The meeting, after the woman called Baegyeon left, wrapped up before long.
“Then for now, we’ll continue surveillance of the dragon ‘Nidhogg,’ but at the same time approach him in a friendly manner. And since the gate that underwent a change shows no signs of a gate break occurring, we’ll separately organize an expedition party as soon as possible.”
“Sounds good.”
“Let’s do that.”
Just as their opinions had been unified and the meeting was about to conclude, one person raised a hand and asked the branch chief.
“What will you do about Guild Master Baegyeon of the Seongcheon Guild? No matter how friendly we try to be, considering her actions…”
“I’ll meet with her separately and talk to her.”
“Understood.”
Once the meeting was completely over, I withdrew my gaze from the conference room I had been watching.
When I shifted my gaze forward, an overly spacious VIP room for one person came into view.
Seeing that I had withdrawn my gaze and returned, Sin Sua asked,
“How did it go?”
“They’ll keep watch, but they say they’ll approach with a friendly stance.”
“Whew… It went according to plan.”
“It did. Do you happen to know about the Seongcheon Guild?”
“Seongcheon, you mean?”
“Yeah. Their guild master seemed to go beyond hostility toward us and into outright hatred.”
“That’s only natural.”
“Explain in detail.”
Sin Sua sat beside me and explained the Seongcheon Guild in detail.
The Seongcheon Guild.
Originally, it had been nothing more than an ordinary small-to-mid-sized guild, but she said it had been completely transformed after the current guild master lost her parents in a gate break three years ago.
Among the guilds in South Korea, it was currently the most aggressive in hunting monsters, and most of its executives were said to be people who had lost loved ones to monsters.
“Then couldn’t the future where I burn the world have something to do with them?”
“There’s no way.”
“Why?”
“Because the Seongcheon Guild will disappear within the next two years.”
According to the explanation that followed, it was good that they had grown by using hatred and rage toward monsters as their driving force, but because of that, the Seongcheon Guild would ultimately burn even itself away.
Two years from now, among the new gates that appeared, there would be an SS-rank gate, and the executives of the Seongcheon Guild, having grown all this time, would mostly participate in the first expedition party to that SS-rank gate.
But that would be an arrogant choice. As a result, most of the Seongcheon Guild’s executives would either die or return with disabilities severe enough to make it impossible for them to continue as Awakened, bringing the Seongcheon Guild’s short and intense history to an end.
At Sin Sua’s calm statement that this was their future, the interest I’d felt at the thought that I might have obtained a clue as soon as I arrived died away instantly.
Instead, hunger filled its place.
Grrrrr—
“Are you hungry?”
“It seems this body has worse fuel efficiency than I expected.”
In the past, I’d almost never had a reason to use an avatar, and since I’d only tried it a few times and then stopped, I hadn’t known. But it seemed that in order to maintain an avatar, it had to replenish energy on its own in addition to the power I supplied.
Thinking it really wasn’t that great of an ability, I looked at Sin Sua, and she nodded before bringing over a booklet.
“You can order whatever food you want from here.”
“Ooh…”
Earth food, which I hadn’t seen in ages.
Seeing so many different foods listed with pictures made my mouth water.
I quickly read through the booklet and decided what to order.
“Let’s start with chicken today.”
“Yes. How much should I order?”
“Three fried, three soy sauce, three seasoned, and three green onion chicken.”
“Isn’t that too much for two people?”
“What are you talking about? What I just listed is what I’m going to eat. Add whatever you want to eat separately.”
It was only about twelve chickens.
Compared to the amount my main body ate, it wasn’t even a drop in the bucket—no, it wouldn’t even count as a snack.
Sin Sua was shocked by my appetite, but soon nodded and ordered the food.
The Association employee who took the order returned with the finished food in less than thirty minutes.
Fried, seasoned, soy sauce, and green onion chicken.
Once the perfectly fried chicken was set out, I picked up one piece and put it in my mouth.
Crunch. Crunch, crunch!
The taste of chicken after so long was nothing short of blissful.
It wasn’t that the Yggdrasil roots I usually ate tasted bad, but those only tasted like fruit and didn’t have a flavor like this.
After chewing and swallowing the chicken without leaving even a fragment of bone, one piece only whetted my appetite, so I began stuffing five or six pieces into my mouth at a time.
It took only an instant to empty the twelve chickens that were my share.
And I also realized that a mere twelve chickens were nowhere near enough to fill me up.
“Next, let’s do pizza.”
“Are you still hungry?”
“If I eat about twice as much as this, I think I’ll be reasonably full.”
“…I’ll order right away.”
That day, only after eating five pizzas, three large servings of jokbal, and fifteen waffles did I finally finish my meal.
***
Three days had passed since we began staying at the Association.
During that time, aside from talking with the branch chief, all Sin Sua and I had done was eat and sleep.
Even so, if you asked why we were staying here, it was because Branch Chief Gu Dohan had requested it.
His request was simple.
He wanted me to join the expedition party investigating the unmeasurable-rank gate I had come out of.
In the process, there had been an incident where the branch chief was horrified to learn that my main body was still inside the gate, but that wasn’t something I cared about.
“Th-then, that place could be called a kind of lair for Lord Nidhogg. Would it be all right for us to investigate it?”
“I don’t care what you do, as long as you don’t irritate me near where I am.”
“Yes, we will be careful not to get on Lord Nidhogg’s nerves.”
Two days after that conversation, word finally came that the gate expedition party was fully prepared, so we finished our preparations and joined them.
The expedition party we joined was composed solely of high-ranking Awakened, to the point that I could see several people I had seen in the conference room that day.
And among them was also the woman called Baegyeon, who had stormed out.
“That’s Guild Master Baegyeon.”
“Yeah. She’s about the only person openly hostile to us.”
In her gaze, which briefly met mine in passing, there was hatred she could not quite conceal.
Still, perhaps because the Association chairman had said something to her, she did not do anything beyond that.
Since there was no one else in particular to pay attention to, I waited quietly until the branch chief went up onto the platform.
“Thank you all for gathering. The gate we will be investigating today is, for now, an unmeasurable-rank gate we have tentatively named the ‘Dragon’s Nest.’ It is the gate from which the dragon over there emerged, and it is also where his main body is located.”
At the branch chief’s explanation, the other Awakened, who had known nothing about my main body, reacted with shock.
‘That wasn’t his main body?’
‘Then how strong is the main body?’
‘We need to build a more friendly relationship…’
Clap!
“Now, now. Calm down. We are entering the gate with his permission, so there is no need to be so tense. However, even if we have received permission, I assume you know that does not mean you may cause trouble inside the gate. I ask that you investigate the inside of the gate while avoiding his vicinity as much as possible.”
“When you say his vicinity, how far are you talking about?”
“That will be explained by Miss Sin Sua and the dragon, who will be entering the gate with you.”
Everyone’s gazes focused on us, and we answered by nodding.
With that, the explanation ended, and the thirty-member expedition party completed its departure preparations by checking their equipment.
Led by the Association agent serving as the expedition party’s leader, we entered the gate.
“Enter the gate in order!”
When we passed through the crack-like gate and entered, a desolate environment greeted everyone.
A dried-up forest, drifting snowflakes, and undead that began to swarm after detecting the life force of living humans.
Various kinds of undead rushed toward the expedition party, but the party, composed of high-ranking Awakened, dealt with the undead monsters easily without even needing rear support.
In particular, the sight of Baegyeon standing at the front and beating down monsters nonstop with her spear was the highlight.
“She really is the Ghost Spear.”
“Ghost Spear?”
“It’s Baegyeon’s nickname, because she handles a spear like a ghost.”
Did she have a nickname like that?
Certainly, for a human, her skill with a spear was far from ordinary.
It even made me faintly think of the Valkyries, warriors of the gods I had seen in my previous world.
“Or not? Is she closer to a berserker?”
“Pardon?”
“It’s nothing.”
Her appearance certainly didn’t lose out to a Valkyrie’s, but if you only looked at the way she fought, she was closer to those berserker bastards.
She looked like a Valkyrie, but fought like a berserker.
What kind of hybrid was this?
Perhaps because I had stared too long, Baegyeon noticed my gaze, and our eyes met.
The instant our eyes met, she scowled deeply and turned her head away.
“If that’s how she is even after being warned, that tells us enough.”
“Well, as long as she doesn’t touch us first, I don’t care how she acts. Let’s ignore her too.”
While I was talking with Sin Sua, the expedition party finished dealing with all the monsters, and once things were cleared up, we took the lead and guided the party deeper into the gate.
How long had we walked like that?
After encountering and dealing with monster groups several more times, then walking again and again, the expedition party arrived at the point where the twisted forest ended.
And the moment the plains beyond the forest came into view, the expedition party had no choice but to stare ahead in silence.
The place where the expedition members’ gazes were headed.
At the end of it stood my main body, larger than a mountain range.