Chapter 48
#48. Gate (13)
My parents were good people.
They even sacrificed themselves to save me amid that war. Despite that sacrifice, however, I have almost no memories of my parents.
They died when I was five, so naturally, there is more I fail to remember than I do remember.
Even so, the fact that I could not even remember the faces of the parents who sacrificed themselves for me sometimes tormented me.
Of course, I wasn't the only poor bastard in that situation.
Back then, becoming an orphan after losing one's parents overnight was common enough to be a dime a dozen.
People had even been saying all of East Asia might collapse, so a small peninsular nation could hardly afford to care for every orphaned kid.
-Oh my, are you all right?
If I hadn't met the Mother Superior then, I would have died on a cold street like the other children.
At a time when the government could not provide orphanages with any support, our orphanage was overflowing with children who had lost their parents in the war.
The nuns farmed until their hands blistered and burst to feed us, and outside, they had to beg here and there under the pretext of collecting donations.
I have never forgotten, not for a single moment, how they always gave us warm smiles despite how difficult things clearly were.
I had always vowed that once I became successful, I would repay them for that kindness first.
‘Right. Once I get out of the Gate, I should go see her first.’
Unlike my parents' faces, which I couldn't remember no matter how hard I racked my brain, the Mother Superior's face came to me relatively clearly, smiling brightly at me.
She had raised me as though I were her own and loved me with all her heart, sometimes sternly and sometimes kindly.
What kind of reaction would she have if she heard that I had died in the Gate?
At that thought, the Mother Superior's face vanished, and I felt as though I had been struck in the head with a hammer.
“...Huh?!”
And I was able to return to reality.
Here, in a place covered in white snow on every side.
Fortunately, Choi Hye-na was unconscious in my arms.
“Haa...”
Thanks to the barrier I hurriedly created just before being swept away by the avalanche, I had avoided being buried in the snow and dying.
It had required that much mana, but for now, I was right to be happy simply to have survived.
Honestly, the avalanche had been so fierce there had been no guarantee I would succeed. Besides, if the Ice Golem had attacked us directly to kill us, we would have died regardless of the barrier.
I didn't know what whim had possessed it, but it had been a miracle.
‘Is Choi Hye-na all right?’
Fortunately, judging by her even breathing, she seemed merely unconscious.
‘What do I do now...’
I took out my phone and checked the time. It had been made to work inside Gates, so it could at least tell the time.
There were about two hours left until the Gate opened. Fortunately, it seemed I hadn't been unconscious for as long as I'd thought.
“Phew...”
Surviving that disaster of an avalanche and having the Ice Golem leave us alone could only be called miracles, but there were still many unresolved problems.
The Ice Golem was on an entirely different level from the magical beasts we had faced so far.
Its enormous size, the pressure that felt as though my body were being crushed, and the helplessness that made victory seem utterly impossible.
I couldn't think of a way to deal with it, from beginning to end.
Even if we left here and ran to where the Gate would open, countless hordes of magical beasts would already be heading there.
Even if we somehow reached it while avoiding all those bastards, could we withstand an attack from the Ice Golem?
Boss creatures were fundamentally supposed to leave the Gate only after all the magical beasts had escaped, but it didn't seem likely to treat us as magical beasts and let us peacefully leave with them.
“Hey, Choi Hye-na!”
My head was a mess, but I decided to wake Choi Hye-na first and think afterward. We didn't have much time.
“...U-ugh.”
Fortunately, Choi Hye-na soon opened her eyes blearily with a faint groan.
“W-where are we...”
“Sleep well?”
“...Ah.”
Choi Hye-na looked around, then glanced at me one last time, and only then did she seem to roughly understand what situation we had fallen into.
“...Thank you.”
Choi Hye-na thanked me for holding and protecting her amid that chaos.
“Are you finally starting to respect your future husband?”
“Get lost.”
“I like a feisty wife too.”
After a few unfiltered remarks, we looked at each other and laughed like fools.
It felt as though some of the tension had eased.
“What are we going to do now?”
“What do you think? We have to get out of here.”
Maintaining the barrier was beginning to weigh on me.
Besides, there wasn't much time left until the Gate opened.
Even running in a straight line from here would take well over an hour, and two hours would be tight if we had to avoid magical beasts.
There would also be magical beasts attacking us along the way, and it was questionable whether the Ice Golem would really remain still.
“...Hey.”
At that moment, Choi Hye-na called to me cautiously, her voice betraying some anxiety.
“What?”
“Do you think we can get out alive...?”
I couldn't help laughing at the weak voice so unlike Choi Hye-na.
‘Come to think of it, it hasn't even been a week since I first met her.’
Our first meeting had been so awful it needed no further explanation.
I had been excited about the idea of being set up with a rich man's daughter, while Choi Hye-na had treated me like a beggar.
Honestly, if we had parted that day without anything happening, we would probably have remained people who never saw each other again. Or we might have become sworn enemies.
Instead, after being caught up in an isolated Gate, we had become close enough to do everything there was to do—biting and sucking included.
People say you can't see even an inch into your future, but could it really be this eventful?
I pulled the faintly trembling Choi Hye-na tightly into my arms.
“No matter what happens, I’ll make sure you get out, so don’t worry about anything pointless.”
“...”
If things came down to it, I could use the matching feature.
It would take a long time, but I could escape this place under my own power and grow strong enough to survive the barrage of firepower raining down from outside.
I didn't know how many matching targets I would have to go through in the process, but I was better off than Choi Hye-na, who had no spare lives.
***
Bang!
After crawling out from beneath the snowfield, we hurriedly surveyed our surroundings.
Fortunately, we couldn't sense any magical beasts nearby.
As planned, we ran toward the Gate by taking the most rugged route possible.
A straight line would have been the fastest route, but recalling the horde of magical beasts we had seen from the hill yesterday, we couldn't possibly take it.
Besides, even the enormous Ice Golem was nowhere to be seen.
There was no harm in being cautious.
Running across the snowfield was difficult, but after spending the past few days here, we'd developed some knack for it, so it wasn't impossible to run at all.
Of course, Choi Hye-na, who was no physical fighter, struggled from time to time, but there was no time to rest now.
If we wanted to get out alive, resting was a luxury.
We ran for a long while like that without encountering a single magical beast, strangely enough.
By then, rather than relief, only an unpleasant, lingering sense of wrongness churned in my chest.
Under normal circumstances, we'd have encountered three or four magical beasts by now.
‘Is it because today is the day the Gate Break is happening?’
That was highly likely, but there was nothing I could say for certain.
For now, all I could and had to do was force down this unease and keep moving forward.
Even with that resolve, the anxiety lodged in one corner of my chest did not easily fade. I had to rub the hilt hanging at my waist and consciously try not to think about it.
“Kang Hyeon-woo! Eleven o'clock, on the left!”
“?!”
While I was distracted for just a moment, I sensed a magical beast not far away.
The magical beast seemed to have noticed us too and came charging straight toward us, but its speed was anything but ordinary.
Crash!
The magical beast that came charging through the forest beside us, smashing every tree in its path, was a C-rank Snow Carib, a massive deer-like magical beast.
“Choi Hye-na! Save your mana!”
I shouted at Choi Hye-na, who was about to prepare a spell.
Unlike me, Choi Hye-na needed quite a while to recover her mana.
To prepare for what lay ahead, I had to deal with this one by myself for now.
The blade that flashed from its sheath in an instant shimmered with blue light.
The sword, imbued with mana, had far greater cutting power, and my mana-enhanced body let me close the distance to the Snow Carib in a single burst.
Startled by my unexpected speed, it immediately swung its enormous antlers at me, but they were not lethal enough to reach someone whose practical combat experience had been honed to the limit during our time here.
Shhk! With a single slash, I cut off its antlers and immediately unleashed the spell I had prepared.
[Flame Circle]
Caught in the flames exploding at close range, the Snow Carib lost half its head and collapsed, never to rise again.
Even after defeating a C-rank magical beast so quickly, I wasn't satisfied.
The ones I had dealt with in the underground dungeon had been D+ rank, or around C- rank when taking their elite status into account.
The Snow Carib I had just brought down was a magical beast half a rank higher than the ones in the underground dungeon.
Of course, rank was not absolute when it came to a magical beast's strength, so it was impossible to say the Snow Carib was unconditionally stronger, but if only I had learned even a little swordsmanship from that beastwoman who could draw sword aura.
‘...I wouldn't have needed to use magic, either.’
Even as we hurried onward after defeating the Snow Carib, I couldn't stop thinking about how I hadn't been able to finish it with the first slash I had swung.
What if I had taken just one more step forward?
What if I had extended my arm just a little farther?
No matter how much I thought about it, it was frustrating.
Once I got out of here, I resolved to visit the Mother Superior, then go straight to a swordsmanship dojo.
Once I learned swordsmanship, I was certain I could easily bring down the creature blocking the way to the underground dungeon's second floor.
While I was briefly lost in thought, we reached the hill around the starting point where we had arrived when we were first swept into the Gate.
There were roughly twenty minutes left until the Gate opened, and thanks to encountering only one magical beast on the way, we had arrived with some time to spare.
However.
“...Hey, Kang Hyeon-woo.”
“...Fuck.”
The area around where we expected the Gate to open was already surrounded by an enormous number of magical beasts.
Even at a glance, there were easily more than a hundred, and there might have been as many as two hundred.
Far off, in the mountain range, the Ice Golem had taken up position.
It was as huge as a small mountain even while sitting down.
Its size, comparable to a skyscraper, made my hands tremble once again.
But this was also an opportunity.
It was quite far from the Gate.
In the worst possible situation, that was rare good news. Given its size, it was presumably slow to move, which meant there was little chance it could interfere when we escaped.
Even if it could, we would only have to watch out for attacks thrown from a distance; this was unquestionably good news.
Choi Hye-na seemed to realize that as well, and a faint glimmer of hope appeared in her anxious expression.
“Choi Hye-na.”
The most important moment was beginning now.
“You see where the magical beasts are looking, right? From now on, we’re going to run toward that place.”
There was a place the magical beasts were staring at, like an audience one minute before a movie began.
“Don’t worry about the time. We’ll barely make it if we run at full speed from now on anyway.”
Choi Hye-na swallowed hard.
I understood. I was nervous too.
“Don’t be nervous.”
“...I’m not nervous.”
Sure you aren't. Maybe wipe off that cold sweat first?
“I told you earlier, didn’t I? No matter what happens, I’ll get you out.”
It wasn't something you said to someone you'd known for less than a week.
It might have been a common platitude, but Choi Hye-na was deeply grateful for that one sentence.
Her heart, which had been pounding as though it would burst, had calmed down before she realized it.
Covered in all kinds of support spells, we descended the hill simultaneously before anyone could say a word.
Several of the magical beasts gathered there rose at the small movement, but neither of us paid them any attention.
The only thing that mattered now was getting beyond the Gate that would open any moment.
That was all.
However, pushing through the horde of magical beasts was not as easy as it sounded.
The White Yetis, Ice Bears, and White Wolves we usually hunted, as well as types of magical beasts we had never seen before, began charging at us.
-Graaaar!!!
Bang!
A massive foreleg swung toward us.
With no time to hunt leisurely as usual, we had no choice but to dodge by rolling this way and that with something closer to a slapstick routine.
The one saving grace was that there were so many magical beasts that whenever they attacked us, they ended up attacking one another.
Several magical beasts even started fighting each other.
It was a relatively hopeful situation, but Choi Hye-na was gradually falling behind.
With no choice, immediately after dodging a magical beast's attack, I ran to Choi Hye-na and scooped her into my arms.
“...Sorry.”
“If you have time to apologize, use magic to support me.”
Thanks to the support spells that consumed a considerable amount of mana, I was faster and stronger than usual.
Carrying Choi Hye-na wasn't much of a hindrance for me.
“Seven o'clock, left!”
Choi Hye-na used magic to keep the magical beasts in check or cover my blind spots.
Thanks to her, I could focus only on running forward.
Our escape plan went much more smoothly than expected.
Even though we had entered a horde easily exceeding a hundred magical beasts, fewer of them than expected came pouncing at us.
Or so I thought.
“B-behind us!!”
At Choi Hye-na's urgent shout, I looked behind us.
“?!!”
A gigantic boulder was flying toward us.
With no choice, I ran in the direction opposite the Gate for the moment.
Kraaash!!!
The enormous boulder slammed into the ground at tremendous speed.
As a result, quite a large number of magical beasts died, and we were also caught in the impact and sent flying backward.
Fortunately, despite the out-of-scale attack, the damage we suffered was minor. However, we had ended up back at the starting line.
We no longer had enough stamina, mana, or time to run forward again like this.
As if things weren't bad enough, the Gate in the distance was opening.
It was much earlier than expected.
‘...It’s too far.’
Even without interference from the magical beasts, it would take five minutes by a straight route.
It was as clear as day that the magical beasts would burst outside the Gate before then.
In the end, I had no choice but to use my last resort.
I ran toward the boulder thrown by the Ice Golem.
I had only one chance.
I reinforced my lower body with mana, stepped on the boulder, and leaped. In an instant, I soared high enough that the other magical beasts couldn't reach me, and the direct route to the Gate came into view.
“Barrier!”
At my brief command, Choi Hye-na immediately cast a barrier over both me and herself.
Once I confirmed it, I immediately threw Choi Hye-na upward.
“Kya, kyaah?!”
I gathered all my remaining mana into my right hand and launched Choi Hye-na forward as though pushing the barrier surrounding her.
Bang!!
“K-Kang Hyeon-woo?!!”
Even as she flew away, the look of panic did not leave her face.
“Go on ahead.”
Choi Hye-na flew rapidly over the heads of the magical beasts.
A few magical beasts leaped up now and then to attack Choi Hye-na, but they lacked the speed and height.
“I’ll catch up soon.”
“...?!! ...!!”
And so Choi Hye-na made it beyond the Gate before the other magical beasts could escape.
She seemed to shout something at the end, but she was too far away for me to hear clearly.
Immediately after sending Choi Hye-na off, I landed on the ground. Despite being overwhelmed by an immense sense of weakness from expending most of my mana, I couldn't rest.
-Grrr...
The magical beasts that had lost their prey right before their eyes were all glaring at me with murderous eyes.
The pressure was so suffocating that my legs gave out before I knew it, and I nearly collapsed where I stood.
With them liable to pounce at any moment, I had only one option left.
[Would you like to match with Iris Remeria Baiart Pelledia again?]
[Y/N]
Just as a tiger-like magical beast right before my eyes was about to swing its vicious claws at me, I tried to press the matching button.
But that attempt came to nothing.
Because I died?
No.
“To think you would stay behind alone to save the woman you love.”
Because the gray-haired woman who emerged from beyond the Gate instantly severed the neck of the tiger-like magical beast that had surrounded the Gate and tried to kill me.
It was a face I had seen on the news before.
The youngest tower master of the Gray Mage Tower, one of the twelve brilliant and mighty Mage Towers, and the youngest seventh-circle mage.
“You’re quite the romantic, aren’t you?”
It was Han Ra-el.