Chapter 1-11. The Situation Inside the Gate (1)
Ten minutes before the raid began.
The ground before the gate was a solid mass of reporters and broadcast crews, packed shoulder to shoulder. And yet a clean corridor had been kept open for the raid teams to pass through without the slightest obstruction — which suggested Taesan had deliberately thrown the doors open for the press. Well, the raid had been the talk of the town for days now; it was only fair to indulge the circus to this extent.
But that was Lee Jun's take on it. Seo Yoon, beside him, looked faintly bewildered.
"Sir, do outsiders usually... come this far into a raid site?"
"Well, I am the one who stirred up all that aggro. Taesan must have decided to put it to proper use as publicity."
Masking it all with practiced ease, Lee Jun gave the reporters a wave. This wasn't his first rodeo, after all. A crushing weight of expectation was, by nature, something to be overcome.
"Whew..."
And so they cut through the sea of people and arrived at their destination — where Kang Tae-san stood directly in front of the gate.
"Guildmaster. Why in the world did you invite this many?"
"I've losses to recoup from letting a gate like this slip through my fingers, haven't I? What's the matter — cameras got you jittery?"
"Aw, come off it. I'm more than happy to get my face out there. Once this contest is settled, the ones laughing will be us anyway. Although... will they be all right over there?"
Where Lee Jun was looking stood yet another staging camp. The Seolwon raid team, as it happened, had just arrived before the gate as well.
"I've no idea who's been blabbing, but it seems the whole world knows about our little wager."
At the head of the column walked Yoon Seol. And right beside her, Lee Hyeon-ah.
No prize for guessing who'd been doing the leaking. She was a veteran of every backroom gambit in public opinion — there were times she even startled Lee Jun, which said it all.
Hearing his remark, Hyeon-ah broke into a radiant smile.
"Oh my, I only mentioned it because so many people were curious. They kept asking why a guild of Seolwon's stature would enter alongside some mid-tier little outfit."
"Get the story straight — we're the ones taking you in. Did you forget who won the bid?"
"You get the story straight. In the end, you only landed it riding on Seolwon's glow, didn't you?"
"And which of your predictions has ever come true, exactly? Who was it, again, who revealed this gate's theme was in flux?"
The two of them plunged straight into their war of nerves the moment their eyes met, same as ever. If even a cursed bond counted as a bond, no tie in the world could run deeper than this one. Granted, Lee Jun was growling a touch louder than usual with the cameras rolling — but Hyeon-ah, without question, meant every word.
"And soon enough, we'll find out just who was basking in whose glow."
"Right — hunters let results do the talking, don't they? And Seolwon will be the winner, of course."
Fine by me. At this rate, the press had surely gotten every shot they'd come for.
"Hey! Hey! We're not done talking! Where do you think you're going!"
Nothing left for him here.
Decided, Lee Jun brushed her off without ceremony and made for Yoon Seol.
"I trust your raid preparations are in order, Guildmaster of Seolwon?"
"Of course. And yours?"
"Likewise."
"You look tired, though."
"For me, this is peak condition."
"Mm. I see."
Nod— Having said her piece, Yoon Seol dipped her head quietly to herself. Then she turned and fixed Lee Jun with a long, unwavering stare. At a loss for how to respond, Lee Jun simply held her gaze.
"Indeed. It seems you are at your peak."
……?
They held each other's eyes for perhaps five seconds. Then Yoon Seol nodded once more and took her leave.
Unpredictable as ever.
……
Watching her make for her guildmates, Kang Tae-san ambled over.
"So what's this, huh? There was that story about the auction house a while back, and now this. You two old acquaintances or something?"
"Not especially. I haven't actually met her all that many times myself."
And yet something had felt off. As if... she knew him rather well, somehow. But there was no use chewing it over now — it could be an opponent's ploy to fog his head before the raid. For the moment, the raid itself deserved his full attention.
"...Whew."
With a short exhale, Lee Jun headed to his own position. Beside him, Seo Yoon was watching him intently — apparently Yoon Seol was bothering her as well.
"Don't worry. Whatever they've prepared, we're going to win."
"That part does not concern me, sir."
Seo Yoon glanced toward the Seolwon camp, then back at Lee Jun, and finally settled her gaze dead ahead. She seemed nervous, it seemed. It would be easy to miss, buried as it was beneath her expression, but she was very likely holding that poker face up by conscious effort — the unconscious slips gave her away: the too-quick dart of her eyes, the faint twitch of her head. Which meant, in turn, that one day he might yet get to see a far richer range of emotion from her.
By contrast, Yoon Seol — the Seolwon Guildmaster still staring at him this very moment — showed nothing of the sort. He hadn't seen her often, but ten meetings ought to have been enough to catch a single tell. He had caught none. Whatever emotions she had ran truly thin by nature.
That occasional "Mm" she let slip. The jokes she dealt out at a respectable clip. Without even those, she'd have seemed less human than the Director of Technology's AI units.
Having observed the whole skirmish, Kang Tae-san rumbled:
"Good. Everyone's here."
And so the Management raid team — all two of them — stood fully assembled alongside the Seolwon raid team, fifty-eight strong. Standing between the two camps, Kang Tae-san raised his voice.
"Why so chilly an atmosphere, everyone? Come now — you've all been granted a fine opportunity, so let us enter in safety and exit in safety. Am I understood?"
"What's with the sudden polite speech? It doesn't suit you one bit. Is it because the reporters showed up?"
"...Hyeon-ah, mind that mouth of yours, or one of these days it's going to cost you dearly."
That wasn't his style at all — clearly he wanted to stage a fine tableau in front of the cameras. Right: missing an S-Class gate without so much as a hand in must have stung quite a bit. And if Taesan grew big enough, it could weigh down on Seolwon, its natural nemesis — so Lee Jun was willing to dance along with this bit of spin.
"Be that as it may. The wager between Seolwon and this young man is already an open secret, is it not? Both sides have staked a great deal — you certainly have gall to spare. Even so, the safety of the citizens comes first and foremost. You all understand, I trust, that under no circumstances may this raid fail because you were too busy watching one another?"
Both sides heard him out in silence. As Kang Tae-san said, the wager between Yoon Seol and Lee Jun was already common knowledge; no one wished to nitpick and stall the proceedings.
"Then — for safety's sake, stay safe. To you all, our thanks for your hard work ahead."
With Kang Tae-san's ceremonial send-off concluded, seven o'clock struck — and the gate raid began.
The two raid teams entered the gate simultaneously. Inside was lava country, just as confirmed beforehand; the terrain layout matched what he'd learned of the previous cycle as well — not that this was anything more than the entrance yet.
Lee Jun had already decided how this raid would be fought. Run and Gun — just as he'd told Seo Yoon. Only, this was no ordinary Run and Gun. Lee Jun intended to... simply sprint like a man possessed for the point where the Hidden Piece lay in wait, cold-shouldering every monster he crossed along the way. Those are Seolwon's to deal with. The gate would close the moment the boss fell, after all — the instant the boss monster was dealt with, every monster inside the gate would crumble to dust and vanish, and with them, naturally, the by-products of any mobs left unkilled.
"Whew..."
Lee Jun steadied his breathing and readied himself to run — and in the same motion, kept one eye on Seolwon's movements. There was a second reason he'd chosen Run and Gun... and it was over there. Whenever Seolwon mounted a raid of this scale, they adopted a method no other guild employed.
"First, let us establish which era this gate is anchored to."
"Cross-referencing the records of past gates that spawned in this vicinity, the three most probable histories are as follows."
"On the face of it, the Hwan Continent and the Asnia Continent look markedly less likely. The odds favor Nezer."
"Then it would most likely be a history predating the formation of Dragon's Gorge. In that case..."
The Seolwon raiders threw themselves into analyzing the gate. And off to one side, Yoon Seol was inspecting the wall all by herself.
"Mm. Hot."
Such was Seolwon: when both Yoon Seol and Lee Hyeon-ah took the field, the raid followed the vice-guildmaster's command rather than the guildmaster's. This lopsided chain of command existed because of Yoon Seol's temperament — she had always been a hunter built for going it alone, and her capacity to command was markedly poor. And so, in practice, Seolwon's raid team fell under Lee Hyeon-ah's lead.
And I'll make that their poison.
Hyeon-ah was not a bad commander. But her ability to cope with the unexpected left a great deal to be desired. The moment Lee Jun charged past everything — monsters and all — she was certain to panic. And at exactly that moment, he would pose her a very simple either-or: proceed slowly, by the strategy she had prepared? Or raise the tempo and chase after him?
The return: safety, or victory. The risk: defeat, or annihilation. Really quite simple, no?
The orthodox way to clear a dungeon is to take the path of least risk.
So in this scenario, the correct play was to choose safety and accept the loss. Besides, playing it safe wouldn't even make defeat certain. Well... once his side claimed the Hidden Piece, Seolwon's loss would be a fait accompli — but they didn't know that yet, so set it aside.
Let's consider what Hyeon-ah would do in an ordinary situation. She would most likely... no, she would certainly stake everything on the riskier option. High risk, high return — the gambit, never the safe move. She would choose, without doubt, to run at his side, and a Seolwon raid team with its tempo shattered would find it difficult to execute any proper raid.
Of course, this entire game of nerves rested on the premise that Lee Jun had drafted a flawless raid plan. No — to put it precisely... the premise was that his opponent believed he had. Even if the plan he'd prepared was far from perfect, even if he had no strategy whatsoever, it was enough for Hyeon-ah to believe there was method behind his movements.
And she's probably... already watching me like a hawk.
Hyeon-ah checked Lee Jun far beyond any rational need. Even when there was no call for it, she went to exhaustive lengths to obstruct his plans — every bit of it behavior born of overestimating him. Somewhere inside her... he had already become a monster whose cunning and strategy forever outstripped imagination. At least, within her imagination.
Everything after that, he could simply choose on the fly according to Seolwon's decision. Lee Jun had prepared two contingencies in total for the branching paths once Run and Gun was underway.
If Seolwon raised its tempo to follow him — then for the time being he would bypass the Hidden Piece and sprint for the boss room. Drag the boss monster out at top speed, hurl it Seolwon's way, and seize the Hidden Piece in the gap. Victory.
And the other. If Seolwon ignored him and held their original tempo — then he would run straight for the Hidden Piece. At a normal raid pace, this gate made it flatly impossible to reach its location within the hour.
Lee Jun had leaned toward the former scenario. And he had his reasons for that, too.
Hyeon-ah will read this as... me going for the boss first. That he was rushing the boss to shave Seolwon's take of mob by-products down as far as it would go. So long as she misread it that way, it worked. Granted, a two-man raid team killing the boss of an S-Class gate was sheer nonsense — but Hyeon-ah would suspect it anyway. Like he'd said... in her mind, Lee Jun was already a snake or a fox versed in every scheme ever devised — or something beyond even that.
And on top of that, his side stood to gain one more windfall — the kind that would have Hyeon-ah's suit bursting at the seams. The Principle of Equal Distribution: when two or more raid teams took part in a gate, all by-products were to be split evenly according to raid headcount. A rule that should have worked in Seolwon's favor would mutate into a poison clause — one letting his side pocket an unearned one-thirtieth of the entire haul without slaying a single monster. To be sure, any artifacts dropped by monsters would all flow back to Seolwon, but this gate hardly dropped anything of value to begin with. In a word, Seolwon had... well and truly taken the bait.
And one exception remained. The case of no Hidden Piece. The history might have shifted from the previous cycle — and Lee Jun had, naturally, drawn up a plan for that as well.
Stick to plan, and we win even without the Hidden Piece.
With no Hidden Piece, Lee Jun would charge straight for the boss — and somehow, by any means necessary, drag the boss monster all the way to where Seolwon's raid team stood. If it came to that... this contest would be decided by whoever put the boss down. The boss fight would begin at once, with no time for any other by-products to pile up.
And Lee Jun knew how to fight that boss, too. The moment he joined the fray, Seolwon could no longer claim the finishing blow — they had no marksman on their roster. Given enough time they would grind it down eventually, but that was how long it dragged without his interference. Just in case, he had dug out the sniper rifle untouched for years, along with the custom-made magic rounds to feed it.
"...He's not alone anymore. Which means he can't afford to lose."
There was a hunter under his roof who had staked her life on Lee Jun and on Management. That was why he could not lose. And if the opponent was Seolwon — all the more so. For that end, he had sealed off every avenue of defeat and seized every avenue of victory.
He would win. Absolutely.
With his thoughts settled, Lee Jun looked over at Seolwon, still deep in their monumentally pointless conference. Beside him, Seo Yoon had finished her preparations as well.
Ziiip— Thump—
"Sir, all preparations are complete."
"Good. Shall we be off, then?"
Lee Jun looked over Seo Yoon, ready to run. Just as he'd instructed, she had left every weapon stowed inside her bag — and Lee Jun would carry that bag off inside his Pocket. The two of them needed only to run, bodies unencumbered.
One final check of the route. In through the left passage — left, right, right, left, left, right, left, right. Then strike the ground three times diagonally beneath the glowing red stone to summon the altar.
There. Perfect.
Route confirmed, Lee Jun said with a bright, refreshed look:
"Then let's see how fast we can run."
Now then, Seolwon. Show me what you do next.