Episode 8
The National Hunters grew noisy.
The clash between Nam Gyuil and Han Gangsu.
Left?
Or right?
Nam Gyuil pointed at something with his finger.
“See those footprints over there?”
Everyone turned their heads and stared at the footprints stamped on the left path. They were pressed distinctly into the floor, thickly covered with dust.
Nam Gyuil continued speaking logically in a clear voice.
“Those are the footprints of Team 03, who got here first. As you all know, Team 03 was wiped out except for one survivor. And that survivor is unconscious too. The fast path is too dangerous.”
It was an argument with merit.
At that moment, Park Taesu cut in with a sly tone.
“Hey, hey, Nam Gyuil. Let’s just do what our ace wants, yeah? Gangsu has it all figured out, so don’t go picking a needless fight.”
Han Gangsu added his own remark.
“Staff Sergeant Nam Gyuil, you need not worry. No matter what monster appears, with me around, there will be no problem.”
He pointed at himself with his thumb, brimming with confidence.
“I am strong!”
Nam Gyuil was at a loss for words.
He even began to wonder whether Han Gangsu was in his right mind.
What could he even call this?
‘An excess of ego? He’s so full of himself.’
Since he was that confident, Nam Gyuil couldn’t even begin to guess what he should say.
“I’ll still choose the longer but safer path. There’s no need to deliberately take the path where Team 03 failed.”
Nam Gyuil did not bend his opinion until the end.
Park Taesu furrowed his brow.
“No, why are you being so stubborn? That’s not like you.”
“The lives of National Hunters are on the line. As Team 01’s captain, I have to think of my teammates’ safety too.”
“Oh please, this guy….”
A spark-filled war of nerves began between Park Taesu and Nam Gyuil.
Then, Han Gangsu abruptly wedged himself between them and threw out an interesting proposal.
“Then, shall we have a bet?”
Nam Gyuil glared at him, incredulous.
“A bet?”
“Each of us takes our desired path, and whoever defeats the boss monster faster wins.”
Han Gangsu’s proposal was absurd.
It was so absurd that even Lee Chanu, who had been watching, spoke up.
“What do you mean, a bet! Do you think a Gate is some kind of playground? You’re just a Private who doesn’t even know what a Gate really is….”
Then, instead of Han Gangsu, Park Taesu stepped up.
“And who are you to raise your voice in front of team captains? Quiet down.”
Park Taesu was prone to controversy, but since he was the captain of Team 05 after all, Lee Chanu could no longer say anything.
Nam Gyuil’s eyes flared wide.
“Don’t be rude to my teammate, Park Taesu!!”
“Goodness, I can’t say a word.”
Park Taesu acted slyly.
He placed his hand on his hip and jerked his chin at Nam Gyuil as if he were pathetic.
“So, are you going to bet or not?”
“…….”
Nam Gyuil fell silent.
Honestly, he was far from keen on it.
But in this situation, conducting an operation together with Team 05 was impossible.
“What happens if I win?”
When Nam Gyuil showed signs of accepting the bet, Han Gangsu smiled thinly and pointed with his index finger at the long sword on his back.
“I’ll give you the 500 million-won long sword I use. In exchange, if you lose, you simply have to follow my orders enthusiastically from now on.”
Han Gangsu didn’t like Nam Gyuil.
He thought of him as a weakling with no strength, running around like a fool.
Han Gangsu was a man whose pride in his own abilities was immense; he wasn’t satisfied unless he seized the initiative in any given moment.
He only felt at ease when things went his way, so of course he loved being the center of attention.
So when his opinion clashed with Nam Gyuil’s, he brazenly provoked him with a bet that the loser would follow his orders.
His insolence pierced the sky, and the members of Team 01 furrowed their brows.
Nam Gyuil nodded.
“Fine. But let me give you a piece of advice.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t act like a reckless young master inside a Gate.”
Nam Gyuil spoke into Han Gangsu’s ear, telling him to listen well.
“Wh-what….”
Before Han Gangsu could retort, Nam Gyuil led his team and headed for the right path.
Lee Chanu pouted.
“Han Gangsu, you punk! He’s so arrogant? And for the Team 05 captain to act like that!!”
“That’s what I’m saying. He shouldn’t act like that.”
Hong Sinu, who was beside him, chimed in.
Lee Chanu snorted loudly and pointed his finger into the air.
“Han Gangsu! Go ahead and show off all you want now. Our Team 01 has Hyung-nim Gyuil! He’ll definitely get his comeuppance.”
Hwang Ilsu empathized strongly with those words.
“Yeah, Chanu’s making sense for the first time in a while.”
Hong Sinu added a word too.
“That’s right. Our Staff Sergeant Nam Gyuil is far greater than Han Gangsu.”
As his colleagues praised him, Nam Gyuil waved his hands.
“Hey, hey, that’s enough. It’s not like I’m going to get a big head.”
Nam Gyuil said so and moved forward.
***
Team 01, which had entered the right path, walked for quite a long time.
Lee Chanu wiped the dripping sweat with his sleeve and threw a question at Nam Gyuil.
“But how much farther until the boss monster appears? It seems we’ve been walking for over an hour.”
“Who knows. I don’t know about that….”
Nam Gyuil stopped walking and drew the dagger at his waist.
“Right now, we’ve got to fight those guys.”
Snakes boasting long, slender bodies were visible up ahead.
Nam Gyuil discerned their identities.
‘Uraeus. The ones I saw in a book about monsters from the Akashic Records.’
Uraeus use neurotoxin to paralyze their prey.
It wasn’t powerful enough to kill, but the problem was that the entire body would be paralyzed for a long time.
Because while they couldn’t move, the snakes would constrict their throats and suffocate them.
The members of Team 01 raised their shields.
Slither.
Sweltering heat and tension intertwined, and sweat trickled down their faces.
Beads of sweat ran down their cheeks and fell to the floor.
“Shaaaack!!”
The Uraeus lunged at them.
Nam Gyuil gave an order.
“Form a defensive formation. Everyone gather in a circle and establish a circular formation!!”
Team 01 moved according to his orders.
They huddled in a circular shape and raised their shields. Their appearance was reminiscent of castle walls.
“Be careful not to get bitten by their fangs. Especially watch out for bites at your feet!”
Nam Gyuil gave instructions down to the minor details.
Teamwork was crucial for the circular formation.
If everyone did their part, they could win without any injuries, but if even the slightest gap formed, it would collapse in a chain reaction and everyone would be in danger.
“Everyone stay sharp!! We can’t afford to have a gap anywhere.”
Nam Gyuil earnestly warned them one last time.
The Uraeus raised their bodies upright, baring sharp fangs dripping with venom.
Soon the creatures began to pounce ferociously.
Thud, thunk.
Everyone blocked the Uraeus’s attacks with their shields.
The effect of the circular formation showed.
The Uraeus’s offensive was blocked by the shields and came to nothing.
Meanwhile, the National Hunters of Team 01 swung their daggers each time the creatures showed an opening, cutting them down one by one.
Just when it seemed it would end without major problems thanks to the slow but safe combat method—
Hong Sinu accidentally revealed an opening.
“Kuk!!”
Because his skills were still lacking, even after blocking the Uraeus’s attack, he was pushed back slightly.
An Uraeus slithered up the edge of his shield.
A life-or-death crisis had arrived.
The creature’s eyes, appearing over the shield, were truly sharp.
Hong Sinu got goosebumps.
The moment he met eyes with the Uraeus, only one thought came to mind.
‘I’m screwed.’
His face pale, body frozen stiff—at that moment, Nam Gyuil stepped in.
He gripped his dagger in a reverse hold and stabbed down at the Uraeus’s crown.
The moment the hard skull met the blade, a heavy vibration was felt through the dagger’s hilt.
Crack!!
Along with a sound like a dry branch snapping, the skull split and the blade pierced the brain.
That was how he dispatched one in a single blow.
“Hong Sinu, get a grip!!”
Nam Gyuil roared.
Thanks to that, the terrified Hong Sinu quickly came to his senses.
‘I was saved by Staff Sergeant Nam Gyuil again.’
This wouldn’t do.
He couldn’t keep holding the team back like this.
‘The circular formation is a perfect formation as long as there are no mistakes. But if a gap forms in even one spot, it easily collapses and becomes dangerous.’
Everyone had nearly been put in danger because of him.
Clench.
Hong Sinu gripped his shield tightly and made a firm resolution.
‘I won’t make a mistake twice!!’
Nam Gyuil glanced at Hong Sinu out of the corner of his eye.
If the battle dragged on for a long time, anyone could make a mistake.
‘I’ll have to cover for them each time.’
Nam Gyuil gripped his dagger tightly.
The battle continued.
Occasionally gaps formed in the circular formation, but each time, Nam Gyuil stepped in and resolved it.
Thanks to that, the formation held, and they finished off all the Uraeus without a single injury, ending the first battle.
Lee Chanu gasped for breath.
“Hah, hah, hah.”
He nudged the Uraeus’s corpse with his toe.
“Phew, there were so damn many. Look at them sprawled on the floor. They really are disgustingly ugly.”
While he was doing so, one of the fallen Uraeus flared its eyes wide open.
In that instant, Lee Chanu thought, ‘Oh no.’
‘Damn it, there was one that wasn’t completely dead.’
Because he had let his guard down, his sword stance was relaxed, and it was too late to block with his shield.
Swoosh!!
The Uraeus sprang its body and lunged.
At that moment, Nam Gyuil condensed the mana inside his body and reinforced his legs and shoulders.
His calf muscles swelled.
Stamp.
As he kicked off and leaped, the accumulated dust on the floor shot up.
It was a powerful leap.
It was so fast that the Uraeus targeting Lee Chanu couldn’t even react.
The dagger drew a sharp trajectory.
Stab.
The blade cleanly stabbed its crown and stole the creature’s life.
It was a fatal attack.
Blood dripped down the blade and fell to the floor in droplets, clumping thickly with the dust.
The Uraeus’s body slumped and died.
Thus they barely overcame another crisis.
“Hey, Lee Chanu!!”
Nam Gyuil roared.
“I-I’m sorry. I let my guard down because I thought the battle was over.”
Nam Gyuil didn’t scold him further. Instead, he gave him a solid flick on the forehead.
“Ouch.”
“Be careful from now on. You nearly scared me half to death.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lee Chanu answered immediately.
Nam Gyuil, preparing for any eventuality, went around with his teammates to confirm the kills on the Uraeus.
While severing their necks one by one, something caught on his blade.
“Hm?!”
Wondering what it was, he cut through the flesh to check. A purple stone came out of the Uraeus’s head.
‘No way! To think I’d obtain this here.’
The identity of the purple stone was a Cobra Stone. It was one of the ingredients for an elixir that built poison resistance.
If one consumed the poison resistance elixir, ordinary poisons wouldn’t work at all.
He hadn’t expected to acquire one of those ingredients here.
‘This is good luck?’
Unexpected fortune had come calling like this.
Team 01, having confirmed the kills on all the Uraeus, took a rest.
“We advance again after a ten-minute break.”
Nam Gyuil gave the order.
Everyone seemed exhausted as they leaned against the walls and wiped their sweat-soaked faces.
Nam Gyuil swept his hair back.
‘Even the path with weaker monsters is this dangerous; what about the fast but dangerous path?’
His head turned to the left.
***
The left path, where fast but dangerous monsters lurked.
Team 05, having gone there, encountered a bizarre creature in less than ten minutes.
Its identity was Ammit.
Its head was that of a crocodile, its upper body a lion’s, and its lower body a hippopotamus’s.
Ammit was munching on something with its long snout.
It was flesh.
The flesh of Team 03, which had been annihilated in this Gate!
It had devoured human corpses.
As if the meal had been quite delicious, it even licked its lips.
Then, it turned its gaze toward the newly appeared humans.
“Wh-what is that?!”
“It’s huge.”
“Can we really fight trusting only Han Gangsu?”
The members of Team 05, seized by fear, grew rowdy.
It couldn’t be helped.
They had never seen such a gigantic monster before.
When Ammit raised its massive bulk, the Team 05 members had to tilt their heads far back to look up at it.
It was that enormous.
“G-Gangsu!”
Park Taesu looked at Han Gangsu.
With eyes asking if he could really win against that thing.
Shhring.
Han Gangsu drew the long sword from his shoulder.
“I’m enough on my own, so everyone else can just stand still and watch.”
Han Gangsu was brimming with confidence.
At that sight, Park Taesu slightly raised the corners of his mouth.
“R-right, if Gangsu says so, then that’s how it is. You guys, don’t you dare get in Gangsu’s way for no reason!!”
Park Taesu shouted at the Team 05 members.
Han Gangsu charged at Ammit and unleashed a vigorous sword technique.
Its power was truly tremendous.
Even the sound of it cutting through the air was piercingly sharp.
However.
Clang!!
An unexpected situation unfolded.
Ammit opened its massive mouth wide and bit down on the blade with its teeth.
“?!”
Han Gangsu’s eyes went wide.
His attack had been blocked.
Moreover, Ammit’s bite force was so strong that the sword wouldn’t budge at all.
He couldn’t push it in further, nor could he pull it out.
“Kuk!”
With the situation unfolding this way, Ammit held the long sword in its mouth, and Han Gangsu ended up hanging onto the sword’s hilt.
Swoosh.
Ammit swung its front paw.
Its claws were enormous.
Just going by size, they were about half the size of a human head.
Han Gangsu used his upper body muscles.
Like a gymnast, he spun his body around the long sword’s hilt as an axis, narrowly avoiding the attack.
At the same time, he attacked Ammit’s eye with a kick.
Thwack.
“Kuk!!”
Ammit writhed in pain.
In that instant, the strength left the creature’s mouth.
Han Gangsu barely managed to pull his long sword free from the creature’s teeth.
He landed safely on the ground.
Ammit glared at Han Gangsu with its bleeding eye.
Its sharply narrowed pupils gleamed with viciousness.
Han Gangsu exhaled a long breath.
‘This won’t be easy.’
He tightened his grip on the long sword.