Retire 410
by Cristae410 Layer Upon Layer of Mountains (3)
I’d thought Han Taekyung would just head straight out through the gate.
Still, it wasn’t so strange. Han Taekyung hadn’t seen that eel monster. The attack from the pterosaur had taken him completely by surprise. Once he knew what he was up against, with his skills, breaking through wouldn’t be difficult.
So maybe he was more worried about the rest of us, stuck with a cute hunter who’d never faced a flying monster before. Or maybe he had a reason to worry….
“Now that I’m here! Everything’s all right—”
Han Taekyung’s words cut off.
A couple of pterosaurs, their wings torn, plummeted from the sky. The eel caught them with a motion that looked almost gleeful, swallowing them up. It seemed to have forgotten all about pounding the cliff.
“…I might not be able to win, but! Don’t worry!”
Not reassuring in the slightest.
Still, what could I do? Han Taekyung’s arrival was genuinely helpful.
While the eel was distracted eating pterosaurs, I moved quickly, driving stakes and stringing lines across the gorge as planned.
“Sunbae? You’re there, right?!”
“Keep dropping pterosaurs!!”
“Got it!”
The crevice in the cliff was so narrow I couldn’t set as many lines as I wanted. But there was always a way. I carefully gathered up the remaining stakes and ropes, making sure nothing tangled, and grabbed the duckling by the scruff of the neck.
“Wha—?!”
“Hold still.”
I dashed out into the open.
The eel, finally coming to its senses, lifted its bloodstained snout, red with pterosaur blood. Its body writhed. Robinson, dangling from my hand, must have seen it and screamed.
“Aaaaah!!!”
With Han Taekyung and the pterosaurs making so much noise, there was no need to tell her to be quiet. Maybe screaming her lungs out would be good for Robinson’s mental health.
I hurled Robinson upward.
“Hyaaaaaa!!!!!!”
The eel leapt. I pushed off with my feet, jumping up as well. The next set of ropes I’d prepared was a little higher up. I landed there, then jumped higher still, throwing more stakes across the gorge as I went. Each time, a new foothold. I kept repeating the process.
“Waaaaaah!!!!”
I didn’t forget to catch Robinson when she flailed and fell, tossing her upward again.
The eel snapped a few of the lowest ropes. It leapt a few more times, but I confirmed it couldn’t reach us where we were. Losing interest, it turned its attention to the falling pterosaurs.
Once I saw that, I widened the gaps between the ropes, climbing higher. Han Taekyung was dealing with the pterosaurs, but a few greedy ones still tried to attack Robinson and me. The ones going after Robinson, I knocked down with a stake; the ones coming for me, I strangled with a rope and sent tumbling below.
The second time Robinson fell, I didn’t bother tossing her up again—just carried her by the scruff as I moved.
Thud.
Robinson collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath.
I looked around. Han Taekyung was fighting with a chain and sickle—an insane weapon. He’d liked it back when I used to run him through dungeons… He hadn’t used it in ages, and now he brings it out?
It was ridiculous to watch, but since he was fighting well, I had no reason to complain. I let Han Taekyung run wild and focused on protecting Robinson. It might have been too harsh a trial for a novice hunter….
“How dare you challenge Han Taekyung, master of the chain-sickle!”
What’s with him…?
I kept using the remaining stakes to deal with pterosaurs, not bothering to draw another weapon, when it suddenly struck me.
Wasn’t this basically the same principle as that chain-sickle?
I drove a stake into the back of a nearby pterosaur, then hurled the other end down the cliff. Only after kicking the flailing pterosaur away did I feel at ease.
It wasn’t meant for fighting in the first place.
“Should we chase down the rest?”
With me joining in, the pterosaurs quickly lost their will to fight. The few that remained scattered in a panic. Han Taekyung finished off the wounded ones crawling on the ground, then asked.
I shook my head.
“No. Clearing them isn’t the issue right now.”
I looked at Robinson. Han Taekyung followed my gaze and nodded.
“Are you all right?”
“Hah, hah!”
When I touched her shoulder, still sprawled on the ground, Robinson practically convulsed as she sprang to her feet.
…Jean Robinson asked me to give his daughter dungeon experience, not to make her quit being a hunter.
I called her name, worried.
“Robinson?”
“……”
“…Eva?”
“Ah!”
Robinson shot up.
She wasn’t hurt… right? Did a pterosaur get a bite in…?
I checked her over anxiously. No, I hadn’t even been that rough… If it were the Yangseong High kids, they’d be up and running around without batting an eye.
“Monsieur Woo!”
Just don’t say you’re quitting being a hunter. What a disaster it would be if you quit after coming here for training.
“Would it be bad if I said this was fun?”
“…What?”
“I want to fight like you and Monsieur Han. Is it all just training? Can I do it if I train?”
“Training isn’t a cure-all, but…”
Han Taekyung, sensing my unease, tried to soothe her.
Having known Hong Seokyoung for a long time, and as a teacher at Yangseong High, Han Taekyung would know immediately that Robinson’s current state wasn’t good.
It would be better if she were scared.
Enjoying the thrill of life-or-death combat?
That’s a quick way to die.
Hunters need to be afraid. Chasing excitement like that is a sure way to an early grave. It would be better if she wanted to quit being a hunter; I couldn’t send her back to her parents in this state….
I forced myself to stay calm.
“Let’s talk about that later. First, let’s get out of the dungeon.”
Who knew how many pterosaurs were left? I had no desire to stay in such a dangerous place any longer.
But Han Taekyung frowned.
“About that.”
He lowered his voice. I’d never seen him like this before.
“When I went for a little ride through the sky, I landed in a tree.”
“A tree?”
“Yeah. That big one over there. I figured I’d climb down, since falling from that height would hurt, so I landed over there…”
He pointed to a towering tree. I didn’t know the exact height, but it was as tall as a mid-rise apartment building.
“The trees around the gate were normal height, right?”
I couldn’t guess what Han Taekyung was getting at, but I trusted he wouldn’t bring up something trivial in this situation.
“So I saw…”
“Just say it. Why are you hesitating?”
“I don’t think we can approach the gate.”
“…What?”
Han Taekyung scratched his head. But his face was completely serious.
“I… can see it, you know.”
He lifted his sunglasses a little. I glanced at Robinson, still agitated, then looked back at Han Taekyung.
He, too, glanced worriedly at Robinson before speaking.
“…Sunbae. Have you ever caught a fairy before?”
Leaving Robinson with Han Taekyung, I climbed the tree. Somewhere nearby, a pterosaur cried out.
It really felt like being out in the wild, far from civilization. Some people might like that sort of thing, but not me.
Come to think of it, I never wanted to be a hunter…. Honestly, that hasn’t changed much even now. So how did I end up volunteering to enter dungeons like this?
I stepped onto a branch and climbed to the top. Right in front of me was the gorge where the pterosaurs had died. I couldn’t see the bottom…
I turned the other way.
An endless forest stretched out before me. A sky studded with stars, a sea of green. It looked so full of life, but I felt nothing. By now, I should be used to this view, but instead, the sense of alienation only grew.
The scenery before me was absolutely not the world I belonged to.
I looked in the direction of the gate. Mana flowed gently toward it, unable to cross, swirling up above the gate like a waterspout before dispersing, then slowly being drawn back toward the gate.
So, in a wide-open structure like this, finding the gate was easy. But at the same time, I realized why Han Taekyung said we couldn’t approach it.
At first, I thought they were flowers. Like cherry blossom petals fluttering in a spring breeze.
There were masses of deep pink petals swirling around.
But those tiny things didn’t flow with the mana. Instead, they moved with purpose, flying in perfect formation.
They weren’t petals.
They were butterflies.
Moths with pink fur. Butterflies. Something in between.
Hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of butterflies were circling the gate. The blue glow of the gate was almost completely obscured.
It was clear the butterflies had a will of their own.
Their flight patterns were random. They circled the gate as if guarding it, sometimes in circles, sometimes figure eights. They moved however they pleased.
Gorillas, pterosaurs, a giant eel.
What on earth was this dungeon?
‘Have you ever caught a fairy before?’
Han Taekyung had even mentioned a fairy.
So, were the butterflies controlled by a fairy? Or were they fairies themselves?
I racked my brain, trying to remember the past. I didn’t know every dungeon in the world, but… Japan was a neighboring country. If a dungeon like this had appeared in Japan, it would have become famous right away. But as far as I remembered, there was no such troublesome dungeon in Japan.
So was there a dungeon break?
No, that couldn’t be. The eel was in the water, and with that size, it probably couldn’t get out even if the dungeon opened. But even the weakest gorilla, with its grip strength, and the flying pterosaurs would have caused catastrophic damage. There’s no way I wouldn’t have heard about it. Especially with flying monsters the size of pterosaurs—they could cross the sea to Taiwan, China, or Korea.
It’s impossible I wouldn’t know.
…What happened in this dungeon?
I stared at the gate, shrouded in pink butterflies, then climbed down from the tree.
“How does it look?”
“Describe exactly what you’re seeing. Suddenly a fairy? Are those butterflies the fairy?”
“It’s probably a fairy’s ability.”
Robinson tilted her head, watching us speak Korean.
If I ever have to take a student into a dungeon again, I’ll make sure to check things myself first. If it were just me and Han Taekyung, we could find a way out, even if it meant taking some risks…
“I’ve seen something use a similar ability before. Where was it… Turkey, maybe?”
“…I see. So how did you catch it?”
“I didn’t.”
I was momentarily speechless, staring at Han Taekyung. But he just shrugged, unconcerned.
“Someone else caught it. That dungeon’s closed now.”
“Well, then… I’m just glad you made it out safely… right?”
Han Taekyung said nothing, just smiled quietly. Not knowing how to respond to his unfamiliar expression, I stood awkwardly until he grinned and returned to his usual self.
“I was just a kid back then!”
“……”
“Let’s just focus on getting out of the gate safely, all right?”