The Administration’s hunters had been ordered to withdraw.

Upon receiving the news, Oh Hyunseong calmed the people inside the shelter.

The agitated residents finally settled down, and the Yoo siblings also sighed in relief.

“What? So it was a false alarm after all?”

“My spirits caused it, so it wasn’t their mistake. If anything, they did their job properly.”

“Jeez. I’m already exhausted enough as it is, and all that was for nothing.”

Joo Jihye collapsed onto the floor.

Considering that she had dragged her exhausted body here after enduring hellishly intense training, it was no wonder she felt drained.

“Still, seeing how you can already walk around just fine, your stamina must have improved.”

“...It hasn’t.”

“What hasn’t?”

“It just hasn’t. Ugh...”

Joo Jihye turned deathly pale and belatedly rolled over with a groan.

She was even refusing a compliment.

The intensity of her training would surely be adjusted appropriately anyway.

However, the evacuation order, which had seemed as though it would be lifted quickly, remained in effect for some reason.

Knowing that procedures could prevent the matter from being resolved immediately, Hyunseong waited patiently. But when they remained in the shelter far longer than he had expected, a question occurred to him.

Why haven’t they withdrawn completely yet?

Several Administration vehicles had already departed as part of the withdrawal.

Most of the employees and hunters outside the shelter had left as well.

Yet the few who remained had been stationed in front of their communications equipment for some time.

Sensing that something was amiss, Oh Hyunseong approached them.

“I heard the situation had been resolved. Is something wrong?”

“Ah, we haven’t been able to contact one of the teams patrolling the outskirts, so we’re checking on them now. As soon as we confirm their status, the evacuation order will be lifted. This is for everyone’s safety, so please bear with us until then.”

The employee answered courteously.

Something seemed to have gone wrong, but the atmosphere suggested it was unlikely to be a serious problem involving a Gate or monsters.

Yet after hearing the explanation and turning away, Oh Hyunseong felt uneasy.

...Something’s wrong.

He had a bad feeling.

No Gate had been discovered, and they knew what had caused the energy waves, so there should have been nothing to worry about.

Yet the instincts he had cultivated over his long career as a hunter warned him that something was wrong.

Perhaps it was merely a coincidence, but disasters had a habit of striking at times like this.

Come to think of it... I haven’t seen Gyeongmin or his wife this entire time.

Kwon Gyeongmin and his wife were still nowhere to be seen in the shelter.

Hyunseong had heard that Gyeongmin was looking after the other residents, but even taking that into account, far too much time had passed for him not to have arrived yet.

Don’t tell me...

Oh Hyunseong suddenly recalled the erosion that had appeared on the siblings’ farm not long ago.

Under ordinary circumstances, the appearance of monsters had nothing to do with partial erosion.

It was merely the result of impure energy that had accumulated underground over a long period erupting to the surface, so it bore no relation to the immediate appearance of monsters.

But there was one other possibility.

It was such a remote possibility that dismissing it would normally have been reasonable. Yet with several suspicious circumstances now overlapping, he felt as though he finally understood the source of his unease.

“Joo Jihye, get your equipment.”

Hoping the thought that had entered his mind was nothing more than a false premonition, Oh Hyunseong shot to his feet.

Joo Jihye responded reflexively. She slung the case across her back and followed him out of the shelter.

“W-What’s going on all of a sudden?”

“My friend is missing. I need to find him.”

“They said there wasn’t a Gate, so doesn’t that mean he’ll be fine? Besides, it doesn’t look like anyone’s even around.”

Oh Hyunseong and Joo Jihye crossed the deserted village.

Most of the hunters had withdrawn, and the residents had evacuated, leaving the village deathly silent.

“Maybe he left the village?”

“No. And I’ve had a bad feeling for a while now.”

“A feeling? What, are you planning to open a fortune-telling—”

Boom!

At that moment, a massive explosion erupted in the distance.

A flash burst from the mountain beside the village.

“Y-You were right.”

“...Damn it!”

After a brief moment of stunned disbelief, Oh Hyunseong and Joo Jihye began running at the same time.

“Hurry! We have to get out of here!”

Three hunters raced through the mountain forest.

As they descended the slope, every one of them was a mess, their bodies covered in dried blood and their hair disheveled.

Among them, Seo Jaeho was carrying the civilian Kwon Gyeongmin over his shoulder.

“Damn it! We should’ve gotten out of there immediately!”

One of the hunters vented his frustration.

The tracking team had originally intended to withdraw and report the situation as soon as they discovered the eroded footprints.

Sudden interference had rendered their communications equipment useless, preventing them from making contact. Judging by the extent of the erosion, attempting to subjugate it by themselves would have been beyond their capabilities, so retreat had been the reasonable decision.

But their plan had quickly fallen apart.

They had witnessed a pack of monsters resembling black dogs abducting several civilians.

They successfully rescued the residents by ambushing the pack, but the monsters soon began pursuing them.

Monsters poured in from every direction, with no indication of where they had all come from.

In the end, all but one of the residents they had rescued were taken back. Even the other search teams sent to support them had fallen to the monsters, leaving the survivors fleeing for their lives.

“Move your legs instead of wasting time talking! More are coming from the left!”

Seo Jaeho shouted and thrust out his arm.

A tremendous explosion erupted where his arm was pointing.

The powerful blast shook the earth and swallowed the monsters.

But the black wild dogs burst through the smoke, their grotesque mouths gaping wide.

“Damn it...!”

The monsters possessed powerful resistance to magic.

With the damage against them reduced, even killing them was no easy task.

The hunters drew their weapons and fought back, but the ferociously charging monsters soon forced them into a corner.

“W-We can’t hold out any longer!”

“Idiot! Watch your—!”

Hum!

At that moment, the monster lunging into the opening in the hunter’s defenses abruptly froze.

The force that stopped it was powerful telekinesis.

The creature trembled in midair before its body twisted with a crunch, killing it instantly.

Crack! Crunch!

Joo Jihye emerged through the undergrowth.

Each time she reached out and clenched her hand, bodies dropped amid the sound of bones being crushed.

The number of monsters rapidly dwindled.

“Th-That’s Joo Jihye from Aegis!”

The hunters flinched in surprise.

A major private-sector hunter had suddenly appeared, rather than reinforcements from the Administration.

Meanwhile, Oh Hyunseong emerged behind her.

“Hunter Oh!”

“Is the man you’re carrying all right?”

“Ah, yes! His life isn’t in danger.”

Seo Jaeho lowered Kwon Gyeongmin from his back.

Oh Hyunseong hurried over and examined him.

He appeared to have suffered a stab wound to the thigh.

The wound was not immediately life-threatening, but judging by the bandage soaked through with blood, he seemed to have lost a considerable amount.

“Kwon Gyeongmin! Are you all right?”

“H-Hyunseong...”

Upon seeing him, Kwon Gyeongmin grabbed his arm with a trembling hand.

“I can’t go back like this. Hana... They dragged Hana away.”

“Your wife should still be alive. Go to the community hall and get treated first. Having a civilian around will only get in the way.”

“Please, you have to save her. Without Hana, I...”

“Don’t worry. I’ll bring her back, no matter what.”

Kwon Gyeongmin bowed his head.

For some reason, even amid the chaos clouding his mind, hearing those words reassured him enough that he could close his eyes.

Meanwhile, Joo Jihye crushed the last monster’s neck, bringing the battle to an end.

“Were there any other casualties?”

“Ah, yes. Three residents and every hunter from the two teams sent to support us were taken. Their boss is in there too.”

“It’s an infiltration-type monster, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that seems most likely. It must have been hiding until we disturbed the area, then started moving.”

Gates and monsters came in a vast array of types.

If hunters attempted to subjugate every Gate in the same way as an ordinary Gate, their annihilation would be inevitable. To prevent that, they had to devise countermeasures suited to each type.

Yet even among them, infiltration-type monsters were so infamous that they invariably ranked among the most dreaded.

The defining trait of an infiltration-type monster was that it avoided combat with hunters.

After a Gate first appeared, it would conceal itself among the other monsters before slipping outside without the hunters noticing.

While the hunters believed the Gate had been completely subjugated, the creature would travel to another region and establish a nest.

At first, its presence would be too faint to detect. But as it adapted to Earth’s environment, it would rapidly accumulate strength inside its nest.

Giving humanity no time to prepare and being inherently powerful by nature, such monsters had caused tremendous damage.

“Judging by the traces of erosion, the boss is at least S-rank. Just looking at the level of its subordinate monsters, there’s no chance it’s only A-rank.”

“Understood. Transport the patient and report this to the Administration once you return.”

“What about you, Hunter Oh...?”

“We’ll take care of it.”

Seo Jaeho fell silent for a moment.

Under normal circumstances, he would have tried to stop him by any means necessary.

What Hyunseong was proposing amounted to suicide.

But now, Seo Jaeho merely nodded.

“...May fortune favor you.”

Seo Jaeho withdrew with his team members.

“W-Wait a minute! You said it’s an S-rank boss, didn’t you? Are you seriously suggesting the two of us go in alone?”

Joo Jihye approached with her eyes wide in disbelief.

The infiltration-type monster had already built a nest inside a cave that had been completely consumed by erosion.

That meant its adaptation was effectively complete, making the conditions inside the cave no different from those of an S-rank Gate.

“The standard procedure for an S-rank Gate is to form a team of hunters at Grade 10 or higher... We don’t even know the enemy’s full strength. There’s absolutely no way the two of us can do this alone.”

“We don’t have a choice. If we wait for reinforcements, everyone they abducted will die.”

Monsters instinctively sought to exterminate humans.

They could not be reasoned with and acted on nothing but impulse. The fact that they had not killed the humans meant they had some purpose for keeping them alive.

When the subordinates of an infiltration-type monster abducted people and carried them back to their nest, the reason was even more obvious.

They intended to use them as food for their boss.

To those creatures, human flesh was a delicacy that helped them adapt to this environment more quickly.

“Besides, we won’t know until we try.”

“Are you sure this is okay? Subjugating an S-rank Gate without even meeting the minimum team requirement... Even my company would never allow something like this.”

“Kids these days have it easy. Back in our time, S-rank or not, we charged in headfirst.”

“Wow. Are you seriously pulling the ‘back in my day’ card right now?”

“Then you should’ve been part of the first generation.”

Oh Hyunseong chuckled as he took the lead.

Despite all her complaints, Joo Jihye quietly followed him.

Even with her own life at stake, she showed no hesitation.

They followed the trail Seo Jaeho had described and discovered a cave skillfully concealed within the terrain.

“...The concentration of impure energy is incredible. We haven’t even entered a Gate, and it’s already this bad.”

“It’ll be worse inside. Stay sharp.”

Oh Hyunseong entered the nest first.

Joo Jihye wondered if they were really doing the right thing, but followed him inside.

The monsters had dug the tunnel astonishingly deep, on a scale that could never have formed naturally.

The suffocating concentration of impure energy was striking.

With something like this nearby... it was inevitable that partial erosion would break out on Seungsu’s farm.

Within the dense darkness, they sensed countless presences all around them.

There was no telling how much the monsters had multiplied inside the nest. They could feel enormous numbers of them surging through the passages ahead and behind.

“They’re coming in droves. What do we do?”

Joo Jihye urgently swept her gaze around their surroundings.

Fighting so many enemies would consume a tremendous amount of magic power, potentially leaving her unable to fight at full strength when they finally reached the boss. These were not enemies they could simply sweep away by increasing the range of an attack, either.

“Stay still for now. Don’t waste your strength already.”

Oh Hyunseong stepped in front of her.

The monsters had already emerged from the darkness, baring their teeth as they charged from every direction. Pure white cold began to flow around him.

“Let’s see if you’ve gotten rusty while I wasn’t watching.”

A water spirit had appeared behind him at some point.

Albern.

The spirit smiled brightly and nodded.

“Then let’s do this.”

The monsters closed in.

The one in the lead sprang at Oh Hyunseong with its jaws spread wide, aiming for his throat, but he did not so much as flinch.

Then a storm of frost erupted.

Crack-crack-crack!

The merciless torrent of cold swallowed everything.

White frost swept over the monsters, engulfing the entire space in freezing cold.

Silence descended in an instant, without so much as a scream.

“Wh-What...?”

Joo Jihye faltered back a step.

The floor, the ceiling, the walls, even the monsters.

Nothing remained around them but frozen wreckage.

The only thing left untouched was the circular area of ground where the two of them stood.

“This is... a spirit...?”

She stared blankly at Oh Hyunseong.

Chapter 25

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