Chapter 81
Shinohara Yuzuki stared in amazement at the white flames filling the boss room's ceiling.
"When you swing the sword, white flames come out. Hooh, how fascinating."
Not just her, but everyone except the heroines seemed quite surprised.
Especially Ping Tao, whose stupid expression was quite amusing.
Even though Rosemary had seen it once before, she was surprised again - seems she lacks learning ability.
After the flames disappeared, only glass shards remained on the floor.
"Is that all done now?"
"Looks like it. Hmm, everything's been eliminated. No, it's done."
Choi Shia has the Constellation of the Divine Sword. One of her abilities lets her detect enemies. She can sense them even faster than me, an Evil Dragon.
With this, the Glass Dungeon is finished.
In the original work, Lily Guild Master Noah comes to help directly, but now the kids' abilities are so outstanding that it ended with just me.
When we dealt with the Glass Duke, the back door opened.
It's the exit that opens when you clear the dungeon. The modern style showed this Glass Dungeon was completely remodeled by the Lily Guild.
When we came outside, Guild Master Noah was clapping.
"I didn't expect you'd handle it by yourselves."
"How about that? Pretty impressive, right?"
Noah must be quite surprised too. After all, the Glass Dungeon is a place where even C-Class Hunters struggle.
While breaking through the passages is fine, if you enter alone you have to break all six passage seals.
And the boss, the Glass Duke, is on a different level entirely. It's just that our lineup is cheating-tier. If it was Class B level, clearing would've been impossible.
So I'll specially give myself the right to brag.
"Yes, truly impressive. Especially Shinohara Kotone, Ping Tao, and Yoo Eun-ha. You three were amazing."
Noah clapped enthusiastically again while looking at us three.
"Just us three?"
"The others are already well-known, and Eun-ha, I've seen your group battle footage and videos posted online, but it was hard to believe without seeing it directly."
Shinohara Kotone is an unknown retainer of Shinohara. Given China's current image, Ping Tao could be seen as just showing off, and I'm Yoo Jin-seok's sister so people might think I just got support riding on my brother's coattails.
I suppose that's possible.
But it pisses me off a bit. Ignoring me when I openly spewed white flames?
"Is that how you're gonna be?"
Actually, I know why she's doing this.
This Noah bitch is trying to provoke me.
She probably wants to get treated the same way after seeing how I played with Leaky Mary.
Otherwise, there's no way she'd trust those who've shown their skills less than me more than me, like Reina, Han Soo-ji, and Choi Si-woo who are just rumored to be strong.
"Ah ah, don't get upset. I just prefer certainty, you see. Since everyone's grades are good, I'll report directly to the Dean about Firebat- no, I'll just report myself. And other guilds will learn about this Glass Dungeon incident too."
"Is this officially guild scouting?"
In the original work, many Class A students were still around at this point.
The Glass Dungeon was for selected students from among them, and there were various episodes like taking down Class A's delinquents or facing off against the Student Council. But now that the original work has twisted, the future is uncertain.
First, Class A can jump straight into being Hunters.
Second, Class A is probably going to be pretty jealous.
"Since your skills are too amazing. Looking at how well those remaining Class 2 fought in the passages, they'll probably get into mid-tier guilds."
"That's fortunate."
If they couldn't get in, I would've felt bad since it's because the original work got twisted.
"So is this it for today?"
"Yes, that's all for today. Good work everyone."
Noah said that and then winked at me while turning around.
I got her contact code, but there's no need to contact her right now.
Let's just hold onto it for now. Getting tangled up with a Guild Master could be trouble.
"Huh?"
When I opened my Magic Gear to check Noah's contact code, there was somehow a message from Yoo Jin-seok.
* * *
Hunter Association
A man was walking down the 5th floor corridor of the Hunter Association, which had become quieter since Kim Jae-soo's rebellion.
After walking for a while, the man opened the door to the President's office at the very end.
When he opened the door, a man with a gleaming bald head greeted him with his chin resting on the back of his hand.
"First Divine Sword User Yoo Jin-seok."
The man was Yoo Jin-seok. He had been catching King Dokdo Shrimp living in the waters off Dokdo, flying all the way there with the vacation time he got while investigating Sin Day.
"Why'd you call? I was busy beating up King Dokdo Shrimp."
"What's so urgent about those damn shrimp? They're just shrimp after all, no?"
When Yoo Jin-seok asked gruffly, Choi Cheol-sik looked at him like he couldn't believe it.
Just shrimp? Is he saying the First Divine Sword User, with skills to wipe out waves of monsters, was struggling with mere shrimp?
"These are magic-infused shrimp. You think those are easy to find? Shrimp can actually be lethal to humans too."
"Still just shrimp though, no?"
What shrimp could be lethal to humans?
"People can get infected with marine Vibrio sepsis bacteria from getting stabbed by shrimp tails."
"That only affects humans with weakened immune systems who eat contaminated seafood. Modern humans with proper magic circulation won't get infected by such bacteria. No, we're getting off topic. What takes so long catching shrimp?"
Who wanted it to take long? It's hard to catch magic-infused Dokdo shrimp. And since you can't just burn down the whole mountain and sea, I had to find and catch them one by one underwater.
"Like I said, they're magic-infused shrimp. They're incredibly elusive. I heard they're really good for the body too. And tasty. So I was late because I was trying to catch them carefully enough to cook."
"What body could be healthier than yours?"
Anyone who controls magic well won't get unhealthy. Especially Yoo Jin-seok, who even held the title of humanity's strongest a few years ago.
"It's for Eun-ha. For Eun-ha. Look here. I caught one for now."
"Are shrimp normally this big?"
What kind of shrimp is as big as a person.
Fortunately it seems knocked out, but it's big enough to be troublesome if it went wild.
"That's why it's more dangerous. Getting stabbed by this thing's tail can kill you instantly. It even jumps out of the water off Dokdo. Big trouble if it ambushes you then."
"Is that good for women?"
"I've been investigating Sin Day going around various dungeons without seeing my sister. I should at least give her this much of a gift for not meeting her. I heard it's excellent for women's beauty. Seems it makes breasts bigger too."
Yoo Jin-seok fidgeted as he said that.
But Choi Cheol-sik who heard those words couldn't believe it.
Even sister complexes have limits. What part of Yoo Eun-ha needs bigger breasts?
"No, it feels weird saying this, but is there any point? I thought Eun-ha's were plenty big already."
They're actually big in reality.
"You wanna die? This shrimp is delicious too."
"My god, you've become a sister complex."
Sister complex? He can say that so casually because he doesn't have such an adorable sister.
Yoo Jin-seok got angry for a moment but held back.
Though he's a balding scatterbrain, he's still my superior.
"Let's get to the point. The introduction keeps getting long."
"Ah, yes. Let's put Sin Day on hold for now. Since it seems Shinohara from Japan is helping with Sin Day too. More urgently, we need to look into this woman called Baekhwa."
Shinohara. If it was the Japanese Prime Minister helping that would be concerning, but if it's Shinohara we can trust them. After all, Shinohara carefully tends to diplomatic relations for their country's sake.
"The one in the Quarantine Zone?"
"Yes. Actually we sent Kim Ji-hye, but she just killed villains and came back. Can't do anything else."
"That's so like Ji-hye."
Kim Ji-hye was an idiot who avoided theory since her student days.
Usually outstanding students aiming to be Hunters have basic intelligence from magic.
With a little study, they can memorize most Hunter theory. But Kim Ji-hye has only been mindlessly swinging her bat until now.
That's also why Yoo Jin-seok viewed her quite positively - without that point she'd be no different from a corpse.
"So go with her and look into Baekhwa. She's probably in Incheon."
"She's already catching villains for us, do we need to go catch her?"
Yoo Jin-seok felt bad since it seemed this streamer Baekhwa was doing his job.
Who would have thought remnants remained even after raiding the Black God Church, which had been the largest force when subjugating the Quarantine Zone in the past.
"No, just being in the Quarantine Zone itself is a problem. And thanks to Baekhwa, the Blue House and Hunter Association have been getting quite a lot of hate online lately. Look at this."
-A streamer living in the Quarantine Zone is hunting villains - what are the government and Hunter Association doing?
-Hero of the Quarantine Zone survivors! Baekhwa! Who is she?
-Government and Hunter Association must not forget the Great Cataclysm.
While the media always criticizes the Hunter Association and Blue House, at this point Baekhwa has risen to become quite an influential figure online in contrast.
Instead, trust in the Hunter Association and Blue House was falling.
Especially reading those newspaper front pages, you could see President Ha Jeong-seok and Choi Cheol-sik's names.
Well, between Baekhwa saving survivors trapped in the Quarantine Zone and Choi Cheol-sik and Ha Jeong-seok stuck in the Hunter Association and Blue House.
You could tell who was more righteous.
While it grew bigger partly because reporters used it for articles, looking at the big picture, Baekhwa came out ahead.
Choi Cheol-sik showed other newspapers too.
-Where are all the survivors Baekhwa saved?
-Possibility of habitable areas within the Quarantine Zone
-S-Class Hunter Lee Heung-boo "Sufficient possibility of residential areas..."
Even the possibility of residential areas in the Quarantine Zone came up.
At this point, we have to find Baekhwa somehow.
"The Hunter Association's image is completely destroyed."
"That's why we need to find Baekhwa and recruit her or something. Anyway, we need to find and bring her in first. Even if there are survivors staying in that Quarantine Zone, I don't think they'll last long. We need to provide support at least. As you know, the Quarantine Zone can't receive any external support. There's no possibility China and Japan intervened when they have to deal with their own corrupted territories."
I don't think survivors trapped by villains have any productive capacity in that corrupted territory.
Then where is Baekhwa feeding the survivors from?
"Understood. I'll give it a try."
"Kim Ji-hye will be waiting at the southern wall's checkpoint at 10 PM. If you find anything, contact us immediately through Magic Gear."
"Yes. But I should meet Eun-ha first."
It's been quite a while since I saw her. Though Eun-ha doesn't welcome me, I'm still her oppa. Shouldn't an oppa take care of his sister?
"Really such a sister complex."
"It's about time I saw her."
First Divine Sword User Yoo Jin-seok. He who normally didn't pay attention to family relations had somehow become a sister complex.
* * *