The Hunter of the Other World Who Is Being Misunderstood – Chapter 99

Ch 99: Rumors （4）

So, with An Yunseung persuaded, there’s no need to hesitate any longer.

‘Now that we’re on the topic, should I start right away?’

I picked up my phone and made a call to the person at the top of my contact list.

Because there was something I needed to ask Seon Uyeon.

◈◈◈

Today is November 10th.

It’s the second day after the start of winter.

While others are already making a fuss about feeling the cold winter wind, I didn’t even have time to enjoy this weather.

Because the problem isn’t the wind right now, but the fact that a festival of blood is about to begin.

“Hello? Seon Uyeon-ssi, is it a good time to talk?”

It’s been a good three months since the mysterious boss went missing.

Now, it’s a time when it wouldn’t be strange for an incident to break out at any moment, so I decided to try the Imugi tracking method that came to mind right away.

This time, I’m approaching it from a more logical perspective.

“Seon Uyeon-ssi, do the association employees have access to the gate auction records?”

━Of course. Gate transactions are always public, so if you search, Giryeo-ssi can see them too.

“Is that so? But I’m outside right now, so I’m sorry, but could you please search for me instead?”

━Now?

“Yes. Now.”

Thinking about it now.

The Nacha Temple would have carefully chosen a place to hide the Imugi from the beginning.

Even for them, I don’t think they would have put a rare entity like a growing boss just anywhere.

But even if they have a desired gate, depending on the location, it’s difficult for them to occupy it as they please…

In the end, they might have chosen this method to stably own a specific gate.

‘A formal transfer of ownership through the association.’

If so, what were the conditions of the gate they were looking for?

I’d list the following four items.

◆ Transactions before August

First of all, since the Imugi disappeared during the terrorist attack around August, they would have had to prepare the place before then.

◆ Individual auction cases

All corporate transactions are excluded. There’s no benefit to using a business name to obtain a gate for a terrorist attack.

◆ Water-attribute friendly environment

Of course, considering the type of monster to be raised, this condition cannot be left out.

◆ A size sufficient to hide a boss

I don’t need to explain this, right?

“Hmm.”

Anyway, I deduced the Nacha Temple’s thoughts and selected the gates they would have bought.

━The search results are 13 cases.

Then, a total of 13 gates matched all the conditions.

But if we exclude the places where the entrances are still open from here…

━The results have narrowed down a lot. It’s 5 cases.

Yes. 5 cases.

Among those 5 gates that were sold to individuals and reported to the association as already cleared, there might be the Nacha Temple’s ‘closed gate’ mixed in.

It’s just a probability, though.

“….”

But here, I reduced the number of possibilities one more time.

If I were Su Ye-hui.

If I believed that the dungeon shock was divine punishment.

If I were someone who thought that humanity deserved to die and atone by the monsters.

I might have considered this condition last when choosing the Imugi’s cradle.

◆ Densely populated area

The most populated city in this country is Seoul.

『Search result: 1 case』

And, among the gates suitable for raising the Imugi, there was only one place where the location of occurrence was in Seoul.

『Damp Cave』

『Rank: E』

『Description: Poison Frogs using poison appear as the boss.』

Of course, my guess is highly likely to be wrong from the premise, so I can’t say for sure that the Imugi is here, but…

“I’ll hang up for now.”

If I’m confused, I can just check it myself.

I ended the call with Seon Uyeon and immediately started moving.

◈◈◈

The Nacha Temple might think they know the most about gates in this world.

But that kind of thinking is dangerous.

Because a certain alien has already finished figuring out the rules.

‘Dungeons try to expel humans to the outside if they remain inside.’

The creators of the gates didn’t want the hunters to be meaninglessly isolated in that other world.

That’s why an exit always appeared when the boss was killed.

They were even kind enough to guide the hunter’s return by emitting a bright light, telling them to hurry back to Earth.

“Hmm.”

However, the ‘exit created when the boss is killed’ that appears here had different characteristics from a normal passage.

Destruction immunity.

It was truly designed to stay open no matter what, until all the survivors inside returned.

‘How kind of them.’

Probably, the boss of the dungeon is still alive inside the closed gate of the pseudo-religion followers.

It had to be.

If we apply this peculiarity, the moment the boss dies, a hole that can never be removed will be made in the pseudo-religion followers’ hidden space, and if a passage connected to Earth is created, even they can’t completely avoid the police’s pursuit.

“According to the coordinates Seon Uyeon gave me, it’s around here…”

Well, the reasoning is over, so let’s start verifying it now.

“Ah! Here it is.”

I’m standing in an alley in Seoul.

This was the place where a gate called 『Damp Cave』 appeared.

But now, instead of a blue glowing gate, only a desolate asphalt can be seen.

According to the report, that dungeon was already cleared last September.

‘Hmm.’

Of course, it’s still unknown whether the owner’s report is true or not.

So, I decided to check directly whether the Nacha Temple had manipulated Damp Cave.

To be precise, by using the characteristics of the gate that I thought of earlier.

‘Was the boss here… a Poison Frog, an E-rank magical beast?’

As I said again, the most important key related to the dungeon’s exit is the boss monster.

All bosses are connected to specific coordinates on Earth so that they can create an exit at any time.

Even in a situation where the entrance is destroyed and the space is cut off, they never let go of those specific coordinates.

‘Expressed conversely, it means that a living boss always has traces connected to those coordinates.’

And based on my experience so far, most dungeons tend to have their exits appear close to the gate’s appearance location…

It’s a reverse idea.

I was going to guess the location where the exit of 『Damp Cave』 should appear and detect the mana trace of the Poison Frog connected to these coordinates in reverse.

‘…….’

Well, anyway, that’s the theory…

‘If I explain this concept to Seon Uyeon, who is an Earthling, will she even understand?’

I rolled my eyes and soon gave up on the thought.

There’s no need to tell her all of this process anyway.

To be honest, this tracking method has an extremely low probability of success.

In a way, it’s like trying to find a single drop of ink mixed in a lake.

‘The traces are too faint…’

It’s a situation where I have to detect a faint mana that Earth’s technology can’t even imagine.

But even so, I decided to try this method for now.

━Thud.

Failure is the mother of success…

Of course, not for such a wholesome reason.

Feeling mana is a talent of the soul.

But I am, now and always, the soul that is most favored by the mana of this world.

‘There’s no way I can’t do something like this.’

The innate blessing was enough to make me arrogant.

◈◈◈

24 hours later.

I’m sitting in the Hunter Association’s counseling room.

And with a pathetic appearance, with a tissue soaked in blood pressed against my nose.

“Hunter Kim Giryeo.”

“Yes.”

“Um… are you hurt?”

“No.”

To explain how I ended up like this, I had to go back to a day ago.

Because I spent a full 24 hours to make the plan succeed.

“I just overworked myself and got a nosebleed.”

First, let me state the conclusion.

After tracking 『Damp Cave』, I found out that the boss there, the Poison Frog, was still alive.

That gate was the secret cradle occupied by the Nacha Temple.

“O-overworked?”

But if I tell the Earthlings about this advanced tracking method, my abilities will be too exposed.

Right now, I was creating supporting data with the evidence I’ve gathered so far, saying that ‘Damp Cave is very likely to be dangerous,’ and reporting it to the police and the association…

“By the way, it’s kind of shocking. Isn’t this basically the association saying they won’t do anything?”

“W-well, it’s more like they can’t do anything rather than they won’t…”

“Ha, I went to both the police and the association, and all they’re going to do is install one CCTV at that place.”

Well, as you can see, that’s the result.

It seems like the higher-ups here will only come to their senses after being bitten by the Imugi themselves.

No matter how much new information I brought, nothing changed.

‘Aish.’

No, those pseudo-religion followers are obviously terrorists, and it’s also a fact that the bosses have disappeared, so why don’t they believe me when I say the Imugi will appear?

If I spoon-feed them this much information, shouldn’t they just arrest all the higher-ups of the Nacha Temple?

But these guys keep saying that nothing has happened yet, so they have nothing to do.

“Giryeo-ssi?”

That’s it.

I shouldn’t have trusted inferior mammals after all.

I clicked my tongue and got up from my seat. At the same time, I opened the airline website on my phone.

Because I was planning to book a flight to Jeju Island right away.

‘Let’s see, the fastest flight is…’

I made a sudden decision to spend this winter on the island.

But then.

Suddenly, a loud bang echoed from a distance.

“Hmm?”

A huge noise, as if a factory had exploded.

Seon Uyeon and I looked up at the same time.

“That sound came from outside, right?”

“It seems so.”

And when we went out to the hallway to check the situation, the others were also looking around with surprised faces.

“What’s going on?”

“Was there an accident?”

“Isn’t that a dungeon break?”

“Oh oh! There’s smoke over there!”

Then, a man pointed at the window.

At that, the passersby all started turning their heads, and the moment I saw the direction he was pointing, I felt my blood run cold.

Because that place was…

The very place where I spent a whole day.

“Oh, no.”

“No way…”

Probably, Seon Uyeon had the same thought as me at this moment.

Yes. We found the location where the dungeon break would occur, but we didn’t know the most important information yet.

“Is it happening now?”

The exact time the terrorist attack would occur!

When I realized that, I couldn’t help but have one assumption come to mind.

‘D*mn it!’

I immediately checked the window in the hallway.

“Huh!”

Then, in the distance, I saw an unbelievable sight unfolding on a high-rise building.

A very huge, black, and long creature was wrapping itself around a 70-story building and getting closer to the sky.

‘Eek!’

This is bewildering.

The A-rank boss, Imugi, was supposed to be a fast monster with a length of about 12m, but that thing is almost kilometers, not meters!

“Hey, hey, turn on the analyzer!”

“What kind of monster is that big?”

For a moment, I thought that it might not be the Imugi.

And this judgment was similar to that of PIXY’s analysis device. Soon, the Earth’s machine expressed that creature like this.

『 ? ? ? 』

『Rank: ?』

『Description: No registered description.』

The people in the hallway started to get scared by the unknown existence.

The unknown is something that usually gives fear to intelligent beings.

But here, the hidden function of the analyzer was activated.

If people get fear from the unknown, then conversely, it means that just classifying the existence can partially relieve the fear.

The International Hunter Federation, which is in charge of uploading information to the analyzer, had created a system in preparation for the simultaneous occurrence of new monsters with similar appearances.

That is, to give temporary names to new monsters.

And this system combines random words for quick classification…

『Unf□□□□□□』

Drrrrrr.

Soon, the monster’s name field started to be confirmed one by one.

『Unfulfilled□□□』

Those blanks soon became specific words and named the monster.

『Unfulfilled Malignancy』

Yes.

This was the new name of the black disaster.

『Unfulfilled Malignancy』

『Rank: S』

『Description: （*Real-time update） Mana detection results estimate that the rank is beyond the A-rank range.』

“Kyaaaa!”

“What is that!”

The first S-rank dungeon break in Korea had begun.