Chapter 53
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 53
Chapter Title: Heading to Pyongyang (4)
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Kim Hyun took off from Pyongyang and headed toward the DMZ.
‘The monster wave must have started by now.’
She was right.
Throughout her flight, Kim Hyun could see countless spiders racing southward.
An immense legion of spiders.
They must have lost control and gone berserk after their boss in Pyongyang died.
“Annoying... but I should still help clean them up.”
Kim Hyun casually spread her hands wide.
Woooong!
A black sphere immediately floated above her body. It rippled for a moment before firing black spikes in all directions.
“Go.”
Pabababak!
The black spikes flew toward the spiders and struck true.
Peuk! Peuk! Peuk!
The spiders hit by the spikes burst apart without even a chance to scream.
But there were just so many spiders. Far too many to finish this way.
“Tch.”
Kim Hyun snapped her fingers, and the firing speed increased.
And then.
Puuung!
The spikes now embedded in the ground began to explode.
Each explosion took down dozens of spiders. The slightly larger ones sometimes survived the blasts, so Kim Hyun personally sent slashing waves at those.
Seokeok! Seokeok! Seokeok!
Watching the spiders get massacred, Kim Hyun muttered to herself.
“A couple laps around the DMZ should do it.”
Kim Hyun began intercepting the southward spiders as she flew along the DMZ.
Meanwhile.
At the front-line outpost along the DMZ.
“Fire!”
“Shoot!”
Soldiers in digital camo uniforms were firing their rifles furiously. Not just rifles—mortars, grenades, machine guns, everything they had was brought to bear.
Tatata tang!
Kwang! Kkang!
But even this intense barrage barely killed the spiders.
Their tough exoskeletons were part of it, but their sheer size was the real issue.
The smallest ones could be handled with rifle fire, but anything bigger required heavy weapons just to bring down.
“Damn it! There’s no end to them!”
“Feels like three times more than usual!”
“Shut up and keep firing!”
A sergeant shouted urgently.
‘Damn, what’s with all these?’
The sergeant gritted his teeth and scanned the surroundings.
The Pyongyang spiders had always harassed the soldiers heading south at random times, day or night, forcing some units to rotate sleep shifts.
But this was on another level entirely.
‘They’re swarming like crazy!’
Far more spiders than usual were crossing the DMZ.
“At this rate, the defensive line will break!”
“We’re running low on ammo!”
And the situation only worsened.
Ammo ran dry, casualties mounted one by one.
Despair crept over the soldiers’ faces. Even the commanding officer looked the same.
At that moment.
Pung! Peung! Puuung!
Explosions suddenly erupted in the distance.
“W-What’s that?!”
“What’s going on?!”
The company commander grabbed his binoculars and checked the front. It wasn’t Republic of Korea artillery—the color was different. Dark crimson blasts.
Thanks to those explosions, the spider wave was weakening.
‘Did the hunters come to support us?’
The moment the company commander swallowed hard.
“O-Over there!”
A soldier pointed at the sky.
The soldiers looked up.
Kim Hyun entered their view.
She glided past the DMZ like a whale swimming effortlessly. Black spikes rained down from above her head like a bombardment on the ground.
The soldiers cheered at the sight.
“It’s a hunter!”
“A hunter’s here to help!”
“Who is it?”
“Who cares! Die, you spider bastards!”
The arrival of one person turned the tide of battle. Kim Hyun was handling thousands of spiders single-handedly.
“An S-Rank hunter?”
“Are S-Rank hunters that strong?”
“Whoever it is, I could kiss them.”
“Wait, isn’t that Kim Hyun?”
One soldier muttered suddenly.
“Kim Hyun? The National Power-level Hunter?”
The soldiers weren’t cut off from the outside world, so they’d heard about Kim Hyun long ago.
“Wow, she really is the idol of the battlefield.”
“Tell me about it.”
The sergeant suddenly recalled Kim Hyun’s face from his smartwatch feed.
Such a stunning beauty saving them.
It didn’t feel real at all.
Kim Hyun kept intercepting the southward spiders.
How many laps had she made along the DMZ?
‘This should be enough.’
She looked around.
The number of spiders heading south had dwindled significantly.
Now, it was a number the military could handle on their own.
‘Time to head back, then.’
No real reason to stick around longer.
Kim Hyun turned toward a nearby military base she’d spotted earlier.
“K-Kim Hyun Hunter!”
As Kim Hyun landed in the middle of the base, chaos naturally ensued. But it was quickly quelled when a man who seemed to be the commander rushed over with dozens of soldiers in tow.
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
The commander panted as he expressed his gratitude.
“You minimized our casualties!”
The surrounding soldiers bowed silently.
“No big deal.”
Kim Hyun nodded lightly.
“More importantly, I have a question.”
“What...?”
“Were any Superhuman Management Bureau hunters deployed for this?”
“Yes.”
The commander nodded.
“I heard they dispatched hunters due to the emergency. But I don’t know details. They’re assigned to different sectors...”
“Got it.”
Kim Hyun tapped her smartwatch to make a call.
To Team Leader Lee Min-hyuk.
-Kim Hyun?
“Yeah. Where’s Chae Seol-ah right now?”
-Agent Chae Seol-ah? I believe she’s deployed to the western DMZ...
“Western side.”
-Yes. Exact coordinates for the unit...
Team Leader Lee Min-hyuk gave her the coordinates.
“Okay, got it.”
Kim Hyun hung up and kicked off the ground lightly.
She flew toward the coordinates Lee Min-hyuk provided.
Mountains and rivers flashed by beneath her in an instant.
And soon.
‘There she is.’
She sensed Chae Seol-ah’s mana in the distance.
Kim Hyun hovered in the air at a suitable distance and watched.
Chae Seol-ah was teaming up with soldiers against a bus-sized spider.
Her magic had grown incomparably stronger. Not just the power—the judgment was sharper too.
Using the right spell at the right time.
‘She’s grown a lot.’
Kim Hyun crossed her arms and observed the fight.
Of course, the soldiers were doing most of the spider-slaying. The firepower difference was just too vast.
But Chae Seol-ah stood out.
‘She’s definitely surpassed A-Rank hunter level.’
Kim Hyun nodded in satisfaction.
After watching for a while, she clenched her fist lightly.
Kkuuk!
Instantly, every spider on the battlefield split in half and died.
Kiiik! Kiyaak!
Dozens collapsed in a flash.
“...Huh?”
Chae Seol-ah’s eyes went wide at the sudden turn.
But she quickly realized and looked up.
“Kim Hyun-nim!”
Spotting Kim Hyun in the sky, Chae Seol-ah smiled. Kim Hyun smirked and descended in front of her.
“Good work.”
“Kim Hyun-nim! When did you get here?”
“A little while ago. I was watching you fight.”
“Ahaha...”
Chae Seol-ah scratched her cheek awkwardly.
“Nothing worth watching, really.”
“You did great.”
Kim Hyun patted her shoulder.
“You’ve improved a ton.”
“Thank you...”
Chae Seol-ah smiled shyly.
Then, as if remembering something, she asked.
“What about the Pyongyang Gate? Did you clear it already?”
“Of course I handled everything.”
“Even the giant spider?”
“Naturally.”
Kim Hyun answered without hesitation.
“Wasn’t even that big a deal to begin with.”
She shrugged like it was nothing and stretched.
“Ugh, still worn out from moving around after so long. Wanna head home and crash right now. What should I have for dinner tonight?”
“Ahaha. Beats me...”
Chae Seol-ah smiled awkwardly as she watched Kim Hyun grumble.
‘As expected... Kim Hyun-nim is amazing...!’
It was an achievement that demanded genuine awe.
The Pyongyang Gate. Korea’s chronic nightmare for 11 years.
And she’d cleared it like it was breakfast.
Korea hadn’t been able to reclaim the North even after the regime collapsed because of that gate.
Every Korean instinctively shuddered and filled with rage at the thought of those Pyongyang spiders.
‘Thank you, Kim Hyun-nim.’
As a Korean, Chae Seol-ah offered her heartfelt thanks inwardly.
She glanced at Kim Hyun.
Kim Hyun was waving to the nearby soldiers. They waved back with dazed expressions.
‘Does Kim Hyun-nim even realize how incredible what she did is?’
No way to know.
But it didn’t matter.
From today onward, the media, Korea, the world—they’d have no choice but to praise her greatness.