Chapter 42
“Aaagh!”
[[Indomitable(SR)] activated! Remaining stacks : 9]
The passive trait activated the moment he entered.
The only SR-rank trait he possessed.
It was a trait that nullified a certain amount of damage ten times a day.
‘If that activated, that means power of that magnitude swept through here.’
He carefully looked around.
The gate's entrance area was a wreck.
The spiders were either lying dead on their backs or had been pierced clean through the head.
Lee Hyunho was momentarily stunned.
At the center, a girl was stretching.
“W-what the hell...?”
Lee Hyunho couldn't make sense of the situation.
Why was the girl unharmed, and how had she survived being caught up in all that destruction?
But he was an outstanding hunter.
He handled what needed doing before trying to understand the situation.
“Did you get caught up in the gate, by any chance?”
“Huh?”
A meaningless sound slipped from Yumia's mouth.
‘What is this old man even talking about?’
“If you got caught up in it, come with me. At least by my side, you'll be safe.”
Yumia shot back, looking incredulous.
“Even if I got older, I'd still be at least five years older than you think, you old man.”
Her tone was more familiar than expected.
“…?”
Lee Hyunho understood the situation.
Only then did he realize he'd jumped to a conclusion based on looks alone.
“Ah, so you're a hunter from another guild?”
She was a hunter from another guild after all.
The one who'd made that mess must have already gone in to clear it.
And she had come out only after hiding away.
“Huh? A guild?”
“You're not in a guild?”
“Well, for now.”
A rookie hunter without a guild.
Lee Hyunho nearly cried inside.
Back in his rookie days before joining Baekho.
How hard he'd had to work just to scrounge up scraps whenever a gate appeared?
The two of them overlapped in his mind.
“So you were my junior after all! Don't worry! I'll teach you whatever I can!”
“…Ah, yes.”
He saw Yumia pointing her wand at him.
And she seemed to be pondering something intensely.
‘She's muttering to herself, but I can't hear it very well.’
He looked Yumia over carefully.
And realized.
‘She doesn't even have a single artifact on her?’
Usually, hunters fight while wearing artifacts.
But all she had was a rough wooden wand.
“Isn't it dangerous to carry only a low-grade artifact like that?”
“Low-grade!?”
She widened her eyes and reacted sharply for the first time.
By the looks of it, it was just wood and not even that big, so maybe it was Common grade.
Wow, she didn't even know the grade of the artifact she was holding.
“You seem to be a magic-type hunter.”
“Yes, for now.”
“As a senior, let me tell you this: magic-type hunters don't carry such small wands.”
“Huh?”
“I've heard from magic-type hunters too, and apparently the bigger the wand and the larger the gem set into the tip, the better.”
That was invaluable advice from a senior.
“Huh???”
“See?”
She looked like she was too shocked to speak.
Seeing her clutch the back of her neck and look like she was about to collapse, she must have been shocked by the truth she'd just witnessed.
“Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Lee Hyunho from the Baekho Guild.”
“Yumia.”
“If you don't mind, would you like to form a party and move together?”
“Why would I?”
“I'm a B-rank hunter.”
“So why would I?”
Yumia walked forward as if it were nothing.
‘Damn, she's not listening. I know she's a rookie, but she's cocky standing right in front of a gate. At this rate, she'll get badly hurt.’
Magic-type hunters were rare.
If she didn't belong to a guild, he was even considering bringing her to Baekho Guild.
But if she carelessly went into the gate at this rate, he didn't know what might happen.
For now, he had to persuade her.
“Wouldn't you like to be friends with a B-rank hunter?”
“I already have an A-rank hunter, Lee Sera, as a friend.”
“Hoo, no way... Junior, you may not know this, but Hunter Lee Sera isn't someone you can casually call a friend.”
Lee Sera was almost S-rank.
She was the second-in-command of the Baekho Guild and also his idol.
Naturally, there was no way that was true; it was probably just her way of showing she wasn't listening.
She couldn't possibly lack skill.
‘Rather, her potential was probably outstanding.’
At the very least, she seemed capable of coming through concentrated fire without a scratch.
But accumulated experience couldn't be ignored.
Lee Hyunho had seen too many hunters go down like that.
‘At the very least, I'm stronger right now.’
Then showing off his own skills would be faster.
—Sasasasasak.
As they walked, they moved deeper into the gate.
More and more spiders began to appear.
‘...But where did the one who'd unleashed the barrage at the start go?’
The question crossed his mind, but now wasn't the time.
He drew his spear.
“Haaah!”
And he split the giant spider's head cleanly in two.
“How's th..."
He turned around.
“Casting, Bullet, Triple.”
At the same time, three straight lines of mana pierced through the spider's head.
“W-what...!?”
“How was that?”
Yumia said, her hands on her hips.
“You're... quite good...”
‘Did magic-type hunters really cast spells that quickly?’
“But without a tank... it's dangerous!”
A spider rushed in from behind at lightning speed.
A relatively small assassin spider, about the size of a soccer ball, but with jaws as hard as steel.
“Sigh.”
She casually plunged a dagger into the spider's head.
‘Where did she even get the dagger?’
Even the stabbed spot was bubbling and melting away.
‘An artifact!?’
An astonishing level of finesse, like a seasoned assassin.
Then she suddenly shouted.
One of her fingers had lightly touched the tip of the blade.
“Ah, hot! Carnarov! What the hell kind of crap did you give me!?”
…Wasn't that just her own fault for getting burned?
* * *
He realized.
‘She's on my level, or even above it.’
“Casting, Bullet, Hexa, Guide.”
Fourfold chant, guidance formula.
A spell chanted in an unknown language while holding a wand.
The six mana arrows burst forth, piercing every hidden spiderling without missing a single one.
‘How the hell does that make sense!?’
He only had to use the skill [Taunt] to buy her time to cast magic.
He'd wondered whether that even meant anything in the first place.
The raw power itself was B-rank—no, maybe even below a C-rank magic-type hunter.
But all that power struck the enemy without wasting a single bit.
“Huh, could the Right Tower's difficulty be..."
“Secret.”
Yumia smiled and put a finger to her lips.
But where had the dagger she'd used a moment ago gone?
“Ah, a treasure chest.”
The dagger appeared again in her hand.
—Chiiiii…
“W-Wait!”
“Why? If you want to take it from me, beat me in a fight first.”
“That's not it, I'm saying there could be a mimic...”
“As if. I don't sense any mana.”
After melting the lock, she checked the contents.
“Ah, damn it. Another elixir.”
Another elixir!?
“Uh...”
“I found it, so it's mine.”
That was too thug-like a thought... except that...
This girl had handled almost all of the spiders inside the gate by herself.
‘And she even has a weapon inventory?’
He remembered the weapon disappearing and reappearing.
From the lightning-fast movement he'd seen earlier, she probably also had a high-speed movement trait.
‘How many abilities and traits does she even have!?’
Magic-type hunters usually used only one spell, or at most a few ways of using it.
But Yumia was different.
Her mana bullets exploded, bent, and even fired simultaneously.
Even the spiders that charged at her were blocked by something like an invisible wall.
‘It feels as though her ability itself were being modified by exactly as much as was needed.’
There was no waste in it.
“Let's go!”
Yumia, in high spirits after thoroughly looting the gems and treasure chests the spiders had hidden, said.
‘But where did the gems and treasure go?’
She was a mysterious person in many ways.
* * *
At last, the core of the gate.
Lee Hyunho felt the mana growing denser.
Even he, whose sense for mana wasn't all that sharp, could feel how dense it was.
Layers upon layers of spiderwebs formed a narrow entrance.
“It's the boss room.”
“Looks like it.”
They went right in.
Then the walkie-talkie-shaped artifact crackled.
The voice that had been briefing them shouted urgently.
[Abnormal mana reaction! Danger level has been upgraded to a B-rank gate!]
[The boss's agility is abnormal! Get out of there right now! We've deployed an A-rank hunter!]
“W-what!?”
But it was already too late.
By then, the boss room entrance was blocked with sticky spider silk.
And eight blood-red eyes shone.
A spider almost the size of a house was staring at him from atop the web.
“Hyaaah!”
He charged forward and tried to thrust his spear, but the boss moved elsewhere with incredible speed and scattered its spines.
—Clang!
Yumia blocked it with a defensive spell, but Lee Hyunho used up the remaining stacks of Indomitable.
[[Indomitable] activated! Remaining stacks:8]
An obvious disadvantage.
But it wasn't bad at all.
If Yumia kept it occupied and Lee Hyunho tanked, they could easily hold out for about three minutes.
“Just hold on a little..."
“Hold out for what? That's the priciest one.”
Yumia grinned.
Her pupils had narrowed in a chilling way, and the ominous mana flowing from her eyes streamed into her wand.
“W-what are you trying to..."
“Casting, Bullet, Guide.”
Lee Hyunho only then realized who'd been the one to wreck the gate entrance.
The red mana bullet pierced straight through the boss monster.
—Kwaaang!!!
* * *
Heh, dragon mana really is something else!
Even a B-rank boss goes down in one shot.
My pockets were nice and full, so I was happy.
Of course, I only had three uses left.
After casually destroying the core, I prepared magic to open the sealed entrance and leave the boss room.
But before I could even cast the spell, a shining sword ripped the entrance open.
“What? Why are you here?”
Sera said, her eyes wide like a rabbit's.
“H-Hunter Lee Sera!?”
Lee Hyunho looked back and forth between me and Sera a few times before speaking.
“Could the two of you perhaps be...?”
“We're friends.”
I said jokingly, draping an arm around her shoulders.
Lee Hyunho's face went pale.