#122
“Ugh!”
The two people rolled on the ground, tangled together. As Yoon Pa-ran was about to jump up, he wasn’t prepared for the impact from behind.
Despite just being saved, he wondered if he was now being attacked from behind.
As this suspicion arose and he was about to counterattack, he noticed where he had been standing just moments ago. While he had been looking at the person caught above his head, sharp tree roots were sprouting from the ground.
A chill ran down Yoon Pa-ran’s spine. Even as the whole ground was turning over, the monster was still attacking stealthily from below.
Fortunately, it seemed the idea of being attacked was a misunderstanding.
However, the situation for the two people who had completely lost their balance wasn’t good.
“Aaagh!”
“Urgh.”
As if hit by a giant roller coaster, the two rolled around on the ground, entangled. They also drifted helplessly between huge mounds of earth that surged like waves.
The unnamed hunter clung tightly to Yoon Pa-ran as if he were a lifeline. His desperate screams kept piercing Yoon Pa-ran’s ears.
“Aaah!”
While trying not to stab him with the sword he was holding, Yoon Pa-ran protected his head.
Then suddenly, everything around them became quiet again.
“…”
In the blink of an eye, the two found themselves sprawled on normal ground.
Yoon Pa-ran reflexively jumped up. Until just moments ago, they had been buried in waves of earth, but now they were back in the middle of a quiet jungle. Only the dirt covering their bodies proved that what they had just experienced was real.
It felt exactly like being possessed by a ghost.
“Gasp!”
The unnamed hunter also looked around in belated shock. Leaving the anxious-looking man be, Yoon Pa-ran carefully surveyed the surroundings.
He couldn’t sense any presence. The monster they had encountered earlier was nowhere to be seen.
“Whew…”
Only after confirming their safety did Yoon Pa-ran dust off the dirt on his body.
Is this damn gate going to keep moving like this? What kind of test is this supposed to be?
“Hunter Yoon Pa-ran, are you alright?”
“Ah, yeah. Thanks for earlier.”
“Not at all. I should be thanking you.”
Having finally come to his senses, he hurriedly approached Yoon Pa-ran. Judging by his movements, he seemed to be a C-rank hunter.
“Where are we now…?”
“A-are they all dead?”
“I don’t know.”
This time, only the two of them had been separated. Even though there weren’t many hunters who entered the gate, to think only two remained.
For better or worse, the surroundings looked like an ordinary jungle terrain. As if the sky and earth had never been flipped, not a speck of dirt was on the surrounding branches.
He had thought the gate itself might have changed again since it had been kneading people like dough, but for now, it seemed to be a similar place to before.
“W-what should we do now?”
The hunter beside him asked in an extremely timid voice. Although Yoon Pa-ran didn’t have any particular plan, he thought he should calm the other man down first.
It was obvious he wouldn’t be able to wield his sword properly in that state.
“What’s your name?”
“I-it’s Lee Ha-min.”
“Okay. Let’s get our bearings and start walking. We don’t know when the ground might shake again, so let’s try to find a safe zone.”
“Ah! Yes!”
Yoon Pa-ran deliberately mentioned a safe zone. Lee Ha-min’s expression became clearer, as if he had regained some composure.
In truth, if this was similar to the previous Gumun-dong anomaly gate, even a safe zone might not be of much use. Still, Yoon Pa-ran kept his mouth shut for now.
It would be better than having no hope at all.
“Let’s head that way for now.”
“Yes!”
Maybe because of the difference in rank, Lee Ha-min followed Yoon Pa-ran’s words well.
Thanks to the eye for detail he had developed from leading attack squads a few times, Yoon Pa-ran had a feeling that Lee Ha-min wasn’t a very experienced hunter. His face was quite unfamiliar too.
“You seem to be C-rank, how did you end up volunteering for an A-rank gate?”
“Ah. I wanted to earn some quick money, so this was my first time volunteering… And it turned out like this.”
“Is that so? How long has it been since you awakened?”
“Actually… it’s only been two months.”
The more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed. No matter how much he volunteered, to push such a novice hunter straight into an A-rank gate.
Lee Ha-min, who had been answering diligently, finally stared into space for a while with a slightly dazed expression. Then, as if something occurred to him, he started saying things Yoon Pa-ran hadn’t asked about. It seemed like his own effort to muster strength.
“Actually, I was planning to propose after this gate. I want to marry the person I’m dating now.”
“Oh, uh…”
Yoon Pa-ran, who had been warily watching the surroundings for any surprise attacks from tentacle monsters, responded awkwardly.
He didn’t really believe in superstitions or jinxes, but Lee Ha-min’s statement would definitely rank first if there was a collection of lines like ‘The guy who says things like this in a gate always dies first’. It caught him a bit off guard.
Incredibly unluckily, as soon as Lee Ha-min finished speaking, Yoon Pa-ran sensed a presence ahead.
This is how it happened last time before the ground shook. Instantly tensing up, Yoon Pa-ran immediately stopped walking and restrained Lee Ha-min.
“Stop.”
“Ah!”
Although he had deliberately lowered his voice to warn him, Lee Ha-min was startled and made a loud sound of surprise. He really was a novice with no sense of how to behave inside a gate.
Frowning, Yoon Pa-ran immediately drew his sword. Perhaps having heard Lee Ha-min’s sound, the presences ahead suddenly started approaching rapidly.
“…”
Could it be monsters like before? If so, how long could these two hold out against monsters? Was this even the same gate as the jungle they had fallen into earlier?
Yoon Pa-ran’s mind became instantly complicated. The more he gauged the approaching presence, the more perplexed his expression became.
Unlike before, what was approaching seemed to be people, not monsters.
Could it be surviving hunters? Although they had been attacked by monsters earlier, not all the hunters had died.
To begin with, there might have been more hunters who fell here from the first gate. Maybe they were about to join up with them.
However, he had a strangely bad feeling. So Yoon Pa-ran waited for them, ready to launch a ranged attack at any moment.
Eventually, as expected, five hunters appeared, pushing through the undergrowth.
“Well, who do we have here.”
The faint expectation he had unknowingly held dissipated the moment he heard that voice. Because it wasn’t Dan Joo-hyuk.
“Isn’t it Yoon Pa-ran?”
However, the man’s voice was very familiar to Yoon Pa-ran.
“Won… Dong-hyun?”
Yoon Pa-ran’s face wrinkled at the face he was encountering after a very long time.
Won Dong-hyun was famous even among B-rank hunters like him. He was considered one of the hunters most likely to soon rise to A-rank.
And he was also the bastard who had injured Yoon Pa-ran in the past and left him abandoned in the jungle.
“Long time no see.”
“…”
Damn it. When he first sensed the presence, he should have moved away and observed the situation first, but he had misjudged. He had done so because it seemed too daunting to navigate the gate with just two people, but now an even worse situation had arisen.
“I hear you’ve been busy picking up scraps for money these days?”
At the blatant provocation, Yoon Pa-ran didn’t bother to respond and calmly surveyed his surroundings. He was checking things like whether there was an escape route, or if there were any other hunters besides the five in front.
“Ignoring me again?”
Meanwhile, a new question arose following the gate’s anomaly. Why on earth was Won Dong-hyun in this gate?
He definitely hadn’t seen his face when the attack squad was gathered outside the gate.
“No…? Wasn’t Hunter Won Dong-hyun supposed to enter a different gate from us?”
At that moment, Lee Ha-min beside him also muttered as if perplexed. Indeed, it wasn’t that Yoon Pa-ran had failed to notice him outside.
However, even while sensing something strange about the situation, Lee Ha-min approached Won Dong-hyun with a bright expression. It seemed he was relieved to have met other hunters rather than monsters.
“It’s really fortunate. I thought it might be monsters again…”
To such a Lee Ha-min, Won Dong-hyun showed a sinister smile and spoke slowly.
“Looks like you know me.”
“Yes, my brother…”
Sensing danger from this scene, Yoon Pa-ran immediately tried to stop Lee Ha-min.
“Wait, stop!”
However, Lee Ha-min, having let his guard down, didn’t notice the strange signs. Rather, he even turned back to look at Yoon Pa-ran with a puzzled expression, completely defenseless.
“Hunter Yoon Pa-ran, what’s wrong…? Ugh…!”
Yoon Pa-ran reached out urgently, but it was already too late.
Won Dong-hyun’s dagger had already pierced Lee Ha-min’s stomach.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
