Early that morning, a gate of unmeasurable rank appeared without warning above Seoul, and proceeded to suck in everything in the surrounding area.
The number of people presumed to have been swept up by this gate — dozens missing.
To rescue them, the Korea Hunter Association mobilized major guilds and hastily assembled attack teams. But as though its sole purpose had been to swallow everything nearby, this abnormal gate blocked all other attempts at entry.
“Hunter Kim Seok-gu. How’s it looking?”
“Ah… Team Leader Yun.”
“Still no change?”
“Yeah, well… as you can see. We keep trying to get in but we keep getting bounced back.”
A perimeter line was drawn around the reddish gate, restricting all access. Streets that were always packed with people even on weekdays now gave off the desolate atmosphere of an abandoned city center.
The result of most of Seoul’s residents having evacuated in preparation for a dungeon break.
Standing guard in front of the gate at the center of it all, Hunter Kim Seok-gu posed a question to Team Leader Yun as she approached.
“Has the gate research team said anything?”
“Not yet. They seem pretty lost themselves. It’ll probably take a while to figure out what’s going on.”
“Do you think the people who got sucked in are safe?”
“Who knows… For now, at least, I’ve heard Hunter Seomun Hyeok went in — so I suppose we have to pin our hopes on them being okay.”
“Ah, right.”
Kim Seok-gu nodded, the tension in his expression easing slightly. Seomun Hyeok. The weight that name carried was immense.
About five years ago, when gates first appeared in this world and swept across the entire country — a young man in his twenties appeared seemingly out of nowhere, cutting down monsters left and right to signal the end of that great catastrophe.
From there, he sought out others like himself — people with special abilities — guiding them to protect civilians, and leading the charge to clear dungeons in the name of peace and safety.
The first hunter ever born anywhere in the world, and the first S-rank hunter. People’s expectations of him were enormous even in ordinary times.
Of course, from Seomun Hyeok’s perspective — having gotten unluckily sucked in alongside everyone else — those expectations probably weren’t very welcome.
“Knowing Hunter Seomun Hyeok is in there does make me feel a bit better.”
Either way, even with the gate’s rank measured as unclassifiable, everyone trusted Seomun Hyeok. At least the Seomun Hyeok they knew had never once fought a battle he lost.
The man inside would wipe out the monsters and rescue the civilians, just like always. Once the dungeon was cleared, the gate would open. And the first face to appear would naturally be Hunter Seomun Hyeok’s.
“Wh, whoa! Over there, right now…!”
Just then — a researcher who had been crouched in front of the gate examining equipment scrambled backward in shock and fell onto their backside. The small commotion drew the gaze of not just Kim Seok-gu and Team Leader Yun, but everyone in the vicinity — all eyes turning to the gate.
“Ah…!”
The deep red of the gate’s color was turning pure white. The color that appeared when a dungeon had been successfully cleared.
“What do we do? Should we try going in?”
“…No. Wait a moment.”
Team Leader Yun swallowed and stared hard into the gate. Far in the distance, the silhouette of a single person seemed to be approaching.
“S, someone’s coming out!”
“Get the transport vehicles ready, and contact the nearest hospitals! Hurry!”
Weeeooo —
The ambulance siren rang in their ears. Meanwhile, the figure emerging from the gate drew closer, and their full appearance came into focus.
Huh…?
Someone murmured in puzzlement. Because the survivor getting closer — was not Seomun Hyeok.
A thick mop of curly hair covering down to the corners of his eyes, a stretched-out t-shirt under a rumpled zip-up hoodie. Gray sweatpants with knees about to pop through.
Tap, scrape — Tap, scrape —
The unidentified man was dragging his left leg behind him, walking with what appeared to be a black sword scabbard as a crutch.
And then, at last, when the unidentified man crossed the threshold of the gate —
“Wh, whoa…!”
His body tilted — and then he crumpled to the ground with a thud. The onlookers cried out in alarm and rushed toward him.
“Hey, hey! Are you alright! Can you hear me!”
“Medical team! Is there a medical team here! We have a survivor!”
“Hey! Do you know where you are? Stay with us!”
Surrounded by people, the man lay flat on his back on the ground, and his lips moved. But his voice was so faint it was swallowed entirely by the surrounding noise.
“Sorry? What, what did you say?”
“Hm? What did he say?”
“No, this person just said something…”
Those gathered around the man belatedly leaned in to listen. They figured he might be trying to tell them what had happened inside the gate — why this person had come out first instead of Seomun Hyeok, what had happened to the others, what kind of monster had been inside.
There were so many questions, and everyone held their breath waiting for the words that would leave the man’s lips. Moments later, under the weight of every gaze on him, the man’s lips parted and —
“…F*ck, the exit’s goddamn miles away in there, seriously…”
“……?”
With those words, the man’s eyes closed.
* * *
— Breaking news. This morning, the unclassifiable dungeon that appeared in Mapo-gu, Seoul has been successfully cleared. We now go live to reporter Lee Jin-hee at the scene.
— …Yes, I’m currently at the Mapo-gu gate site. The unknown barrier that had been blocking entry into the gate has disappeared. On the ground, the Korea Hunter Association’s search team has been deployed to search for the missing…
A clean hospital lobby. A television someone had left on was playing the breaking news broadcast.
“Goodness, goodness me… I thought we were done for…”
“They cleared it? So we don’t have to worry about a dungeon break?”
Patients and guardians passing through the corridor stopped one by one, all eyes drawn to the television. A dungeon too dangerous to even measure — cleared on the same day it appeared.
The welcome news had people pressing their hands to their chests, breathing sighs of enormous relief as the tension drained from their bodies.
“Oh my… goodness…”
“Sounds like Hunter Seomun Hyeok stepped up again, from what I’ve heard.”
Someone mentioned a rumor that had been spreading online, and those nearby nodded along. Of course it was Seomun Hyeok. If it’s that young man, you know you can trust him. Everyone chimed in with a word of praise for Seomun Hyeok’s skills.
The news was reporting a considerable number of missing persons and casualties, but the mood among the people gathered before the screen was that this was nothing short of a miracle given the circumstances.
“Clear the ER! Gate incident, possible multiple trauma patients!”
“Page the surgical team! And sort out the pathways!”
Just then — rapid footsteps shattered the fading tension. From deep inside the hospital, interns in white coats and nurses were streaming toward the entrance in a rush.
“Oh my, oh my. What’s happening?”
While the onlookers stepped back in confusion, one intern and a few nurses broke off to manage the people in the lobby.
“Please step aside! Emergency patient coming through!”
In the meantime, the rest of the medical staff ran out to the ambulance parked in front of the hospital. Right on cue, the patient said to be the first survivor was being unloaded from the back of the ambulance on a stretcher.
“Ah…”
Someone ahead let out a stunned breath at the sight of the patient’s condition. A man covered head to toe in dark red blood. He was unconscious, hanging limply like a corpse, swaying helplessly with the movement of the stretcher.
“Hey, snap out of it!”
“Ah — right.”
Whoever had frozen was jolted back to their senses by a colleague’s sharp reprimand. They quickly turned to the paramedic with questions about the patient’s condition.
“Is he conscious? What are the injuries?”
As they drew closer to the patient, the sharp smell of blood hit their nose. The medical staff’s expressions went rigid.
Being soaked in that much blood meant the injuries were severe — there was no other interpretation.
“Well, the thing is…”
But unlike the tense medical staff, the faces of the paramedics who had transported the patient here were oddly ambiguous.
Is something wrong?
The intern’s lips twitched uneasily. Surely nothing had gone wrong on the way over —
It was then. From the patient — who had been so still one might have wondered if he was already dead — came a strange sound.
…hnngh… snrk… pffffff…
In an instant, the whole area fell quiet. The intern’s anxious, unsettled gaze turned ice cold. This patient — don’t tell him —
“It seems he… fell asleep. He, well, he was unresponsive from the start, but he kept snoring the whole way here, so…”
The paramedic’s painfully thorough explanation continued, while the patient smacked his lips in his sleep. It was entirely natural that every last bit of tension drained out of the medical staff’s bodies at that.
