B-Rank Hunter Park Yurin
Yurin had persuaded her mother, Yura, to let her serve as a frontline combatant — still a Duty Hunter on paper, but one who fought at the vanguard.
Eight months of fighting later, nearly a year had passed since her return from the Demon Realm. Through accumulated combat experience her acceleration ability had sharpened further, and after a re-evaluation by the Association, Yurin had been promoted to a B-rank Hunter.
B-rank at twenty-one. By the numbers alone, that put her among the top one percent — an extraordinary achievement. Of course, there were those who awakened to truly exceptional powers in childhood and received an S-rank from the start, but those were genuine rarities. You could count them on one hand across the entire world.
And her rank was not the only thing that had changed.
Her mother, Yura, had launched a long-term expedition project to push beyond the gates into the other world. She had drawn hunters from every nation, secured government approval, and offered a single condition: all conquered land and resources on the far side would be distributed among the participating hunters.
Recruitment target: sixteen hundred. They had already filled roughly fourteen hundred spots.
Some might think sixteen hundred was a small number for an invasion of the other world — but of those assembled, eight hundred were A-rank Hunters. Half the force was high-rank. Even the non-combat support personnel had been selected at a minimum of B-rank. When Yurin herself had first entered the Demon Realm as a C-rank Awakened, contact with that world's air had wrecked her condition almost immediately; the minimum rank requirement had been set based on the advice she had given. It was the direct result of everything she had properly told them about the Demon Realm.
A thousand A-rank Hunters alone, fighting guerrilla-style, could reduce an entire nation to ash.
And her mother was not thinking only of this single expedition. The first wave was sixteen hundred. Even before the first expedition's roster was full, she was already recruiting a second wave to provide supply support for the first. Yurin could feel the desperation in it — the absolute resolve to find Seona, no matter what.
The people joining probably had no idea why her mother, Yura, was going this far.
The dawn air was always cold. Especially after Seona — who had always been at her side — was gone, a chill she had never noticed before settled into her body every single time.
Yurin would sometimes drive out to that highway, thinking of the wedding day when she and Seona had been dragged into the gate together. As if a gate might open there again and Seona might come back at any moment. As if she were waiting there to welcome him home.
The highway emptied out before dawn, and it was bitterly cold. She cranked the heater to maximum inside the car, but the cold refused to leave her.
There was no real purpose to these drives. On nights when longing for Seona grew sharp enough to summon the nightmares, she would mechanically get behind the wheel and head out into the dawn — just to remember the day they had been taken. The truth was, even she didn't fully understand why.
Maybe it was the guilt. In those hellish days, at the very end, Miel had shoved her out through the gate — and she had failed to bring Seona with her.
Tears blurred her vision again. She eased off the speed, thinking it was dangerous to drive like this — but she hadn't touched the brake, and still the car was slowing. Then it stopped completely.
Her eyes were fine. There was only one reason the world ahead had gone hazy.
The same phenomenon she had experienced on the day hell began. The same thing that had happened the day the succubus kidnapped her and Seona.
Fog. Forming before a gate opened.
Miel was at her wit's end.
She had fled the lord's castle with Seona in her arms, racing toward a place where a gate could open. Her sisters had discovered what she'd done faster than expected — not the sister whose throat she had slit, but two others, both of them hunting her down to execute her.
If she stopped now, both she and Seona were finished.
She had barely made it to a gate with Seona clutched against her, but the situation was grim. The two sisters were right behind her. Even if she opened the gate and fled, they would have more than enough time to follow. Still, running was the only option left.
In her desperation, Miel poured magic into the nearest gate and forced it open. The moment it fully formed, the two sisters closed in and shouted at her.
"You treasonous bitch who tried to assassinate our mother the lord — kneel. As your sisters, we'll kill you cleanly."
"I never liked you from the start, Miel. You mutant freak with wings smaller than any other succubus. You've finally lived up to being the shame of the family."
Miel knew perfectly well her wings were small. But it had never become a complex. It was one of the reasons her father — who had always cherished the weakest finger most of all — had lavished her with love as a child. She felt no need to waste a reply on either of them.
A standoff began. With the gate about to open, the two sisters had to choose: rush her, or try to shut the gate down. If they went for the gate, she could attack them or grab Seona and flee elsewhere. If they attacked her, she could dive through the gate with Seona in her arms. And if they split up — one for the gate, one for her — then if she killed one, she could send the other to the afterlife as well. Their caution showed they understood that.
The standoff favored her. The moment the gate opened, she could simply run. They didn't seem to have grasped that.
The instant the gate fully opened, Miel clutched Seona tight and plunged through — crossing over to Earth.
Perhaps she had been too frantic to think it through properly. Because two succubi were already chasing after them. With the gate's fog trapping them, Miel and that male were rats in a cage.
Yurin's first instinct, born of the trauma of being dragged through that gate, was to flee the fog. Then she changed her mind.
The same monsters emerging from the same kind of gate — and her own vastly improved skill. Combined, those two things kindled the hope she had always carried: that Seona might come out of a gate just like this one. And with it, the confidence that she could win even if Miel came at her now.
In the Demon Realm, an Awakened's power weakened while the demons grew stronger. On this side, it was the reverse — demons weakened, Awakened grew strong. She knew that intimately from the heavy, clinging air that had sapped her body in the Demon Realm, and from the way Miel's power had surged in contrast.
She drew the sword she kept inside the car and waited for whatever would come out of the gate, anticipation coiling tight in her chest.
Miel passed through the gate with Seona in her arms, eyes squeezed shut. By pure chance, the gate she had chosen was the same one used the day Seona and Yurin had been taken. It would deposit them in the exact same place — but Miel, choosing in blind panic, had no way of knowing that. She had no idea where she and Seona were about to emerge, or that someone would be standing before the gate with a drawn blade.
Once on Earth, her physical abilities would drop sharply — unlike usual — and protecting Seona might become difficult. But the same would be true of the sisters chasing her. If there was a hunter outside the gate, her only play was to pretend Seona was a hostage and call for help.
Holding that single thought, she stepped out of the gate and scanned her surroundings.
A place that looked strangely familiar. And standing in front of the gate she had just exited—
Seona's lover. The woman she had degraded in every way imaginable and used as a cleaning slave.
Yurin, sword drawn, staring at them with wide, stunned eyes.
The succubus sisters felt the air crush down on their bodies the moment they stepped outside the gate. It was the same sensation every time they campaigned on Earth, and the drop in their condition was genuinely unpleasant. Hauling spoils back from a place like this was one of the harder jobs — but the value of those spoils was so high they had come often enough.
This time was different. This wasn't a harvest. This was an order from their mother, and they had no choice. Without that command, they wouldn't have given this place a second glance after that bitch fled. But this time they had to obey. The punishment for failing their mother was too terrifying to risk.
The two succubi surveyed the area. Ahead of them stood Miel and the human male — and a woman with a sword, glaring at the pair with murderous intent.
Armed humans were almost always Awakened. They had learned that across many campaigns. On small expeditions they had faced anywhere from four to eight; on large ones, swarms of Awakened had come at them. The good news was that the hunter in front of them was alone. Individual abilities varied, but she didn't look particularly strong. At best, roughly their level.
If they each took one of the two, their numerical advantage would decide it. That much seemed certain.
Then a single sentence from Miel's mouth changed everything.
"Haah… long time no see, Yurin. How've you been?"
"Give me Seona!"
The Awakened charged at Miel like a madwoman, sword raised — and Miel extended her nails to their full length, bringing them to rest against the unconscious male's throat. The Awakened froze mid-stride.
"If you so much as touch a fingertip of him, I'll tear you to shreds and feed you to the dogs."
"That's not it. Look carefully."
With that, Miel pointed at Seona's neck with a nail, as if telling her to watch — then lightly drew the nail across her own throat.
And astonishingly, thin lines of blood opened on both Seona's neck and Miel's, welling red.
"What did you do to him?!"
"It's a trait of succubi who share pain with a partner marked by a Yin Crest. If something happens to me, it happens to Seona too."
In truth, the sharing was not absolute — her death would not kill her partner. But saying so would only make Yurin try to kill her, so Miel kept that detail to herself. Showing this much would be enough to stop Yurin from finishing her off.
Hearing those words, Yurin's mind reeled.