Ch.203Side Story: What Have You Been Up To?

“I am truly delighted to meet you again like this.”

The woman dressed impeccably in a suit from head to toe bowed politely toward us. Behind her stood heavily armed women positioned like bodyguards. Judging by their weapons, they all appeared to be hunters.

Though their postures were rigid and formal, they couldn’t hide their curiosity, pretending to look straight ahead while constantly stealing glances at me.

“I heard you had trouble with an unidentified monster. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. What’s the current situation?”

Nika, her entire body wrapped tightly in a coat, responded. Underneath the thick coat, she was still wearing her Succubus Queen outfit. Fortunately, she hadn’t revealed what was under the coat outside, which was a relief in many ways.

“Thirteen minutes ago, seventeen A-3 grade monsters appeared outside the gate and were just eliminated. According to the dungeon break prediction formula, we expect the dungeon boss or an S-grade monster to emerge within the next ten minutes.”

“I was under the impression that there was still plenty of time until the initially calculated dungeon break. Was the calculation wrong, or is this an unexpected situation?”

Nika’s demeanor was quite cold and authoritative, unlike when she was with me. She was the same way when she appeared at the imperial palace as the Succubus Queen before—I suppose she knows how to clearly separate her professional and personal sides.

“The latter. After the dormant gate activation incident, we reported that all gates’ dungeon break times have become unpredictable. Did you not receive that report?”

Of course she hadn’t. I was the culprit behind that dormant gate activation incident. After that, she was too busy clinging to me at the guild building to have time to receive any reports.

“I was busy.”

“Yes, I expected as much.”

The suited woman’s expectations were probably quite different from the reality, but her statement wasn’t wrong.

“As a result, there are increasing calls to recalculate the dungeon break prediction formula, so it should be corrected soon.”

I should add that what happened inside the gate still hasn’t been revealed.

The gate collapsed, leaving no clues, and the eldest son of the Chasan Group and his secretary, who were found unconscious in front of it, both refused to give statements.

‘It couldn’t be helped.’

I just messed with their memories a bit since my identity couldn’t be revealed. Despite the misunderstanding, I was the one who was attacked first.

I didn’t even touch their minds. I just scrambled their memories and let them go, but he developed trauma on his own and was trembling with fear.

Getting traumatized just because I messed with his brain a little—what a pathetically weak man.

“But who is… this person?”

The suited woman who almost referred to me as “that thing” hastily added an honorific. Beside her, Nika was glaring with wide eyes.

“This is my summon. I won’t tolerate any disrespect.”

“Your summon… Yes, I understand. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

The woman’s head bowed slightly toward me. Despite having to show respect to a summon rather than a fellow human—something that might normally make one bristle—she remained composed.

Well, if she were the type to show such feelings openly, she wouldn’t have been sent here in the first place.

—A summon? Did they deliberately dress it like that? What fashion sense…

—Shh. They’ll hear you.

—They can’t hear us from this distance.

A few reporters whispered about me. The distance was indeed considerable, so Nika didn’t seem to hear them, but I could.

I somewhat understood why they were saying such things. I was wearing a mask on my face, my entire body wrapped tightly in a coat, with the attached hood pulled down almost to my eyes.

The only visible part was my right hand, and even that was covered by thick gloves reaching almost to my elbow, so they must be wondering what I was.

‘Can’t be helped.’

Initially, I was going to be treated as a mysterious hunter who concealed their identity. But given Eternal Guild’s characteristics, it was too late to introduce a male hunter now, so this was the makeshift solution they came up with.

There’s no rush to reveal my identity, so we can think of other methods at our leisure.

The person who would take me outside as their “master” was chosen by rock-paper-scissors. At first, Leona, who received the call, tried to take me out, but was stopped by the other six.

‘Looking at the gate, 7 o’clock direction, about 80 meters away.’

Understanding something and remembering a face are two different matters. I might have let it slide if it was just once, but this guy had been grumbling continuously since earlier, clearly dissatisfied about something.

—Grrrrrr…

While nearby hunters were glancing at me, a sound like water draining through a sewer came from somewhere, and the gate began to shake. The surroundings instantly became busy.

“Dungeon break signal! Everyone on alert!”

Despite the bustle, there wasn’t much tension or desperation in the air.

From the whispers I could hear, it seemed to be because Nika was right beside them. I could tell how much reputation she had built up until now. And how hard she had been working while I was gone.

—Will you handle this, Master?

A voice echoed directly in my mind. Nika was staring at me intently.

To anyone watching from the side, it would look like she was giving orders. I nodded and approached the gate, drawing my Dragon Fang Sword.

“You’re not going to intervene yourself?”

The suited woman asked with concern. Nika snorted.

“He’s more than enough on his own, so just keep your eyes open and watch. This may be his first field test, but I can vouch for his skills.”

“I-I see. Understood.”

Upon hearing that she wouldn’t intervene directly and that this was even the first field test, nearby hunters looked uneasy. Well, regardless of their anxiety, I’d show them soon enough.

“It’s coming out! It’s the boss entity!”

A yellow beak thrust out from inside the gate, followed by a large bird head. It had no feathers and its eyes were half-open, looking just like something newly hatched from an egg.

Though its size was anything but newborn-like.

Its half-open eyes turned toward me. The bird head rolled its eyeballs beneath its eyelids, then ignored me and tried to pull out its body. It didn’t seem to have the instinct to gauge how strong its opponent was.

Mana infused the blade of my Dragon Fang Sword. As the blade glowed blue, I heard someone behind me exclaim in shock, “That’s a Sword Aura!”

This isn’t actually an aura. I’m just surrounding the sword with mana in preparation for a sword technique. The first world seemed to focus more on magic, so while there were magic sword techniques, there was no such thing as aura.

I rushed forward using body enhancement and acceleration simultaneously. The bird head’s eyeballs slowly tried to follow me but couldn’t quite keep up. I approached its side and raised my Dragon Fang Sword as if to behead it.

—Extreme Distortion.

The mana in the blade rotated in opposite directions as it struck down at the bird head’s neck. With a crackling sound, the entire neck was torn off.

“Ugh?!”

Surprised by how much more easily it cut than expected, I twisted my arm. The Dragon Fang Sword stopped at a precarious position. I almost unnecessarily tore up the asphalt.

The severed head rolled on the ground with a thud. Blood fountained from the half-emerged neck, soaking the severed head. Both cut surfaces were ragged like torn rags.

“……”

The murmuring voices fell silent.

‘That was less impressive than I thought.’

This wouldn’t even qualify for the first world. Even in the second world, it would be a mediocre being that dreamed of becoming a Demon King without knowing its place, only to be killed by other demon races.

To think such a creature was S-grade—it gave me a rough idea of how vast the gap between worlds was. Even considering that Earth wasn’t originally like this but had changed due to fragments of other worlds mixing in.

I was about to grab the body blocking the gate to pull it out when, seeing the gushing blood, I had a good idea.

After checking the direction, I pretended to pull the body but instead extracted a piece of flesh. The flesh flew in an almost straight line and hit the face of the guy who had been grumbling earlier, splattering blood.

“Aaaaargh!”

This time, a scream loud enough for even Nika to hear rang out. While the 7 o’clock direction became chaotic, I pretended not to notice and pulled out the rest of the body.

When the tail end finally emerged, it was roughly the size of two buses combined. It was definitely huge. I tossed the corpse aside and peered into the gate. There didn’t seem to be anything else coming out.

—Is that it?

—I think they’re hesitating to come out because the boss died before it could even emerge, thanks to Master. It seems these monsters have survival instincts, unlike those that mindlessly try to kill humans.

So there are also monsters that disregard survival instincts and rush to kill humans. I was reluctant to go inside, but then I had a good idea.

—Nika, if you say I’m your summon, how much strength would people accept?

—Hmm… Solo clearing an S-grade gate would be acceptable. We’ve handled hundreds of S-grade gates so far. But it doesn’t matter if they don’t accept it. I’ll make them accept it no matter what you do.

—…That won’t be necessary.

Gently restraining Nika who was making ominous statements, I inserted my left arm into the gate. I drew a wide-area annihilation magic circle on my palm, and massive amounts of mana were drained.

The magic circle heated up, and the wide-area annihilation magic activated. Tremendous heat erupted, and a storm of flames swept through the inside of the gate.

I used the same magic again to layer the flames. The flames multiplied each other, exerting tremendous power that engulfed the entire gate. Yet strangely, not a single spark leaked outside.

“The, the gate?!”

Soon after, with a cracking sound, the gate began to split. I withdrew my arm. The gate, collapsing from the inside, disappeared without a trace.

It meant that the creatures inside had been thoroughly roasted, becoming perfectly failed bird roasts. I could see the dumbfounded faces of the people on the opposite side of the gate.

“Has your doubt been cleared now?”

No one could answer.

“Eternal Guild’s S-grade hunter Nika appears in public after 3 years, showcasing a new summon. What is the identity of the summon by her side? Nika maintains ‘no comment’ policy. Humanoid summon, but with strength that seems inhuman. The summon’s personality, is there no fault with the master…? What is this?”

Hours later, news articles with headlines about me were flooding the internet.

Normally, it would have taken at least until the next day. No journalist would risk their life to cover a breaking S-grade dungeon, after all.

But thanks to Nika’s return, an exceptionally large number of reporters had gathered, naturally speeding up the publication of articles.

“How was it, Master?”

“Nothing special.”

I’m not trying to downplay it—I’m being sincere. If we weren’t there, I doubt they could stop even one of the Demon King’s army commanders, let alone the Demon King himself.

“That’s right, isn’t it? We were surprised at first too.”

“Because they were too weak?”

“Yes. Our standard of strength has always been you, Master.”

“……”

I shouldn’t be the standard. I turned off my smartphone with a sour expression.

Come to think of it, in a world where both humans and monsters are weak, it’s unlikely that a monster as powerful as a Demon King’s army commander would suddenly appear.

—Buzz…

My turned-off smartphone vibrated. It was Laura.

“What is it?”

“The investigation about your family is complete. Both your parents are safe and without major difficulties, so you can rest assured. But your sister…”

“What about my sister?”

In the brief moment Laura paused, all sorts of thoughts raced through my mind. That she died during the gate incident, or became a hunter and died, or suffered some unspeakable fate.

“…She’s a hunter belonging to our guild.”