Chapter 310. Introduction (2)
Ahn Yoon-seung said.
It seems that the Beast, which had been hiding for a while, has reappeared in Europe and is causing havoc again.
However, the report that Yoon-seung’s SNS friend claimed to have seen didn’t really make any sense from the beginning.
In other words, it was completely impossible.
‘What the heck? How could a supposedly dead Beast make it into the news?’
But I couldn’t let on that I knew the truth at this moment.
After wrapping up the dinner as smoothly as possible, I immediately headed to my temporary residence.
Towards what might be the safest place in South Korea, the number one ranked apartment.
And upon looking into the situation relayed by Ahn Yoon-seung, I found even more shocking details…
*
I truly could not understand anything.
[Breaking news. The ‘Beasts’ have caused a ruckus in France’s Paidraluar today again…]
About three hours later.
A report flowed from the 6.8-inch screen.
I returned to Jeong Ha-seong’s residence, where I was temporarily staying.
And as you can see, I was watching the evening news on my new smartphone, thin bezels boasting a spacious screen left no time for bragging.
“Wow.”
The story that flowed from the YTV channel was much stranger than I had imagined.
‘Not just one, but several of them?’
To explain from the basics, somewhere abroad, Beasts had appeared.
Moreover, there were multiple individuals.
[This time, there are a total of three ‘Beast’ claimants, who are of unclear race and age, and they randomly stole another’s gate set by challengers.]
From a reporter’s camera, it was clear that one of the group, at least, bore some resemblance to a real Beast.
‘Mixing in overly large or half-sized individuals, huh.’
Looking again, it seemed they were all impersonators of Beasts.
‘Then it makes sense.’
If I thought about this in connection to impersonation scams, it finally clicked.
The true owner of the name Beast, Brooklyn Morgan.
But the dual-identity trademark bone mask she wore was not some custom-made item.
Now referred to simply as the [Mask of the Beast], that huge ornament was just an item.
Moreover, its rarity was only common, meaning acquiring it would be no trouble if one put their mind to it.
‘I think I’d seen somewhere that countries like America banned the trade of that mask due to concerns about imitation terrorism.’
A common bone mask.
And those wearing some dark rags of unknown beast leather started hunting in packs.
Most earthling mammals hearing this news speculated that their previously known space-cutting criminal had gathered accomplices.
But I knew.
Among them, there was not a single real Beast.
‘I definitely killed that dual-attribute individual named Brooklyn Morgan back in that cave.’
I rolled my eyes.
‘Of course, I borrowed the power of a Legendary, but such a difference wouldn’t change the cause of events that had already occurred.’
I lay deep in thought, my eyes spinning around in their sockets, but I found no answers even after quite some time.
The mask being a ready-made item meant that if someone merely prepared some tricks with skills, it wouldn’t be very hard to imitate a Beast.
‘Then why?’
Why?
That part remained elusive.
The Beast was publicly known as a body thief that had been caught moving the corpses of overseas hunters.
So pretending to be such a person would only weigh down that individual with their past crimes. What could they gain from such actions?
[Anonymous Bulletin Board]
[♚: 180-1 left again, lol what if that’s a real GG hunter?]
[♔: That person posted on SNS that they were eating chicken and beer in Seoul when the evening breaking news came out, so the timing doesn’t match, right?]
[♚: Buddy, Beasts really use teleportation, right?;;]
[♔: Oh right.]
The newly emerged Beasts, like the previous Brooklyn, caused most of their troubles mainly in Western Europe, so there wasn’t much serious discussion in South Korea, which was relatively less affected.
Yet, I continued to wonder about something.
Even being in a foreign land, my scholarly instincts were hard to shake.
‘What drives that fake Beast group?’
But sitting here in this guest room and mulling over it wouldn’t solve anything.
More than anything, I didn’t want to get entangled carelessly with such dangerous individuals.
‘Is it just some performance by violent awakened people?’
Thump.
After some deliberation, I turned off the smartphone screen.
As I thought earlier, the emergence of these new Beasts was a matter that couldn’t be understood through mere contemplation.
‘For now, I should stick close to the temporary landlord.’
If things go sideways, I’ll beg the national hero for help!
I decided to set aside questions without answers rather than agonizing over them unnecessarily.
By the way, regarding the number one ranking that popped into my head earlier, after the White Tower, I had been asked a rare question each time I went out, what was I up to, but of course, I couldn’t properly answer that and kept dodging.
Not for a simple reason.
Unfortunately, it’d be best to correct the dependency of a disciple on their instructor early on.
‘Once Esther starts earning tuition, my finances will open up. Then I’ll quickly gather money to buy that 8 billion won house I had my eye on, including expenses.’
Still, I seem to be successfully wrapping up making the black-haired primitive sorceress ‘strong.’
Rising from my seat, I began to loosely prepare to wrap up the day.
At this point, I intended to watch the situation calmly and cautiously gather additional information.
.
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—————————
【Chat Room】
[P: Message received.]
[P: Let’s begin.]
[SPECTRUM: Is it really my turn next? Still?]
[SPECTRUM: By the way, with this incident, the S-Class hunters of Korea will definitely rise up, but I wonder if we can handle it?]
[P: Even just separating one took a lot of effort.]
[P: So, personally, I hope you successfully control the remaining three.]
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.
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*
Weekday morning 7 a.m.
Even today, cluttered sounds of people heading to work echoed outside the window.
–Beep beep beep.
I stared out the living room’s glass window at the mammals commuting while fiddling with something in my hands.
It was a newly launched analyzer from America, and I bought it for fun since it reportedly had notable changes compared to the previous model.
“Let’s see, is the update done now?”
As I looked into the newly introduced features proudly announced by a certain company…
[PIXY: A powerful Analyzer, revealing the dimension-altering functions of the fifth series]
Okay.
It sounded grandiose with some fanfare, but simply put, it was this.
This device would send a clear signal to challengers when a gate was completely conquered.
‘Oh~’
Upon detailed searching, I found that the principle was to detect a new element called ‘Exit’ that appears when a dimension is fully cleared or when a dungeon activates an automatic escape function like the White Tower, already starting to collapse.
If you ask hunters why they need such a feature, it’s because of the gradual changes to dungeons.
Moreover, especially recently, ‘mining’ has become a new way to make money on this planet.
Mining.
What this means is extracting resources from cleared gates where all monsters have been defeated.
As a side note, F-Class to E-Class hunters are actively taking on mining roles.
Structurally, the insides of dungeons often make it hard to bring heavy equipment in, so in the end, having people go in and extract materials is the quickest way.
‘This was a topic I had been keeping an eye on in recent articles, so I know this well.’
But unfortunately, my life’s Plan B of becoming a miner was going down the drain.
Hosts, who had claimed areas of what were colloquially referred to as dead gates where both bosses and general minions had been completely cleared and the monster regeneration had stopped.
From the perspective of the Ki-simche, that would naturally be an eyesore.
Now, worldwide, the cases of automatic escape magic activating after clearing gates have been increasing.
‘Speaking of which, I’ve seen a similar example before. The [Mimic City] was just that format, right?’
That’s why PIXY developed this function.
As I looked into the principle, it didn’t actually recognize the escape formulas engraved in the dungeon, but it detected the destabilization of the surrounding mana when exposed to the relevant effect, showing a message stating, ‘You will escape the dungeon in 10 seconds.’
‘Dungeon clear alarm, huh.’
Of course, I’m already worried about how many times might a fake hunter who deceived their class use this feature.
Moreover, this new model has reportedly been made lighter, more portable, and sturdier, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have one.
‘So bland. The design tastes of Earthlings are truly a mystery.’
Sparkle.
Gazing at the newly made analyzer crafted from dungeon material, I turned around.
By the way, today, I was supposed to watch over this wide house all by myself.
Even though the national hero had fulfilled a lifelong dream of securing a residence, I couldn’t help but wonder what was still lacking for her. She had already left to conquer again after the early morning wind passed.
‘For now, I’ll just claim I’m resting due to the fatigue of overworking recently, but this unexpected lazy moment feels a little awkward.’
Should I clean the bathroom today?
However, performing some high-class miracle like “CLEAN” in a space shared with Earthlings would surely raise suspicions.
I stretched my body.
Through this process, I pondered and eventually reached a conclusion. Right. Let’s clean the regular Earth way.
So a few minutes later, I sprayed mold remover in the hallway bathroom, planning to browse the web during the waiting time per the instructions.
“Huh?”
Right when I accessed the video streaming application I had become so familiar with that I could memorize its location.
Usually, I would have skipped past all kinds of interesting topics flooding the initial screen, merely picking nuggets of news.
However, I found myself mesmerized, absentmindedly touching a particular image that caught my eye.
Had it been any other day, I would have deliberated entering this unofficial video link at least ten times.
The figure in the little screen was something I couldn’t ignore.
‘Purple, long hair.’
Like a zebra, I’d recognize it well after seeing it often.
The quietly played video soon revealed…
-“What the hell… xx… …! …you all…!”
Based on the style of the building that appeared in the video, I assumed it to be somewhere within the country, featuring a familiar figure shouting angrily.
It was Esther.
Moreover, she seemed rather furious, pointing at something and shouting loudly.
Considering how her previously white neck had become red from sunburn, the intensity of her rage was surely tremendous.
But I couldn’t pay attention to her feelings.
Even though it was the wrath of the Cursed Mage.
Right now, I had no time to care about humanity’s expressions or cries.
“Wait?”
The woman in the video I just watched…
Was badly injured, with a wound crossing her face.
Would this injury include damage to her eye?
Such thoughts struck me as Esther desperately clutched half her face.
And just as the video finished playing, it showed her running away to some distant place.
‘What did I just see?’
Dumbfounded.
The second S-Class of South Korea, drenched in blood up to her shoulders, shouting at someone. No, more than that, there’s actually a gate capable of injuring the head of a major guild leader right here in this world’s streets?
‘She definitely jumped out from that direction of the gate at the beginning of the video.’
I didn’t hear any alarms of S-Class monster appearances.
Just then, my head was about to burst with perplexity.
In fact, the bizarre event I’d just witnessed was still unfolding rapidly.
–Broom.
A few seconds later.
[☎ Seo Esther]
The name saved on my new smartphone popped up.
