Anyway, I hopped onto the back of the Sword Dragon, which was designed with a concave shape as if it was made to carry someone.
On it were three Hunters still unconscious, and Lizardman 1 and Dotti 1, who were watching over them.
The guys showed signs of having come to their senses a few times, marked by the bruises left from being beaten up by the Duo 1.
– Hwaaaaaaa──!
The Sword Dragon began to lift off, emitting thick black smoke.
‘They’re about to come out. It wouldn’t be good to show the Drake form unnecessarily.’
As I made a frantic gesture toward Yeon-hee, she placed her hands on the body of the Drake.
Then, dozens of black orbs swirling around the Drake lined up in our direction and, with a single flap of the Sword Dragon’s wings, we were instantly transported to the first orb laid out.
‘What is this?! Teleportation? Is it a warp?’
Flap──!
With each flap of the Sword Dragon’s wings, we moved to the next orb, and then the next.
Each time, I felt pressure from unpredictable directions.
‘Urgh… My body is twisting…!’
I struggled to maintain my balance against the sudden, unfamiliar force, while Yeon-hee and the summoned creatures in front of me looked at me in disbelief, sitting comfortably.
‘……’
So right now, I was the only one affected by this bizarre movement.
‘Sword Dragon, you bastard, are you doing this on purpose to make me suffer…?!’
– Krruh…
The Sword Dragon turned its head back and shot me a sidelong glance, almost scoffing as if to say, “What will you do if you get angry?”
‘You little… I will get you for this.’
I raised my fist to hit it and then fell back into thought.
Anyway, I could tell one ability of the Drake.
‘It’s a movement ability that works like warping while riding the Shadow Sphere… This seems similar to the “Residue of Chaos”, doesn’t it?’
Of course, since the Drake’s ability was in the form of visible orbs, and the spaces in between were narrow.
It appeared to be a lower version of the ability that the monster had shown, but it certainly had high utility value.
As I passed through the orbs and quickly moved on to the incoming spheres, the sensation felt almost mystical, as if heading to another world.
‘Good for fleeing, but it might be useful in battle too.’
Moreover, the speed at which I was lifted to the limit in the air far exceeded what I could manage.
Of course, this ability of his wasn’t everything, but for now, I had to acknowledge the Sword Dragon’s capabilities.
Yeon-hee sighed as she looked down at the retreating pension.
“Phew— Il-wol arrived just in time, huh? How many missing people did he bring?”
“Clap, Clap, Clap.”
I called out to Ran to answer Yeon-hee’s question, but for some reason, he didn’t respond.
‘Ran, why are you like this?’
Ran was sprawled out, hanging limp inside my cloak.
(Kuul…)
‘Are you asleep? Did you strain yourself by drawing on the possibilities of the space?’
Ran had never shown such behavior before; it definitely didn’t seem like a common ability.
[Transformation]
In the end, I used Transformation to humanize myself for clearer communication with Yeon-hee.
Using Transformation, the only thing marked as a sinister mob on the minimap was the guys who had just been below.
“Uh…? Y-you suddenly turned into a person?”
“Ran, he’s not in good condition.”
It had been quite a while since I humanized myself, but ironically, speaking was much easier now. I was almost back to my original speaking style.
“Huh? Why is he like this? Oh dear, bringing in the possibilities of space… It must be quite something.”
“Yeah, well… the people I brought are… 569.”
“Gah! There were that many?!”
“They’re dangerous guys…”
When Yeon-hee was horrified to hear that Awakened Ones and Non-Awakened Ones were mixed together, she immediately began to worry about the next step.
“Where should we take those people? Just dropping them off somewhere and reporting it doesn’t seem right… We need to inform them of the situation for anything to proceed. Should we go to the management agency?”
“Um… the management agency…”
They were likely those who could have the least involvement in the actions of the mobs.
I didn’t know about the lower ranks, but some high-ranking ones were probably involved.
“Yeon-su… let’s go to Kang Yeon-su.”
“Yeon-su unnie? Hmm… Is that better? After all, if we go to the management agency and say we rescued all these people, we might be worn out from being investigated for a while. Il-wol’s abilities are at risk of being exposed too.”
Right. Better to risk revealing my abilities to Yeon-su than to take on that kind of risk.
As my expanded abilities of space had few moments left, we landed in a wide open space halfway up the mountain.
There, we debated whether contacting Kang Yeon-su was the best option, but at that moment, I felt something disperse in my head.
‘Time’s up.’
As the possibilities of my space returned to normal, the people I had stored within began to emerge from the space.
Soon, hundreds of naked women rapidly started to fill the surrounding area.
The voices coming from them were filled with screams that clung to the very bottom, filled with despair.
– Heeuuuuu…
– H-hut, please end it…
– My child, where’s my child…?
‘It’s like hell…’
In my space, I had stored all the tents used in the hidden dungeon, so I set those up together with the summoned creatures.
Yeon-hee started to drape Big Boar leather over the women’s bodies, but she seemed to struggle to hold back tears when she faced Jin-kyeong and Ji-woo.
“I’m so glad… I’m really glad.”
Jin-kyeong in Yeon-hee’s arms looked dazed, still unable to comprehend, but her instinctive embrace of Yeon-hee tugged at my heart.
‘Looks like I won’t be able to work as a Hunter for a while.’
The drug known as Inbam is notoriously hard to quit once touched, and rehabilitation would take quite a long time.
Only after we managed to somewhat stabilize the situation could we gather again.
“Should I tell unnie to bring support troops? Isn’t it better to at least give her a rough idea of the situation?”
“I think it’d be better if Yeon-su calls it in herself…”
“Is that so? Alright.”
Given Yeon-su’s personality, even if I told her to come with support troops, she’d rush over alone anyway.
Yeon-hee nodded at my opinion, then suddenly stopped and turned sharply to glare at me with cold eyes.
‘What, what’s going on…?’
I felt fear at Yeon-hee’s sudden change and instinctively took a step back, but for some reason, my body had tensed up, preventing me from moving properly.
Yeon-hee stepped towards me, gently pulling me into her embrace, and in a soft voice, she asked,
“But… why do you keep calling her Yeon-su unnie…? Yeon-su, Yeon-su, Yeon-su… Have you become friends with her already? Hmm?”
Gulp—
‘Because of a habit from before… Damn… But is that really important right now?’
However, since Yeon-hee’s eyes had a somewhat crazed look, I quickly racked my brain.
“Uh, no… I’m still awkward. I’m still getting used to speaking.”
As I barely managed to come up with an excuse, Yeon-hee nodded and murmured softly, “Right? That must be it…”
“I need to increase my dominance…”
‘…What? No, it seems like it’s already enough.’
Yeon-hee muttered the same thing while pulling my waist tight, and it felt pretty rough, or was that just my imagination?
I engraved it into my mind to stay on my toes when talking about others from now on.
After a moment, Yeon-hee took out a note from her pocket. It was an item I had seen once before in the underground space.
“If I tear this, Yeon-su unnie would know where I am, right?”
“That’s right. That was it.”
“Hehe- Il-wol is really getting good at speaking now. He might even be better than me…”
“I think so too.”
“What?~?”
Yeon-hee had a playful expression for a moment but then tore the ‘greeting note’ received from Kang Yeon-su.
Surprisingly, Kang Yeon-su appeared before us before 20 minutes had even passed.
Since my [Transformation] had been undone in the meantime, I had returned to my skeleton form.
Bang──!
Kang Yeon-su emerged, sending vibrations as if a missile had fallen from the sky, urgently calling out Yeon-hee’s name.
“What’s going on! Yeon-hee, what happened?!”
Kang Yeon-su rushed over to Yeon-hee with a serious expression, soon realizing that we weren’t in any significant danger.
“Uh, unnie. That is… I needed to discuss something.”
“Huh? What made you call me to such a secluded place? Who are these people?”
With a rare look of surprise, Kang Yeon-su pointed with her thumb at the concealed tent.
‘Well, I thought I had hidden it, but she recognized it right away.’
“Umm… it’s because of them.”
As Kang Yeon-su moved her steps, she looked at the women stuffed inside the tent and those lined up behind it, cupping her face in her hands.
“What the hell are all these women? Are almost half Hunters, and most of them are pregnant…? No, more importantly, how did you bring all these people?!”
Even Kang Yeon-su, who had seen it all, seemed to struggle with the current situation, sporting a blank expression.
Then, suddenly as if she remembered something, she shouted at me.
“By any chance… Il-wol! Is it you again? Did you bring all these people?!”
‘Why has her intuition become so sharp?’
I shrugged at Kang Yeon-su’s shout, and Yeon-su clutched her head and sighed again.
“Yeon-hee, we seem to have a lot to talk about. Right?”
“Yikes… Yes, yes…”
Somehow this felt like a déjà vu.
Since we couldn’t just leave hundreds of people like this, I summarized the story as quickly and as concisely as possible.
“I see… So that organization was acquiring children like this… Sigh- What should we do? Yeon-hee, I’m so angry right now.”
“Pl-please take a deep breath, unnie.”
Kang Yeon-su’s magic surged violently into the sky, stirring the air around her.
She shot hundreds of huge magic bullets towards the sky to release her accumulated anger and finally calmed down.
‘That’s too scary…’
One of the bullets she just fired felt significantly more powerful than my Fireball, sending chills down my spine.
“Phew… I need to calm down, calm down. By the way, what on earth is going on in the lower ranks of the Hunter world? We need to suggest an overall inspection because of this.”
Yeon-su may have politely called it a suggestion, but it wouldn’t sound like simple advice to the association heads and high-ranking management officials meeting with her. It was likely a plea with strong coerciveness.
After hearing the entire explanation, Kang Yeon-su seemed somewhat convinced, but her expression was still displeased.
And that likely wouldn’t be unrelated to me.
“Oh my, the ability to fit hundreds of living people into your space is quite unprecedented. Do you know? I can vividly imagine the expressions of those with [Storage] abilities, trembling in fear. Il-wol, what on earth are you?! Are you giving him your abilities, Yeon-hee?”
“… It’s not like that…”
Yeon-hee only dutifully answered Kang Yeon-su’s question while being careful of her feelings. Yeon-hee was being cautious because of me.
‘You don’t have to worry. Yeon-su is more tight-lipped than she appears.’
She only talks a lot when she is with us.
She usually doesn’t say much besides what’s necessary when speaking with others. So, there should be no need to worry about my abilities leaking out.
‘There shouldn’t be any problem with Yeon-su. If anything, she’d prefer it if one of her people had abilities.’
Initially taken aback, Kang Yeon-su was now looking at me with a satisfied gaze.
‘It’s only natural.’
Rescuing hundreds of missing people from the Collective of Evil.
Revealing the methods of the “Do” to the world to prevent harm.
These two feats alone would cause quite a stir in the world.
And the one who accomplished them would be the White Knight Guild.
Among them, it would be known as the achievements of the Vice Guild Leader Kang Yeon-su and her Hunters.
The guild’s image would improve, and it would immensely help her achieve her goals.
So it was only natural that she’d develop a fondness for us.
‘We’ll work from the shadows while putting Yeon-su in the spotlight. A desirable picture indeed.’
Through several conversations with Yeon-su before, I had communicated my opinion on avoiding external exposure. So, without needing to spell it out, she would likely draw up plans that way.
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