Chapter 6
Chapter 6
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: The Lone Conqueror
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“Wh-what?!”
“The Gate’s shaking!”
“No way?”
“Th-the Gate line’s disappearing?!”
“Could the Gate have been cleared?”
When a Gate is cleared, the Gate line visible from the outside collapses.
Civilians can tell if it’s been cleared by watching that happen, and everyone was stunned to see the fading line.
And for good reason—Sudden Gates like this one were almost never cleared on the first try.
Association staff who witnessed it hurriedly reported to Jeong Cheol-min.
“Team Leader! The Gate’s been cleared!”
“Y-yeah…… I can see that……”
Jeong Cheol-min, who’d been monitoring the situation live, had eyes wide as saucers.
According to the firefighter’s report, the person who entered was definitely a Healer.
And they’d gone in alone.
Yet they’d cleared a Sudden Gate?
Everyone buzzed with shock, their eyes glued to the Gate.
It wasn’t just Jeong Cheol-min who knew.
Soon, reporters who got wind of the news started gathering, and right after the Gate line fully crumbled, an exit portal formed.
A single figure slowly emerged from within.
It was Su-ho.
“He’s out!”
“Eh?! He really did it alone?”
“Crazy, did that guy solo it?”
The sunlight was blinding.
Su-ho stepped out of the portal, squinting at the swarm of people as he scanned his surroundings.
‘Quite the crowd.’
But no one could approach him yet.
A system barrier formed around the exit portal of a cleared Gate, keeping everyone but the clearer away.
“Hey! Over here, please!”
“Who are you?!”
“I’m a scout from Immortal Guild……!”
“I’m from Hwarang Guild……!”
So the crowd shouted at the top of their lungs from beyond the barrier, camera flashes popping as they desperately tried to catch Su-ho’s eye.
Su-ho ignored them entirely, searching the throng for someone specific.
And soon enough, he found them.
Su-ho walked up to the person staring right at him and stopped at the barrier’s edge.
“You’re Jeong Cheol-min, Team Leader from the National Hunter Association, right?”
Jeong Cheol-min’s face lit up in surprise.
“Pardon? Oh, yes. I’m Jeong Cheol-min, Team Leader of the Gate Management Division…… Do you know me?”
Su-ho’s familiarity snapped Jeong Cheol-min back to attention, and he quickly introduced himself.
Su-ho smiled faintly to himself.
‘Nice to see you again.’
Su-ho knew exactly who Jeong Cheol-min was.
More than acquaintances—they’d been thick as thieves.
After all, far in the future, Jeong Cheol-min would lead the National Hunter Association as its president.
‘No one works as hard or sacrifices as much as Cheol-min hyung.’
If this truly was the past he remembered, Su-ho planned to stick with Jeong Cheol-min again.
He intended to join the National Hunter Association and become a civil servant Hunter once more.
Su-ho spoke.
“We can talk details at the Association. I was heading there anyway to get my Hunter License issued.”
“Sure, of co…… What?”
He needed a Hunter License issued?
That meant he’d only just awakened as a Player?
Jeong Cheol-min blinked in disbelief at the absurdity.
***
Back at the Association, Jeong Cheol-min checked Su-ho’s identity and was left speechless.
Talk about expectations biting you—Su-ho really was an unregistered Hunter.
A Healer, no less—the weakest class among the four professions.
‘What the hell……’
He’d only recently awakened as a Player, yet he’d soloed a Sudden Gate as a Healer?
It was beyond comprehension.
But it was all true, and Su-ho calmly went through the aptitude tests for his Hunter License, smiling easily.
When the results came in, Jeong Cheol-min took one look and was floored again.
‘What in the……’
He stared at Su-ho’s test results in utter disbelief.
Every test—job aptitude, innate job potential—showed completely average scores.
‘If anything, a bit below average for a Healer.’
On paper, Su-ho should’ve been a Warrior or Archer, not a Healer.
But he was undeniably a Healer class.
Jeong Cheol-min had seen the light of healing and Cure with his own eyes.
‘How do I even explain this……?’
Tearing his eyes from the results, Jeong Cheol-min looked at Su-ho.
“……If it’s not too rude, could I ask what you did before this?”
Su-ho thought back briefly.
“I was a college student.”
“Were? So not anymore?”
“Right. I dropped out.”
He remembered it clearly.
He’d gotten caught in the Greenred Gate on the way back from submitting his withdrawal papers.
Why drop out?
Nothing major.
Su-ho had been in a sports science program, but the rigid hierarchy and toxic “shit discipline” felt utterly unjust.
So he’d bailed on the school he’d barely gotten into.
Jeong Cheol-min nodded.
“Were you pre-med or nursing, by chance?”
“Sports science.”
“Sports science…… Then why become a Healer?”
It made no sense to Jeong Cheol-min.
If Su-ho had been pre-med or nursing, picking Healer would’ve made sense—but sports science?
Shouldn’t that scream Warrior or Archer?
Su-ho shrugged it off.
“I hate pain, so I became a Healer.”
“……Pardon?”
“True story.”
It wasn’t entirely wrong—Myriad Poisons had pushed him toward Healer.
But right now, it only baffled Jeong Cheol-min more.
He closed his eyes briefly, then continued slowly.
“Did you really solo the Gate?”
“You saw me come out alone from the exit portal.”
“Fair enough…… Could you walk me through how you cleared it?”
“Monsters came at me, so I fought. Killed every one that charged, and it cleared. Oh, the inside monsters were Hobgoblins, for reference.”
“H-Hobgoblins?”
“Yeah.”
With that, Su-ho pulled the Hobgoblin Leader’s head from his inventory—the one he’d grabbed with the mana stones—and set it on the desk.
Jeong Cheol-min’s eyes bulged.
It was real.
“Th-this……!”
“Head of the Hobgoblin Leader, the boss monster.”
He added the mana stone next.
“And this is its mana stone.”
“Whoa……”
Mana stone and trophy head.
Irrefutable proof.
As the stunned Jeong Cheol-min struggled for words, Su-ho spoke first.
“I get why you’re shocked. Why a sports science guy picks Healer over Warrior or Archer. How a total newbie solos a Sudden Gate. Right?”
“Yeah…… Can’t deny it.”
“But everything I said is true. I killed what I saw, picked Beginner’s Sword because it looked familiar-ish. Hated pain, so Healer. And once I get this license, I plan to keep Hunter-ing.”
“Mind if I ask what sparked that resolve?”
“I hate Magic Beasts and Gates. Check my records—you’ll see I lost my whole family in the Gate Shock incident. Got tuition and military waivers out of it, but what’s the point when they’re all gone?”
“So going in alone this time……?”
“Impulsive, yeah. But it felt like a chance to vent some pent-up grief. Plus, I was coming back from dropping out today—over the department’s bullshit discipline. I was pissed.”
“Hmm.”
Jeong Cheol-min nodded quietly.
Su-ho sounded impulsive, but it hinted at how much rage he’d bottled up living day to day.
Su-ho continued.
“Picked sports science hoping it’d help if I awakened—figured martial basics couldn’t hurt, even without real training. But now that I’m a Player, dropping out was the right call.”
Jeong Cheol-min listened intently.
Seeing that seriousness, Su-ho dropped the sob story and tossed out the real bait.
“But I’m not planning to live in anger forever. Getting drunk on rage won’t bring my family back.”
Jeong Cheol-min’s expression shifted at the pivot.
“Then what?”
“I’ll Hunter, but if I can, I want to work for people’s safety. Like at our National Hunter Association.”
Jeong Cheol-min’s eyes widened like lightning had struck.
He’d never seen that coming.
And that made Su-ho even more intriguing.
“Joining the Association means being a civil servant Hunter…… You okay with that? Quick search’ll tell you, but honestly, our pay’s…… way below private guild Hunters.”
“I know. But you’ve got free access to Sudden Gates and all Gates, priority clearance rights. And strong authority over Player crimes. I want to work for the greater good, not personal glory.”
“Ah……!”
Jeong Cheol-min couldn’t help but exclaim aloud.
Everyone claimed altruism in interviews, but dig deeper and it was job security and Gate-free cash they craved.
Exactly as Su-ho said.
Association Hunters had first dibs on Sudden Gates, but most auctioned them to private guilds.
Why?
Too risky.
‘Few civil servant Hunters volunteer for Gates on our peanuts salary.’
Jeong Cheol-min’s heart raced.
He held back his excitement.
“If you joined the Association, where would you want to work……?”
“Out in the field as much as possible. Gate clearance if I can.”
Ha.
Jeong Cheol-min nearly fainted.