Chapter 312

A few hours later.

While the sun still shone brightly overhead, Giryeo temporarily relocated to the vicinity of the restricted gate zone on OO Avenue in Seoul. Just as someone—Esther—had testified, the entire area had been covered and barricaded so chaotically that it could easily be mistaken for a construction site.

‘So inside that massive partition... is the dungeon they took over through illegal lobbying?’

However, no one—including Giryeo—could simply enter the area.

Dissemination of skill utilization methods. Research achievements related to combat strategies, and so on.

Modern hunters were improving their overall hunting capabilities even at this very moment, but A-rank gates still remained perilous places. Moreover, with yet another Beast that attacked people having been discovered inside, it was obvious that rash action could not be taken for the time being.

Tak, tak, tak.

The heels of the man’s shoes struck the concrete steps.

Giryeo was currently climbing the stairs of a nearby building alone, one that offered a clear view of the occupied gate. By the time he reached approximately the seventh floor, he opened a window in the adjacent corridor.

Tiring.

A text message arrived.

[Sender: Seo Esther]

[Text: So, how is it? Now that you’re up there, can you see anything?]

Before coming here, Giryeo had told her that he would observe the area with his sensory ability and check for anything unusual.

‘There’s a building so close that if you fell over, you could practically reach the place. Perfect timing.’

He replied that he had not started yet, then slipped his phone back into his pocket.

In truth, however, the long-haired Earthling who had sent the message was hardly sitting around with nothing to do.

While Giryeo climbed the stairs of the building beside the gate, Seo Esther, representative of the Tower Guild, had dragged her grandfather—a member of the National Assembly—back to the Association President’s office.

S-rank hunters.

Their combat prowess was so overwhelming that they could subdue an armed terrorist group with their bare hands.

As a result, the atmosphere at Hunter Association headquarters had suddenly become even tenser and more dangerous than the fake construction site outside.

According to Esther, once she had confirmed through an oath-bound interrogation that the new Association President had not been involved in the incident, she intended to immediately proceed with punishing the public officials responsible and resolving everything that followed.

“Hmm.”

To be honest, the alien understood barely half of the legal procedures she had laid out,

but considering the competence she had shown so far, he decided to leave the rest in her hands.

Which meant it was now time for him to handle the tasks that only a great mage could perform.

Giryeo rested one arm against the window frame and looked straight down.

Wooooooong...

The gate in question was difficult to observe from ground level because the illegal occupant wearing a bone mask had erected barriers around it.

From this higher vantage point, however, its surface could be seen clearly.

To an Earthling, it would have looked like nothing more than a steadily shimmering mass of light—a passage to the “otherworld.”

“An A-rank gate, huh.”

The blond man, by now quite accustomed to the structure of a mammalian body, focused intently on the gate for a long while.

Had he been an ordinary sensory-type hunter, activating such an observational ability from this distance would have required at least an entire reserve of B-rank mana.

But he was a soul that had lived through the golden age of magic.

“Hmm...?”

Moreover, his kind had been overwhelmingly favored by miracles, even more so than the beings responsible for creating that very passage.

‘Uhm?’

Kim Giryeo was not normally the sort of man one would describe as having large eyes.

Yet his mammalian body suddenly opened them wide, as though he had witnessed something unbelievable.

‘No, damn it!’

New observational data had emerged.

Back when he was tracking the Rakshasa Temple, he had spent a considerable amount of time analyzing the entrances to various dungeons.

‘What is this?’

So even though he had never seen such a phenomenon in his previous life, he had already grasped the fundamental principles behind the technique.

And the conclusion he reached was shocking.

‘Why is the mana spread out in such a suspicious pattern? It looks like the whole thing could unfold like a box at any moment...!’

For example, like the perforated lines on snack packaging or household products.

The gate occupied by the Beasts was not merely an ordinary hunting ground.

To the mage’s intuition, the arrangement of its constituent elements felt unnaturally fragile—like an object designed to split neatly along a perforated line with a single pull.

An unfolding otherworld.

‘It can’t be.’

Until now, the alien had often referred to the activity of the Gisimche as a “feeding box.”

But to the rulers of Earth, that expression had always sounded somewhat... strange.

A box.

Why had the Alphauri consistently referred to a space that was not even remotely rectangular... as a box?

It was around this point that the truth was finally revealed.

In reality, the Gisimche originating from Alphauri carried out their feeding activity quite normally in open environments.

They did not ordinarily partition space through loud, luminous gateways like these.

‘I really didn’t expect this. I guess constantly eating through a straw like that must have been uncomfortable?’

The Gisimche were originally beings that directly devoured the surfaces of the planets on which they settled.

In places that had once been peaceful homes to others, they manifested horrific landscapes born from their own twisted creativity.

And in the process, the native inhabitants’ land was eroded, displaced, and eventually swept away altogether.

Furthermore, whenever a Gisimche occupied a region, the boundary was usually cut into a square, box-like form.

That was why the term “box” had come into use.

Come to think of it, many dungeon spaces—including the Tower of the Hundred People—were often square-shaped as well.

Perhaps they instinctively preferred certain geometric forms, the way bees did.

But did that really matter right now?

‘Oh my god.’

Flutter.

The Archmage, having realized the truth, hurriedly pulled out his phone.

This dungeon was suspected to be the first genuine feeding box ever to appear on Earth.

Judging from the pattern observed in those “straws” until now, a dungeon break was probably the trigger that caused the box to unseal.

‘Good thing I definitely learned from Seonwoo Yeon how to book tickets last time. How much does a flight to Jeju Island cost these days?’

The real problem, however, lay in the very nature of the feeding box he had just described.

When the Gisimche’s spatial magic activated properly, the existing landscape would be completely overwritten by the new one.

To put it simply...

The apartment building the appraiser was standing in.

The huge supermarket across the road.

The luxury cars worth hundreds of millions of won parked along the street.

Even the sewage pipes and water facilities buried underground.

Perhaps all of it.

‘It could all be ground away by the resulting erosion.’

Because Alphauri was an enormous planet with a much greater volume than Earth, this sort of territorial invasion had been relatively less devastating there.

But if a box unfolded in a densely populated city like Seoul, it would create all kinds of problems.

‘Even if the affected area is small, the damage will be enormous.’

Really, why did the mammals of this planet insist on gathering together so densely?

Was it because their bodies were small?

Wouldn’t it have been better to build mobile homes like the mature forms on Alphauri, so they could relocate whenever necessary?

Giryeo muttered incomprehensible things to himself in the language of alien creatures as he scrolled through his phone.

[Search Flights: GMP Seoul -> CJU Jeju]

And yet, even after realizing just how dangerous this place was, he could not bring himself to press the payment button.

‘The curse sorcerer went so far as to personally ask me for help. If I run away now, it’ll definitely leave a bad impression.’

In fact, that was no longer the only reason.

‘But even if I take the curse into account, what do I gain by being the only one who escapes?’

He sank into thought.

‘The Beasts usually appear in Europe, and now they suddenly bribed their way into occupying one specific dungeon. Could that really be a coincidence?’

Soon, the tiny amount of magical power within the man sharply changed formation.

‘It’s difficult to interpret this any other way. The only explanation that makes sense is that those bastards also recognized the dungeon’s unusual nature in advance.’

Not even in Korea.

S-rank criminals had taken control of a gate so rare that even on a global scale, it would be difficult to find another one like it.

Under the circumstances, it was highly likely that all three fake Beasts were foreigners.

After all, in a small country like South Korea, all of the known top-tier hunters had already revealed themselves.

‘Ugh, and on top of that, I even had to deal with one of them personally...’

But to abandon the threat posed by the Beasts and simply run away...

Esther too.

Jung Haseong too.

Neither of them was the kind of follower who would abandon Seoul and retreat merely because he warned them of danger.

So by the time this situation was over, wasn’t there a chance they might be killed by whatever threat awaited them?

‘This is unsettling. Based on my experience from my previous life, this clearly means the Beasts have someone backing them.’

Of course, it was not as though the innate talent of an F-rank would dramatically alter the odds.

Still, his feet refused to move.

‘I don’t want Jung Haseong, whom I’ve spent months carefully raising, to die.’

As always, this damned attachment was the problem.

‘Even Esther, who always pays attention to my clothes despite being an Earthling, would be another regrettable mammal to lose.’

If he had never been born with magic in the first place, or if his talent had simply fallen a little short compared to other mages, perhaps he would have suffered less stress.

‘If a large number of people in the capital suddenly die, Ahn Yoonseong and Seonwoo Yeon will be sad. If you think about it, that just means there would be fewer top competitors in this capitalist society. I don’t know why, but they’ve always been like that...’

The alien sorcerer reincarnated on Earth could no longer bring himself to simply flee whenever situations like this arose.

Besides, this situation might even represent a kind of opportunity.

That was—if he took into account the results of the mid-level mana test he had been watching all this time.

No, perhaps...

Perhaps it was precisely when he was thrown into situations like this that he could truly...

“Hmm.”

But explaining that this was a feeding box would go far beyond the limits of Earthly knowledge, which made things difficult.

In the end, the danger posed by the gate could only be dismissed as “it just feels wrong,” some vague intuition on his part.

And on top of that, three S-rank bastards were still camped inside.

So what exactly were they supposed to do from here?

Tiring.

It was around the time the man was lost in thought.

[Sender: Seo Esther]

A follow-up message arrived from Esther.

She had safely concluded her discussion with the Association President, and from this point onward, with government support, she intended to attempt to reclaim the gate alongside several elite members from various guilds.

It was an A-rank dungeon that had already gone well beyond its expected break point.

Leaving something like that in the hands of criminals was far too dangerous.

So they had decided to drive the Beasts out by force, even if it meant sending personnel inside.

‘It would be even better if we could clear the gate at the same time.’

Since the nature of an otherworld meant that the space itself would be discarded once the raid was completed, there would be no further infestation afterward.

Giryeo fully agreed with Esther’s plan to drive out the Beasts.

However, he had no confidence whatsoever in personally stepping into that den of monsters.

And so, little by little, he began to scheme.

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Perhaps it was thanks to racking his brain so desperately.

His now thoroughly warmed-up mind quickly produced a method that sounded plausible enough to work in this situation.

‘Now that I think about it.’

Looking back, the past year had been nothing but chaos, one incident after another.

Even so, there was at least one thing he had gained from all of it.

‘I have manpower I can use in a difficult situation like this.’

S-rank hunter, Kang Changho.

For a brief moment, the image of that superpowered individual flashed through his mind.

The outsider of Korea’s hunting industry had previously said something to the victim sitting in the hospital.

‘From now on, whenever Hunter Kim Giryeo is in need, I will lend my help—no matter what kind of task it is, just once...’

And this current task—launching a cooperative attack against the formidable beings occupying an A-rank gate...

If one had to weigh whether it was possible or impossible, it seemed worth attempting.

‘Kang Changho did betray me in three seconds at the Kagoshima Gate, but that was only because it was someone else’s problem in a distant place. If the Beasts launch a preemptive attack the moment he enters, he’ll have no choice but to fight back.’

He paused to think.

The assistance of an S-rank Hunter would ordinarily come at an enormous price.

But when it came to the promise Kang Changho had made him, Giryeo saw no reason to be conservative about using it.

‘If I trust that promise too much, I’ll only be the one who loses out.’

As for that third S-rank hunter, considering his personality, there was honestly no guarantee that he would fulfill his obligation sincerely...

‘What can I expect from a mammal who would swear a knight’s oath, then stab you in the back the moment something felt wrong?’

In that case, rather than entrusting him with something genuinely vital or urgent, it might be better to spend the favor on something like this—

a preventative measure.

‘Should I make a quick call?’

Giryeo operated his phone and immediately dialed a number saved in his contacts.

“Hmm?”

The signal continued for so long that, for a moment, he wondered whether the other person was unavailable.

Tuk.

The dial tone cut off.

Through the speaker came the faint, quiet sound of wind.

“......”

Then came that subtle but unmistakable pause—

the kind that occurred when someone on the other end had just picked up the phone.