A moment later, Maeng Seong-yong also entered the space.
“Sit.”
“……”
Even with Maeng Seong-yong’s invitation, Yeon-hee couldn’t easily take a seat.
That was probably because the part of his right shoulder that he had sliced off was bubbling and slowly filling with flesh.
Bubble, bubble—
‘I thought he would naturally have a regeneration trait…’
The recovery speed was no joke.
‘It’s just different from the Residue of Chaos… You can’t even distinguish who’s a monster.’
“Cough…”
“Ah, s-sorry—”
At Maeng Seong-yong’s cough, Yeon-hee quickly sat down, thinking she had been rude.
“Is your friend always by your side?”
“Yes…”
“Ha ha ha, if I could, I would like to have such a fun guy next to me too.”
“……”
“… Hm, there’s no need to be too tense. It’s not a big story anyway.”
‘If it’s not a big deal, then you wouldn’t have brought me to a place like this.’
Maeng Seong-yong seemed to be trying to ease Yeon-hee’s tension by bringing me up, but Yeon-hee was just staring at the ground, completely stiff.
It was understandable; after all, there was a towering two-meter giant right in front of her with a regenerating shoulder.
Thud—
“It’s ice water.”
The perceptive Assistant Ha placed a glass of cold water in front of Yeon-hee and left the room again.
“Hold it. As you can see, I’m in the process of recovery.”
“Yes, yes.”
‘Is it not possible to ingest food while regenerating? That’s interesting.’
This was a minor detail, but knowing information related to other hunters’ trait mechanisms could prove useful.
Gulp—gulp—
After Yeon-hee downed the cold water in one go and caught her breath, Maeng Seong-yong slowly turned his shoulder and opened his mouth.
“What I’m about to say requires a pact, so you must choose. Whether you will listen to my story or not.”
“…… Huh?”
He said it wasn’t a big deal, but suddenly it’s about a pact? Is Maeng Seong-yong suffering from short-term memory loss?
‘In this atmosphere, how could I say no…’
Without a moment’s hesitation, Yeon-hee nodded and replied.
“I will listen.”
“Oh— You’re not hesitating at all? Is it because of Kang Yeon-su?”
‘No, it’s because of you.’
“… Yes, that’s right.”
“You trust her that much? She’s just another hunter who moves for her own benefits after all.”
“… Isn’t that the same for you, Examiner?”
“Hehe, that’s true. You’ve got a bit of audacity, more than I expected.”
Maeng Seong-yong seemed to appreciate Yeon-hee’s boldness, raising an eyebrow as he handed her the pact document.
“What we talk about today must not be revealed to anyone. There’s an exception for Kang Yeon-su and a few hunters, including you— but this time there are no such conditions. You must keep it to yourself for life.”
“I understand.”
‘So there are more sprouts besides Yeon-hee?’
Suddenly, I thought of our party members and Cha Jin-hyuk.
Yeon-hee glanced briefly at the pact document given by Maeng Seong-yong, poured magic power into it, and soon her name shone brightly on the document.
“Good. Then let’s begin the story.”
Gulp—
‘What kind of big story is this going to be?’
Maeng Seong-yong intertwined his thick fingers and began to speak.
“Do you know of the massive beings from another world that aim to invade this world?”
“?!”
Caught off guard by a heavy punch, we momentarily lost our words, staring at Maeng Seong-yong.
“You seem to know about them. Then this should be easy enough.”
Maeng Seong-yong shrugged and continued.
“After all, you were the ones who stopped them in the ‘Lizard Swamp’ dungeon, so there’s no way you wouldn’t know.”
“… I heard it was the Ilseom Guild that stopped them.”
“Ha ha ha! No need to take it away from me here. Looks like your friend next to you has a lot of secrets, too. But it doesn’t matter, because I signed here too, right? What I’m discussing with you cannot be told to anyone else either. The oath to the Spirit of the Pact is absolute.”
“……”
Yeon-hee sent a signal through the intangible line connected to me, and I vibrated my magic three times to indicate we could proceed.
“I know. The organization cloaked in shadows. They serve a massive being.”
“Hehe. Exactly. They are the damn guys serving the Blue-eyed one. We were fortunate enough to have our consciousness transported to where their rituals were happening, and we were able to observe their behavior. Of course, it was other hunters besides me.”
“Oh…”
‘It seems he’s talking about the place I was pulled to back then.’
I had the experience of moving to the place where the beings had gathered their consciousness while dealing with the group performing a ritual in the hidden space beneath the Fire Monkey dungeon.
“They were placing hunter and monster corpses on a throne made of black chaotemok, gathering the intangible energy obtained in that manner.”
“Is that so…”
“We believe this is related to the power they used to open the gate in the Lizard dungeon.”
“… So it’s not simply to offer to that Blue-eyed being.”
“Well, they seem to have some discretion in matters that align somewhat with their ultimate goal.”
‘That much deduction is easy. So what is their purpose?’
What we were discussing was merely probing our knowledge level.
Maeng Seong-yong shifted in his seat and continued.
“To cut to the chase, we are currently researching a method to strike at their base.”
“What?!”
‘Are they insane?! Is that even possible?’
Just days ago, I had surmised that the place I engaged the Residue of Chaos through the Channel to Another Dimension was a world ruled by the Blue-eyed or the Seven-headed Dragon.
If that’s the case, does the association plan to utilize such a route?
Moreover, even if it were possible, there was no guarantee we could beat that tremendous being known as the Blue-eyed. What kind of confidence did they have?
‘They can’t come to our world. They must be wielding even greater powers in their already conquered world…’
After all my contemplating, I was taken aback.
I decided to listen to the rest of his story for now.
“Let me explain the current situation briefly. The organization of the ‘Blue-eyed’ is spreading seeds of gates all over the world.
We’ve already identified that the number exceeds a thousand. In fact, the consensus is that it is more than we suspected.”
“A thousand?! There are that many?!”
“Of course, that’s just an estimate. It seems it doesn’t necessarily mean monsters can come through directly connected to our world.”
“……”
Yeon-hee, having witnessed the orcs pouring out in hordes once, couldn’t help but be shocked.
‘Well, it’s better to hear it from someone else.’
Yeon-hee knows I was human but doesn’t know I’m a regressor, so there were limitations on the information I could reveal about the future.
Thanks to Maeng Seong-yong, however, I was able to ease my concerns somewhat.
“Right, their plan is to completely wreck our world. But we can’t publicly announce this fact. If we do, it will only accelerate the collapse.”
“That makes sense… To think that horrible gates could be thousands…”
Yeon-hee repeated those words like she couldn’t believe it.
It was perhaps a natural reaction.
The Dungeon Break in the Lizard Swamp was the most intense moment of all the battles we’d faced thus far.
“We can’t say exactly how we’ll carve a path to their world.”
‘It’s not that they can’t say it, but rather that they haven’t found a method yet?’
And I had the instinct that they likely hadn’t even sketched a scenario for what comes after.
“However, we do have a rough idea of what we need. And to obtain those things, we must strengthen our capabilities further. There are several conditions, but the most important one is to take down the Great Beast.”
“The Great Beast?! How do you propose we do that…?”
“I know, it’s a daunting task. Thus far, the known slaying of a Great Beast has only occurred twice. And that was during the early days when awakeners around the world had not yet encountered restrictions. It may sound ridiculous, but we need to pull it off.”
“… Do you think someone like me can help take down the Great Beast?”
Yeon-hee asked him back with doubt.
It seemed evident that defeating the Great Beast was a condition for opening a route to another world.
However, while our growth rate might be fast, we still had a long way to go to be able to help with subduing a Great Beast.
‘…… The reason they want to recruit us… It feels like there’s another condition involved in terms of opening the path.’
Perhaps they needed a unique-class hunter or something along those lines? Is that why they’re trying to keep us close under the pretense of dealing with the beasts?
‘Ugh… I don’t get it. What is it? What is it?’
“Hehe, this isn’t something we need to do right away. We still need a bit more time to prepare. Plus, if you look at the movements of the Devouring Creeper, they’ve suddenly calmed down since around the middle of last week. That’s fortunate for us.”
“I see…”
‘Last week around the middle… that was when we exited Nargul’s dungeon.’
“Thanks to that, we’ve bought ourselves some time, and you should be able to further enhance your strength. With talent that rose to C-rank in just two months, who knows? You might even reach A-rank by then. Ha ha— An A-rank in under a year? I wonder who would believe that.”
“……”
“The execution date will be announced later, but we will take action within half a year.”
“… Who else knows about this?”
When Yeon-hee asked with a serious expression, Maeng Seong-yong stroked his chin thoughtfully before answering.
“Currently, it’s only a few super beings, including the Association Head, and some unnamed organization members led by him. Honestly, the only ones who are not S-rank Hunters among them are you and a few others. Even the guild heads and central personnel who formed the guild coalition remain unaware of our plans.”
“Why… aren’t they informed? Wouldn’t it be better if the strong ones gathered to brainstorm for better outcomes—”
“No, that’s not the case… Based on our past experiences, having too many leaders in uncharted territories tends to lose momentum.
From here on out, we will proceed with only the bare minimum of elite members. Of course, we will be accepting the help of hunters when tackling the Great Beast. But that would be advertised as a purpose to halt the monsters gradually approaching our country.”
“Oh… I understand.”
‘That makes sense. Besides, among the guild coalition members is Jo Gi-man. Who knows what kind of disruption he might cause? Good choice.’
However, I was still puzzled about how the association had learned of this fact.
‘I may not know everything that happened in my past life, but it feels like something crucial has changed.’
I didn’t think a mere acceleration of the world’s clock would lead to such a significant change.
Yeon-hee pondered for a moment before asking again.
“So you’re suggesting that we don’t join the White Knight Guild but instead join your organization?”
Maeng Seong-yong found her use of “we” odd, but he chuckled and responded casually.
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