Episode 9
At that moment, while Han Gangsu was struggling against Ammit.
Nam Gyuil led Team 01 and continued forward.
He was especially wary of their surroundings.
Uraeuses appeared from time to time, keeping the battle going, but fortunately, no one was injured.
They had walked like that for several hours.
“It’s seriously sweltering. Just how much farther do we have to go?”
I Chanu grumbled.
They had walked until the soles of their feet began to ache, yet the end of the corridor was nowhere in sight.
It was enough to make anyone sick of it all.
“Still, it’s fortunate no one got hurt. Isn’t it better that it’s just a little hard?”
Hong Sinu said with a hollow laugh.
I Chanu nodded.
“That’s true. I’d rather walk for a long time than get injured.”
As they spoke and advanced—
Suddenly, Nam Gyuil stopped and gave a hand signal.
It was a signal to be on guard.
Everyone swallowed with dry lips and readied their shields and swords.
Nam Gyuil narrowed his eyes.
Something was there.
He could see something faintly squirming in the darkness.
It was gradually approaching.
Soon, the torches hanging on the walls revealed its identity.
“Uraeus!”
An enormous horde of snakes crawled out from the darkness.
“Circular formation!!”
Nam Gyuil shouted.
Team 01 formed up with precision.
Nam Gyuil lopped off an Uraeus’s head and felt something was off.
‘What? Why are there so many of them?’
Their numbers had suddenly swelled.
Moreover, they were more desperate than the ones they had first faced.
They charged as if prepared to die.
At that moment, a thought flashed through Nam Gyuil’s mind.
‘Is there a boss monster up ahead?’
That seemed to be the case.
There was no way they would swarm like this otherwise.
“Everyone, fight calmly! Don’t show any openings!”
Nam Gyuil gave the order.
The Uraeuses were numerous, but that was all.
Their fighting style was exactly the same as before.
They couldn’t break the circular formation.
Team 01 fought with composure.
Whenever a gap appeared in the formation, Nam Gyuil stepped in and plugged it, allowing them to maintain the circular formation stably.
They fought like that for quite a long time.
The Uraeuses that had charged at them all became corpses.
“Whew, that was a real pain.”
I Chanu pouted.
He glared at the dead Uraeuses.
Hong Sinu wiped his sweat.
Hwang Ilsu whooshed his dagger through the air.
Something seemed to be wrong.
Nam Gyuil approached him with a serious expression.
“Ilsu. What’s wrong?”
“The blade’s condition isn’t good.”
“Is it about time to replace it?”
Nam Gyuil stared intently at Hwang Ilsu’s dagger.
There were only two ways for a National Hunter to obtain weapons.
The first was to use the poor-quality daggers supplied by the Hunter Bureau, and the second was to buy one with their own money.
The number of weapons that could be brought into a Gate was limited.
Therefore, they were expensive.
That was why the majority of National Hunters received their weapons from the Hunter Bureau.
“I’ll have to ask the supply officer for a new dagger. The budget is tight, so I’ll probably get an earful about conserving weapons.”
Hwang Ilsu said as if he were used to it.
Nam Gyuil led his comrades and continued forward.
There were no more Uraeuses.
Instead, a door appeared.
A dirty black doorknob covered in dust was visible.
Nam Gyuil looked at his comrades.
“It looks like we’ve arrived at the room with the boss monster… Is everyone ready?”
“Yes, Staff Sergeant Nam Gyuil!!”
“I’ve been ready for a while.”
Everyone gripped their shields and weapons tightly.
Nam Gyuil grabbed the doorknob.
Resolved for the final battle, he opened the door with all his might.
Creak—
Team 01 boldly entered the room where the boss monster was.
They looked around.
Darkness, without so much as a flicker of light, greeted them.
Rustle, rustle.
The floor was so covered in sand that it evoked a desert.
Fwoosh.
Suddenly, the torches hanging from the ceiling and walls ignited.
The surroundings brightened.
Nam Gyuil looked around.
Statues the size of adults lined the walls.
And—at the far end, a throne was visible.
A throne that could only be reached by climbing the high stairs!
It was more than enough to symbolize sovereignty.
There, a mummy wearing a golden mask sat holding a staff decorated with snake figures.
Nam Gyuil’s heart sank when he saw the boss monster of this Gate.
‘Pharaoh? Damn it, why is that monster here?!’
Cold sweat trickled down.
The Pharaoh was among the stronger monsters.
It even possessed the ability to sweep away enemies all at once with powerful magic.
With Nam Gyuil’s current strength, he was no match for it.
‘Damn, this is strange. Aren’t powerful monsters supposed to appear gradually over time? Why did it suddenly show up?’
Powerful monsters could only appear once enough mana had accumulated on Earth.
Right now, it wasn’t at that level yet.
Earth’s mana had not yet accumulated enough for a monster of this caliber to appear.
Wasn’t it a situation where one couldn’t even perform Arnia mana training without elixirs at the moment?
This made no sense.
He wanted to enter the Akashic Records immediately and look up the information.
But that was impossible.
Entering the Akashic Records would leave him in a fainted state.
Since time in reality and the Akashic Records flowed at the same rate, it would essentially create the perfect situation to get killed by a monster.
In the current situation, he couldn’t enter the Akashic Records.
The Pharaoh swung its staff.
Thud-thud—!!
Then the statues around them began to move.
As their stone bodies stirred, yellow sand rustled down from their shoulders.
The statues blocked the path to the throne like bodyguards.
Nam Gyuil felt puzzled.
‘If the Pharaoh is strong enough to kill us in an instant, why are the statues protecting it?’
Whoosh—
Then, the Pharaoh pointed its staff at Team 01’s National Hunters.
Nam Gyuil warned his comrades.
“This boss monster uses magic! Scatter quickly!!”
Everyone moved swiftly.
A black beam flew in and struck the spot where they had been standing moments ago.
Boom—!!
The ground was blasted apart with the explosion.
Nam Gyuil looked at the Pharaoh once more.
It was magic with tremendous destructive power, but compared to the information he had obtained from the Akashic Records, it was far too weak.
‘What? Wasn’t it supposed to annihilate us in a single spell? And for me to be able to dodge it? This magic should normally be so fast that it’s impossible to avoid.’
It was weak.
To the point that he felt he might actually have a chance.
Then, another piece of knowledge flashed through Nam Gyuil’s mind.
- A high-rank Gate can open even when mana hasn’t sufficiently accumulated.
- However, in such cases, since the Gate was forcibly opened, the beings who created it are left having lost much of their power.
Nam Gyuil clenched his molars and steeled his resolve.
‘So the Pharaoh has lost a great deal of its power because it was forced to cross over through a Gate opened by force.’
The fact that it was a powerful monster remained unchanged, but fortunately, it was in a state where it couldn’t demonstrate its original strength.
‘If I fight with my life on the line, I have a chance—!’
Nam Gyuil gripped his sword tightly.
‘The Pharaoh is a mage specialized in long-range attacks, so it’s weak in close combat. But with those statues guarding it, it’s hard to approach.’
To fight the Pharaoh, he had to deal with the statues first.
‘But if I deal with the statues, I’ll get hit by the Pharaoh’s long-range attacks.’
In the end, there was only one way.
He had to leave the statues to his comrades and fight the Pharaoh himself.
Nam Gyuil gave orders to his comrades.
“I’ll target the boss monster. I’m leaving the statues to you. Everyone, understood!!”
“Understood.”
“Do not let the statues interfere in my fight with the boss monster.”
“Yes—!!”
Nam Gyuil quickly scanned the statues’ formation.
The statues stood in a thick line.
He had to target a thin section of their formation and break through.
Boom.
Nam Gyuil pushed the statues over with his shield.
He broke through their defensive line like that.
The Pharaoh was bewildered by Nam Gyuil’s unexpected action.
Tip-tap.
Nam Gyuil quickly ran up the stairs toward the throne where the Pharaoh was.
The statues tried to grab him, but—
“Hey, stop them!! Stop them!!”
“You rock chunks! You won’t get to Staff Sergeant Nam Gyuil!”
The team members desperately blocked them.
But it didn’t last long.
“Gurk!!”
“Ugh!”
Shortly after, the team members screamed.
Their skills were insufficient to stop the statues.
All they had done was delay them briefly.
The statues soon ran toward Nam Gyuil.
Thud-thud-thud.
The floor trembled every time they ran.
Nam Gyuil glanced at the statues following him from the corner of his eye.
‘At this rate, I’ll end up fighting both the statues and the Pharaoh. Then there’s no chance of winning.’
There was no time.
Nam Gyuil ran even faster up the stairs toward the Pharaoh.
To avoid the worst-case scenario of fighting both it and the statues simultaneously.
Fwoosh.
The Pharaoh used magic.
Three fireballs were summoned and flew toward Nam Gyuil.
Thud, thwack. Thud.
Nam Gyuil blocked the fireballs with his shield.
“Kuk—!”
But a groan burst from his mouth.
The fireballs’ power was so tremendous that his skin stung, and worse, his shield felt like it was being pressed by immense pressure.
‘This is worlds apart from the Shaman Lizard Man.’
It was amazing that it could fire three fireballs at once, and their destructive power was immense too.
The force was enough to make his legs buckle, and the wrist gripping the shield trembled.
‘But I have to keep running!!’
Nam Gyuil spurred his legs forward. The moment he stopped, any chance to defeat the Pharaoh would vanish.
No matter how painful it was, he had to grit his teeth and advance.
The Pharaoh’s mask trembled.
It seemed surprised that Nam Gyuil was holding out so well.
It swung its staff and used another spell.
A rock formed in the air.
Bwoong.
The rock that flew with a bursting air-pressure sound was reminiscent of a cannonball.
Even someone like Nam Gyuil would find it difficult to defend against that.
He lowered his stance.
He slightly bent his knees and moved quickly left and right.
Thud. Thud.
The rocks failed to hit him and struck the ground instead.
‘Nice!’
Nam Gyuil inwardly cheered.
He put more strength into his calves and quickly climbed the stairs.
Just as the distance between the Pharaoh and Nam Gyuil was closing—
Bwoong.
The rock he thought he had dodged suddenly changed its trajectory.
‘It can change its attack direction so suddenly? Even weakened, it could still use such high-level magic?!’
Nam Gyuil had no choice but to block the rock with his shield.
‘Damn it—!!’
A numbing impact struck his wrist.
A groan escaped involuntarily.
His running stopped naturally.
He thought his wrist joint had dislocated from the terrible pain.
Thud-thud-thud.
Soon the statues also caught up right behind Nam Gyuil.
At this rate, he would be faced with the worst situation of having to fight both them and the Pharaoh simultaneously.
“Kuk kuk.”
The Pharaoh’s sinister laughter rang out.
Nam Gyuil looked at it.
Through the holes in the mask, he could see the corners of its eyes curling upward.
It was the expression of one who believed it had seized victory.
But Nam Gyuil did not give up.
The Arnia swordsmanship he had honed contained a technique for throwing daggers.
Without any preparatory motion—!
The characteristic of this technique was that the dagger moved as if bouncing suddenly, making it impossible to predict.
‘I’ll bet everything on this!!’
He concentrated the mana in his body to his fingertips and threw it without any preparatory motion.
Pff-voom.
The dagger flew in a straight line toward the Pharaoh’s chest.
Its speed was faster than an arrow.
The Pharaoh, confident it had seized victory and caught off guard, flinched in surprise and tried to use defensive magic.
But…. Thwack—!!
Before that, the dagger embedded itself in the Pharaoh’s chest.
It vomited blood in a gush.
Blood droplets flowed down the jawline of the mask and fell onto the throne.
The Pharaoh’s body twitched, then soon slumped over and became an ordinary corpse.
“Letting your guard down until the very end is ill-advised.”
Nam Gyuil muttered softly.
With its heart shattered, the Pharaoh could no longer move.
When it died, the statues also stopped all at once.
It was Nam Gyuil’s victory.
I Chanu cheered for him who had felled the Pharaoh.
“Nice!! As expected of Gyuil-hyung!”
Soon the others too were swept up in a cauldron of excitement and raised their voices.
“I knew you could do it, Staff Sergeant Nam Gyuil.”
“I told you Gyuil-hyung is the best!!”
“Our hyung is so cool!”
Praise poured in from everywhere.
Nam Gyuil looked at his team members and wiped the trickling sweat with the back of his hand.
Though he had won, he was not satisfied with the process.
He had asked them to stop the statues, but the team members’ lacking skills had nearly put him in a crisis.
‘Should I train these guys the proper way?’
Nam Gyuil fell into thought once more and let out a long breath.
“Now let’s break the core and get out.”
Nam Gyuil approached the Pharaoh’s corpse and pulled the dagger embedded in its heart.
There, he discovered a bead behind the throne.
It was the core.
Crackle.
Nam Gyuil destroyed the core in one go.
Rumble.
Suddenly the ceiling shook, and dark clouds entered through the cracks.
It was the signal that the Gate was closing.
Nam Gyuil sheathed his dagger and picked up the staff the Pharaoh had used.
‘Well, it was tough, but I gained something tremendous.’
This staff was a high-grade magic weapon even among those in Arnia.
It maximized the power of magic.
There was no better magic weapon on Earth.
‘With this, I’ll be able to fight with magic too. And at a pretty tremendous level at that.’
A smile spread across Nam Gyuil’s lips.
“Let’s get out quickly! If we take the long way, we might be late, so we’ll take the shortcut.”
Nam Gyuil led his comrades and ran toward the shortcut.
***
Han Gangsu, who had chosen the shortcut.
“Hah—hah hah.”
He gasped for breath and leaned on his longsword like a cane.
Before him was a corpse.
The corpse of Ammit.
It was Han Gangsu who had felled the beast after several hours of fierce battle, but he was exhausted to the point where fighting any longer was impossible.
To make matters worse, he was injured.
At least it was a blessing that it wasn’t to a serious degree.
When his arms and legs were too heavy to move, he heard footsteps ahead.
He raised his head to check, and someone was running from the opposite side.
“Is that?!”
Han Gangsu jumped in surprise.
Team 01 was coming from the opposite side without a single injured person.
Bak Taesu gaped.
“Huh?! How are you coming from that side……”
Nam Gyuil smirked at his surprised questioning.
“Why else? Because we defeated the boss monster, of course. The Gate is closing soon too, so run fast.”
Han Gangsu’s mind went blank for a moment.
‘I lost? To him?’
It was hard to believe.
He had awakened at age 13 and had received secret training from his father until now.
It was a training method devised by his father, who was ranked within the top five in Korea, so he had become strong quickly.
Even when sparring with guild-affiliated newbie hunters, he had always won.
Who were those guild-affiliated newbie hunters?
They were skilled individuals who had finished their Hunter Bureau service with their bodies intact.
He had even beaten people like that.
Moreover, before enlisting in the Hunter Bureau, he had even entered a Gate with his father and gained experience subjugating monsters.
‘But why? How did I lose!!’
He had lost the bet.
This was an undeniable reality.
It wounded his pride.
His teeth grinded together.
Team 05 also ran toward the outside of the Gate.
In the midst of that, someone muttered softly.
“What? Then Han Gangsu acted all high and mighty but lost the bet in the end? They say he’s a genius.”
That voice struck Han Gangsu’s ears.
He hastily turned his head.
At the same time, everyone closed their mouths, so it was impossible to know who had spoken.
‘Damn it—!’
Han Gangsu clenched his fist tightly.
***
The National Hunters who had exited the Gate.
Everyone came out safely without injury.
Soon the Gate disappeared, and the entire incident came to a close.
“Good work, National Hunters. I brought water in case you were thirsty.”
Nam Gyuil opened the water bottle brought by the soldiers.
“Thank you, I’ll drink it gratefully.”
He gulped down the water. Having come out of the Gate which had been sweltering with heat, the water tasted very refreshing.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Han Gangsu stared at Nam Gyuil blankly, then approached without a word.
Clack!
He grabbed the longsword he was wearing by the hilt.
“I lost the bet. As promised, I will give you the longsword.”
Han Gangsu handing his weapon to Nam Gyuil.
It was an attitude of cleanly accepting defeat.
Nam Gyuil held his tongue.
It was, well, obviously a gain if he accepted, but—
‘My opponent is only 17.’
Honestly, he wasn’t keen on taking an item from a bet with a minor.
Nam Gyuil flicked the forehead of this cocky brat.
“Ow, what are you doing!”
“Forget the longsword. Would an adult steal an item from a kid?”
Nam Gyuil smirked.
Han Gangsu furrowed his brows and made an expression full of dissatisfaction.
“Please take it. If I don’t keep my promise even after losing the bet, what will people think of me!”
Han Gangsu forcefully pressed the longsword into Nam Gyuil’s hand.
Then he glared resentfully and climbed into the Hunter Bureau vehicle.
Nam Gyuil found that appearance amusing.
‘He’s still just a brat.’
Since he went that far, it would be awkward not to accept the longsword.
‘A 500 million won weapon….’
Nam Gyuil drew the longsword from its scabbard.
Its quality was incomparable to the dagger he had used.
There were no nicks on the blade, and the feeling when gripping the handle was quite good.
Fwoom.
He swung it once.
Its center of gravity was well-balanced, making it easy to handle.
‘It’s a fine sword.’
Worth 500 million.
Soon all the National Hunters boarded the vehicles.
Having finished their mission, they each headed home.
Nam Gyuil arrived at the housing provided by the Hunter Bureau and tended to the longsword first.
He wiped off the blood and oiled the weapon to keep it from rusting.
Then he sat in a meditative posture.
‘Shall I connect to the Akashic Records.’
Having obtained the Pharaoh’s staff, it seemed about time to learn magic too.
And more than anything—
‘I’ll have to find a way for my comrades to get stronger without leaking information.’