Chapter 7
Since the Cataclysm, appraisers who identified items had become one of the most important support classes.
There were plenty of appraisal skills, but an appraiser who wasn't skilled enough could easily miss an item's stats or fail to interpret its special abilities.
In that regard, Kang Sunwoo, the Firebird Guild's appraiser, was undoubtedly one of the best in the country.
For someone like him, appraising the miraculous rice before his eyes was thrilling, but knowing what the result would be meant he could only be disappointed.
'Rice forced to grow with magic contains toxins. It's not fit for people to eat. Hunters have to get their stomachs pumped after eating it a few times.'
That was the way of nature.
Everything had to follow its proper course, and that took time.
Printed food and farm factories were being developed, but even those couldn't completely replace the existing food system.
That was why, despite being overwhelmed at first by the golden fields, he couldn't help but feel disappointed by the results he knew were coming.
"I'll begin."
He piled up the rice stalks and began the appraisal. Magic swirled in his eyes, revealing the elements contained in the rice one after another.
[Appraisal Results]
"Huh?"
[Blessed Rice]
◆ Grade: Rare
◆ Details
Rice blessed with the divine power of Demera, Goddess of Life and Abundance.
Grade 3 illnesses are alleviated. With continued consumption, there is a high probability of a complete cure.
"Huh?"
He trembled as he checked the message before his eyes.
Since the Cataclysm, potions and elixirs had emerged, and recovery items, illnesses, and injuries had all begun to be assigned intuitive grades.
Grade 3 illnesses included most nervous system disorders, as well as early-stage cancer.
This rice cured cancer? Every single stalk in these enormous heaps? Didn't that mean this rice was better than the expensive disease treatments from the Mage Tower?
"T-the appraisal results are in!"
He wanted to tell everyone about this astonishing miracle crop.
"The appraisal grade is Rare!"
"Huh?"
"E-every single one of these rice stalks is Rare grade!"
Everyone was stunned by Kang Sunwoo's words. Some couldn't understand what he meant at all. It was simply too incredible to sound real.
But when Kang Sunwoo said the rice could even cure cancer, everyone went into an uproar.
"I-is that really true?"
"It is!"
How could that be true? Hari couldn't close her mouth, but she turned her gaze toward Leon.
As if there were no need to hear the results, he was talking with the straw doll imbued with Demera's divinity.
"Y-Your Majesty!"
"Insolence! This king, the Chief Priest, is in audience with the goddess!"
"I-I am overwhelmed by your grace! No, no! I have committed a crime worthy of death!"
「It's all right. How could a child of this world know how to comport herself before divinity?」
Her voice was benevolent. Just as Leon's voice in the Black Gate had given her strength, simply hearing this one made warmth well up inside her.
"Since Demera has said so, I shall forgive you this once."
"Y-yes, Your Majesty..."
She bowed her head low, watching the two of them nervously. The straw doll was beginning to droop.
「I think I've done all I can here. It may be time for me to return.」
"Thank you. We have always gratefully received and remembered the blessings bestowed upon us by the Earth Mother."
「My child, let your mother nag you one last time.」
The voice of divinity faltered, as if her strength were rapidly fading. Dwelling in the doll, she spoke to her champion one final time.
「Don't go hungry wherever you are.」
With that, the straw doll collapsed.
Leon closed his eyes, savoring the blessing the Mother of the Earth had left behind.
After some time had passed, Hari, who had been bowing flat on the ground, cautiously raised her head.
"Um... Your Majesty? What exactly was that...?"
"Divinity."
"Divinity... you mean?"
"Are there no gods in this world?"
Hari didn't know how to answer Leon's question.
Of course, there were religions on Earth. Jehovah, Allah, Buddha... Was Buddha a god? Anyway.
Religions existed.
But it was difficult to say that gods existed.
Naturally, religious people would say that their gods existed. But whether they could prove that divinity was real, as she'd just witnessed, was another matter.
The gods of Earth's religions claimed to exist only within their doctrines. They didn't prove their divinity was real through miracles, as Leon had just done.
"I... don't know."
"This is the Pantheon I follow, and this is its divinity. A proper life and world exist in harmony with divinity. You people of Earth should rightfully follow it."
Han Hari thought it might be possible.
Established religions already had a firm hold on Earth. She knew all too well how exclusive they were toward other religions.
Even Protestants, who were relatively tame, were constantly trespassing in other people's temples to perform 'prayer walks' and vandalizing shrines.
But what stood before her was real.
A real divinity, and a miracle at work.
Watching this anachronistic king, Hari felt a strange sense of trust take root in her.
Had they... really brought someone extraordinary back from the Gate? Could this man truly become someone powerful enough to change the world?
"Harvest the rice! Give thanks to Demera and bow before her, so the crops may fulfill their proper purpose!"
Leon had the blessed rice that had sprouted in the middle of the Honam Plain harvested and cooked. There were three hours left until the Firebird Guild's rights to clear the Honam Plain Gate expired.
* * * *
"I-it's impossible."
Manager Kim Jinsu swallowed hard as he stared at the system message that appeared before him.
[Rice Cooked from Blessed Rice]
Steam rose from a bowl of fluffy white rice. It was strange enough that it appeared in the Awakened's system windows, but the information updated by the appraiser was shocking.
-Health recovery per minute: +100.
-Mana recovery per minute: +50.
-Duration: 8 hours.
"This is insane..."
What kind of rice had buff effects? And the effects were incredible.
"At this point, it's practically a sustained enhancement drug."
It was about as effective as a vial of enhancement drug that cost three million won and performed appallingly poorly for its price.
"Manaaager Kiiim!"
Hari approached with her mouth stuffed full of rice and pork belly.
"Finish eating before you talk."
Hari swallowed before she could finally speak.
"Manager Kim, Manager Kim, this is huge..."
"What is it?"
"This... it stacks."
"What?!"
Manager Kim Jinsu and the other Association employees perked up their ears.
"I was curious, so... I tried eating some bugs from the paddy, not just the rice."
"B-bugs?"
She had quite an appetite. Who would think to eat bugs?
"After I ate them... the effects stacked."
"Really?!"
Even as Manager Kim Jinsu wondered about it, he turned his gaze toward the rice paddies.
Rice wasn't the only thing that grew in a paddy. There were plenty of stag beetles and other insects that gnawed on the growing rice or preyed on other bugs.
If that blessing covered the entire area... then it wouldn't be strange if every living thing there, not just the rice, had been blessed.
Greed flared in the eyes of the Hunters about to head into the Gate.
They were people who risked their lives to clear Gates. Government Hunters were given a minimal supply of enhancement drugs, but that was only enough to get by.
For a salaried worker, spending a few million won on enhancement drugs was a last resort. But now there were free enhancement drugs scattered all around them.
If it was just a few bugs they had to eat...
"C-catch them! Catch as many as you can!"
An absurd sight unfolded as Hunters clad in armor and armed with swords scrambled through the rice paddies in their haste to catch bugs.
"It stacks up to three times..."
Before the raid team set out, the Hunter Association's spirits soared sky-high.
* * * *
"Guildmaster... are you all right?"
With everything falling apart after the appearance of a survivor named Leon, the vice guildmaster watched Lee Yongwan's expression as they asked.
...
Of course he wasn't all right.
Deliberately causing a dungeon break had been a move the Firebird Guild made knowing it would cost them dearly.
As one of the Top Ten Guilds, they couldn't openly antagonize the government, but they were likely to be treated worse than the other Top Ten Guilds.
In particular, they'd probably be excluded for a while from high-ranking Gates—Scarlet and above—that were the most lucrative.
'Damn it, where the hell did that guy come from?'
Lee Yongwan glared at Leon, who was meditating with his eyes closed.
It was all because of him. That survivor had ruined everything. If he hadn't been here, the government, having suffered enormous losses, would have had no choice but to meet their demands.
He'd be better off dying in a Gate.
"Hm?"
At that moment, Lee Yongwan remembered the Gate they'd spent several days struggling through.
"Heh heh... This isn't a bad idea."
"Vice Guildmaster?"
"Don't worry. We'd made enough progress through the Gate to close it in the end, hadn't we?"
"Right. We were a little... under the weather halfway through, but... Ah!"
The vice guildmaster, who'd raided the Scarlet Gate alongside Lee Yongwan, realized what he meant and wore the same expression.
"There's only one A-rank, Han Hari."
If that was the case, the outcome was obvious. The Gate's boss would be more than the Hunter Association's ragtag team could handle.
"But if that survivor is there..."
"Even I had a hard time dealing with him. He blessed the land, so he's a support type. And he calls himself a king, so he's probably not much of a fighter."
Either way, there was only one conclusion.
Gates weren't called raids for nothing. You needed to understand the Gate's theme and prepare accordingly.
They would never be able to defeat the boss of that Gate.
And if they couldn't defeat the boss, they couldn't close the Gate either.
The two men saw off the Association's raid team, their twisted smiles following the group as it set out toward its death.
* * * *
Leon had heard the basics of how a Gate raid worked.
Each Gate revolved around a particular mission, and clearing that mission made it possible to close the Gate—in other words, to make it disappear.
"Most of them have a boss monster... or, as Your Majesty might say, a leader. In many cases, defeating it closes the Gate."
"Hmm... A duel with the leader. I like the sound of that."
"Ah..."
Hari didn't tell him, 'Usually we gang up on it and beat it to death.' She was trying to think of an elegant way to say in historical-drama speech that a group surrounded and pummeled one monster.
"I heard those featherbrains had raided this place before, but there are quite a lot of monsters, aren't there?"
Leon spoke as he watched Manager Kim Jinsu and the Association Hunters fighting at the front.
A horde of Skeletons that had rushed them from the very entrance to the Gate charged at the Association employees, armed with swords and shields.
"That's a characteristic of this dungeon."
"A characteristic?"
"Y-yes... In most Gates, the total number of monsters decreases as they are slain. But in special cases, such as Skeletons, Zombies, and demons, they respawn endlessly as long as the boss monster remains."
"I see. So it only ends once the leader has been defeated. I understand."
Hari suspected this was an undead-type Gate, with a necromancer commanding the Skeletons.
The raid leader, Manager Kim Jinsu, thought so too, and based on their experience, it was likely.
"Does that mean there are other things that might appear, albeit with a low probability?"
"Y-yes. For example... a spirit with overwhelming resentment."
Just as she was about to explain the existence of an entity that was itself a spirit rather than a necromancer—the Unseelie Fairy—
-Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii──!
A bizarre, ear-splitting wail rang out.
"C-could it be...?"
Manager Kim Jinsu and Assistant Manager Han Hari went pale. The other Association Hunters did too.
"Y-you bastard Lee Yongwan! Why didn't you tell us about that?!"
[Dungeon Break Begins.]
-Death has been declared. The countdown for all life inside the Gate has begun.
-The Spirit Knight Dullahan advances with an army of spirits.
-Defeat the Spirit Knight Dullahan. Time remaining: 3 hours 00 minutes
From the very entrance to the dungeon, the entire army began marching toward the raid team.