I nodded in an extremely obedient, sociable tone.
“I’ll keep that in mind, Hunter. I’ll make sure to take care of the luggage, so please focus solely on hunting the monsters.”
“You’ve got a way with words. Let’s go in!”
At Choi Taeho’s signal, our party stepped into the swirling vortex of the deep-blue gate.
With a ringing buzz, my vision flipped, and the acrid smell of sulfur stabbed at my nose.
The inside of the gate was a rugged rocky canyon, as if a chunk had been torn straight from the depths of the Armand Mountains of Felua.
“Golem pack spotted up ahead! Their energy shields are up! Mage, hit them first and tear down the shields!”
The battle began immediately.
The hunters’ method of fighting was quite systematic.
The hunter who used fire magic launched a fireball first, striking the translucent energy shields enveloping the golems.
With a crackling sound, the shields distorted slightly, and Choi Taeho charged in with a blue aura wrapped around his greatsword, tearing through the gap in the shield and slicing off a golem’s head.
“Whew. These shields are getting tougher by the day. Hey, porter! Get over here and dig out the magic stones!”
Once three golems had fallen, Choi Taeho jerked his chin at me while breathing heavily.
I took out the specialized equipment and approached the golem’s corpse.
When I cut into the area near its solar plexus, a red magic stone about the size of a ping-pong ball revealed itself.
This was the new energy source of modern industry, and the hunters’ main source of income.
But as I put the magic stone into my backpack, my gaze was fixed not on the golem’s chest, but on the “gray outer shell” strewn across the ground.
Even while placing the red magic stone into my backpack, I couldn’t take my eyes off the golem’s gray outer shell lying on the ground.
‘Hmm. That outer shell beneath the mana shield has fairly excellent impact resistance in its own right. If processed later into armor plating or special heat-resistant material, it could fetch quite a bit of money.’
With a merchant’s eye and an engineer’s mind working at full speed, I was assessing the fallen monsters quite literally as walking sources of money.
The dungeon exploration went smoothly.
“Hup, hup-hup-ha.”
“What’s that? Kang Woojin, what are you doing?”
A fellow porter I had exchanged names with asked me.
I smiled and said,
“It’s a breathing method passed down in my family. Doing this stabilizes the mind and body and brings peace to the heart.”
“That’s unusual.”
Explaining it accurately and in detail would take too long.
But this was exactly the reason I had come in here.
The strike team of the Taesung Guild led by Choi Taeho were veterans in their own right, and we porters only had to trail after them safely, collecting magic stones and byproducts.
“All right, everyone stay sharp! This is the intersection before the boss room. From here on, mobs will come swarming out in groups, so maintain formation!”
At Choi Taeho’s shout, bizarre cries burst out from the dark cave inside the canyon.
Kieeeek!
Dozens of rock golems and agile-looking mutant monsters, cave wolves, poured out.
Brilliant magic and aura from the hunters flashed as a fierce melee unfolded at the front line.
“Porters, fall all the way back! If you get caught up in this, you’re dead!”
The three porters, including me, pressed ourselves against the rock wall at the edge of the canyon and held our breath.
But then.
Accidents always happen at the moment of greatest carelessness, from an unexpected blind spot.
Sssssk—
Tuduk.
From above my head, fine rock dust fell from the dark ceiling of the cliff face.
‘…Above?’
The moment an instinctive chill made me snap my head up.
Separate from the group fighting the hunters at the front line, three assassination-type mutants—shadow goblins, hanging upside down among the stalactites with red eyes gleaming—silently threw themselves at us porters.
“Danger!”
I shouted, but it was too late.
Kieeeek!
“Aaaaaaargh!”
A goblin’s sharp claws dug into the shoulder of the porter beside me, and blood sprayed like a fountain.
Choi Taeho, who had been fighting at the front, turned his head in shock.
“Fuck! There was an ambush on the ceiling?! Support the rear!”
But the hunters were already tied down by the pack of rock golems and couldn’t pull back their formation right away.
To make matters worse, a guard in the rear, a former soldier, urgently pulled the trigger of his rifle.
Tat-tat-tat-tang!
The 5.56mm armor-piercing rounds spat fire at the goblin, but they struck the translucent energy shield surrounding its body and bounced off uselessly with a crackling burst.
“Damn it! Fire control isn’t working! The shield durability is too high! The best we can do is slow them down!”
Gunfire could only briefly slow a monster’s charge; it couldn’t tear through that damned energy shield and inflict a fatal blow.
The rule of this world was that only the special abilities of awakened hunters could penetrate those shields.
“Save me, please save me!”
One of the shadow goblins, having deflected the bullets, bared its repulsive fangs and flew toward the nape of my neck, swinging a chilling dagger.
There was nowhere to run.
In that instant, as if time had slowed.
I did not panic.
Rather, I smiled coldly inside.
‘At last, a chance to test the value of my product in actual combat.’
In truth, after returning to Earth and thinking of ways to make money, a memory from the past had surfaced deep in my mind when I watched videos of hunters in battle.
A means of self-defense that my father, Theodore Carnoble, had forcibly crammed into me by inviting the greatest knights of the era, saying he would use the vast wealth of the merchant company to protect his one and only son.
The Carnoble Family Secret Art—Intermediate Aura Cultivation Method.
Back when I was in Felua, I had no talent for swordsmanship.
I wasn’t an unparalleled fool, but compared to a genius, I was merely an ordinary man who fell far short.
My sense for feeling mana and handling energy itself was dull, so the knights had shaken their heads and said, “Young Master, gold coins suit your hands better than swords.”
But after learning that hunters’ special abilities were the only means of penetrating monsters’ energy shields.
On the off chance it might work, I had quietly circulated the aura cultivation method again in my studio apartment.
The result was shocking.
‘Earth had no damn mana at all.’
But what about inside a gate?
That was why I had come in like this.
And the result that came out was astonishing.
The mana flowing inside the gate was completely different from Felua in both nature and density.
It was so flexible that even a talentless bastard like me could break through with ease.
‘Draw the aura up from the heart and release it through the tip of the blade.’
Ssssss—
Over the crude magic-stone mining dagger in my hand, a faint blue haze I had honed over the past few days settled without wavering.
The moment the goblin threw itself through the air toward my throat.
I read its trajectory down to a tenth of a second, twisted my body slightly, and let its attack flow past me.
Then I thrust the mining dagger, wreathed in blue light, straight and clean into its chest.
Paaaaat!
Like slicing through butter with a hot knife.
The goblin’s energy shield, which had even deflected bullets, was torn through far too easily by the weak aura gathered at the tip of my dagger.
Puk!
“Ki, kieeeek…!”
The dagger pierced through the shield and accurately skewered the goblin’s heart.
The monster vomited black blood and collapsed at my feet.
“……”
Silence.
A suffocating silence settled over the rear.
The porters who had been screaming until just now, the guard who had been firing his gun, and even Choi Taeho, who had finished dealing with the mobs at the front and was belatedly rushing over, all froze in place.
Choi Taeho’s eyes widened as if they were about to pop out.
“You… What did you just do?”
“……”
“With that dagger just now, you, who aren’t even an awakened one, pierced the shield?! That shield that even bullets bounce off?!”
Shocked gazes stabbed into me all at once.
According to common sense on this Earth, it was physically impossible for an ordinary, non-awakened person to tear through a shield and kill a monster.
The danger circuit in my head immediately sensed the threat and began spinning furiously.
‘If I say I used martial arts from another world here, intelligence agencies and major guilds around the globe will come after me to use me as a lab rat.’
Until one has the strength to protect a treasure, one must not reveal that treasure to the world.
I quickly steadied my breathing, wiped the cold sweat on my forehead with my sleeve, and entered perfect acting mode, pretending to be as wronged and shocked as possible.
“Haa, haa… I-I don’t know! The goblin came at me, and I didn’t want to die, so I closed my eyes and swung the knife… Then suddenly something hot surged up from inside my body, and the blade started glowing!”
Those words were something I had copied exactly after reading accounts from various awakened people in the news.
“Something hot surged up and it glowed?”
Yes, go ahead and improve my excuse for me.
“P-postnatal awakening! The absurdly low-probability phenomenon where a mana circuit is forcibly opened in a life-or-death crisis! You, you little… You awakened!”
“Me? I’m an awakened one?”
I widened my eyes and put on the act of an innocent college student.
Then Choi Taeho’s formerly rough attitude changed a full one-eighty.
He grabbed my bloodstained hand and whispered in an extremely friendly, sticky voice.
“Hahaha! I knew it! Your eyes looked unusual from the start. You said your name was Kang Woojin, right? How old are you? A college student?”
“Yes, I attend Hanguk University.”
“Kheu, a hunter from a prestigious university. The guild will welcome you with open arms.”
Choi Taeho took a gold-embellished business card from his pocket and pressed it firmly into my hand.
“Woojin. Once we get outside, go to the Awakened Registration Center first. If you’re judged at least C-rank or higher, don’t go anywhere else and contact our Taesung Guild no matter what. I’ll make sure you get the best treatment in the industry, all right? Contact me first, no matter what!”
A man who had treated porters as expendable was now feverishly trying to scout a promising rookie hunter.
“Yes… I understand. Thank you.”
I accepted the business card and quietly nodded.
The rest of the exploration ended in no time.
The strike team members treated me with utmost respect, calling me “prospective Hunter,” and I was able to safely finish my first dungeon part-time job, comfortably collecting magic stones from the rear.
After leaving the dungeon, I checked the generous daily wage and bonus settlement of 2.5 million won that had been deposited, then slumped onto a deserted bench outside the gate control zone.
“Whew.”
I took the mining dagger out of my pocket.
After confirming that no one was around, I slowly recited the Carnoble Family’s intermediate aura cultivation method in my mind once more.
Ssssss—
Much faster and clearer than before, blue sword aura gathered over the dagger.
Compared to when I trained in Felua, the flow of mana was far smoother and easier to control.
“It works. It works perfectly.”
I lightly drew the dagger across a thick steel pipe lying beside the bench.
Slice.
Without even a sound, the steel pipe was cut in two and rolled to the ground.
An aura training method that allowed an ordinary person to tear through a monster’s shield.
I had confirmed with my own eyes that a commonplace intermediate martial art from another world was, on this Earth, a nuclear-level secret capable of overturning humanity’s entire anti-gate tactics.
Moreover, since the growth rate was fast, I could become a high-ranking hunter like this, eliminate monsters, and display overwhelming might.
I could show off how special I was.
“But.”
I withdrew the aura from the dagger, my gaze turning cold.
“Why should I personally sweat and spill blood cutting off monsters’ heads?”
I am a merchant.
Elpanso Carnoble.
Rolling around on the front lines myself is something only stupid mercenaries do.
The ones who make the real money are those who sell weapons on the battlefield and monopolize the rules.