Promises in the Real World Aren't Made Lightly
This is Hongdae Street. Normally teeming with crowds of people, but right now... everyone here was swallowing hard.
Kkiiigik... kkiiigik... The sound of concrete and steel structures twisting echoed through the eerily silent Hongdae Street.
The hunters gathered in the Hongdae Street plaza gulped nervously.
"Measurement results?"
At the words of Korea's S-rank hunter, the Crimson Archmage Kim Jaehong, the surrounding hunters perked up their ears. But no answer came to his question.
"...Measurement results. What are they?!"
"Th-th-th-that..."
The measurement hunter couldn't even speak properly, trembling from head to toe as if on the verge of fainting. Then he suddenly shouted.
"I-Impossible to measure...!"
Gulp! He couldn't finish his sentence and started foaming at the mouth, but no one blamed him. The others were barely holding back the urge to do the same and collapse.
Grrr...
The being before them exuded an aura utterly beyond specifications.
A massive size comparable to a one-story building. Nothing visible but pure gold... a gigantic golden body. In front of that excessively gold-wrapped form, the dragon's bright yellow eyes glared down at them from its head.
Drip! Drip!
Molten gold flowed from the enormous golden dragon's body, splattering onto the plaza below. Its appearance, as if embodying all wealth and fortune, stirred humanity's innate greed... but the overwhelming pressure emanating from the dragon suppressed that greed before it could surface.
The Crimson Archmage Kim Jaehong gritted his teeth.
'Why has a monster like this suddenly appeared here...?'
Seoul was protected by powerful barriers that prevented gates from forming. Occasionally, weak F-rank gates would appear, but never had a gate spawning a monster beyond all specs ever occurred.
Moreover, unless a gate exploded after time ran out, it never released the monsters inside.
Kim Jaehong recalled the recent events.
He had come out to Hongdae Street for a rare vacation. But suddenly, the air rippled, and this out-of-spec monster burst forth from it.
Chaos ensued afterward, and he had poured all his power into magic to evacuate the civilians. Now, with the evacuation barely complete, he and the hunters who rushed in under martial law were surrounding the monster.
'...But why is it just sitting there?'
The strange part was that after emerging from the air, the monster hadn't done anything—just stayed still. If it had rampaged before the civilians evacuated, there would have been massive casualties...
'Should I call that fortunate?'
Against such an out-of-spec monster, even as one of Korea's three S-rank hunters, he couldn't guarantee he could hunt it alone, let alone buy time. To even stall against that dragon, he'd need the world rank 1, Korea rank 1 S-rank hunter—the Dragon Master Lee Hyun.
"Wh-what?!"
"Wait!"
"You can't go in there!"
"Huh?"
Suddenly, a commotion erupted from behind. As he turned with a puzzled expression, he saw a few people pushing past them and running toward the dragon.
"...What the hell?"
They say people go blank when something's too absurd. These weren't hunters—they looked like ordinary civilians—rushing right up to the dragon?
Were they insane? No. The emotion blooming on their faces was unmistakably fear.
Yet they boldly charged toward the dragon.
"...Damn it!"
Snapping to his senses too late, he summoned his mana. He didn't know what was going on, but he had to rescue those crazy bastards... no, the civilians.
Ting!
"Huh?"
But his magic was blocked by something, dissipating its power. It bounced his mana away as if a massive wall stood there.
And in that moment, the civilians who reached the dragon began bizarre actions.
Sizzle!
"...Grilling meat?"
One started grilling and eating meat out of nowhere.
Beep-boop-beep-boop...
"??"
Another began playing an ocarina.
Thump-chit! Thump-thump-chit!
"???"
And another started dancing.
As an incomprehensible scene unfolded, like they'd been hypnotized, a pleased voice emanated from the dragon overlooking the bizarre civilians.
= Now do you believe me? =
"??????"
The surrounding hunters collectively plunged into confusion.