Graveyard of Knights (1)

Quite some time had passed since new educational institutions began to spring up—not just in the Republic of Korea, but across the entire world.

The subjects of that education were 'the Awakened'—the name given to those who came into being alongside the unprecedented catastrophe known as gates.

Superhumans, transcenders, incarnations... In the early days of the gate crisis they'd been called by a dozen different names, but in the end, two had stuck: 'Awakened' and 'Hunter'.

So what, exactly, did they teach these people? Skills, naturally.

An Awakened could wield transcendent physical abilities, but telling them to fight the monsters inside a gate with muscle alone was asking a bit much. The higher a gate's difficulty climbed, the stronger the monsters lurking within became.

Fortunately, the Awakened possessed another uncanny power beyond their bodies—and that power was skills.

There was just one small problem.

Some were born with a few skills at the moment of awakening, but for most, their skill window in the early days was a blank white page. Skills could be acquired from 'Skill Books'—rare drops inside gates—but skill books were, of course, expensive. Even the lowest grade, an E-rank skill book, was something ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ordinary people could hardly glimpse, let alone own. When the market turned bad, there were frequent shortages where even money couldn't buy one. Need I say more?

Thankfully, skills weren't acquired only by birth or by book.

Instruction.

Astonishing as it sounded, skills were something one could be taught.

The details varied a little depending on innate talent, potential, and aptitude, but the moment the world learned that skills could be passed from teacher to student, a new era began. Nation after nation founded 'Hunter Academies' to train their Awakened and mold them into their own hunters. Truly, it was the age of the Hunter.

And among those institutions, one of a rather unusual form was established—in Korea, of all places.

It was called the Four Gates: four martial sects built across the length and breadth of the country.

The Blue Dragon Sword Sect. The Black Tortoise Fist Sect. The Suzaku Spirit Sect. The White Tiger Binding Sect.

In those places, there were no students but disciples, and no professors but masters and Sect Leaders.

Martial sects, in the modern age? Wasn't that a little too old-fashioned?

Such skeptical stares faded rapidly as time went on. The reason was simple: the sects produced exceptional hunters in staggering numbers. The sight of disciples unleashing their sects' secret arts and carving a path of carnage through monsters set fire to the hearts of Awakened everywhere.

Their prestige rose by the day, until they stood as Asia's foremost educational institutions—hunter academies, if ones with a slightly romantic air and old traditions about them.

"Hmm..."

A woman in sunglasses shifted her gaze in silence. Her name was Seong Ju-ah—a Hunter Bureau employee, and a hardened hunter scout to boot.

And she had come to visit the training grounds of the Sword Sect. The Blue Dragon Sword Sect boasted the highest standing among the Four Gates, and its grounds were correspondingly vast.

"Hup! Hah!"

"Heup!"

Everywhere the eye landed, disciples were swinging their swords. A few of them showed fairly decent form, but...

Tsk.

Not one of them was exceptional. This was an era where gates and anomalies multiplied by the day. Demand for hunters kept rising—while talented Awakened were steadily thinning out.

"Heh heh, what do you think? Anyone look like they've got a future?"

A man with a hearty, open face approached and asked. The current Sect Leader of the Sword Sect was away on business, so the one greeting the guest from the Hunter Bureau was not the Sect Leader but his acting stand-in, Seong Gyu-ho.

"Ah... yes. The Sword Sect is always a place we place great hopes in."

"Is that so? Hahaha! We have turned out a few decent ones, I'll admit!"

That much was true. Eight out of every ten ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sword-wielding hunters in Korea came out of the Blue Dragon Sword Sect.

Which was exactly why her disappointment cut that much deeper.

The well's truly run dry.

Normally, with this many people gathered, one genius was bound to be mixed in. But everyone she was watching was, at best, lower-mid tier to mid tier. Ordinary, dime-a-dozen people the Hunter Bureau wouldn't bother recruiting.

And the one real talent here—my shot at scouting them already sailed off across the water.

A single flower blooming amid all this mediocrity. Baek Seo-ha, the genuine 'sword genius', had already made her stance unmistakably clear.

'I appreciate the offer, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying with the Blue Dragon Sword Sect—and I'll be working as a hunter under the sect's name, too.'

"What a waste... What a crying shame..."

What on earth was so precious about that genius that she wanted to stay in this dusty old sect? Ju-ah could only seethe with frustration.

"Whoa, that's insane."

"No way, is this for real? He's going into a C-rank gate alone?"

Just then, chattering voices drifted over from a corner of the training grounds. She turned her head toward the sound and found two people glued to a tiny phone screen, slapping each other's shoulders in a frenzy.

"You think he'll make it back alive?"

"Hehe. Obviously not."

"And five hours, no less... This guy seriously doesn't know how the world works, does he?"

People tended to picture martial sects as backward relics, but that wasn't quite the case anymore. In an age where even the mountains had full Wi-Fi coverage, disciples sprawled across the great hall's wooden floor fiddling with their phones had become a perfectly ordinary sight.

"You brats! Ah, my apologies. I'll have them keep it down."

"No, no. It's a fine sight, really."

There was no one here worth watching closely anyway. She rose from her seat, thinking it was about time to head home.

Finally, quitting time!

If she filed the report tomorrow, this would be her first proper off-work hour in ages. Her heart fluttered at the thought of going home and sleeping off weeks of accumulated exhaustion.

That is, until a single text message arrived.

Quitting time: replaced with overtime.

"...AAAAARGH! AARGH!"

She hurled her sunglasses to the floor and let out a howl.

A strange sensation coursed through my entire body. When I lifted my eyelids, a landscape utterly different from moments before lay starkly spread before me.

"Wow."

A sigh escaped me before I knew it. One moment I'd been in the middle of a city; now I'd been dropped into what looked like the heart of a fallen medieval kingdom.

Shattered watchtowers and ash-gray ramparts stretched into the distance. The sky hung blood-red, without a single cloud.

"So this is the 'Graveyard of Knights'? It's even more brutal than I imagined."

The C-rank gate that had appeared in Daegu—the gate that had caused the 'Solion Incident'.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

[Graveyard of Knights]

An incident of that scale meant the Graveyard of Knights had been thoroughly investigated. The findings were made public to hunters, and I remembered reading them with keen interest myself.

"But before any serious investigating... heh heh."

The corners of my mouth curled upward.

On my arm was the iron bracelet that had recently been weighing it down—the must-have item among hunters, purchased by emptying every last coin left over from buying my potions.

[Subspace Bracelet]

An artifact that opened a pocket dimension for storing one's belongings. I'd meant to buy one much later—but I'd entrusted the search for my original target list to Si-hyeon, and the money came back with change to spare.

"Bless you, my friend."

Thanks to that, this journey was about to get considerably more comfortable.

I opened the subspace and drew out a long, silver case—the core equipment of this raid, wrested from Si-hyeon as my prize for winning our sparring match.

Click!

I opened the case and checked the contents.

"...Oh."

A satisfied smile spreading across my face was only natural. Carefully, I lifted out the spear inside.

"Si-hyeon, you little rascal... You got me something even better than what I asked for."

A true 'strategy guide' for a gate couldn't really exist. Gates vanished once cleared, so any guide written afterward was meaningless. But a handful of special gates had their information recorded for various reasons: the structure of the gate, the types of monsters that appeared, the boss's location, where hidden items lay buried...

The Graveyard of Knights I was entering was one of those gates—one whose details had survived for exactly such reasons.

The main monster of this place was the 'Phantom Knight'.

As the name suggested, they were the ones who had died but still wandered the boundary between life and death.

'Thanks to my master's blessing, clearing it was easy. The divine power equipment we brought along just so happened to be a perfect match, too.'

Those were the words of one of Solion's guild members, recorded right after the gate was cleared.

A golden aura wreathed the shaft and blade alike. One glance was enough to tell this silver spear was no ordinary weapon—a B-rank spear, bearing the rare 'Divine Power' option on top of it all.

Higher-graded equipment was naturally hard to come by, but gear blessed with divine power was harder still.

For one simple reason: the supply was tiny.

In all this world, exactly one person could forge equipment carrying the Divine Power option.

The Saintess. Veronica.

Take an ordinary piece of equipment, and if she laid a blessing or a baptism upon it, the Divine Power option was added. Abundant golden hair and a temperament wise beyond her years—her image, hands folded as divine light poured down, had earned her the title of Saintess.

"May the Saintess freeze to death."

I had plenty to say about that woman, but it could wait. Clearing the gate came first.

In any case, it was true that Si-hyeon had exceeded my expectations. I'd have been grateful for divine power even on a D-rank piece—but this was B-rank. Option aside, it meant the spear's raw performance was genuinely solid.

"Nnngh—hah!"

I stretched lightly and set off across the fallen kingdom. Grit and dust swirled up and stung my face. Dried bloodstains clung like shadows to the broken roads.

Regrettably, ruin like this suited the present me far better than peace ever had. Breathing in the lingering scent of gunpowder, I replayed the old memories.

The incident where a perfectly sound guild master suddenly lost his mind, slaughtered his own guild members, and turned his blade on innocent civilians besides. Unblurred footage of the scene flooded the internet, and conspiracy theories rose and fell among the public for months.

The world came to know it as an act of terror by a guild master who could no longer bear his depression.

But the truth was a little different.

"Doesn't that seem strange to you?"

"What does?"

"The Solion guild master was never that strong. A veteran, sure. But how could he possibly take on that entire guild—alone?"

A conversation I once shared with a companion, back before my regression.

"The truth is, there was a hidden truth behind that incident."

An artifact whose existence the government had suppressed and buried. One that would later be sealed away completely by the Sect Leader of the White Tiger Binding Sect—a forbidden item that, together with the world's ruin, would finally find its master.

[The Bloodstained Ring of Madness]

That was this gate's clear reward.

I couldn't bring out ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the ring's full power as I was now—but even so...

'Better it ends up in my hands than in some other bastard's.'

Muttering so, I casually examined the quest window that had appeared before I entered the gate.

I hadn't declared a five-hour clear for nothing. A whole extra 15 experience points—who could resist that?

"Take all of that and I'll hit the sixties...!"

When I'd first seen the experience bar, the far end had felt impossibly distant, but the points had piled up quite smoothly. Maybe the early levels were just generous; either way, I'd hoard every crumb while the hoarding was good.

That said.

"The hidden route... I still haven't the faintest idea."

I'd racked my brain ever since that quest window first appeared, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what a 'hidden route' was supposed to be. Even before my regression, I'd never once heard the term. The structure of gates—defeat the boss, done—left no room for anything you'd dignify with the word 'route'.

'Well, it'll work out somehow.'

I was curious what the reward, the Fragment of the World, actually was—but I wasn't about to give up experience points over it. Chase both rabbits and lose them both? That was the kind of regret I could do without.

"Now then, let's see."

I narrowed my eyes and let my gaze travel far. This gate's boss resided within the fortress looming magnificently ahead. The shortest route, naturally, was straight on from here.

Clank—

Not that I could take it, of course.

Clank— clank—

From every direction came the sound of iron grinding against iron, a screeching friction swelling like a rising tide.

"Graaah—"

I lowered the spear from my shoulder and swept my eyes around. Between suits of rust-eaten armor, black, ghostly menace seeped upward like smoke. Shambling, lurching movements that brought zombies to mind. The glowing red eyes had locked their focus onto me.

Clunk— clunk— clunk—!

The lingering souls of knights who had died long ago, together with this very world. Beings whose slow-burning grudges had settled into their armor and set it moving.

That was this gate's monster—the Phantom Knight.

I had planned to simply angle away and find another path, and I leveled the spear's tip in their direction—when suddenly:

A brand-new quest had appeared out of nowhere.

"...?"

What is this?