TL: There are lots of references to Korean folklore in this chapter. I have links at the end of the chapter, in case you wanted to have a deeper look into them.
The chief assistant was looking through a pile of documents.
He was currently inside an office of the International Hunter Association, and this morning, they had received an unbelievable message from an anonymous person.
It was regarding the end-of-the-year event of Lair, which was soon to happen at the S+ dungeon, ‘Melissia Masquerade’, about how there was a chance for a catastrophe-ranked, and a disaster-ranked demon to appear there.
“…”
After going through the document again, the chief placed his hand on his chin.
This person was just writing fiction.
No matter how he saw it, it was a cluster of plausible opinionated claims.
1. A troop of demons located in the Balkan Peninsula was heading to Korea. Apparently it was because the dungeon, ‘Melissia Masquerade’ was inside Japan’s territory.
2. Obelisks appeared all the way from a deserted island in the North Pacific to Saipan. According to the one that sent the documents, it was a structure that could allow a concentration of immense amounts of mana.
3. Recently, the price of magic stones had jumped up significantly, and it was apparently because someone was buying them in bulks.
4. Several countries whose governments are suspected to be hugely influenced by demons, are requesting to be absent during Lair’s end-of-the-year event. It was in order to take a step back from a potential turf war with other demons.
Using dozens of various other information, ranging from political to economic and social issues, the anonymous informant was expanding on one claim.
– Something is going to happen at Melissia Masquerade.
And it would be something very dangerous.
The chief aide returned his gaze back to the display. He checked the claim’s evidence, and realised that they were indeed true. The only doubt that remained in his head, was that those points seemed extremely far off and unrelated to each other.
He scratched his chin.
This sounded like an accumulation of gossips, full of holes. Right, something like this is what we call a narrative… but,
‘Why does everything fall into place?’
The proofs of the claim were so indistinctly different, that it was hard for him to understand in one go.
He thought for a bit, before asking his secretary.
“Source. Where’s this from.”
“It was anonymous…”
“But there should be traces at least right?”
“It’s completely anonymous, since it was placed on top of my desk when I came to work.”
“Why didn’t you say that earlier?”
“Don’t you remember? I told you just a few minutes ago…”
Blankly, the chief listened to the words of his secretary, before laughing out.
“Well, I can’t remember everything you say.”
It was unknown who it was from, but it was nonetheless a nasty piece of work.
The person was strong enough to infiltrate into a secretary office in the headquarters of the International Hunter Association. He was either a superhuman or a demon.
Although the proofs of the claim were weak, the distant evidences were all talking about the same thing.
A large ear; a long nose; and a fat body. It was hard to figure out when the clues were seen individually, but it was clear that it was an elephant after adding them together.
That was just an analogy, but what did this mean?
The claim wasn’t speculated after gathering up the puzzle pieces. The informant had already known about the whole picture beforehand, and he just randomly threw pieces together before giving out his claim.
In other words, it was an intel from an insider of the demon organisation.
‘…Or another organisation keeping them in check.’
A convoluted claim usually had a hidden meaning to it, and the hidden meaning was generally related to a clash of interests.
Demon organisations weren’t companies – their system was closer to religious groups. If there was only one religious order in the centre, there wouldn’t be any infights, but it seemed that there had been an internal strife.
Knock knock!
“Sir, this is Jefferson, the assistant.”
He quickly reported the details of the documents to the boss of the association.
Before long, a large conference was opened at the hunter association, as the top figures of various countries and high-ranked officials of the association gathered.
The direction which the conference took was like this:
There had been a report, and the things that are happening these days are similar to the phenomena that happened prior to the Great War.
It therefore seemed necessary to intervene, even slightly.
If we make a fuss about it, we might end up losing the chance to subjugate the demons. So, let’s go stealthily, and pretend like things are going in their favour, while ensuring that we don’t lose anything ourselves.
Let’s cut out an arm, and hurl some dirt so that they can’t seal up their wound.
“If we do that, the cadets will end up being hostages huh…”
The scribe jotted down the words of a certain ambassador. As expected of the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize last year, he was pretending to be a kindhearted person.
But that was the end.
No-one insisted for the event itself to be dismissed.
They were all superhumans that had fought in the East Asian Great War, and were soldiers that were powerless as 30% of the human population dropped. To soldiers that weighed and compared human lives, disregarding a small sacrifice in order to stop a big loss became a way of life.
Values like bioethics and humanitarianism were difficult to be found from their conference.
Then, the topic after that was about selecting the leader of the secret task force.
Peace was like an epidemic and had become the norm, and there weren’t any governments that wished to put the rankers of their country at risk. Plus, it wasn’t a situation where they could proudly announce to the world that they had dealt with the issue either, even if they succeeded.
It wasn’t difficult for them to find someone who would shoulder all the responsibility. It would be happening inside Japan’s territory, so who was the one that would be the most inconvenienced by it?
The ambassador from Japan suggested a different approach with falling beads of sweat, but no-one stood up for him.
After the conference came to an end, a woman in her twenties lying down behind the ventilation hole, placed her finger on her temple.
‘I have carried out your command, my lord.’
‘A secret task force will be created with the rankers under the Japanese Royal Family.’
‘With this, the association will be more conscious of the demons.’
‘And there will be less need for you to move personally, my lord.’
Good work.
***
“What, you want me to read you a fairy tale?”
Nod, nod.
It was the first time Gyeoul was asking her to read a book.
Yeorum gave a frown.
It was bothersome.
“…”
Gyeoul, who was looking back at her, similarly had a frown on her face. Even she didn’t want Yeorum to read her a book. However, Bom and Kaeul were at a lesson today, and Gyeoul was extremely curious about the new storybook bought by Bom yesterday.
“Then just read it yoursel… no, whatever. Just come here.”
When Yeorum sat down cross-legged on the sofa, Gyeoul went in through the gap and sat in between her legs.
The name of the fairy tale, was ‘The fairy and the woodcutter’.
“Ehng? What, you don’t know this story?”
“…?”
“This is that right? A long time ago, a woodcutter was cutting wood at a mountain.”
Nod.
“But suddenly, a deer crazily came dashing up to him. It then said to the woodcutter, ‘I’m fucked, a hunter is coming after me. Please hide me somewhere’.”
Nod.
“So the woodcutter gave a bright smile, and said ‘Trust me’, and helped it hide.”
Nod.
“Inside his stomach.”
Nod…?
Yeorum massaged Gyeoul’s stomach and licked her lips. As she then said “Ah damn, I feel like having some meat, some tender deer meat…” Gyeoul glanced at her as if she was looking at a bug.
“Anyway, the deer told him before dying, that there was a fairy bathing at a nearby pond.”
…Nod.
“So the woodcutter was like, ‘Uuooh what the fuck, I’m a 40-year-old virgin. What the cow!’ and ran there.”
Here was a red dragon, whose vocabulary had been ruined by online videos.
…Nod.
“When he went there, what the hell? There really was a naked fairy in the bath. But when he looked a bit closer, he realised it wasn’t a fairy. It was a damn old spinster from a nearby village – she was dirty because she didn’t wash frequently. But damn, who cares if she was dirty? The woodcutter was a virgin, and anyone wearing a skirt was a fairy.”
…
“He immediately stole her clothes and ran away. With that, he tricked her and abducted her, but the other side was also an unmarried woman in her forties, so you know? The two were on fire. They were a perfect couple! Every night~~ you know. In the end, they gave birth to around ten babies, and because the woodcutter was broke, he went to his brother to borrow money, and was slapped with a rice paddle by his brother’s wife.”
…
“The name of the woodcutter, was Heungbu.”
…
Thus came the end of the fairy tale of chaos and destruction.
“That’s how it goes. Is it your first time hearing it?”
Gyeoul, whose innocent heart had been crushed, looked at her as if she was staring at an insect with many legs.
Yeorum giggled inside.
She wriggled around. In fact, Gyeoul had wanted to escape from a long time ago, but Yeorum was holding tight onto her body, and stopped her from running away.
“But you see, there’s a plot twist.”
“…I, don’t care.”
“In fact, there was no such a thing as a hunter going after the deer.”
“…Who cares.”
“The deer was irritated by the old lady dirtying the water that it was trying to drink from.”
Wriggle, wriggle.
“But then it was captured by the woodcutter and became food for the couple. It tricked itself into it.”
Wriggle, wriggle.
“The moral of the story today. If you’re stupid, then don’t pretend like a know-it-all…”
Unable to hold it back anymore, Gyeoul smacked Yeorum’s chin with the back of her head.
Bam!
“Arg! Uuh… Oi, Yu Gyeoul!”
After escaping from her grasp, Gyeoul ran away with tottering feet. She went up to Yu Jitae, who was inside the kitchen, and whined. When he asked, “What happened”, she started explaining with sloppy words and pointed at Yeorum.
It seemed that she was saying how Yeorum was the bad guy.
“Is that so.”
Yu Jitae raised Gyeoul, who struggled to speak while whinging, and tapped her back several times. Only then did she calm down, before glaring at Yeorum.
“Ehew. Look at her running up like a stupid dog.”
Gyeoul stuck her tongue out at Yeorum.
It was a peaceful day.
It was relatively cool, and dry. What would be good for them to eat on a day like this?
Recently, Gyeoul was having more and more interest in food. In the past, she merely imitated what others ate, but these days would bring Yu Jitae a magazine and point at a food.
Since Kaeul was the expert of eating, he decided that it would be good to ask her before deciding on the menu.
It was then.
[The Authority, [Vintage Clock (EX)] has discovered a small fragment of [Hostility] which had flown over from the other side of the Horizon of Providence.]
Vintage Clock floated a warning message, as Yu Jitae squinted his eyes.
Up until now, the Vintage Clock had only identified phenomena which had happened, on whether it was related to the Hostility sent from the other side of the Horizon of Providence. So he could only find out after the actual thing happened.
But now it was different. A few days ago, a message had floated up before his eyes.
[The Authority, [Vintage Clock (EX)] succeeded in gathering all traces of the revealed [Hostility].]
[Fragments of [Hostility] gathered from targets, [Ha Saetbyul], and [Armata]: 15.1%]
A long time had passed since he locked Ha Saetbyul and the protector (apparently its name was Armata) inside the underground labyrinth. After finally gathering all traces of ‘Hostility’ from Ha Saetbyul, the Vintage Clock could now point things out realtime, when something happened.
So, what was happening.
[The Authority, [Vintage Clock (EX)] has confirmed a target exposed to a small fragment of [Hostility].]
[Target: [30-man special force team]]
30-man special force team, was the name of a combat force group belonging to the International Hunter Association.
Its members were all buff, regardless of their gender. They always stood at the front in dungeon raids, and were sometimes used in anti-terrorist suppression strategies.
A unique trait about them, was that they were all ‘front fighters’. In other words, they were all tankers who stood at the very front, swinging their weapons.
Yu Jitae had also been a part of the 30-man special force team, some time in his early regressions, but only for a short time.
If they were likened to animals, they were like elephants and rhinos, and a similar machine would be a bulldozer.
There was a child who admired barbarians in the past, and later became a top executive of the association, as he then realised his fantasies.
That was the reason for the creation of this peculiar team.
It was a secret story which only the Regressor knew of.
Okay, that’s fine, but how were those guys exposed to the Hostility?
As soon as the question floated up on his mind, Vintage Clock created a new status window.
[30-main special force team of the Seventh Iteration: In this round of regression, the 30-man special force team is under an abnormal status, [Group Mental Contamination]. The following group was originally sent in order to locate demons that were hidden inside Lair, but in the process were inflicted by the [Hostility] inside Wei Yan. Until [Mental Contamination] is undone, the following group’s personalities, actions and languages will become violent.]
Damn.
It seemed that the cause was Yu Jitae sending information to WOO (World Hunter Association). After realising that something was up, the association had sent them to investigate, but something wrong must have happened to them.
Fortunately, it wasn’t that big of a problem. ‘Mental Contamination’ wasn’t that bad, although they would try to smash everything around them as if they had gone insane. It was an issue that the target happened to be the 30-man special force team, as Haytling itself might crash down, if they wreaked havoc with all their hearts.
Before his thoughts even came to an end, a thud was heard from a distance.
Kwaaang-
Yeorum and Gyeoul couldn’t hear it. It was that much of a distance away from them.
Closing his eyes, the Regressor calculated the direction and the distance. The distance was roughly 8.5km, and the location was outside Lair, in the north west region of Haytling. Judging from the way the sound echoed, they were underground, and it must have been an underground facility or something that exploded.
His [sixth sense] alerted him that nothing more than that had happened so far.
Yu Jitae raised his body.
He had to hurry, before it got noisier.