NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 36: Terrorism (3)
‘This is just pulling strings from a hat.’
A few minutes later.
I greeted Seonwoo-yeon, who was waiting on-site, after successfully joining her.
“Hello.”
“Oh, Hunter Kim Gi-ryeo.”
Now, to get to the point.
“Honestly, I’m not sure how much help I can be. If it’s a missing persons search, isn’t Ms. Seonwoo-yeon’s ability enough?”
I brought up the question that had been on my mind during my trip to Eunpyeong District.
The B-Class Hunter responded.
“I was just about to mention that. I activated the skill on the missing persons a while ago.”
“Yes.”
“But the locations were a bit strange.”
Seonwoo-yeon rested her chin in her hand, looking serious.
“Of the two I attempted to track earlier, I completely failed. It wasn’t until I reached the last person that the skill activated normally…”
After a moment of concern, she finally spoke.
“They’re underground. That’s where the location is.”
“What?!”
“I can only think they’re buried at a very low position.”
Given Seonwoo-yeon’s past records, the margin of error for the skill Seocher seemed quite low.
After all, she had pinpointed my exact apartment among all the rooms in the studio building.
‘So one missing person is actually buried alive, huh.’
There was already a strong scent of violent crime in the air, but Seonwoo-yeon’s doubts didn’t end there.
“Moreover, this isn’t just a simple burial case.”
“Excuse me?”
“With my skill, as long as I can identify the target, I can track their location even if they’re dead.”
“…!”
“But for the earlier two cases, I couldn’t find any coordinates at all. There must have been some interference from the perpetrator.”
It was definitely odd.
If the goal was to hide the victims, why not just hide them all? Why leave some out in the open?
“That’s why I called you, Kim Gi-ryeo.”
Seonwoo-yeon cleared her throat before continuing.
“I’m about to move to the missing person’s coordinates, but it seems like the perpetrator is luring us. There could be dangerous situations.”
Now that we had come this far, the reasons were all laid out.
The next thing to come was easy to infer.
‘She wants to use me to look for potential traps.’
As I rolled my eyes, Seonwoo-yeon cautiously spoke with a serious face.
“W-Well, it might seem uncomfortable, but in situations like this, having a live hunter is safer…”
Hearing that nearly made me laugh out loud.
“A live hunter? Where would you find a has-been like me?”
Look at my state.
I’m just a former great mage who’s had all my magic power drained.
So to hear “live” was utterly ridiculous.
“What? What did you say?”
“……”
Ugh, forget it.
What’s the point in complaining to her?
Seonwoo-yeon looked puzzled by my mumbling, and I naturally changed the subject.
“Never mind. By the way, when do we start the search?”
“…. As soon as Team 2 is ready. We’ll sweep up toward the Jeonggwan Temple Valley from here.”
Seonwoo-yeon and I, along with two police officers, were part of Search Team 1 conducting the missing persons hunt.
Rustle, rustle.
The damp, wet soil squished beneath my shoes.
Following Seonwoo-yeon, I surveyed the surroundings.
‘Let’s see.’
Even I would dull my senses if trapped in this garbage F-Class body of Kim Gi-ryeo.
Right now, I had to focus intently on one particular element to conduct a proper search.
And upon searching this mountain for hazards…
‘No major traps here.’
Nothing unusual was found.
With my heart now a bit lighter, I walked forward, using Seonwoo-yeon’s swaying black hair as a guide.
“Everyone.”
Before long, Seonwoo-yeon abruptly stopped.
“This is the spot. There’s a missing person buried under the ground we’re standing on.”
Turning back, Seonwoo-yeon maintained her usual businesslike demeanor, but a moment of hesitation lingered at her lips.
“I don’t sense any movements.”
If a buried missing person doesn’t show any signs of life, that means one thing.
A moment of silence fell among the search team.
Breaking the thick silence was an Awakened member from Team 2.
“Then we’ll start digging now. Please step back, everyone.”
“Team 1, please conduct a surrounding sweep!”
There might be clues left somewhere up in this mountain.
Seonwoo-yeon looked around and said, moving away. I closely followed her.
“Aren’t you in charge of the field?”
“My job is done. I’ve used up all the available uses of my Seocher skill for today.”
She explained softly, then put on a bitter smile.
“After three tracking attempts, I’m just an empty shell.”
“….”
“That’s all I can do.”
I didn’t have a response to that.
Yet, the conversation continued.
“By the way, if you see any dangerous items nearby, please let me know immediately.”
Even without saying it, I was already conducting a scan.
I concealed my thoughts and scanned the surroundings again as she suggested, especially focusing on the spot where Team 2 was digging.
‘If the perpetrator is trying to lure the police with the missing persons, they might have planted explosives there.’
But in the end, no anomalies were found.
At least, there were no traps using mana in this vicinity.
“Hmm.”
As I briefly concentrated on detecting hazards, I raised my head at Seonwoo-yeon’s voice.
“Kim Gi-ryeo Hunter, wait a moment. Do you see that over there?”
“Yes?”
“Next to that tree in the distance. Doesn’t it look like someone is standing there?”
Kim Gi-ryeo doesn’t exactly have the best eyesight.
Sure, it’s better than my vision from my past life living in the abyss, but still.
I squinted to figure out who Seonwoo-yeon was pointing at, but couldn’t see anything, so I just swept through the northern mana.
“There’s one Awakened person.”
“Really?”
Then it felt like a faint magic presence.
“Could this be a person involved in the incident…?”
Seonwoo-yeon called out to the Awakened who was responsible for subduing the suspect, and the police officer immediately took action.
As we sent a cop from our side, a curious onlooker poked his head out from behind a tree.
It was a middle-aged man munching on something, looking completely ordinary and dressed in full hiking gear—at first, I thought he was just a hiker.
But then, something bizarre happened.
As he swallowed what was in his mouth, his E-Class magic power soared dramatically.
“Get back!”
I shouted urgently to the police heading north.
But that brief moment was too short to respond to the situation, and eventually, the Awakened declared their magic.
The hiker activated his skill toward us.
“……!”
Wait a minute.
Didn’t everyone just notice that?
The target of the Awakened’s skill wasn’t the police subduing team but…
“Seonwoo-yeon Hunter!”
I instinctively reached out to Seonwoo-yeon.
Originally, I intended to push her out of range of the attack.
“Ah, no.”
“W-What are you doing?”
It was too late.
My mind grasped all the circumstances, but my sluggish body didn’t cooperate.
“We’re already falling.”
Suddenly, a chilling sensation of descent coursed through my veins.
A massive Gate opened where we stood, centered on Seonwoo-yeon.
“AAAH!”
Soil, rocks, and even trees.
The blue passageway, gaping like the mouth of a beast, swallowed everything where Seonwoo-yeon had been standing in the blink of an eye.
Whoosh, splosh.
“Ugh!”
The long drop came to an end.
I opened my eyes wide at the intense pain in my back.
Before me appeared dim cave walls and a vast lake where we had fallen.
An alien landscape. A dungeon.
‘Crap.’
Whether Kim Gi-ryeo learned to swim or not didn’t matter.
I used to be an aquatic creature in my previous life. Swimming my way out of this lake was easy.
“Gah, cough.”
But damn. Earthlings are funny creatures.
These guys can’t even breathe underwater, yet they have a culture of enjoying swimming? Insane!
“Cough.”
I finally made it to the surface.
After catching my breath for a while, others began to swim out of the lake one by one.
“W-What on earth is this? Hunter teacher, did we just enter a Gate?”
Three people were caught up in this situation.
Seonwoo-yeon, a D-Class cop, and yours truly.
‘Looks like the subduing team’s police barely missed coming in.’
At that moment, the blue light pouring from above vanished.
The gate entrance was closing.
‘That terrorist!’
Now, the outline of the Eunpyeong District missing persons case began to take shape.
“Phew.”
My head was too muddled, but I should at least assess the situation.
“Huh, Hunter?”
“Ah! Police…?”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury to sort my thoughts.
I heard some murmurs from somewhere, thinking I must have misheard.
“M-Missing persons?”
Before long, two young people timidly emerged from behind jagged rocks nearby.
The police gasped at the sight.
“N-No way. They’re the high school students who went missing!”
We actually found the missing persons!
Yet, they didn’t look so great.
Their bodies were battered, and their faces were pale, as if they hadn’t eaten properly.
“P-Please get us out of here! Huhu, you came to rescue us, right? Right?!”
The police momentarily panicked as they pleaded, then quickly regained their composure and wore a reassuring smile.
“Don’t worry! Please wait a moment!”
Then the officer pulled out a rectangular object from his pouch. It was a supply Analyzer.
Beep.
[Gate Name: Istanbul’s Winter]
[Description: Enemies with ice attribute attacks will appear. Beware of a few flying monsters.]
[Rank: B]
“Gasp! A B-Class Gate?!”
That’s quite high.
“There were originally many captives, but six of us were captured. Everyone else is dead. We’re the only ones left.”
The previously missing high school student sobbed, struggling to continue.
But it wasn’t all despairing.
We had an Awakened among us who could fight monsters.
“It seems like there are very few monsters here. With one B-Class, we can aim for a clear.”
“Ah! Is that true, Appraiser?!”
I approached the woman in the corner.
“Ms. Seonwoo-yeon, let’s at least try hunting. There might be a new exit…”
But the moment I saw her face, my mouth sealed shut.
“……”
The once calm and composed association employee.
Her eyes bulged with panic, and she was breathing uncontrollably.
“Ms. Seonwoo-yeon?”
She seemed not to hear me, hyperventilating for quite a while before suddenly yelling.
“Let me out of here!”
“Excuse me?”
“Get me out…! I can’t stay here! I can’t endure this! Please, let me out of here!”
She wasn’t in a state to communicate at all.
Having dug her nails into her arms, it was clear she was in sheer panic.
I finally realized this reaction.
‘We’re screwed?’
The only Awakened one who could fight monsters here…was suffering from Gate Panic?
“Ugh.”
Why didn’t I realize this sooner?
It’s only been seven years since Dungeon Shock happened.
Many people have died in that time, and while the strong who overcame this past deserve praise, it is only natural that there are those who have fallen.
“Ugh, ugh…”
Again, I say it seems like we’re done for.