Paradise of Ashes (1)

It takes an hour and thirty minutes to reach Haneda Airport from Incheon International.

"Doesn't even feel like I'm abroad."

If anything, it felt no different from flying to Jeju Island. Either way, after that flight, here I was at Haneda.

Japan.

Before and after my regression, my experience with Japan could be counted on one hand. I traveled overseas often, but Japan had always been the exception. The reason? Because everyone else went there so often.

…Thinking back on it, my degenerate days were truly bizarre.

"Did I get here too early?"

The people lurking in the shadows only got active late at night. It was barely nine in the morning right now. Those bastards probably weren't even awake yet.

"…So what do I do."

I'd genuinely come without any plan at all. I was just considering whether to kill time loitering around when—

Crackle…!

The air inside the airport began to ripple. That was a precursor symptom of gate formation.

"Oh no…!"

An airport employee who caught it immediately began controlling the crowd.

"A gate! Everyone, please step back!"

Soon the space was swirling, and a blue maw yawned wide open.

Even a public announcement that a gate had formed. When a gate spawns in a place with this much foot traffic, all sorts of chaos follows.

"Arriving in Japan and the first thing I see is a gate forming."

Maybe I'd just experienced one of the most exotic things a tourist could hope for.

Before long, what looked like a government-dispatched examiner analyzed the mana wavelength pouring from the gate.

"This is… an A-Rank."

An A-Rank gate, no less. A difficulty that required at least three ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠A-Rank potential hunters, or an S-Rank, to clear without trouble.

I wonder who they'll send.

I waited quietly, and soon the entire airport was abuzz.

"It's— it's Ayase Karin!"

"No way…!"

Dozens of people swarmed within moments. A single female hunter was striding briskly toward the gate, flanked by bodyguards.

"Ayase Karin?"

She had come to the airport to handle the gate. And more people gathered just to catch a glimpse of her.

Click! Click!

Camera shutters joined the fray before I knew it, snapping pictures of her. I honestly couldn't tell whether she was a hunter or an A-list actress mid-fame-streak.

…Come to think of it, I went through the same thing.

Right after my regression, when I'd drawn every aggro imaginable. Journalists and spectators from all over the country had swarmed just to watch me clear a single C-Rank gate. I barely managed to shake off the reporters through sheer stubbornness.

"That woman must be exhausted."

Imagine putting up with that every single time she stepped out of a gate. I suddenly felt a little sorry for her.

Amid the clamoring crowd, Ayase Karin finished her preparations and stood before the gate.

"S-Rank Hunter Ayase Karin. Entering the A-Rank gate."

Teams were the standard way to enter a gate, but once you reached S-Rank, such rules became little more than a reference manual.

Vwoom!

She passed through the gate.

The average clear time for an A-Rank gate was 120 ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hours. Japan's Rank 1, Ayase Karin, would surely clear it far faster than that. Even at the outside, she'd be severing the boss's head in around seventy hours.

"Wow, incredible— I just saw Ayase in person."

"Didn't I use up a whole year's worth of luck today?"

"Ayase is remarkable, honestly. Even as Rank 1, she always comes out faithfully to close gates."

"The other high rankers won't even look at a gate unless it spawns right under their noses."

Even after the star vanished, the noise continued.

To see Japan's most popular star the moment I arrive.

Something to brag to Shin Min-woo about later, I supposed. Just as I was slowly moving to slip out of the airport—

An incomprehensible message suddenly printed itself across my vision.

Tsssszzzt!

In that instant, the edges of the very gate Ayase had entered began to stain black.

"Huh?"

"What is that?"

At the same time, a timer floated up above the gate.

A chill ran through my heart.

A Mutation Gate.

And among them, this particular type drastically cut the time allowed for a clear. A so-called Limited Gate.

If the gate wasn't cleared before that timer hit zero, the gate would shatter and every monster inside would spill out into the open world.

The one mercy compared to other Mutation Gates is—

A Limited Gate allowed hunters to enter once more, in addition to the first hunter who entered.

A trial, it says.

This was far too sudden. Someone directly intervened with the System.

It wasn't my first experience like this. When I acquired the Truth Mimic, someone had once arbitrarily tampered with the rewards of my random box. After that the interference had gone quiet, so I hadn't paid it much mind.

Screwing me over in style, aren't we.

But now was not the time to dwell on it. In ten hours, the monsters of an A-Rank gate would be roaming this airport. And this was a society that didn't even possess knowledge of Mutation Gates yet.

A lot of people will die.

No matter how much of an S-Rank Ayase was, I couldn't imagine her clearing that gate in a mere ten hours. Besides, I shared some responsibility for that gate mutating in the first place.

"…Ugh, seriously."

Nothing ever went smoothly. Right now, a huge crowd of people is gathered near the gate. The perfect environment for slipping in unnoticed.

Shaaa—

I cut straight through the crowd and reached the gate in a flash.

Crossing the gate, a new world unfolded before me. A world of ash. As if a fire had run rampant through it and left, everything in sight had been reduced to cinders.

Before I even had time to survey the desolate scenery—

"Kraah…!!"

The gate's monsters came charging at me. Eyes bound in bandages, wings burned down to nothing but skeletal frames. Skin withered pale and gaunt, as if every drop of blood had been drained.

Corpse Angels.

Individuals I'd witnessed before. Their defining trait: for all that they looked like undead, their attribute was Holy. Thanks to that, they were a nasty breed that tormented hunters who came armed with holy-power weapons.

Doesn't apply to me, though.

A thin veil of black darkness spread across the Spear of the Supplicant.

A spear art steeped in darkness tore through the Corpse Angels.

"Kyaaaaaaah…!"

They dissolved with dying shrieks. My apologies, but I'm rather short on time right now.

Move a little faster.

With just ten hours to fell the boss, the clock was tight. From A-Rank gates on up, most required conditions to be met before the boss would appear—like waiting for the Blue Moon, or the Valley of Wailing Ghosts, where you had to wake the boss yourself.

The one stroke of luck was that gates featuring Corpse Angels always shared the same boss condition.

Subdue the four apostles that spawn at fixed coordinates, then offer their relics to the foundation.

This gate was one of the gates with recorded information. The reason it had been registered: recurring appearances. It was an anomaly where a gate that had clearly been cleared would reappear, identical, again and again.

First things first—join up with Ayase quickly.

The apostles were positioned at the extreme eastern, western, southern, and northern ends of this gate. Circling all of them alone would obviously take more than ten hours. So we'd have to split them two each and subdue them in tandem.

Tap-tap-tap!

I ran fast, searching for signs of a human. Along the way, I spotted the Corpse Angels swarming densely toward one spot.

There it is!

What else could make them cluster like that—besides gathering to kill a hunter.

Is she trying to bunch the Corpse Angels together and kill them all at once?

She really does value efficiency, I thought.

…Right up until I saw her vomiting blood amid the swarm.

"Khegh…!"

"Hrk… khegh…!"

Oh, no. Was it already this far gone, beyond any remedy?

Ayase Karin.

Despite her towering fame, she would meet a strangely empty end. Cause of death: the incurable illness known as Mana Tumor. A disease where mutated mana proliferated within the body, gradually devouring it alive.

The worst illness an awakened being could suffer.

The more mana she used, the faster the mutated mana multiplied, whittling away her lifespan. Conversely, restraint bought her time—but only slowed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the disease's advance; a cure was impossible.

In other words, she was living on borrowed time. Borrowed time, and only for the awakened—a cruelly irrational sentence.

Ayase Karin hid the fact that she had Mana Tumor right up until the moment she died.

No one ever learned why. By the time anyone knew she carried the disease, she had already left this world.

"Khuk… haaah…!"

Spitting out the last of the blood, Ayase gathered her trembling hands and prayed.

"O great spirit who guards us for all eternity, grant me the blade to protect your descendants!"

The moment her prayer ended, a single sword materialized before her.

"Amenohabakiri!"

A sacred blade from within myth itself. That was the skill that had made her Japan's strongest hunter—Divine Artifact Summon.

A skill that summons weapons from mythology through prayer.

She swung the mythic ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sword. In one stroke, dozens of Corpse Angels were ground into a mist of blood.

That was the power of a divine artifact. A single horizontal cut that seemed to split space itself, bisecting multiple enemies at once.

"Hup!"

Crack! Craaaash!

She kept carving through the angels—then suddenly retched and vomited blood again. A great mass of it spilled onto the ground, and her body wavered.

"Kheugh?! Kehk! Huk…!"

Perhaps because her concentration had shattered, the sword she'd worked so hard to summon dissolved back into light.

"Ah…!"

Corpse Angels were still pressing in from every direction—front, back, left, and right. She was on the brink of death that very second.

Fortunately, my javelin reached the angel first.

"Hmm, a bit lacking in power."

Crimson arrows burst apart every angel lunging toward Ayase.

"Wh… what…?"

She widened her eyes and scanned her surroundings, wearing the expression of someone who couldn't believe what was happening.

"So this is where you were."

"?!"

As I approached, she jolted and scrambled to her feet.

"Wh—who are you?!"

"Hmm… well, you see…."

Just as I was debating how to explain this—

"Oh…? W-wait a moment…."

Ayase studied me carefully first.

"Could you be Korea's Lee Tae…"

"No. I'm not."

"You're not… but you seem like…"

"Come on, everyone from East Asia looks the same."

"……"

Ayase still hadn't let go of her suspicion.

"But isn't that Lee Tae-hyun person Korean? There's no way he'd speak Japanese this well."

"Well… that's fair."

"In any case, I am not Lee Tae-hyun. I am not Korean. I am Yamamoto."

My sincere apologies, honored ancestors. Still, it beats dragging the nation's reputation down as an illegal gate crasher, doesn't it?