Retire 571

571 (Extra Story 38) Summoning_2

The trees were so densely packed it was almost impossible to see the sky. At first glance, it looked like a coniferous forest, but anyone with a sharp eye would quickly notice these weren’t trees they’d ever seen before.

There was something oddly off about the shapes of the trees, and the sky overhead was filled with stars like a night sky. Yet the forest cast not a single shadow, which made it clear what this place was.

A dungeon.

Blue light shimmered between the trees, the final touch to the forest’s sense of wrongness.

A blue glow—the gate—flickered, and then a black blot appeared. The blot grew larger with each pulse of the gate, until it became human.

A man in a sheriff’s uniform, and another in a plaid shirt and vest. The shock of passing through the gate knocked the old cap off the man’s head. Embroidered on the cap was the image of a man bearing the world on his shoulders.

“How long are we supposed to keep doing this?”

“For a while yet.”

The man who adjusted his cap glanced around the dungeon and clicked his tongue.

“This is a pain. Still no word from our sponsor?”

“At this point, we have to assume they’re dead. Or living a new life somewhere. It’s been over a year since all that chaos started.”

Sheriff Dave Donner continued in a rather dissatisfied tone.

“Nora and Nathan have been cleaning up since the six-month mark, but there’s too much dangerous stuff to take care of all at once…”

“Can’t we just toss it all into a dungeon and close it up?”

“Who knows what would happen. And you know Nathan would never give up his equipment.”

“The older that old man gets, the worse his temper.”

Donner laughed and clapped the other man on the shoulder.

“There aren’t many of those stubborn old folks left. We should take good care of them to the end.”

“No one’s arguing. I just wonder how much longer we have to keep up this nonsense.”

“We’re almost done. The real problem isn’t those old folks—it’s Christopher.”

At the mention of Christopher, the man’s face twisted.

“He’s the worst! If he’s retired, he should just enjoy his hobbies like Ellen. Instead, he’s always poking around, acting superior, making comments. Did Henry ever even really live in our town?”

Donner just nodded.

He seemed tired of the conversation, but the other man didn’t care.

“And that sponsor was someone Henry brought in, right? No matter how many times we told him not to drag the village into outside business, he never listened.”

“We all agreed at the meeting… Jimmy, you agreed too.”

“…That was because Henry was so sure of himself! And the sponsor, with that doll-like face, always smiling—my wife looked just like that when we first met.”

“Nora?”

“She’s still beautiful, but you know how nostalgia is… Well, it happens!”

Donner shook his head at Jimmy Forrest’s words.

“Anyway, this dungeon’s pretty big… I hope the search doesn’t take too long.”

“No, look—there’s the car.”

“What? Where?”

Donner looked where Forrest pointed.

Hidden among the trees, the faded color of the old car they’d seen leave the village a few days ago was visible.

“So that’s where the car went. It got caught up in the dungeon, too. There’s no clear rule about what gets pulled in—sometimes it’s just people.”

“No one’s here…”

As they got closer, the smell of blood hit them.

Nathan, who’d fixed the car, had grumbled about doing work that would just go to waste. After seeing how polite those two young students were, he’d liked it even less.

If the car hadn’t broken down, Donner wouldn’t have brought them to the village. If they hadn’t kept asking when the phones would work so they could call their parents, or promised to come back and repay the favor…

At first, there had been some suspicion, but the investigation with the villagers had turned up nothing odd. Nathan said the car trouble wasn’t sabotage. They’d been unusually good kids, and even Donner had felt sorry for them.

But sometimes, there are things you just can’t help.

This village had no desire to mix with the outside world.

“…Looks like the dungeon monsters are pumas, just as expected.”

Forrest examined the claw marks slashed across the car. Splatters of red were everywhere.

But there were no bodies.

“That much blood wouldn’t kill anyone. Especially not an Awakened.”

The ground around the car was a mess—human footprints and animal tracks everywhere.

Forrest crouched to inspect a broken branch.

“Looks like they got out and headed that way. The bag’s gone, right? Not in the trunk either?”

“Right. Ellen’s food is missing, too.”

“So even if they weren’t Hunters, they had some basic knowledge. They took the food and went that way, ran into a puma, then doubled back to the car.”

Forrest looked at the bloodstained driver’s seat.

“They tried to start the engine, but failed…”

The driver’s window was shattered from the outside. Blood trailed to the passenger seat.

“They crawled out the other side.”

“So they must have run that way.”

“Yeah. They’re bleeding, so they can’t have gone far. It’s probably a tick puma—small, but good at catching prey.”

“All right. Let’s confirm they’re dead and find the core. At least it’s in the opposite direction from the gate, so that’s one less hassle.”

“It’s already a hassle.”

Forrest grumbled, but without much enthusiasm. Donner kicked him playfully.

“They can’t have gone far.”

It was easy to follow the trail from the car. What could non-Hunters do against monsters?

But apparently, being Awakened made them tougher than Donner expected—the two young men had made it quite a distance.

They’d even managed to kill a puma along the way.

Donner frowned, and Forrest whistled.

“When people don’t want to die, they’ll do anything.”

The puma’s fur was more like needles than hair, like the leaves of the surrounding conifers. Not as sharp as real needles, but stiff and tough enough to resist most attacks.

But like Earth animals, its belly was bare. Hunters familiar with tick pumas would flip them over and cut open the stomach.

Whichever of the two had done it wasn’t stupid. They’d managed to attack the belly. The wound wasn’t clean—more torn than sliced, as if done with something blunt.

As Forrest examined the puma’s corpse, he frowned.

“What is it?”

“It’s just…”

The blood soaking into the ground was widespread—evidence of a hard fight.

But—

“There’s too little blood.”

“Too little?”

“These kids we’re looking for—are they really just regular Awakened?”

“They said so themselves, and we checked. We even tested them.”

Forrest grabbed a handful of blood-soaked dirt. It hadn’t seeped deep.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“You think someone with no training could beat a monster without getting hurt? Tick pumas usually hunt in pairs. Where’s the other one?”

“…….”

“This is monster blood. The timing matches—after two days, it dries like this. If you look closely, you’ll see it sparkles. There’s no human blood mixed in.”

Forrest snapped his head up, looking back toward the car.

The blood on the car—what about that?

He’d just assumed it was human and only checked the direction the kids had run, not the blood itself.

If—if they weren’t just ordinary college students, and had dragged a monster here and killed it for show…

“Hello.”

A chill ran down his neck. As if someone had risen from the earth, a hand settled on Forrest’s shoulder. Pale and delicate—not Donner’s.

“Took you long enough. I thought I’d die of boredom waiting.”

The childlike voice sang the words. Forrest moved his hand slowly toward his belt. There was a machete there.

No one enters a dungeon empty-handed. Even if the goal was just to check for bodies, there were still monsters to deal with and a core to destroy.

“Don’t move.”

Something sharp pressed to his neck. Not a knife—it felt blunt. Probably… a pen.

“Don’t think I can’t kill you with this.”

The hand on his shoulder fumbled at his belt, unfastened it, and tossed it away. The machete hit the ground with a heavy thud.

Forrest looked at Donner. Donner, too, was frozen, completely exposed. The young man holding him, wearing pink sunglasses, grinned at Forrest.

Donner swallowed hard. At his friend’s throat was a key—the key to that battered car.

It was covered in dried blood. Not a knife, but sharp enough to cut soft flesh.

“I said I’d pay you back for fixing the car, didn’t I?”

The pink cat on the keychain swung mockingly, as if laughing at Forrest.

---

Vrrrrrrr.

“Finally!”

Sean Mori checked his phone. The message he’d been waiting for had finally arrived.

His squad poked their heads out at his shout.

“Is it here?”

“Get the coordinates.”

Mori read out the numbers from the text. A squad member quickly checked the map.

“It’s the gas station.”

“Good! Move out!”

Luckily, it wasn’t far. They’d been waiting for over two weeks in the nearest small city to the Atlas cult village. They’d marked a few possible rendezvous points before the operation, but things had changed as events unfolded.

Fortunately, they hadn’t ended up on the opposite side. Too bad for the other team waiting there, but—who cares? If the Association or Interpol wanted to claim priority, let them. After all, those lunatics had holed up on American soil, and the U.S. had suffered the most from the dungeon.

Sean Mori wasn’t especially patriotic, but that was that, and this was this.

“…!”

“America’s the last to arrive, huh.”

“So slow.”

“When’s the local guild getting here? Wasn’t that arranged in advance?”

But at the quiet gas station’s attached restaurant, familiar faces were already gathering.

The owner had probably taken the payout and gone on vacation halfway around the world. Mori gritted his teeth as he sat at the central table.

There were Association special forces, Interpol detectives, and agents from other countries who’d been chasing Henry Lehmann.

No matter what kind of power struggle broke out in this cheap restaurant, the two young men who had summoned them—Han Taekyung, yawning behind his sunglasses, and Alex Hope, dozing with his head on the table—paid them no mind.

Han Taekyung rubbed his eyes beneath his sunglasses.

It was the others who lost patience. A man Mori remembered as being from Germany asked bluntly in rough English,

“Did you get them?”

“You’re impatient. We’re still waiting for one more.”

“…Who?”

No answer was needed. The door opened with a cheerful chime. Alex lifted his head blearily.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re right on time.”

“Am I?”

With no trace of apology, the great mage Kim Chaemin entered the restaurant.