The Hunter of the Other World Who Is Being Misunderstood – Chapter 43

Ch 43: Crush （1）

Arrived at the scene.

As soon as I got out of the car, the source of the disaster alarm came into view.

“It’s quite large, isn’t it?”

“Wow, the road looks completely red.”

Two gates standing in mirror-like symmetry across a road.

Unlike the gates I’ve seen so far, it was dyed a bright red color.

Commonly called a ‘Red Gate’.

A passage that, when it appears, spews out monsters within minutes and then disappears without a trace.

“I hope the citizens evacuated safely.”

Unlike Blue Gates, which cause accidents if left unattended, Red Gates were a considerable headache as they 100% triggered stampedes.

“Ugh, I wish red ones wouldn’t appear in urban areas like this~”

But that’s only when there’s a shortage of response personnel.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Just as the sound of heavy beast footsteps echoed from beyond the gate.

Esther chuckled and told those behind her.

“From now on, it’s this Guild Master’s time to work, so you guys stay huddled in the corner!”

At that, the Korean Magic Tower employees quickly distanced themselves from Esther.

Kim Giryeo, who was dragged along without knowing what was going on, blankly thought.

‘Didn’t I come too far? At this rate, no one will be able to support Esther.’

Even up to this point, he had a tendency to underestimate the S-ranks of Earth.

Both with Kang Changho and Jeong Haseong.

They were in a narrow and confined space, with an F-rank hunter like himself, so they couldn’t fully exert their power.

━Grrrrrr…….

━Shaaaaa!

━Urrrk, Krrrk.

“Kim Giryeo Hunter-nim, from now on, absolutely do not go near our Representative-nim. Got it?”

But today, he would come to see the true status of an S-rank hunter without any restrictions.

━Thump, Thump…….

Numerous monsters began to appear from the gates on both sides.

A headless giant holding a log.

A small demon laughing and giggling.

Esther scanned the horde of monsters advancing in a black wave, then took a leisurely step.

“I should start from the left. I’m left-handed, after all.”

But with each step she took, a strange phenomenon occurred.

“Kikik, Kiiik? Hak!”

The monsters, who had been approaching with murderous intent, suddenly flipped over and collapsed.

Thud, thud.

Like rats that had eaten poison.

The closer Esther got to the gate, the more monsters howled.

━Kaaaak! Kaaaak!

━Krrr, rrr…….

An intangible fear descended upon the street.

But only one person in this place could accurately understand everything the opponent was doing.

‘This crazy woman, she was the real deal.’

A curse is a type of strong suggestion.

Making a healthy person sick in an instant.

Sticking a dagger into a straw doll and causing pain.

All of these are phenomena that cannot occur without the brain’s illusion.

‘That’s why curse magic especially requires concentration.’

Giryeo felt the energy swirling around Esther and shrunk back.

She was like a giant typhoon when she activated her magic.

Any creature that entered her sphere of influence was cursed and killed without exception.

‘That’s why the employees ran away this far. Even a graze within the range of her spell formula would be bad news.’

Rough and crude mana.

Yet, there is no hesitation in wielding her power.

“Those who block my path, all of you boil to death!”

As the incantation flowed from Esther’s mouth.

Thwack.

The heads of the small demons that had filled the area exploded all at once.

Bubbling, bubbling.

The fate of the giant monster with a club was no different.

Esther’s curse skill swept away the monster horde in an instant.

The sight of black blood scattering like fireworks and then soaking the road was surreal.

━Wooooooo!

“Ah, is that the boss?”

And then.

A mournful cry was heard from beyond both gates.

After all the fodder was dead.

Esther identified the identity of the last monster that appeared and laughed heartily.

“Puhahaha! So that’s why you couldn’t come out sooner!”

The boss of this Red Gate was none other than a bipedal beast.

But the problem was that their size was not ordinary.

“Isn’t that going to get stuck in the gate?”

Esther snickered as she looked at the huge beast that seemed to be about 10 stories high.

The monster looked even more dull and stupid because of its square-shaped snout.

‘Huh?’

But…….

Unlike the relaxed Esther, Kim Giryeo felt a slight sense of crisis.

Well, because this kind of monster had popped out of the right Red Gate.

Giiiiiiiiing…….

The second boss to appear was none other than a giant lump of scrap metal.

A mechanical magical beast that looked like a twin to the boss on the left.

‘It’s not a living thing?’

Of course, you can’t put a curse on such an object.

‘Did I, did I come to watch for nothing? That’s a complete weakness for curse magicians.’

But this was an unnecessary worry.

“Oh~ the other side is a robot?”

Having said this, Esther immediately kicked off the ground and ran forward.

Closing the distance in an instant and punching the mechanical beast with her fist.

━Bang!!

A dull roar echoed through the street.

The mechanical beast’s iron snout was dented by Esther’s blow.

That’s right. If magic doesn’t work, you can just beat them with an S-rank’s superior hardware.

“……..”

Giryeo watched Esther’s hunt and quietly covered his ears.

Clang! Crash!

If you close your eyes, it sounds like a building demolition.

“As expected, when Representative-nim steps up, even two A-rank Reds are quickly taken care of.”

“When Esther Hunter is at headquarters, it makes me feel at ease for no reason, you know?”

The guild members, thinking that the battle was over, laughed and chatted.

“Wait!”

But the next moment.

“What’s wrong?”

“There, that!”

A Tower employee suddenly started shouting, pointing somewhere.

Where their gaze was directed, a middle-aged woman was standing.

A person holding car keys in her hand, looking around…….

“A civilian?”

As soon as they discovered her, the surrounding atmosphere changed in an instant.

“Oh, oh, oh!”

“Crazy! We clearly blocked off the road, so where are you sneaking in from?”

A C-rank hunter from the Magic Tower ran out in horror.

And they mercilessly grabbed the person they found, and a small scuffle broke out in the process.

“What, what are you doing!”

“Get out of the road right now!”

“No, is it okay for an awakened one to touch someone’s body like this? Let go! I’ll just quickly move the car over there and come out!”

It seems that a person appeared, belatedly trying to move their assets after seeing the Red Gate appearance news.

The Magic Tower employees’ faces turned pale as they saw the civilian.

“You should have moved that beforehand! How long ago was the alarm raised!”

Giryeo was also sweating profusely.

‘The monsters are not the problem right now.’

He had just compared Esther to a typhoon, hadn’t he?

Originally, the more immense the power one is born with, the more difficult it becomes to master fine magic control.

That’s why Esther, when she fights, scatters a wide-ranging curse that engulfs the surrounding area…….

‘If a non-awakened person is grazed by an S-rank’s magic…….’

At this rate, an innocent civilian is going to die.

The Magic Tower hunter, having reached the same conclusion, reached out to immediately exclude the person who had appeared.

But before that, the situation they had been worried about occurred.

“What? Why is a civilian here?”

“Representative-nim!”

Esther, having defeated the mechanical beast, moved to the center of the road to catch the last boss.

The eye of the typhoon had moved.

Therefore, this left road also fell under the influence of magic in an instant.

As a result, an S-rank’s vicious curse was about to slash a civilian.

“Get that person evacuated right now!”

Esther reflexively canceled all the skills she had been activating.

She had withdrawn her magic to protect the civilian.

But that action brought about a huge backlash.

“Wooooooo!”

The white beast screamed and raised its head.

As if releasing all the pent-up anger at once, now that the curse that had been suppressing it had disappeared.

“Kyaaak!”

“Esther-ssi!”

Thump, thump, thump!

The boss of the Red Gate activated its unique skill.

It slammed down with its angular forefoot on the S-rank hunter’s head.

Esther quickly crossed her arms to protect her head, but this was not a simple punch.

“What, what is this!”

Kuuung.

Just as the beast’s hoof made a deafening sound.

A rapid change in terrain occurred in the land that Esther was standing on.

The ground was undulating.

A sticky liquid was rising.

Her lower body was being buried.

“Ugh!”

It’s a swamp.

A purple swamp was created in the middle of the city by the monster’s magic.

‘My legs are submerged!’

Esther had fallen into the middle of that swamp.

She had become unable to move.

However, this crisis ended absurdly.

“Representative-nim! The civilian has been evacuated!”

As soon as she heard that the uninvited guest had disappeared, Esther activated her curse again towards the boss.

How many monsters in the world could withstand an S-rank’s maximum output?

━Wooo, woooooo……!

The giant beast, as if afflicted with a fatal disease, foamed at the mouth and panted before finally sticking out its tongue and dying.

Thump…….

It was truly an overwhelming difference.

From the start, an S-rank could not face a major crisis in this battle.

“Got it!”

The Magic Tower employees cheered.

If there were no casualties despite two A-rank Red Gates appearing, wouldn’t that be a success?

“Wow, when that person came in earlier, I thought something really bad was going to happen!”

“Do you know what that ajumma said to me when I moved her out of the restricted area? She said she was going to report me because her arm was broken from being touched by an awakened one!”

“Ugh~”

However, amidst the conversations mixed with relief, a small voice flowed in from somewhere.

“Um, excuse me…….”

Everyone stopped talking and turned to look in the direction the voice was coming from.

“I think I’m sinking deeper and deeper…….”

There was a woman submerged about two-thirds of the way into the swamp. It wasn’t this bad before?

“They said on TV that when you fall into a mudflat, it’s good to lie on your back, so I just tried it. But somehow, I think I sank more.”

Esther looked up at the employees outside the swamp with a sad face.

“What should we do? Section Chief-nim, there should be a rescue rope in the trunk…….”

“Uh, uhm.”

But the employees were just as troubled.

This was because the swamp that Esther had fallen into was not just a simple wetland.

Green oil faintly flowing through the bubbling purple mud.

This was a substance that had been featured prominently in various media outlets three years ago, so there were few who didn’t know about it.

‘A poison swamp created by an A-rank monster……!’

Isn’t that a unique toxin of a gate creature?

It was a kind of common sense for the people here. That liquid of that color was poisonous.

So the Tower employees couldn’t recklessly step forward.

With the aftermath of the battle, the swamp’s poison had splashed everywhere on the road, what if they accidentally stepped into a puddle?

Perhaps even the amount vaporized in the air could be dangerous.

‘I’m an S-rank and I’m wearing poison-resistant equipment, so I can endure it.’

Esther knew this as well, so she couldn’t move recklessly.

With an S-rank’s physical ability, she could easily get out of the swamp, but there was a possibility that the poison would spread widely in the process of struggling.

Esther was just floating there, worrying about the cleanup crew that would come later.

“……..”

But here.

There is one person who is a Korean hunter, yet the only one who doesn’t know about the news from three years ago.

“Hmm.”

Giryeo quietly thought, alternating his gaze between Esther, who was submerged up to her waist, and the Magic Tower employees who were stamping their feet.

‘These guys, how much did their boss have to do for them to hate them so much that they won’t even budge?’

He was mistaken, thinking that the employees were just standing by because they had bad feelings towards Esther…….

Of course, it wasn’t like he couldn’t understand.

He also sometimes wanted to throw his hometown boss into a swamp.

But that was that.

‘But isn’t this situation a bit pitiful?’

He pitied Esther’s situation.

It wasn’t her fault that she fell into the swamp, and she ended up like that because she tried to protect a civilian who had ignored the restrictions and entered the road.

‘Okay, I’m in a good mood. Let’s give that bad boss a chance.’

He soon made a decision.

He would step forward and help Esther.

“Excuse me. Uh, you there, employee?”

“Ah, yes!”

“You said there was a rope in the trunk earlier, right? Could I borrow it for a moment?”