Mole Cricket
"Hup!"
Joo Ji-hye loosened up her body, swinging her arms this way and that.
She had been discharged from the hospital a few days earlier, and thanks to a body that had recovered without a trace of lingering aftereffects, she'd walked out of her room feeling better than ever. The rest had done her far more good than she'd expected—in fact, she was in better condition than before the injury.
It was all thanks to the strawberries and assorted delicacies Oh Hyeon-seong had lavished on her. They had neutralized more of the takgi accumulated in her body than the exposure itself had put there in the first place.
And at the time, they had been her one ray of hope while choking down that horrifically bad hospital food.
Clunk!
Just then, the door swung open and Ryu Ji-hwa walked in. Joo Ji-hye's eyes went wide at the sight of him.
She'd barely seen him since he'd left for America, but the two of them went way back—both hunters under the same agency, Aegis.
"Well, look who's back. The world star who swept America, gracing us with his presence."
"Yeah, yeah. Looks like you've been doing well for yourself, too."
Ryu Ji-hwa chuckled and settled onto the sofa in the waiting room.
"They say you made 11th-grade Hunter... and it's actually true. That's incredible."
He studied her as he spoke. Last time he'd seen her, she'd been miserable, blocked by the thick ceiling of 10th grade. But she had finally broken through that wall.
Reaching 11th-grade Hunter meant more than simply joining the ranks of elite hunters—it opened the door to key national positions. Setting aside his seniors, who occupied deputy-director posts and power seats at every core agency and were essentially irregulars beyond comparison, the tier below them was hers for the taking.
At that stage, not only did the size of her contract fees and social standing change dramatically, but so did the treatment and deference she received from the state itself.
"Ahem, it was nothing, really."
Joo Ji-hye nodded along, unable to keep the smugness off her face. She had tossed and turned under her hospital blankets with joy—her pride in having entered a new realm ran that deep.
Ryu Ji-hwa laughed at how transparent she was.
"Anyway, looking forward to working with you. I'm making my comeback here today myself."
"Isn't this overkill for an A-rank gate, though?"
"You start light. Ease back in."
"Eh, fair enough. The CEO told me not to push it and just get a feel for the field again. If you get hungry, there are some snacks over there—help yourself."
"I'm good. I'm in my stabilization period right now, so I can't just eat whatever I find lying around."
Ryu Ji-hwa waved a hand in refusal, and Joo Ji-hye's gaze drifted to his left arm.
It was wrapped snugly in bandages. A world-class star whose popularity matched his outstanding skill, he was hailed by the public as Korea's Sword Saint—but those in the industry who knew better called him the Sword Ghost.
"So what have you been up to all this time?"
The two of them traded all the stories that had piled up during their time apart. They weren't exactly the closest of friends, but with CEO Choi Jeong-il between them, they'd crossed paths enough to know each other's situations well.
But somewhere in the middle of all that catching up, the same name slipped out of both of them.
"You know Hyeon-seong sunbae?"
"Barely surviving that last raid was thanks to my teacher. It's the only reason I'm here today."
Joo Ji-hye nodded as she spoke. Pushing through that gate's darkness where no end was in sight, and shattering the wall of 11th grade in the end—all of it came down to Oh Hyeon-seong.
If he hadn't come to the rescue from outside, she would have been trapped in there and died on the spot.
But to her surprise, a violently intense reaction boiled out of Ryu Ji-hwa at the most unexpected moment.
"Y-your... teacher...? Even I don't dare call him that...!"
Ryu Ji-hwa was suddenly fuming. Having endured that hellish training camp to completion, he could not accept someone who'd barely just met the man being bound to him as master and disciple.
She'd gone through a proper training program for barely a single week—what did she mean, disciple?
"Well, he already calls me that."
"What... So sunbaenim actually permitted you to use words like master and disciple?"
"Of course. Just the other day, he called out to me, 'My disciple~'"
Craaack!
Oh Hyeon-seong had never officially taken a disciple before. But that was because, back in the unit, they had been formally senior and junior—he'd told her to call him sunbae rather than teacher.
It was to prevent whispers about him playing favorites with disciples from his own lineage while leading the organization.
None of which Ryu Ji-hwa had any way of knowing, and his arm trembled violently.
"Hehe."
At that moment, the corners of Joo Ji-hye's mouth curled up into a smirk soaked in mockery.
A thoroughly, deliciously infuriating smirk.
"Ha, I really didn't expect you to just pop up out of nowhere like this."
Oh Hyeon-seong gave an awkward laugh as he regarded the being before him.
A colossal golem filled the entire room. A comrade who had once fought shoulder to shoulder with him across countless battlefields—Merz, the High Spirit of Earth.
"...It's been a long time."
Vuuuum!
The creature silently extended a finger toward him, and Oh Hyeon-seong pressed his palm against it.
In an instant, the golem's massive frame scattered like dust and flowed into his dantian. The contract had been sealed.
"Woof!"
And in that very moment, Merz appeared in his materialized form. Oh Hyeon-seong's gaze traveled downward—and there sat a puppy.
An unmistakable, purebred Korean Sigorjabjong—the beloved country mutt.
Such a contrast to his own dignified, majestic true form. And yet Oh Hyeon-seong couldn't stop a grin from blooming across his face.
"...Still going with this look, I see."
Materialization favored small forms by nature, so there was nothing theoretically strange about it. Alvern took the shape of an otter, and even Alisa—though her human form was unusual—appeared as a small child.
It was just that Merz, whose true body was uniquely enormous among them, made the gap between his two forms feel especially staggering.
"Come on, let's go. I'll show you your new home."
Oh Hyeon-seong scooped the creature up in his arms and stepped out of the room.
A partner who had shared his life and death, their souls bound as one. This was their reunion after years apart—and regardless of the sentiment, the puppy wagged its tail and licked his face, and he burst into genuine, heartfelt laughter.
Oh Hyeon-seong introduced Merz to his new home. Along the way, the low-tier spirits playing in the yard spotted him and greeted him with delight—above all, the earth spirits erupted in rapturous celebration.
They danced and bounced with all their might, expressing the joy of reunion. For the earth spirits, who normally worked away in solemn silence at whatever task was at hand, it was an extraordinarily passionate reception.
By now, word had surely reached Alvern at the reservoir that Merz had returned. Two great beings so tightly woven into the same soul would hardly fail to recognize one another.
But Alvern didn't come over to visit. He simply went on gliding serenely through the water.
Typical of him. Still, you'd think he'd at least say hello to an old friend after all this time.
Oh Hyeon-seong shook his head and set off for the mountain behind the house with Merz in tow—a stroll along the back trail, and a chance to introduce him to the others at the reservoir.
True to a dog who loved his walks, Merz was overjoyed just to be trotting at his side, savoring his first taste of the human world in ages.
Then, all at once, he stopped short, pressed his nose to the ground, and began snuffling with purpose.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
"Grrruff!"
Head lowered, Merz started tracking something. His path veered off the trail toward the reservoir, but Oh Hyeon-seong quietly followed along.
Sniffing the air and running something down—the sort of thing an ordinary dog would do. But scent was merely a secondary tool for this creature.
Merz, the High Spirit of Earth, could read the traces left in the soil itself. He perceived with vivid clarity even the faintest marks that no human—or any animal with keen senses—could ever detect.
He could even unearth the memory of the ground itself for traces that had been deliberately wiped away, so long as they lay within a certain span of time.
With an accuracy that approached one hundred percent, Oh Hyeon-seong followed without a word of complaint, and soon spotted the owner of those traces through the trees.
Snort! Snort!
A wild boar, huffing out fierce jets of breath. At its appearance, the creature lowered its stance in a flash.
Another wild boar... Did this whole area turn into a boar colony or something?
This one was nearly identical in size to the beast he'd seen last time. He'd heard the back mountain was a boar hotspot, but it seemed the population was rather more than one or two.
Normally, that would mean a dangerous place no one should set foot in—but for him, it was closer to good news. Thanks to it, he wouldn't have to worry about pork for a good while.
Stay.
Still, he took Merz and retreated back the way they'd come.
"Good tracking, but think you can find traces of something other than a boar this time?"
There was still plenty of boar meat left in the storage shed from his last hunt. He'd grilled some himself on several occasions, and they'd even thrown a barbecue party—but the amount of meat a single boar yielded was more than he'd imagined.
And the one he'd run into that day had been exceptionally large, to boot.
In other words, there was no need to hunt something just because it happened to cross his path when he had plenty of meat already. If anything, he figured it was better to leave them be and manage the population.
These boars were a precious resource that would keep supplying him with delicious meat—letting them breed wouldn't do to wipe the species out through indiscriminate overhunting.
Hearing him out, Merz got to work and soon turned up a different set of traces.
Tip-tap-tap!
The creature broke into a run, following the trail. At a pace an ordinary person would struggle just to keep in sight of—but Oh Hyeon-seong, his legs fully healed, trailed along with ease.
We're going farther than I expected... Please don't tell me a moon bear or a wolf is about to jump out.
Ever since the gates and the great chaos that followed, quite a few invasive species had made their way into Korea. Creatures that never could have adapted to the environment before had taken root amid the ecological upheaval following the influx of takgi.
Worse, like the boars growing larger and more aggressive, the very temperament of the animals had sometimes been rewritten. Anything could come bounding out, and it wouldn't be strange at all.
But contrary to all those dire musings, what appeared was a remarkably familiar set of life signs.
These tracks... a chicken, if I'm not mistaken?
Chicken prints scattered across the ground. The problem was their size—anything but normal.
Oh Hyeon-seong could gauge a creature roughly from its footprints alone. But the size these tracks suggested was enormous, and he had never once in his life seen a chicken that big.
He pressed on along the trail, and the creature appeared before him.
"Oh my, holy—"
Flap-flap!
A chicken, strolling through the mountains. It looked like one that had escaped from a farmhouse, and it seemed to have settled in a different restricted area, quite some distance from the reservoir.
Perhaps that was why—it boasted a truly colossal frame.
City folk were often surprised at how big a chicken looked the first time they saw one in person, but this was another matter entirely. It was the size of those famous Brazilian dinosaur chickens.
Bwok-bwok-bwok!
The deranged chicken beat its wings and charged straight at him. Oh Hyeon-seong gave it a solid thump on the head, sent it off without pain, and walked away with yet another source of food.
He hadn't come out here with this in mind, but it was an unexpected harvest.
"Come to think of it... back in the day, when we were starving on missions, I owed you more than a few meals. Brings back memories."
He gave an awkward chuckle at the sight of the creature wagging its tail. Merz was a master tracker.
Hunting wild game had been a rare occurrence, saved for true emergencies, but the creature's abilities had proven invaluable on all manner of operations as well.
Like the other spirits, his worth had never been confined to combat alone.
"Hold on..."
In that instant, a thought flashed across his mind.
Those stories Lee Gil-sang had told him recently. At the time, they'd been nothing more than information with no obvious use—but now that Merz was back, the situation had changed.
"Come to think of it... maybe you could find that Secret Seed Vault for me?"