Preparations for the Yellow Battlefield
"Welcome back."
"It's been a while, Secretary."
I said to the secretary who greeted me. It was the first time I'd seen her since receiving the elixir last time.
"It has been."
The secretary replied to my greeting in a flat, bored tone, then turned on her heel and headed for the elevator.
I was dumbfounded, but I followed her anyway.
"I haven't forgotten what you threw at me in the chairman's office last time."
"Oh my, I can't believe you still remember that. How petty of you."
Her tone of voice was so infuriating. I wanted to throw a punch right then and there, but I held myself back.
Hit an unawakened civilian and it'd be off to jail for me.
"If you do that again, I won't hold back."
"Oh? And what's stopping you right now?"
She irritated me in a strange way. It wasn't a situation that called for it, but hearing that voice say those words just got under my skin.
"We're here."
The elevator stopped, the doors slid open, and a massive room unfolded before us. The fact that an entire floor was used as a single office told me everything about the scale of Geumgang Guild.
"Ah, there you are."
Guildmaster Han Min-joon came down from the upper level just then, yawning as if he'd just woken up.
"Sorry about that. I had quite a lot to deal with yesterday that ran late."
"Not at all."
"Don't just stand there. Have a seat."
At his words, I sat down on the sofa in front of me. The chairman asked me to wait a moment and went to change out of his loungewear.
"Now then, let's talk business."
"Guildmaster, here are the documents."
Watching her, she really was every inch the professional secretary. It was her treatment of me that left something to be desired.
"First, this is information on the gate we'll be raiding this time."
I flipped through the documents and checked the gate's details. The gate was called Battlefield of the Yellow Waste, and judging by the density of demonic energy I could sense, it was a lower-tier S-rank gate.
'Or so they all believe.'
This gate had made quite a name for itself even before my regression.
As the site of a mass slaughter.
Of all people, the one who first discovered this gate had been a demon. That demon had carefully concealed the gate's existence, then triggered a gate break.
The result: over a hundred thousand people dead.
'Looks like it was discovered safely this time around.'
That was a relief. But there was another problem.
The monsters that swarmed this gate — the Shuharim.
'Killing a Shuharim is going to take serious preparation.'
The Shuharim were monsters. A creature with the upper body of a human and the lower body of an elephant. They possessed almost no demonic energy, only transcendent physical strength.
Worse still, they were completely immune to any attack powered by demonic energy, meaning the only way to fight them was with pure physical force.
"It doesn't seem like an especially difficult gate, so that's exactly why I'm offering it to you."
"But I'm only A-rank."
"If you're only A-rank, then I'm F-rank."
With those words, Guildmaster Han Min-joon showed me his boundless faith.
Ever since the fight against Envy, he'd been like this. It was a lot of pressure, but having that kind of trust between us was nothing to complain about.
"So, is there anything you'd like as a reward?"
"Just let me enter the gate with you. That's enough."
"Really?"
The truth was, opportunities to enter an S-rank gate didn't come around often. No other gate offered experience as rich as an S-rank one.
"We'll be entering no earlier than three days from now."
"That's plenty of time."
"Good."
From the guild's perspective, having me join a gate raid without even taking a reward was nothing but a win.
"The ones entering this gate are our second-stringers. Could you keep an eye on them for me?"
"That much I can do, but…"
I let my words trail off. Honestly, I was anxious about the second-stringers going in.
Every gate that had produced Shuharim had failed to be closed. Instead, they'd waited out the gate break timer and then suppressed the monsters by overwhelming them with raw firepower.
'Even the first-string teams struggle to take down Shuharim.'
Unless Han Min-joon and his personal strike team moved in themselves, there was no hope — it was that kind of threat.
"Understood. I'll do it."
But I couldn't pass up this opportunity. If I let it slip away, there'd be no chance to grind for a level burst either.
Who knew? Maybe I could even hit level 199 this time around.
'I can't give up a chance like that.'
"Cheong-ah."
"Oppa!"
The moment I entered the Cheonji gate and called her name, the white gumiho came bounding over and leapt into my arms. Cheong-ah was the boss monster of the gate we'd gone to in Japan.
"Oppa! Why are you so late?!"
"Sorry."
"Contractor, what took you so long…?"
As Cheong-ah nuzzled her face into my chest, Cheongun came drifting toward me from a distance, slowly — with the face of a man aged a hundred years.
"You. What in the world happened to you?"
"I attained enlightenment in the greatness of parenthood…"
Hearing Cheongun speak words on the verge of transcendence, I could roughly piece together what had happened.
"You played with Cheong-ah and it turned you into this?"
"No matter what you may think, Contractor, I shall show you something far beyond it."
Cheongun was giving me a warning. Don't dismiss Cheong-ah as just a cute little girl — this child was a stamina monster.
Gulp.
'Just how much stamina does that kid have, that Cheongun ended up like this inside Cheonji?'
Just imagining myself in his position sent a chill down my spine. While she was nuzzling her face against me like this, she was every inch an adorable little creature. But underneath, this was a child who could drive even Cheongun to complete exhaustion.
'I'd better be careful when I play with her from now on.'
I swore to myself that I would not end up like Cheongun.
"Mister, your stamina is way too weak!"
"Ow, and yours is way too strong!"
And the moment I finished that thought, the two of them were at it — one complaining about lacking stamina, the other about having too much of it.
They'd started fighting.
'Just one of them alone is enough to drain me…'
Deep down, I was genuinely impressed by both of their stamina.
"By the way, oppa, why did you come?"
"Ah, I forgot to mention it."
I explained that I'd be joining this expedition, and told them about the monsters that would appear.
"Since neither of you is any good at physical attacks, I want you both to stand by at the gate."
"Okay!"
"Hmm…"
Cheong-ah agreed immediately, but Cheongun hesitated. Probably because he was anxious about having to endure Cheong-ah's torment for another week or so.
"Can I not fight in the gate either?"
"Hmm… I don't think so. The Shuharim nullify every attack that carries demonic energy."
That covered demonic power, mana, Taoist energy — every special stat there was. Even before my regression, I'd tried hunting Shuharim with mana, and it had been hopeless.
Skills were no different. For some reason, even skills that didn't use demonic energy were rendered equally useless in front of a Shuharim.
'With this weapon, though, I should manage somehow.'
I couldn't use the broken hilt anymore, but the black leopard dagger would be more than capable of doing its job. It was a Legendary-grade item, after all.
"Sorry, but you're on standby too, Cheongun. If anything happens I'll call you right away, so just wait here."
"…Very well."
Cheongun answered in a sulking voice. Seeing him like that, Cheong-ah spoke up.
"Mister, you'll play with me again, right?"
"Uh? Uh, yeah, sure!"
"Yay!"
With that one careless answer, Cheongun had just bought himself a ticket straight to hell. And the very person holding out the ticket was staring up at him with big, sparkling eyes.
Looking into those eyes, Cheongun couldn't bring himself to take it back.
'Good luck, buddy.'
'Contractor, do not speak so lightly of matters that are not yours to bear.'
Cheongun and I exchanged words through a single meeting of the eyes. Oblivious to all of it, Cheong-ah bounced around excitedly.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Smoke billowed from the building's chimney. Even just approaching the shop, I could feel the searing heat.
'How do craftsmen put up with this heat?'
Temperature changes like heat and cold were things that never stopped getting to you, no matter how high your level climbed.
I opened the door of Sunny's Workshop and stepped inside.
Whoosh—
The moment I entered, hot air washed over me.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Judging by the steady ringing of hammer blows, the old man was in the middle of work right now. Just then, a side door opened and someone came out.
"Oh, hi, Inha."
"Hello…"
Inha, as if she'd just woken up, rubbed her eyes and headed for the bathroom. Dolphin shorts and a white half-sleeve t-shirt.
'A feast for the eyes.'
Just as I was thinking that, a sudden crash-bang racket erupted from inside the bathroom.
"E-employer oppa?!"
"That's me, yeah."
Only now coming to her senses, Inha's face flushed bright red. I'd greeted her far too naturally, and she was in her comfortable loungewear. Plus, she hadn't done her makeup.
"………"
Her face burning crimson, Inha finally steam-whistled from the top of her head and scurried back into her room.
SLAM!
And on top of that, she shut the door with tremendous force.
From a girl's perspective, I could see how embarrassing it would be, but honestly, it made no difference to me. Comfortable clothes? If anything, it was a treat for the eyes. With a figure like Inha's…
'I should steer clear of jail time, though.'
I shook the delusion out of my head. It made me feel like I was, at the end of the day, just a helpless man. My body was a fifty-something uncle's, but I worried that my regression might have dragged my mental age down with it.
Bare-faced? Inha fell squarely in the beautiful category even without makeup. If anything, her before-and-after-makeup look barely differed at all.
'Well, if she's embarrassed, I should be understanding about it.'
Inha was still a high schooler. She was exactly at the age when this kind of thing would hit hardest.
"Oh, you're here?"
"I came to pick up what I commissioned."
"You only ever show up when you want something."
Master Seo Jincheol grumbled as he handed the item over.
"It's nothing fancy, but it should serve you just fine as a replacement for that dagger."
I swung the dagger I'd received this way and that. Light, with a slim blade — it was perfectly suited to replace the broken hilt.
"When you come back from the gate this time, bring me some materials too."
"Understood."
If Master Seo Jincheol would process the material items for me, I was more than happy to oblige. After giving the dagger a few more practice swings, I stowed it straight into my inventory.
"By the way, why hasn't that girl gotten up yet?"
Master Seo Jincheol said this, then walked over to the room Inha had gone into and knocked on the door.
"Inha, get up! That employer of yours you've been waiting for is here!"
"I-I know already!"
Inha hurriedly answered the old man's call, and he said nothing more, walking away from the door.
"Well then, I'll be off."
"You're leaving without seeing Inha's face?"
"I saw her just a moment ago. Even said hello."
With that, I gave the old man a bow and stepped out of Sunny's Workshop.
Weapons ready, potions purchased.
With this, my preparations for hunting the Shuharim were complete.