Chapter 51: D-Grade Gate (1)

I spent the past two days preparing to enter the gate.

I bought all kinds of food, sleeping tools, and daily necessities and put them in my inventory.

The amount of luggage that would require ten porters to carry in large backpacks fit neatly into subspace.

The inventory is really convenient.

Except for the time spent buying things, eating, and relieving myself, I devoted all my time to training.

Sitting cross-legged, I felt the core throbbing in my chest.

The core had grown considerably larger than it was when I first returned.

It was, of course, impossible to use it at full power 24/7, but it had grown enough to prevent me from dying inside the gate if I used mana sparingly.

After showering and getting dressed, I checked one last time to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.

Good. Ready to go.

I used public transportation and walked to the meeting place in front of the gate.

This gate appeared in the middle of a busy road in the Gyeonggi area.

As expected of a D-rank gate, the size of the gate was larger than lower-rank gates, so it was noticeable from afar.

Around the gate, which was barricaded for safety and traffic control, stood four people.

One of them was a familiar face.

I greeted the middle-aged woman who was working, exuding a strong smell of dish soap.

“Manager Eun. It’s been a while.”

“Ah! Suhyeon! Long time no see.”

“Do you come to the field too, Manager Eun?”

“Ah, that’s…”

Originally, Manager Eun was directly managing the gate instead of the association staff who managed the gate entrance and exit.

I wondered if a person with a manager’s rank was doing fieldwork, but thinking about it from Manager Eun’s perspective, I thought she might feel more comfortable monitoring me directly.

Her answer was similar to my thoughts, though she put it in a roundabout way.

I had nothing to lose either.

It’s not like Manager Eun was going inside the gate to monitor me.

It was rather convenient because she would take care of linking with the monster processing center if I just brought the monsters I hunted inside the gate in my inventory and threw them to her.

While talking with Manager Eun, my gaze went to the three men and women standing next to her.

“Ah. These people will be working with you on this raid, Suhyeon.”

Come to think of it, the Hunter Association also mediates party recruitment for independent hunters or hunters belonging to the association.

I must have been assigned to a random party without coordination because I was looking for a gate in a hurry.

“Kyaak! I-Is it really Han Suhyeon? I’m a huge fan! I’m D-rank spearman Chang-yeori!”

“I’m D-rank shield warrior Bang Doso, who will be taking on the tanker position. Nice to meet you.”

A woman carrying two long spears on her back and a woman carrying a large shield greeted me.

Both had strange names that were hard to remember.

Okay. From now on, you guys are Spear-girl and Shield-girl.

The two women approached me with friendly yet greasy smiles.

As expected, to live a peaceful hunter life, you need either good looks or recognition.

If you’re ugly, you get yelled at for being ugly, and if you’re a low-level hunter, you get yelled at for being low-level, but if you have both, people change to be so kind.

The fact that this world was a gender-reversed world also played a part.
Look at the lust gleaming in those greasy eyes.

I only looked at their faces when we first met, but now all their attention was focused on my chest and lower body.

Hunters are a profession that operates in dangerous areas called gates, and they have an active desire to reproduce because they don’t know when they will die.

In the original world, male hunters had a particularly strong desire, and in the gender-reversed world, female hunters had that strong desire.

Female hunters with active sexual desires were mostly sweet to men unless they were really extreme feminists.

I finished introducing myself with the two women who were eyeing my seed and looked at the remaining person.

“…Tsk. I’m D-rank healer Kim Junseo. Nice to meet you.”

The middle-aged man with an ordinary impression, holding a wand, frowned as if he was displeased with something, and introduced himself.

Right. This is a normal hunter’s reaction.

Park Hyena and Yeom Haneul’s party that I had met so far were too idealistic hunters.

Originally, hunters were a bunch that would foam at the mouth and yell at you if you touched them a little.

Still, as long as the heal-b*tch did their job, there wouldn’t be a big problem, so I decided to leave him alone unless he caused a big fuss.

“Hmm. Then only two people are left. D-rank mage Do Jihun and… the porter, Yu Ayeon-“

“J-Just a moment…!”

Before Manager Eun could finish her sentence, Yu Ayeon came running from afar.

Her breasts, emphasized by tightening the backpack straps, bounced up and down.

“Cr-Crazy…”

“…Wow… F*ck…”

Spear-girl and Shield-girl, seeing that magnificent sight, exclaimed in amazement and looked back and forth between their own chests and Yu Ayeon’s chest.

Seeing that scene, I couldn’t help but laugh.

You have to compare things that are comparable.

“Huff… Puff… P-Porter… Huff… Yu Ayeon… H-Has arrived…”

“Ayeon. You’re here?”

“…Ah… S-Suhyeon… Hello…”

“Why did you run so hard? It’s not even the meeting time yet.”

“I-I can’t be… late… Hehe…”

After taking a moment to catch her breath while talking to me, Yu Ayeon awkwardly approached the others and exchanged introductions.

I was a little surprised. Yu Ayeon approached someone else first and started a conversation.

Last time, when we met Park Hyena and Jo Hyeonchan, I had to reassure Yu Ayeon, who was trembling, before she could talk.

Even now, she was still awkwardly trembling, but the important thing was that she approached first.

In fact, she was usually so timid, and her daily life had been filled with the trauma of being accused of being a molester, but Yu Ayeon was once a normal office worker.

Yu Ayeon was also trying to overcome her trauma little by little.

“Yu Ayeon. Your breasts are so big…”

“F*cking huge…”

“…Yes…?”

She finished exchanging awkward introductions with Spear-girl and Shield-girl, who were of the same gender.

“…Tsk. You’re the porter? I see. Nice to meet you.”

The introduction with the middle-aged man, which I was a little worried about, ended without any problems, contrary to expectations.

I thought that man was only unpleasant to me, but that strangely unpleasant expression was his default.

He didn’t look down on her for being a porter, and his stance was as if they should just do their jobs well.

His tone and actions were not much different from when he talked to me, and he didn’t seem to have any strange ideologies.

Contrary to his impression, he seems to be a fairly normal person among male hunters in the gender-reversed world.

In terms of the original world, maybe he’s like a blunt aunt who grumbles but takes care of everything.

Yu Ayeon, who finished introducing herself to people, came running to my side with an expression that said she had aged ten years.

“I-I-I thought I was going to die… I-It’s been a long time… t-talking to… o-other people… is really hard…”

“But you had a good conversation this time.”

“Ehehe… I-Is that so…? Oh. Right… D-Did you… get home safely… last time…?”

“Last time?”

“When… you came to my house… You looked s-serious… so I was worried… if something happened…”

Certainly, at that time, my head was so complicated that I didn’t even know how I got home.

Yu Ayeon must have been embarrassed to see me suddenly panic.

And, it’s okay now.

It has to be okay.

“Ah. It was nothing. Something suddenly came up… It’s all resolved now.”

“Oh, i-is that so…? T-Then that’s good…”

“Hmm-hmm. That’s that, and…”

I looked at the large backpack on Yu Ayeon’s back.

A backpack to carry the monster’s magic cores.

“Porter… Are you really okay with it?”

This time, Yu Ayeon came in as the party’s porter and my camerawoman.

I knew how hard the porter’s job was, so I tried to dissuade Yu Ayeon, but Yu Ayeon’s thoughts were firm.

“Yes. I… want to be helpful too… I don’t want to… just watch anymore…”

Maybe Yu Ayeon had made up her mind to overcome her trauma in her own way.

I respected Yu Ayeon’s choice.

Still, I was thinking of helping her from time to time so that she wouldn’t be treated too unfairly.

“Then I’ll help you from the side. I’ll give you tips and stuff. I’m a senior porter, you know.”

“S-Senior… T-That sounds… really nice… Then… Please take care of me… S-S-S-Suhyeon… Senior…”

“Okay, Junior.”

“Eheh… J-Junior… Hehe…”

I don’t know what point she was fixated on, but Yu Ayeon wiggled her body and laughed when she heard the word “Junior.”

“Hmm. Then Yu Ayeon has arrived, so the only person left is Do Jihun? It’s still 10 minutes before the meeting time, so let’s wait. I’ll start the briefing when everyone is gathered.”

Manager Eun, who was checking the number of people, said so, and the other hunters replied that they understood with stiff expressions.

A hunter manager at the Hunter Association is a high-ranking person that ordinary D-rank hunters can’t even meet, so they seemed to want to be seen well by Manager Eun.

Time passed quickly.

5 minutes passed, and 10 minutes passed.

Manager Eun looked at the watch on her wrist and muttered.

“…There is a lot of traffic congestion in this area… Let’s wait a little longer.”

After another 10 minutes, Manager Eun expressed her displeasure at the hunter who still hadn’t arrived.

“What kind of D-rank hunter doesn’t even keep a basic appointment…”

The other hunters’ expressions weren’t good either.

After another 15 minutes, a man approached leisurely, smiling broadly.

“Hehe~ I’m very late, right? Oh, the traffic here was so bad~”

The man did not apologize and made excuses for why he was 25 minutes late.

When a handsome man lowered his upper body and made a nasal, childish voice, the sweet women seemed to want to accept a moderate apology and move on.

But Manager Eun, a divorced woman with about two (estimated) divorces, was not a sweet woman.

“Listen, Mr. Do Jihun. It’s not 5 minutes, not 10 minutes, but 25 minutes. You’re 25 minutes late, and you don’t even apologize, is that what you have to say?”

“Tsk… I can be a little late… Yes. I’m sorry. Okay?”

“Not to me, you should say it to the other hunters who were harmed by your mistake.”

“Oh. Really…”

Eun-kaccola… No, Eun-terpepper was saying what needed to be said… I was about to take out popcorn from my inventory and eat it, but Do Jihun nodded his head towards me and Kim Junseo.

Was that supposed to be an apology?

“I apologized, so it’s okay, right? Anyway, that’s why women…”

Do Jihun trailed off and approached the female hunters, acting coquettishly as if nothing had happened.

Manager Eun was sweating profusely and checking my mood, but I let it go without saying anything.

It was comedy at this point to be this shameless, so I wanted to see how long he would keep it up.

As long as he doesn’t directly harm me or cross the line…

I thought so, but I saw Do Jihun looking at Yu Ayeon with a strange look of contempt and ridicule.

“Hey. You’re the porter?”

“…Yes? Yes… I-I’m the porter…”

“Then carry this.”

Do Jihun threw his backpack at Yu Ayeon’s feet.

My eyes met Do Jihun’s, who was watching that scene from the side.

“…Oh? I didn’t notice it from afar because I was far away, but you’re very handsome~ It’s a face I’ve never seen before. Should we try to get along? Oh right. But that face… Where did you get the procedure? Tell me later after the gate raid…”

This guy was saying something in front of my eyes, but I couldn’t hear anything.

I looked at Yu Ayeon, who looked at the backpack that had fallen on the ground with a bewildered expression, and then bent down to pick up the backpack.

I barely turned my head and glared at Do Jihun, who had a thick skin.

“Hey, you fcking bstard. Are you friends with me?”

This b*tch is crossing the line.