Ch.6622. Cooperation Mission Meeting (4)

Yuri looked at the two of them with a puzzled expression.

Right now, Soso and I were quite close to each other. And my expression might have been different from usual.

But Soso spoke in a calm voice.

“This data I received before the meeting. I was asking Minsu about the mana distribution in the territorialized areas.”

As she said this, she pointed to the data I had pulled up on the desk monitor. I quickly composed myself.

Yuri nodded without showing any particular suspicion. She said to Soso:

“I see. I stepped out briefly because there was something to tell the representatives of the guilds participating in this mission. I was checking the confidentiality agreement and post-mortem protocols.”

With that, Yuri sat down. And Soso, seemingly reluctant, kept her hand on my thigh a moment longer before finally removing it.

‘Thank goodness Yuri came.’

Because Soso’s sudden change in mood felt truly dangerous. I couldn’t help but be conscious of her words about liking me.

And if I didn’t attend that alumni gathering with Soso, I had an ominous feeling she might do something.

Her eyes had darkened when she looked at Senior Ha-eun.

‘The alumni gathering. It’s next week.’

So I decided to go along with Soso’s request for now. To attend the gathering with her. Then I listened to what Yuri was saying.

Yuri was pointing at the map displayed on my monitor with a serious expression.

“The atmosphere was heavier than expected. I’ll explain in the meeting soon, but this mission seems to be more difficult than we anticipated. The confidentiality agreement has been upgraded by one level. And above all, the post-mortem protocol…”

The post-mortem protocol is a system where the Association provides additional condolence money and insurance when a hunter dies during an Association-related mission.

“The amount has been raised much higher than usual.”

It was natural for insurance amounts to increase when prestigious guilds and hunters were involved, but the fact that they needed to emphasize this again meant they were anticipating potential casualties.

‘So it’s truly more dangerous than the S-rank dungeon in the original work.’

I thought again about the status window message that had appeared to me before arriving at the Association headquarters.

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[Creating quest.]

..

..

..

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[Paju&…]

[S-rank dung# cooperation request]

[Rewards will be provided upon quest completion…? If you want. The red dragon’s.]

==================​

An unpleasant red notification that seemed to deceive me. But I couldn’t ignore its contents.

‘Red dragon. And the apocalyptic prophecy.’

It must be related to the Red Lake’s objectives. Then in this mission, I might encounter someone from the Red Lake.

At that moment, a person stepped onto the central podium of the main conference hall.

“Hello. I am Choi Seung-hoon, Secretary-General of the Hunter Association.”

A man with patches of white hair. At first glance, he looked like an ordinary middle-aged salaryman you might see on the street.

No, looking again, his expression showed a certain stubbornness, like a professor who had deeply delved into his field.

As soon as he appeared, the hunters who had been chatting with their guild members immediately fell silent.

“He certainly commands great respect. The Secretary-General.”

I agreed. Despite his seemingly harmless appearance, there was not a single opening visible in this man.

It meant he was an incredibly powerful individual. And he was the right-hand man of Jeon Tae-hyun, the Association’s president and one of the Five Celestial Sages.

‘He’s been supporting the president since the Light Guild, which was the predecessor of the Association.’

And President Jeon Tae-hyun was considered the strongest among the Five Celestial Sages, though they were grouped together.

The general consensus was that the other four of the Five Celestial Sages, including Grand Duke Andrei and Yeon Se-hwi, were impossible to rank in terms of skill.

And Secretary-General Choi Seung-hoon, as Jeon Tae-hyun’s shadow, had helped create countless legends of the Light Guild.

Choi Seung-hoon is a mage. Unlike Yuri, who specializes in ice magic, or me, who uses fire magic, he’s an all-rounder.

Contrary to the image that being proficient in all types of magic would mean less firepower in battle compared to single-element mages,

Choi Seung-hoon covered his lack of firepower in one element with proficiency in other types of magic.

He had an innate sense for combat. In fact, he was credited with advancing the combat magic theory passed down from the Aileatan Magic Tower to the next level.

‘If he hadn’t focused on Association activities, he would have been just below the Five Celestial Sages.’

That meant he was on par with Zerfield, who had fought evenly with the Pale Rider.

He was also an excellent author, and his book, “Introduction to Magical Combat,” was used as a textbook at Ains.

‘I practically wore out the pages memorizing his teachings.’

As a first-generation hunter, his practical experience had been immensely helpful to me.

Although I’d never attended his lectures since he wasn’t an academy professor, he was like a mentor to me.

“Now, let’s begin the task force meeting for the Paju-Kaesong S+ dungeon operation.”

And with Choi Seung-hoon’s words, the meeting began.

***

The atmosphere in the conference hall became frighteningly somber.

The Association had been unusually secretive about this mission. And the reason for that was about to be revealed through this meeting.

‘For a territory to have such severe noise…’

There was a reason why this dungeon, initially classified as S-rank when the cooperation document was first issued, had now been upgraded to S+.

The attendees were focused on the large screen in the conference hall. There was a poor-quality photograph displayed.

The territorial interference phenomenon caused by extremely intense magical energy. Because of this, it seemed impossible to properly photograph the area despite it being a territorialized dungeon extending outside.

“This is the best resolution we could achieve even using special equipment capable of filming through magical interference.”

And the images captured by the Association’s unmanned drones inside the territory showed a veritable den of monsters.

Like a massive infestation of insects, monsters completely covered the territory.

“But the fact that we can confirm this many monsters even through such severe noise means, frankly speaking, this is an unprecedented phenomenon.”

At those words, Yuri whispered beside me.

“As he said, I’ve never heard of a dungeon that spawned so many monsters right after territorialization. There’s a reason they gathered three of Korea’s elite raid teams.”

And above all, the silhouette currently displayed on the large screen in the conference hall had silenced the meeting attendees.

“And that thing next to the dungeon boss…”

There was a photo with particularly severe black noise. But because of that enormous noise, it was actually possible to distinguish what it was.

The dungeon boss. And next to it, another silhouette was visible. Surprisingly, it was the silhouette of a human woman.

‘A place with such strong magical energy that it creates this much noise. And a human standing next to the boss monster.’

That meant she was definitely not an ordinary person. Obviously, she must be a villain. But being a villain doesn’t guarantee safety from monsters.

Villains are humans corrupted by magical energy. To ordinary monsters, they’re not much different from other humans who need to be destroyed.

I felt an instinctive sense of foreboding.

“This is the limit of what can be captured with on-site equipment. So, bad news for all of you, but to conquer this dungeon, we’ll need a separate advance party.”

At those words, the meeting attendees began to murmur.

‘An advance party…’

Usually, up to mid-level dungeons, they don’t send separate advance parties.

With standard gate waveform analysis and comparative analysis with similar gates from the past, the internal terrain and scale of the dungeon can be roughly understood.

‘Like the dungeon that Flame’s interns conquered during the intern field program.’

Dungeons slightly above B-rank could be almost perfectly analyzed in advance through cooperation between me and Team Leader Seo Du-ho.

But this dungeon was a new type where even the boss hadn’t been identified. On top of that, the severe noise made normal gate waveform analysis impossible.

‘Since it’s a territorial type, there’s no gate at all.’

So as the Secretary-General said, an advance party needed to go first to assess the dungeon’s dangers.

“Manseong and Sigurd, along with the Association’s special division, won’t be in the advance party. So it falls to the rest of the guilds like us.”

I said to Yuri.

The advance party’s role is to identify the optimal route to the dungeon boss and assess the dungeon’s hazards in advance. They’re similar to scouts.

‘So there’s almost no direct combat with monsters or the dungeon boss…’

But they have to enter a high-rank dungeon without any information, so it’s by no means safe.

And since the spotlight of dungeon conquest ultimately falls on the attack party, the advance party is just a stepping stone for them.

“But it can’t be helped. Those three teams have the qualifications of SS-rank guilds. As an S-rank guild, we…”

Yuri looked troubled. The Secretary-General had already explained the reconnaissance zones for the other cooperating guilds.

Zone A, where the dungeon boss was presumed to be, was the most dangerous. Zones B and C were relatively safer as you moved away.

‘And Flame is assigned to Zone C.’

At first glance, it might seem like they were disrespecting Flame’s abilities, but I thought it was a highly political assignment.

It’s not strange for Flame, as an S-rank guild, to be pushed into a reconnaissance role, but they were assigned to an unusually easy area compared to other advance party guilds.

Flame has two daughters of the Five Celestial Sages.

So it seems they specially removed Flame from Zone A, where they would have to work hard without getting the spotlight.

‘But it’s not necessarily good.’

This mission, once completed, will be a major operation continuously mentioned in the hunter community. And Sigurd’s elite Team 1, which will soon clash with Flame, is also participating.

Naturally, Sigurd’s elite, being an SS-rank guild, is part of the attack party, not the advance party. But if Flame is only assigned to reconnaissance, and in the rearmost zone at that,

‘It’s like declaring to all hunters that Flame is inferior to Sigurd in skill.’

I could see Yuri and Soso pondering the implications of this assignment. Even Soso, who had been constantly pressing her thigh against mine during the meeting,

seemed to be thinking about what this meant. As the young leader of the Cheonma Divine Sect, she would certainly understand such power struggles among hunter guilds.

‘We definitely can’t stay in Zone C reconnaissance.’

But with that, the meeting came to an end.

“This concludes the meeting regarding the Paju-Kaesong S+. If you have any objections to the assignments, please submit them before the deadline specified in the materials provided. That is all.”

I could hear the guilds assigned to the advance party grumbling with dissatisfaction. Of course, anyone with sense would know that being assigned to Zone A reconnaissance was like grabbing a rotten rope.

“Damn. With such severe noise in the territory, who knows what’s in there…”

“I hate to say it, but based on recent performance and members, shouldn’t Flame be assigned to Zone A? They have two daughters of the Five Celestial Sages, both highly skilled. Even among S-rank guilds, they’re rated higher than us.”

“No, that’s precisely why they were excluded. What if those two princesses got hurt? How would the President save face?”

But no one directly objected to the Secretary-General at this venue. The Association’s decisions were that absolute.

‘Still, this is problematic. If we stay in Zone C.’

We can’t just remain on the periphery. If something happens during the dungeon operation, we might not be able to respond immediately.

‘And just as the damn system created that notification, something is definitely going to happen.’

As I was thinking complexly about the Association’s assignments, an unexpected person approached where our group was sitting.

‘The Secretary-General?’

Choi Seung-hoon, who had been conducting the meeting until just now, stood before us.

‘Does he have business with Yuri and Soso?’

In truth, he’s someone at the pinnacle of the hunter world, someone an ordinary hunter wouldn’t even dare approach. Zerfield was friendly with him because he was such an eccentric.

For regular hunters, the hierarchy regarding top-tier hunters is extremely rigid, to the point where they wouldn’t even step on their shadows.

However, given Yuri and Soso’s status, despite being relatively new, it wouldn’t be surprising if he briefly greeted the daughters of the Five Celestial Sages.

“It’s been a while, Lee Min-su. I see you’ve recovered now.”

But surprisingly, Choi Seung-hoon’s business was with me.