17
17 - Next Gate
I slowly began preparing for the next Gate. Based on the usual cycle, it should open within the next 5 days or so.
I sharpened the blades of my weapons, oiled them, and cleaned them thoroughly.
I had a white gem sword, standard iron sword and staff, bow set, about 20 white arrows, and Shadow's fang dagger. This level of armament wasn't bad at all.
On top of this, I packed plenty of food and water, and put 3 boxes of nutritionally balanced block food in various flavors into my inventory.
"I became a Hunter because I didn't want to eat this stuff, but I end up having to force it down anyway."
Jin-woo chuckled at the ironic situation.
I wanted to enter Gates to eat greasy meat and fresh vegetables, but in the end, inside the Gates, I had to supplement most of my nutrition with block food.
I did pack some dried meat and fruits, but nothing beats blocks for quickly consuming large amounts of nutrition in a short time. Plus, no cooking required.
"Camping gear is good enough like this. I've packed spare clothes and emergency supplies too. I also have the potion basket I received from Shartia."
On top of that, I carefully packed the flower amulet I received as a gift. If I encountered a dangerous situation, it would be like having a spare life to save me.
After checking all his preparations, Jin-woo began conditioning himself.
He refined his physical and mental state and appropriately raised his tension. The key was maintaining a balance that was neither too loose nor too taut.
Gate exploration was mostly a long-term battle. If you rapidly consume concentration in a short period, fatigue would accumulate quickly.
After spending several days adjusting his mind and body, Jin-woo waited for the Gate to open.
'Will I become E-rank after this trip?'
The promotion conditions for E-rank included entering Gates twice and surviving. There was also a condition to bring back a certain amount of magic stones, but that was already fulfilled by catching the black bear on the first attempt.
Just by going and returning this time, I would be promoted to E-rank.
Of course, I had no intention of just going and coming back. This time too, I planned to obtain many prey and ingredients, as well as mine some magic stones.
"They said magic items like flower amulets are magic stone-eating hippos."
Magic items were commonly called tools with abilities. Tools that displayed special abilities, like the awakened abilities that Hunters possess.
Such tools were known to consume considerable amounts of magic stones.
The flower amulet that Shartia made was also one of those magic items, so I needed to prepare spare magic stones for emergencies.
This time, let's focus on finding monsters rather than ordinary beasts.
Having set this goal, Jin-woo continued his conditioning.
After completing all preparations, all that remained was for the Gate to open and depart. That's when a visitor came to his house.
"Mister Kang! Are you Hunter Kang Jin-woo?"
The person who came speaking slightly awkward Korean was a foreigner I'd never seen before.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Bruce Door. Please call me Bruce."
"Ah, yes, Bruce. So who are you exactly?"
"Oh, my apologies. I'm someone from this kind of place."
The brown-haired Westerner who introduced himself as Bruce handed over a business card.
It was a business card from the New York Hunter Management Bureau with the word ‘Head Hunter’ written on it.
'From New York?'
Jin-woo's eyes narrowed suspiciously. There was a story he'd heard from Shartia before, so he couldn't help but be suspicious.
Regardless of Jin-woo's lukewarm reaction, Bruce spoke with large gestures and expressions.
"I came to scout you. I'd like to discuss this in detail - may I come inside?"
"Can't we do it here?"
"Excuse me? Standing here?"
"Yes."
"Oh, you're quite cautious. That's a natural quality for a Hunter. Excellent."
It was quite rude to leave a guest standing outside without inviting them in, but Bruce acted as if it didn't matter at all.
Since he was in the position of having to recruit Jin-woo, he wouldn't express displeasure even if he felt it.
"I heard you have the ability to find Erosion cores. Also, that you saw through Shadow's stealth and defeated it in one strike. The New York Hunter Management Bureau regards that incident very highly."
"Is that such a great feat?"
"Cases where Erosion cores can't be scanned are rare special instances. However, precisely because of that, it's an unknown field that hasn't been researched. Whenever such disasters appear, we have no choice but to push through with simple brute force and numbers."
But if Jin-woo were there, there would be a clear landmark. Without the mass offensive of searching the entire Erosion area, they could deploy only appropriate personnel to destroy the core.
Not only would this save human resources, but the time to destroy the core would be much faster as well.
"With you, we could fill the gaps in disaster response. For a safer and more livable New York! I hope you'll be part of that future."
"I'm from Seoul, so I'm not interested in what happens to New York. I've never even been there."
"Don't worry. I've brought solid conditions. These are the highest level conditions except for what we offer current S-rank Hunters. We're even considering your eventual growth into an S-rank Explorer."
Bruce pulled out a bundle of documents and began explaining something complicated.
Providing a house somewhere in New York, an eye-catching luxury sports car, designer suits, and a huge signing bonus on top of the basics. There was even mention of unlimited lending of magic items owned by the Management Bureau.
Looking at each item, they were truly attractive conditions, but Jin-woo just held his forehead as if he had a headache.
Now wasn't the time to discuss such complicated contracts.
"I'm sorry, but let's talk about this later. It's almost time for a Gate to open, so this isn't the time for contract discussions."
"Ah! My apologies. For someone from the Hunter Management Bureau to not even know when the Gates open! I'm truly sorry."
"That can happen. Anyway, I can't give you an answer right now, so let's meet again next time."
"Understood. I have other business anyway and plan to stay in Seoul for a while, so I'll visit again later."
Bruce withdrew surprisingly cleanly. Usually, wasn't this kind of solicitation more persistent?
Though the only solicitations I'd received were from newspapers and cults, so I wasn't sure if that was a fair comparison.
Tilting his head in confusion, Jin-woo went into his house, leaving only Bruce in front of the closed front door.
Bruce, who had turned as if to leave, didn't actually depart but slowly moved along the wall of Jin-woo's house.
There was no way someone from the Hunter Management Bureau would have come without knowing when the Gate would open. He had deliberately come during this hectic time.
'This should be good enough.'
Crouched in a corner of the wall where he couldn't be easily seen, he rubbed his lips several times with his thumb and index finger. Then he touched the ground.
Ssssk, sss sss ssk.
Small beings spread out widely and began to gather.
A rat that had been eating some rotten corpse somewhere, earthworms and ants that had been digging in the ground, and grass insects that had been clinging to the leaves of small flowers.
Magi flowing from Bruce's fingers seeped into them. A technique for creating temporary familiars.
Familiars are commonly referred to as beings that share senses with the caster to relay information.
The information obtainable from such small insects was limited, but in return, they were that much more secretive and unlikely to be discovered.
'I can't see, but I can hear.'
Even insect familiars could transmit vibrations in the air. And Bruce had the means to interpret those vibrations and intercept sounds.
In other words, he was installing living wiretapping devices around this house.
'They said Shartia visits this man's house quite frequently.'
Jin-woo was also one of the targets, but the more important target was Shartia.
The highest priority among the missions Bruce was dispatched to Seoul for was to understand Shartia's behavior patterns and movement routes. Planting familiars in Jin-woo's house was the first step.
'Hmph, an S-rank Hunter betraying her homeland because she's infatuated with a man... She deserves punishment.'
The files only mentioned him as a man she was friendly with, but in Bruce's opinion, they were definitely lovers. After all, if they weren't in that kind of relationship, there would be no reason to visit a man living alone multiple times.
'All done.'
The man finished his work and stood up. His business at this house was now over, and next was investigating the office-tel in the city that Shartia had received from Mayor Ma Du-sik.
When he turned around to leave, he froze stiff in place.
A deeply cast shadow. He had just thought it was the shadow of the wall, but it wasn't. Behind him was something resembling a carnivorous plant with its mouth wide open.
With those devil's mouth-like petals spread wide.
"Mmph...!"
Before he could even scream, he was swallowed whole. The man must have resisted as the plant shook several times, but that stopped shortly after.
He had fallen asleep as the sleeping powder spread inside the plant, sapping all strength from his body.
The plant that had quietly subdued the man slowly went underground, hiding its form, leaving only a small flower behind.
The finger-sized flower swaying in the wind couldn't have looked more harmless.
Some time later, at an abandoned building outside the city.
A plant grew on the first floor of the broken building and spat the man out with a ptoo.
"Ugh, uhhh..."
The man barely regained consciousness with his body covered in mucus. He tried to support himself by putting his hands on the ground to get up, but slipped once due to the mucus and fell.
The shock from that impact fully awakened the man, who jumped up and looked around.
There wasn't much to see around - he immediately spotted Shartia right in front of him with an ice-cold expression.
"Sh, Shartia..."
"Who are you? Did you come from New York?"
He wanted to shake his head, but seeing Shartia's expression, he couldn't. If he told a clumsy lie, there was no telling what would happen to him.
"Y-yes. I'm a Head Hunter who came to scout Hunter Kang Jin-woo."
"Hmm."
Shartia examined the man's complexion and heartbeat as if savoring them. Then she asked.
"You came to scout, but why did you plant familiars? What were you trying to wiretap?"
"Th-that was..."
He was at a loss for words. Since he had done bad things for bad purposes, there was nothing he could say.
Shartia smirked as if she knew everything.
"You made one scouting offer and were planning to do something if he refused, weren't you?"
This was something he felt he had to deny, even if it was a lie. He opened his mouth to say "No!"
However, this place was filled with purple powder-like substances like a thin fog. Having inhaled the powder through the mucous membranes in his nose, Bruce answered honestly in a daze.
"Yes. And it was also to obtain information about you."
Shartia's eyes narrowed.
"Spill everything about what orders you received and what level they came from."
So there was a brief encounter in the abandoned building, and that day a foreign man with memory loss was admitted to a hospital in Seoul.
***
The Gate opened.
Jin-woo, who had been waiting only for this day, immediately entered.
[ 1st Realm: Primordial Forest ]
[ Find the Blue Portal. If you want to return. ]
Expecting a blue forest and sky, Jin-woo came to his senses but was startled because he couldn't see anything.
It was darker than a forest at night - he truly couldn't see even an inch ahead. Wondering what the situation was, he felt around the floor and walls and felt the texture of rough rock walls.
'An underground cave?'
It seemed he had fallen into a cave somewhere in the Primordial Forest.
Fortunately, there were no particularly dangerous creatures in the surrounding area. He could only sense flames like insects living on the cave floor or bats.
He took out a light from his inventory and turned it on. Relying on the bright light, he examined the inside of the cave.
The walls reflecting light sparkled like looking at a night sky full of stars.
'I heard mining rare minerals or gemstone ores is quite profitable.'
Such things were said to be quite lucrative because the supply was very limited compared to demand.
However, Jin-woo lacked the knowledge for this. Distinguishing minerals, finding veins, and mining weren't things that could be done with just basic knowledge.
Especially since most of Jin-woo's interest was in ingredients and he also had the task of hunting monsters to grow flames, he didn't have time to devote to mineral knowledge.
'Let's escape first.'
There was nothing to gain in this kind of cave. Even if he found monsters, it would be much more efficient to do so outside.
Had about 2 hours passed? Jin-woo, who had been wandering through passages while shining his light, clicked his tongue anxiously.
'Which way should I go to escape?'
I wanted to get out but couldn't figure out the way out. Even when I tried to find places where wind leaked in, there were no such places anywhere.
Just how deep a cave had I entered? If I couldn't reach the surface or find the Blue Portal, would I have to live trapped here forever?
If unlucky, I might be trapped in the cave for one or two years continuously. I had brought enough food and water, but not enough to last 1-2 years.
In the first place, if I stayed buried in a cave for that long, my mind would go strange first.
Then, his presence detection caught a different flame somewhere. A completely different flame, not bats or insects or such.
That flame bloomed like hard crystal, standing upright in its own core.
He was uneasy about this unfamiliar form of flame, but he wanted to find something in this cave.
With that thought, he approached and found...
'A Dwarf?'
There was a different race he'd never seen before.
Short height with short arms and legs. His bushy brown beard was thick enough to use as a blanket, and he wore something like a gray safety helmet on his head.
And in his hands was a sharp pickaxe.
"!"
The Dwarf, who had been in the middle of swinging his pickaxe when he noticed him, widened his eyes. Jin-woo recalled what he'd heard from the civil servant during his first Gate.
—If you encounter a Dwarf, put minerals on the ground and slowly back away!
Remembering those words, Jin-woo took out the mineral he'd received then from his inventory.
He didn't know what kind of mineral it was called, but it should be something the Dwarf would find interesting.
As he slowly bent his waist to put it down while watching the creature...
He discovered that the Dwarf was also backing away with his waist and hips while putting something down on the ground.
Looking to see what it was, it was gold coins.
'Don't tell me, you too?'
The Dwarf also looked at his actions and widened his eyes. Realizing they were both doing the same thing, they looked at each other as if finding it absurd.