Chapter 027
[Chapter 027]
< Eternal Eons Inside the Cotton >
After returning from the 20th floor of the Tower, I spent a few peaceful days.
An ordinary hunter would have stayed in bed for a week from the aftermath of raiding over ten floors consecutively, but I was different.
Perhaps thanks to Internal Energy (Naegong), there was no fatigue in the body.
Rather, my body state was at its best as the mana absorbed from the Tower harmonized with the Internal Energy (Naegong).
I ran through the back mountain every morning, and looked after the herb garden during the day.
In the evening, I had recharge time by hanging out and playing with the fellows.
“Young man next door, are you inside?”
“Ah, yes. Old lady.”
Swish!
As soon as the voice was heard, the Gorani who was loitering in the yard hid behind the shed in an instant.
Muryong took Hasuo to the field and hid in a mound of soil.
“Oh dear, young man. Are you eating well?”
The old lady next door.
Since I cleared the old tree blocking the village road, she had been calling me a world-class strongman young man and trying to take care of me with at least one more thing.
“Yes. There are many things produced from the garden.”
“Still, rice power is the best. Here, this is Siru-tteok (steamed rice cake) freshly steamed this morning.”
“Thank you, old lady.”
The savory smell of sweet red bean paste and chewy glutinous rice wafted from the steaming Siru-tteok.
A bite filled my mouth with warmth.
“But young man, are you going to keep being unemployed without going out to work?”
“Yes, I’m unemployed.”
I answered confidently without a single hint of being intimidated.
Because I was very satisfied with my current life.
“Good. A person needs time to rest too. Chasing money all the time doesn't necessarily make you happy.”
“Right?”
“Yeah. Here, there's more. Don't save it and eat it all heartily.”
The old lady handed me all the Siru-tteok she brought and said while laughing heartily.
“My son does something called 'Nutube' or something. I thought he was just staying in his room every day, but it seems he earns decent money with that.”
“Nutube?”
Come to think of it, there was something similar to Nutube in the hunter world.
A video community only for hunters called Hun-Tube, linked with the Tower system.
It was said that if you upload your Tower raid video there, you can receive a small reward according to likes or views.
I heard you could receive quite a decent reward if you enter the top 10.
‘Shall I try earning some allowance?’
To enter the Tower, there are many places to spend money besides the entry ticket.
Even if not dozens of Gold, it wouldn't be bad if I could earn a few dozen Silver.
The Tower system perfectly protects the hunter's identity, so there was no worry of being tracked down who I am.
“Let's see.”
I scanned the videos I raided from the 1st to 9th floor last time.
Among them, the most overwhelming active role of the Gorani.
[2nd Floor Raid Video]
-Kkiyot!
-PE-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-CK-!!!
(Hundreds of spiders explode simultaneously)
[8th Floor Raid Video]
-PE-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-CK-!!!
(Dozens of doppelganger illusions are torn)
Watching the videos again, I burst out laughing.
‘Our Gorani, really amazing.’
Suddenly, I felt I knew why people upload pet photos on messenger profiles and upload videos.
Our Gorani is this great!
I wanted to show off a little.
“Hmm, this should be fine?”
My appearance was not revealed at all.
The Gorani’s form was also hard to recognize in the short video, so there was no worry.
The possibility of being caught was close to non-existent.
Above all, there was a rumor that if you enter this month's Hall of Fame, you receive special items useful for hunters as a reward.
Literally just useful ones, but I heard they are unique items in the world that cannot be obtained in the Dimensional Shop and cannot be traded.
“No harm in getting them.”
I had nothing to lose.
* * *
The short 10-second video uploaded literally dropped a nuclear bomb on the South Korean hunter community Hun-Tube.
[Video] Muryong - 2nd Floor Shortest Cut.mp4
In 10 minutes since the video was uploaded, comments surpassed thousands.
ㄴ ?????? What did I just see
ㄴ What is that? Was it not a human? If you play the video slowly, there's a sound of walking on four legs?
ㄴ Hahahaha. Isn't that a Gorani? It's the cry of a Gorani?
ㄴ Fuck my ears
ㄴ Cleared the 2nd floor with voice? Is that a skill?
ㄴ No, it's not a skill. I analyzed the system logs and there's no record of skill usage. Simply the voice of that Gorani itself is that powerful.
Amidst opinions being divided between it being a Gorani cry or a skill.
An analyst raised a cold question.
[Question] Guys, why exclude the possibility of being a summoner?
Even if nerfed, wouldn't it be much more plausible for a summoner to register as E-Class and take along one such powerful summon? The ranking ID Muryong could be the summon's name.
ㄴ Are you an idiot? Don't you know the US S-Rank summoner incident?
ㄴ That idiot Chaser? All summon-related skills have been blocked since he exploited the system bug.
ㄴ True lol. The possibility of the Gorani being Muryong is much higher than the possibility of being a summoner.
ㄴ Then does it mean Muryong is a Gorani hunter? Fuck, do Gorani hunters even exist?
ㄴ Agh my Muryong!!! Muryong is a female person!!
ㄴ It could be a female Gorani.
Confusion grew uncontrollably.
The hypothesis that Muryong might be a sentient monster, not a human, began to gain strength.
[Analysis] Does Muryong walk on four legs?
[Info] Can a sentient monster register as a hunter? (Request for official response from the Association)
[Humor] Can my dog also awaken?
While the board was burning with all sorts of jokes and analysis posts, an emergency was also declared in other guilds.
“So, you mean Muryong... could be a Gorani?”
At the Guild Master's absurd question, none of the guild members gathered in the conference room could answer readily.
Just then, the Vice Guild Master opened his mouth calmly.
“The possibility is there. Inside the Tower, sentient monsters capable of communicating with humans are very rarely discovered. If Muryong is such a case....”
“....”
“Can our guild also recruit a Gorani?”
The Guild Master asked seriously.
“...Leaving aside whether a Gorani can register as a hunter, first, it seems it's only possible if communication works.”
One executive answered cautiously.
“Good. Form a TF team right now with animal language experts and top-tier veterinarians in the country. Prepare for communication with Muryong. If it's really a Gorani, we must recruit it even if we have to procure the world's most delicious carrots and cabbages.”
South Korea's top 10 guilds began preparing to seriously scout a Gorani.
* * *
Sangam-dong, Seoul, the R&D Center of Valhalla Guild.
This place, where the best technology in South Korea was concentrated, was the front line where technology from the Tower and modern science met.
Yu Seo-jin went to work early in the morning and stood before the hologram screen in the center of the research lab where darkness hadn't faded yet.
Her long straight hair, tied tightly, poured down onto her snow-white research coat.
The small mole right below her lip was the completion of an intelligent yet somewhat stubborn impression.
She had been watching a short video uploaded on Hun-Tube last night over ten times.
The video was only 10 seconds.
It was the 2nd Floor Cobweb Cave raid video uploaded under the ID Muryong.
“Truly... an art.”
Yu Seo-jin muttered in admiration.
“Team Leader, there have been many speculations that Muryong uses a summon, will it be as expected?”
“Anyway, that time period didn't make sense unless it's a summon... well.”
The Tower is based on the principle of strictly 1-person play.
In that sense, the summoner class, which can handle a summon treated as one person, started with an immense advantage from birth.
“That too is a story of extremely low probability.”
Summoners had their lineage cut off 10 years ago.
There was an incident where the S-Rank summoner of the US, Chaser, exploited a Tower system bug, and after that, the Tower systemically sealed hunters from using summon-related skills.
“Uh, otherwise... the probability of Muryong itself being that Gorani?”
“I mean, are you saying that seriously too?”
When Yu Seo-jin asked, the researcher's face turned bright red.
“N-no, ma'am!”
“Hee-hee.”
As Yu Seo-jin laughed softly, the small mole under her lip moved vividly.
“You can't even assert it's a Gorani. Have you seen a Gorani with such overwhelming attack power that it can massacre hundreds of monsters with just one roar in your life?”
“Uh, no ma'am.”
“Right? Anyway, amazing. Such a Gorani. I want to be adopted by one too if there is one, hee-hee. It would be difficult, right?”
Just then, an adjutant approached and spoke to Yu Seo-jin.
“Team Leader, here is the Bureau-related report you mentioned earlier.”
When the adjutant lightly touched the bracelet on his wrist, data from his bracelet was transmitted to Yu Seo-jin’s bracelet.
[National Hunter Management Bureau Internal Trend Report (Class 3 Secret)]
A semi-transparent report implemented through an artifact was unfolded in the air like a hologram.
“Thank you~”
Yu Seo-jin began to scan the report quickly.
“Ah.”
“Is, is there a problem?”
The adjutant asked nervously.
“Here, in the budget report from last quarter, page 32, line 7. One more zero is attached. And here's a typo. Correct and upload again.”
“Ye-yes, ma'am!”
Then she focused on the report again.
Yu Seo-jin’s gaze stayed on the name of Old Man No of the equipment management team.
“As expected, interesting.”
After looking at Old Man No’s info for a long time, she fell into thought with her chin in her hand.
“What would this person named Old Man No want most right now?”
“...Maybe, the normalization of the Bureau? I heard his affection for the organization is great.”
“Probably.”
Since she heard he's a person who lost his wife in the early days of the Tower and dedicated 20 years to the Bureau after that.
“Because the Bureau must have quite a large meaning to Old Man No.”
Yu Seo-jin scanned the list of recent Bureau incidents and accidents written in the report.
Faulty potions, equipment malfunctions, field response failure. It was a total mess.
The organization that had endured for 20 years was rotting from the root in just a few months.
“Team Leader Park Jin-soo, is it said that person is controlling all of this?”
“Yes. Anyway, that person is....”
“Yeah. Because rumors are widespread that Representative Park Min-cheol, a 5-term lawmaker mentioned as the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the next presidential candidate, is backing him. No one would easily rebel.”
“....”
“It means he's an awkward opponent for us too.”
She soon instructed her adjutant as if she made up her mind.
“Send the formal Valhalla Guild’s technical support agreement proposal to the Bureau. The content should be... that we will replace and upgrade all the Bureau's old equipment with Valhalla Guild’s latest technology for free.”
“Pardon? For free?”
“Yeah. Say the justification is the symbiotic development of the South Korean hunter world.”
The justification of support.
With that, she planned to enter deep into the Bureau.
* * *
Deep at night, So-ye was smiling with a satisfied face amidst the unique air pervading the hospital room.
“Hee-hee, Bunny.”
It seemed her brother had visited while she was asleep.
A tiny rabbit plush doll seated next to the bed.
She could recognize it at a glance upon seeing it.
The memory was vague, but a nostalgic afterimage surfaced very faintly.
From the deep part of her forgotten memory, this doll was always a reliable friend who protected her.
That appearance gave So-ye a greater comfort than any medicine.
“I’ll cover you with a blanket.”
So-ye pulled the blanket over the doll's body with her small hands and fell asleep stuck close to its side.
Quiet hospital room.
Soon, as the sound of breaths echoed consistently, a light very slowly turned in the 낡은 (old) rabbit doll's black button eyes.
Blink.
Countless ages.
An existence that had just silently watched the lamentation and joy of numerous souls.
The rabbit doll meticulously covered the sleeping So-ye with the blanket with its small cotton arms and opened the window gap slightly to ventilate the stuffy hospital room air.
At that very moment.
-...!
In the dead of night, a B-Rank monster Giant Red Blood-Sucking Bat, which was roaming the Seoul sky looking for prey, flinched in instinctive fear and hurriedly stopped its flight.
Its gaze was fixed on a certain window among the dense buildings.
Through the window gap, two small and black pupils were staring at it as if piercing through it.
-!!!
The gaze of an existence linked to an unknowable deep abyss, which a lowly monster like itself couldn't even estimate.
Pupils of time itself that witnessed the birth and death of stars.
Even though what was contained in that look wasn't anger or hostility.
Simply by existing, the absolute indifference crushed the soul of lower life forms.
Why on earth is that thing in the humans' hospital room?
-Kieeeeeeeeeee-ck!
The Giant Red Blood-Sucking Bat let out a tearing scream and fled into the darkness in panic.
It felt like its soul would vanish if it stayed even 1 second longer in the shadow of that existence.
Step, step.
Inside the hospital room, the rabbit doll just quietly guarded So-ye’s side while opening its black button eyes again, as if nothing had happened.
< Eternal Eons Inside the Cotton > END