CH 75

Ha Tae-heon asked me, who came down with an uneasy expression.

“How is it?”

“First, I found a building at the northern end.”

How do I explain something like that? As I rolled my eyes, the eyes of Ha Tae-heon and Cheon Sa-yeon flocked to me.

“Therefore?”

“It’s a bit unusual to have a building like that. It looks like a castle from a fairy tale.”

“It’s a fairy tale castle.”

As if he understood my words at once, Cheon Sa-yeon nodded his head.

“You must be referring to a building like the Alcazar Castle in Segovia, Spain.”

“Segovia Spain… what?”

“The Alcazar Castle in Segovia. One of the famous buildings that inspired many fairy tales.”

Listening again, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Ha Tae-heon answered on behalf of me, who was disappointing.

“As far as I know, there is no gate where such a structure has been found in Korea.”

“Not even in my memory. In the worst case, we should also consider overseas gates. We’d better go to the north first.”

I was mesmerized for a moment looking at Cheon Sa-yeon and Ha Tae-heon talking.

‘What. Are you talking to each other normally?’

I thought you’d be more ignorant or sarcastic. Well, that wasn’t the case. Park Geon-ho and Woo Seo-hyuk, who had a bad relationship, also cooperate with each other to some extent inside the gate. These two would have a similar mind.

I relieved myself and said to the two of them.

“Everyone flies with my ability. Because it’s faster.”

At that moment, Cheon Sa-yeon and Ha Tae-heon’s black eyes looked at me at the same time. I reflexively stumbled backwards in those intense eyes, but Ha Tae-heon wrapped his arms around my waist first.

“Certainly, that would be nice.”

“Oh…”

I looked at Ha Tae-heon, who was approaching, in surprise. This was the first time Ha Tae-heon had hugged my waist in a situation that was not in battle. I covered my mouth with my hand and suppressed my joy. However, it was not easy to block the corners of the lips that kept rising.

‘Is it safe… to say that we’re a little closer, now?’

My heart was beating a little faster as if I had received a surprise gift. I was coughing and trying to use my ability, but this time my shoulders and neck were wrapped around by one arm from behind.

“…what is it?”

“You must be more familiar with this one arm than that one.”

“……”

Cheon Sa-yeon, standing behind me, looked down at me and smiled gently. Ha Tae-heon narrowed his brow as if dissatisfied.

“Um.”

It was unwantedly surrounded back and forth. With such a strange posture, I think I’m going to drop one person while flying.

“This posture…”

“I caught it first.”

Before I could even finish my words, Ha Tae-heon opened his mouth in a low voice.

“You don’t know anything. I’ve given a lot. Because Yi-gyeol likes to be held in the arms.”

Even Cheon Sa-yeon responded with a smile. What are these guys doing now?

“Both of you, stop.”

Why is the conversation like this? I pushed Ha Tae-heon, who had a cold expression, and Cheon Sa-yeon, who was smiling but had a hard voice.

“Anyway, I can’t use my abilities in this position, so we will fall later. Just holding hands is enough.”

“Hmm. How about going separately without physical contact?”

“That’s a little… I have to share my strength, but if I lose concentration, it’s dangerous to keep moving. Two is fine, but three is difficult.”

“It’s okay to split in two, it’s not bad. You just need to float Ha Tae-heon in the state of being held by me.”

I was about to nod my head involuntarily at the very natural suggestion, but I managed to come to my senses. This punk really.

“No, can the three of us just hold hands and go?”

“Isn’t it better to hug you comfortably?”

“Not good.”

Ha Tae-heon, who looked at me quietly for a while, spoke up.

“I’ll carry you on my back if you want.”

“…what’s different from the suggestion of the Master Cheon Sa-yeon?”

Ha Tae-heon, are you like this too? I sighed and said firmly.

“If you keep doing this, I’ll go alone. Either hold hands or run together. Do one of the two.”

“So cold-hearted.” (매정하긴)

“……”

When I pulled out the attached body and held out my hand, both of them were dissatisfied, but they gently held my hand. Cheon Sa-yeon took the left, and Ha Tae-heon took the right. Still, it seemed like both of them didn’t want to run.

Thinking that time was wasted on useless things, I used my ability without delay and jumped up.

* * *

As we headed north across the forest, the castle we found earlier appeared. Coming down in front of the huge gate, I looked up.

“It’s bigger than I thought.”

An interior building with high walls and a long pointed roof to prevent enemy invasion. It was literally the royal castle itself that we saw only in fairy tales.

As I looked around with a bit of a strange feeling, I realized that the castle gate was open. Ha Tae-heon frowned at the gate, which was slightly open enough for one person to pass by.

“Someone has entered.”

“Let’s go in, too.”

As I got closer to the gate, I pushed the gate just in case. It was easily pushed aside for its size. If I pushed it away, it meant that any party attendee could open this door and enter.

“There may be other attendees who came here besides us.”

“The inside of the gate didn’t look very spacious, so definitely it is.”

I nodded at Cheon Sa-yeon’s words. Looking at it from above, there was nothing special about it except here. Others, like us, who had fallen into the forest, were likely to gather in the castle.

Passing through the gates and going inside, a large garden was revealed. The bushes were not managed, so they came up to the knees, and the fountain built in the centre was broken and dirty, giving off an old-fashioned atmosphere.

Crunch. Crunch.

As we moved forward, clearing the overgrown bushes and leaves, we found the entrance to the castle carved with a pattern. It was a unique pattern with a circle engraved in the centre of the triangle.

I frowned and lamented.

“Every time I found a pattern like this, I never liked it…”

“The more gates the abnormal phenomenon occurred, the more often the patterns were found.”

“It’s clear that this is the gate.”

“Yeah. I can’t wait to see what kind of monsters will come out.”

“You’re looking forward to everything.”

Come to think of it, I also found this pattern at the gate of the N23 Area, where I found the phenomenon of dropping grade monsters.

A skull with an open mouth and black smoke wrapped around it. To my question of whether there had been before, Park Geon-ho replied that it was the first time he had seen it.

‘After discovering the pattern, a monster that absorbed energy that I had never seen before appeared.’

Could the pattern found at each gate where the abnormal phenomenon appeared to be any hint?

As I stared at the pattern with a serious expression, Cheon Sa-yeon lightly tapped the pattern a couple of times as if I would come to my senses.

“I understand your heart, but for now, there is only one way to enter.”

“…as expected, that’s true.”

I sighed and pushed the door engraved on it with all my might. Kugugung, the tree vines that were half covering the door fell, revealing the inside of the castle.

“It’s surprisingly clean.”

I thought the inside would be messy because the garden was so unmaintained, but the spacious hall that appeared was clean as if someone had cleaned it. We walked to the innermost part of the hall and found a staircase going up and a staircase going down to the underground.

Cheon Sa-yeon, who tapped the pile of stones on the stairs with his sword, turned to me.

“The way up is blocked.”

“We should go downstairs first.”

In answer to that, I looked down at the stairs going down. It wasn’t dangerously dark, but it seemed necessary to light up the surroundings just in case.

“I wish I had something like a torch…”

“I have my ability.”

“Do you want to burn yourself?”

It was too sticky and hot to use for lighting purposes. I carefully looked at the centre of the hole again, pushing out Cheon Sa-yeon, who was talking nonsense while blocking the back. Fortunately, there was an old table in the corner.

Crack!

I broke the table without hesitation with my ability, so I grabbed a table leg that could be held with one hand. Raising the table legs and staring at Ha Tae-heon, he sighed and pulled out a lighter from his pocket. As expected, it was easy to pretend.

Just like we did at the D8 Area gate, we lighted the table legs and whipped it around in the wind to create a usable torch.

“Shall we go?”

While holding a torch, I took the lead to the way down. I could feel the humid air and the smell of dusty stones like the underground. The sound of dripping water resounded from somewhere.

After going down for a while, I was able to arrive at a large underground space. Between the wall that was redder than the first floor and the black moss growing in the crevice, traces that were presumed to be footprints were visible.

“If you see the footprints, it means someone has come or a monster appears… It’s strange that we didn’t meet anything, considering we’ve come down deeply.”

If it was a normal gate, even if a monster appeared, it would have to appear earlier. Ha Tae-heon opened his mouth as if he had the same thoughts as me.

“A gate that has just been cleared or a gate that has not been built properly. It seems to be one of the two.”

“Are you talking about an out-of-grade gate (등급 외 게이트, out-of-grade or off-grade gate)?”

Cheon Sa-yeon looked around the basement with an interesting expression on his face.

Out-of-grade gate. It was the gate that appeared in the novel. It was an empty gate where no monsters appeared and had not yet been discovered in Korea.

“In the United States, research is in full swing to remodelling out-of-grade gates for the training of talented people.”

“For training of talented people?”

“Even if the inside of the gate is broken or collapsed, it will be restored to its original shape after a certain period of time. There are no monsters in gates other than grades, so there will be more possibilities to use them.”

“It’s definitely not bad.”

In Korea, where there were no gates other than the grade ones, the lowest grade gates, such as C or D grades, were used for training of attackers who had just awakened. It would be nice if there was an out-of-grade gate in Korea as well.

If you think about it simply, you might think that training was rather necessary, so you didn’t need monsters, but there would be many kinds of training. It would be of great help to many talented people if there were more places to train due to the out-of-grade gate rose.

“Then is this an out-of-grade gate?”

Cheon Sa-yeon answered my question with a light shrug.

“You will find out if you watch more.”

We walked for quite a long time, about the same time we came down the stairs. The underground space, which I thought was a room, turned out to be a wide hallway, and there was no other way but the front.

“Wait a minute.”

Fiery. (화르륵)

When I found something, I stretched out my arm and lit a torch in front of me. I didn’t see it wrong.

“It’s a crossroads.”

As we reached the end of the hallway, a two-way path appeared. Left and right. A door that looked perfectly identical from the outside stood in the way.

“What should we do?”

Our choices were also divided into two. Would the three of us move like now, or would we be apart in two?

Cheon Sa-yeon, who had moved his fingers with his arms crossed, turned to Ha Tae-heon and opened his mouth.

“I think it would be better to split up here.”

“I don’t care.”

Ha Tae-heon replied calmly.

“Great. Then, Han Yi-gyeol.”

“Yes?”

“Choose.”