Reporters from around the world had descended on Japan. The unusual thing was that most of them were war correspondents who typically covered battlefields. That was proof enough that this undertaking was as dangerous as stepping onto a warzone. Security around the Gate was airtight. Reporters held their cameras at the ready. The barrier enveloping the Gate, as massive as a building, and the army surrounding it like a siege. The entire area was thick with the kind of tension you'd only see on the eve of war. Williams Bell's assistant, one of Britain's renowned war correspondents, swallowed hard and asked, his voice tight with nerves.
"But modern weapons don't work on magical beasts — so why is the army even here?"
Williams answered while capturing the grim faces of soldiers one by one through his lens.
"To buy time." "Huh?" "To draw attention and buy the front-line Hunters time to prepare for the attack. And while they're at it, they serve as bait so the big shots watching from back there can evacuate."
Click. The next face he captured through his camera was Matsumoto, chairman of the Japanese Hunter's Association, standing near the barrier. He was locked in some tense conversation with his staff.
'Well, nobody could be expected to smile in a situation like this.'
Click.
"I see…"
The relatively inexperienced assistant spoke, his eyes wide with tension.
"Decoys… is that what they are?" "Hey, don't talk like it's someone else's problem." "Excuse me?" "If something happens to me, you've got to be the one to jump in front." "Wh-what?"
When the young assistant turned around in surprise, Williams gave him a light jab in the ribs with his elbow.
"If you stay that stiff, you won't even have time to run. I'm telling you to loosen up."
The assistant finally caught on that it was a joke when he saw Williams squint one eye, and he let out a breath of relief.
'Amazing… how he can crack jokes even in this kind of situation.'
The calm that came with being a seasoned veteran eased the assistant's tension ever so slightly. But the assistant knew better — that Williams Bell was at his most dangerous precisely when he was smiling. The assistant's gaze drifted up toward the Gate towering into the sky.
"What do you think will come out of it?"
Williams paused his photography for a moment and looked in the same direction. It was enormous. Overwhelmingly so. Ever since Gates began appearing on Earth, the war correspondent's second battlefield had become the Gate. That meant he'd seen more than his fair share of them. He'd even covered Dungeon Breaks firsthand before… but the Gate in front of him now was on an entirely different level. Just looking up at it made cold sweat trickle down his spine.
'No wonder they couldn't even send in a scouting party.'
With no high-ranking Hunters willing to go inside and report back, they had no idea what was waiting within. That was the reality they were facing. Williams's lips, pressed into a thin line, finally parted.
"I don't know what's going to come out of there…"
Then he gave a bitter smile.
"But whatever it is, I just hope Yuri Orloff's barrier holds up."
His camera made its final stop on Yuri Orloff, who was inspecting the barrier. Yuri was grinning from ear to ear.
"Perfect. Absolutely perfect."
Yuri was brimming with confidence in his work. His barrier was magnificent. And that wasn't all. Chairman Matsumoto had kept things hush-hush, worried about public backlash, which led Japanese citizens to believe Yuri had volunteered to come — and they'd flooded him with donations. The money had poured in. And look at that — all those reporters who'd swarmed this dangerous location, cameras pointed right at him. Money and fame. Everything Yuri lived for had rolled right into his lap with a single effort.
"I said it's perfect!"
Today, he would go down in history as the first man to single-handedly hold the line against an S-rank Gate.
'Well, if I'm being honest, I'd rather be called the man who single-handedly *handled* an S-rank Gate…'
Unfortunately, there was another Hunter far more deserving of that title who'd come along first, so he couldn't be too greedy. But so what? That guy was a combat-type, and he himself was a support-type. They could each be the best in their own lane.
'Right, right.'
Yori, thoroughly intoxicated by his own brilliance, pulled a palm-sized flask from his breast pocket and unscrewed the lid. A sharp whiff of vodka rose from within.
"Mi-Mr. Yuri! Alcohol is—!"
The Association staff member assigned to him recoiled in horror and tried to stop him, but Yuri only glowered.
"I'm making a toast. A toast. To take the edge off. I'm about to give you the greatest show you've ever seen." "B-but still…" "Want a sip yourself? It'll wash away all the tension."
Chairman Matsumoto, watching from a distance as Yuri draped an arm around the staff member's shoulders and offered him a drink, furrowed his brow.
'The future of Japan rests in the hands of a man like this.'
He clicked his tongue under his breath and turned to his aide.
"How many S-rank Hunters are on standby?" "Three, sir." "Three…"
Out of more than a dozen S-rank Hunters, only three had answered the Association's call. The creases on Matsumoto's face deepened further. Ever since the Jeju Island raid had brought disaster upon Japan's Hunter community, his influence had been scraping rock bottom. Some were even saying Matsumoto had blinded by greed and was sending S-rank Hunters to their deaths. Most of the S-rank Hunters had already turned their backs on him. Some had even gone so far as to declare they would no longer follow any directive from the Association as long as he remained chairman.
'If only Gotō had still been by my side…'
His clenched fist trembled. Gotō's death had been a devastating blow to Matsumoto, who had relied on him as his right hand.
'And yet, that is precisely why.'
Today mattered even more. If the Association's efforts could successfully seal this S-rank Gate, he might be able to claw his way back to relevance.
'Ko Gun-Hee… and Sung Jin-Woo.'
Someday, he would have his chance to repay the humiliation to those who had destroyed his career.
'Without fail…'
It had to happen. Chairman Matsumoto stared at the Gate with a solemn expression. His aide, who had been checking his watch, leaned in with a whisper.
"Three minutes until the Dungeon Break." "Understood."
Matsumoto nodded. His gaze, fixed on the Gate, held a thousand thoughts. Two minutes. One minute. Fifty-nine seconds. Fifty-eight seconds… The tense seconds flew by like arrows. Before long, the black curtain over the Gate began to fade. Reporters erupted.
"W-what?" "The Gate is opening!" "It's… it's coming!"
* * *
"Son."
Jin-Woo, who had been about to sneak away, sat back down obediently.
"Yeah?"
His mother, who'd been watching TV, turned to look at him. The news had been running a nonstop stream of breaking reports on Japan's S-rank Gate for a while now — things like how many minutes remained until the Dungeon Break.
"You're not thinking of going somewhere again, are you?"
A mother's intuition could be sharper than even a high-ranking Hunter's. Jin-Woo felt a twinge of guilt but answered as if nothing were wrong.
"I have an appointment." "An appointment? On a day like this?" "It's something I agreed to a while back. Since the Gate opened in Japan anyway, I figured it wouldn't have any effect here, so I didn't cancel."
His mother still looked skeptical. But he wasn't lying.
'In a way, it's an appointment with the System too.'
His mother stared at him for a long moment, then asked again.
"I don't need to worry, do I?"
Jin-Woo answered with confidence.
"No."
This was the power he had been striving to obtain so that he could give exactly that answer. Meeting his mother's gaze with steady eyes, she finally offered a small smile.
"Be careful out there."
Jin-Woo smiled gently in return.
"I'll be back."
He rose from his seat and stepped out of the apartment. His building was on the ninth floor. He'd never realized the elevator going down could feel this slow. The anticipation of what kind of Dungeon the black key would open made him restless. Ding. The doors parted on the first floor. A middle-aged man he'd never seen before happened to look up, and their eyes met. The man apparently didn't know that an S-rank Hunter lived in the same building, because the moment he recognized Jin-Woo, his eyes went wide.
"Oh?"
Jin-Woo walked past him, pulling the hood of his jacket low over his head. Something must have been pressing on him — his steps were quick. He left the apartment complex behind and emerged onto the street in no time, glancing around.
'Is it because of the Gate in Japan?'
The entire street was deserted. Which suited Jin-Woo just fine — with nobody around, he could examine the black key at his leisure without drawing attention.
[Item obtained: Key of the Cartenon Temple] Difficulty: ?? Type: Key 'The requirements have been met.' A key that grants entry to the Cartenon Temple. Can be used at a designated Gate. The location of the designated Gate will be revealed after a set period of time. Time remaining: 0 hours 01 minutes 02 seconds
One minute left.
'…Finally.'
A heart that had lain cold and still beneath the surface now began to thud quietly. Thump. Thump. Jin-Woo sat perfectly still, listening to his own heartbeat as he waited out the final minute. There was no need to even check a clock. A body honed to its absolute limits carried an internal clock more precise than any timepiece in the world.
'…Three, two, one.'
Exactly one minute later, Jin-Woo opened his eyes. Tick.
[Time remaining: 0 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds] [The location of the Gate where the key can be used has been revealed.]
Jin-Woo's eyes widened.
'Here…?';
The Gate location displayed in the System message wasn't far from where he stood. A familiar place. Jin-woo used one of the features on his Hunter Phone to access the Association's website and looked up the Gate information. Sure enough — the Association had recently announced a Gate formation at this very spot. But that this was where the key could be used? It hit him like a slap to the back of the head.
'…I had it backwards.'
The key's description hadn't been wrong. The System had said Gate information would be *revealed* at this time, not that the Gate would *form* at this time. He'd been outplayed. Jin-Woo's hands moved fast. When he pulled up the Gate data, a guild was already inside clearing the Dungeon. Gate rank: C.
'The rank isn't high, but…'
The problem was that there was no telling what could be hidden inside.
'At least it's close.'
Ten minutes by car. At full sprint, he could make it in under sixty seconds. Jin-Woo cloaked himself with Stealth and took off at a dead run. The skill Swift added propulsion. The destination was the school gymnasium that Jin-Ah attended. The school had been shut down since the Orc incident and hadn't reopened yet, so there was little risk of civilian casualties.
'But the strike team currently clearing the Dungeon is in danger.'
Jin-Woo remembered his first visit to the underground temple. The harrowing moments. The near-death experiences that had brushed past him again and again. And yet — why was it that, despite those memories being so terrifying, his heart still quickened at the thought of that place? In that temple, Jin-Woo had felt, for the first time, that he was truly alive. He hadn't been an ineffectual E-rank Hunter anymore. He was a challenger who stood against the impossible. After weaving through a few blocks in the blink of an eye, the familiar shape of the school came into view. He had truly arrived at the school on a second-by-second basis. Through the front gate, he could see the Gate sitting alone on one end of the schoolyard. A handful of Association staff and guild personnel stood guard around it. No news of anything catastrophic had reached them yet — the mood was relatively calm. That calm shattered the moment Jin-Woo appeared. He dropped Stealth near them.
"Wh-what?"
Noticing the approaching figure a moment too late, a guild staff member stepped forward to block his path.
"You can't come in here."
Jin-Woo pulled back his hood, revealing his face. A sharp gasp erupted from the side.
"You!"
The Association employee who recognized him raised her voice. She was the bespectacled office worker he'd crossed paths with when handling the B-rank Gate that had appeared on the road. Figuring he'd have an easier time talking to her than the guild staffer blocking him, Jin-Woo bypassed the guard and spoke directly to her.
"The raid needs to stop immediately." "What?"
She stammered in confusion.
"But the measurements only show a C-rank…"
Jin-Woo shook his head and spoke again.
"If you don't stop now, they're all going to die." "…!"
Jin-Woo raised his head and looked at the Gate. Was it something they simply couldn't perceive? A chilling, ominous aura was oozing from within the Gate — so sinister it made the skin crawl.