Chapter 67
Following the COEX Gate, another ∅∅-grade gate had appeared.
The so-called Geomdan Gate—or Auction Gate, as people called it.
It had been a full three hours since folks were dragged inside.
A lot had gone down within the gate during that time, but things outside were no less chaotic. It was absolute pandemonium.
In front of the swirling oval gate entrance,
NO ENTRY
sunglasses-wearing suits stood guard, their backs to the haphazardly tangled tape lines.
They'd been deployed swiftly, and the gate's rank had already been assessed.
The moment it was revealed as ∅∅-grade, the whole area plunged into panic.
"My dad's in there! My dad went inside!"
"You can't approach."
The agents shoved the civilians back firmly.
One elderly man took a hard tumble onto his rear.
"Hey, you punks! Don't you have parents?! Our families were kidnapped in there!!"
"Any further approach will result in legal penalties under Hunter Law."
The crowd wailed in protest. The agents blocked them mechanically. Ear-piercing shouts rang out.
"In an emergency like this, shouldn't standby hunters be deployed?"
A short-haired woman pushed through the throng, firing off a sharp question. Her necklace and dangling smartphone marked her as a reporter.
The agents, caught off guard, tried to shove her away.
The team leader-looking one pulled his subordinates far from the reporter.
'Don't you know messing with press is a headache?'
'S-sorry.'
'Get your reports ready and keep these people out.'
After chewing them out, the team leader sighed and grudgingly answered her question.
"......There are no hunters stationed nearby."
"What is this, Ulleungdo? No, even Ulleungdo would have nearby hunters scrambling in three hours. But this is Geomdan. A new city in Incheon, right in the capital area."
"It's the middle of the night."
"So everyone's here a night owl? Even you guys aren't. You sealed the entrance like you were waiting the second the gate popped up."
The reporter.
Gija-ryeong dug in sharply, and the mood turned restless.
It hadn't crossed their minds amid the inner turmoil, but looking back, something was off.
"Come to think of it...... these guys don't look like Association staff......?"
A keen observation from the uncles. The agents flinched visibly, proving it.
"Association folks would have badges. These guys don't."
"Yeah, right. My nephew works at the Association—I know! How'd we miss this?!"
Exactly.
She pressed the advantage.
Gija-ryeong raised her voice.
"Everyone's too frantic to notice. And like these 'agents' say, it's late."
"We don't know your affiliation...... but that's enough."
The team leader warned her.
Gija-ryeong snorted derisively.
"I'm Gija-ryeong from HTN. See the letters on my necklace? And you? What group are you with?"
"......If you don't want trouble......"
"If you were gonna cause trouble, you wouldn't be doing this. Besides, you have a duty to answer a reporter's questions, even if half-heartedly. Dodging and intimidating like this."
A new talent had bloomed.
Gija-ryeong was a master agitator.
"Don't you know that's against the law?"
"......This woman's for real."
Gija-ryeong had a knack for getting under skins. A gift even her deputy chief praised.
'Nothing beats turning it back on them.'
She smirked inwardly.
Soon, the patience of the unaffiliated team's leader hit rock bottom.
It was a split second.
Flash!
A burst of light. Backlit agents turned around. The team leader's gaze followed.
The gate entrance.
A leg emerged. Then dozens of figures poured out one after another.
"Mommy?"
Someone's voice trembled.
"M-Mi-young!"
"Mommmmyyyy!"
"Dad!"
"Cheol-myung! My son!"
Waaaaaah!
The team leader's sunglasses tilted askew. His exposed eye stared blankly.
Daddddyyy!
My son, my daughter.
Despair flipped to ecstasy before their eyes.
"H-how."
He eyeballed it.
About twenty people.
Matching the estimated number swept into the Auction Gate.
The team leader and agents' hearts sank.
This was no joke—a ∅∅-grade gate.
Rule-based gates even top hunters couldn't guarantee survival in. Difficulty varied wildly by rules.
Not to mention in C-grade gates.
Even elite teams of all hunters suffered casualties.
And these were civilians—barely aware they were even Awakened, let alone hunters.
Yet here they walked out unscathed.
"Son! My son!"
"Mom! You okay?"
"Yeah. I'm fine, Mom. I'm okay. Sniff."
They looked terrified and exhausted, but physically whole. That incongruity chilled the air.
The shocking scene drew a sigh from the team leader.
"......Impossible."
If the team leader was like this.
His subordinates' reactions were predictable.
"Team leader!"
Seizing the moment of their daze, people surged past the agents front and back.
"Now, now!"
"Push! Time to use these protest-hardened bodies!"
"I took tear gas in the '80s without blinking, you punks!"
The subordinates flailed, staggering as they were shoved aside.
In the team leader's paling mind.
"Tell me off the record."
Gija-ryeong's voice typed a few characters.
"You're with Gwang-san Corp, right?"
"......!!!"
It was beyond shock—a bombshell.
The team leader's heart didn't just pound; it churned.
Confirming his expression, Gija-ryeong chuckled.
"If you need to cooperate, call this number."
She slipped her business card into his shirt pocket and patted it.
"......Aren't you going too far for a journalist?"
The team leader whined.
If it came out that his guild worsened this gate—and if word reached the top that he was the culprit behind the blunder......
Just imagining it sent shivers down his spine.
"Say we are Gwang-san, like you claim. Doesn't that make you lot more dangerous?"
Might as well threaten outright. He thought it clever, but to Gija-ryeong, it was a last gasp.
"That would've been true before."
She gazed at the reuniting families. Dawn haze made faces hard to discern.
"∅∅-grade gates have about a 3% survival rate, right?"
That hunter's probably in there too. The one so astounding she'd grown numb to the awe.
"And from what I know, no ∅∅-grade gate has ever had full survival."
"......What're you getting at."
Gija-ryeong chuckled again.
"Just saying."
"......?"
This man didn't know Seo Wonseok existed. He couldn't grasp the implication.
Marked by Gwang-san Corp?
'Bring it.'
Among her allies was the man who'd safely returned everyone from a ∅∅-grade gate.
Gija-ryeong left.
The team leader stood dumbfounded, then snapped to.
Only then did he see.
The line was breaking. Even these tough guys looked feeble.
The team leader bellowed.
"Block them! Don't let 'em past the tape!"
"T-team leader...... we can't even get inside the tape ourselves......!"
"What bullshit is that? Move!"
He grabbed the tape.
His arm bounced back like a rubber ball.
The team leader watched his hand's arc with hollow eyes.
Then the yellow tape's text changed.
What the hell......
Outsiders?
Us?
What's an 'Owner'?
This apartment complex was built by none other than their Gwang-san Corp.
It was their arena, prepped for the grand scheme.
"If not us, who owns it?"
The team leader muttered, as his team begged amid the crush. All flattened like pancakes.
"Team leader!!!"
"What is this...... what the hell."
"Teaaam leaaader!"
In the dead of night.
The master-servant dynamic flipped.
Four days passed.
It vanished like a lie—in the blink of an eye.
'I really......'
Sizzle.
My thoughts drowned in the grill's hiss. Tongs and shears clattered busily too.
Glistening allure.
But I kept my eyes beyond the smoke, not the grill. The TV spun tales of the Geomdan Gate. Heat rivaling the coals below.
The channel was locked on HTN. NoTube, specifically. Gija-ryeong's segment.
As stock footage rolled, her voice continued.
Gwang-san Corp was starting to take a media beating!