Chapter 55: Busy, So Busy (3)

A grenade's explosion alone couldn't wipe out the Bloody Wolves. Still, it delivered a sufficient shock, and the subsequent collapse of the building dealt additional damage.

The ground around this area was also covered by sharp thorns conjured by Han Ji-Tae's ability. The Bloody Wolves found themselves impaled and trapped beneath heavy rubble. They stood no chance of survival.

Kim Ki-Rok and his guild members had positioned themselves in a corner of the building and erected a wall using the Shield Spell. They managed to escape the aftermath of that grenade unscathed, climbing out of the collapsed ruins and looking around at the debris.

Kim Ki-Rok breathed a sigh of relief. "

Wheeew!

It's a shame to miss out on all the corpses and mana stones, but... we'll just have to give this one up."

After all, clearing the debris would cost them precious time.

"Let's get back on the move," Kim Ki-Rok ordered, stoically turning his back on the unharvested corpses and mana stones to advance toward their main objective—the altar's destruction.

***

At 3 p.m. on the fifteenth of December, the DG Guild entered the Gate of The Magus Fief Occupied by Contaminated Monsters.

Then, at 9:30 p.m. on the same day, the Hunters Association staff guarding the Gate entrance stood in stunned silence.

"Huh?"

Typically, when a Break was close, mana flowing from its entrance increased. Conversely, when a Gate was close to being cleared, that mana would diminish.

Now, from a Gate with significantly diminished mana flow, people were casually strolling out. The implications were clear, yet reality seemed to defy all common sense.

One Association employee approached hastily, spotting the last man emerging with a cute little girl in his arms. "G-Guildmaster Kim Ki-Rok?"

"Oh my, it must be difficult for you, working hard at this late hour," Kim Ki-Rok said commiseratively.

"Ooooh my," Kim Ji-Hee echoed with a cheeky grin.

The Association staff member swallowed nervously. "H-have you finished clearing the Gate already?"

"Yeeep," Kim Ki-Rok drawled. "We really had to hustle, and there were a few dangerous situations as well. But!"

"But?"

"We are the DG Guild!" Kim Ki-Rok proclaimed loudly.

Those words reverberated into the night sky.

Kim Ki-Rok bombastically regaled, "In order to pull off a quick assault, I took out the Black Flame Dragon that is sealed within my left arm... no, within my subspace!"

"Huh?" The Association staff member finally gasped, utterly lost.

Laughing sinisterly while clutching his left arm, Kim Ki-Rok dropped the theatrics and smiled sheepishly. "I'm just joking. We just brute-forced it. By which I mean our guild used all the artifacts and enchanted weapons that we've been keeping secret to launch a high-power, fast-tempo assault that easily suppressed all of our enemies."

"Ah, alright..."

Kim Ki-Rok raised a brow. "Did my joke not land?"

"Not at all," the staff member honestly replied.

"

Tsk!

Total flop." Kim Ki-Rok lamented playfully, checking his watch and then addressing the bewildered employee, "My apologies, Manager Kang Min-Ho."

Manager Kang Min-Ho, from the Association's Gate Management Department, was visibly startled. "H-how did you know my name?"

"We greeted each other before I went inside the Gate, didn't we?"

Oftentimes, ordinary Hunters looked down on Association employees, and this was especially the case with Guildmasters, who didn't even bother speaking with any lower-ranking staff.

Deeply touched, Manager Kang Min-Ho nodded fervently. "Yes, we did meet each other back then, Guildmaster Kim Ki-Rok."

"Is there another Gate that we can tackle right away?" Kim Ki-Rok asked.

"Do you mean right now?"

"That's right. We'll camp inside and conduct reconnaissance overnight. That way, we can clear it a little faster."

"O-one moment, please." Moved by DG Guild's diligence, Manager Kang Min-Ho took out his smartphone and swiftly made several calls. After getting a picture of the overall situation, he reported back, "There is a C-Class Gate just forty minutes away."

"So, outside Seoul."

"Yes, that's right."

"Hmmm, well, that doesn't really matter. What's it called?"

"The Castle of Contaminated Ghosts."

"Oh!" Kim Ki-Rok immediately brightened, as though he had won a jackpot. "Please reserve that Gate for us."

***

Even if ghost-type monsters were contaminated with dark mana...

𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Even if those monsters had lost all their intelligence and were left with only their instincts...

"Ji-Hee! Use Spiritualism!" Kim Ki-Rok shouted.

"Yesh!" Kim Ji-Hee shouted energetically.

In front of Kim Ji-Hee, all ghost-type monsters were equally vulnerable to her skills.

Kim Ji-Hee wasn't a dark Spiritualist relying on dark mana. Not only was she able to use pure mana, she possessed Spirit Vision, a trait that made her beloved by all spirits. Waving her staff, she released blue, aurora-like energy and effortlessly purged dark mana from the ghosts.

Rooooooar!

Kim Ji-Hee shook her staff once more, spraying them with another ray of blue light. "Hiyyyah!"

The ghosts, once corrupted by dark mana and forced to wander aimlessly without purpose, were now purified, happily accepting Kim Ji-Hee's pure mana.

With their ties to this world severed, the ghosts could linger no longer. There was no way to tell if they were bound for heaven or hell, or if their souls would just end up being destroyed, but Kim Ji-Hee knew for sure was that these ghosts had only a single hour until they were forced to depart.

"Goodbye misteeeers." She waved them off warmly.

Since her Awakening, Kim Ji-Hee had been able to get acquainted with various spirits as she accompanied Kim Ki-Rok on his travels, fulfilling their lingering desires and refining her communication skills. She had always cried after the spirits' departures, but she was now able to see them off with a dignified expression.

As Ji-Hee bid them farewell, Kim Ki-Rok was checking off the raid status of this Gate.

"Altar Destruction..."

Done.

"'Subjugation of monsters contaminated with dark mana..."

Done.

With that, the Gate was cleared.

"Goodbye, misteeeers!"

With one last farewell from Kim Ji-Hee, hundreds of spirits ascended to their final resting place.

***

Three vehicles came to a stop one after another at the park where the Gate to The Magus Fief Occupied by Contaminated Monsters once was.

All three were luxurious limousines.

A blond man with a round shield emerged from the first vehicle. A man dressed in armor and a woman wearing a black martial arts uniform got out of the second, both of them looking around the park with suspicious gazes. Lastly, a young black man holding a staff exited the third.

They spotted the Association employees currently occupied with cleaning up the area and walked over.

A man who looked to be around the age of a college student followed behind the young, black man, stepped forward and introduced himself, "Hello, it's nice to meet you. I am Kim Chan-Soo, the interpreter for Daniel Jackson. He is an A-Class Hunter who is visiting from the United States."

"Ah! I am Kang Min-Ho of the Hunters Association's Gate Management department. May I ask what has brought you all here?"

"We've come here to meet with the Guildmaster of DG Guild, Kim Ki-Rok, and his guild member, Kim Ji-Hee, regarding a matter related to the mass appearance of Gates," Kim Chan-Soo explained.

"I see. And the others?" Manager Kang Min-Ho inquired.

"The others are here for the same purpose."

Having been temporarily placed in charge of all the Gates that DG Guild was responsible for, Manager Kang Min-Ho had received a call from his superiors regarding this matter a while ago.

—Some guests might be arriving from overseas. If they come to you and ask to meet Guildmaster Kim Ki-Rok and Kim Ji-Hee, please show them the way. They're all skilled individuals, so you should be able to lead them to the Gate that DG Guild is currently clearing without much fuss.

Recalling his superior's instructions, Manager Kang Min-Ho replied, "The DG Guild has already cleared The Magus Fief Occupied by Contaminated Monsters and has moved on to the next Gate."

Kim Chan-Soo frowned. "But I thought that they only entered the Gate this afternoon?"

"That is correct. But as you can see..." Manager Kang Min-Ho trailed off with a shrug.

The visitors once again examined the surrounding area, but a Gate was nowhere to be seen.

Daniel Jackson declared in English, "Seeing as the mana here is denser than the surrounding areas, clearly there had been a Gate here..."

Kim Chan-Soo asked, "Are you currently shifting operations to the DG Guild's current location?"

"Ah, yes. That is correct. I am temporarily in charge of managing the Gates that the DG Guild are responsible for clearing," Manager Kang Min-Ho explained.

"Mind if we follow you there?"

"Not at all."

Kim Chan-Soo relayed the situation to Daniel, "They say that the DG Guild has gone on to clear another Gate. After they finish cleaning up the site, they plan on moving to the Gate that DG Guild is currently at. I believe it would be best to follow them there."

"Alright," Daniel agreed.

With that, the surprise visitors waited until the team from the Association was ready to move. As they were in separate cars, Manager Kang Min-Ho called the interpreter to inform them of their next location.

—The DG Guild is currently raiding the C-Class Gate, Castle of Contaminated Ghosts. The Gate appeared in Hoengseong County, Gangwon Province. We should arrive in about an hour and twenty minutes.

"Alright. We understand," Kim Chan-Soo replied.

Daniel's team decided to wait at the Gate after they got there, since entering without a member of the Association could cause problems later on.

Kim Chan-Soo was playing around with his smartphone to kill time when it suddenly rang. He quickly checked the name of the caller and answered it, switching to speaker mode so that his employer could listen in.

"Hello. What is it, Manager Kang Min-Ho?"

—Ah, well...

"Has something happened?"

—It's about the Castle of Contaminated Ghosts.

"Yes. That's the Gate that the DG Guild is currently at, correct?"

—It has already been cleared.

"Huh?"

—It has been cleared. The DG Guild has already started moving on to the next Gate, so I'm calling to let you know about the new destination.

"H-hold on a second. Didn't I hear that they had just started the Gate raid an hour ago?"

—To be more exact, it was forty-five minutes ago if you exclude the time they took to get there.

"How on earth?!"

—According to Guildmaster Kim Ki-Rok, it was because... they had a stroke of luck.

"Well, okay... In that case, can you tell me the name of the Gate that they're headed to next, and its location?"

—Yes, the name is...

After confirming the new information, Kim Chan-Soo immediately instructed the driver to head there.

"What kind of luck...?" Kim Chan-Soo muttered, staring blankly at his smartphone.

"What's going on?" Daniel asked.

Coming to his senses, Kim Chan-Soo explained the change of plans.

After hearing the news, Daniel immediately grasped at why they were clearing so fast. "Could it be thanks to Hunter Kim Ji-Hee?"

"Huh? Kim Ji-Hee?"

Kim Chan-Soo was familiar with the DG Guild, whose popularity had recently surged. He had even subscribed to their MeTube channel and enjoyed their entertaining videos, especially those featuring Ji-Hee.

Daniel continued in English, "It's only something I've seen through their videos, but there are ghosts living in the DG Guild. And I assume that those ghosts are ghosts that followed Ji-Hee back to Earth from a Gate. The fact that they were willing to risk crossing into a new dimension just to be with Hunter Ji-Hee indicates how deeply she's loved by spirits. Given her abilities, The Castle of Contaminated Ghosts would naturally be an easy clear for DG Guild. Though, even then, doing it in such a short time is certainly astonishing."

"Ah!" Kim Chan-Soo slowly came to a realization.

The Spiritualist Kim Ji-Hee... a child beloved by spirits...

It was a very convincing hypothesis.

Daniel nodded his head in satisfaction at Kim Chan-Soo's reaction.

Finally... I get to meet Miss Kim Ji-Hee!

Daniel silently cheered before becoming absorbed in watching one of her many videos.

His online nickname was (Cu)-Kim-Ji-Hee-(tie), and in his pocket was a fan club badge with the number nine on it.