Chapter 145
“Guys, it looks like something went wrong outside. We need to head back through the portal right away from here.”
“Huh?”
“Why, what did the teacher say?”
“He said it wasn’t a joke.”
“Sounds like it’s serious.”
We ate our sandwiches, half-heartedly cleaned up, and were just about to head out when the teacher suddenly said something was wrong and told us to get out fast, so everyone started scrambling around.
Everyone was about to pack up their weapons and loot to take with us, but Senior Gyeongwon told us to leave all the loot behind, so we left even the mana stones and set off immediately.
“Yeonwoo, what happened?”
“I’m not sure. But Teacher Baek Sangjun said he wasn’t joking, so it might be a pretty big problem.”
“I see. Let’s hurry out.”
“A-are we going to die?!”
“No, I don’t think so. Don’t worry, Yui.”
When returning from Base Point 5, Route A is faster than Route C. Normally there’d be problems if we went somewhere other than the route we agreed on beforehand, but that doesn’t matter now.
“Oh my god. What the hell is really going on?”
ㅡClack!
ㅡGrrr...!
“O-okay…. Got it.”
I’m not good at running, so I climbed onto Dangdang’s back, and Minyum, who was running beside us, even gave me a thumbs-up to tell me not to worry. Honestly, with big sis Utaha here, I didn’t feel the least bit of danger. There’s a hunter ranked in the top 200 in the world here, you know??
“Wait, two trolls 300 meters ahead.”
“Rear guard, stop. Front line, keep advancing.”
While we were sprinting along the shortest return route on Route A, we ran into monsters. We had only moved 2 km from Base Point 5, and we’d already encountered the first monsters.
“Minyum! Go take them out!”
ㅡClack!
“I’m going!”
Utaha, the fastest of us, and Minyum charged at the same time and each thrust their sword at the two trolls. They moved at such ridiculous speed—shupapapapak—that Utaha just sliced one down with her sword.
ㅡKrrk..!?”
One of the trolls died without even managing a scream, but the problem was the troll on Minyum’s side.
ㅡSwoosh..!
“Eek! Why is that thing so hard to cut!”
“This is strange! The monsters have gotten stronger!”
Normally Minyum’s sword would have cut off its forearm and split its body in half, but after she cut the arm off, all the force went out of it, so she couldn’t get through to the head and only slashed one eye before bouncing off.
Utaha noticed something was off too while cutting down a troll with her sword, and said the trolls had become insanely tough.
ㅡGwooooo!!!
“Ssss...!”
Senior Gyeongwon blasted the troll with the severed arm with a super-huge fire cannon, blowing its face apart. Even though it was a pretty high output attack, it only ended with part of its face caving in. Of course the troll died, but you could really feel that it had become absurdly tough.
“This seems seriously bad! Let’s run!”
“Yes!”
The troll roared Kuaaaang and must have drawn a ton of aggro. Soon, more monsters could swarm us at any moment.
ㅡCrackle....
“Ophelia! This situation seems insanely dangerous right now!!”
“Understood. Let’s summon Bradamante first.”
“Yep!!”
After hanging up with Ophelia, I immediately summoned Bradamante.
“Respond to the princess’s call! Bradamante—!!”
ㅡWhoooooosh!!
Boom—!!!
“Princess! Are you all right?!”
ㅡKiiit..!
“Ah, I’m fine! The monsters suddenly got super tough, so we need to run away right now!”
“Understood! I’ll clear a path! Surya, up you go!”
ㅡKiiit!!
Surya flapped her enormous wings and shot into the sky in an instant. On top of that came an odd, wave-like sound from far ahead.
ㅡSplash splash
“No one’s hurt!”
“Teacher!”
Teacher Baek Sangjun popped out of the massive stream of water with a pop. I’d never seen Baek Sangjun use an ability like that before. Behind him, a ridiculous number of thick trees had been swept away by the waves and snapped to pieces, turning everything into a total mess. A straight path had opened up, making it easy to move.
“Bradamante! I’m going to charge that way!”
“Confirmed!”
ㅡKWAaaaaaang!!!
The minotaurs and trolls that had been creeping out from both sides of the forest path Teacher Baek Sangjun had cut straight through were getting knocked sideways and toppling over one after another from Bradamante’s charge. But the stronger they were, the more mana it took.
Still, I’d grown a lot too, so compared proportionally, the amount of mana Bradamante used wasn’t that large.
“Whoa!! Who’s that beautiful lady!!!”
“Byeongho, shut up and run!”
“You bastard, Ahn Kyungwon!! You’re riding on my back and still talking!!”
“Eve!! Isn’t that your older sister?!?”
“Y-yeah! That’s my older sister!”
“But how did you summon her?!?”
“Th-there’s a reason!!”
Choa had seen Bradamante before, so she knew her as my older sister. Of course, there was no time to explain properly. Even while everyone was racing along at full speed, the giant waves on both sides kept shoving away the trolls and minotaurs charging toward us as if the waves themselves were alive.
ㅡGwooooo!!!
Far away, beyond even a five-meter-tall tree, a ridiculously huge giant troll—so big you could see its face from here—started roaring thunderously. Its direction of movement overlapped with ours, so if this kept up, we might run into that thing..!!
“Keep running!!”
“Yeees—!!”
Teacher Baek Sangjun led the massive stream of water toward it and began moving it like a long snake, wrapping it around the troll’s body.
With broken rocks, trees, and all sorts of other things mixed into the water, the torrent rushing at incredible speed coiled around the troll and began crushing it, with enough force to tear chunks of skin right off the giant troll.
The stream turned red in real time, and the giant troll even let out a screeching cry before crashing down.
“Whoa, the teacher fights brutally..!”
“Mr. Baek is so strong..!!”
Yui was also blown away watching that, and I immediately took back my earlier thought that this was some half-assed, battle-hardened jerk of a teacher.
“Princess! The portal is up ahead!”
“Well done, Bradamante! Go out first!”
With Bradamante having carved a straight path all the way to the portal, only 500 meters remained. Everyone ran with all their strength and pushed themselves through the portal.
ㅡCrash!!
“H-hahh!! We’re alive!!!”
“Kids!! Are you okay?!”
“We’re fine! The teacher is still inside..!”
But there was no need to worry, since the teacher was an insanely elite veteran hunter. The teacher came out not long after, shaking the water from damp hair with both hands.
“Teacher!! You were alive!!”
“Hey, punk, do you think a teacher would die in a gate like that? Why aren’t you evacuating already?”
“Ah, yes!!”
Once we got outside the gate, everyone nearby had already been evacuated, except for the people from the Management Bureau and Nova who had stayed behind to guide us through the evacuation.
“Wasn’t it all over already?!”
“Now comes the real deal. That gate is about to burst.”
“Huh?!”
We rode an evacuation vehicle built to carry multiple people—basically like a military two-and-a-half-ton truck—and shot out of the suddenly quiet street in no time. I’d been too dazed to notice, but the utility poles around us were already crackling and popping, making a huge racket.
“Ugh, what the heck is going on.”
“Didn’t they manage the gate properly?”
“No way. It’s a gate managed by Nova.”
Still, at least we weren’t experiencing the gate break from inside the gate. If we had, it could have turned into a really big problem.
“Teacher, are you okay..?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. None of you are hurt, right.”
“Nope, none.”
“Then good.”
Teacher Baek Sangjun was perched on the fence at the back of the vehicle, watching the gate the whole time. Since the scale of the damage was still unknown, they were following the manual for an A-minus rank open-type gate, one tier above B-plus.
In terms of evacuation distance, it was about 10 km. After a few minutes of driving, a human cordon marking the evacuation boundary was already in place, so we could escape straight beyond it.
“Bwahhh…. We made it, Dangdang….”
ㅡBeep..!!
ㅡClack!
Once we got beyond the evacuation line, Bradamante, who had been flying high up in the sky in the distance, also came crashing down onto the ground with a thud and hurried over to me to hug me tightly.
“Princess! You really are okay, right?!”
“Ah, Bradamante…. I’m fine! What about you, Bradamante?”
“I’m fine too! I was worried!”
Once word of the civilian evacuation spread, parents started calling the A-class students on their phones nonstop.
“Uh-huh, Mom. I’m fine.”
“I’m alive, I said.”
And Ophelia called me too. More accurately, I’d failed to notice that I had 13 missed calls piled up. Dangdang was in an enhanced state too, so it couldn’t get a call through, and the only way to contact me was through my phone—how was I supposed to hear it in that situation?
“Princess, are you all right?”
“Ah, I’m fine! Bradamante helped me!”
“I’m relieved above all that you’re safe, Princess. From what we can tell so far, the severity of the gate break is expected to be much greater than anticipated. Princess, please make sure to—”
“Ophelia? Ophelia..?”
In an instant, most of the phones nearby went dead. A crackling sound came through, the voice cut off, and I couldn’t hear anything.
And as if to explain why all the electronics had gone dead, the gate rose into the air and began surging violently.
“W-what’s wrong with that thing..?”
ㅡVwooooom..!!
“Princess! Something’s going terribly wrong! Please, evacuate at once..!”
“B-but…. What about the others..!”
Then, twisting and swelling like a balloon, it grew until it was the size of an ordinary building, and people started sensing something was wrong and slowly backing away.
It was a sight visible even from 10 km away. The gate twisted its entrance downward and began spewing something out with a squelching sound.
Huge feet and legs with deep purple skin. Then came an upper body packed with vicious muscle, and bizarrely short, thin arms and hands that were almost nonexistent.
ㅡKuuung..!
“A cyclops..?”
The head that finally slithered out with a squelch was an unbelievably hideous face that shattered all expectations. It had only one huge eyeball set in it, and no other features like a nose or mouth at all.
“H-hey, hey! That thing is trying to do something!!”
“Huh!?”
Suddenly, the already ugly eye squeezed shut hard, and the cyclops’s eyeball turned red as a crimson aura began gathering in the center of its pupil.
A magic circle formed in the eye of the giant beast, which looked to be about 20 meters tall, and it fired a destruction beam at us at incredible speed.
ㅡKwakwakwaaaaang!!!
“Ughk..!”
The moment I opened my tightly shut eyes, the sound died down as if the world had stopped, and a strange beeping noise washed over my ears.
* * * * *
“Princess, Princess! Are you all right?!”
“Guhk, ptwptwte…. I got dirt in my mouth….”
When I opened my eyes, everything around me was a complete mess.
“A-what about the others?!”
“They’re fine. Sir Galahad blocked it.”
“Huh?! How did he do that when I hadn’t even summoned him yet?!”
I turned my gaze and looked around, then spotted the status window floating beside me.
[{Powerless Princess : B}’s derived skill is activated.]
[Princess in Crisis : It gathers all golems. The golems’ stats increase drastically for a set period of time.]
“Phew, thank goodness..!”
“We need to move immediately. This place is dangerous.”
“H-how dangerous is it..?!“
Ophelia lifted me into her arms and ran, saying,
“An S-rank gate break has occurred.”