Raid Event (2)
***
Seon Yul had crossed into the northern region to find a new hunting point for his third hunt.
This time, instead of stubbornly sticking only to the fishing-style method, he planned to hunt monsters in more diverse ways. So he was moving away from downtown Pyongyang toward the eastern forest region, where he expected more monsters to appear.
But at that very moment, an emergency was declared at the main headquarters of the Gate Management Bureau in Seoul.
“The raid region has been confirmed!”
An employee shouted urgently while staring at the status board.
At his cry, a red dot appeared on the board displaying the map of South Korea.
“The Raid Gate generation point is… the northern dungeon region!”
As the red dot was marked near Pyongyang, the former capital of North Korea, everyone present let out a sigh of relief.
“Whew… that’s a relief.”
Jeong Yeon Woo, Director of the Korean Gate Management Bureau, exhaled deeply, looking as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
Just thirty minutes earlier, when he received a report that raid-scale gate generation energy had suddenly been detected, he had been extremely worried that a Raid Gate might form in the middle of Seoul.
“How many users are currently active in that area?”
“We’ve requested all users currently inside the northern dungeon region to activate their personal identification devices for location tracking. Within one minute… We’ll display them on the status board.”
In the northern dungeon region, smartphones and regular electronic devices were completely unusable. Therefore, users possessed special smartphones and watches powered by magic stones.
However, both devices were terribly inefficient in terms of energy consumption. Users only turned them on temporarily while hunting in North Korean territory and did not use them at all once they left.
Even just two hours of use consumed 10g of intermediate magic stones, which, in monetary terms, amounted to spending 1 million won in two hours.
Most current magi-engineered devices were similarly inefficient. At least these were government-supplied items provided free to users above a certain grade, and when entering the northern dungeon region, the government subsidized a certain amount of communication cost (magic stones). So users simply kept the communication network open and used it minimally.
“What’s the predicted raid grade?”
“It’s currently predicted to be a C-grade Raid Gate.”
Raid Gates were completely different in nature from normal gates.
If a normal gate was mild with no spiciness at all, then a Raid Gate was extremely spicy — packed with capsaicin.
First of all, the size of the gate itself was different. Through a Raid Gate, a large-sized or bigger ‘raid monster’ would always emerge.
And at the same time, a Raid Gate forcibly enlisted all magic users within its vicinity into the raid battle.
This phenomenon, commonly called a ‘Raid Event,’ was not really an event but something closer to a punishment.
Users whose names were registered in the Raid Event were required to defeat the raid monster.
If they failed to defeat it within the designated time, participants would have the Sacred Mark of the Heart sealed for a minimum of one month up to a maximum of one year, depending on the monster’s grade, preventing them from using mana.
In other words, they would be forcibly turned into non-awakened individuals for a certain period.
It would be one thing if they had never awakened in the first place.
But if an awakened user returned to a non-awakened body, they could genuinely lose their mind.
There were even users who had taken their own lives because of this raid penalty.
“C-grade… if that’s the case, about ten users currently active in the northern region should be able to handle it, right?”
The Director estimated personnel rather comfortably.
A C-grade raid monster could be handled by one team of hunter-grade users.
In other words, about seven would be sufficient.
“Location data is coming in.”
With the employee’s words, multiple blue dots appeared on the board. Fortunately, approximately eleven blue dots were marked near the red one.
“That should be enough.”
“Yes, it seems it can be handled quickly.”
“Inform the users in the dungeon region of the current situation and tell them to hold their positions if possible. Well, if anyone is interested in raid rewards, tell them to move quickly into the Raid Event area… then issue a general announcement that the Raid Event will begin in ten minutes.”
“Understood.”
Considering a raid alert had gone off near Seoul, the Director felt relieved that this could be resolved relatively cleanly.
Recently, Raid Gates have been appearing more frequently worldwide, causing international problems. If one were to form in central Seoul under such circumstances, it would have been truly disastrous.
“Project R needs to show results as soon as possible…”
Some people claimed humanity had already overcome the trials and defeated the ‘Gate’ invasion.
But that was a foolish assertion.
Humanity was still at war with the ‘Gates.’
On the surface, it seemed humanity was overwhelmingly winning that war, but in reality, that wasn’t true.
Recently, the Gates had been gaining significant momentum.
“Keep monitoring, and inform me immediately if there are any changes.”
Director Jeong Yeon Woo sat down behind him, still visibly tense.
Although the situation seemed to be trending in a reassuring direction, he could not relax until the Raid Gate completely disappeared.
***
Seon Yul was cautiously moving, searching for a base point for his third hunt.
Naturally, he knew nothing about what was happening.
The red dot that the Gate Management Bureau predicted to be the Raid Gate generation site was located less than 1km from where Seon Yul stood.
But unaware of this fact, Seon Yul was simply moving slowly, carefully watching for monsters around him.
“If I work hard for about a month, I should be able to reach Level 20, right?”
Reaching Level 20 would likely bring new problems, but he could worry about that then.
For this third hunt, Seon Yul expected it to last at least one month, up to two.
So he had prepared food and other consumables for three months.
Everything was going smoothly.
Now all that remained was choosing a good location and calmly hunting—
Ziiiiiiing!
Suddenly, a powerful wave of mana was felt.
And then came the unbelievable messages.
[Raid Event ‘Giant Armored Beetle’ will begin.]
[You are inside the Raid Event area and are automatically registered as a participant.]
[The event will end in 12 hours. If the raid is not cleared by then, a severe penalty will be imposed.]
“W-what the hell kind of bullshit is this…”
Seon Yul panicked.
Of course, he knew what a Raid Event was.
But he had never imagined he would get dragged into one like this.
Regardless of his shock, the Raid Event proceeded.
Kuuuuung!
A raid monster crawled out from the massive gate.
It was an enormous insect-type monster, about the size of a large passenger airplane.
Its exact grade couldn’t be determined from appearance alone, but it certainly didn’t look low-level.
“First… Absolute Space!”
Fortunately, Seon Yul was on a hill overlooking the location where the Giant Armored Beetle emerged, so it did not immediately discover him.
He immediately opened Absolute Space and retreated inside.
Separate from being registered in the Raid Event, he needed to gather his thoughts in a safe place first.
Meanwhile, just as Seon Yul quickly hid himself, chaos erupted again at the Gate Management Bureau headquarters in Seoul.
“It’s not C-grade… It’s B-grade. It barely exceeded the threshold!”
At the employee’s urgent shout, the Director jumped to his feet again, his expression darkening.
“What do you mean, B-grade?! Even if it barely crossed the line, the difference between B and C is huge! What happened?”
“It seems this raid monster has a main body and additional summoned entities.”
The mana measuring devices used by the Bureau were not precise enough to distinguish between a raid monster’s main body and its summons.
Thus, monsters of such type often caused grading errors, as predictions were made based only on the mana of the summons, not the main body.
“Damn it!!!”
Director Jeong slammed his desk.
“Haah… First, how many participants are currently registered in the Raid Event?”
“We’re checking the community right now.”
Whenever a Raid Event occurred anywhere in the world, a notice listing the region and participants was posted on the global community.
Once the event ended, it was automatically deleted.
Users used that notice to estimate the situation.
“Twelve… participants.”
“Damn it, twelve is far from enough… get our strike team ready… Wait. Why twelve?”
“Pardon?”
“Look at the board. There are eleven dots displayed. Then why does the community show twelve?”
“Ah! We’ll secure the roster immediately!”
“What is this… Did a poacher get caught up in it?”
Those who crossed into the north and hunted without official permission were called ‘poachers.’
Poachers usually operated alone.
The hopeful fact was that their skills were often exceptional.
“What’s the poacher’s ID?”
This wasn’t the time to nitpick.
Even if they were lawbreakers, help was help.
“Confirmed… ‘Absolute… Safety First’… ‘AbsoluteSafetyFirst!’”
By comparing the eleven IDs identified on the board with the community participant list, the result immediately revealed Seon Yul’s ID.
“AbsoluteSafetyFirst? Haah… Who the hell is that?”
The Director knew most poachers.
To operate as one requires at least hunter-grade skills.
Hunter-grade user IDs, whether for good or bad reasons, inevitably became known.
As Director, he knew nearly all hunter-grade user IDs in the country.
But ‘AbsoluteSafetyFirst’ was a completely unfamiliar name.
Not just the Director… no one there had ever heard of it.
“This is bad.”
The slim hope that it was a skilled poacher vanished.
He appeared to be just an illegal trespasser.
This made the situation far worse.
If the Raid Event failed, the raid monster would enter a berserk state and rampage even more violently.
The only solution was to deploy forces into the Raid Event area.
But anyone not initially registered as a participant would receive the ‘Spectator’ debuff upon entering, restricting both awakened abilities and physical capabilities.
In short, they would become weakened.
“Prepare the strike team immediately… and contact any rankers who might be able to assist.”
The strike team alone might not suffice.
They needed rankers.
Powerful users capable of ignoring the Spectator debuff and defeating the raid monster.
The community’s official ranking system displayed rankings up to 2,000th place globally in real time.
Anyone within the world’s top 2,000 was called a ranker.
When humanity’s understanding of Gates was low, they had attempted airstrikes and long-range artillery.
But nothing could penetrate the barrier known as the mana field.
The Jets crashed trying to enter it. Artillery and missiles failed to pierce it.
People once thought that if they couldn’t shoot through it, they could shoot from inside it. But inside the field, nearly all human weapons turned to scrap metal.
There was a reason users relied only on cold weapons like swords, axes, and bows.
In the end, the only viable method was deploying users into the raid area.
“Open group communications with the registered participants… and monitor community reactions.”
Not all users cooperated with the Bureau.
Some had conflicts with it.
Others were completely indifferent.
That’s why community reactions were crucial.
Perhaps a ranker who didn’t get along with the Bureau might still join the Raid Event for other reasons.
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