Chapter 8: Departure

For three years of Hunter service had thoroughly destroyed Seo Youngchul’s life.

“Donghyun!! Damn it!!! Hey!!! You bastard!! Breathe, damn it!!”

During a boss raid where he was trying to open a rift, he witnessed his colleague collapsing and dying, body giving out.

Since that day, everything changed.

He couldn’t sleep properly at night, and even closing his eyes brought up the pale face of his dead colleague, making him feel like he was going mad.

Seo Youngchul went to a military officer outside the Gate and explained his condition.

“Please discharge me.”

“I can’t handle being a Hunter anymore.”

“I keep seeing my dead colleague’s face, and I’m too scared and terrified to go on raids.”

With a trembling voice, the officer replied impatiently.

“You’re whining. Haven’t I seen a fresh-faced kid like you begging to be discharged before? Back in my day, I faced tougher situations than you and managed military life just fine. Stop complaining and go back.”

“If you come back with the same excuse again, I’ll extend your service.”

Service extension.

It was the scariest word for Hunters.

Seo Youngchul had no choice.

He desperately endured his remaining service period, heavily relying on his colleagues, especially Lee Younghak.

Without them, he wouldn’t have made it to the end.

But even after barely completing his service, nightmares continued to haunt him.

“Donghyun! Donghyun!!!”

Waking up calling his deceased colleague’s name became routine.

Despite seeking psychiatric help and medication, his condition didn’t improve.

The savings and salary from his three years in the military were drained by psychiatric treatment.

He needed to find another job quickly, but his lack of sleep at night and constant anxiety made him fail repeatedly in part-time jobs and job interviews.

Surviving day to day became increasingly difficult, and reality was harsh.

But still, Seo Youngchul tried to live with hope.

It was better than being inside the Gate, not knowing when he might die.

Then.

“Mr. Seo Youngchul? You are subject to reenlistment. Due to a national emergency, you have been drafted under the Gate Law. You must report to the main Gate in Daejeon by tomorrow.”

“Yes, but I’ve already been discharged.”

“Yes, you’ve been drafted again. If you don’t come by tomorrow, your service period will be extended. Do you understand what that means?”

Against his will, the country pushed him back into that place he never wanted to return to.

On the first day.

When an officer told him to take up arms and go on a raid, Seo Youngchul collapsed to the ground, crying.

He didn’t want to go.

He was terrified.

He wished he could be like those Hunters in novels who easily overcome any hardship.

But he was just an ordinary person.

An ordinary person plagued by PTSD and the fear of death.

The horrific sight of his dying colleague from that moment still haunted his mind.

He hated himself for being so broken.

But what could he do when his body wouldn’t listen to him?

“What are you doing, Seo Youngchul! Move it! If that rift opens, Jeonju will be in ruins!!”

After Kim Sungho and Lee Younghak escaped together, the Ministry of Defence deemed it necessary to strengthen control over the Hunters inside the Gate by stationing a certain number of officers in key locations.

Though these beings were wanted dead or wounded dozens of times a day, the Ministry of Defence had the power to suspend food distribution and sentence the killer to life imprisonment, so they couldn’t be touched.

Officers were terrified as Seo Youngchul trembled and refused to fight.

“What are you doing? Go fight quickly!!”

“I…I can’t!! I can’t!!”

Seo Youngchul dropped his weapon and collapsed to the ground like a baby, crying.

The officers continued to scold him.

“Our colleagues are dying because of you!!”

“Every time you’re like this, I’ll extend your term of service by a year, you son of a bitch!!”

“Do you want to starve?”

The officers did their best to harass Seo Youngchul into going on a raid, but his mental health had been unstable since before, so he didn’t want to move around the base.

“Stop it!! You sons of bitches! Youngchul has a mental illness! Or did you just think this guy could get back into active duty and settle down?”

“The hell is this guy talking about! You can still do a raid without this baby! Just leave it!”

Poor Hunter colleagues embraced Seo Youngchul, but officers thought differently.

“We need to show examples.”

“Come out!”

Seo Youngchul was transported outside the gate.

His face brightened at the thought of being discharged, but what awaited him was a harsh drill.

Transferred to the military training camp, Seo Youngchul had to run around the parade ground with full gear.

“After ten laps, do push-ups!”

The sun was scorching, and the nearly 40kg gear was digging into his shoulders.

For Seo Youngchul, who had been forcibly re-drafted and sent into the gate, this was a level of mistreatment hard to endure, especially since he had barely eaten or slept for days out of fear.

“I, I can’t do it. Please. Please stop.”

“Every time you stop, your service gets extended by a year! Can you protect the nation and its people with that mindset? Run!!!”

Service extension.

There couldn’t be a more detestable and terrifying term.

Seo Youngchul, sobbing, kept running, doing push-ups, and running again.

Out of fear.

Out of terror.

He did as he was told.

And at some point, he collapsed and couldn’t get back up.

This happened the day before Lee Younghak brought three wyverns to visit the South Korean stronghold.

***

“You’re going to tame wyverns using a dragon?”

“Yes. This will enable us to transport large quantities of supplies, move troops, provide aerial fire support, and more. Not only for raids but also for defending strongholds and expanding our hunting range. Expanding the range means securing more magic stones.”

Chairman Volkov clapped his hands and burst into laughter.

“Excellent!! Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful! Let’s proceed immediately! We’ll provide all the necessary supplies!”

“You’ve already provided enough support. We need just one more thing.”

Younghak continued.

“We need potions. We used to grind magic stones and mix them into ion drinks for health and mana recovery, but entering unexplored or dangerous areas requires a lot of potions.”

“Ah, potions?”

“Yes. So we need to use some magic stones to make potions…”

Chairman Volkov waved his hand as if it was unnecessary.

“There’s something much better than potions.”

“Something better?”

“Just a moment. I’ll have a sample brought in.”

Chairman Volkov immediately made a call.

Shortly after, a woman in a lab coat entered the room.

She looked extremely tired and politely handed us two drink cans from her bag.

“Try these.”

“What are these?”

“Mana and health potions made based on elixirs. They are far more effective than grinding magic stones and mixing them into ion drinks.”

Potions made from elixirs?

My brother and I carefully opened a can each and shared them.

He took the mana potion, and I took the health potion.

And as soon as we drank them,

[Health recovery rate increases by 1200%!]

[Mana recovers by 13,000!]

“…What?”

“Holy crap, what is this?”

My brother and I shouted in surprise.

The status window appeared before us, something that was impossible outside the gate due to the lack of mana. Chairman Volkov laughed.

“They say if an awakened person drinks an elixir, they can use their abilities even outside the gate. It’s an interesting recent research finding. The effect is expected to be even greater inside the gate, where the mana concentration is immense. This will provide valuable field test data.”

“Is this for real?”

Younghak playfully picked up a box cutter in the room and infused it with mana.

The box cutter began to emit a very vivid blue aura.

“That’s the so-called aura blade, right? I heard it only appears to those who are level 1000 or higher.”

“It’s amazing. It can cut through any existing material.”

My brother, fascinated, tried cutting various things in the room.

From a metal hanger to a wooden table, it sliced through everything like tofu.

After about a minute of swinging the aura blade, he put down the box cutter.

“Elixirs are incredible. But they consume mana too quickly.”

“That’s inevitable. Since there’s no mana outside the gate, mana consumption is much faster than inside. Using skills with high mana consumption will deplete it even quicker.”

Chairman Volkov’s words made Younghak laugh.

“There’s no reason to use this outside the gate, right? It’ll be used more for recovery inside the gate. It’s incredibly useful… How much do you have in stock?”

A female researcher paused for a moment, seemingly calculating, and then replied.

“Excluding those 2 cans, we have around 60 cans of prototypes ready, and we’ve brought all 60 cans with us. We are willing to provide them all to you. In return, we’d like a detailed explanation after the battle. We need to gather a lot of data.”

“Of course.”

With that, we packed 30 mana potions and 30 health potions and headed inside the gate.

“I hope you bring back good news! Let us know immediately if you succeed in taming them.”

“I’ll make my entrance riding on 100 wyverns. Haha!”

Younghak and I entered the gate and headed towards Base 32.

There, Parties 41, 42, and 43, who had been notified in advance, were ready and waiting.

“Seongho hyung. Younghak hyung. You’ve arrived?”

“Yes, we’re here. You must be tired of hearing about it for the past week, but… our destination is over there. The wyvern den.”

I pointed to an unexplored area.

A giant volcano towering into the sky came into view.

The wyvern den.

A land swarming with fire-breathing red wyverns, a place where we could definitely tame over 100 wyverns.

“The three parties will fly with me to the wyvern den on the ancient dragons. Upon arrival, avoid combat as much as possible and use the ancient dragons to tame the wyverns. Each time we tame one, someone will ride the wyvern.”

Grins spread across the faces of the party members.

Wyvern riders.

It was a phrase that could stir any man’s heart.

“After that, we’ll ride the wyverns to hunt the monsters swarming on the ground. The goal is to secure as many mana stones as possible and tame the wyverns to bring them back. Everyone understand?”

“Yes, hyung.”

“Alright. Let’s get going. Younghak hyung.”

I summoned my three wyverns.

The first three wyverns I tamed.

Youngduri, Yongil, Youngsam.

“Ride these and gather up all our boys.”

The hunters in the party started laughing at my words.

“You think Kangjin got dragged into this too? Show that guy the Las Vegas Motor Show, and he’d piss himself.”

“If Jaewan is there, make sure he gets to eat as much meat as he wants. That guy talked about meat non-stop until he was discharged.”

“And Seo Youngcheol… he probably didn’t come. No sane country would draft someone who’s clearly a few screws loose.”

While the hunters chuckled, Younghak hyung climbed onto Yongduri.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll bring them back, you brats!! Don’t worry too much!”

“Be sure to pass on our regards when you meet them! Hyung!”

“Sure, sure. Take care!!”

As Younghak hyung was about to mount the wyvern, I tossed something to him.

Being a physical-type awakener, he easily caught it in mid-air.

“What’s this?… Mana potions and health potions?”

“You know our jinx. No matter how easy the mission, if you go without potions, you’re screwed.”

Younghak hyung chuckled at my words and tucked the two cans into his waist pouch before flying towards the Korean territory on the three wyverns.

After he disappeared, I took a deep breath and looked at the three parties.

“Let’s go, you brats. Let’s become legends and come back!!!!”

With a roar of cheers, I summoned the ancient dragon.

We boarded the basket attached to the ancient dragon.

Then we started flying swiftly towards the wyvern den.