Chapter 133

First of all, S-rank dungeon breaks were exceedingly rare.

In fact, throughout all of recorded history, there had only ever been one confirmed case of an S-rank monster appearing on Earth.

‘Until now, the only such dungeon was the one belonging to [Nuckelavee] in Hawaii.’

Although it had been incomplete, [Inevitable Malice] had likewise been officially classified as S-rank, causing news of the incident to spread around the world.

“Did you say you saw an article about me earlier?”

“Yes. The giant serpent was reported on in our country as well.”

To think she would encounter the nameless Hunter who had killed the Imoogi here.

Brooklyn Morgan regarded the man before her with keen interest. He certainly seemed different from the other S-ranks she had met.

“But you really don’t seem to possess any remarkable magical power, do you?”

“...”

“This feels like F-rank. No, with the right circumstances, someone might even mistake you for an ordinary person.”

As she had just said, the modern world was a global society. Even events in foreign countries became known almost instantly.

So Giryeo decided to bluff here as well.

“I deliberately reduced it to this level.”

What shamelessness.

“Oh!”

The woman gasped in amazement.

“That’s impressive. You’re doing it out of consideration for weaker people, aren’t you? I’ve actually been experimenting with similar methods lately. The bracelet I’m wearing right now is an item that continuously consumes magical power.”

“I see.”

“B-But I’ve never seen anyone suppress it so completely. How did you do it? Your condition appears perfectly stable.”

Brooklyn Morgan seemed intensely interested in the method of concealing one’s awakening level and immediately began bombarding him with questions.

“Does suppressing it that much hurt? Does your body feel heavy?”

That was a difficult question for someone who was not merely concealing his awakening level, but genuinely possessed almost none.

[Test, test...]

“Hmm?”

“Huh?”

A few tapping sounds came from the ceiling. A moment later, an announcement echoed throughout the hotel.

[We thank all participants for attending and would like to announce that the event is about to begin. Hunters, please gather in the central hall.]

Giryeo seized upon the announcement as an excuse to escape the conversation.

“Then I’ll be going.”

“Oh... I’ll see you later.”

Getting drawn into another confrontation would only cause trouble.

From now on, he needed to remain safely hidden behind his companion.

***

A few minutes later.

“...and so, on the occasion of our guild’s fifth anniversary, we pledge to continue doing everything in our power to protect the safety of the world.”

Gate Star’s guild master delivered a speech before the event began.

Fortunately, it proved surprisingly brief.

“Haha. With Hunters gathered here from all over the world, it would be rather dull if I spent the entire evening boasting about Gate Star, wouldn’t it?”

The guild master concluded his introduction with a friendly smile.

“To all our heroes. Cheers!”

With that toast, the invited Hunters began forming small groups and enjoying the party.

Since it was a gathering of S-rank Hunters, the environment was too oppressive for most ordinary people to endure. As a result, there was no orchestra of the sort usually found at events like this.

‘What a shame. I wanted to hear some of Earth’s music...’

While Esther spoke with a Brazilian Hunter, I kept a reasonable distance from her and sampled the food.

Crunch.

I particularly liked the crackers topped with various ingredients.

‘It-It’s delicious...!’

But eating could only remain entertaining for so long.

If I continued at this pace, I would soon be full, and then I would have nothing left to do for the remaining hours of the party.

‘Should I listen to what they’re talking about?’

Driven by sudden curiosity, I leaned slightly in Esther’s direction.

Unfortunately, the movement caught the attention of the Brazilian Hunter standing beside her.

“And who is the person with you...?”

“Oh! That’s my partner. He’s an S-rank Hunter too.”

“Wow.”

His skin was nearly black, and his hair was arranged in dreadlocks.

Earth possessed just as much physical variety as my home planet. Though in our case, it was the color of our blood that differed rather than our skin.

“Hello.”

I greeted the male Hunter politely.

Once again, however, I was met with an excessive amount of enthusiasm and attention.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you! You’re the Hunter who dealt with that S-rank dungeon break, aren’t you?”

Just how widely had the [Inevitable Malice] incident been reported?

Everyone seemed to mention it the moment they saw me.

“That’s true, but I didn’t do it alone.”

“You had companions?”

“I merely delivered the final blow after the woman standing before you had already done most of the work.”

I honestly admitted that I had only contributed the finishing touch, but the man shook his head and laughed heartily.

“Haha! Miss Esther told me you did everything yourself.”

Damn it.

Standing out among monsters like these could only bring me trouble, yet Esther had apparently transferred all the credit for defeating the Imoogi onto me.

‘Hey, don’t be so unnecessarily humble!’

The longer this conversation continued, the worse things would become.

“Please, continue your conversation. I’m just going to get something to drink...”

I hastily adjusted the earpiece over my ear and stepped away.

Crash!

But what in the world was that?

‘Huh?’

A faint sensation rose from deep inside my chest.

Pressure suddenly gathered at a point on my skin, but it was not the sensation of someone pressing down with a finger.

I had been injured.

The pain had simply fallen below the threshold my body was capable of registering.

‘What is this?’

It had happened in the blink of an eye.

A wineglass thrown from somewhere had struck me directly.

Worse still, it had been hurled with such force that it shattered into sharp fragments the instant it hit my body.

“Ahhh!”

“Oh my!”

“Giryeo-ssi!”

My shirt was drenched in wine and covered with shards of glass.

Fortunately, I had remembered to wear my reinforced ring, so the impact left nothing more than a minor bruise.

‘S-rank magical power.’

I raised my head and looked in the direction from which the glass had come.

A Western man stood there with a startled expression.

“Damn it!”

It was someone I had already encountered.

The man called Enzo stood frozen in place, swearing under his breath.

“Hunter Enzo! What in the world are you doing?”

“Wait! This happened because of that Canadian over there. Do you know what he just said? How dare he disgrace our guild at a gathering like this...”

Judging from his explanation, he had not been aiming at me.

He had apparently thrown the glass as a warning, and I had simply been unlucky enough to stand in its path.

“Oh my, your shirt is completely soaked! Are you all right?”

Esther rushed over and hurriedly inspected me.

Still, the defensive item had performed well.

Without it, the shattered glass would now have been embedded in my flesh.

‘Was coming to America a mistake...?’

With a doubtful expression, I calmly began cleaning myself off.

I brushed the glass fragments from the hem of my clothes.

“Hmm.”

Now it was time for the other party to apologize.

“Wait. Why did you let that hit you?”

Instead, I received an unexpected question.

“Enzo!”

“No, that’s strange. Whatever type of Awakener you are, you’re still an S-rank Hunter. How could you fail to dodge something like that?”

“...!”

Oh dear.

Enzo’s question was surprisingly reasonable.

Top-ranking Awakeners stood at the forefront of human evolution. Naturally, they possessed physical abilities that bordered on monstrous.

‘Did he notice how poor my reflexes are?’

The sudden interrogation left me flustered.

This was bad.

It seemed the fox that had accidentally wandered into the tiger’s den was about to have its disguise exposed before everyone.

What was I supposed to do?

“Haah. You idiot.”

At that moment, the female Hunter standing beside Enzo spoke with a stern expression, defending me in my place.

“How oblivious can you be? Can’t you see? Esther was standing directly behind him.”

“What?”

“If he had dodged, the wine would have ruined the dress of the guest behind him! He allowed himself to be hit because he was protecting his partner. Do you understand now?”

At her shout, the gazes of the surrounding guests shifted toward a single person.

Esther stood there in an evening gown of subdued color.

Given her position, if I had avoided the glass, she undoubtedly would have been splashed with wine instead.

“Apologize to him at once!”

“Oh my God...”

I had only been struck because I had reacted too slowly.

Yet in the space of a few seconds, I had somehow become a noble gentleman who had deliberately taken the blow to protect his companion.

Moreover, the atmosphere had already grown far too tense for me to step forward and deny it.

“Giryeo-ssi...”

The red-haired Hunter beside me was already close to tears.

“Enzo, hurry up.”

“A-Anyway, I’m sorry!”

“It’s all right.”

Without hesitation, I approached the nearby table.

I accepted the convenient interpretation of events without protest and quickly left the scene under the pretext of changing my clothes.

“I’ll come with you!”

“Esther-ssi, you can remain here.”

“It’s fine. I’ve already collected all the contact information I needed.”

Now that Esther had left as well, there was no reason for us to return to that den.

The party had been growing tedious anyway.

Perhaps this incident had been a stroke of good fortune after all.

‘Thank you, my international friend!’

As I left the hotel, I offered my deepest gratitude to the golden-haired benefactor who had so helpfully resolved the situation.

***

A few hours later.

“Brooklyn, how was the party?”

New York’s [Spectrum] Guild.

It was a world-class giant whose name was recognized by nearly everyone.

The number of S-rank Hunters affiliated with it even exceeded Gate Star’s, and its influence was so immense that government agencies occasionally hesitated to oppose it.

It was, in every sense, a predatory organization standing at the forefront of the modern era.

“It was awful.”

It appeared, however, that Brooklyn Morgan, one of the guild’s agents, had endured a particularly difficult evening.

Crack.

The tall woman complained the moment she dropped onto the sofa, stretching out her legs.

“That partner you assigned to me, Enzo—he caused one problem after another. I was so busy worrying about what he might do next that I couldn’t concentrate on gathering information at all!”

The elderly white man standing by the window listened silently to her complaints before speaking.

“So there was nothing else unusual?”

The blonde woman paused, as though something had suddenly occurred to her.

“There was one strange Hunter.”

“Who?”

“Two S-rank Hunters came from Korea, but for some reason, I could barely sense any mana from the man.”

Brooklyn recalled the Hunter she had met.

A cold-blooded man who had not so much as flinched when struck by sharp fragments of glass.

And yet...

“I think he’s lying about his awakening level.”

Surprisingly, despite having openly defended him at the party, Brooklyn had secretly reached an entirely different conclusion.

“The glass Enzo threw... I covered for him at the time because I was worried the incident might escalate into a diplomatic problem. But honestly, the fact that an S-rank Hunter failed to avoid it was suspicious in itself.”

Brooklyn Morgan crossed one leg over the other as she continued.

“For some reason, he didn’t seem like a normal S-rank.”

Could the Korean Hunter Association have been involved in falsifying Kim Giryeo’s rank?

It was not an impossible scenario.

China, for example, had been accused of inflating the number of its S-rank Awakeners in order to display its national strength.

Considering that precedent, another such case emerging now would hardly be surprising.

“Hmm... Still, I’m not certain. The Hunter remained remarkably calm, so it’s difficult to believe he was merely putting on an act.”

“Is that so?”

“A fraud probably wouldn’t deliberately show his face at an event like that, would he?”

A Hunter of unknown rank.

“Interesting. I’ll give you some time. Find out more about him.”

After hearing her account, the manager of the Spectrum Guild ordered Brooklyn to investigate the man named Kim Giryeo.

“Are you serious?”

“Of course. After you complete the project currently underway.”

If he truly had lied about his rank, then exposing South Korea for presenting a puppet S-rank could prove advantageous.

And if he turned out to be a genuine S-rank Hunter, there would be no harm in learning more about him either.

The unavoidable subjugation of evildoers.

The complete conquest of Mermaid Pass.

Objectively speaking, the man was highly unusual.

“South Korea, is it? Four S-ranks certainly seems excessive for a country of that size...”

The elderly man by the window adjusted the glasses resting on the bridge of his nose and murmured quietly.