Chapter 116

A Few Months Ago.

Golem.

Absorbent.

When I saw things common in my homeland appearing here in the Solar System as well, that was the first thought that crossed my mind.

‘Good heavens, Alphauri’s influence has spread even to Earth! I should bite my tongue and die before they capture me!’

At the time, I was physically and mentally exhausted after endless stretches of overtime. I was so badly rattled that even the sight of a startled pot lid reacting to a child made me jump. For one horrifying moment, I thought someone from Alphauri might have followed me all the way here.

‘Eek!’

Once I calmed down and gave the matter some thought, however, I realized that it made no sense.

How had I reached Earth in the first place? Through reincarnation magic.

And who had invented reincarnation magic?

I had. I was the first person in history to develop it.

Of course, [N O V E L I G H T] now that I was trapped in the body of that worthless Kim Kiryeo, every last shred of my former dignity had vanished...

Still, let me make this perfectly clear: I had been the greatest magical genius in my homeland.

Could anyone truly have surpassed an archmage like me and extended their reach to a planet this distant?

Impossible.

As someone who had stood at the very forefront of magical science, I could state with absolute certainty that intergalactic travel was beyond Alphauri’s capabilities. Their technological limitations had made even observing Earth difficult. And yet I was supposed to believe that they had somehow created the Gates and begun influencing this world?

Developing technology of that magnitude would have taken them centuries.

‘Besides, the Gates appeared before I was reincarnated. The timing doesn’t match.’

Then who, exactly, had created them?

Only one hypothesis remained.

“Hmm.”

I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, and entered a few words into the search bar.

[Gate Monster Encyclopedia]

Several photographs appeared in the search results.

‘Yes.’

One of them immediately caught my attention: a creature whose articulated joints gleamed with a bluish tint.

That single image was enough for me to identify the culprits behind the Gates.

‘Those things must be controlling this monster.’

How should I describe their species in Earth’s language?

Star Wanderers?

Too poetic.

Nomads?

Awful.

After considerable deliberation, I decided to translate their name as Hunger Heart Entities.

‘Gi’ (飢), meaning hunger, and ‘Sim’ (心), meaning heart.

In other words, beings that hunger for the hearts of living creatures.

As for the defining characteristics of the Hunger Heart Entities...

Let me summarize them briefly.

‘There’s no doubt about it.’

I hadn’t realized it at first, but now I could see that these creatures always employed the same strategy to lure their prey.

The rare items discovered inside Gates were clearly bait.

Furthermore, Hunger Heart Entities tended to construct their bait boxes using information gathered from planets they had previously visited. That would explain why materials and creatures native to Alphauri so often appeared inside the Gates.

‘I can’t believe this...’

The invaders that had once set their sights on my homeland were now threatening this planet of milk and honey.

They could never have imagined events unfolding this way.

‘I suppose living a long life really does let you witness all sorts of things.’

Why did I know so much about the Hunger Heart Entities?

And why had the invaders I encountered on Alphauri travelled all the way to this distant solar system?

Every answer led back to the same conclusion.

They had nearly been driven to extinction on Alphauri.

More precisely...

They had nearly been exterminated by a certain archmage.

‘Hmph.’

I had been Alphauri’s foremost magician, and my primary responsibility had been the defence of the planet.

So what would happen when a cosmic parasite invaded the home of a wizard of my calibre?

To put it plainly, I slaughtered them.

No, perhaps “slaughtered” was a little harsh.

After all, they were the ones who had crossed the border without permission.

‘I wondered where they had fled after I punished them so thoroughly. To think they escaped all the way to this distant galaxy.’

Hunger Heart Entities.

Once their true nature was understood, the purpose of the Gates became much clearer.

As I had already mentioned, the Hunger Heart Entities had nearly gone extinct because of me.

‘They’re being cautious.’

A Gate was essentially a feeding straw.

The Hunger Heart Entities deliberately created dungeons so they could remain at a safe distance from Earth. If they exposed their true bodies carelessly, they risked suffering the same complete annihilation they had narrowly escaped before.

‘For now, they intend to keep feeding through their little straws.’

Considering their limitations, I could probably carry out a second extermination if I managed to seize their true bodies.

The thought reminded me of something, and I opened the Hunter Market on my phone.

[Search term: Dragon’s Lung]

[Search results: 0]

‘Huh.’

Judging by the current state of affairs, however, my reunion with them was still a long way off.

***

The following day, around lunchtime—roughly twenty-four hours after the iron-door Gate had appeared—

[Breaking news. The Labyrinth of the 13th Month in Africa, which remained uncleared, has ultimately ended in failure.]

I bit into a potato chip as I listened to the breaking report.

The news was hardly surprising.

‘Just as I enjoy these snacks, do the Hunger Heart Entities savour the emotion of fear?’

I had once conducted a brief study of their ecology.

Hunger Heart Entities were remarkably fussy eaters. The fact that they drew energy from the mental activity of other beings was strange enough, but they displayed a particular fondness for the fear and suffering of living creatures.

‘Emotions such as joy were merely treated as supplementary nutrients.’

Did you know the true purpose of EX-class dungeons?

They did indeed serve as tests of human intelligence, but their more important function was to analyse the emotional structure of Earth’s inhabitants.

They gathered information about what humans loved and cherished.

Then they studied that information meticulously, all so they could torment the minds of their hosts more effectively.

‘Hmm.’

Still, judging by the fact that they were experimenting with relatively simple EX-class dungeons, they probably had not been on Earth for very long.

Perhaps because I had already studied their species so thoroughly, I found the matter rather uninteresting.

I idly finished the last of my potato chips.

—Tiring♪

But a curious sound like that was another matter.

“Was that a message?”

Click.

I picked up the phone beside me and checked the notification.

[Sender: Seo Esther]

[Check your bank account. I’ve just transferred your share of the strategy reward. (∩_∩)]

Oh?

***

‘Esther often adds strange symbols to the ends of her messages, but I have no idea what they mean.’

Ice cracked beneath his feet with every step.

‘But if I ask her out of curiosity, she’ll think I’m an alien...’

When he stepped outside, he found the streets buried beneath a thick blanket of snow. Fine crystals of ice drifted down from the sky.

In his homeland, he had mostly encountered glaciers submerged beneath water, so the sight of frozen particles falling freely through the air still felt peculiar.

‘Oh. It’s still snowing.’

Kim Kiryeo strode onwards, watching the snowflakes descend.

There was only one reason he had ventured outside on such a bitterly cold day.

He intended to spend the money Esther had transferred immediately.

Money had been the only thing holding him back. There was never any shortage of items he wanted to buy.

‘Let’s assume the three billion won I extorted from the association president is tied up as scrap value...’

That left him with roughly two hundred million won in available funds.

‘Should I use this opportunity to buy more items, enhance them, and give them to Gu Seohyeong?’

He had become the fourth S-class hunter and risen dramatically through the hunter rankings. His new status allowed him to move freely among society’s most influential figures.

Now he could spend his money however he pleased.

Yet the closer he came to the Hunter Market, the stranger the atmosphere became.

‘What’s going on?’

Kim Kiryeo slowed when he noticed the crowd gathered around the main entrance.

On closer inspection, however, it did not appear to be a queue for the market. The people had been lingering in the same place for some time, barely moving.

‘Is something happening today?’

Kiryeo tilted his head and walked past them.

“Ah.”

Only after reaching the front did he understand.

At the centre of the mysterious crowd stood the most famous hunter in the country.

‘Jung Haseong?’

Haseong was surrounded by people and appeared to be discussing something, but Kim Kiryeo had little interest in their conversation.

He pretended not to recognise him.

Then—

“Hunter Kiryeo!”

To his surprise, Jung Haseong called out the moment he spotted him, greeting Kim Kiryeo with unusual volume and enthusiasm.

Kiryeo stopped, startled by the sudden shout.

Haseong hurried over and, with visible difficulty, began forcing out a few words.

“Did you sleep well last night?”

“It’s snowing quite heavily today, isn’t it?”

“Have you eaten?”

Contrary to Kiryeo’s expectations, the questions were painfully mundane.

“Yes.”

Still, a fraud like him could not afford to treat a genuine S-class hunter carelessly.

He forced himself to play along.

“Have you eaten?”

“Ah, yes. I have...”

But allowing the conversation to drag on indefinitely would only become troublesome.

The black-haired young man kept hesitating, mumbling instead of broaching whatever subject he had originally intended to discuss.

“Why? Is there something else you wanted to say?”

In the end, Kim Kiryeo lost patience and urged him to get to the point.

Only then did Jung Haseong finally raise the real subject.

“Hunter Kim Kiryeo, would you consider joining our guild?”

The opening question came so abruptly that it felt as though several necessary stages of the conversation had been skipped.

“What? A guild?”

“Actually, I had planned to continue inviting you after we finished the Labyrinth of the 13th Month. But since we happened to meet like this, I thought it might be better to make the offer now.”

“...”

“I caused you trouble in the past, so I felt uncomfortable asking you to set aside time for me...”

Kiryeo interrupted him.

There was something he needed to establish first.

“Haseong, you have a guild?”

The country’s number-one-ranked hunter promptly explained that he was, in fact, the CEO of a company called [Garion].

According to him, the company operated rather differently from an ordinary guild. Most of its personnel were organised exclusively to support S-class operations.

“If you join our guild, we can accommodate virtually any conditions you may have.”

Jung Haseong placed a hand over his chest as he spoke.

“Of course, we’ll also ensure that you receive a highly favourable share of the profits, Hunter.”