The Crimson Gate (3)
Special Disaster Management Headquarters.
“Ahem.”
Kim Daecheol cleared his throat once and continued his briefing. Representatives dispatched from various ministries sat gathered, all eyes fixed on him. After all, he was the man who had taken direct command of the Gangnam Station gate site.
“According to what we’ve confirmed so far, the gate’s strength—its difficulty rating—is not displayed. The time limit, maximum entrants, and current entrants are all shown, but the difficulty itself is missing.”
The most critical issue in every gate explosion incident had always been the difficulty rating. That rating only became clear after a party entered. If an entire party was wiped out because of it, the next group naturally hesitated to go in. It was only natural. What Awakened would willingly throw their life away? That hesitation was exactly what had caused the current mess. If they could determine the difficulty from the start and send in appropriately ranked Awakened, that would be ideal.
“The most widespread rumor circulating right now is that the deeper the red color of the gate, the stronger it is.”
The leading theory was the gate’s color.
“Can we really trust that? It’s just a rumor.”
“Exactly. Whether the color looks deep or not depends on the angle and even the weather, doesn’t it?”
Skeptical voices rose. It was understandable. Bureaucrats preferred everything to be neatly quantified. A clean label like “Difficulty: S – Insanely Hard” would have made them ecstatic. But the world rarely worked that way. Unfortunately, gates were no exception.
“It’s still the most credible theory we have at the moment. In fact, investigations at sites where pale green gates appeared showed that elves simply wandered around. Those elves weren’t particularly hostile—in fact, they helped humans…”
Elves?
After goblins and orcs, now elves. Murmurs rippled through the room at the mention of an unexpected existence.
“So where is this elf now?”
“Do you have any photos?”
Click. Kim Daecheol immediately switched the screen. An elf’s photograph appeared—though every shot had been taken from a distance during the early stages of the incident. The reactions around the table were cold.
“Even the director must realize these aren’t enough to make any judgment.”
Kim Daecheol nodded. “You’re right. But there’s one more thing.”
He played an audio recording.
Static crackled.
“This is a direct statement from S-rank Awakened Kang Hae-il, the hero of Gangnam Station. I extracted only the audio from footage recorded on my body cam. There’s also the existence of the porter who follows him around.”
“Porter…?”
“Yes. There was a small article about it once.”
It was an article that had received so little attention that even Junil hadn’t found it. Kim Daecheol used it as evidence anyway.
“This F-rank Robin is the porter in question.”
At the mention of F-rank, everyone pressed their fingers to their foreheads.
“Hah… An F-rank, of all things…”
“Good grief…”
“Aigoo…”
“Did you at least pay his funeral dues?”
Kim Daecheol shook his head. “He’s not dead.”
“You just couldn’t find the body, right?”
“Possibly. Anyway, Kang Hae-il claimed this person is ‘friendly’ with elves. That makes the green-gate elf theory highly plausible, and it means we should also consider the gate-color difficulty theory. So I’ve prepared some statistics…”
* * *
Ding~
The top floor of a certain officetel. The elevator doors opened and Junil stepped out. He pulled his cap low, glanced around, then climbed another flight of stairs toward the rooftop. The rooftops of buildings like this were naturally sealed off for safety, but Junil inserted a pair of tweezers, twisted them a few times, and the lock clicked open.
Junil pulled a neatly folded hang glider from his inventory. With a pop, he shook the pendant and summoned the wind spirit.
“Been a while. Blow some wind for me.”
Ping, piiing! The wind spirit nodded and stirred up a breeze. The hang glider lifted instantly.
The officetel rooftop rapidly shrank below. Once Junil felt he’d gained enough altitude, he spoke.
“Send me to Isilen.”
Whoooosh! The wind spirit nodded and conjured an even fiercer gale, carving a highway through the sky.
Flying above the tangled Seoul cityscape on the wind felt incredible.
‘Whoa.’
Having the congested Seoul streets beneath his feet was exhilarating.
‘This is nice.’
Back in his hero days he had tamed monsters to ride, but soaring over a modern city felt completely different.
Just then—
Ziiing! Ziing! His phone rang.
Junil tilted his head and clicked the link.
‘Damn. There’s an article like this?’
So many articles about Kang Hae-il had poured out that he couldn’t read them all. That was why he’d missed it. The view count was low and there were no comments—it was barely even an article, more like a column—but still.
‘Is the porter finally getting famous too?’
The fact that people were finally acknowledging the porter’s existence felt strangely moving.
‘My time in the sun is finally coming!’
Junil grinned. Yet when he replied to Suyeon’s messages, he wrote only:
* * *
A short while later.
“Isilen~ I’m here!”
Thud. Junil arrived at the cemetery. Magic had been cast over this graveyard, granting relatively free movement. It was a perception barrier; anyone who approached would suddenly remember something far more important and head elsewhere instead. It was how the elves of Fairy Corporation hid their dwellings. Unless one was guided by an elf or had some deep connection to the land they inhabited, finding them was extremely difficult.
“You came, Junil.”
From a distant hill, a figure with flowing golden hair approached—Isilen.
“Another trade today?”
“Yes.”
Crash! Junil answered and dumped a pile of items from his inventory onto the ground. Sniff, sniff. Isilen leaned in and smelled them.
“Tremendous magi. They must have been quite strong.”
She seemed to have noticed the presence of named monsters.
“Here.”
Clink, clink, clink…! Perhaps because of that, the gold coins she offered were especially generous.
“……!”
If this much gold weighed this heavily, it was a considerable sum—easily four or five thousand at a rough estimate.
‘Field hunting might actually be worth it.’
He had nearly died from overload while hunting named monsters, but he hadn’t expected this kind of payout.
Junil pondered for a moment, then muttered, “……I’ll have to change the profit split.”
At this rate, there was no need to give Kang Hae-il a full ten percent.
After counting the gold coins, Junil stood up. “I’ll be going then.”
He took the money and left without a second glance.
“Wait.”
Isilen grabbed his collar.
“Ah, come on. I’ll look at the mushroom farm next time.”
‘I need to level up!’
According to the hints, nonstop World Boss-related events would begin in two days. There was a limit to how long they could prevent the World Boss from dying, so he needed to reach at least level 30. To level up, he had to hunt something…
“There’s a gate.”
“!”
Isilen mentioned a gate.
“A gate appeared in the mushroom farm. Bright red.”
Junil’s eyes lit up at those words.
‘A bright red gate?’
Junil was familiar with the rumor spreading through society: the closer a gate’s color was to red, the stronger it was. If that was true, the rewards would be enormous.
‘There’ll be plenty of items too.’
Not just junk to sell for money, but actual usable equipment.
Gulp.
“How much time is left?”
“About twenty hours.”
“Let’s go.”
“Okay. Follow me. We can look at mushrooms on the way.”
“……Ah, got it.”
Tap, tap, tap. Isilen seemed excited at the prospect of showing him the mushrooms and walked ahead at a brisk pace.
* * *
The gate was visible right from the mushroom farm. The moment Junil arrived, he completely ignored the mushrooms and fixed his gaze on the gate.
‘It’s real…… A bright red gate.’
Swish, swish. Isilen waved mushrooms in front of him.
“This land is good for mushrooms. The spirits say this one is a shiitake. It tastes good.”
Junil answered absently without taking his eyes off the gate.
“Ah, yes. The soil must be good. All those corpses rotted here, after all.”
“This one is a pine mushroom……”
She offered another mushroom, but Junil only pretended to respond while staring intently at the gate. When he stepped closer, a message appeared.
‘A gate that allows five people.’
He had heard that the number of entrants had nothing to do with difficulty. Still, logically, fewer slots meant the gate was balanced accordingly. A five-person gate meant that if Junil could handle five people’s worth of difficulty alone, he could clear it.
“Um…… Isilen?”
“What.”
“?”
Her tone sounded strange, so he looked over. She was pouting. Well, pouting by elf standards—so subtle that only a seven-time hero’s keen eye could notice. Still, she was definitely pouting. She must have been sulking because he hadn’t reacted to the mushrooms.
“Ahem. I’ll take some pine mushrooms with me when I go.”
“……Really?”
“Yes. Pack me one basket.”
Her expression brightened again.
“Good. So you do know about mushrooms. That one has an especially strong, pleasant aroma……”
Junil quickly steered the conversation back on track.
“By the way, has anyone else come to this gate before?”
Pluck, pluck……! Isilen, who had been happily picking mushrooms, shook her head.
“Ah. No one has. I cast magic on this place, remember?”
“People with business could still come, though.”
Those whose ancestors were buried here could enter.
“I made sure even they wouldn’t come. After the last incident, it became known that all the bodies here were stolen. Everyone came once to check their family graves, and after that, no one returned.”
“Then no one will come?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I’m going in.”
“You are?”
“Then who else is going in? This thing will explode once the timer runs out.”
“It’s dangerous alone.”
Isilen saying that was unexpected. In Junil’s eyes, she was an extremely old and powerful elf.
“Do you know what’s inside the gate?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know it’s dangerous?”
“You’re F-rank.”
“……”
Right. He had forgotten. Isilen was ultimately just another existence within this story’s world.
“Anyway, I’m going.”
Junil placed his hand on the gate.
Entering Gate
Whoosh! His figure vanished into the bright red gate.
Entrants: 1/5
……
Isilen approached the spot where Junil had disappeared and sniffed the air.
‘This scent…… What is it?’
There was a strange fragrance coming from Junil.
‘A nostalgic scent.’
That was the only way she could describe it. She had felt something similar the first time they met.
‘It’s gotten stronger.’
The scent seemed to be growing more intense.
‘Does he not bathe?’