Gate Ticket

“Just what in the world is going on here!”

“About what?”

“How could you and… and *her*… of all people….”

Ah Seo-ah had dragged me off to a corner and started interrogating me in a voice like a dying engine, sneaking glances in Ji Yeon-ha's direction and swallowing dryly every few seconds.

Quite a rare sight, for her.

“There were reasons.”

“Reasons or not, this is too much! You were just waltzing in and out of Ji Yeon-ha's *personal workspace*?!”

She even attached an honorific, calling her with the utmost reverence.

It made me feel, anew, just how much authority Ji Yeon-ha commanded in the world of magic.

That's only because I treat her so casually, though.

Ji Yeon-ha was one of the handful of mages you could count on the fingers of both hands, not just in Korea but across the entire world.

Mages competed with one another just for the chance to get a single piece of advice from her.

Even if the woman herself kept trying to hole up in a back room over her personal research.

“Have you two finished catching up?”

Ji Yeon-ha brushed her long hair back behind an ear and approached.

“Y-yes, ma'am…!”

Ah Seo-ah jolted and snapped her back ramrod ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠straight.

The same reaction Shin Min-woo had when meeting Karin.

Even her perpetually slouching wizard's hat stood at full, crisp attention.

“So this girl belongs to your guild.”

“That's how it worked out.”

Ji Yeon-ha wouldn't be unfamiliar with Ah Seo-ah, either.

Clumsy as she looked, she was an S-rank potential and one of the Hunter Academy's most promising — the 'Little Witch.'

“Nice to meet you. I'm called Yeon-ha.”

“Ji… Ji Yeon-ha knows who I am…!”

Ah Seo-ah's eyes spun in circles.

Her tiny body swayed so precariously she looked about to keel over.

Is it really that great?

I'd never once idolized anyone or held them up as a hero, so I couldn't quite understand the feeling.

Not that I'm bragging about that.

Then again.

I hadn't planned it, but the pairing was quite fascinating.

The current Tower Master, and the Tower Master of the future.

In the future before my regression, Ji Yeon-ha handed the position of Tower Master over to Ah Seo-ah and went off to roam as a hunter.

And Ah Seo-ah proceeded to run the Magic Tower into the ground before fleeing to England in what was essentially a transfer of exile.

What was their relationship like, before my regression?

Why did Ji Yeon-ha ever entrust the next Tower Master position to Ah Seo-ah of all people?

Even if the woman was hopelessly absorbed in otherdimensional magic research back then, she isn't the type to carelessly hand that seat over to just anyone.

She was someone who personally vetted and selected even the janitors of the Magic Tower, wasn't she?

Ah Seo-ah has changed a little from before my regression, too.

But not as dramatically as the other guild members.

For all intents and purposes, the person called 'Ah Seo-ah' herself hasn't changed.

What she did at the academy was nothing more than mindlessly following along with what Park Sung-chan and Yoo Ji-an were doing.

Not that it wasn't a serious wrong in its own right.

But it showed that beneath that bratty exterior, her nature wasn't rotten to the core.

If anything, she'd be better described as spineless.

Her talent, though, is exceptional.

The problem was that the vessel called Ah Seo-ah was far too small to hold that talent properly.

The only reason she'd started layering other forms of magic on top of her high-firepower attack spells was because of my corrections, after all.

This might be a good opportunity, actually.

This gate might ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠let me learn more about her.

“Let's cut the chit-chat short here.”

I wedged myself between the two of them.

“It's about time we discussed the gate.”

“Good. I've been waiting for that.”

This gate couldn't be entered through ordinary means.

A normal gate generates a portal-style entrance, and you simply step through it — end of story.

Not this one.

Frankly, it's barely deserving of the word 'gate' at all.

“To enter that place, we'll need an item commonly known as a Gate Ticket.”

“A Gate Ticket?”

“Yes.”

Since no portal forms this time, you see.

That's precisely why it's called a 'Hidden Gate.'

“It's an item that admits the user into a special gate.”

“Something like that actually exists?”

“The information is solid.”

The source is the future.

Certain events have shifted slightly thanks to my involvement, but the circumstances surrounding the Gate Ticket should have remained almost unchanged.

“So first things first — we need to acquire that Gate Ticket.”

“Where is it?”

“Where else?”

There is exactly one place in this country where rare goods end up.

“The auction house.”

And not just any auction house — a top-tier venue of the Black class.

After the age of gates and awakening began, awakened individuals built a vast mana network and formed a community of their own.

It was created — back before the concept of 'hunters' had even taken root — to prepare for and study the bizarre new phenomenon called 'gates.'

But as time passed and the era settled in, the network came to be used for all sorts of purposes.

And this auction house was one of them.

White, Green, Orange, Red. And Black.

The higher your account tier, the higher the auction floors you could access — and naturally, the rarest items traded hands only on Black.

And account tiers can't be bought with money.

Orange might be brute-forced one way or another, but from Red onward, you needed an activity history and a separate screening process.

Which is exactly why I need Ji Yeon-ha.

“I'll be borrowing your account.”

“Use it as much as you like.”

If the Tower Master herself isn't Black class, then who on earth would be?

I equipped the bracelet-shaped device required for connection.

It had no special functions — it simply regulated my mana waves so I could sense the vast network spread out around us.

“It says I need to authenticate.”

“Such a chore, every single time….”

The moment Ji Yeon-ha stirred her mana, the authentication ended.

“…Strongest Archmage in the Universe?”

“Ah…!”

Belatedly recalling her own username, Ji Yeon-ha flushed red and waved her hands frantically.

“It's — it's nothing?! It just told me to enter a nickname, so I typed the first thing that came to mind, and I had no idea it couldn't be changed!”

“Ah. Right. Of course.”

Sure you did.

“Strongest Archmage in the Universe…! Even your ambitions are as colossal as your standing!”

Ah Seo-ah was already wearing her rose-colored glasses at full strength.

The way her eyes were still sparkling even after hearing that username proved it.

Feeling like I'd go strange myself if I kept watching this, I quickly averted my gaze and focused on the screen floating in front of me.

MNS.

The system that had become humanity's last line of communication after the Iron Blood Legion began its March of Extinction.

Back then, many hunters uploaded all kinds of public-service tips here.

Until I met my 'Master,' I had trained studying those very posts.

There was no reason not to.

If it were my own account, maybe — but this is Ji Yeon-ha's.

“The money I gave you in advance… you exchanged all of it into 'gold,' thankfully. I'd expected to be skimmed at least a little.”

“Wh-what exactly do you take me for? Ahem….”

From that reaction, she'd at least thought about it.

The auction house uses its own currency: gold.

As a rough conversion, one billion gold runs about ten million dollars.

I'd asked Ji Yeon-ha in advance to exchange everything into gold.

With this much gold…

Running out of ammunition was not going to be a problem.

The moment I connected, a mess of chat messages sprang up across the screen.

An auction was already underway.

An actual S-rank shield had apparently gone up for sale.

6.5 billion gold — roughly fifty million dollars. A staggering sum, enough to make anyone's jaw drop.

Then again, for an S-rank item, it was more or less understandable.

Figures hidden behind usernames and anonymous tags.

As flippant as they might seem, anyone holding a Black-class account was, without question, a hunter of real standing.

Not an S-rank this time, but a staff — a piece of magical equipment.

Might as well observe.

I wanted to see how it would be handled.

Taking my hand off the join button, I folded my arms and watched the auction unfold.

The minimum bid was a cool two billion gold.

An amount an ordinary person would struggle to even look at.

Item prices climb geometrically with each grade.

And there was one category that felt that law more brutally than any other.

Magecraft — magical equipment that no one could craft, no matter their skill.

Everything classified as an Artifact.

In the blink of an eye, the price had leapt by 300 million gold.

And that was the early phase, when bidders were still cautiously testing the waters — after that, the climb turned far steeper.

Faster than you could blink, the price had more than doubled from its starting point.

It was vicious enough that even I let out a low whistle.

I knew artifacts were scarce.

I just hadn't expected the frenzy to reach this level.

I could practically feel a cold sweat coming on.

Then, that message appeared.

From the contents, this had to be the one who'd bid 4.9 billion on the Ancient Lava Staff.

The A-rank staff was clearly a matter of life and death for her.

Her emotional begging, however, did not land.

A single bid, up 1.1 billion, straight to six billion.

Effectively a declaration that the auction was over.

They'd bought an A-rank staff at a price that would buy most S-rank items outright.

Curious, I pulled up the item's information — but it had no particularly extraordinary special effects.

It was a perfectly average A-rank staff, and yet someone had paid that price for it.

Just who was this person?

“…The Thirteenth Owl?”

“A mage belonging to the British Magic Tower.”

“The British Magic Tower, you say….”

“The headquarters of the Magic Tower. The nest every mage in the world calls home.”

Ji Yeon-ha began her explanation with practiced ease.

“You can safely assume that every artifact released into the market — auction houses included — ends up in the Owls' talons.”

“Isn't that a monopoly taken to an absurd extreme?”

“Nothing to be done about it. Artifacts only ever come out of gates.”

Artifacts didn't drop easily even inside gates.

And whatever meager supply did reach the market, the British Magic Tower was sweeping up wholesale.

Short of joining the Magic Tower, using quality equipment had become functionally impossible.

And that was on top of the existing shortage — one single organization was systematically buying up what little there was.

From the look of it, this brute-force money-trampling was nothing new to them.

Grievance-filled chat messages began sprouting up like bamboo shoots after rain.

“Hmm?”

In that moment, one particular chat caught my eye.

“…Ho ho.”

That Anonymous45 — quite the perceptive one.

Wrong in exactly one way, though.

It's not that it would be a contest. It's that I win, unconditionally.

Because from the very beginning, I had no intention whatsoever of losing.

The corner of my mouth twisted into a cold smirk.

Money-flinging.

That, more than anything, was my field of expertise.

Today, the British Magic Tower would taste defeat for the very first time.

“Capital exists to be crushed underfoot by more capital — that's how it tastes best.”

Directed at exactly one degenerate.