The Name Is Blood Mouse
"…So what you're telling me is that you're going to seal the gate? Temporarily?"
Kim Jinhu, Guild Master of Iron Blood, had to doubt his own ears for a moment at the words coming through his smartwatch.
A regional gate — far more than a simple hunting ground where monsters were slain for their byproducts, it was also a mining site that yielded the natural resources within. For any guild short of major-guild scale, taking control of one and managing it was all but impossible; the existence of a steady, recurring income on top of the hunting itself was the very identity and strength of the large guilds.
Of course, the Alios Eastern Great Forest was merely one of the many regional gates under Aegis Guild's ownership. Even so —
"Ha! And you're giving it all up just like that? A named monster appeared in there, no less!"
A named boss that had come into being naturally inside the gate. Once in a great while there were named monsters whose rewards didn't begin to justify their strength — hunting them was a flat loss — but more often than not, the odds of claiming a byproduct of enormous value were on your side. Control of the gate, and the hunting of a named: two ironclad justifications. Under that banner, Jinhu had fully expected Aegis Guild to force the issue and settle the Alios Eastern Great Forest no matter the strain.
And then.
"A transfer portal has opened between a dungeon and a regional gate that share no connection whatsoever — and, as though it had only been waiting for that very link, a named monster has emerged! This is an anomaly suspicious beyond all measure!"
"R… Right…"
A deep yet sonorous young man's voice poured out of the smartwatch. It was the kind of gorgeous baritone that made a listener want to shout back Yeah! on pure reflex — which was precisely why Jinhu's discomfort only deepened.
"This time, it was a dungeon linking to a gate. But who is to say the next such tear will not open in the very heart of our city?"
"Th-that's true…"
The man was unmistakably speaking Korean, and yet his peculiar cadence made it sound as though he were delivering some splendid oration in a Western tongue. Worse, both the cadence and the content came across like an actor reciting a novel's dialogue for maximum dramatic flair — which only made the whole thing more bizarre.
And then — Krrunch! Over the smartwatch rang the wildly exaggerated sound of a metal-gauntleted fist clenching shut, and the Aegis Guild Master pressed on in a hard-line voice.
"R-right… I see…"
In short: once the rescue operation was fully wrapped up, access to the gate would be locked down, and the investigation of the anomaly would take precedence over subjugating the named and its fellow monsters.
And with that, the call ended.
"Haaah…"
Rubbing wearily beneath eyes ringed deep with shadow, Jinhu turned a long, long stare on the Aegis hunters waiting nearby.
Awakened hunters, every one of them, with hearing far keener than any civilian's — perhaps they'd caught snatches of the call. Or perhaps, being Aegis to the bone, they'd simply been able to predict exactly how their Guild Master would have put it.
"A-hem."
"Khhm…!"
Not one of them could meet his eyes. Scarlet-faced, they did nothing but wrench their heads toward the opposite side as far as they would go.
The Hero of the Stars — or the Hero of Light, as some called him. A hunter hailing from the otherworld returnees, and Guild Master of Aegis: Cain Brave.
Jinhu had smelled trouble from the very first moment the man barely clawed his way home to Earth, only to insist on going by his otherworld name instead of his birth name. Returnees really did not have a single proper human being among them. Good guy, though…
Press, press. Digging his fingertips into his throbbing temples, Jinhu spoke up.
"Sorry for keeping you all waiting. So… you're the ones who made first contact with the named, correct?"
"Ah, yes!"
"It's… it's a true honor to meet you! I'm a fan!"
Jinhu traded light handshakes with the hunters who came swarming up to him, eyes aglow with admiration.
Midway through the operation to enter the regional gate and rescue the applicants tangled in the anomaly, they had come across Aegis hunters abandoned in the middle of the road, every last joint in their bodies dislocated, left lying there like so many discarded roly-poly dolls. And whoever had popped those joints must have done it with impossible neatness — one round of bone-setting and a modest pour of potion later, the hunters were fully healed within seconds.
They were also the only hunters ever to cross paths with the named Ratman — the first, and the last. Which was why, while the rescue pressed on, Jinhu had deliberately stayed behind to take down their account.
And when he heard the story in full, Jinhu smacked his forehead with a laugh of sheer disbelief.
"Ah… so THAT's why the rescue's been going so smoothly."
Just then, reports of completed rescues kept trickling in over the comm line. He had found the operation's progress suspiciously triumphant — but of course it was. Every last scrap of aggro in the area was piled up over there…!
The Ratman legion, and the monsters marching hot on its heels. Under normal circumstances, hunters stranded in a gate could easily have blundered into those monsters, come to blows, and things could have gone badly. Probably not what the Ratman intended — but thanks to the beasts' every nerve and shred of vigilance being riveted on that howling chaos, an environment had formed in which hunters could sit tight and await rescue in perfect safety. Better still, the hunters who had crossed paths with the named had walked away with nothing worse than injuries a potion could mend on the spot. All told, for all its thunderous declaration of war, that named Ratman had done nothing but favors for this side of the field and marched off.
The adjutant, who had been recording the hunters' testimonies, raised a hand.
"Lastly… those of you who first encountered the named hold the provisional naming rights. It has to go into the report — is there any information you'd like to provide?"
Provisional naming rights. In the early days of the gate crisis, when information was scarce and the monsters humanity first encountered came in such bewildering variety, the hunter or team that made first discovery would hang a temporary name on the creature; once enough data had gathered and the name was judged fitting, it was carved into the official record. That tradition lived on to this day, which was why the adjutant asked the Aegis hunters so matter-of-factly.
And someone who had been waiting for this exact moment stepped forward.
"I heard it loud and clear, with both my ears!"
"…Pardon? Heard what, exactly?"
The high ponytail swung wildly from her abrupt lunge forward. Jinhu flinched at the sight of the ponytailed woman's face. The corners of her mouth were fighting a losing battle against their own urge to crack the sky open. A smile steeped in equal parts triumph and catharsis — a smile so profoundly wicked that even Jinhu felt his body shudder. It was the face, he thought, of an avenger the instant the final debt of revenge is paid.
Aegis hunter Namgung Ye-rin declared it in a single festering note of a voice that would chill the marrow of anyone who heard it:
"…Blo—what?"
And just like that, the named Ratman Blood Mouse was carved into the official record — a record destined to echo down hunter history for generations.
Throb.
"Hgyaaak…!"
For no reason I could name, the crown of my head ached as though someone had cracked me across the back of it. The pain was, without question, the lingering aftereffect of what that lump-popping menace Kang Mu-jin had done to me.
"──Gal!!! You wretch, Kang Mu-jin…!"
The flames of my hatred for Kang Mu-jin — who had fled all the way into a prison cell to escape the Bonjwa's righteous vengeance — simply had to be set blazing anew!
Well. Setting that aside.
Having slipped away from the horde of rat-people, I had parked myself somewhere a human eye could hardly miss — after all, I knew there were other hunters inside this strange gate, my encounter with the Aegis hunters having proven as much — and so I had been waiting like any ordinary castaway awaiting rescue.
My Forged Blood Art had attained the Blood Flame Realm, so in truth I could have attempted the escape under my own power — never mind that this frail little body remained stubbornly untempered. The stage at which qi could be projected beyond the body: the First Stage, Blood Flame Realm. With that much, goblins or even orcs were well within my means to handle alone, and who knew — roaming the forest, I might even have crossed paths again with the aspiring hunters who had fought the golem at my side.
I had been just about to set out — and right at that moment, KWUUUUNG!
"Eeek!"
A blast of dust swallowed everything before my eyes and I tumbled backward a full somersault without meaning to; with the roar, a shadow came plummeting out of the empty sky.
I had only just clawed my way clear of one pandemonium — and now what, exactly?! Railing against the heavens, I scrambled to gather my stance when —
"Oppaaaaa…!!!"
A voice far, far too familiar.
"S-Se-ah…! Urghk!"
The shadow, as it turned out, was my little sister, Cheon Se-ah. Armed, unlike her usual self, in a protective coat, she closed the distance in an instant with eyes shimmering tears and crushed me into her arms.
A little… no, a LOT too hard.
"Oppaaa! Are you okay?! You're not hurt anywhere, are you?! Tsk — look, the mana circuits in your coat are nearly drained! You're not hurt, right? It activated properly, right?! You're really okay?! Here, drink this potion, right now!!!"
"Hurk… grrk… brrghk…"
"What on earth happened that you can't even talk?! Oh, my poor brother… I'm sorry. I should have gotten here faster, so much faster…!"
"Hurk, hghrk… c-can't… breathe…"
"…Ah. S-sorry!"
I had to tap her arm with every ounce of strength I had. She crammed a potion at me, still clutching me as she hunted head to toe for wounds. Passed around in her arms like a doll being fussed over, I finally won my freedom from a Se-ah whose expression had turned sheepish.
No — more to the point.
"U-um, Se-ah? How did you even… get here…?"
"That's what I want to ask YOU! What on earth did you do to end up sitting Iron Blood's entrance test instead of the hunter license exam?!"
"…Eh?"
"And then you got transferred into a completely different gate, no less…! What even IS all this?!"
Se-ah seized my shoulders and wailed, and only then did every question that had been circling my skull click together like a finished puzzle.
Something had… something had felt off this entire time, I'd grant that. But I had genuinely, actually blundered into a different exam hall — not the hunter license exam at all — and then, on top of everything, a freak accident had erupted and landed me here…!
"…Oh!"
It came back to me all at once: the moment I'd been jammed between strangers, sense of direction shredded, tumbling head over heels through the crowd. Retracing my memories step by careful step, I realized that in that instant I had drifted into the line running the exact opposite way down the corridor.
No, look… I'll admit, I was self-aware enough to concede that I might look a bit foolish. Aaaaaaabsolutely minuscule bit foolish! But from the moment I fell into this forest, I had known this was no exam, and I had very definitely clocked that something was wrong!
And so, quite naturally — the Bonjwa was no fool…!
At that, Se-ah lowered herself and met my eyes dead-on.
"Plus your GPS was whipping all over the map… There's no way you thought this was the exam site. Be honest with me. What… what on earth happened to you?"
Holding Se-ah's gaze — guilt and relief and a whole tangle of feelings welling up into tears — the Bonjwa set in order everything that needed to be told to his little sister.
Hear me, Cheon Se-ah. The Bonjwa was a rat so perfect that the Ratmen took him for one of their own flesh and blood. The Bonjwa founded a cult of Ratmen and smote the most unspeakably wicked of humankind. Therefore, from this day forth, you shall extol the Bonjwa as Lord Blood Mouse.
"…………."
The Bonjwa. Blood Demon Cheon Yujin.
"…Wait, this wasn't the hunter exam site?"
"I decided to just play dumb."