Chapter 366

The alien paused in the middle of scraping the burnt parts off the frozen pork cutlet and turned around. Then he walked back to where he'd left his phone and answered the call.

"Ah. Yeah. Yoonseung-ah."

Come to think of it, the place had cost a fortune, but was buying a mansion with floor-to-ceiling windows really such a good idea?

Beyond the glass, the yard lay blanketed in snow.

The alien homeowner, saddled with a debt of 30 billion won, gazed out at the scenery as he spoke on the phone.

By now, another person's voice—one he'd grown strangely accustomed to hearing—was flowing out through his own body.

"What's the matter?"

And then, unexpectedly, an interesting piece of news reached the alien's ears after a long conversation conducted over the phone.

"Huh?"

For reference, Korean phone conversations often sound something like this when heard from the outside.

"Huh? Ooh, okay."

Judging by the voice coming through the speaker, however, something fairly serious was clearly being reported.

"Mm. Yeah. Yeah. I got it. Let's end the call here for now. I'll head to the site right away. No, there's absolutely no need to apologize. If anything, I'm grateful you contacted me."

With that, the alien truly ended the call on the spot.

Tuk.

Whatever had happened, it seemed urgent.

"Outerwear! Put it on, now."

Whether this was really something worth celebrating was questionable.

Still, alone in the spacious living room, the alien hurriedly pulled on his winter clothes.

"Hahaha. At last, a chance to rake in a huge amount of money."

His expression was grim, yet inwardly he was practically glowing.

"And this is even the kind of situation where the richer I get, the happier everyone else becomes. Where else would you find such perfect opportunism?"

A moment later, the archmage had changed clothes in an instant, even making extravagant use of psychokinesis in the process.

But why was someone who had barely earned enough for food in recent weeks—thanks to interference from other S-rank hunters—suddenly so delighted by the prospect of money?

And what exactly had Ahn Yoonseung called him about?

The explanation was actually simple.

Almost as simple as the reason an alien had just ruined a frozen meal.

***

There was a burning smell.

...

The sharp crackle of sparks.

The acrid, pungent smell of something burning.

Familiar sensations came one after another, carried through the air into his senses.

[City Safety Publicity Office]

[Beware of Winter Fires!]

At that very moment, a nearby poster happened to catch his eye.

The administrative welfare center had put up notices warning citizens to be especially cautious about fires during the season.

The black-haired man stared at one of them and fell into thought.

"Winter really is a season when fires happen easily."

The air was dry.

More importantly, the cold meant greater use of heating equipment.

"My mom used to check the fire extinguisher at home every autumn."

But even if winter did bring a higher risk of fire...

Wasn't this taking it a little too far?

"Kyaaah!"

"Citizens, evacuate this way! Over here!"

"Everyone, stay calm and move in an orderly manner—!"

Rumble.

A certain hunter stood amid the chaos, strands of gray scattered through his black hair gleaming like silver under the light from the front.

Haseong.

He watched the disorder around him for another brief moment before speaking.

"Once the civilians have finished evacuating, we'll begin suppressing the situation..."

"Ah, yes. Yes!"

"Understood, Hunter Jung. Then we'll withdraw as well!"

And now, to explain how this chaos had begun.

It was the first week of December.

Ordinarily, there should have been no nationwide event like the College Scholastic Ability Test, nor was it yet January, when the Great Cataclysm would occur.

It should have been an uneventful period.

But...

"Damn it!"

True to the era of Dungeon Shock, yet another anomaly had struck Earth.

Had whoever created the gates begun conducting some kind of experiment?

Recently, Blue Gates had sharply decreased in number across the world, while sudden Red Gates began appearing one after another and spilling monsters onto the surface.

Naturally, South Korea was no exception.

[Briefing on the Predicted Red Gate Rush in Mid-December]

Boom!

"So a hole produced by this method means B-rank or lower. Then the passage that monster came through...?"

The disaster that the Korea Hunter Association had predicted arrived a full twelve days earlier than expected.

"That's a relief."

The country possessed enough military strength to endure what was coming.

The problem was here.

Seoul.

The phenomenon known as the [Red Gate Rush] did not actually occur in every region at exactly the same time.

Rather, it spread in a somewhat sequential pattern depending on location.

In South Korea, the first anomaly had appeared in the capital region—the heart of the nation for more than six hundred years.

So what exactly was now wreaking havoc on this proud and long-standing center of civilization?

Whoosh!

Jung Haseong unleashed his skills at the enormous monster standing before him.

As the scene itself made painfully obvious, a massive number of Red Gates had recently appeared throughout Seoul.

And the real reason the situation had become disastrous was...

This.

"I found it! The passage!"

Haseong finally located the opening from which the monsters were pouring out.

But the instant he identified the nature of that particular Red Gate, his face flushed and horror flashed across his expression.

"A-as expected, it's fire attribute again!"

Swoosh!

From somewhere in the distance came the roar of flames he had not ignited himself.

That was the source of every problem currently plaguing him.

Whether by sheer coincidence or for some other reason, every single monster emerging in the city possessed fire-based attacks. ℯℯ𝑙.

"This didn't happen in the overseas cases..."

Jung Haseong—the hunter whose name was practically synonymous with the fire attribute—could no longer suppress his frustration.

His expression twisted.

"It's a sea of fire in every direction..."

In a street battle like this, it would have been a hundred times easier if golems had simply appeared and started stomping around.

How exactly was he supposed to deal with living flamethrowers?

To be honest, defeating the monsters themselves posed no difficulty for the nation's top-ranked hunter.

Even now, the B-rank monsters he encountered were dying quickly enough to justify the phrase instant death.

Yet no matter how many victories he piled up, relief never appeared on his face.

"This looks like something straight out of a nightmare."

His thoughts returned to where they had begun.

Fire.

Fire.

Fire.

In the end, that damned attribute was the real problem.

The flames spewed by these otherworldly creatures inflicted devastating damage not just on people, but on human civilization itself.

Rustle!

At this point, who could even tell whether it was winter or summer?

The roadside trees around him seemed to scream as they were scorched by the flames unleashed by the S-rank fire-attribute hunter.

He controlled his power with extreme precision, compressing it as tightly as possible.

But heat spread outward by nature.

There was no way to prevent all collateral damage.

"Haa..."

And that was only his own fire.

What about the flames spewed by monsters that showed not the slightest concern for human lives?

Jung Haseong surveyed the ruined street with a troubled expression.

At this rate, Seoul's clear sky would soon be filled entirely with ash.

Even with both him and Seo Esther—two S-rank hunters—doing everything in their power, the city continued to be devoured by the natural force of fire.

Boom!

Another explosion thundered from somewhere farther away.

"_ _"

Cold sweat broke out across the black-haired Awakened's skin.

He knew better than anyone how terrifying fire could be.

After all, he himself had been born with that very attribute.

"Was the evacuation completed properly? With an explosion that large, how much property damage could there have been?"

Only a few years ago, the national hero had still been living an ordinary life.

He had belonged to the rigid educational system, moving between school and private academies according to a fixed schedule.

He had been an ordinary citizen who had never given much thought to any of it.

Then he awakened.

After obtaining the superhuman status of an S-rank, Jung Haseong deliberately trained his mental fortitude through sheer willpower.

Even so, perhaps because his upbringing had otherwise been so ordinary, there were still moments when the sheer brutality of disaster overwhelmed him.

"Ha."

Like now.

"Seriously."

The harder he worked, the farther the flames spread.

What kind of absurd situation was this?

"I wish all of this would just stop."

The soot-covered man straightened himself.

Exhausted and deeply discouraged, the hero let his true feelings slip out.

Perhaps speaking carelessly in front of the beasts roaming the street was what brought about the next problem.

Grumble.

Something nearby began to boil.

The sound came from the throat of a monster that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

Its mouth yawned open like a furnace the moment it spotted Jung Haseong.

Then it prepared to attack.

But although Jung Haseong noticed every movement, he did not budge.

"C-rank."

He had already estimated the creature's level.

The monster posed no real threat to him, so Jung Haseong simply ignored it.

Rather than waste emotional energy reacting to something so insignificant, he preferred to use those few seconds to regain his composure.

"Focus."

Jung Haseong drew in a deep breath.

His lungs filled with air.

Just as he closed his eyes and tried to force down his frustration—

Keugh!

Chiiisk!

A bizarre sound rang out.

It was as though the monster that had been about to spew lava from its stomach had suddenly had its neck severed.

Or perhaps the fire trapped inside its body had collided with something cold and been violently extinguished.

Whatever had happened, the attack never reached him.

"Jung Haseong."

The hero opened his eyes.

"What are you doing standing there by yourself?"

A human voice rang out from some distance away.

The pronunciation was crisp.

The voice itself was distinctly low, deep and clear enough that every nearby citizen could understand it immediately.

"No matter how weak the attacker is, you should at least react. And what's with your face? You're black as charcoal."

Jung Haseong's gaze swept across the surroundings.

Only then did he notice that the lava-colored monster that had attacked him was already dead, neatly dispatched and sprawled across the ground.

Someone else had killed it.

"Kim Giryeo..."

South Korea's fourth S-rank had appeared in Seoul.

"Hunter."

Haseong stared at the fellow hunter standing in the alley.

Kim Giryeo usually dressed much the same way whenever he went out on business, so there was nothing particularly unusual about his appearance today.

Suit.

Gloves.

Coat.

In the middle of a city turned into a sea of fire, that outfit might even have seemed comfortably warm.

Jung Haseong's expression openly showed his surprise.

He clearly had not expected to encounter him here.

And yet, somewhere deep in his chest, relief quietly began to spread.

"_ _"

Even now, the acrid smell of smoke hung thick over the city.

But the blond hunter standing before him spoke without the slightest change in expression, utterly composed despite the chaos.

"By the way, fire... you know you can't just recklessly throw water on every kind of fire."

Those calm words were directly connected to one particular fact about the man speaking them.

"Still, in a situation like this, I suppose even an unlicensed firefighter like me is allowed to step in, right?"

Kim Giryeo.

One of the world's foremost water-attribute Awakeners.