Chapter 70

Dungeon Break (2)

Hunters gathered in front of the primary dungeon coordinates, which was tagged with Gwacheon 5 dungeon’s name when the gate was opened. The A-Class break response team was formed according to the government’s standards, and those who were assigned as the first line of defense belonged to the top 4 guilds that represented Korea.

“Well, then, we’ll step back to the third line of defense. We are honored!”

After grimly greeting everyone, military officials and the Hunter Management Department personnel all withdrew a few kilometers back. It was inefficient for people, aside from the Awakens, to be mixed in the front line where the wave of monsters would be fought. Furthermore, this time, the gate was going to open in the middle of the city, so they could not adopt the tactic of pushing the area away with modern firepower. As the government estimated the possible risk of both the first line of defense being breached and demolition of Gwacheon city infrastructures, they chose to war using infantry warfare.

With all the non-Awakens backed off, those who gathered to represent the four major guilds stood shoulder to shoulder.

“Activate barrier!”

As soldiers retreated, physical barriers were activated along the line of defense. A circular opaque membrane was formed around the gate.

“There’s an hour left.”

The book of prophecy accurately predicted the opening and collapse time of the gate. Kim Kyung-Rok, the Guild Master of Grand Croix, turned his eyes from the terminal, looked at the man standing in front of him, and spoke privately, away from the ears of the Hunter Management Department.

“Why is that precious son absent this time?”

Immediately the surrounding air got cold. It was a question that everyone had in their heads but refused to speak. The target of Kim Kyung-Rok’s question was Seo Gyu-Cheol, the Guild Master of Celestial Dragon.

However, Seo Gyu-Cheol didn’t bother to respond to him, let alone even turn his eyes to Kim Kyung-Rok. He spoke with an expressionless face to Yoon Ho-Min, the head of the exploration team 1, who stood beside him.

“Go back to our assigned ground. I will do the final check for the barrier myself.”

Kim Kyung-Rok’s face hardened when he realized that he completely ignored him. However, he quickly changed his look and spoke, bearing his teeth.

“Even if you dearly invested in him, did he turn out to be a defective product too shameful to be let out there? You should have had high expectations; you must be disappointed. You must be groaning inside.”

Responding to his words, Seo Gyu-Cheol’s shoulder stopped turning. Kim Kyung-Rok shot his words at him, thinking it was an opportunity.

“What do you do with the title of an SS-rank? You can’t use it for important events like dungeon breaks. What’s the reason this time? Is he still crying about the trauma from the Okcheon accident last time? Or did the father and son throw things and fight, and he left the house again?”

Kim Kyung-Rok, who was well aware of the internal situation, did not know the latest situation.

Then, Seo Gyu-Cheol’s gaze reached Kim Kyung-Rok, and he felt a shiver down his spine without realizing it.

‘…. What the hell. That punk!’

Kim Kyung-Rok has been an archenemy and rival of Seo Gyu-Cheol for decades. He already knew that he was an asshole, which was one reason he hated him… The man in front of him seemed off.

‘His damn eyes!’

However, the strange energy in Seo Gyu-Cheol’s eyes disappeared immediately after some time.

‘What was that just now?’

While Kim Kyung-Rok was baffled, Seo Gyu-Cheol, looked at him without saying anything, opened his mouth.

“Aren’t you the one with defective products? If an S-Ranked veteran of 10 years were sliced by a year old Awakened because he was playing a trick, I’d be ashamed even to come here. Come to think of it; I can’t see him here. Is he still in bed?”

His words were aimed at Kim Ji-Hoon, the younger brother of Kim Kyung-Rok, who had his leg cut during the promotion review of Seo Jin-Wook, as he tried to play a trick on him.

“T-This…!” Kim Kyung-Rok rolled and spat out words like he was chewing them, “The Hunter Management is still investigating the case! Who played what trick on who!” This remark was deliberately spoken aloud, being conscious of the ears of other hunters. Kim Kyung-Rok, who knew the truth of the case, quickly changed the topic as he knew that it would be disadvantageous to talk about, “Huh! You must be sick when you should be selling your son to promote the Celestial Dragon. I heard that there are a lot of A-Ranks who wish to leave these days!”

Kim Kyung-Rok bit down on Celestial Dragon’s personnel management crisis, “In the end, wasn’t the title of ranking the 1st nationally thanks to the rich A-Rank hunter pool? How does it feel like to kick away the only strength of the guild with your doings?”

“Even if we count those A-Ranks left after those bats leave the guild, we still have a lot of them than your group of empty carts, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

After speaking so, Seo Gyu-Cheol turned his back and walked to their territory with Yoon Ho-Min. Kim Kyung-Rok, who was watching the view of his back, wrenched his lips and smiled.

“Let’s wait and see if that happens so.”

*

As Seo Gyu-Cheol walked with Yoon Ho-Min, he quietly asked him, “Did he ever contact you personally?”

It was obvious who he was referring to. Yoon Ho-Min, who secretly met Seo Jin-Wook not long ago, was surprised inside, but shook his head, trying to act calm.

“No? Anyways, we weren’t that close, were we? If he had contacted me, he would have contacted Secretary Kim.”

While Yoon Ho-Min was trying to calm down his surprised heart, another head watched, without engaging in the verbal conflict, but analyzed the situation.

She was the Guild Master of Destructional Blade, Seo Moon-Ga-In. Destructional Blade was the only group among the four major guilds to open up trading areas beyond the Korean black market and material goods to the informational services. Destructional Blade’s special grant was gained through a case in the past.

‘However, the information update on Seo Jin-Wook had been completely cut off for some time.’

The update was completely discontinued because they could not provide false information to its client, Destructional Blade, but could not sell Seo Jin-Wook’s information, which the Senator recognized. However, it was impossible for Seo Moon-Ga-In, who did not even know the Senator’s existence, to infer the truth, and this situation led her to a wild misunderstanding.

‘The reason why it’s not being updated is that they don’t know where it is. Even the black market failed to track Seo Jin-Wook, which meant that he wasn’t in Korea.’

A hunter who had reached the SS-Rank the fastest and a genius who passed all the tests with unprecedented success. Judging only from the known facts, it was enough to have the attention of foreign countries.

‘He must have already been taken by other countries without the Korean government knowing.’

Seo Gyu-Cheol’s recent activities have supported her theory.

‘He should have included his son here if he was in his normal state. If he didn’t, it means that even he can’t control Seo Jin-Wook.’

She turned her head and asked the Assistant Guild Master of the Gates Keepers, who attended instead of the Guild Master.

“I’m just curious.”

“Yes?”

Gate Keepers’ Assistant Guild Master, Lee Dong-Hyun, was a man with a water-like impression. When it seemed that all the duty in the field meeting room was over, he calmly packed his luggage and prepared to leave; he saw Seo Moon-Ga-In with a look of annoyance.

“I heard that the prophecy type dungeon that Seo Jin-Wook Cleared was a gate that you guys were managing? Has he asked you to borrow another again since then?”

It was impossible to see all the entry and exit records of others. Still, once they were successful in the Clear, the report remained on the official government database and could be freely accessed by hunters.

She said in a low voice and winking, “Come to think about it, it’s strange. On the day of receiving the SS-Rank, he took an unprecedented act to Clear a dungeon, and so far, no dungeon has been cleared under Seo Jin-Wook’s name.”

Lee Dong-Hyun shook his head, “You know, we have no intention of getting involved in your power conflict. We can’t divulge customer information about purchasing licenses as individuals.”

Seo Moon-Ga-In would not give up and tested him again, “When a kid gets a stick in his hand, he swings it around for nothing, and when someone rolls a ball on the floor to him, he pretends to kick it, right? That’s human nature… If he gained that much strength in his 20s, wouldn’t he want to show off as much as he wants? Clearing other dungeons one by one as well.”

He replied as if he were not interested, “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done so.” Then he got up and said that he should get ready.

Looking at the empty seat where he was sitting, Seo Moon-Ga-In thought, ‘Well, Lee Dong-Hyun barely makes his name on the exploration record even though he has an S-rank. He must be distanced from continuous dungeon Clearing. Anyway, they’re weird guys.’ For her, the Gate Keepers were an incomprehensible group that could not efficiently use skilled people and were rotting them.

‘It’s weird to play the role of a gatekeeper instead of Clearing the dungeon with such a powerful force and having a very closed internal structure was suspicious. The Guild Master, whose information is almost unknown except for name and age, is also out of the norm. Anyway, it’s fishy.’

Soon, Seo Moon-Ga-In returned to the thought of Seo Jin-wook, ‘Anyway, if he’s already abroad, I don’t have to worry about Seo Jin-Wook in this country’s competition in this field of work. I can erase him out of my head.’

She made a completely wrong conclusion without knowing the truth.

‘There will be no room for change. The Celestial Dragon is about to fall. I should sweep in the stakes that the withdrawn hunters spit out as much as possible. I should throw them away after I suck out their items and Clearing rights for dungeons.’

The Seo Moon-Ga-In smiled satisfactorily.

*

As the scheduled time gradually approached, there was a tight tension between the Hunters who formed the first defense line. Each guild leader encouraged his and her guild members in their own way.

“Come on, come on! You don’t have to be nervous! It’s a piece of cake to stop the breaks when time and location are known in advance. Can you see how many hunters are here on the primary line of defense alone? It’s over a thousand! Assuming that the dungeon has a limit of ten people, a thousand people will catch the monsters that were originally going to beat up for a party of ten! How easy is this?”

Like Kim Kyung-Rok of Grand Croix, some commanders pointed out the actual difficulty and tried to prevent excessive tension.

“The system also gives extra compensation according to the contributions for Dungeon breaks. You know that, right? You probably remember, every time a break is fixed somewhere over the past few years, the world’s dungeon item prices have plummeted. That’s how many different and generous rewards they give us! This is a great opportunity!”

Like Seo Mun-Ga-In, from Destructional Blade, there were those Guild Masters who mentioned the rewards they would receive after the dungeon break to keep everyone’s spirits up.

“Let’s not forget our motto. Hmm… We are the swords that defend the door… With our sacrifices, the world will become safer. From this place… Uh, yeah. We get rid of all creatures that do not originate from our world.”

Like Lee Dong-Hyun, of Gate Keepers, there was a commander whose words themselves seemed like a declaration based on a sense of duty, but the tone was stiff as if he was reading it from a book and powerless. The subordinates were rather baffled. As with Seo Gyu-Cheol, of Celestial Dragon, a person gave up communicating with their subordinates for good.

While waiting for the door to open in their own ways, the time finally came.

Tssss!

A blue glow appeared in the air that everyone focused on. Hunters checked the system messages. The crowd seemed to be slightly bewildered.

“Damn it!”

The rank matched the prophecy—A rank. However, the problem was the limited number of entrants not normally mentioned in the known prophecy.

Dungeon information

Level: A Maximum number of entrants: 150 Clear condition: Annihilate the monsters in the dungeon Time remaining to evolve: 39 days, 2 hours, 31 minutes Status: Very unstable

“It’s a 150-man dungeon!”

Curses came from everywhere. The fact that the number of limited entrants was large meant that there were more monsters to kill.

“The gate is immediately entering the break sequence!”

The system message they were looking at changed in an instant.

Dungeon information

Rank: A It’s a dungeon in collapse progress. Monsters become rabid and more powerful. The gate will delete its entrants limit, and the monster may come out of the gate.

The primary defense line felt the direction of the wind change as it became more intense. The gate, which was shining blue, changed color and turned blood-red. It swelled in size, expanding rapidly. The gate the Hunters were looking at would make them believe that they saw a vision of the future.

Whoong!

The red gate, which seemed to grow endlessly, finally stopped expanding.

“It’s begun,” Someone’s little murmur quickly got buried in the tense air.

A Hunter, who had experienced dungeon break defense, and another who had never experienced it, stared at the gate surface in extreme tension and caution for reasons they kept to themselves. They swallowed their dry saliva, wrapped their Mana on the sharp weapons, and covered their whole body with a barrier. As they knew beforehand, combat preparation was perfect.

After a minute, there was no sign of monsters popping out of the gate.

‘It looks like the field’s quite wide. It takes time for them to get to the gate. Well, it must be a dungeon with a lot of monsters. It’s going to be a tough fight,’ Seo Mun-Ga-In thought and maintained the tension on her pulled bowstring.

After five minutes, Hunters, who had little experience, were a bit baffled because things were not happening as expected. The skilled veterans were shocked. How wide was the field that it took the nearest monster more than five minutes to sprint to the gate? How many monsters were there if the field was so wide? They began to resent the government’s choice not to ask for foreign aid. And they were worried that they wouldn’t be able to go back safely today.

By the time 10 minutes had passed, some began to think something was wrong.

Thirty minutes elapsed. The four major guilds were staring at the red door right in front of the gate. Small and medium-sized guilds were observing the situation from the secondary perimeter. Soldiers were on the third line of defense. The Blue House was checking the live feed on a drone. All of them fell into an awkward silence.

Then, someone whispered, “The prophecy, perhaps something was wrong with…”

“No, look over there. The dungeon opened and turned red at the exact time! The red gate means the break is here!”

“But originally, the break happens as the gate color changes and the monsters pop out within a minute.”

“A minute is long, 10 seconds, and a hell of a wave starts.”

“But what’s wrong with that?”

An experienced Hunter came up with a hypothesis, “If the field is that wide ···.”

“No, no matter how wide it is. Some monsters can go halfway around the world in 30 minutes.”

None of them expected it. In the dungeon that faced a break, someone else was inside—someone who’s not a monster.