The Day Before Spring
"B-But you're an A-rank hunter, right? This much should be fine, shouldn't it?" The woman rubbed her head, her eyes brimming with tears at the corners. Dressed in a fluffy padded jacket that suited her bright brown, tousled short hair, she still looked like she hadn't quite shed her student vibe. Seok-jun clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"It would've been fine if you'd just stayed quiet. Are you planning to spread rumors all over the neighborhood?"
"Ah!" She finally realized her mistake and whipped her head around in panic, scanning the surroundings. Hunters and personnel who appeared to be part of the investigation team were already shuffling toward them from various directions.
"S-Senior, this'll be okay, right?" After checking around, she asked with a tearful expression, but Seok-jun's reply was curt.
"Report to Detective Lee immediately and act according to whatever orders come down."
"Eek! I'm gonna get chewed out so bad! Can't we just keep this one thing a secret?!"
"Is that the attitude you take toward an investigation? Report it by the book, right now."
"Hngh, fine."
Mina watched the woman's retreating figure, shoulders slumped in defeat, before turning to Seok-jun with a quiet question.
"Why is the police involved in the investigation team?"
"Because the incident happened outside the gate, we need someone with the authority to maintain control."
She'd thought it would be more natural for researchers rather than police to be on an investigation team, but she let it go.
"Ah! I came here because of the request. Where do I get confirmation?"
"That would be from that girl over there... Haah."
Seok-jun sighed as he glanced toward the woman, now standing a little distance away with a walkie-talkie pressed to her ear, bent at the waist as she spoke into it. Mina observed the scene with narrowed eyes before speaking up.
"Hmm, by the way, you seem pretty close with her for a fellow hunter, Seok-jun."
"I wouldn't say we're particularly close."
He shook his head as if the idea was bothersome, but Mina remained skeptical. Even though he'd firmly brushed her off, treating someone that bluntly required a certain level of familiarity.
"She even calls you 'senior.'"
"That's just her calling me that on her own. She says since we've been doing similar work for a while, I'm basically her senior anyway."
That did sound plausible, considering the kind of work his office handled.
"That's really all there is to it?"
"Nothing more, nothing less."
His firm answer put her somewhat at ease, but a new question soon surfaced.
"If this is the kind of case that requires mobilizing you or the police, why go to the trouble of forming such a large investigation team or calling in an A-rank hunter?"
The more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed. If his office and the police were already involved, there shouldn't have been any need to summon an A-rank hunter.
"It was because we weren't sure whether the incident was caused by a monster or by a human. Do you know why this area never sees snow melt all year round, Mina?"
"I heard it was because some monster died here."
Mina recalled what the taxi driver had told her on the way over.
"Yes. Have you heard of the monster called the Ice King?"
"The Ice King..." She pondered the name for a moment before it clicked. "That's the monster S-rank hunter Yu Seongjin took down, right?!"
When the S-rank gate hadn't been properly contained, a dungeon break had occurred, and the S-rank monster that emerged from it had been dubbed the Ice King. Its size alone rivaled a small mountain. The cold it radiated was so intense that even military helicopters and fighter jets had their engines freeze over. Even though the incident had taken place outside the gate, no proper combat footage remained.
"I've seen a video someone recorded from far away."
The news had covered that footage nonstop at the time, and it was still easy to find with a quick search.
"Then this place is...?"
"Where it was defeated."
In truth, the gate from which the Ice King had emerged had appeared much farther away. The otherworldliness created by the gate itself had been dealt with somehow.
"I heard the otherworldliness at the defeat site was so severe that it was difficult to handle, but..."
She'd never imagined the environment would remain so drastically altered even now.
"We've located hunters with nullification abilities and poured in purification soil until the otherworldliness itself was mostly resolved. Even so, the weather change couldn't be fixed, so it was eventually left as is and turned into a ski resort."
"The researchers speculate that the Ice King's power was so immense that the weather became permanently fixed in place."
Mina looked around once more. Even though winter was nearly over, the cold and the endless white world made it feel as though they'd arrived in the polar regions.
"On top of that, since this is a mountainous area, it seems they missed some of the monsters that escaped the gate along with the Ice King."
She glanced toward the spot where the Freeze Golem she'd defeated had collapsed. Normally, monsters didn't appear from gates higher than their own rank, but S-rank gates were an exception. The monsters that emerged from them were enhanced beyond their original gate's level. The biggest difference, of course, was the presence of S-rank monsters like the Ice King.
"Then that means the monsters from back then have been hiding here all this time?!"
She'd never imagined monsters could survive hidden outside the gate for so long.
"But why investigate now? They've even built a ski resort here."
Building a ski resort in a place like this was strange enough, but if monsters had been present, there should have been multiple missing persons cases by now.
"It's precisely because this is a ski resort."
When Mina looked at him in confusion, he continued.
"Ski resorts are prone to accidents and missing persons incidents by nature."
"But if there were monsters, there would've been even more incidents, right?"
"This place is famous for keeping its ski resort open all year round."
Even seasonal ski resorts saw around ten thousand accidents per year. If a resort operated year-round and drew tourists from other countries, how many incidents would occur? Mina recalled the path she'd taken with Lee Jun when they'd arrived. There hadn't been any proper roads, and the terrain had been treacherous. They'd gone around the ski resort, so it made sense that the area saw little foot traffic. The Freeze Golem had probably been attacking people who'd lost their way there.
"What the hell is this?"
A horrified voice rang out nearby. Wondering what could have prompted such a reaction, Mina quickly realized where it was coming from. People were gathering and murmuring around the collapsed remains of the Freeze Golem she'd defeated in a panic. She and Seok-jun approached the scene, and she caught sight of a familiar face.
Ugh, I see them way too often.
Since they were also B-rank hunters like Seok-jun, she spotted Min-jeong and Cheok-jeong as well. There was no time to greet them, however.
"This is..."
Mina's expression hardened as she examined the remains of the Freeze Golem. Normally, Freeze Golems were exactly what their name suggested—pure ice constructs. Once defeated, all that remained were regular, clean chunks of ice, aside from the core. But the one she'd taken down was different. The ice chunks were irregularly distorted, making it a wonder how it had even maintained its form. More than that, embedded within what should have been transparent ice were fragments of plastic with logos or patterns, what looked like padding material and cotton, and tangled red stains. That wasn't the amount of evidence left behind by harming just one or two people.
I figured it had been hiding for a long time, but this much...
Some time after the discovery, police arrived in vehicles. They cordoned off the area around the golem with police tape and began their investigation. The hunters were soon pushed to the sidelines, either watching from a distance or returning to their tents and the resort. Mina stood with Seok-jun and the others, observing the police at work.
"You were here?"
A man emerged from among the officers, approaching alongside the woman they'd met earlier. He was the detective Mina had first encountered at the school gate when she'd followed Seok-jun there.
"Have the results come in?"
"At least it doesn't seem like a human did this, which is a relief. Still, I didn't expect there to be this many."
As she watched him nod in response to Seok-jun's question, their eyes met.
"Huh? Isn't that the person from back then?"
"I came here after accepting the request."
Mina hadn't expected him to remember her and awkwardly held out the request form.
"Then you're the one who took down that golem?"
"Yes, it's Mina."
Seok-jun answered in her place, and the detective pulled out his smartphone.
"Could you show me your hunter ID?"
"Ah, here."
When Mina opened the app and displayed the QR code, he scanned it and tilted his head.
"Your affiliation is Hanshin?"
"Eh? Hanshin? But why would she take on a request like this...?"
The woman beside him asked in surprise, and Mina understood why. An A-rank hunter accepting a request that was essentially bodyguard work for B-rank hunters and civilians—rather than gate subjugation—would typically only happen in small to medium-sized guilds. Just as Mina was gloomily lowering her head, unsure why she'd even accepted this request in the first place—
"Kek! Aang! Why'd you hit me again, Senior?!"
"Watch your mouth. She could've taken the request as an individual. What kind of way is that to talk?"
The man rapped the woman on the head just as Seok-jun had done.
"Tch, everyone's always on my case."
While she grumbled, the detective tapped something on his phone before speaking again.
"Once a few procedures are completed, this request will be considered successfully resolved, and Hanshin will be notified."
"What? Does that mean...?"
"Yes. Based on the circumstances, we're considering the request complete."
The long-term assignment she'd expected had been resolved the moment she arrived.
Why?!
Finishing the job quickly was a good thing, but the resolve she'd mustered on the way here now felt hollow, leaving her strangely empty.