The Otherworldly Magic Swordsman Who Disciplines the Hunter World Chapter 17

“Listen carefully to what I am about to say from now on.”

Gong Siyoung grabbed Julian’s arm. He explained as calmly as possible to the man who looked utterly bewildered.

“The conditions will be activated once you get near that monster. When the monster asks a question, just answer yes.”

“What?”

“I said, just answer yes.”

Julian blinked. At the vacuous reaction, the grip on his shoulder tightened.

“Just… no matter what, say yes.”

Julian nodded at the words that sounded half like a threat.

“Yes.”

“Good. Let’s go. You two, stay right there.”

Gong Siyoung warned Woo Yujin and Gu Jayoung, who were about to follow. There was no further explanation.

Julian looked back at the two while following behind the leading Gong Siyoung.

Woo Yujin shrugged. It seemed those two were equally clueless about what was happening.

When Julian’s pace slowed slightly, Gong Siyoung noticed instantly and looked back. A thoroughly cowed Julian hurried to catch up with short steps.

“You don’t feel like giving me a more detailed explanation?”

“I explained it earlier. The conditions activate when you get near the monster. Just answer yes to whatever it asks.”

“No… forget it.”

Julian smacked his lips. He saw a back of a head that looked just as determined as the firm voice sounded.

Between the situation where he had been swept into joining them and Gong Siyoung giving orders so naturally, not a single thing was going as expected.

‘I didn’t intend for it to be like this…’

How did it come to this? He had just planned to hide and watch the fight… he had even used invisibility magic to approach for that purpose, so at this rate, he had wasted his mana for nothing.

Of all times, why did he have to discover people falling through the air? He couldn’t just sit there twiddling his thumbs when people were about to die right in front of him.

Leaving aside the fact that he stepped in instinctively, Julian still couldn’t understand why they had suddenly collapsed so helplessly.

“But that thing isn’t a monster.”

He met the giant’s red eyes. Though it wore a mask, he knew the giant’s true identity.

“It’s a Custos.”

As if reacting to Julian’s voice, the giant opened its mouth.

〈This is the domain of the chosen one. Have you been chosen?〉

Gong Siyoung poked him hard in the side. Julian glared at him while stroking his aching flank. Gong Siyoung mouthed silently.

‘Say yes.’

… What is this, really. Since I’m told to do it, I’ll do it, but… what changes if I answer yes?

He pouted. He was full of complaints and questions, but for now, he answered with the mindset of just following orders.

“Yes.”

[ All requirements have been met by the response of <The Chosen One>. ]

[ The 1st Circle (D) : ‘Limbo’, guarded by the 「Sentinel of Niflheim」, is unlocked. ]

The giant began to walk backward. Thump; every time the ground shook, his body broke apart like pieces of sugar.

Two steps, three steps; leaving crumbs behind, he shattered into pieces.

Beneath him, where only the traces of complete destruction remained, a pitch-black door was revealed. A time appeared above the narrow black door, which was barely wide enough for one person to enter.

[ 48:00:00 until Gate Open ]

Julian looked at Gong Siyoung like a puppy waiting for the next command. He pointed at the door.

“What is that?”

Gong Siyoung spoke while staring at the remorselessly decreasing time.

“… It means we’re screwed.”

∞ ∞ ∞

A black door was revealed behind the crumbling giant.

The screen froze on the scene of Gong Siyoung staring at the door with a serious face. Gong Sijin let out a sigh while pressing down on his tired eyes.

“We can’t solve this among ourselves.”

He muttered while looking at the scene on the TV.

It wasn’t intentional, but handing the body cam to Julian had been the right choice. Thanks to that, the situation inside the dungeon was recorded without missing a single detail.

Gong Sijin looked around at the people gathered in the meeting room. Gong Siyoung, Julian, Woo Yujin, and Gu Jayoung, who had entered the dungeon, were there, as well as the Guild Master Gong Sijin and the Vice-Master Park Ildo. The situation was that serious.

“I’ll contact the Bureau personally. If I show them the footage, they’ll come up with a countermeasure too.”

Gong Sijin rubbed the bridge of his nose. His face was full of shadows, showing how much of a headache he had.

It made sense. Unlike expectations, the dungeon that was said to be “a bit strange” was not just a little strange.

The door that appeared at the giant’s feet was clearly a Gate.

A Gate within a Gate. No one knew what kind of dungeon would appear once they passed through that door below.

The atmosphere sank at this unprecedented situation. Only Julian, who did not understand the situation, looked around with a perfectly peaceful face.

This was because there was no one to explain the severity of this matter, and even if they did, he wouldn’t really understand it.

No matter how well Julian read the room, he couldn’t pretend to know something he didn’t.

Since entering the dungeon, Julian had never once seen anything like a status window.

Therefore, he couldn’t see the time limit floating above the door, and the same went for the thing about unlocking.

For Julian, who couldn’t grasp the situation at all, Gong Sijin began a lecture that went all the way back to “What fundamentally is a status window?”

If it weren’t for Gong Siyoung’s barked command to stop, the two might still be digging into the origins of status windows.

In any case, now was not the time to be sitting around giving easy-going explanations. A Gate within a Gate. Even at a glance, it sounded terribly ominous.

Moreover, they had to enter that place 48 hours later.

“It’s a relief that it’s a D-rank at least… but more than that, I don’t understand those words. There must be a reason they specifically attached the phrase ‘1st Circle’.”

Why on earth was the word ‘1st’ attached? Unless there were a 2nd, 3rd, and so on?

In the worst-case scenario, it could be a Gate within a Gate, and then another Gate inside that Gate.

Silence hung in the air, as if everyone was thinking the same thing. In the midst of this, only the sound of Julian rolling his chair—uninterested in the situation—could be heard.

Unable to stand the grating noise of the rolling wheels, Gong Siyoung grabbed the back of the chair tightly. He pulled Julian, chair and all, toward him and sent him a sharp glance.

Only after confirming that Julian was sitting properly with good posture did he speak. Even so, his eyes remained fixed on Julian as a warning.

“As you saw, skills were disabled during combat. This makes no sense.”

If even Gong Siyoung’s S-rank skills were disabled, the rest was obvious. If the same thing happened again, they might be wiped out just like that.

Hunters without skills were not much different from ordinary people. If they were disarmed in front of a monster, there was no other way but to die, no matter how positively one thought about it.

The Vice-Master, Park Ildo, who had been sitting without saying a word until then, tapped the table.

He gestured with his chin toward Julian, who was sitting next to Gong Siyoung.

“But how did that guy over there use skills?”

The body cam captured everything, including Julian using invisibility and flying around to save Gong Siyoung and the group. Since it was recorded from Julian’s perspective, there was no room for confusion.

“That is…”

People’s gazes turned toward Julian. Julian, who had been staring only at Gong Siyoung’s hand while wondering how he could roll his chair again, flinched and his shoulders trembled. He blinked awkwardly at the focused stares.

“… Why are you looking at me like that?”

“We’re curious how you used skills.”

“Skills… Ah, magic?”

“Magic or whatever the hell.”

Park Ildo cut him off. With a strong tone and an aggressive finger pointed at Julian as if telling him not to talk nonsense, he continued.

“Was it Julian? To begin with, I didn’t even believe you crossed over from inside a dungeon. I thought some screw-loose bastard had just rolled into the dungeon (crawled into the gate)… but this is going too far. A screw-loose guy and a guy who sneakily uses skills all by himself are two very different things.”

One person alone being able to use skills in that kind of situation?

To put it bluntly, if he had bad intentions, killing people without lifting a finger would be easy. From his appearance to his identity, there wasn’t a single thing that wasn’t suspicious. He had not an ounce of trust for Julian, and he had no intention of hiding it.

“I only kept my mouth shut because the Master told me to. I still find you incredibly suspicious, you know?”

Park Ildo raised his voice, asking if the whole “Chosen One” thing wasn’t also that guy’s scheme. His argument was that if this was a trap, they must never go inside.

“Aside from delegating the Gate within the dungeon to the Bureau and forming a team with the Guild Alliance to tackle it, there aren’t many other ways. We’ll proceed with that as planned, and for now, I think I need to grill that guy over there to find out something. Isn’t it strange? How can a person who claims they can’t even see the status window rattle off the monster’s name so easily?”

Park Ildo clenched his fist tight. The way he waved it in the air made it look like he had done his fair share of threatening in the old days.

Even though he was being openly suspected, Julian showed no particular reaction. That kind of threat? Well. It wasn’t as if he was saying he’d cut off his hands or feet, so it just sounded cute.

“What does the status window have to do with the monster’s name? And I told you, that isn’t a monster.”

Who calls a Custos a monster? Julian clicked his tongue. What a bunch of common-sense-lacking other-worlders.

“A Custos is a summon.”