Infinite Evolution Hunter [NOVEL] - chapter 39
Something flew in from the direction of the command post,
and a white line was drawn across the troll’s neck.
The troll, with a hairline crack on its throat,
didn’t even realize what had happened to it
until its head fell off.
The headless giant body spewed blood like a fountain
and toppled backward like a felled ancient tree.
Thud!
At the voice in my in-ear, I glanced back.
A man in sleek silver armor was standing there,
a longsword in his hand.
Jung Min-gi.
The only S-rank hunter in Korea at the current time had arrived.
He looked like he was in his late twenties,
but in reality, he was much older.
He was a first-generation awakener, awakened even before the first gate opened,
and had earned countless merits during the gate crisis.
When the troll’s head flew off just now,
I could tell the direction the attack had come from,
but it had been so fast that my body couldn’t even think of reacting.
And that kind of power, cleanly severing the neck of a troll
from long range.
That was the ability of an S-rank hunter,
of which there were only a handful in the world.
Jung Min-gi’s voice came over the in-ear.
I nodded in the direction he was standing
and moved out of the line between him and the trolls.
The trolls didn’t care that I was retreating
and locked their gaze onto Jung Min-gi instead.
He lightly gripped his longsword
and held it out in front of him.
That was the signal.
The four remaining trolls charged him at once.
“Graaaah!”
Four massive roars erupted from their mouths at once,
and just standing in front of that onslaught
would have been enough to give most normal people a heart attack.
But Jung Min-gi remained calm.
Then his sword moved.
Watching from the side, focusing as hard as I could,
I barely managed to track his movements with my eyes.
Every time he swung his sword at high speed,
crescent-shaped blades of aura shot out
and flew toward the trolls.
And without fail, troll necks
popped off cleanly, one by one.
He was taking down B-rank monsters
like goblins.
If those slashes were aimed at me,
could I dodge them?
If it was a surprise attack, I probably couldn’t.
Even from the front…
Either way, what was certain
was that he was an opponent I absolutely could not beat right now.
With Jung Min-gi’s arrival,
the tide of battle had completely reversed.
After he finished off the trolls in an instant,
he turned his gaze to the other monsters.
Crescent moons of aura sliced through them,
cutting hundreds of monsters cleanly in half.
The order came through my in-ear.
Following Jung Min-gi,
an A-rank mage in the sky poured down flames,
turning the area in front of the gate into a sea of fire.
B- and A-rank hunters who had arrived afterward
poured in, reinforcing the defensive line.
“Ji-seok! Are you okay?!”
Na-young came running over.
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
Thinking about it, it had been reckless.
Fighting a troll while surrounded by hundreds of monsters—
it wouldn’t have been strange if I had died.
Other than stopping the break,
I hadn’t been thinking about anything else.
“Let’s go help with the rescue in the rear now.”
Na-young grabbed my arm and pulled.
She seemed worried that I’d charge back into that monster nest again.
“Okay.”
After that, I focused on taking down the monsters that had gotten out.
Compared to what I’d been doing just moments ago,
cleaning up small fry was easy work.
A little later, we heard that an A-rank monster, the Troll King,
had appeared along with even more trolls.
But as long as an S-rank monster didn’t show up,
Jung Min-gi and the other top hunters of Korea
would be able to handle it.
As I expected, once the Troll King appeared,
no more monsters came out,
and the gate eventually shrank back to its original size.
The long gate break
had finally come to an end.
Most of the escaped monsters were dealt with,
and soldiers and firefighters worked to treat the wounded
and recover the bodies of the dead.
It would have been best if there had been no casualties,
but many hunters, soldiers, and civilians had been killed.
Monsters didn’t distinguish between men and women, young or old.
Among the dead
were children.
Seeing dozens of bodies covered in white sheets,
Na-young’s face turned deathly pale.
“Are you okay? Let’s go home.”
“What’s his name?”
As I was about to lead her away,
a voice called out from behind.
When I turned, I saw Jung Min-gi standing there,
covered in blood.
Looked like he’d had to work for it against the Troll King.
He usually had a dark complexion and deep dark circles
that made him look constantly exhausted,
and right now, that was even more pronounced.
“Lee Ji-seok.”
“You’re B-rank, right? Good work.
Thanks to you, things ended at just this level.
If you hadn’t been here,
far more people would have died.”
“I should be the one thanking you, sir.
You saved my life.”
“Kids these days don’t usually risk their own necks
trying to stop a break like that. You’re commendable.
Ah, my juniors told me I sound like an old man when I say things like this,
so I shouldn’t… but I said it again.”
Jung Min-gi scratched his head.
“Anyway, go get some rest.
If we get a chance, let’s meet again sometime.”
It seemed that was all he had wanted to say.
He finished and strolled off.
“Ji-seok! Na-young!”
From far away, Sang-heon came running up.
“Are you both okay?”
“We’re fine. What about you?”
“I got here late, so I only took care of the small fry.
That’s about my level.
You fought trolls, didn’t you, hyung?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you crazy?”
“What did you say?”
“I mean, I know you’re strong,
but how do you just jump into a group of trolls alone?”
“Shut it. Let’s just go home.”
I was exhausted.
I just wanted to go back and rest.
For quite some time,
the break incident dominated the news.
The whole nation mourned for the victims.
But people weren’t very interested in the cause.
The general perception was that gates were fundamentally incomprehensible.
Instead, the media praised the Bureau of Awakened Management and the military,
calling it a gate break that had been stopped
with minimal damage.
Because of that, my face was all over the news.
But I refused to accept “unknown cause”
as an answer.
There had to be a reason.
Maybe someone made a mistake,
maybe it was a mutated gate,
or maybe someone had triggered it on purpose.
I vowed to find out
what had caused this.
—
“It’s piled up a lot.”
I muttered while looking at the monitor in the factory.
“What has?”
At my mumbling, Sang-heon asked back.
“Money.”
“At this point, being poor is just suffering, huh?”
“When we set up ReGen and invested,
my balance pretty much hit zero,
but lately things have been selling like crazy.
The money just keeps rolling in.”
“You’re even supplying to the Academy now, right?”
“Yeah. Price isn’t that different from the previous protective gear,
but the performance is way better.”
“Oh, did you see your stuff is on the Bureau’s recommended item list
for new hunters?”
“I did. Looks like Director Baek took care of it.
He was happy that new hunters’ survival rate was going up.”
If fewer newbies die,
more of them grow into veterans.
That means more fighting power against monsters—
definitely something to celebrate.
“I’m gonna go open some accounts at the bank.
Might as well invest a bit.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
Sang-heon sighed
and gave up on understanding me.
—
I went to a nearby bank,
took a number,
and waited.
I had a rough idea of which companies
would make a name for themselves in the future.
Of course, I didn’t know how much the future had already changed,
so I planned to diversify.
“Customer number 39.”
My turn came up,
and I walked to the window.
“Hello, how can I help you today?”
“I’d like to open a stock trading account.”
“Ah, yes. May I see your ID, please?
Do you already bank with us?”
“Yes.”
I handed over my ID
and slid my bank card into the terminal.
“Ah… oh my! J-just a moment, please!”
The female teller looked at my information,
then hurried over to the branch manager sitting behind her.
At first, the manager’s face said,
“What’s with the fuss this time?”
but as the teller whispered to her,
she shot to her feet.
“Sir, hello. I’m Ye Hee-eun, the branch manager here.
If you don’t mind, we have a VIP room we can use instead of this side.”
The manager—a neatly dressed woman who looked experienced—
came over and greeted me.
Judging by the way she called me “CEO,”
she must have looked up information on ReGen’s founder.
“Sure.”
Honestly, the regular counter would have been fine,
but I’d already drawn people’s attention,
so I quietly followed her to the second-floor VIP room.
The bank was a high-ceilinged one-floor building,
but part of the interior was split into a first and second floor.
We went up the stairs along the wall,
and the VIP room on the second floor looked out
over the entire first floor.
“Would you like some coffee? Tea?”
“Coffee, please.”
The manager held up two fingers
to the teller who had followed us up.
“You said you wanted to open a stock account, correct?”
“I’ll take care of that for you.
While we set that up, would it be all right
if I introduced some of our investment products?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
I wasn’t particularly interested,
but just in case they had information I didn’t know about,
I quietly listened as I waited for the coffee.
The manager pulled up promotional materials
and enthusiastically went over past performance and details.
I listened while sipping coffee for about ten minutes,
but nothing particularly grabbed me.
“I’ll think about it.
The account’s open now, right?”
“Yes. You can now invest online as well.
If you ever need anything,
please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Even if it’s not directly related to banking services,
I’ll help with anything I can.”
I had no idea what non-banking matters
I was supposed to ask a bank manager for help with,
but at least her enthusiasm was clear.
I said goodbye
and stood up.
“Everybody down!”
Ratatat!
Gunshots rang out,
followed by people’s screams.
I glanced down through the window toward the first floor.
Three guys were threatening the people inside.
One was holding a gun.
One was spitting flames from his hands—a mage.
And the biggest problem
was the guy with what looked like a mana-stone bomb strapped to his body.
He was holding a dead man’s trigger.
If he let go, it would go off.
It wasn’t the type that exploded when pulled,
but the kind that detonated the moment you released it.
So if someone sniped him and he lost his grip,
it would explode,
and if he pressed down with his thumb,
it would explode.
I never thought I’d see
something straight out of a Hollywood movie
here of all places.
“If this goes off, the whole damn building is toast!
Security! Drop the gun!”
Red liquid with mana stones floating in it—
a mana-stone bomb.
They’d deliberately tampered with the stones’ energy
so it would all burst out at once.
Because it was so hard to control,
you got a lot of duds
and the power varied wildly.
But if it went off at high power,
everyone in this building
would be dead, just like he said.
The intruders rushed in and pointed their gun and flames at everyone so fast
that the security guard had no choice.
He put his gas gun down
and lay flat on the floor.
“You! You! You!
Close all the blinds on the windows!
Move it, move it!”
The mage picked out hostages
and ordered them to cover all the windows.
The guy with the gun
shot out the cameras on the ceiling one by one,
and each time a shot rang out,
the hostages flinched in terror.
“Th… this is bad!”
The branch manager took a quick look outside through the window
and pressed a button under her desk.
“S-sir, please g-get under the desk.”
She was trembling so hard she could barely speak,
but even then she tried to pull me to safety behind the desk.
If I walked out there,
I could easily deal with three thugs like that in an instant,
but the hostages might get caught up in it,
so I couldn’t move carelessly.
For now, I did as the manager said
and hid behind the desk in the back.
Just then,
the guy with the gun started up the stairs
to check the second floor.