Chapter 61
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 61
Chapter Title: The Demon World's Last Shunned Location
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Kim Taehoon, a new employee at the Hunter Association, cautiously observed the somber atmosphere in the office.
His senior, sitting next to him, chuckled.
“Don’t worry about it. You know how 150 Hunters on the snowy mountain expedition ended up in the hospital, right? It’s because of that. It has nothing to do with our department, so you don’t need to walk on eggshells.”
The senior paused, then looked at Kim Taehoon.
“Come to think of it, you said you’ve been to the snowy mountains too, right? You used to be a D-rank Hunter.”
“Yes. I got backstabbed by some B-rank Hunters, surrounded by a pack of Snow Rabbits, and almost died… I retired after that.”
Kim Taehoon said, recalling the old memory.
Just when he thought he was going to die, surrounded by Snow Rabbits, someone had dropped from the sky and saved him.
A strange person, clad in a single piece of fur like a caveman.
“He even gave you a Return Stone, didn't he?”
“He did. A true savior. If it weren’t for him, both my friend and I would have died. My friend’s wife was about to have their first child, too. He literally saved a family.”
Looking back, it felt like a miracle.
After that, he and his friend quit being Hunters, switched to office jobs, and were now living peaceful lives.
“But about those rumors regarding the 150 Hunters. I heard all the A-rankers among them lost their abilities? What happened?”
“I don’t know either. From what I hear, they tried to take advantage of a newly Awakened kid and ended up like that.”
The senior lowered his voice.
“The Chairman is apparently livid about it. You know he can’t stand injustice. He’s supposedly raising hell, demanding to know what they were plotting behind his back. That’s why the mood in the office is so tense.”
I Unsu, the first Chairman of the Hunter Association.
He was a man who had dedicated his entire life to the safety of Hunters since the association was first temporarily established.
Now that word of a young Hunter being driven to their death had reached the Chairman’s ears, the 150 involved and whoever was behind them would not get off easy.
“I guess the atmosphere in the company will be tense for a while.”
“It will. It probably won’t affect our department, but let’s be careful not to get caught in the crossfire.”
Kim Taehoon nodded.
The office atmosphere might have been gloomy, but it was fine. Compared to his life as a Hunter, risking his life crossing Gates, this was nothing.
‘Speaking of the snowy mountains, it reminds me of him. Was his name Cheon Doun?’
Kim Taehoon thought of the man who had saved them on the snowy mountain.
‘I wanted to contact him personally to thank him, but his name isn't in the A-rank Hunter registry.’
Could he be an S-rank Hunter? A low-level office worker like him couldn't access information on S-rankers.
But it was strange, as a Hunter of that caliber would normally have their name spread through word-of-mouth.
“Ah. Maybe he’s not registered with the Association at all.”
“What’s that?”
“Oh, the benefactor who saved me and my friend. I wanted to find him to at least thank him, but there’s no record of him at the Association.”
“Really? Then he must be a freelance Hunter. There are more of them than you’d think.”
If one didn’t register with the Association, they wouldn’t receive legal protection if problems arose.
For this reason, most Hunters considered registration a mandatory procedure, but those who were reluctant to have their stats recorded sometimes worked as freelancers without registering.
‘Is Mr. Cheon Doun one of them?’
If he was a freelance Hunter, there was no way to find him. Kim Taehoon, who had wanted to meet him again to at least buy him a meal, looked disappointed.
‘Well, if we’re fated to meet, we’ll cross paths again someday.’
When that day comes, I’ll repay him for saving my life, Kim Taehoon thought with a smile.
* * *
Having finished his business in the snowy mountains, Cheon Doun returned home.
The house and the vegetable patch. The yard. The half-finished fence. Though he had only been gone for a short while, it all felt welcoming.
“We’re going to head back to our place for a bit. If we leave it empty for too long, other Monsters might come and take it over.”
Yu Beom said. Even though they lived like wanderers, their method of maintaining their home was to return once in a while to leave their mark.
After the siblings left, Cheon Doun looked around the yard.
“The fence is almost done. I should be able to finish it today… There’s going to be a lot of yellow ore left over. Guess I mined too much.”
At Cheon Doun’s words, Kim Nari tugged on his sleeve.
“Mister. Let’s build a fence along the path too.”
“Along the path?”
Cheon Doun looked at the trail leading to the waterfall valley. It was a small path that had formed naturally from people walking on it.
It was fine during the day, but at night, it turned pitch black from the shadows of the trees.
“That’s a good idea. Considering the amount of ore left, I’ll have to space them out, but it’ll have a nice, rustic feel, like trail markers.”
Kim Nari beamed at Cheon Doun’s words.
Kim Nari could now speak her mind without hesitation.
She could purely enjoy the pleasure of her opinions being accepted.
Once the use for the remaining ore was decided, the work progressed quickly.
With Cheon Doun and Kim Nari working together, the fence was completed in no time.
It didn’t take long since it was already more than half-built.
“Mister. This looks amazing.”
Kim Nari looked around the yard with an impressed expression.
The sun had just set, so the fence, embedded with luminous stones, was showing its true worth.
Golden pillars of light surrounded the house, creating a mystical atmosphere.
The fact that the light from the fence cast shadows on the house was a separate matter.
The house, with its sagging threads, was now covered in shadows, creating an even more terrifying ambiance.
“Alright. Now that the fence is up, it’s time to prepare for winter.”
“Prepare for winter? What do we need to do?”
“We need to chop and stockpile firewood. We can stack it behind the house.”
“Ooh, chopping firewood. I can do that. I will help.”
Kim Nari nodded as if she had been entrusted with an important mission.
“Stockpiling food… is that necessary? We can just ice-fish in the waterfall valley. And Nam Giseok will bring all sorts of things, so we don’t have to worry about it.”
Cheon Doun looked around the house. The biggest problem, then, was preserving the house itself.
“If I leave it like this, it’ll collapse during the winter.”
“Why? It seems sturdy. Why would it collapse?”
“The snow in the Demon World has a component that corrodes plants. Because of that, the forest zones turn into a hellscape in the winter.”
All the trees would become bare. As if melted by acid, every tree in the area would transform.
Hunters often described the winter forest zones as a scene from hell.
“Then, when spring comes, they regenerate in an instant and bloom. That’s the one-year cycle of the forest zone.”
Cheon Doun looked at the log cabin.
“The house is made of wood, too. If I leave it as is, it’ll start to melt here and there and fall apart.”
“Ah… Th-then what should we do?”
Kim Nari asked with a worried expression, hearing that the house might disappear.
“There are two solutions.”
The first was to erect stone pillars around the house and place a huge rock on top, like a dolmen.
“Basically, making a roof out of stone. The downside is that it completely blocks the sunlight. We’d have to remove it in the spring and put it back in the winter. It’s a pain to repeat that process. And if the pillars can’t bear the weight and collapse, the house will collapse too.”
For a method meant to protect the house, it had too many drawbacks.
“Th-then what’s the second method?”
“Coat the surface of the house with a substance that blocks the acidic components.”
“Ooh…! That sounds better. The sunlight will still come in. And we won’t have to do anything extra in the spring or winter…”
Kim Nari spoke excitedly before pausing. If it only had advantages, there would be no reason not to choose it immediately.
“Does that one have a downside too?”
“It does. To get that substance, we have to go into the Cave Zone.”
The top three most shunned locations in the Demon World, as compiled by the Hunter Association: the High Mountain Zone, the Volcanic Zone, and the Cave Zone.
Each was a dangerous area where Magi was highly concentrated.
“Is it so dangerous that even you can’t go, Mister?”
“Not really. In terms of Magi density alone, the Cave Zone is the weakest of the three. Even a B+-rank hunter could manage to get in somehow.”
“Then why is it shunned?”
“The terrain itself.”
The Cave Zone was a labyrinth of twisted paths.
Every year, Hunters would take a wrong turn, get lost, and die.
“Gates don’t open easily in the Cave Zone. On average, there’s about a one in one hundred and twenty chance of a Gate opening when you break a Return Stone. The option of opening a Gate to escape when you’re lost doesn’t exist.”
A special wavelength created by the terrain. The Hunter Association had discovered that this interfered with the opening of Gates.
The Association had also been the one to investigate and publish the probability of a Gate opening by breaking thousands of Return Stones.
“That’s why it’s in the top three shunned locations.”
“A cave… I see. It’s dark. That’s why it’s easy to get lost.”
“Not really. Sunlight gets in just fine.”
“Sunlight gets into a cave?”
“It’s called a cave, but if you actually go there, it’s not a real cave. It’s just the terrain… It’s hard to explain. I guess it does feel like a cave. You’ll have to see it for yourself.”
Kim Nari thought for a moment, then clapped her hands.
“Mister, you can produce thread from your fingers. If you unspool it from the entrance as you go, you won’t get lost.”
Cheon Doun smiled. He didn’t need to do something so troublesome; he had no fear of getting lost there.
He had already been to that place many times in the past.
Instead of explaining that, he looked to his side. There, sleeping soundly, was the Captain Root, leaning against him.
“See that?”
Cheon Doun pointed to a beaker placed near the root. It was the beaker containing soil from the snowy mountain.
Cheon Doun had even poured a generous amount of mana into the soil.
But the root wouldn’t go in. Even when Cheon Doun buried it in the soil, it would quietly crawl out and follow him.
When its surface dried out from following him, it would attempt to moisturize itself with the cream Manager Kim had given it.
“This one’s the problem. For some reason, it won’t go into the soil and just follows me around. I’m sure it’ll try to follow me to the Cave Zone too.”
If he left it here, it might set off on its own, trying to find his trail.
If that happened, it would surely become a lost child somewhere in the forest zone.
“The Cave Zone is a pretty dry region. Not as much as the Volcanic Zone, but it’s still poison for a plant-type Monster.”
“But this root wants to be with you, Mister.”
“Right. That’s the problem.”
Kim Nari thought for a moment, then went inside the house. She came back out with the container of moisturizing cream from Manager Kim.
“We have this. We can take it and apply it frequently.”
“That’s possible, but… I feel like taking it around like that will spoil it.”
Even now, the root refused to go into the ground and insisted on staying by Cheon Doun’s side.
If he took it with him, applying moisturizing cream, it might become a Mandragora that relied on it to walk on the surface 24/7.
“Is that not okay?”
“I don’t know. Plant-type Monsters are originally a species that lives underground. I have no idea what effect living on the surface like this will have.”
It was a valid concern. Kim Nari’s eyes darted around before she pointed at the moisturizing cream.
“Manager Kim is a great person who can make things like this.”
“Great… yeah, sure. So?”
“Manager Kim will figure something out. That mister is omnipotent.”
Cheon Doun laughed at her innocent words. In truth, no matter how much he thought about it, there was no other answer but to take it with him.
He could leave it with the siblings, but the root would surely think it had been abandoned.
He didn't like the idea of it crying plant juice from its eyes until he came to pick it up.
“Alright. Let’s take it.”
Cheon Doun nodded.
“We have Manager Kim. With a personal physician, it’ll be fine.”
“Personal physician? Is Manager Kim a doctor?”
“Yep. He’s a doctor.”
Cheon Doun nodded.
If one aims to be an S-rank alchemist, they should at least be able to act as a Mandragora’s personal physician. That made sense. Cheon Doun spoke with a straight face.
“Starting today, he’s a doctor.”
Manager Kim became a doctor.