Four hours later, in front of the boss room.
Choi Jiyeon, who had arrived first, was heating up rations while she waited for them.
It had gone exactly the way she'd said it would.
She had left exactly enough monsters for Cheon Sangcheol to handle, and thanks to that, a C-rank Gate that would normally have taken a solid two days was on track to be cleared in half a day.
"Let's eat before we head into the boss room."
"Haah... haah..."
Cheon Sangcheol, thoroughly worn out, gulped down the potion he'd brought — and once he'd recovered some of his energy, the arrogant look was back on his face.
"You can't just wipe out every monster ahead of me like that. Doesn't leave anything for me to do."
"..."
"None of my highlight moments will end up in the vid— hup."
He slapped his own hand over his mouth before he could help it, but it was too late.
"...The vid? Did you just say video?"
At the ice in Choi Jiyeon's voice, Cheon Sangcheol's shoulders locked in place.
The very next moment, Choi Jiyeon and Yeon Minjun exchanged a fast look.
"H-hey! Wait! Wh-what are you doing?!"
Yeon Minjun had both his arms and legs bound in an instant.
"L-let me go! Hey! I said let me go!"
They stripped off Cheon Sangcheol's suit jacket, and there, on his chest, a small body cam was blinking a red recording light.
"...You dare... film us without permission?"
Filming inside a Gate was one of the things strictly prohibited.
It was partly to keep Hunters' abilities from being exposed to the outside — but mainly because, some years back, a Hunter goofing off trying to film himself had triggered a full Gate breach.
She wrenched the body cam off his chest and slammed it to the ground.
Then ground it under her heel until it was dust.
Krrrk— crrunch—
"Aaargh! Hey! Are you crazy?! Do you know how much that cost? I'm telling my dad! Has this crazy woman lost her mind?!"
This little shit—!
Just as Choi Jiyeon, unable to contain her rage, was about to step toward him — the shadow that had always been standing behind her shot out in front of her like a bolt of lightning.
Thunk—!
With a dull, meaty impact, Cheon Sangcheol's body folded with a strangled "ugh."
Yeon Minjun's heavy fist had driven straight, deep into his solar plexus.
"Kuh-huk... blech!"
In one clean motion, Yeon Minjun snatched the front of his collar.
"One more time."
A low voice scraped at the eardrums.
"You run your mouth at my wife like that one more time, and I'll kill you with my own hands."
Choi Jiyeon caught her breath.
She'd always thought he was the sweet, gentle type.
A side of him she'd never seen before — it ran a chill up her spine, and, strangely, made her heart beat faster.
To hide the flush rising in her cheeks, she cleared her throat, deliberately loudly.
"Ahem! ...You must be sick of the sight of us too, so let's just hurry up and finish."
While Cheon Sangcheol was still quieted down, Choi Jiyeon started the briefing.
"The boss room of a forest-type Gate like this is usually either a swamp or a dark cave. If it's a swamp, we can lure the boss out — but if it's a cave, we could set off the other monsters, so hold off on fireballs as much as you can."
Yeon Minjun grabbed Cheon Sangcheol — still groaning on the ground — by the collar again and gave him a shake.
"Ugh! Got it! I said, got it!"
"Good. Let's go in, then."
Choi Jiyeon reached her hand toward the massive door of the boss room.
Cheon Sangcheol was, right about now, having a truly miserable time.
He'd looked down on the Gate for being C-rank, but the monsters were tougher than he'd bargained for, and the wet, sticky ground underfoot was thoroughly unpleasant.
Damn it... they caught me with the video and everything...!
This Gate was Cheon Sangcheol's last chance.
He was the youngest of Cheonun Group's three children — two sons and a daughter.
Among his siblings, he had always been the idiot, and even his father hadn't spared him so much as a glance of interest.
But then he had Awakened. And at B-rank, no less!
Thank god... they didn't find the second body cam. If they'd caught this one too, I'd be finished.
He remembered Yeon Minjun's chilling eyes as they'd hit him earlier, and shivered.
The boss... I have to be the one to kill it, no matter what. Whatever it takes, with my own hands — and then Father will finally acknowledge me.
Once he was acknowledged...
Those two bastards who looked down on me... I'll kill them both with my own hands.
Cheon Sangcheol twisted the corner of his mouth into a wicked smirk and stepped through the tightly shut stone doors, into the boss room.
Inside the boss room was a massive cave with not a single ray of light.
The ceiling was impossibly high, and sharp stalagmites jutted up all through the space.
And on the ceiling —
"...Hyk."
Filling every inch of the cave ceiling, hundreds of "those things" were hanging upside down like bats, asleep.
They weren't so much monsters as sculptures carved out of a horrifying nightmare.
"Looks like they react to light or sound. We move through as quietly as possible."
Yeon Minjun nodded, face tight, and Cheon Sangcheol, swallowing hard, nodded too.
How long they pressed forward, she couldn't have said.
Where the cave path ended, a vast swamp spread out in front of them.
The worst. Cave and swamp.
Choi Jiyeon clicked her tongue.
But nothing was more pointless inside a Gate than trying to apply common sense.
"The boss is in that swamp."
"There's no sign of it at all, Team Leader. Looks like it's completely hidden itself at the bottom of the swamp."
Choi Jiyeon strode toward the edge of the swamp, spear in hand.
"If it's hiding."
"?"
"We drag it out."
She dipped the tip of her spear lightly into the swamp's rotten water.
Fwaaa—
Mana left the spear and spread out thin and wide, like a spider's web — or like sonar.
The lay of the swamp bed, small creatures in hiding, and — deep at the swamp's lowest point — a huge, ominous source of mana, pulsing.
"What are you doing? Fishing?"
"Please be quiet. She's focusing."
The instant—
"Found it."
"Kroooaaargh—!!!"
Along with a massive spray of water, something in a hideous shape tore up out of the swamp.
A vast body caked in rotten seaweed and mud.
And at the center of it, a huge, ominous yellow single eye, gleaming.
The C-rank boss monster — the Swamp Kraken.
"The Kraken attacks with its tentacles, and its core is that single eye! Take that out and it's over!"
Choi Jiyeon barked her briefing fast, but by then Cheon Sangcheol was already in full panic, and none of her words reached him.
"Aaaaargh! A monster! A mon— mmph!"
At the loud shout, Yeon Minjun frantically clapped a hand over his mouth, but it was already too late.
"Kyeeeeek—!!!"
Hundreds of bat-type monsters started pouring down from the ceiling toward them.
The Kraken in front, the bats above.
"Yeah. Yeah — I figured. Of course that little shit couldn't keep his mouth shut."
Choi Jiyeon looked at Yeon Minjun.
"Yeon Minjun."
And Yeon Minjun looked at her.
The kind of timing the team leader and her shield had drilled together, over and over, until it was second nature.
"Yes."
"Protect Cheon Sangcheol."
"Understood."
Yeon Minjun caught the back of the flailing Cheon Sangcheol's neck, tucked him behind his own back, and slammed his shield down.
Kraaang—!
[Area Defense].
His "unbreakable shield" unfurled above them.
Crack!
"Kyeek—!"
The moment the monsters hit the golden barrier, they were crushed on impact and dropped to the ground.
"Hyk... hyk!"
"Stay still if you don't want to die."
At the killing aura pouring off an A-rank tanker, Cheon Sangcheol could only nod, hard and fast.
At the same moment, Choi Jiyeon was smiling at the Kraken.
"Been a while. Fighting a boss monster on my own."
At her spearpoint, blue mana began to condense like a gathering storm.
"Here I come."
"Kroooaargh—!!!"
At the prey charging in, the Kraken lashed out with dozens of thick tentacles like whips.
Krang! Krang! Krang!
But Choi Jiyeon didn't fall back.
She re-gripped her spear and, if anything, dove straight in.
Shk—!
She let a tentacle skim under her chin by the thickness of a sheet of paper — kagang! — cracked another tentacle aside with her spearpoint, and, in the same motion, spun to slip past a third.
Every time a blue flash cracked in the air, dark red tentacles rained down through the air, sliced through and falling to the ground.
"Kyeeek!"
Even the bat-type monsters that tried to dive in through the opening were caught in the arc of her spear and torn to shreds, blood spattering.
In the face of that overwhelming display of force, the two men behind the shield had... lost themselves for entirely different reasons.
"S-she's insane... that woman, she's a monster...!"
"...Isn't she beautiful? She's my wife."
Right then, the Kraken twisted its body as if trying to escape back into the swamp.
"Where do you think you're going."
Every scrap of her mana gathered at the spearpoint.
"There is nowhere to run."
Along with her declaration, the mana condensed at the spearpoint slammed down into the swamp.
Kwakwakwakwakwa—!
The entire swamp was swallowed in a massive explosion.
As the dust cleared, the swamp had evaporated, and at the bottom lay the Kraken, driven in and unconscious.
Choi Jiyeon dropped lightly onto its head and leveled her spear at the huge yellow single eye — its core.
"Whew. Finally over."
Just as the spear was about to come down —
"No!"
Cheon Sangcheol, from behind the shield, shot out like an arrow.
"Cheon Sangcheol!"
Yeon Minjun, thrown, had no time to stop him.
Cheon Sangcheol slammed a body check into Choi Jiyeon's waist and knocked her aside.
"Ugh! What are you—!"
Before she could even understand what was happening, Cheon Sangcheol was pouring a red liquid over the Kraken's wound.
A top-grade potion, said to be made from an S-rank mana stone.
"It can't die here! I have to be the one to finish it!"
"You! Fucking lunatic!"
Choi Jiyeon lunged at him in shock, but she was too late.
"Kyeeeeeek!"
Where the potion had touched the Kraken's wound, red light exploded outward, flowing in reverse.
The monster's single eye snapped open again, and the dozens of tentacles she'd severed began regenerating at a wild, unnatural speed.
Its massive body swelled to over seven meters, as if drawing every drop of mud from the swamp into itself.
The Kraken was no longer a C-rank boss.
It was a nameless mutant, force-evolved by the power of a potion made from an S-rank mana stone.
"Kreeeeee...!!!!"
The enraged mutation swung one of its newly grown, steel-like tentacles at Cheon Sangcheol, standing right in front of it.
"Hyk! D-don't come near me!"
Just before the tentacle was about to strike his terrified face —
Kwaaang—!
Yeon Minjun leapt between them, shield out in front.
"Kuh-uuk...!"
The golden barrier snapped open, but the mutation's blow was beyond anything they'd braced for.
"Yeon Minjun!!!"
The moment she saw her husband coughing up blood, Choi Jiyeon gripped her spear and hurled herself at the thing.
"You little bastard!!! How dare you!!"
Ka-ka-kang!
But it wasn't like before.
Her [Absolute Piercing] didn't land — it was knocked aside.
"What...?"
Choi Jiyeon pulled up her mana again and swung the spear, but the result was the same: the thing's now-hardened carapace deflected it.
Woooong—
At that moment, the entire cave rumbled low with a strange vibration.
...Don't tell me?
An ominous word flashed through Choi Jiyeon's mind.
Gate breach.
At the initial briefing, the time remaining until Gate breach had been only three days.
They'd come in yesterday. That meant they had a little over two days left.
If they stalled at this rate and ended up letting that horrifying mutation out into the world, the Gangwon region would, without question, become a living hell.
Because it was a classified mission, on top of it, there wasn't a single other guild member outside standing by against a breach — the way any other Gate would have.
I have to stop it. Whatever it takes.
She re-gripped her spear.
The start of a long, grinding fight.
"Huff... huff...!"
Her sense of time dulled to a haze, Choi Jiyeon swung her spear like a machine.
How long had it been? Twelve hours? No — eighteen?
Kraang!
She rolled out of the way of a tentacle coming down at her.
Roughly wiping the mask of monster blood and sweat off her face, she looked around the cave.
In one corner, Cheon Sangcheol was curled up, fully terrified, and Yeon Minjun had joined her in the fight.
But the situation was still overwhelming.
The Kraken held out against both their attacks behind its hardened carapace, and the two of them could barely keep up with its devastating tentacle strikes.
On top of that, the thing — as if remembering the near-death experience — was desperately guarding its single eye.
Despair seeped into Choi Jiyeon's face.
And Yeon Minjun, who knew his wife better than anyone, was not about to miss that one flicker of surrender.
He bit down on his lip and made up his mind about something, firm and final.
"...Jiyeon. Did you know?"
"?"
"That confession I made the day I first met you — I honestly regretted it for a long time."
"What are you talking about all of a sud—"
Kwaang!
He barely knocked the tentacle bearing down on them aside with his shield.
"No ring, in a sweaty training hall... it really was the worst. So I promised myself. Next time, I'd come back with the perfect present in hand, and do it right."
"Yeon Minjun! Cut the nonsense and focus!"
The sound of blood bubbling in the back of his throat rasped through.
But his voice — his voice, if anything, was tender, like he was soothing a child.
"So I've been searching for it... and I think I finally know. What the best present I could give you is."
He pumped mana into the hand gripping the shield until it felt ready to burst, and gave a bitter smile.
"What are you—!"
"...A future with Ari. That'd be the best present, wouldn't it."
At his words, Choi Jiyeon's eyes wavered, uneasy.
"What... what are you saying. Don't say ominous things like that!"
"I'll make sure I put that present right into your arms."
"Don't! Don't you dare do anything! Yeon Minjun!!"
But Yeon Minjun turned his back on her scream and looked at the Kraken.
"Just once... I'll make you one chance to aim at that eye. That's all I need."
Before Choi Jiyeon could ask what he meant, he was already running at the boss.
"Yeon Minjun—!!"
"Kroaaa—!"
The Kraken, as if to mock him, drove one of its largest, sharpest tentacles at him like a spear.
Yeon Minjun didn't dodge.
He hadn't been planning to dodge.
Skewer—!
Along with a sickening burst of sound, the massive tentacle punched clean through his abdomen.
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