Date
Gate Rampage.
Exactly what it sounds like.
A phenomenon where a Gate goes berserk and spews out whatever’s inside it—mostly monsters.
The cause remains unknown.
All we know is that it happens with extremely rare probability, and that the owner of the rampaging Gate dies the moment it does.
The Gate that went berserk this time seemed to be an Orc Gate.
Looking at the build of the orcs charging toward us, they were similar to the ones I faced regularly.
Gray orcs, even.
Probably D-class, I estimated.
If it was the kind of orc that got sent flying by a body slam just a moment ago, D-class was almost certain.
Even so, if it were just me alone, three orcs would have killed me—but with Keira stepping in, the situation changed.
I just needed to buy a little time.
“Grrr!”
One orc raised its greatsword high and charged.
The trick to fighting orcs is simple.
Just dodge at the perfect timing.
Of course, that perfect timing isn’t easy.
You have to wait until the orc reaches the absolute point of no return on its attack before dodging.
Enduring the orc’s breath, stopping yourself from imagining getting torn by that dull greatsword, and thinking calmly and coolly—that’s what it takes.
Like this!
Crack.
As I dodged to the side, the greatsword slammed into the spot where I’d been.
It was powerful enough to dig into the concrete floor.
Because of that, the arm of the orc holding the greatsword would take a huge shock too.
I could even see it vibrating with a zing.
I couldn’t do this at first, of course.
It was know-how gained from rolling around with orcs for a whole month, surviving several injury crises and near-death experiences.
Now, I could really see every move an orc made.
The orc, on the other hand, didn’t know me.
A game heavily in my favor.
Normally, it would be time to attack the orc whose arm was numb and paused for a moment—but not now.
“Grrr!”
I was facing three orcs, after all.
Having seen the one in front, this time it didn’t do something stupid like slamming the ground with full force.
But so what?
I dodged the orc’s body slam with perfect timing again.
“Grr...?”
Crash.
The full-powered body slam smashed into the shop glass.
The orc tumbled into the store, forced to body-slam the merchandise inside as a second impact.
“Grrr...!”
The last orc didn’t rush me easily.
This was exactly why close combat with orcs was difficult.
The first two had underestimated me and charged recklessly, but the last one had learned by watching what happened to the previous two.
No—since it was an orc, it was more like it instinctively felt it.
That this guy would give you indigestion if you rushed him.
And that if you waited, your buddies would come.
“Grrr!”
“Grr!”
The orc that had slammed the ground and the one that headbutted the shop both targeted me again.
That level of impact was nothing to an orc’s body.
The two orcs didn’t charge as recklessly as before either.
That’s why I should have left a fatal wound with my sword when they showed openings earlier.
That had been my last chance.
But of course, that had also been the orcs’ last chance.
Crack-crack-crack.
Three ice pillars sprouted from beneath the orcs’ feet, above their heads, and from the side.
The orcs’ reactions were faster than I expected.
They avoided about half of the exact impact points.
In other words, they got hit by about half.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
The ice pillars didn’t freeze the orcs so much as they simply pierced through them.
One had its abdomen blown away, one lost a hip and one leg, and the last one’s head exploded.
“Nice!”
“You did well too, Jungmin.”
At Keira’s praise, the corner of my mouth curled up.
I’d been a bit tense with three of them, but it went better than I expected.
Honestly, even I thought I did well.
Maybe I have a surprising talent for combat?
“Stop with the useless thoughts and let’s go quickly.”
Keira, who had somehow come to stand beside me, said.
“Useless thoughts? I wasn’t thinking anything like that.”
“I can tell just by looking at your face. You were thinking about the leader again, weren’t you? Grinning to yourself about how you should get praised if you finish this well.”
“No, that’s really not it.”
Honestly, the useless thoughts part was true, but it wasn’t about the leader.
If anything, I would have been thinking about Keira. Why suddenly the leader?
“...I was about to say. Let’s go quickly. The mana fluctuation is right in front of us.”
“Puhahahaha.”
It was so awkward that laughter burst out.
A gag? Keira making a gag?
She must be in a really good mood today.
I chased after Keira a bit late, laughing.
Her ears were red.
This was the first time I’d seen them like that outside of sex.
“...Stop laughing. This is a serious situation.”
“Sorry, sorry. Kuk.”
I wondered if this was okay, but the laughter kept coming.
Even Keira glaring at me just looked cute.
Rather than scary, it was more like it was about to give me an erection.
Hmm... this was a good thing.
If I could use lust, there was nothing more useful than that.
“Just around the corner. Take the lead.”
“Kuk, okay!”
I overtook Keira and turned the corner.
The first thing I saw was the red eyes of an orc.
Next was a somewhat wide, plaza-like space with a large purple spark cluster in the middle.
Finally, the orcs filling the plaza, and an Orc Champion.
“Grrraaah!”
Only after hearing the Orc Champion’s voice did I realize that the eyes I’d first locked with were the Orc Champion’s.
“One Orc Champion! Eight orcs! Retreat!”
I immediately turned my body.
An Orc Champion is a B-class monster.
Like orcs, its intelligence is low, but like orcs, it’s the type that fights instinctively.
Just think of it as a superior version of an orc.
On top of that, it can clad its body in mana, so ordinary magic can’t damage it.
Even Keira would need a long preparation to take down an Orc Champion.
Fighting such a monster and eight orcs in a wide space would be hell.
“Grr, grr!”
The orcs chased after us.
In the corridor that had narrowed compared to the plaza, only three orcs could enter.
Even so, we couldn’t stop here.
I could handle three, but the Champion chasing after them would be tough.
“Jungmin, buy a little time while coming this way. To that narrow passage from earlier!”
I knew what passage Keira meant.
About twenty meters from here, a place that, judging by size, only about two orcs could enter.
But how was I supposed to buy time until there?
Then, the fire alarm on the ceiling caught my eye.
I quickly moved mana to light a fire around the alarm.
Simply starting a fire was something I could do in half a second.
Even so, the orcs caught up that much, but the half-second was worth it.
Whoosh!
The sprinklers burst from the ceiling, and the orcs stopped in place.
They’d move right away once they realized it was nothing, but this was the limit.
“Grrr!”
As expected, the orcs charged right away.
Faster than before.
“Keira, this is my limit!”
“That’s enough! Hurry this way!”
In front of the narrow passage, I saw Keira with both hands clasped in front of her chest.
As I entered the passage, she struck the floor with one hand.
Crack-crack-crack-crack.
Ice began freezing from Keira’s hand and instantly froze the entire corridor.
Neither the orcs nor the Orc Champion were exceptions.
All six orcs that had chased us were trapped in ice and stopped moving.
“Whoa...”
Admiration came out naturally.
The power of the magic was impressive, but Keira looked so cool.
With her wavy hair slightly floating from the full cold air, striking the floor—it was a hero pose straight out of a movie.
“It’ll melt soon. Quickly prepare the Lust Blade. The target is the Champion.”
She spoke while pouring mana in that same pose.
It seemed she had to keep using mana to maintain the ice a bit longer.
“Ah, got it!”
I understood Keira’s plan at once.
A simple but powerful method.
Freeze them so they can’t dodge and finish them with a finisher.
Throb.
Raising lust was easy.
Thinking about other things during combat was something I’d gotten used to over a whole month, and lewd fantasies never stopped.
With Keira as material now, my lust manifestation was already fully primed.
No one could look at such a cool Keira and not get turned on.
Whoosh.
I gathered the warm energy into the greatsword.
Thanks to Keira, more lust gathered than usual.
When this is over, I should give Keira a reward.
A lewd reward.
“...Stop with the useless thoughts during combat...”
I knew what Keira wanted to say.
She probably wanted to say don’t do it.
It must all show on my face.
But what can I do when my power comes from that?
Anyway, even in the midst of this, I calmly executed the Imperial Guard swordsmanship.
Wasn’t the reason I showed my usual skill even while tense against three orcs earlier because of this?
My full power now always comes out in a state of mental split.
One side combat, one side lust.
Fzzzt.
A crescent-shaped pink sword aura flew forward.
Aside from it being a pink sword aura, the Lust Blade was entirely to my liking.
The Orc Champion was two heads taller than the other orcs, so I aimed the Lust Blade at the Orc Champion’s neck.
Crack.
The ice broke before the Lust Blade arrived.
The first to break free was the Orc Champion.
The Orc Champion was about to charge right at us, then hesitated, blocked by the frozen surrounding orcs.
“Kueeeek!”
The Champion punched the frozen orcs.
Crack-crack, crack.
The orcs’ ice shattered as the orcs woke up.
Unlike the uninjured Champion, the orcs were bleeding all over their bodies.
They’d been wounded as the ice broke.
And my Lust Blade still sliced through the neck of the Orc Champion who had been standing there.
The Champion twisted its head the moment the aura dug into its neck, but the result was the same.
Instead of the neck, the head was split in half.
Splash!
Blood fountain-spurted upward.
“Grr?”
Among the orcs just waking from the ice in confusion, the Champion’s body thudded to the ground.
“...Done!”
“It’s not over yet...”
Keira’s voice trailed off toward the end.
Because figures of people appeared from the far end of the corridor.
“Attack! We have to deal with them quickly! We can’t have casualties in our area!”
“Yes!”
They seemed to be Keepers who had set out from another direction.
“Grr? Grr!”
One orc came toward me and Keira, but dealing with an orc bleeding from its whole body was easy.
While I handled that one, four Keepers finished the remaining orcs and came before us.
“Are you Keepers? Thank you for the help.”
“Help? It’s only natural as Keepers.”
Gate Rampage is everyone’s business.
It’s everyone’s business because it involves lives, but especially all Keepers’ business too.
If civilians die due to a Gate Rampage, all the arrows point back at the Keepers.
It was something the Association always emphasized to Keepers.
“For now, let’s go to the rampage site and talk.”
Following the words of the one who seemed to be the leader among the four, we moved to the small plaza from earlier.
The purple sparks were still flying in all directions.
“I understand that a rampage stops naturally with time. We just need to block the monsters regenerating here. Were there any casualties on the opposite side?”
“No, fortunately there weren’t. What about your side?”
At my words, the leader looked relieved.
“That’s a relief. There were none on the west and north where we came from. The east—our crew’s Keepers went there, so we’ll confirm soon.”
“Then that’s good. It won’t be a major incident. But crew?”
“Ah, we belong to the Shinyongsan Crew. This is our territory, so we have to protect it.”
“Ah...”
This was the Shinyongsan Crew’s base, Shinyongsan Artisan Street.
Even if not the first to respond to a Gate Rampage, the ones who had to respond the most were indeed the Shinyongsan Crew.
“...But are there no other Keepers?”
I had thought I’d meet more Keepers than this at the rampage site.
This was a place where crafting Keepers gathered, and the place with the highest floating population of Keepers anywhere in Korea, most likely.
And yet only about eight Keepers had gathered for the rampage.
Even one of them was the unregistered Keira.
“...Everyone must be protecting the citizens at their own posts. Many crafting Keepers don’t have combat abilities either.”
“I see.”
I thought I knew what he wasn’t saying.
Everyone had probably run off looking for their own survival.
It might be unavoidable.
Everyone has their circumstances, and Keepers are people too.
I could understand the Association secretly dealing with Park Changsik or the scroll terrorist.
Keepers were already tarnishing their own image on their own; if something like that got out, public opinion might turn overnight.
Public opinion was always like that. It seemed good, then flipped like a palm and sent you to hell.
Especially since there were still many who remembered the Dark Age.
I spent my childhood after the Dark Age so I only had good memories of Keepers, but it wasn’t as old a story as one might think.
“Team leader! We’ve dealt with the orcs and returned. No casualties on this side either.”
The two Keepers who had gone to the eastern passage returned.
Judging by the blue blood all over their bodies, there had been combat.
“Good. Then we wait here until the rampage stops. Uh, you...”
“Ah, I’m Lee Jungmin, and this is...”
I hesitated for a moment, not knowing how to introduce Keira, when Keira, who had been silently looking at the rampaging Gate, spoke first.
“This is not a Gate Rampage.”
“...What?”
The Shinyongsan Crew leader asked in surprise.
“I have seen a Gate Rampage before. Sparks of this degree are not it.”
“Wouldn’t that differ from Gate to Gate?”
Compared to Keira’s confident voice, the leader’s counter had no strength.
This seemed to be the leader’s first Gate Rampage.
In fact, most Keepers would be like that.
Rampages happen with rare probability.
“More than anything, there are no corpses around. No red blood is visible either.”
“Ah...”
The leader made a sound of realization.
“...Then this is...”
“I suspect terrorism. This is the work of a Keeper. If so, the target is probably...”
Keira turned her head to one side.
Only after she spoke did I realize what was over there.
“Ttanttani.”
It felt like Ttanttani Mjolnir was smacking the back of my head.