Wait.
This wasn't like usual.
"What did you say?"
"—No. Don't go in there."
I stared ahead in confusion as the person on the other end of the call firmly repeated himself.
He was forbidding me from entering the new dungeon.
"Are you saying not only that you can't come with me, but that I can't go in either?"
"—That's right."
Why was he reacting like this?
Kang Changho was usually rather lax when it came to fulfilling his contractual duties as a Hunter. He had even agreed to participate in the dragon raid in Japan without the slightest hesitation, so it was fair to say that he almost never rejected my requests.
Besides, I'd just lied to him and claimed I was S-rank in order to explain the defensive enhancement granted by the [Sacred Tree Seedling].
"But like I said, the difficulty here is only B-rank...?"
Could he still be angry about the time I slipped away from the break scene without saying anything?
I recalled the thorny-bush incident, when I'd jumped in to retrieve the bank robber's corpse, and adjusted my grip on the phone.
But the answer I received was...
"—No way. Is our veteran Hunter seriously asking because he doesn't know?"
Kang Changho began explaining in a dry tone.
"—The new gate hasn't been properly investigated yet, so obviously you shouldn't go in. Just because it's rated B-rank doesn't mean that strange phenomenon can't affect an S-rank too."
"Hmm."
"—And you claimed to be S-rank last time, didn't you? If you end up in some kind of [confusion] state, who exactly do you think is going to handle you?"
"Well..."
"—If you understand, then unless it's absolutely unavoidable, don't approach an unverified dungeon before anyone else. Even if a break occurs."
His voice sounded cheerful enough, but if we had been standing face-to-face, I had a feeling his expression would have been anything but pleasant.
Still, the more carefully I listened, the more it seemed there was a flaw in his reasoning.
"Excuse me."
Without thinking too deeply about it, I voiced the question that had occurred to me.
"But if that's how you see things, shouldn't you have stopped me during the Siren raid too? Back then, there wasn't any proof of how the effect would work on an S-rank either..."
Of course, Kang Changho's answer came back in a tone no less matter-of-fact than mine.
"—No. At least during the Siren incident, there were confirmed cases of fully equipped A-rank Awakened with mental-resistance gear enduring the attack."
"Ah."
"—Even if we hadn't intervened, the A-rank team from Daejeon was already close to clearing Mermaid's Pass on their own."
Right.
'Come to think of it, this Earthling really is quick on the uptake.'
That was useful information.
I listened to his explanation and immediately understood what he meant.
But then, as though to make it clear he wasn't finished, another sentence followed through the phone.
"—Anyway, for that reason, this dungeon... what was the tentative name again?"
"[Nameless Cave]."
"—Right. Let's put off dealing with Nameless Cave for now. And from this point on, if some new monster with a mental attack appears, don't charge in recklessly. I know you're confident in that area."
Well, behaving overconfidently in front of dungeon monsters would simply be arrogance, wouldn't it?
"—Hmm."
The sound of wind drifted faintly through the phone speaker.
The person on the other end seemed to let out something between a laugh and a scoff.
"—By the way, I've thought this for a while, but Hunter Kim Giryeo really does enjoy watching disasters unfold."
"Does it look that way?"
"—It's only been a few days since a big shot like Brooklyn Morgan disappeared, and now you're volunteering to enter a gate whose effects haven't even been properly verified."
The voice of the person on the other end gradually dropped lower.
The vibrations produced by this apex predator resembled the subsonic rumble of some enormous mammal.
"—You're S-rank, so sitting around doing nothing makes you restless, doesn't it?"
If one listened quietly, there was something in his voice that felt capable of making a person's calf muscles seize up on the spot.
He could threaten his target almost effortlessly through sheer vocal pressure alone.
"—So whenever you see something new and dangerous, you just have to dive straight into it?"
"Yes?"
"—Well, I suppose everyday life does start feeling a little dull once you've awakened as S-class."
Kang Changho gave a rare laugh before slipping back into his usual joking tone.
"—But no matter how much I think about it, this dungeon feels wrong. Hm. If you absolutely have to go somewhere, stop by the gym instead. I'll send you the address."
"A gym? All of a sudden?"
"—There's nothing healthier for relieving stress than exercise, right? I've actually been practicing kickboxing since my school days. Since we're already on the subject, I'll teach Hunter Kim Giryeo too."
At this rate, if I made another couple of jokes, I might end up getting caught by him.
"—And if you spar without a mouthguard and shatter all those expensive-looking teeth of yours, I'm sure boredom will be the last thing on your mind."
What a terrifying suggestion.
He was displaying an unexpectedly strong aversion to the idea of me entering the otherworld where the possession phenomenon had occurred.
"Do you understand?"
"No, well..."
"—And don't call this an overreaction. Of all things, you're talking about mental interference. You probably don't even understand what it means to get caught up in something like that."
"..."
"—Because it affects self-awareness, if something goes wrong, even that ten-year contract you arranged in advance could become completely meaningless."
"..."
"—I'm telling you again. Do not enter that dungeon until other Hunters have verified that it's safe."
After going on for a while, Kang Changho abruptly brought the conversation to an end.
"—Remember. I'm always keeping an eye on you."
Tuk.
I stared at the darkened phone screen without blinking for a long time.
"Keeping an eye on me."
Oho.
All my life, I'd only ever been the one to say things like that.
I'd never really heard anyone direct such words at me, so whenever Earthlings did it, the novelty was strangely refreshing.
But that was beside the point.
What was I supposed to do now?
"Hmm."
After that conversation, it seemed fairly obvious that recklessly entering the gate would be a major mistake.
"Uhm..."
I raised my head and belatedly looked at the association staff standing in front of me.
Since they were all non-Awakened, their limited hearing meant they hadn't been able to catch the entire phone conversation.
Still, they seemed to have sensed the vaguely hostile atmosphere, because each of them awkwardly averted their gaze.
"So that's how things turned out."
I'd confidently announced that I would investigate the gate, only to end up in this ridiculous situation.
Still, there was nothing to be done.
In the past, I might have secured the upper hand by threatening to destroy myself.
But once a certain ambitious man discovered that he had a second possible sacrifice available, the balance of power between the contractors had finally settled into something resembling its proper order.
Anyway, if what Kang Changho had told me was true, then my body was considered 'an entity with further growth potential.'
If that was really the case, there was no reason for me to let such a valuable body die merely because of wounded pride.
"Is there perhaps a sorcerer around here who can cast some kind of future-prediction spell?"
Shrug.
I shook off my thoughts and returned to reality.
Then I addressed the association staff.
"Everyone, I'm sorry, but something urgent has come up. I'll have to cancel today's schedule."
"Yes?!"
"Please call in another A-rank team with strong mental resistance and have them investigate this gate."
Even though my original plan had fallen apart, my movements remained unhurried.
At this point, it didn't matter.
I could always find another method.
***
An hour later.
At a blue gate in Seoul.
Bright orange plastic barricades had been lined up in front of the entrance, as though deliberately emphasizing that the area was restricted.
But a moment later—
Thud!
"Huh?"
One of the folding barricades suddenly tipped over.
A Hunter Association employee who had been typing an email to his superior on a tablet immediately stood up and set it back in place.
Why had it fallen when there wasn't even any wind?
"Did I put it down badly on the slope?"
He tilted his head, considering the possibilities.
But the explanation he muttered to himself was nowhere near the truth.
The fluorescent barricade hadn't fallen because of the wind or uneven ground.
It had been knocked over by a definite physical impact.
Swoosh—
A creature that had remained invisible until that moment dispelled the spell surrounding its body the instant it crossed through the blue passage.
"Ack!"
Blond hair and sambagean eyes.
Didn't that appearance look familiar in more ways than one?
"Maybe it's because it rained earlier. The ground was so slippery I almost actually fell—damn, that scared me."
Kim Giryeo had illegally entered the gate using disguise magic.
That's right.
After careful consideration, he had ultimately chosen to completely disregard the Knight's Oath he'd made with Kang Changho.
All for the sake of accomplishing his goal.
'Remember that he's always keeping an eye on me!'
Haha!
What a joke.
He kept saying that without even knowing who was truly observing whom.
In reality, Kim Giryeo had been capable of secretly entering gates without reporting it from the very first day the contract had been signed.
The only reason he hadn't done so until now was that he'd lacked the resources needed to maintain stealth magic.
But now his lungs had healed.
And back when he'd been busy collecting corpses, he'd even gone so far as to install illusion-type decoys in his studio apartment to conceal his movements.
In other words, there was practically nothing holding him back anymore.
At this very moment, if someone observed Kim Giryeo through the [Dragon's Eye], his internal magic would most likely appear to be resting quietly inside his home.
Even if Kang Changho went directly to the studio apartment, broke down the door, and attempted to confirm his identity in person, the illusion spell he'd prepared should buy him plenty of time.
"It's darker in here than I expected."
Wearing a smug grin, the man soon began exploring the dungeon.
When he opened one hand, light magic formed smoothly and naturally, as effortless as breathing.
And yet, despite being the work of an archmage, something about the spell seemed strangely imperfect, as though there were countless gaps deliberately built into its structure.
This place might very well contain the alien creature that had once fought a full-scale battle against the First Magic Master of Alpha.
Something could be watching.
And although distinguishing concepts like souls might be difficult, it was better to be careful with even the smallest details when possible.
So he moved through the cave using an intentionally crude spell constructed to imitate Earth's primitive magic.
The form was convincing.
The internal structure was deliberately rough.
"Hmm."
By the time the mana he had intentionally wasted like scattered breadcrumbs marked the path behind him, he had made it roughly one-third of the way through the otherworld.
"Huh? What's this?"
The blond man tilted his head back and muttered with a disappointed expression.
"Haa..."
He hadn't been inside for long, but he'd already figured out the true nature of the gate.
With Kim Giryeo's ordinary eyesight, around 1.2, it was difficult to distinguish the creature clearly.
But when he closed his eyes and focused exclusively on the flow of magic, the shape of the enemy gradually emerged at the edge of his perception.
Something on its back glittered faintly, like the cubic zirconia stones often set into cheap decorative rings.
Its body was tiny—no larger than a grain of rice.
Yet despite its minute size, the magical signature it gave off left little room for doubt.
"Yeah. No wonder reports of possession started coming in so quickly. Logically speaking, there's no way Occupation Phase 2 would be reached in only eight years."
If translated into an Earth language, the insect responsible for this incident would probably be called something like a 'Silent Bug.'
In other words, the poisonous invaders he had been worried about had absolutely nothing to do with this dungeon.
A monster with abilities superficially resembling psychic interference had simply appeared, resulting in an understandable misunderstanding.
The Silent Bug.
Its name already explained most of what it did.
It was a creature that typically attached itself to the skin along an animal's back and caused its host to behave strangely.
"Seeing an insect from my homeworld again makes me feel oddly nostalgic."
The creature wriggled.
Giryeo casually examined the faintly glowing mana stone embedded in the side of the cave.
If one looked carefully, a milky-white insect could be seen crawling slowly across its surface.
However, Silent Bugs were extraordinarily sensitive to changes in mana concentration.
If one crossed from a B-rank gate like this into Earth, where the ambient mana density was much lower...
"So that's why the Awakened person returned to normal after escaping the cave. The monster couldn't survive the environmental change and simply died on its own."
The status-cleansing potion hadn't worked because the cursed creature remained attached to the host, continually reapplying the hallucination effect faster than the potion could remove it.
"What am I even explaining this for?"
He gave a small sigh and slipped one hand into his pants pocket.
At this point, there was no reason to keep pretending to be a primitive sorcerer.
A quick inspection had already confirmed that there was no intelligent creature in this feeding box observing what happened inside.
Once he was ready to leave, he could simply enhance his night vision and slip out using his own methods.
"Uhm?"
But then—
The archmage from another world abruptly stopped the spell he had been weaving.
A warning signal flashed through the finely honed senses engraved into his soul.
A new surge of magic had appeared.
Right outside the gate.
And far too close.
He stretched his perception through the thin shell of his physical body, and his eyes slowly widened.
"This is..."
A Hunter.
An S-rank Hunter.
Kang Changho!
Damn it.
What the hell was this?
And worse—
This dungeon was nothing but a single straight passage.
There was nowhere to escape.