The Important Bag
Whoooosh!
The figure wreathed in blue light streaked over the ridgeline and came face to face with a colossal hole torn open in the sky.
Even from a considerable distance the suction was fierce. The higher one climbed into the air, the stronger that force would become.
Thud-thud-thud!
Racing across the basin alongside the hunters under his guild, Kim Jin-seong clicked his tongue.
"This is one vicious updraft."
"Master, we're almost at the central point."
"Right. I had a feeling we'd be the first ones here, but… hm?"
The hunters of Suryong Guild halted their advance at the heart of Chogye Basin and found a single woman already waiting for them.
Snow-white hair streamed on the rising currents, matched by a billowing ceremonial dress that looked as though it belonged on a fairy. Transparent, porcelain-pale skin. An ice-cold beauty that still held the looks of a woman in her early twenties—enough to send a chill through any hunter's chest.
The woman in pure white turned her gaze toward the Suryong hunters.
A soft smile curved her lips.
Unexpectedly, the smile that rose on that frigid face was gentle, almost maternal.
"Master Kim Jin-seong. A pleasure."
"…Master Baek Han-seol. How did you arrive so quickly?"
"My assignment happened to be nearby, so the moment the hotline message came through I ran straight here. The hunters of Bukhae will be joining us shortly as well."
"Ah."
Kim Jin-seong caught his breath, then bowed his head in deep respect.
"Thank you for coming even though you must be buried in work."
"Think nothing of it."
Baek Han-seol accepted the courtesy as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
There was a reason Kim Jin-seong—an elder among the masters of the Five Great Guilds who had held his seat for decades—showed such exacting deference to Baek Han-seol.
S-class hunter Baek Han-seol.
Master of Bukhae Guild, one of Korea's Five Great Guilds.
Born amid the chaos of the Great Calamity, she had operated across the Korean Peninsula for more than ninety years. Her survival through the era when even the strongest hunters died in droves to the Ancient Species was the first proof that an S-class hunter's body does not age. The oldest active hunter still living—a woman who could truly be called a living history of the Gate Age.
After Kim Jin-seong and Baek Han-seol's meeting, hunters from the remaining Five Great Guilds began filtering in one after another.
While they waited for the last guilds to arrive and checked the supplies needed for the raid, Kim Jin-seong turned his eyes to the sky.
Whoooosh!
A black hole.
Even for a veteran like Kim Jin-seong, this was the first S-rank Gate he had ever seen. The size of the entrance and the sheer force radiating from it were on an entirely different scale from any other Gate.
What would the hunters of Korea gathered here witness inside that darkness?
"Is this only the second time all the S-class hunters have assembled?"
At some point Baek Han-seol had drifted to his side.
"Calling it 'all' is a stretch when Lee Myeong-won isn't here… but yes. During the northern Ancient Species incident the hunters of Seoul held the line so well the masters never needed to take the field."
"More accurately, one unidentified hunter rather than the hunters of Seoul."
Kim Jin-seong looked at her.
She wore a meaningful smile.
"How much do you know about the source of an S-class hunter's power, Hunter Kim Jin-seong?"
He tilted his head.
Why was she asking something like this all of a sudden?
"People call it the blessing of a constellation. The stronger the hunter, the more directly the constellation's power manifests as ability."
"More precisely, the power of heroes or divine beings. An English S-class blessed by the King of Knights, or the gods that appear in Greek, Celtic, Norse, and Slavic myth. Sometimes legendary heroes of oral tradition. There are cases where the origin is unknown, of course, but hunters with famous abilities usually make their constellation easy to identify."
"…What are you trying to say?"
"The three Korean S-class hunters including myself received a constellation's blessing from birth. You and Hunter Lee Myeong-won, however, received it later in life. …Where do you believe your power came from?"
"……"
Kim Jin-seong closed his mouth.
That was one of the questions he himself had never fully answered.
Even now, whenever he shut his eyes, a certain set of formulas rose with perfect clarity.
Taiji. Form and intent. The Eight Trigrams.
After encountering that blue light in the past, Kim Jin-seong had understood that this was the power of a being called a "constellation." Yet which god or hero had granted him that power remained completely unknown.
"There once existed an age when forgotten heroes who never entered the history books walked the earth. The heroes and divine beings of that place are the ones giving us the strength to survive this era."
"…Do you know who my constellation is, Master Baek?"
"Who knows? Why don't you go find out yourself?"
Baek Han-seol flashed a dazzling smile.
Kim Jin-seong flushed and turned his head away, muttering inwardly that the woman was a hundred-year-old granny.
The smile vanished from her face, replaced once more by that icy expression.
"The future of this world is opaque. The time is coming. We will need power stronger than the blessing someone casually tossed us and told us to make do with."
"By that you mean…"
"That we must summon a powerful being by any means necessary. …Not merely the power handed down to us, but the direct descent of a constellation itself."
Baek Han-seol dismissed the power of an S-class hunter as "merely."
Kim Jin-seong's expression turned grave as well.
"You're saying a great threat is approaching this era. …On what grounds?"
"Call it an old woman's intuition."
"…Do you know something? The wisdom of someone who has lived as long as you is valuable. If you have even the slightest knowledge of a coming danger, it would be better to warn everyone now and prepare."
"What can we do inside the will of such a vast world? Whine about human rights and shout that human experimentation is forbidden? The hunters of the past were the same, but the people of this age have gone far too soft."
"You…"
Baek Han-seol's ideology was more dangerous than he had expected.
Somehow the conversation made Kim Jin-seong think of Lee Myeong-won—the same unrestrained obsession with power, the sense that the man was no longer the Lee Myeong-won of old.
"You said we must summon a powerful being by any means."
"Create one, or force a descent."
"Even if sacrifices occur in the process?"
"One could call it the sacrifice of the few for the many."
"That is a dangerous line of thought."
"Heh. How very orthodox of you."
"Not every constellation is benevolent. Among the heroes recorded in history and the beings of myth, there were those whose deeds were closer to villainy."
"Begging a constellation for mercy might still be better than sitting still and waiting for extinction."
With that, Baek Han-seol fell silent.
Her gaze shifted toward the opposite ridgeline.
Shuaaaah!
There, the final groups of hunter guilds were cutting through the wind toward them.
"Shingyo Guild, was it? I heard their guild master recently became an S-class hunter."
"That's correct. Hunter Kim Do-yoon."
"…As I was saying just now, people claim one can only become an S-class hunter by receiving a constellation's blessing."
Baek Han-seol turned and walked toward the gathered members of Bukhae Guild, leaving a final remark behind.
"Then whose blessing did Hunter Kim Do-yoon receive?"
"……"
Kim Jin-seong simply watched her receding back.
The conversation ended, leaving him with only deep wariness and deeper questions.
"Hanseong Guild, ready to enter."
"According to the American cases, the interior of an S-rank Gate is highly likely to be divided into multiple vast sectors. We must enter as guild units."
"After one leap, from a certain height onward you can simply entrust yourselves to the updraft."
"Secure the supplies tightly so nothing falls!"
Whoooosh!
In the howling wind, precautions were passed between guilds.
At minimum B-class hunters, a large number of A-class, and the S-class hunters serving as the core—five such teams in total.
Far too many people for a single Gate raid, yet if it was an S-rank Gate the force made sense.
Kim Na-yeon looked around with wide eyes.
"Wow, everyone's faces are incredible. The masters of the Five Great Guilds minus Jeokpung, and how many A-class hunters? Compared to that, Shingyo Guild's numbers are…"
"We've got one terrifying weapon riding with us instead. We'll be fine."
In the middle of the siblings' exchange a welcome face approached.
"Ah, Hunter Kim Jin-seong!"
"Haha, I figured the people from Shingyo Guild would come. This is reassuring strength indeed. …And."
His gaze landed on the backpack Kim Na-yeon was wearing.
A pack so enormous she had to tilt her head back to see the top of it—large enough that a person could easily fit inside. Even among the oversized packs used by guild porters, this one was specially oversized.
Catching his look, Kim Na-yeon offered an awkward smile.
"Hehe…"
Kim Jin-seong wore a playful grin of his own.
"…Is it all right for the vice-guildmaster of Shingyo Guild to play porter?"
"It's bulky and important cargo."
"Heh-heh. It certainly does look like extremely important cargo."
The brief greeting ended, and the time to enter the Gate arrived.
Tap, tap, tap.
Beginning with Hanseong Guild, then Hana Guild, then Suryong Guild—the absolute elite of the Five Great Guilds leapt one after another into the rising currents and vanished into the Gate.
Tap.
As Bukhae Guild sprang upward, the members of Shingyo Guild also launched themselves into the updraft.
Shuaaaah!
Once they reached a certain height, a terrifyingly intensified suction seized the hunters and yanked them hard.
"Kh… What kind of wind is this…!"
"Hold on tight!"
"Okay!"
The siblings Kim Do-yoon and Kim Na-yeon gripped each other's hands as they cut through the gale. Flanking them were A-class hunters Yang Tae-seon and Park Dong-hwan.
Members of the guilds that had gone first disappeared one by one into the black hole, and then it was Shingyo Guild's turn.
At last the enormous opening loomed only a dozen meters ahead.
Swish.
A chill. Then a soft ting.
"Huh?"
Kim Na-yeon twisted around.
Whoooosh!
The bag—the important bag—was riding the current away from her.
The strap she had been clutching so tightly had come undone.
Before she could even stretch out her hand, the pack was sucked into the black hole and vanished.
"Yeon…!"
Leaving the unfinished cry hanging in the air, Na-yeon's body too was dragged into the Gate.
Whoooosh!
The black hole that had swallowed so many hunters simply hung in the empty sky as though nothing at all had happened.
In a pitch-black space walled on every side by massive stone, a single oversized bag sat alone.
Sook.
Suddenly a little black ball of fur pushed its way out between the snack bags at the top of the pack.
"Na-yeon unni?"
In that space where nothing but the bag was visible, only a girl's puzzled voice echoed.