novelnext Chapter 20
Chapter 20
At Han Jae-young's words, despair immediately clouded the faces of the people.
And that despair began to spread wildly, like oil meeting fire.
Until now, the kids who had quietly endured under Yoo Han-ul’s advice started bombarding Han Jae-young with questions all at once.
“What's going on here?”
“Isn't it a camera malfunction? There's no way Yoo Han-ul Hunter could fall so easily!”
“Even worse, we didn’t even see how he got taken!”
“Wasn’t the camera broken?”
“Maybe something happened to Yoo Han-ul Hunter, should we go rescue him...?”
“Shut up, you bunch of rookies.”
But the riot was quickly suppressed by Han Jae-young’s overwhelming presence.
When he dropped the formal tone he’d been using so casually, all that remained was the cold, imposing figure of an S-rank Hunter.
No matter how much his abilities were restricted, even an S-rank Hunter's murderous intent was not something rookie Hunters could easily dismiss.
As the kids, who had rushed in full force, were overpowered and quickly quieted down, Han Jae-young spoke in a somewhat subdued voice.
“If a monster with the ability to kidnap an S-rank Hunter in the blink of an eye had appeared, the problem wouldn’t be just with the people in this building. The capital of South Korea would be destroyed in an instant.”
“Th-then...!”
“But no such monster appeared on the camera. This dungeon break hasn’t intensified, it’s just that Yoo Han-ul vanished on his own.”
Han Jae-young’s finger pointed at the screen where Yoo Han-ul had disappeared.
“In such cases, it’s possible that Yoo Han-ul fell into an unexpected trap inside the dungeon... or, although rare, a dimensional rift might have occurred and he got sucked into it.”
Lies.
Although occasionally a dimensional rift grows within a dungeon, there would have been signs beforehand.
Especially with a 2nd-tier dungeon break like this, where the dungeon manifests in the real world, the System would have warned us, and there’s no way Yoo Han-ul, an S-rank Hunter, wouldn’t have noticed it.
Moreover, before Yoo Han-ul suddenly disappeared from the camera, I felt a faint magical wave.
Mana flows like the air currents, and when magic is used, its trace naturally spreads out like a ripple.
That means the most likely explanation is that Yoo Han-ul was forcibly moved through a teleportation circle set up by an unknown enemy.
I tapped the cold monitor screen.
‘Did they take Yoo Han-ul... to draw me out in front of the monster?’
Given Yoo Han-ul’s personality, if he were still around, I, a minor who had only recently awakened, wouldn’t have to step in.@@@@
It looks like someone really significant has been targeting me since the last dungeon break and this incident...
‘At least I’ve got one clue now.’
Magic that forcibly moves others across space is more complicated than it seems.
Especially if it's not used on the spot but left behind as a trap, in the form of a magic circle. Such magic must leave traces of its caster.
If we survive here, we’ll be able to use the magic circle left behind as a clue to figure out the enemy’s identity.
Of course, that’s if we survive.
“How do we proceed then?”
“How can we rescue Yoo Han-ul Hunter?”
“We don’t have any solutions on our side. We’ll just have to wait for him to get out on his own. Most Hunters are prepared for situations like this, so we don’t need to worry about Yoo Han-ul.”
Despite the negative speculations, I didn’t contradict Han Jae-young’s words.
Han Jae-young didn’t seem to place much importance on his own words either.
He probably had his own thoughts, but he must have given a "plausible" excuse just to calm the kids down.
Anyway, it’s true that there’s nothing we can do for the missing Yoo Han-ul with our current strength.
I briefly made eye contact with Han Jae-young.
He slightly shook his head.
“Wait?! How are we supposed to wait?!”
The woman screamed in despair, staring at the screen.
The situation on the screen was far from good.
The two teachers were reaching their limit in trying to control the kids.
Though the camera was for surveillance and the sounds from the scene didn’t come through, it was easy enough to tell that the kids were terrified, crying, or shaking in fear.
The kids had probably panicked when the shadow of the monster outside the door had appeared.
The teachers tried to regain control, but it was clear that managing the terrified kids was impossible, especially with two of them being complete ordinary civilians.
The problem was that, because of the kids’ movements, the shadow of the monster in the hallway was slowly approaching the daycare.
The Shadow Ghost moves by sensing the life energy.
It looked like the teachers were trying to barricade the door with objects in the daycare, but even from that, it was obvious they were just ordinary people.
If we didn’t act fast, a brutal scene would unfold beyond the camera.
The woman shouted in a voice full of desperation.
“Go rescue them, now!”
Even in the midst of the whirlwind of resentment, Han Jae-young remained calm.
It didn’t look like a situation he could be accustomed to, but his expression almost seemed tired of it.
“I’m sorry. In this situation, immediate rescue is impossible.”
He spoke mechanically, like a machine repeating learned phrases.
Thud.
It was truly a death sentence.
When Han Jae-young declared it, tension filled the room. The woman, with bloodshot eyes, stared at the rookie Hunters holding her.
Knowing what her gaze carried, everyone hesitated and looked away.
Some, under the pressure of his authority, loosened their hold on her, while others, disgusted by the pleading, quietly retreated.
It was understandable.
In a situation where we couldn’t even guarantee a successful rescue, it wasn’t common for someone to risk their life for others.
In fact, even the rookie Hunters, although not as young as the kids on the camera, wore naive expressions when dealing with the woman.
“I... I can’t. Even the S-rank Hunters can’t do it, so how can I?”
“We’re just rookie Hunters... like Han Jae-young Hunter said, we have to wait for support.”
“We’re minors too. We should be protected by the staff, not the other way around.”
“...You bastards!”
Despite the urgency, no one stepped forward, and the woman gritted her teeth.
“More than 150 Hunters come and go through this office every day, and not one of them is willing to rescue a child! What use is a Hunter then?!”
“I understand how you feel.”
Han Jae-young still spoke in a businesslike tone, but with a somewhat sympathetic look in his eyes, he grabbed the employee’s shoulder to restrain her.
“Please calm down. The sun is about to set.”
“So what?!”
“The monsters will invade this way. If you don’t quiet down...”
“What does that have to do with me?!”
The woman, her eyes filled with rage, glared at Han Jae-young and the rookie Hunters awkwardly standing in the office.
“If you’re not going to save my child, then die!”
“Enough.”
I interrupted her, and all eyes turned to me.
“Enough. I’ll go.”