Got Slapped in Jongno
A person’s field of vision is truly narrow.
That is why they so often fall into the extreme delusion that everything which comes to pass was completed entirely by their own hands.
Such a delusion binds a human being in the chains of arrogance, and that arrogance only makes an already narrow vision even narrower still.
And in that regard, she—
The Guild Master of the 28th Hunter Guild, a woman named Lee Sena, had let her field of vision shrink far too small.
Lee Sena, who had claimed perfect victory in every operation.
Each time, she had believed it was thanks to her own outstanding ability, thanks to her overwhelming performance on the battlefield, that victory had been secured.
In truth her exploits had been so far beyond those of the other hunters that the claim was not entirely wrong.
But that very fact only fanned the flames of her arrogance higher.
In the end, she never realized it—not in the past, and not even now, in this very moment.
She never understood what had been happening in the places she could not see, every time she ignored her adjutant’s orders and charged out to fight however she pleased.
She never understood who it was that had carefully arranged the board so that her uncontrolled rampage could still deliver victory in every single battle.
“Damn it! Why are there so many of them today?!”
Even after she had already slaughtered hundreds single-handedly, the number of Abysses showed no sign of thinning. And the ones filling her vision now were not the weak early Spiders; they were mid-tier and higher—Wolves, Locusts, and the like.
These were not creatures that died to a casual swing of the sword. They required precise strikes to the head or other vital points to be finished in a single blow. And even that was proving brutally difficult now that the Rose Cutter had not fully charged and could not unleash its full power.
If Sena had not been an S-class hunter thoroughly seasoned to the battlefield, she would already have been in serious danger. Her accumulated experience was the only reason she was still barely holding her ground, yet she herself knew the truth.
If this situation continued, even she would not be able to endure much longer.
Why? This is only a B-class mission! There are no Upper-class Abysses, and their numbers aren’t supposed to be that high—it’s a perfectly ordinary assignment! So why… why won’t the enemy’s assault ever stop?
Ordinarily, once she began fighting, the enemies were wiped out within an hour. Yet now she had been locked in a bloodbath for more than three hours, and the Abysses were still countless, their momentum undiminished.
I don’t understand… What’s different? Did that new adjutant bastard deliberately bring us an A-class mission and label it B-class just to screw us over? N-no. That can’t be it. Doing something like that would get him stripped of rank and thrown straight into the brig. Even a lunatic wouldn’t risk that… But what if… what if he really did?
Suspicion that the adjutant had deliberately led them into a trap gnawed at her even as she poured every ounce of strength into swinging her blade.
In that moment a single massive Abyss appeared before her eyes.
A two-meter-tall creature resembling a black beetle.
The instant she saw it, Sena’s brow furrowed automatically.
A Beetle… Almost no offensive power, but its defense is Upper-class level. Of all times for one of those to show up.
She prepared to power on the Rose Cutter. Normally she kept it running continuously, but with the battery critically low she had been switching it on only in the briefest necessary bursts.
Yet—
“Huh?”
Confusion flooded her face. She had clearly flipped the switch, yet the Rose Cutter did not so much as twitch. She understood the meaning at once.
Damn it… The battery’s finally gone! Of all the times!
The power she had so carefully rationed had run completely dry. Even if she used the Rose Cutter’s cutting edge to slice the Beetle’s body, that alone would not bring it down. The true terror of the creature was not its near-diamond-hard carapace, but the monstrous regenerative ability that supported it. Even if a sword momentarily split its body, the flesh would regenerate instantly and nullify the wound. To stop that regeneration she needed to sever it completely while simultaneously destroying the tissue—something impossible now that the battery was dead.
Shit… And my superpower barely works on this thing at all! To run into a crisis like this on a mere B-class mission… How… how is this even possible?
Surrounded on all sides, retreat itself was impossible. For the first time since becoming a hunter she faced the worst crisis of her life—and on a B-class mission, no less. Thick doubt and despair rose together inside her.
She could not understand how things had come to this. Even with the Rose Cutter’s battery drained, she had breezed through far worse—S-class missions included. Yet here she was, struggling and looking pathetic against a mere B-class assignment. She could neither comprehend nor accept it.
What… what went wrong? I fought the same way I always do, so why… why won’t the mission end? And why are these Abysses so strong and relentless? It’s only B-class! The kind of trash I used to clear as casually as having a cup of tea after a meal! And now I’m being driven into a corner by them? Why? Because of what?
For the first time she tasted true despair, hurling unanswered questions at herself without cease. And then, unbidden, the image of a man she had no desire to recall rose automatically in her mind.
Adjutant Lee Jinhyun…
The man she had judged useless and discarded.
Yet Sena immediately shook her head, rejecting the thought with force.
No… No matter how I look at it, that can’t be it. What has that guy ever actually done? There’s no way I would fall into a crisis like this just because one guy like him left!
While she fiercely denied her own thoughts, the Abyss Beetle slowly advanced its massive body toward her, accompanied by a swarm of lesser Abysses ready to attack in its place. Watching the encirclement tighten, Lee Sena’s pupils began to tremble.
Wh-what… D-don’t tell me… Am I really going to end like this?… To trash like these… me…?
She did not want to accept it, yet the “reality” had already drawn right up to her face. Her body began to shake of its own accord, and tears welled in her eyes amid thick terror.
Then—
Crack!
“Huh?”
In the next instant the Beetle’s head was blown clean off and it died. At the same moment a continuous stream of bullets poured into the area around Sena.
“Sena!”
“Ah… Choi Yujin!”
Reinforcements had arrived in the nick of time. Relief that she had barely survived flooded Sena’s face. She wrung out the last of her willpower and stamina and began slaughtering the nearby Abysses once more.
After roughly thirty more minutes of bloody fighting—
Crack!
“Kraaaah…”
The head of the final remaining Abyss shattered in Sena’s grip, and the battle finally ended.
Immediately afterward Yujin hurried over to the nearly exhausted Sena and urgently checked her condition.
“A-are you okay? Any injuries…?”
“I’m fine. Just a shallow cut on the shoulder. This doesn’t even count as a wound.”
“I’m sorry. If I’d gotten here even a little sooner, this wouldn’t have—”
Thankfully there had been no fatalities, yet the results of the battle were still catastrophic. Just before Yujin’s forces arrived the defensive line had been breached, and casualties among the A-class and B-class hunters under Sena’s command had piled up one after another.
Three A-class hunters had suffered light wounds and one a serious injury; every B-class hunter except one was either moderately or lightly wounded. The C-class hunters had gotten off with little more than bruises, but they looked as though they had taken a heavy mental blow.
“S-still, the mission succeeded in the end. We took some damage, but…”
Even in this situation Yujin tried desperately to comfort her. But before the words could finish, Sena rose roughly to her feet.
“…Se-Sena?”
“Something’s wrong. Even if both of us had issues before the fight started, it makes no sense for the 28th Guild to struggle this hard on a mere B-class mission.”
“Th-that… is true, but… so what are you planning to do?”
Yujin spoke with open bewilderment at Sena’s icy expression. In answer Sena roughly punched a number into her phone, her voice laced with cold fury.
“That damn adjutant bastard… Choi Han. That son of a bitch deliberately set us up to screw us over! We’re going back right now and I’m going to thrash him!”