Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Hunting the Spider (1)

The conditions for a dungeon break are simple.

After the gate appears, the magic inside begins to expand, eventually causing the gate to crack. This is why dungeon breaks have a time limit.

Preventing the dungeon break is surprisingly simple.

You can either close the gate by clearing a condition that appears when you enter the dungeon, or you can periodically clean the inside to remove the expanding magic.

The latter method is used when you intentionally leave a gate open, such as the gate at Seoul Station. But just as the explanation for gates is not perfect, there are always exceptions.

This is the case with the gate at Cheongju Sports Complex.

“Hey, tinkerers, let’s get a win this time!”

“You lost 24:3 last week, so you lost 8:1 three times, and now you’re going to win! I saw it!”

As the 10,000 spectators watched, a gate appeared in the middle of the stadium.

“Ah, we could have won this time.”

After the gate was opened, the Association staff measured the gate’s rating.

The gate was rated vermilion after measuring the amount of energy inside. After registering the Cheongju Sports Complex gate through the Association’s database, the next step was to select a target area for the gate and local guilds were prioritized first.

The fastest raiders will be prioritized, followed by raiders of a certain rank and above.

The Cheongju Sports Complex gate was won by the KPP guild, a group of local native hunters, and they immediately entered the gate.

“Brother, this is…….”

“I know…….”

KPP Guild Leader Kim Hansu and Class A Tanker Cho Ho-yeol shared a subtle look at the sight of the gate.

The wilderness, a desolate world with barren cities and blowing sandstorms.

This kind of world was not uncommon among the Gates. The desolate interiors, as if the world had ended, were a familiar sight to Hunters.

The problem was the civilization level of this gate.

“At least modern civilization. Maybe…more advanced than Earth.”

Ruined but standing buildings, autonomous robots roaming the streets…….

“That’s interesting, a gate to the future.”

“There’s fantasy and martial arts, so why not the future?”

The world inside the gate varied greatly.

If it’s a dungeon-type gate, you can simply defeat monsters and bosses, or if it’s a field-type gate, it’s often not implemented beyond a certain distance.

However, the higher the grade of the gate, the more complex and diverse the scenery and tendencies inside become.

In fantasy gates, for example you’ll see humans and elves using swords and magic, and goblins and orcs as enemies.

In fantasy martial arts type gates there are martial arts practitioners and the Demon Cult as enemies.

Other gates include apocalyptic, arcane punk, and steampunk.

“New implant released. Replace your useless body with a machine.”

A perk for gate intelligences and hunters Jo Ho-yeol reads a poster on the outside wall of the building with the “perfect translation” function.

He looked at it and said to Guild Leader Kim Hansu.

“Guild Leader, this is the cyberpunk type.”

“What…….?”

A future world where civilization is more advanced than Earth.

“This is troublesome, we’ll have to overhaul our party strategy against monsters.”

Highly developed civilizations inevitably use high firepower ranged weapons such as firearms and laser weapons.

For hunters, who are forced to rely on individual firepower, it’s tricky.

“For hunters with large individual variation in power, mass-produced models are the enemy, as they have limited stamina.”

“Yes, but since it’s a group battle, we can go from building to building and distribute our stamina so we won’t be surrounded.”

Hunters are strong. Even D-class Hunters are beyond the reach of most humans. However, they were still living beings, limited by their physical strength.

Regardless of the type of monster here at the Cheongju Gate, it would be difficult to deal with an army armed with firearms.

“Let’s use the building over there as our base camp. It’s quite tall, so it’ll be a good place to scout.”

The 58 members of the KPP Guild’s raiding party entered a small seven-story commercial building among the crumbling buildings.

They prepared for battle and attacked floor by floor, but all they saw was a desolate ruin, with no results.

“Look at this, Guildmaster. These clothes are pretty cool. Didn’t they just have holograms on them?”

He marveled at Park Hye-ri, who was picking up a novelty item from a nearby clothing store.

“Hye-ri, keep that. If it’s got good technology in it, it’ll be pretty cool.”

More advanced civilizations are picky, but it’s not like they don’t have anything to eat. Most of the stuff from more advanced civilizations could be used in the real world if interpreted correctly.

Although most of them are indecipherable, reverse engineering is not without success, and governments are still mining technology from these gates.

“Ho-yeol, do you see anything?”

“Umm… nothing really. No NPCs, no monsters.”

Strange.

Normally, a field-type gate would have NPCs and monsters.

“Where’s the Yakt Spinner? I thought that was the boss mob.”

A quest that popped up as soon as they entered the dungeon.

“Either obtain or destroy the ‘Wisdom Gem’ guarded by the Yakt Spinner.”

The KPP Guild’s primary goal is to defeat the boss monster, Yakt Spinner.

Since the gate closing condition is the Wisdom Gem, they were going to appraise it before deciding whether to take it or destroy it.

“I don’t see it at all.”

“That’s weird…….”

The weather was shitty. But still, it’s strange to be in a city this big and not see a single monster, let alone a human.

“Well, at least we’re not dealing with the Resistance or the army of an evil dictatorship.”

“Anyway, let’s make sure the perimeter is secure. Get the scouts out and draw a map──”

Something passed by.

The KPP guild members turned their gaze towards the guild leader who was suddenly interrupted…….

“Big brother Hansu?”

“Guild Leader?”

The entire upper half of his body, from his navel to his heads, and anything in between, disappeared.

They only understood after Guild Leader Kim Hansu’s forearms and head fell to the ground that they had just lost their guild leader.

“That’s a sniper! Take cover!”

Vice Guild Leader Cho Ho-yeol shouted urgently. The Hunters, who had all been through the prenatal battle, quickly took cover, leaning against the exterior walls of buildings and stalls.

“What the fuck, how did we not even react?”

Hunters are superhuman and they are far beyond human limits.

Human firearms are useless against them at the Gate, but that’s not true on Earth.

Hunters are far better than the average person, but they can still be killed by the high firepower of modern weaponry.

However Kim Hansu was an A-rank Hunter, a tanker, with the highest defense and the best reaction time of anyone but he couldn’t even react and was killed by a single shot?

-BAM! -BAM! -BAM! -BAM!

Before he could say anything, gunfire rained down on the building housing the KPP Guild.

The heavy blows are not on the level of the weapon that killed Kim Hansu, but they are heavy enough.

“Kak!”

“Dae-oh!”

A Hunter disappeared, leaving only the lower half of his body behind. Nothing remained where the overwhelmingly destructive hypervelocity cannon had passed.

“Damn it! We’re going to die at this rate! Do you have the enemy position?”

“Three o’clock! Can’t get a range because of the sand, sir! We’re too conspicuous up here! We need to get down now!”

“I understand! Everyone retreat in sequence!”

“What about the guild leader’s body?!”

“Ugh… We’ll find it after we get out of here and deal with the enemy!”

Cho Ho-yeol gritted his teeth and gave the order to retreat. Under the barrage of fire, the KPP guild members fled the building, and the fastest moving archer, Hye-ri, was the first one out of the building.

“What?”

Hye-ri ran out the door with the same momentum as before and touched her neck, which felt strange.

It’s ticklish. Why does my throat feel so ticklish──?

“Hye-ri?”

They looked at their fallen comrade’s body and couldn’t help but recognize the drops of blood in the air.

“……Wire?”

There was a wire leading to the entrance of the building. Running without realizing it was there, Hye-ri had literally run through the razor-sharp wire.

‘Since when?’

The Hunters shuddered as they imagined the enemy waiting to strike from the moment they entered the city.

Who are they? How many? How long have they been watching them?

“Damn it, hit them all, we have to get out of here somehow!”

The hunters’ magic surged but once they realized the wire was there, it was just an annoying hindrance.

They cut through it with their shields and slashed at it with their energized swords, trying to get out of the city.

Of course, the unseen enemy wasn’t watching, unleashing a barrage of machine guns and unknown hypervelocity cannons, hunting down the KPP guild members one by one.

“Damage-──!”

In the brief moment that they recognized something, a ‘wire’ swung like a whip passed through the hunters’ bodies.

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

The three Hunters collapsed in unison as a silver thread at the speed of sound sliced through their bodies.

-Puff! PUBBUBBLE!

The slaughter was swift, barely giving them time to realize they were dead.

“Bastard, show yourself!”

He screamed in terror and finally, when only one of them remained, it emerged, retrieving the wire.

“Robots…?”

Eight heavy, thick legs with camera eyes staring in all directions, a nightmarish design, like what you’d get if you turned a spider into a horrific killing machine appeared.

“Is it you…Is it you, Yakt Spinner.”

Cho Ho-yeol stared at the only ‘monster’ that existed in this gate.

Eight glaring eyes locked with his, and the hideous 240mm supersonic accelerator cannon and 60mm machine guns on its carapace stopped working.

‘Is it… letting me go?’

He didn’t realize that the Yakt Spinner made the economical choice of expanding its ‘limited supplies’.

‘It ran out of ammo and wants to fight?’

The auxiliary joints, which were probably designed for obstacle removal and explosives, are revealed.

The recovered ‘wire’ tied to that secondary joint is released by a mechanical arm, and in an instant it is dozens of meters long.

“Ah…….”

‘I see, it had no intention of letting me live.’

In a brief moment the swung secondary joint sends the wire flying at the speed of sound and a gleaming silver thread reflected in the sunlight as the sandstorm dissipated as the thin, tough silver line passed where Cho Ho-yeol had been.

Cheongju Gate.

First Assault, 58 KPP Hunters.

No survivors.

Second Assault──

Third Assault ──

The Hunter Association has organized an indefinite suspension of the attack on Cheongju Gate and the Gate Boss Yakt Spinner was raised to Red difficulty.