Volume 1 Episode 12
012
The Gate raid had reached its final stages before anyone knew it.
The Hunters had by now grown fairly accustomed to hunting goblins, and thanks to such smooth hunting, they had arrived at the end of the Gate.
Just as a Gate’s rank and size were generally proportional, this E-rank Gate had taken only a few short hours to reach the end.
“Haa…. Haa….”
Most of the Hunters were exhausted from the hunt.
“It’s almost over.”
Looking at those Hunters, the Instructor, Gim Seung-yeon, spoke.
“If we defeat the Boss, the Gate will close.”
This meant there was a special room inside the Gate called the Boss Room.
“Did you feel anything from hunting goblins?”
Gim Seung-yeon’s gaze turned somewhere.
“……….”
That place held those among the Hunters positioned furthest back, whom Gim Seung-yeon had separately assigned.
“This is the kind of work you’ll have to do from now on.”
Gim Seung-yeon spoke as if scolding children.
“Those who couldn’t even do that properly, who suffered fatal wounds from goblins, are disqualified from this batch.”
The reason these people had been assigned positions by Gim Seung-yeon.
It was because they had suffered fatal wounds in battle with the goblins.
“What?”
“No!”
“S-since when is that a thing!”
The Hunters who had suffered serious injuries from goblins and hastily drunk potions shouted.
‘What the…!’
To think they’d be disqualified when the end of the Tutorial was finally right before their eyes.
They were rookie Hunters, so wasn’t it natural that they might suffer fatal wounds?
No matter how much passing the Tutorial depended on the Instructor’s evaluation.
‘Damn it!’
They wondered where such a thing was heard of.
They had never heard of such a reason for Tutorial disqualification before.
That was why they felt it was unfair.
Gim Seung-yeon now seemed like an evil boss who worked his employees to the bone without paying wages.
“If not, then just show proper performance in the Boss room.”
Gim Seung-yeon said this without minding those Hunters’ reactions in the slightest.
Smirk.
A faint smile spread across his lips.
The finale.
Because that was the moment when he could see his favorite expressions.
The Hunters who thought they might fail would overexert themselves desperately, and when they suffered like that.
‘I just need to save them at the right moment.’
It was nothing special since he would step in then.
“Do you know what this Gate’s Boss is?”
Gim Seung-yeon shifted his gaze and asked the Hunters.
“……….”
But the answer didn’t come immediately.
There were Hunters who truly didn’t know the answer and couldn’t reply, but.
Grind.
The Hunters who had just heard the shocking news of disqualification from Gim Seung-yeon.
The Hunters who had to show great performance in the Boss room were feeling great anger toward Gim Seung-yeon and deliberately didn’t answer even though they knew.
Snicker.
Gim Seung-yeon roughly knew what the Hunters were thinking.
“It’s a Hobgoblin. Those who need to show performance in the Boss room, listen well to my explanations from now on.”
So he let out a snicker and began explaining about the Boss.
“A Hobgoblin is….”
Red skin.
A body slightly larger than an ordinary goblin.
A monster with slightly greater strength that used a double-bladed axe rather than a spear.
A monster befitting the Boss of the lowest E-rank Gate, nothing particularly special.
“There shouldn’t be anyone who didn’t understand.”
Gim Seung-yeon spoke and pointed somewhere with his finger.
Swish.
The place he pointed was the Boss Room where the Hobgoblin would be.
Gim Seung-yeon and the Hunters’ eyes turned toward the dark cave.
“Then enter.”
It was Gim Seung-yeon’s voice, unable to even imagine what would happen from now on.
* * *
The Hunters who had entered the cave swallowed dryly.
They were Hunters who had become fairly accustomed to hunting goblins by now, but.
Gulp.
They were nervous at the thought that the Boss they would soon face, the Hobgoblin, would be different from a goblin.
This reaction was natural.
Because a Boss was, by definition, the most powerful monster in this Gate.
Unlike the Hunters with tension etched on their faces.
“……….”
The Instructor, Gim Seung-yeon’s face was quite calm, and his demeanor was also relaxed.
“The Boss, the Hobgoblin, should be up ahead.”
Gim Seung-yeon spoke while pointing somewhere with his finger.
Swoosh.
And just as he was moving forward as if to finish a bothersome task.
Clack.
“Hm?”
He stopped his steps in place.
He felt something strange.
It wasn’t only Gim Seung-yeon who stopped.
“What is it?”
Yun Hyeon-gi was the same.
A bizarre sense of wrongness and a presence.
And.
“This is….”
Goblin corpses.
“In… infighting among their own kind?”
Occasionally, monsters inside Gates would hunt each other.
If not that, there were cases where the Boss devoured them.
But this was the first time seeing something like this.
“Something….”
Gim Seung-yeon looked at the corpses and tilted his head.
A feeling of unease.
“Something’s strange?”
Just as Gim Seung-yeon held such doubts, a certain voice echoed through the place.
“Crazy….”
It was Yun Hyeon-gi’s.
“Right now….”
Yun Hyeon-gi, the youngest son of the Tirion Guild Master.
His voice, which had always been relaxed thanks to the experience accumulated from that massive background, was trembling.
“We have to run away right now!”
Yun Hyeon-gi shouted loudly.
He was turning his body with a pale, blue-tinged face.
“What are you doing?”
Gim Seung-yeon blocked him as if displeased and spoke.
“Don’t you know you can’t run away once you’ve entered the Boss Room?”
Gim Seung-yeon stared at the frightened Yun Hyeon-gi and spoke as if teaching him.
“Watch your mouth.”
“…What?”
Yun Hyeon-gi also glared at Gim Seung-yeon and spoke.
“When you don’t even know what’s happening right now.”
And Yun Hyeon-gi’s thoughts.
The words of his uncle and Tirion’s 2nd Raid Team Leader, I Jae-heon.
—There is something called a Special Gate.
Something that had appeared only a few times in the world so far.
His uncle had experienced it and told him about it.
—If it is judged to be a Special Gate….
His uncle, whose eyes had changed.
—Run away unconditionally.
Had given him a grave warning.
“If you’re the Instructor, you should have an escape item, right?”
Normally, escape from the Boss Room was impossible.
But if you used an expensive escape item, escape was possible.
An Instructor should naturally possess such a thing, but….
“Hey. Yun Hyeon-gi. Are you crazy? No matter how you’re Tirion’s youngest, not only do you speak informally to me, your Instructor, but now you’re talking nonse….”
“This is a Special Gate!”
It was when Yun Hyeon-gi interrupted Gim Seung-yeon and shouted.
Thud! Thud!
A massive sound shaking the earth.
And shortly after.
Kwoong!
A massive shadow revealed itself inside the cave.
“Wh-what.”
The massive shadow drooled saliva.
It was….
“That… is a Hobgoblin?”
The Hobgoblin presumed to be the Boss.
But it wasn’t the small creature smaller than an adult man; it was a monster appearing more than twice as large as Gim Seung-yeon.
“Grrk?”
The creature tilting its head.
In the bizarre silence.
Kwaang!
It pounced and crushed a Hunter’s skull; it happened in an instant.
At that moment.
Grin.
I Seo-jun was smiling.
* * *
[Mana Detection Lv. 1: Can detect all mana in the vicinity.]
*As the skill level increases, the detectable range increases. (Current range: 100M)
Upon obtaining the body of Aion, King of Lumer, several skills had appeared.
This was one of them.
Something that originally should have relied on one’s innate mana and senses.
Flutter.
But under the name of Skill, it appeared before his eyes far too clearly.
And the red thread visible to his eyes and the scent felt with his nose were familiar to I Seo-jun.
‘No way.’
Something he had thought unlikely.
Also something he had been waiting for.
Because he already knew that Gates were dangerous, unlike what they thought.
BANG!
That had now become reality.
Earth’s pathetic monsters.
The ‘real thing’ in contrast to them.
“Save me—!”
The Hobgoblin of planet Lumer was rampaging before his eyes right now.
Because of it, many Hunters had already fallen.
“In-instructor!”
“Instructor!”
They desperately called for the Instructor, Gim Seung-yeon, but.
“……….”
Gim Seung-yeon stood there as if nailed to the spot.
“D-damn it.”
Gim Seung-yeon’s face was dyed completely with bewilderment.
Now he didn’t feel any of an Instructor’s dignity.
“Wh-what is that….”
What on earth was the identity of that monster?
And why was a monster like that here instead of the E-rank Boss Hobgoblin?
But no matter how much he thought, Gim Seung-yeon couldn’t know.
Shudder. Shudder.
He was simply trembling from the surging fear.
Then, a loud voice filled the place.
“Escape item!”
It was Yun Hyeon-gi.
He shouted at Gim Seung-yeon with veins bulging in his neck.
“I don’t have it! I said I don’t!”
Then Gim Seung-yeon also gripped his sword tightly and shouted.
It was true that an Instructor was given an escape item worth several hundred million.
‘It’s only an E-rank Gate where mere goblins appear.’
But Gim Seung-yeon, a skilled B-rank Hunter, had thought he would never need to escape from there and had sold the escape item.
“Crazy bastard.”
Yun Hyeon-gi, having grasped the situation, changed his expression and stood.
Swish.
And he quickly ran alone to a corner, taking something out from his bosom.
“To think the bastard calling himself an Instructor sold that off before entering the Gate.”
The escape item Gim Seung-yeon said he sold.
It was a Return Stone.
A small, raw-stone shape with a green light.
Slide.
To use the item, Yun Hyeon-gi lifted the Return Stone onto his palm and sent mana into it.
And shortly after.
“Wh-what.”
Yun Hyeon-gi’s face was colored with confusion.
The Return Stone that should have been emitting light.
“Why is it like this?”
It showed no reaction now.
He tried several times, but the result was the same.
“Why isn’t it working?”
While Yun Hyeon-gi was looking at the Return Stone in bewilderment.
Smash!
In the meantime, the monster, the Hobgoblin, was ruthlessly slaughtering the Hunters.
“Damn it!”
In the end, Yun Hyeon-gi gave up on using the Return Stone and hurriedly ran somewhere.
Tap-tap-tap!
The place he ran to was before the Instructor, Gim Seung-yeon.
“Are you going to die like this?”
Yun Hyeon-gi spoke to the dazed Gim Seung-yeon.
“You and me, we’re two B-ranks.”
Their experience might differ, but their ranks roughly matched.
Meaning their strength itself was similar.
“If we can’t escape, we have to face it!”
Yun Hyeon-gi shouted loudly at Gim Seung-yeon.
“….….….!”
Only then did Gim Seung-yeon’s focus return.
He had come to his senses.
Slide.
Gim Seung-yeon took something out from his bosom.
Yun Hyeon-gi sneered at it.
“At least you didn’t sell that one off.”
What Gim Seung-yeon took out was an item that could send a rescue signal.
It was a flare.
A small bead-like shape with a red glow.
Whoosh!
Gim Seung-yeon threw the flare he clutched in his hand toward the ground.
Bang!
Then it shattered and exploded.
That item would send a signal to a designated recipient upon breaking, and the Association would send rescue.
But it would still take time.
“We have to hold out.”
Meaning they had to hold out against that monster.
Then.
Thud! Thud!
The massive shadow approaching them.
The monster, the Hobgoblin, which had already hunted several more Hunters.
Kwang!
Swung a massive double-bladed axe down at Gim Seung-yeon.
The strongest villain in history had returned.