Chapter 117

[Pasad Island]

Pasad, a small island in the Pacific Ocean, was the smallest republic in the world. It had one of the smallest populations among full member states of the United Nations, and its territory covered only about a quarter of Jeju Island.

Yet Pasad was also quite wealthy for its size. The island itself consisted of phosphate rock formed from accumulated guano (animal droppings), and simply mining its vast buried deposits had brought it tremendous wealth. Its small population relative to that income made it all the more prosperous.

When the Cataclysm struck, however, that small population became the source of its troubles. Fewer people naturally meant fewer hunters awakening. The country was woefully short of hunters—the only force capable of holding back a Gate when one appeared.

And eventually...

That day came.

A dungeon break.

Without enough hunters, the island succumbed to the erosion of the blue mist in an instant, before it could even attempt to resist. It had become a field dungeon.

Belatedly, Pasad's president tried to spend a fortune hiring foreign hunters as mercenaries, but by then the situation was already beyond control. Ordinary citizens with no aptitude for mana suddenly began turning into Mist Burns and rampaging everywhere.

For all practical purposes, Pasad fell that day.

"... Back then, information about Mist Burns and mana aptitude still hadn't spread around the world."

"..."

As Suho flew toward Pasad aboard Thomas Andre's private jet, Laura was briefing him on the situation.

"And so Pasad ceased to exist as a nation. A handful of survivors are still living there, but effectively, they've become refugees of a fallen country."

"Still, whether you call it good luck or bad, I hear their president is alive."

Thomas had been sitting beside them with his arms folded, leisurely watching the clouds. Suho turned to him at that remark.

"Did the president awaken as a hunter?"

"That's right. He was lucky. But the very first thing he did after awakening was kill his own family with his own hands because they'd turned into Mist Burns... So you could call him unlucky, too."

"..."

Suho could only fall silent. It was a truly horrific situation.

Laura pushed her glasses up and resumed the briefing.

"That's why experts now say the greatest danger during a dungeon break isn't the magic beasts, but the blue mist flowing out of the Gate itself."

Suho nodded in agreement. His experiences had taught him that magic beasts were ultimately nothing more than refugees drifting through the gaps between dimensions. Their vicious nature did, of course, drive them to instinctively attack and devour humans, but the blue mist was a more fundamental problem.

A conversation he had once had with Beru and Rakan's Fang suddenly came to mind.

["This blue mist is mana from the outer universe. It is used to forcibly pierce dimensional walls and create rifts in worlds."]

["That's right. Because of this mist, the sanctuary I inhabited drifted through the dimensional gaps and connected to Earth."]

["Ultimately, those beings from the outer universe likely intend to spread this mist across the entire Earth and create a great rift. They mean to open a hole large enough for their army to cross dimensions."]

'... And the farther magic beasts soaked in blue mist spread, the larger the contaminated area becomes, like the swamp yesterday.'

Suho's expression grew grave as he recalled watching the swamp expand in real time the previous day.

Fortunately, there had been plenty of hunters nearby then. The field dungeons he had encountered so often were what happened when such incidents weren't resolved quickly enough. At least those areas were tightly enclosed with barbed-wire fencing and guarded to prevent magic beasts from escaping, which kept them from expanding any farther. By stopping the beasts from crossing the perimeter, they kept them from spreading the blue mist beyond it.

Recently, people had even been developing various ways to use mana crystals to power those fences and keep beasts from approaching, making them safer still.

But Pasad Island, their current destination, was surrounded by sea. Worse, it had already been completely consumed by erosion before specialized equipment like those fences was developed.

"We've arrived."

A short while later, their private jet finally landed on the coast of Pasad Island. When the aircraft door opened, a blast of biting cold awaited Suho.

"... Huh! W-we're here?"

Rio Singh, who had been sprawled asleep in the neighboring seat, felt the cold and removed his sleep mask.

Laura gestured toward him and asked Suho, "Incidentally, why did you bring this Indian hunter? Are you working with the Asura Guild?"

"I help Suho. I come as interpreter."

Rio Singh introduced himself confidently. He had only recently started learning Korean and was still clumsy with it, but he was an accomplished scholar who spoke four languages.

'I can't let Scavenger take Sung Suho from us.'

English was essential to working alongside the predominantly American Scavenger Guild, but Suho couldn't speak it. Rio Singh had been using that as his reason to keep asking for a place on the raid team.

'With Thomas Andre around, our safety is guaranteed anyway. All I have to do is focus on interpreting and make Sung Suho keep relying on me.'

His eyes gleamed at what he considered a flawless plan.

The problem, however, lay elsewhere. Outside the plane, Scavenger Guild members who had arrived well ahead of them had set up camp and were waiting for Thomas Andre.

"Guildmaster!"

"The guildmaster's here!"

With a rush of footsteps, they swarmed toward Thomas Andre. True to Scavenger's reputation, every one of them was huge and fierce-looking.

"Thomas! What took you so lo—oof!"

"Shut up, you bastards."

Thomas Andre kicked the first man to reach him, then swept his men with a menacing gaze, looking at their faces one by one before grinning.

"Cold, are you?"

"What do you think?!"

"How could you leave elite hunters like us stranded here?!"

"Do you know how much we could've earned running even one more dungeon in this time?!"

"It's fucking cold! Freezing!"

Thomas Andre's question unleashed an uproar, as though they had been waiting for their chance. Every last face was full of discontent. Still, perhaps because the first man to mouth off had gotten hit, they were a little less aggressive than before.

"Anyway, Boss. Who are those kids?"

One of them pointed at Suho and Rio Singh, standing near Thomas Andre. Surrounded by the hulking Scavenger hunters, the two of them inevitably looked tiny by comparison.

"What? Don't tell me you kept us waiting just to bring these guys?"

"They look weak."

"Nah. Their mana feels around B-rank, at least."

"So what if they're B-rank? How are they supposed to do anything here with those scrawny bodies?"

The Scavenger Guild members, who had arrived several days earlier, openly sized up Suho's group with scowls. Suho, however, had no particular reaction to their stares.

'What are they saying?'

He didn't know English. Their expressions alone, however, told him quite clearly that they weren't welcoming the newcomers.

"Boss, did you seriously make us wait in this cold just to bring them?"

"Aw, what the hell is th—ugh!"

Another grumbling hunter caught a kick from Thomas.

Their reaction was perfectly understandable, though. The tank who had just been struck picked himself up and protested to Thomas Andre, looking genuinely angry.

"Boss, I'm not joking. This is your first time here, right? Hunters with that little stamina can't function properly in this cold. Even we feel drained after just three days here."

"He's right. And the problem is, it's this bad even though we're still outside the dungeon."

That was true. The private jet had landed on the outermost edge of the field dungeon, in an area that had yet to undergo erosion. In Korean terms, they were standing just outside the barbed-wire fence.

Yet the entire area had turned into a zone of extreme cold, as though they had arrived in Antarctica.

It was truly a glacier.

"Taking guys like these into the Glacier Dungeon will only give us more dead weight. I've never seen anyone like them come back alive, you know?"

"So what do they do? Obviously not tanks. Damage dealers?"

A guild member glanced at the sword in Rio Singh's hand and gave a derisive laugh.

The trouble came when his gaze moved past the pair and settled on Suho.

"Why doesn't this one have a weapon? Is he a mage?"

"Uh..."

Thomas Andre looked a little awkward at the question.

Leaving his guild members in the cold for days didn't actually bother him. For all their whining, he knew they were anything but weak. They would have been doing their jobs, hunting the magic beasts nearby on their own.

The problem was that, while Suho really was the reason he had kept them waiting, finding the words to introduce him was rather difficult.

Fortunately, Laura stepped in at just the right moment.

"Hunter Sung Suho here is... a C-rank summoner from Korea."

"Huh?"

"Summoning?"

"I heard that wrong, right?"

She had told them the truth, but it only made them look even more incredulous.

Finally, one large Scavenger Guild member lost patience and strode up to Suho. Standing a full head taller, he glared down at him resentfully and ground his teeth.

"A summoner? All right, kid. What can you summon? It's freezing, so I'd be real grateful if you could summon a flame moth or something."

The problem was Suho's meager command of English. There was no chance he would understand the furious man's pronunciation. Beside him, Rio Singh hastily interpreted.

"Suho. Summoning, can do?"

"Summon? Oh, right."

Realizing he'd forgotten, Suho took out the Key to the Shadow Dungeon. He thrust it into his shadow and said, "Come out, Esil."

WHOOOOSH!

"You called?"

"...!"

"...!"

Esil suddenly emerged from Suho's shadow. At that shocking sight, every disdainful stare directed at Suho filled with astonishment.

"A-a person?!"

"He summons people?!"

"Wh-what the hell is this?!"

Even Thomas Andre, who had brought Suho here, was just as surprised.

Esil had spent the entire flight inside Suho's Shadow Dungeon, for the obvious reason of needing a visa. With Yoo Jinho's help, they had somehow managed to register her as a hunter for their guild application, but fundamentally, Esil was a demon. Going as far as getting her a visa would have been a hassle.

"S-Suho? You summon people too? Summoned creature?"

Even Rio Singh was badly flustered when Esil, whom he had met in Egypt, suddenly popped out of Suho's shadow. Esil recognized him, too.

"Hmm? What? Isn't this the human we saw at the pyramid last time?"

"C-companion? Summon? Person?"

But Rio Singh's thoughts were becoming increasingly tangled.

'This is bad.'

A sense of crisis swept over him.

There were two interpreters now.