Chapter 381

The Gisimche were so ravenous that it almost seemed as though they had collectively lost their minds.

Wasn't the harvest of suffering from the Cataclysm already more than enough?

For reference, it was January.

Neither Korea nor India was experiencing anything that could remotely be called unbearable heat. And yet, in the middle of such a cold season, those space insects had begun causing trouble again.

Should I consider myself lucky that this didn't happen in Korea...?

The gate that had appeared in the South Asian country seemed exceedingly difficult to clear.

An S-rank monster.

Back during the Hawaii incident, enemies of that caliber had been extraordinarily rare.

No.

Calling them rare didn't quite do it justice.

If I remembered correctly, for nearly four years there hadn't been a single S-rank nest at all. Only after those cursed years had passed did the rarity of S-rank threats gradually begin to decrease.

The Nucklewave in Hawaii, the Black Dragon in Kagoshima, and after that... were there several cases where A- and S-rank monsters appeared together?

In any case, S-rank gates had begun appearing every now and then.

Even so, the news being reported on the channel shocked me.

Because from the perspective of an Archmage, even the gate shown in the report looked absurdly difficult.

The cosmic bugs responsible for maintaining balance must have all frozen to absolute zero and died.

For reference, India was a genuine powerhouse when it came to awakeners.

In today's world, there was no human resource more valuable than people with supernatural abilities, and I'd heard that India ranked first in the world in population.

They even had several schools devoted exclusively to teaching character and ethics to awakened individuals.

So even a country with nearly as many S-ranks as the United States was struggling?

The dungeon shown in the report was difficult enough to push even such a nation onto the defensive.

Since it had yet to receive an official name, the Blue Gate provisionally designated [Delhi No. 1614] looked perfectly ordinary from the outside.

It was blue.

And every now and then, it emitted a sound resembling an extremely high-pitched frequency.

The real problem was that the monsters inside were simply beyond anything that could be exterminated normally.

I looked it up, and apparently an Indian S-rank team had already attempted the raid five times before being forced to retreat...

Simply put, the prey was far too strong.

Not one S-rank, but several had entered together—and they had still failed!

Worse yet, they couldn't simply ignore the possibility of a gate break.

The newly emerged [Delhi No. 1614] was said to contain an exceptionally vast internal space.

If a gate that large collapsed, the monsters living inside it would spread across an enormous area.

And of all places, an S-rank gate had appeared directly in a densely populated capital.

Honestly, what were they supposed to do?

It wasn't as though they could pass a law regulating population density by region.

The gate remained uncleared.

But unfortunately, relocating the capital wasn't a realistic solution either.

After all, the areas Earthlings preferred to live in were surprisingly limited.

Even I, despite all the vast land available in Korea, had specifically chosen to move near the coast.

If humanity kept retreating every time monsters appeared, eventually there would be nowhere left to go.

That was why the foreign country had no choice but to continue throwing itself at the S-rank den.

[YTV Morning Live at 7 o'clock will now begin.]

Two days later.

Rustle.

I straightened the tie over my suit, doing my best impression of an ordinary office worker preparing to leave for work.

Phew.

I really don't feel like working.

Even the thoughts going through my head were impressively employee-like.

Meanwhile, the news I had left running out of boredom while getting ready soon delivered another report.

[...A monstrous creature that emerged from [Delhi No. 1614] has once again caused civilian casualties. We now connect live to our correspondent at the scene. Reporter Lee, please go ahead.]

The announcer's clear, sharp voice echoed through the empty living room.

Another failure.

I'd assumed that if I waited long enough, the situation would eventually resolve itself.

But apparently, this dungeon was on an entirely different level from the S-rank gate [Six-Legged Corridor] that had appeared in Korea.

For several days now, nothing but bad news had been pouring in.

At best, the teams were managing to kill a handful of monsters near the entrance before retreating.

A situation like that was enough to bring tears to anyone who bore the title of "Hunter."

Still, from India's perspective, there was no viable strategy other than this war of attrition.

Even though they're only thinning out the monster population to prevent a gate break, the injuries among the S-rank Hunters keep getting worse.

For reference, this kind of method was actually quite advantageous when it came to acquiring items.

The longer the tug-of-war with the monsters continued, the more opportunities Hunters had to obtain valuable rewards.

Still...

It's not going to work, is it?

No matter how much money might be involved, I couldn't bring myself to feel pleased about a situation like this.

Hunters were living people, after all.

The foreign Hunters would continue accumulating fatigue, and anyone could predict that sooner or later, exhaustion itself would become the cause of a disaster.

Hmm.

Whether you're an office worker in a tie or a Hunter covered in dirt, overworking yourself ultimately leads to the same miserable outcome.

[India S-Rank Hunter On-Site Interview ●LIVE]

[Sonakshi (37): At first, we thought we'd defeated the gate's boss...]

But setting aside the idle observations—

Another boss-level monster?

I'd been wondering what kind of prey box could possibly make S-ranks struggle this badly, and the morning news finally gave me a clue.

I wasn't sure whether it should be called a mid-boss, or whether the dungeon simply contained two bosses of equal rank.

Either way, there seemed to be several entities inside that were overwhelmingly stronger than the ordinary monsters.

So there were at least two.

And possibly even more.

The way they discovered this fact had apparently been rather horrifying.

The [Delhi No. 1614] gate reportedly forced Hunters to fight powerful monsters inside a hall resembling a temple.

Because of the atmosphere and layout, the Indian Hunters had mistaken the creature they defeated there for the dungeon's actual boss.

During the first raid, they had poured nearly all their strength into bringing down °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° that single monster.

But the moment the creature they believed to be the boss died—

A third hidden passage in the chamber quietly opened.

To summarize what happened afterward:

Everything went wrong the moment the second boss battle began.

Anyway, that was the situation.

They're surprisingly good at giving people false hope.

And if you think that was the end of it, you'd be mistaken.

In addition to its abnormally tough and powerful bosses, the gate seemed to contain troublesome ordinary monsters as well.

Well.

It was an S-rank gate.

That much was only natural.

Hmm.

Monsters aggressive enough to injure even top-tier awakeners, with small bodies and exceptional speed on top of that...

This is the worst possible combination!

The news switched to footage of the newly identified monster.

At first glance, the creature resembled a tiny, adorable bee.

And yet, that cute-looking thing was turning India into a living hell.

[HunterNet]

[b*** Gate balance is completely broken ㅋㅋㅋ]

[12p***: So the cosmic simulation theory was right after all?? What kind of world only works properly when it runs like a fan?]

The fact that the stress caused by this S-rank gate had apparently triggered new awakenings in India said plenty by itself.

I completely agree.

This was clearly a mistake on the Gisimche's part.

Just as those anonymous Earthlings had pointed out, this nest's difficulty had been adjusted improperly.

After all, a prey box was supposed to be conquerable.

That was the whole point.

The inhabitants of the planet needed to believe there was hope so that they would willingly enter the trap again and again...

Is this going to turn into a second Nucklewave Incident?

Just then, an advertisement from an international aid organization appeared on the phone screen.

The commercial showed ordinary civilians who had been caught up in monster attacks.

Among them was a young child, sobbing loudly with a badly injured leg.

I don't know why, but seeing such a tiny child cry like that makes me feel a little sorry for them.

So what should I do?

To make one thing clear—

I'm not some Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara.

Well, my previous body did technically have a few more arms than this one, but still.

In any case, I couldn't intervene every single time someone somewhere on Earth was in danger of dying.

The moment I closed my notebook, the very notion of "management" had effectively been abandoned.

But I'd only recently gone out of my way to deal with that island-destruction assignment.

And somehow, ignoring the current situation entirely felt unfair.

Hmm.

The consequences if India's S-rank awakeners died.

My curiosity about the gate that had appeared there.

And most importantly—

Money.

After considering all three factors, I reached a conclusion.

Well, I'm working these days anyway.

Maybe I should go.

If I'd already retired, naturally, my answer would have been different.

After all, taking away awakeners' opportunity to overcome danger through their own strength—and thereby interfering with the natural balance—wasn't exactly desirable.

Whether it was those excess products floating in the sky or this newly emerged S-rank dungeon,

I was only dealing with such things because I happened to still be active.

Once I'd earned enough money, I would genuinely retire and entertain myself on my own.

Hopefully everything goes according to plan.

Maybe humans on Earth are simply so primitive that I can't help worrying about them.

Having settled the matter in my head, I picked up my phone.

Phew.

Apparently, this week's income would be coming from India.

And to arrange that, I once again had to go through the Hunter Association.

Beep beep beep beep.

While waiting for the call to connect, I glanced back at the news broadcast.

[Sonakshi (37): At first, we thought we'd only defeated the gate's boss...]

Still, there was one fortunate detail.

India's strongest Hunter happened to be a water-attribute mage.

The government might have chosen someone else as the official representative of its awakeners, but from my perspective, that person seemed like the most suitable candidate.

If she's a water mage—assuming I don't interfere—her abilities shouldn't be reduced even against an SS-rank opponent.

It's a little unfortunate that the Indian government still hasn't formally requested assistance.

Well, whatever.

I can simply negotiate compensation for participating in the field operation directly with the Hunters there.

Come to think of it, during the Black Dragon raid, we'd obtained both a legendary item and an epic one.

That had been an enormous jackpot.

Maybe this S-rank prey box would have something worthwhile too.

I've finally decided to do a good deed.

Hopefully, this opportunity will erase the rest of my debt.

It was just as thoughts of greed began creeping in that I finally managed to reach the head of the Hunter Association.

As expected, permission to enter India was granted without much difficulty.

From India's perspective, after all, this was effectively planting season.

Who had the luxury of refusing an extra pair of hands during the busiest time of year?

On the other hand...

If the farmland was being pushed this hard, perhaps even that held some sort of meaning for the Gisimche.

...

Eight hours later, after one alien's idle thoughts had drifted along without consequence—

[What? You're saying I have to enter the dungeon with that South Korean man who looks like a serial killer?]

For reference, Sonakshi, one of India's S-rank Hunters, was deeply wary of allowing a foreign awakener to participate.

Her objections, however, were ignored, and the alien's deployment proceeded without incident.

Society, after all, could be a cold and merciless thing.

Kim Giryeo quickly completed the negotiations through the Hunter Association and boarded a flight to India.

Being the solitary outsider that he was, he didn't bother telling anyone about it.

Thus, the departure of an S-rank Hunter took place in surprisingly quiet fashion.

Bubble, bubble, bubble...

And meanwhile, another awakener was having a rather uneventful meal.

Doenjang-jjigae.

This was a restaurant somewhere in South Korea.

A man widely known by the nickname "Hero of the People" lifted his spoon and quietly thought to himself.

It doesn't taste as good as the one Hunter Kim Giryeo made.

Jung Haseong was evaluating the stew he'd just tasted.

Is he some kind of genius...? Is he even good at cooking?

The table before him held a single-person Korean meal with so many side dishes it looked as though the tabletop might bend beneath their weight.

In the past, no matter how luxurious the spread, he would simply have eaten until he was full without thinking much about it.

Then what exactly is Hunter Kim Giryeo bad at?

Empathy...?

Slurp.

And then, around lunchtime, in the middle of that peaceful meal—

♫ ♬ ♩ ♪

His phone rang.

Spam again?

I installed an app to block telemarketing calls, so why has it stopped filtering them properly lately?

Jung Haseong had been about to ignore the call and continue eating.

But the moment he saw the name displayed on the screen, he immediately changed his mind.

[Incoming Call] [CEO Esther of Korean Magic Tower]

Now that he was no longer constantly overwhelmed with work, he could afford to answer calls like this.

"Yes, Hunter Esther. I saw your call."

The question was what she would say next.

"Huh? You need me to come right now? What dungeon?"

The curse master on the other end sounded unusually tense.

"Uh... what did you say? A genuine S-rank?"

By the time Jung Haseong had heard the full explanation, every trace of his earlier tranquility had disappeared.

"So you're saying that this time, a pure S-rank gate has appeared in Korea—with no A-rank monsters mixed in at all?"

And so began a problem that had absolutely nothing to do with an overseas business trip.