do they seem upset that the rules they set are breaking?"
I dragged my legs toward Mephistopheles. Anemia kept making my body bump into the walls.
Thud.
I advanced.
Thud.
The Constellations were dopamine addicts.
They'd whimsically change sides for greater amusement. Altering gate rules was trivial.
I needed to show them I was the hunter who performed the best tricks among the hamsters.
To do that, I moved my battered body.
Thud.
I was a regressor who had crossed back ten years.
Thud.
I had a vague sense of who these yet-unrevealed Constellations were.
"Don't pretend you're looking down from above."
The ones rotting away in the coal mines...
"Answer me."
Knowledge gained through my past life.
"In a ∅∅-grade gate with no rules, is the Ruler still useful?"
My ten arduous years.
Were far from meaningless wasted time.
Kek...
Finally, even Jangsanbeom let out a final gasp and collapsed.
Namgung Hyuni has acquired 2,821 EXP.
Subordinate Namgung Hyuni donates a portion of acquired EXP.
Han Biyeol swung his curved sword, flicking off the blood.
At that moment.
I felt blood coursing through even my capillaries.
《Aaaargh!》
Mephistopheles paled beneath his golden mask. I could tell even so.
* * *
The anomaly was defeated.
People who had been hesitating with doors half-open began stepping into the corridor.
They moved cautiously, avoiding Jangsanbeom's fur, and huddled behind Han Biyeol to confirm it was truly dead.
Sure enough, our man of character snapped irritably.
"Hiding like rats until now, and what, coming out just to gawk?"
"No matter what you say... we were just curious if you actually killed it. Such a temper..."
"If you know I've got a short fuse, don't pick at it and make it worse. And did the gate taboo kill it? Don't you know that?"
"W-we're civilians, even if we're Awakeners! Of course we don't know!"
"Ignorance is a sin too."
Namgung Hyuni seemed flushed with adrenaline. He'd even forgotten image management, cold-shouldering the crowd.
Meanwhile, I...
'...Huh.'
With blood reaching every brain wrinkle, my head throbbed.
Why had I done that?
I, Seo Wonseok, wasn't some fearless hunter. Quite the opposite.
Yet just now, I'd...
I glanced sideways at the Ruler.
The golden mask was finely cracked. The fissures plainly showed his rage.
'Did lack of blood to the head make me lose myself for a moment?'
Or maybe, fresh from passing out and waking, I'd blurted cocky words in a haze of euphoria.
Either way, things were heading south.
《This monkey.》
The Ruler wasn't truly the gate's absolute. Still, no point antagonizing him. Within the rules' bounds, he had autonomy.
And sure enough...
'The gate hasn't been cleared.'
Probably because I'd shattered this auction gate's formula.
'Nullified the rules, so the clear conditions changed too.'
I cast my gaze beyond the railing to the back mountain.
The Milky Way's stars twinkled mockingly. The heated gazes of the Constellations.