Chapter 93: Legacy of Ukvaron
The Fist Demon, Kwak Ja-ryong.
The current master of the Kwonmu-mun Guild.
Korea’s number one martial artist and officially recognized as the strongest Hunter in South Korea.
The term “strongest in South Korea” here refers to both the combat and magic fields.
In other words, there was no Hunter who could defeat Kwak Ja-ryong, including both martial artists and mages.
And he was the very Hunter who saved Sa-hyeok from the hellish District 3 three years ago.
The benefactor who killed the giant snake, the Corrosive King Snake, by pulling out its spine and then took Sa-hyeok to the safe zone, saving his life.
He was the first Hunter Sa-hyeok had ever seen, a hero, and the one who inspired Sa-hyeok to dream of becoming a Hunter.
However, Sa-hyeok never dreamed that his name would come out of Polar’s mouth.
……And for almost the same reason, too.
Sa-hyeok asked Polar,
“Uh…… what exactly happened?”
“Two years ago, when I was working as a Hunter in the Predator Guild in the US. There was a dungeon leakage near the Capitol, so I was immediately deployed to suppress it. But……”
“……?”
“……The monsters were too strong. I thought they were ordinary werewolves, but it turned out they were the superior species, Metallic Werewolves.”
“Metallic Werewolves……?”
“They’re almost twice the size of regular werewolves, and their fur and teeth are all made of metal. So, even a graze from their fur can tear your flesh off. Their defense is also formidable.”
As if it was a difficult memory, Polar took a sip of her drink and continued.
“Two of my colleagues died from just one of them. I was also on the verge of death. My weapon was broken, my armor was shattered…… That’s when Hunter Kwak Ja-ryong appeared and saved me.”
Hearing that, Sa-hyeok said,
“Me too.”
“Huh?”
“Master Kwak Ja-ryong saved me just before I was killed by a monster.”
Sa-hyeok’s voice was filled with a strange excitement.
It was natural.
How could he not be excited to meet and talk with someone who shares the same idol?
Moreover, there was a sense of camaraderie from having experienced a similar event.
Naturally, his eyes sparkled.
“Wow, what a coincidence…… What kind of monster was it, Mr. Min?!”
“The Corrosive King Snake. You know that giant snake-shaped monster, right?”
“Ah, that black one!”
“Master Kwak Ja-ryong pulled out its spine with his bare hands right in front of my eyes. As soon as I saw the spine flying, I made up my mind. Ah, I have to become a Hunter.”
“Pulling out the spine, oh my. It was different from my experience.”
“What happened?”
“He just punched the monster’s belly once.”
“As expected, one punch……”
“And then the werewolf’s upper body disappeared.”
“……”
Something beyond imagination popped out.
Polar said,
“But just by looking at him, doesn’t he have an overwhelming presence?”
“Yes, how should I say it, it’s like seeing a legendary warrior from a myth.”
“Right, with his massive physique……”
Sa-hyeok had only seen him once, but he vividly remembered Kwak Ja-ryong’s appearance.
Shoulders as wide as the Pacific Ocean, a height like a mountain, towering trapezius muscles, fists like boulders.
Sa-hyeok’s master, Ha Jeong-kwon, was also a large man, but compared to Kwak Ja-ryong, he was like a bull in front of an elephant.
Sa-hyeok and Polar excitedly chatted about Kwak Ja-ryong.
Just like fans of the same idol meeting and excitedly talking about their idol.
Do-sik, listening to their conversation, chuckled and said,
“I’ve sparred with Kwak Ja-ryong.”
“Hey, you should add the ‘Master’ title after his name.”
“I’m a Master too, you guys……!”
Anyway.
“But how did you end up sparring?”
“It was when I was the Vice Master of the Geomgye Guild. My master was close with Kwak Ja-ryong, so he often visited our guild’s training ground. And then we ended up having a practice spar.”
“But how can a martial artist and a swordsman spar? Does one wear gloves and the other hold a wooden sword?”
“No. Kwak Ja-ryong was barehanded, and I held a sword. A real sword, too.”
“You held a real sword?!”
“And I lost.”
“!”
“Of course, I didn’t expect to win. I had just been promoted to A-rank, and Kwak Ja-ryong had achieved S-rank long ago. But still, I thought I could at least make a scratch if it was a barehanded vs. real sword fight.”
“Don’t tell me……”
“Scratch my a*s. He grabbed the real sword blade with his bare hands and broke it.”
“!”
“I’ve never seen anything like that. The blade crumbled like a cracker. But his palms weren’t even scratched.”
“Uh……”
“Then he apologized for breaking the sword and gave me three times the price of the broken sword.”
“You hit the jackpot.”
“It was a jackpot. But you want to hear something interesting?”
“……?”
“What do you think most late bloomers think when they face masters of the previous generation?”
“I want to be like that?”
“Correct. They have the desire to reach or even surpass that level someday. That’s normal. But you know what it feels like to be in front of Kwak Ja-ryong?”
“Awe?”
“No, fear.”
“!”
“It’s just…… the dimension of power is different. It’s so different that you can’t even dare to think about reaching it.”
“……”
“That’s why I think Kwak Ja-ryong is the most underrated Hunter in our country.”
“He’s already the strongest in Korea.”
“That’s why he’s underrated. He should be called the strongest in Asia.”
“Ah……”
“And you know what? Kwak Ja-ryong is the one who established the ‘Master-Disciple’ system in the Korean Hunter world.”
“Ah, I’ve heard of it.”
“Actually, that system could never have been established if you think of raids as a means of making money. Honestly, there’s no reason to teach your martial arts or magic to another Hunter for free, right? But Kwak Ja-ryong established the principle that ‘A Hunter’s skills should contribute to society through transmission and sharing.’ And look at the result. All five Masters of the Major Guilds have taken disciples and are passing down their martial arts and magic. Oh, except for Cheon Hun.”
Because Master Cheon Hun’s skills cannot be passed down.
How can you teach someone how to reattach a severed head?
……That’s what Sa-hyeok was about to say.
“Come to think of it, you, Min Sa-hyeok, also entered this field as Ha Jeong-kwon’s disciple, right?”
“That’s right.”
It was Jeong-kwon who took Sa-hyeok as his disciple, but it was Kwak Ja-ryong who established the system that made it all possible.
His life, his dream, and his entry into the industry.
‘I owe him a lot.’
What should he say when he meets Kwak Ja-ryong again someday?
Various thoughts crossed his mind.
“But Mr. Kwak Ja-ryong is still overseas, right?”
“Yes. I haven’t seen him since I joined Kwonmu-mun.”
At that moment.
Beep-
A message arrived on Sa-hyeok’s phone.
It was a message from Bang-ul-i.
[Decryption complete.]
‘Finally……!’
The unidentified letters engraved on the walls of the Golem Dungeon and the ancient book.
It was a notification that the decryption of those letters was complete.
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After the meeting ended.
Sa-hyeok quickly returned to his boarding house.
Opening the door, Sa-hyeok shouted,
“How did it go?!”
[First, sit down, hyung-nim. It’s a long story.]
Sa-hyeok sat on the floor.
[First, I’ll summarize the contents engraved on the walls of the Golem Dungeon.]
“Tell me.”
[Actually, understanding the content was easy. It came with a Mado language interpretation. But to summarize……]
“Yeah, yeah.”
[What was recorded on the wall there was a kind of history book. The history of a country called the
“Ukvaron Empire…… I’ve never heard of it.”
[Most of the content is about who ascended the throne, when the king died, when there were wars, and so on. But that’s not the really important part.]
“What is it?”
[This sentence appears in the latter part of the history book. ‘Black doors appeared throughout the empire, pouring out monsters.’]
Black doors.
One image flashed through Sa-hyeok’s mind.
“Wait, if it’s black doors……!”
[The description of the black doors is like this. ‘It took the shape of a large rectangular parallelepiped, and at first glance, it looked like a large tombstone. When discovered, it has a key inserted that can open it.’]
“It’s a Gate?!”
Black, tombstone-shaped doors.
Holes that spew out monsters.
The existence of a key.
It was a perfect match for the Gates appearing all over Earth now.
“Is that the story of a world that experienced what’s happening to us now……?”
[It seems so. Even the flow of history is similar. The appearance of individuals with special powers, the appearance of minerals containing special powers, and the technological advancement based on that……]
“That’s just talking about Hunters and magic stones.”
[That’s right.]
“……Then how does that history end?”
[That’s……]
“Tell me.”
[Destruction.]
A heavy silence fell for a moment.
“……Destruction?”
[Yes. This sentence appears. ‘After the black doors disappeared, colorful destruction rained down from the sky.’]
“Colorful destruction……?”
[‘……Destruction mixed with countless colors, we dared not face the destruction. We couldn’t even avoid it. Therefore, as a final cry, we engrave this on this solid wall. We were here. Here, Ukvaron, existed.’]
The letters engraved on the wall were the last struggle of the Ukvaron Empire’s historians.
In the face of impending destruction, they tried to leave their story behind somehow.
“Is there anything else related to the destruction?”
[There’s also this part. ‘There have been countless precursors to destruction. We just didn’t notice them.’]
“Precursors to destruction?”
[Here, it says that they consider events like ‘The time when monsters appear has suddenly been brought forward.’ and ‘Monsters leaked from black doors that weren’t supposed to open yet.’ as precursors to destruction. But this……]
“Are things we’ve experienced too.”
The Root Gate incident where the reset cycle suddenly changed.
The Corrosive Demon Dungeon where the leakage time was suddenly brought forward.
The Snow Wolves that leaked from the Snow Dungeon, which wasn’t supposed to have a leakage yet.
Are all of these precursors to destruction……?
No, wait a minute, but……
“Remember the incident where the wolves escaped from the Snow Dungeon?”
[Yes, hyung-nim burned them to death with fire.]
“That was Antenon’s doing.”
[What?!]
“They were trying to sneak into the Snow Dungeon, so they tore through space and invaded, and the monsters escaped through there.”
[That means……]
“It means that Antenon might be causing these so-called precursors to destruction.”
[!]
Saying that, Sa-hyeok felt nauseous.
Destruction.
The pressure the word gave was terrifying.
He had previously thought that humanity had overcome destruction once.
The Gate incident.
Humanity had managed to overcome this unprecedented event and even turned it into an opportunity for advancement.
But to think that even that was just a part of the process leading to destruction.
He had no idea what to do……
‘Stop.’
Sa-hyeok put a stop to his runaway thoughts.
There was no answer to be found by worrying about it right now.
The first thing he had to do was to take in the information in front of him.
Sa-hyeok changed the subject.
To that unidentified book.
“……Okay, then what’s written in that book?”
[To summarize, this book is a record of the Ukvaron Empire’s fight against the monsters. It records various types of monsters, their size, habits, attack methods, habitat, countermeasures, and danger level.]
“Uh……?”
A strong sense of déjà vu.
It couldn’t be helped.
Because Sa-hyeok himself had left behind such records.
Three years ago, immediately after being rescued from Seoul’s District 3, Sa-hyeok recorded the information about the monsters he encountered in a blue spring notebook.
Commonly known as the
The data Sa-hyeok left behind had a significant academic impact, to the point where it became the basic format for monster classification.
So, this book was the Ukvaron Empire’s Blue Note.
[But do you know what’s written at the end of this book?]
“What is it?”
[This book was dropped in a dungeon with knights and slime monsters, right?]
“Yes, it was.”
[It’s the story of those knights and slimes.]
“What?!”
[Listen. ‘The slime has escaped outside the black door. The knights fought back bravely. However, no weapon could wound it. In the end, the knights made a noble decision.’]
“A noble decision……?”
[‘The knights divided and sealed the slime within their bodies. And they entered a deep cave and sealed themselves, even their own existence. So that the slime could not escape into the world.’]
