# Chapter 27
I felt my body floating. I thought I was going to crash into the ground and die. But fortunately, my feet touched the ground again. I opened my eyes and looked to the side. Kim Haewon, who had been in front of me, had carried me up to a tall building. The hands firmly wrapped around my waist felt stable. I looked down.
“W-what is that?”
A gigantic centipede-like monster was repeatedly burrowing into the ground and emerging. Its length was impossible to estimate. It moved so fast that it looked like a cogwheel rolling. Dust rose wildly as the ground was destroyed in an instant.
“What made you think you could follow that bastard in?”
“I didn’t follow him in, I was grabbed by the scruff of my neck and dragged here. But what is that thing anyway?”
“Polypodal Under Dragon. It moves quickly underground and suddenly emerges to the surface for a surprise attack. Hold tight.”
“W-wait a second!”
Kim Haewon moved to the next building. He was just leaping lightly, but he jumped distances impossible for a human. He placed me at the furthest point from the centipede-like monster and drew a blue circle around me.
“Don’t step outside this.”
“No. You’re leaving me here?”
“Do you expect me to fight while carrying you?”
“…”
Kim Haewon spoke in a very displeased tone and headed toward the Under Dragon. I could only stand there blankly, watching the two people face the monster.
Besides the massive Polypodal Under Dragon, there were many other monsters. Most looked like undead monsters, but there were so many that they appeared like a swarm of black ants.
The two seemed to be dividing roles in the fight. Nam Ihyeon was jumping over the undead monsters, spreading flames, and when a circle formed, he would burn them all at once. It was a technique that instantly created towering flames and reduced everything to ashes. When the flames rose high and disappeared, dozens of monsters that had been there were gone, with only black smoke and ash fluttering in their place.
Kim Haewon was focusing on the Under Dragon. Even when the Under Dragon was cut into pieces, something like slime came out and pulled the scattered flesh together. Then it reattached without a scratch, which was a terribly disgusting process.
I thought I wouldn’t be able to see well from this distance, but the Under Dragon was larger than I expected, so I could see very clearly. It was so long that it resembled several railway cars or subway trains connected together.
After slicing it a few times as if testing, Kim Haewon seemed to have realized something. Nam Ihyeon, while striking monsters, shouted:
“We need to find the head! The head!”
“Not necessary.”
Kim Haewon replied and targeted the thickest part of the Under Dragon. He tore it apart with his hands, and when slime began to ooze out from inside, he grabbed it completely with his palm.
“Don’t tell me…”
As I thought “He’s not planning to freeze it to death, is he?”, the Under Dragon began to writhe painfully. Instantly, thin white ice formed on its skin, and its long body, partly buried in the ground, writhed in agony. But soon it froze, and then its face popped out very close to me.
“Ahhh!”
The Under Dragon’s face was a Hell Mouth. Hell Mouth referred to a monster whose face was entirely a mouth. This monster’s mouth opened 360 degrees, with hundreds of teeth. Moreover, its oral cavity connected directly to the esophagus, which spewed digestive fluid, dissolving anything the moment it was swallowed.
The manual said it wasn’t a particularly high-ranked monster, but seeing it in reality was completely different. As it sprayed saliva like a broken faucet and opened its maw toward me, I couldn’t move.
Just as I thought “Is this how my life ends?”, the monster’s saliva instantly froze. It took only a few seconds for its protruding eyeballs to turn white as well. I looked up, trembling all over.
Kim Haewon pulled out a small knife from his waist and split the head in half. With the sound of ice cracking, the Hell Mouth’s head fell to the ground.
I slumped to the ground at the same time. I hadn’t often felt such extreme terror in my life. It felt like chills were running through my entire body. At the same time, cold sweat ran down my back. Kim Haewon sheathed his knife and looked at me.
“Really troublesome.”
I wanted to retort and ask how he could say something like that to a person, but in the current situation, I was indeed troublesome. Kim Haewon removed the circle he had drawn around me and picked me up. I fluttered like a sheet of paper. Kim Haewon looked around.
“Hey! Where are you going!”
“You can handle it alone, can’t you?”
Kim Haewon said nonchalantly. I barely managed to raise my head, and saw Nam Ihyeon glaring at Kim Haewon while wielding something like fire whips in both hands.
“Am I you? How am I supposed to handle all this alone! Are you telling me to die?”
“Die if you want.”
Kim Haewon headed in the opposite direction from Nam Ihyeon as if it didn’t matter to him. I couldn’t even ask where we were going because Kim Haewon started running at an unimaginable speed.
This was almost like flying. I felt like my organs might spill out of my mouth at any moment. I covered my mouth with both hands and squeezed my eyes shut. In just a few minutes, I was far away from the black swarm of monsters.
Kim Haewon set me down on the rooftop of a building. I tried to calm my churning stomach while looking around. Seeing the buildings devastatingly collapsed, it seemed like this area had already been cleared.
“You should send me out of the gate!”
“It’s far.”
“What?”
This bastard? As I looked at him incredulously, Kim Haewon continued.
“It’ll be over soon, so wait here. There’s someone on the floor right below, check if they’re alive.”
“A person? Are you sure?”
Nam Ihyeon said there were no human responses nearby, though? However, Kim Haewon didn’t repeat himself. It was very difficult to decide which of the two was more reliable, but Kim Haewon didn’t seem like someone who would speak idly. Kim Haewon turned around to leave. Meanwhile, Nam Ihyeon had tried to undo his pants as soon as we were left alone. I hurriedly hugged Kim Haewon’s back.
“Wait a minute!”
“What?”
Kim Haewon turned to look at me in surprise but didn’t push me away. Kim Haewon’s wavelength wasn’t as bad as I expected since our last guiding. That meant he wasn’t using much strength to deal with this gate. It wasn’t for nothing that he was called a monster esper.
However, it was worlds apart from Nam Ihyeon’s neatly refined wavelength. It was bewildering, not knowing where to start, and seemed endless. I pushed what remaining guiding energy I had into the center of Kim Haewon’s wavelength.
“That’s enough.”
“It wasn’t particularly necessary.”
“Yes, yes. Go ahead.”
It seemed he had learned how to say the same things in a mean way. Instead of thanking me, he was saying useless things. I pushed Kim Haewon’s back as if to say “that’s enough.” He glanced at me once and then moved as if leaping away. Kim Haewon disappeared from my sight at high speed. Thinking that I had been brought here at that speed made my stomach churn.
“Ugh, I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
I patted my chest and went down one floor. Having just expended my guiding energy, my legs were weakening.
“Would it kill him to say thank you?”
I grumbled while stepping down the broken cement stairs. This was my first time entering a gate. Everything was gray, and there weren’t just one or two monsters but swarms forming groups. It was similar to what I had seen in the novel.
If this was exactly like the novel I had read, gates like this would soon proliferate. It was because naturally occurring monsters were collected, modified, and cloned. As if testing the limits of espers, increasingly powerful monsters appeared. The casualties were significant as well.
It might be difficult to vary such major plot points. If so, where should I start dealing with it? The author originally killed two people, but now they hadn’t died. The D-class esper outside was alive, and the A-class guide should be here.
I finally reached the floor below by holding onto protruding rebar while descending. As I was catching my breath, I could see fighting in the distance. Since about half of the building was essentially cut off, the view was very wide and clear.
“What an incredible view.”
I could see water and fire colliding violently. The black swarm of monsters disappeared and reappeared. But they seemed to be gradually decreasing in size.
If I had been there, I might have died without even leaving bones behind. I unconsciously touched my neck. The fact that my body was still intact felt strangely new.
The acrid smoke was drifting even here. I covered my mouth and nose and searched for the A-class guide, Han Miyeon. Since she was said to be here, I thought I could find her quickly.
I passed by dangerously protruding rebar and discovered someone sitting against a corner. She was bleeding profusely from her nose. It was heavy enough to soak most of her top.
Was she hit by a rock? Or injured by rebar? I quickly approached and checked her condition.
“Hello. Guide Han Miyeon. Guide Han Miyeon. Wake up. Can you hear me?”
She was barely breathing. I first removed my coat and covered Han Miyeon to preserve body heat. Then I tore my shirt and wiped her nose and mouth. Her breathing was very faint. However, she didn’t appear to be wounded anywhere.
Just to be sure, I checked the back of her head as well, but there was no external injury. That meant the bleeding was caused by excessive guiding.
Did she try to do something with the D-class esper? If she had expended this much guiding energy, even Nam Ihyeon might not have been able to detect her life signs.
In other words, she was still alive but could breathe her last right in front of me.
