Chapter 52: D-Grade Gate (2)

“Wh-What? Fcking? Did you just say fcking to me?! Huh?!”

“Yeah, you fcking bstard. Are your ears going bad with age?”

“Huh…! A guy who looks younger than me is saying something to an adult-“

“Right. You do look much older than me. You have the face for it, you know.”

“This is real…!”

Do Jihun, who momentarily raised his fist, met my eyes.

Even though I didn’t release any killing intent this time, his body stiffened for a moment.

Do Jihun looked at my solid body at a glance, compared it to his own body, which had accumulated fat while living as a mage, and then lowered his fist.

He seemed to realize that he had no chance of winning in a physical fight.

Yu Ayeon, embarrassed by the sudden quarrel, tried to stop me.

“S-Suhyeon…! Wh-Why are you suddenly like this…! C-Calm down first…”

“Do you think I can calm down right now? I’m doing this because of you, Ayeon.”

“…Yes?”

“I can’t just stand by and watch a bstard who openly insulted you in front of me. I have to get an apology from that bstard.”

“Ugh…!”

Besides, seeing a hunter who treats porters like sh*t made my blood boil.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been a porter for a long time, but I react like I’m pressing a trigger button when I see a guy like that.

I turned my head back to look at Do Jihun and was about to open my mouth, but as things weren’t going his way, he started to cry.

“Hic… Sob… Even so… Hic… You’re too harsh… Sob…!”

Huweooooooo!

Hearing the man’s crying, the sweet women rushed over like mindless giants and began to check Do Jihun’s condition.

“Wh-What’s wrong all of a sudden? Why is this person suddenly like this?”

“Hic… You’re really too much… How can you say such harsh things…? Sob…!”

“Yes? You said Han Suhyeon said harsh things?”

“What did he say?”

“To me, hic… f-fcking bstard… hic… I just wanted to get along… Sob…!”

“…Did he really say that? Really?”

“M-Maybe you misheard? And even if he really cursed… What did you say to make him curse right away?”

“Th-That’s… Oh, anyway…! Hic…! I-I really did say that…! Hic…! Sob…!”

Shield-girl asked Do Jihun again if it was true, and Spear-girl, who said she was my fan, looked at me with an expression that said it couldn’t be true.

Embarrassed by Spear-girl’s sharp question, Do Jihun cried louder and hid the truth.

He must have been embarrassed. Until now, the female hunters he had met would have taken care of him just by crying a little.

But the situation was different now.

A normal man from a mindless feminist group, a beehive, who seems to be ruining the party’s atmosphere, and a handsome man who protects and gets angry with the woman who was insulted by him.

It was obvious who the women of the reversed world would side with.

Besides, an arrow of help came from an unexpected place.

“Tsk… You’re the fcking bstard, you b*stard.”

The middle-aged man, Kim Junseo, who had been watching the situation from a step away, opened his mouth.

“Wh-What did you say?!”

“You were 25 minutes late and you didn’t even apologize properly, you just made excuses, and even if she’s a porter, you’re rude enough to throw your backpack at her. Then you’re a fcking bstard, what. Han Suhyeon said it well.”

“Huh! I apologized just now, so it’s okay, and it’s natural to treat porters like that, isn’t it? Why are you all doing this to me! That’s why they say a man’s enemy is another man! Sob…!”

“…Tsk. This guy is not ordinary.”

As the argument grew louder, Manager Eun finally stepped in and mediated the situation.

Because Manager Eun was constantly watching me, I couldn’t break that guy’s head and only fought with words.

Let’s see you inside the gate.

It was hard to say that the party’s atmosphere was good, even with empty words.

The camaraderie was long gone, and the other hunters’ gazes were cold.

Of course, that’s what Do Jihun, who was stuck in that corner, thought, and the atmosphere of the other hunters, including me and Yu Ayeon, wasn’t that bad.

Rather, the other hunters seemed to feel a little closer to each other through a series of disturbances.

Manager Eun, who pressed the bridge of her nose as if she was tired, began the briefing on the gate.

“The D-rank gate that occurred this time is a one-way gate. The field is a wetland, and D-rank monsters Giant Alligator and D-rank monster Lizardman mainly appear.”

The Giant Alligator is literally a huge alligator, and the Lizardman is one of the strongest monsters among D-rank.

It’s almost like a low-level C-rank monster, with an alligator-like appearance, bipedal like a human, and capable of wielding weapons with its hands.

“There are few trap gimmicks inside the gate, but the inside of the gate is very wide. The estimated clear time is 36 hours.”

36 hours. It was the longest time among D-rank gates.

Manager Eun added that most of the clear time would be spent on movement.

“And this is a needless worry, but the frequency of high-level monster appearances has been increasing recently. They may appear in the gate you will enter this time, so please be careful.”

Spear-girl chimed in with Manager Eun’s words.

“Ah! I saw that on the news! And there seemed to be some kind of black monster…”

“…The association is currently analyzing that phenomenon. Anyway, is there anything you don’t understand about the briefing I’ve done so far?”

Everyone shook their heads, and they immediately began to form a formation naturally.

Spear-girl and Shield-girl were in the front, followed by mage Do Jihun, then Yu Ayeon and healer Kim Junseo side by side, and me at the very back.

Still, they were D-rank hunters in name, so they found their places without any special communication.

I looked at Yu Ayeon, who was putting her luggage on her shoulder, and asked.

“Did you pack everything?”

“Yes. Uh… Chang-yeori’s, Bang Doso’s, Kim Junseo’s luggage… And my luggage… Do Jihun said Suhyeon… told him to carry it himself, so I’m not carrying it… Suhyeon has an inventory… Yes. I packed everything.”

“Good. Then let’s go too.”

“…A-Are we… going to come back alive…?”

It was already her second gate, but Yu Ayeon still seemed afraid to enter the gate.

“Of course. I’ll protect you, Ayeon. And we have the ring. It’ll be okay.”

“……Ugh… Yes…”

“…Tsk. The two of you are having a lot of fun. A lot of fun.”

“Hey, Hyung. I’ll help you when you’re in danger too, Hyung.”

“…Tsk. If you’re in the rear, you should obviously protect the healer and the porter.”

The middle-aged man Kim Junseo was a much better person than I thought.

He also stepped in when I was arguing with Do Jihun earlier, and he looked strangely pleased to be called Hyung at an age where he should be hearing …Seo?

He was like an aunt who was gruff and grumbled but took care of everything. In this world, he’s an uncle, though.

“Everyone, come back alive. I’ll be waiting.”

“Yes. Take care, Manager Eun.”

After finishing the conversation, the party stepped into the gate.

The two in front and Do Jihun had already crossed over, and Yu Ayeon, Kim Junseo, and then I entrusted our bodies to the gate.

And at that moment.

Crackkkkkkk!

An unpleasant shock that I had not felt when crossing the previous gate covered my whole body.

Feeling the fading sensation, I reached out to the two people in front of me.

“Wh-What!”

Manager Eun shouted, looking at the gate where the party had just entered.

A creepy aura was felt from beyond the gate, and at the same time, the gate began to turn black in an instant.

The gate, which had been blue, turned completely black.

Manager Eun punched the gate with her fist.

Her arm did not enter the gate.

The gate was not completely closed, but entry into the gate from the outside was blocked.

Manager Eun’s expression turned pale as she realized the situation.

The mysterious monster stained with the black aura that was reported the other day.

There was one thing in common with the gates where monsters eroded by the black aura, which made them many times stronger and more ferocious, appeared.

The moment you enter the gate, the gate turns black, and entry and exit are blocked, a strange commonality.

And it becomes a completely different gate than previously predicted.

In other words, all the briefings I just did were meaningless.

Because of that strange phenomenon, only a few of the hunters who entered the black gate came back alive.

If food or other supplies ran out, they couldn’t even go out of the gate to get additional supplies.

It was an unreasonable phenomenon that was called a miracle that even a few came back alive.

That phenomenon happened in front of Manager Eun’s eyes.

Why now, God, why are you giving me this trial… She despaired for a moment.

Manager Eun thought of the person who had just entered the gate.

The others were ordinary D-rank hunters, but one person was different.

The man who clashed swords with the A-rank monster Ogre, and had the bizarre skill called Inventory.

Maybe…

I couldn’t breathe.

Something very large, heavy, and soft was pressing on my face.

And that something had a very strange smell.

A strangely addictive smell. Right. Like the smell I once smelled in Yu Ayeon’s room…

“Ugh… My head…”

Because I couldn’t breathe, I started to hyperventilate, and every time I did, the addictive smell entered my nose and mouth and paralyzed my brain.

“Where am I… Who am I…”

But even enduring was reaching its limit, so I slapped the object covering my face with my palm.

Slap!

“Kyaaa?!”

The object that was covering my face bounced off, and I could finally breathe.

“Huff, huff…! I-I thought I was going to die.”

As soon as I hurriedly got up, I saw Yu Ayeon, who was slightly tearing up and stroking her butt.

“Ah, uh, it hurts… Uh, S-Suhyeon?! C-Could it be…! What you were sitting on until just now…”

After recalling Yu Ayeon’s remarks and the feel of the soft object that covered my face, I concluded that the identity of the object was Yu Ayeon’s butt.

“…… I’m sorry… I-I’m sorry… I-It… wasn’t intentional…”

“It’s okay. It was a reward instead. It was soft and felt good.”

“…… R-R-R-Reward…… Felt good………”

I comforted Yu Ayeon, who covered her reddened face with both hands, lowered her head deeply, and trembled with embarrassment, and looked around.

The inside of the gate, which Manager Eun said was a wetland, was covered with dark gray bricks on all sides.

No matter how you looked at it, it was definitely not a wetland.

“It’s like… a maze in a game…”

The eerie and dark atmosphere, and the walls were all covered with brick-like things, made it even more so.

And a little distance away from us, the middle-aged man Kim Junseo was lying down.

“Hyung. Wake up!”

“Ugh…! Wh-Where am I…!”

I slapped his cheek a few times, and the man opened his eyes, holding his smooth head.

As if that would make his lost hair grow back.

After regaining some consciousness, we organized the current situation.

“When we entered the gate… I felt a strange shock… Could this phenomenon have happened because of that…?”

“Tsk… No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t look like the wetland that Manager Eun briefed us on.”

“T-The other hunters who entered the gate first are also gone… A-Are we the only ones who fell…?”

But we didn’t know the exact cause of this situation either.

It was a situation where we didn’t know the cause, but what a hunter had to do was always fixed.

Explore the inside of the gate, defeat the monsters, and return home alive.

I rolled the core and created a puddle of mana on the floor.

Soon, ripples occurred in the puddle, and the ripples spread in all directions, centered on me.

It feels like I turned on a map hack, and everything around me is clear.

Only then did I know for sure where I had fallen.

“First. Let’s move.”