Chapter 119

[Silent Graveyard]

This was an E-rank gate located in Gampo, and it served a rather unusual purpose.

Waste produced throughout the area was stored inside it. Once enough refuse had accumulated, hunters contracted by a public institution would enter the gate and eliminate its boss.

The result was an innovative method of waste disposal that exploited one particular property of gates: once cleared, they vanished from Earth entirely. Unlike incineration or burial, the process produced virtually no environmental pollution, which was why it had already been adopted by many countries.

Nor was its use limited to port cities. Numerous regions now relied on gates to dispose of their waste.

The system also provided humanity with certain incidental benefits.

As previously mentioned, the E-rank gate known as the Silent Graveyard had long been considered notoriously unprofitable among hunters.

“No items ever drop, and there aren’t even any useful hides. Honestly, don’t you just lose money by going into a place like this?”

“Exactly. All it does is drive up your potion expenses.”

Naturally, hunters avoided grounds that offered no profit.

The government, eager to make use of these inconvenient and unpopular gates, had therefore embraced the waste-disposal method with enthusiasm.

But today, an accident occurred at one such disposal site.

And it was not an incident that had developed overnight.

The disaster had been brewing for four full days.

“Let’s see. The Graveyard disposal site is beginning to fill up.”

The previous day, an official from the Association had summoned a hunter team to close the gate after it reached capacity.

Since the Silent Graveyard was registered as an E-rank gate, the official naturally hired E-rank Awakeners to serve as cleaners.

“All right, everyone. We’ll head inside, clear out the monsters that have accumulated, and finish off the boss as quickly as possible. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Yes!”

But the E-rank team that entered the gate never returned.

When sunset came and there was still no sign of them, the official in charge finally realized something was wrong and checked the gate’s interior.

Only then did they discover the source of the problem.

“W-What is this? What are those little birds doing here? This gate was only supposed to contain slimes...”

The ecosystem within the gate had undergone a rapid transformation.

The phenomenon known as abnormal mutation had reached even this garbage dump.

The Silent Graveyard was no longer an E-rank gate.

‘This is insane!’

There was, in fact, a regulation requiring every gate’s difficulty to be reassessed before cleaners were allowed to enter.

But the Association personnel had neglected the inspection, assuming that nothing significant could possibly happen inside a mere E-rank gate.

Today, the price of that negligence was finally paid.

Five E-rank hunters were dead.

‘What are we supposed to do?’

Of course, the hunters themselves bore some responsibility for failing to verify the gate’s condition independently.

Even so, the primary cause of the accident remained the officials who had violated the safety regulations.

The person in charge stared at the scene in horror.

Yet the response that followed was even more appalling.

“What? The Silent Graveyard underwent an abnormal mutation?”

“Y-Yes!”

“What is its new rank?”

“W-Well, it appears to be D-rank! We saw several small birds flying around inside, and the analysis identified them as D-rank monsters!”

Upon hearing nothing more than this superficial report, the local Hunter Association branch immediately dispatched D-rank hunters.

That hasty decision soon resulted in further casualties.

The abnormal mutations occurring lately were often drastic and unpredictable.

—Grrrk.

—Chirp. Chirp, chirp...

It was entirely possible for higher-ranked monsters to be lurking deeper inside a gate.

Such possibilities had to be taken into careful consideration.

—Gaaaaaah!

The two additional D-rank cleaners entered the dungeon because of the Association’s careless handling of the incident.

Once inside, they discovered that the Association’s assessment had been catastrophically wrong.

The dungeon was swarming with enemies whose magical power reached C-rank.

By the time the two hunters realized the truth, both had already sustained fatal injuries.

Moreover, as always, the people of this planet were willing to sacrifice a measure of safety whenever it allowed them to save money.

“Urgh!”

To reduce the cost of employing cleaners, public institutions filled disposal gates to their absolute limit.

In practical terms, E-rank gates like this one were left unattended for six full days, until the number of monsters within them approached saturation.

But this particular gate had already survived two failed subjugation attempts during that critical period.

“Kyaaak!”

The inevitable result was a dungeon break at the Silent Graveyard.

One hour later...

“What in the world is happening?”

The once-quiet port had descended into chaos.

The enormous red cocoon enveloping the pine forest was so conspicuous that it could be seen from far away.

“Everyone, stay back! This is a dungeon break!”

A crowd of onlookers soon gathered.

The dispatched personnel hurriedly established a restricted perimeter and prevented the residents from approaching.

Now, all they could do was wait for high-ranking hunters to arrive and deal with the monstrous nest.

“Oh my goodness!”

“Stop pushing!”

Then, amid the commotion, an elderly man with white hair came rushing through the crowd, gasping for breath.

The moment he saw the Association personnel stationed in front of the cocoon, he shouted.

“E-Excuse me! You there, from the Association! Have you seen someone named Han Sooyeon?”

“Han Sooyeon?”

“Yes! She’s my granddaughter. She said she was going to work at the Graveyard today, but I haven’t been able to reach her...”

He was the relative of one of the hunters.

After hearing a news report that something had gone wrong at the dungeon his granddaughter had entered, he had rushed there immediately.

What he heard next was devastating.

“If you mean the D-rank hunter Han Sooyeon... a colleague’s testimony has just confirmed that she is dead.”

The old man’s face twisted at the thunderous news.

His heart had been pounding ever since he hurriedly put on his shoes and left home.

For a long time, he stood there in stunned silence.

At last, he managed to speak.

“Th-Then... where is the child now?”

The staff member silently turned toward the red cocoon.

Who could have imagined that his granddaughter would be trapped in such a dreadful place?

The moment he understood the answer, the old man screamed.

“You’re saying my child is still in there? No! Sooyeon! Sooyeon-ah!”

“S-Sir, you can’t go in there!”

“Get out of my way! How can you just stand here while my granddaughter is trapped in a place like that? How?”

The old man’s voice gradually filled with fury.

According to the news, the entire incident had occurred because the official responsible for managing the disposal gate had made a mistake.

‘You were the ones who did something wrong, so why did my granddaughter have to die? And why won’t you take responsibility and bring back the child who died because of you?’

The scream that tore from him was astonishingly powerful for such a frail body.

“Damn you!”

“S-Sir, please calm down.”

“Oh, heavens. How could something like this happen?”

The residents watching the scene pitied the old man.

At the same time, however, many of them believed the situation could not be helped.

The region had a smaller population and therefore faced less danger than major cities.

As a result, fewer hunters were stationed there.

The limited number of Awakeners who lived nearby usually travelled elsewhere in search of gates suited to their rank.

“And while you stand around doing nothing, my granddaughter is supposed to become food for monsters? Is that it? You worthless bastards!”

As the old saying went, people only repaired the barn after the cow had already escaped.

The Association did not decide to send an overwhelmingly powerful A-rank team to the Silent Graveyard until the incident had already spiralled out of control.

That decision delayed the response even further.

The port had no A-rank hunters of its own, meaning suitable personnel had to be recruited from other cities.

How many hours would it take for the cleanup to be completed?

And in the meantime, what would happen to the bodies of the D-rank hunters surrounded by monsters?

“Please...”

The white-haired old man clutched at the clothing of an Association employee and began to beg.

“At the very least, please retrieve their bodies.”

No one answered.

“Please... Someone, please bring back my granddaughter’s body...”

Some of the staff even looked at him coldly.

His circumstances were tragic, but asking hunters to enter a dangerous zone solely to recover corpses was, in all honesty, unreasonable.

“Oh, her mother raised her with so much love and care. How... how could something like this happen to our family?”

At this rate, they would have to hold a funeral over an empty coffin.

The old man’s heart was breaking.

Meanwhile, a reporter at the scene continued photographing the incident, determined not to miss a single detail.

Then he paused.

For a moment, he thought he had seen something unusual moving at the edge of his viewfinder.

“Hmm?”

The reporter absently shifted the angle of his lens.

Only then did he realize that what he had seen was no illusion.

“Gasp!”

Rustle.

Someone was walking out of the nest.

Click!

The reporter instinctively pressed the camera’s shutter.

But when he saw what emerged next, he nearly dropped the camera in shock.

‘K-Kim Kiryeo?’

The man stepping out of the nest was none other than Korea’s fourth S-class hunter.

But for some reason, Kim Kiryeo was in anything but a normal condition.

His upper body was drenched in blood.

Silver spears were embedded in his wounds.

The sight alone radiated a deeply ominous atmosphere.

At that moment, the old man, who had collapsed to the ground, suddenly pointed at the woman in the hunter’s arms and screamed.

“S-Sooyeon-ah!”

Could that sky-blue-haired woman be the granddaughter he had been talking about?

There was no time to ask.

The old man had already rushed toward her.

“Yes! That’s her! That’s Sooyeon, our granddaughter!”

As the elderly Earthling began to sob uncontrollably, one of the startled Association employees addressed the approaching hunter.

“Wait. Who are you, and why are you coming out of there...?”

Apparently, this person did not follow the news very closely.

“Huh? N-No way. Hunter Kim Kiryeo?”

Fortunately, not everyone reacted the same way.

The other employees nearby quickly recognized his face.

Even after someone called his name, Kiryeo remained silent for several moments.

Then a loud voice broke the stillness.

“Thank you, sir!”

It was the old man.

“Thank you so much for bringing our child back. Thank you...”

Weeping and repeatedly bowing his head, the old man accepted the body of his family member from the hunter before him.

For a moment, it almost seemed as though Kim Kiryeo was reluctant to release the body, yielding only to the old man’s desperate pleas.

But perhaps that was merely an impression.

“Excuse me, Hunter. May I ask why you were inside?”

It was time to explain the situation.

Having received no advance notice, the Association personnel were understandably astonished by the sudden appearance of an S-rank hunter.

After a brief pause, Kim Kiryeo offered a few terse statements.

“I’m sorry. Earlier, I happened to overhear an Association employee mention that a dead hunter was inside this cocoon.”

It was, in essence, a confession.

“So I went inside for a moment to retrieve the body.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes.”

Under Korean law, however, voluntarily confessing could serve as a significant mitigating factor.

Moreover, there were several additional arguments he could present in his defence.

“...In any case, the body has been returned to the bereaved family, so everything worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

“Pardon?”

“This time... I would appreciate some leniency, since I didn’t actually harm anyone. Naturally, I also regret what I did. It will never happen again.”

A confession.

An emphasis on the fact that the crime had only been attempted.

A sincere apology.

Kim Kiryeo desperately assembled every plea for leniency he could think of.

There was, however, one thing he had overlooked.

‘Hm?’

The subject.

Why had every sentence he uttered somehow omitted that crucial detail?

‘What exactly has this man been trying to tell me?’

The Association employee fell silent as he considered Kiryeo’s words.

Before long, he arrived at what seemed to be the only reasonable conclusion.

‘Oh. Is he apologizing for entering a restricted area without permission?’

Logically, that was the only thing an S-rank hunter could possibly need to apologize for.

“Whew. It’s fine! There’s no problem.”

The Association employee immediately waved his hands in reassurance.

“You seem to have misunderstood. This restricted perimeter was established to stop civilians from wandering across it without realizing the danger. It doesn’t apply to hunters in the first place.”

“...”

“In other words, you don’t need our permission to enter the dungeon. Especially not when you’re an S-class hunter.”

How unexpected must that explanation have sounded to Kiryeo?

“?”

Several seconds later, the man with the sambaegan eyes finally realized that the two of them had been talking about entirely different things.

“Yes.”

Nevertheless, the misunderstanding worked in his favour.

For the time being, he decided to go along with it.