Chapter 37 : Adventure Level 25 (4)

“Cha Haneul sent me.”
Do Yugeon lied to the security guards who stopped him after he left the café.
When the guards hesitated, showing an opening, he ran without hesitation, breaking through their cordon.
He left the café and entered the alley.
Since the café was located deep in the alley, he had to walk a bit further to get out.
A thought occurred to him, and he stopped walking, turning back.
In the gradually darkening alley, a lone beverage can, discarded by who knows who, rolled around.
He thought Cha Haneul would have chased after him by now with an angry expression, but apparently not.
He resumed walking.
It had been an uncomfortable place to sit.
Screams piercing through the café music, Cha Haneul offering him a bite of cream bread from his lap—it was a confusing time.

He exited the alley.
The sunset street glowed crimson.
There were no people.
He saw a severed arm lying in front of a bench.
There was a strange lack of reality.
He clenched and unclenched the hand not holding the sword, rubbing it.
The sensation from his skin felt distant, yet somehow not.
He didn’t know what was what.
Hearing footsteps, he took a step sideways.
A sword swept through the space where he had just been.
Looking, he saw a Goblin.
The Goblin swung its sword again.
He took another step sideways to dodge.

Cha Haneul had said it was dangerous outside, but she didn’t seem particularly interested in how dangerous it actually was.
She only listened to the security guard’s explanation once and that was it.
Maybe she was observing the situation outside with mana, but knowing Haneul’s personality, he didn’t think so.
Piecing together the guard’s words, social media posts, internet reactions, and news articles, the mobs that appeared were reportedly Goblins.
Goblins armed with swords and bows.
After dodging several consecutive sword strikes with a few steps, the Goblin stopped attacking and instead stepped back, wary.
Its reaction was slightly different from the Goblins he had hunted while logged in.
The Goblins he caught before showed various reactions like backing away and being wary, just like now, but their facial expressions never changed.
They reacted like machines.
However, the Goblin before him looked terrified, and it even seemed to be sweating nervously.
A living reaction.
If he swung his sword and killed it, it didn’t seem likely to spew golden experience powder like before—whether it bled green Goblin blood or just red blood.

As they stood in a standoff, he sensed a small presence behind him.
He swung his sword back once.
Sword met sword, and the ambushing Goblin’s sword flew high into the air, landing far away.
A natural result given the large difference in strength.
Steeling himself for a moment, he swung his sword.
The Goblin’s neck was cut, and it turned into experience powder, absorbed by him.
Just like the hunting guides on the Explorer Federation said.
Taking advantage of the opening, the Goblin that had been in a standoff attacked, but he easily countered and killed it.
“Hoo…”
A small sense of elation mixed with an unsettling feeling washed over him.
He had killed many Goblins before, but he couldn’t get used to it.

“Alright.”
Looking around the street, there were no people—only corpses and Goblins.
The people must have fled or hidden inside buildings.
Intermittent screams came from buildings.
In this situation, he alone wasn’t enough.
If he saved one person, two would die; if he protected three, four would be in danger.
What should he do? What was the best course of action?
It seemed right to methodically hunt the Goblins in sight.
A Goblin a short distance away made eye contact with him, looked terrified, and ran.
He saw a blood-stained gold necklace, likely stolen from a person.
It had a butterfly ornament.
He ran forward and swung his sword; it died.

He had many complaints about Cha Haneul.
“Sit still because it’s dangerous?” Who doesn’t know it’s dangerous?
Goblins are weak.
Incredibly weak.
He’d never died to a Goblin, nor had he ever been injured beyond minor scratches.
But it was obvious that a wrong hit from a sword or arrow could kill you.
A Goblin hiding behind a car thrust its sword.
He parried the sword and cut its neck.
Taking that chance, an arrow flew from inside the macaron shop.
He snatched the arrow out of the air with his bare hand.
He squeezed his fist, and the arrow snapped with a crack.
He entered the shop and killed the Goblin that shot the arrow.
Who doesn’t know it’s dangerous? Who could possibly not know?
Cha Haneul sometimes acts like she’s the only one who knows the obvious.

There were people hiding inside the shop, so he helped calm them with a few words.
“I’m really sorry, but could you please lower the shutter from the outside?”
“The shutter?”
He took the padlock and left the shop.
But if I lock this from the outside, can they get out from the inside?
He wasn’t sure, but since they asked, he lowered the shutter and fastened the padlock.
Just then, an arrow flew, and he ducked sideways.
The arrow hit the shutter and bounced off.
“What was that just now?”
“It’s nothing.”
He said goodbye and went to hunt Goblins.

He kept killing Goblins.
Killed and killed.
Killed again and killed again.
But Goblins still roamed the streets.
It wasn’t enough.
There were too many Goblins.
Could this situation even be resolved this way?
He felt like he’d killed many Goblins on this street, but there were still so many.
As he stood catching his breath for a moment, Cha Haneul descended from the sky.
Her mage robe fluttered.
Some time seemed to have passed since they parted at the café—he wanted to ask where she’d been and what she’d been doing, but he didn’t.
Their eyes met; Cha Haneul flinched and looked away.
“Sorry I’m late—I was assessing the situation.”
I thought she’d be angry—thank goodness.

Cha Haneul asked the security guards, who had approached unnoticed, to handle rescue operations, then turned and inspected him from all sides.
“Don’t worry. I’m not hurt.”
“Yeah. Looks like it.”
Cha Haneul took off the mage robe she was wearing and handed it to him.
“It’s good you’re not hurt. Wear this for now.”
[C-Grade / Marphinia of the Melopine Royal Workshop]
It was a Marphinia.
It looked like just a poorly designed mage robe, but it was C-Grade.
It was known that obtaining a C-Grade item cost at least 10 billion won or more, and since they weren’t traded, you couldn’t buy one even if you had the money.
Didn’t this robe block bullets back at the Explorer Federation offline meeting?
“No, you wear it.”
He refused, but Cha Haneul ignored him and put the robe on him.
A sweet fragrance emanated from it.
He tried to pull away, but she glared fiercely, so he failed.
The hood of the robe was pulled over his head.
“This narrows my vision.”
“It doesn’t really matter.”

Cha Haneul stepped back and scanned him up and down.
Then, with a clearly displeased expression, she tilted her head.
“Hmm… The size is a bit small—”
Before she finished speaking, the Marphinia resized itself to fit him perfectly.
He had never heard of items resizing to fit the user.
“When was this patched?”
“Right?”
The System often had silent patches, so it was possible.
It would be nice if the System were a bit more user-friendly—moments like these were always disappointing.

As he moved around, checking the feel of the Marphinia, a white fur caught his eye on the robe.
Cha Haneul’s Mage’s Encyclopedia skill was gone, so it couldn’t be, but it looked like Schrödinger’s fur.
He plucked it off and discarded it.
Just then, an arrow flew and hit a mana barrier, falling to the ground.
Cha Haneul frowned and flung mana somewhere.
Experience points flew toward them.
She catches them so easily. With the security guards present too, they should be able to hunt Goblins faster than before.
But would this be enough?

It wasn’t visible from here, but if one climbed a tall skyscraper and looked down, they would see it.
The Rift from which Goblins kept emerging.
Cha Haneul subtly treated him like a child let loose near water, but he wasn’t suicidal.
So, even though the existence of the Rift had spread on social media and it was logically surmised to be the root cause, he hadn’t approached it because it was dangerous.
To put it in Cha Haneul’s terms, a dragon could pop out unexpectedly.
He didn’t want to stand by and watch people die, but he didn’t want to go die for strangers either.
But still.
Isn’t it worth checking out?
Just because only Goblins have come out of the Rift doesn’t guarantee only Goblins are inside.
What if a dragon really does pop out unexpectedly?
Nothing could be predicted or prepared for, so if he was unlucky, he’d die, and if he was lucky, he’d live.
Then isn’t it worth checking out? If his life was truly unlucky, he wouldn’t have met Cha Haneul in the first place.
He had absolutely no intention of dying for strangers, but if it wasn’t overwhelmingly dangerous, it was worth a look.

He started walking.
Cha Haneul followed behind him.
“You should rest more.”
“I’m not really tired.”
“Still.”
When he started running, Cha Haneul flew and followed him.
“Why are you following me?”
“You got a problem with it?”
Yes, many problems. She would surely try to stop him again once they got close to the Rift.
“…No.”
“So where are we going?”
“Somewhere?”
“Why the question mark?”

Catching Goblins intermittently along the way, they soon saw the Rift in the distance.
It was called a Rift, but seeing it with his own eyes, it looked like shimmering heat haze.
Except for the fact that Goblins were pouring out of it.
Lights like fireflies flew up from the Rift into the sky, then rained down and became Goblins.
Just the Goblins in sight seemed to number over a thousand.
There were too many, and they kept coming out, making it impossible to even think about hunting them all.
Cha Haneul suddenly overtook him, turned her back to the Rift, and blocked his path.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Her voice was cold.

“Wait—watch out behind you!”
What seemed like over a hundred arrows flew toward them.
And all of them hit a mana barrier invisible to him, showering down uselessly.
Uh.
Cha Haneul didn’t even glance at the falling arrows.
“Don’t change the subject.”
That wasn’t his intention at all.
“I wasn’t trying to change the subject.”
“I know that too.”
Her confident reply left him speechless.

Cha Haneul seemed to have calmed down in that brief moment, looked at him for a while with a placid expression, then tossed out a remark.
“Let’s move first. It’s dangerous here.”
He grabbed Cha Haneul, who was about to turn back, and pulled her into a nearby alley.
They needed to move, but he had no intention of leisurely turning back.
Cha Haneul had a sulky expression.
“So where were you trying to go?”
“I was going to the Rift to try and resolve the situation.”
“Why go there?”
“Because it seems doable.”
There were many Goblins, but he didn’t feel like he would die.

“Doable? What’s doable about it? What if you enter the Rift and find yourself in empty outer space, unable to breathe, lacking gravity, and unable to return?”
He had thought along Cha Haneul’s lines and imagined something like a dragon appearing, but this was a completely bewildering statement.
“The inside of the Rift is outer space?”
“I’m saying it could be.”
“So it isn’t?”
“It’s not entirely ruled out—it could be space, or it could not be.”
“So it isn’t, then.”
“You shouldn’t assume that. We haven’t even gone there.”

He pointed at the grimoire floating near Cha Haneul.
“You said before that messing with the magic circle in the grimoire could cause problems—like a huge explosion or an incurable epidemic. What was it, cosmically horrific? But nothing happened.”
“That was just luck.”
“When we first caught a Slime and got experience points, you said the experience powder was—what was it, pathogens? Anyway, you said something like that, but nothing happened.”
“I have a lot to say about that time. Slimes are blatantly extraterrestrial life forms—you shouldn’t have thought of catching them like that. Don’t you know the natives died from disease when the New World was discovered?”
“But nothing happened to us after catching the Slime.”
“We were really lucky.”
“Even if we were lucky, the grimoire, the Slimes—everything is ultimately managed by the System, right? Why would an incurable epidemic suddenly occur in a place with grimoires and Slimes?”
“It’s fantasy—anything can happen.”
“Because it’s fantasy, it should follow common sense.”
“How can fantasy be common sense?”

Cha Haneul stared with a pouting expression, then continued.
“Fine. Maybe I made it sound less realistic by talking about space and stuff. Let me change the example. Do you really think you can enter that Rift right now?”
“What?”
“Does the Rift look like something you can enter? No matter how you look at it, it’s like heat haze—it’s not meant for people to enter. Who named it ‘Rift’ anyway? Don’t they know giving it a weird name makes people think of it that way, regardless of its true nature?”
“But Goblins come out of it.”
“Goblins are aliens. They could be gaseous or have some other peculiar constitution. And what if Goblins aren’t coming out from inside the Rift, but the heat haze phenomenon itself splits and gives birth to Goblins? Saying it out loud sounds very fantasy-like. Plausible.”
Cha Haneul nodded, humming in agreement.

Watching her, a question suddenly occurred to him.
“But I never said I was going into the Rift? I never planned to go in either. I thought there might be a magic circle nearby, so I was going to destroy it?”
“Huh?”
Cha Haneul looked momentarily baffled and spaced out.
Then, seemingly embarrassed, she cleared her throat and said, “Oh, really? I guess I thought you were trying something dangerous and overthought it a bit.”

Usually, when Cha Haneul lied, it was obvious, but when she lied with determination, it was seamless.
However, having been childhood friends for a long time, he could sense a strange dissonance.
Like now.
Cha Haneul could get embarrassed and clear her throat, but just now felt like acting.
Because in that situation, she would likely either turn defiant or pretend to be indifferent, rather than overtly show embarrassment by clearing her throat.
Assuming it was a lie, something occurred to him.
“You said earlier you were late because you were assessing the situation?”
Cha Haneul had arrived late, even though it seemed she would chase after him immediately after he left the café to fight Goblins.
“Huh? Yeah, I did?”
“Then you must have investigated the Rift too?”
“…I did, yes?”
“So you found out that it’s possible to enter the Rift?”
“No.”

Cha Haneul shook her head vigorously, but that only made the lie more obvious.
Her acting skills crumbled when hit with a direct question.
“So what’s in the Rift? Goblins?”
“I don’t know.”
As he stared, Cha Haneul subtly averted her gaze and continued with a sulky expression.
“Goblins like the ones we’ve fought so far, and one Orc using magic, apparently. Maybe.”
An Orc using magic? He’d never encountered one, so he couldn’t guess how strong it was.
Still, having this information meant it was possible to identify the mobs and escape the Rift.
It didn’t seem like he would die unexpectedly.
If it looked truly dangerous, he could just run away.
“But what’s with the ‘maybe’?”
“I heard it from a reliable informant whom I believe to be trustworthy but don’t actually trust.”
What a merciless assessment.
Still, she must believe it’s reliable enough to mention, right?

“Alright! Let’s go catch it.”
“No—why?”
“If there’s one Orc, it’s obviously the boss mob. If it’s there to be caught, we should catch it.”
“You can’t dodge lightning magic.”
“Lightning magic? Gotta be careful then.”
“Don’t be careful—just don’t catch it.”
“Don’t worry—I’ll run away if it’s dangerous.”
“That’s obvious—wait, what did you say?”
Cha Haneul’s expression hardened, and her voice became scary.
“I said I’ll run away if it’s dangerous.”
“That’s not what you just said.”
“That I’ll run away if it’s dangerous?”
“You’re going alone?”
“You hate this kind of stuff, don’t you?”
Cha Haneul looked somewhat shocked.
He didn’t understand why.