Chapter 434. Don’t Adjust Your Shoes in a Melon Field, Don’t Fix Your Hat Under a Plum Tree (5)
Chapter 434. Don’t Adjust Your Shoes in a Melon Field, Don’t Fix Your Hat Under a Plum Tree (5)
Anyway, she can’t believe how this whole mess ended up happening.
‘These... are supposed to be awakened like me, living in modern society?’
The guild master of the Korean Magic Tower assessed the current situation with complexity.
‘Even I, hearing about Jung Haseong’s situation, feel compelled to yield out of pity.’
Without a sense of compassion, how many ways are humans truly better than beasts? That thought briefly drifted through the back of their mind.
‘Is it wrong that I want to beat that sociopath to death?’
Of course, it was a thought that should never be acted on. True to her specialty in curses, Seo Esther quickly began entertaining a dangerous idea—but that was just one of several factors complicating the situation on site.
“Then you should have criticized the ranking system before a gate like this appeared! Why did you stay silent when the Association treated the top-ranked Hunters well for years?”
“Are those tiny little commission benefits even the same issue as this? Huh!”
Above all, the national hero’s face twisted in anger as he became furious.
‘If this continues, it wouldn’t be surprising if a superpower war breaks out.’
His only family had already been battling illness for years, and now, people who usually didn’t even pay attention to Hunter rankings were invoking the media to block his mother’s chances of recovery…No one could predict how the national hero would act next.
‘Is a fight about to break out?’
The argument between Jung Ha-seong and the third guild continued for several minutes. Seo Esther couldn’t help but feel worried. But she wasn’t the only one thinking this way. Someone who had been anxious up until now, sharing the same concern, finally spoke up with a fairly well-known voice.
“E, everyone.”
This was a figure who had been largely unnoticed until now, among top-tier guilds that didn’t even deal with A-rank Hunters. However, for a position of such national importance, it was impossible for there to be no public officials present. Moreover, S-rank Hunters, who could easily make the weak suffer if their emotions wavered even slightly, inevitably required special volunteers once again.
“Oh my!”
For Hunters who often ventured on outdoor hunts like the Red Gate, the face of the woman who just appeared would be very familiar.
“I heard the Association was sending someone, but so it was our Yeonie?”
“Y, yes!”
“Oh, you were guarding the off-limits area. I should have recognized you just by looking at your back.”
The moment Esther spotted the B-rank Awakened official, her expression softened. Yet the words that followed were extremely serious.
“Sorry for suddenly intervening.”
“Hmm.”
“Excuse me, but could I ask everyone to focus for just a moment?”
Listening attentively to someone polite. Well, these days, it’s not exactly a difficult thing to do.
“Go ahead and speak.”
“Ah, yes!”
“Just to be sure, I have to ask—could it be that foreign thieves aiming for treasures have finally shown up in our country?”
Seo Esther voiced her concern based on a logical assessment.
“No, it’s nothing like that. I just wanted to inform you of this before the conflict escalates…”
But Seonwoo Yeon shook her head and began speaking about matters far removed from foreign thieves.
“I’m really sorry, everyone, but it seems that the monsters appearing in this dungeon aren’t [Elixir] monsters?”
Bam.
With that single statement, the atmosphere on site changed dramatically. To be precise, the predators who had been shouting over a legendary, near-mythical item suddenly fell silent. The news was that shocking.
‘So what we’re looking at… isn’t the hunting ground for the elixir?’
But the people gathered here weren’t exactly veterans with just a year or two of experience.
“What on earth do you mean?”
“That…”
“The monsters appearing in this gate have definitely been confirmed by the Korean Magic Tower.”
“Yes. They even distributed photographic evidence through the Association.”
“My goodness. If you still doubted the identity of the monsters even after seeing those photos, I can only shake my head.”
For a moment, everyone present realized something. Although the sources were different, the hunters here had all seen the appearance of that particular monster before. Seo Esther had even personally dragged the monster’s minions outside to take photos for classification samples. And the afterimage captured in that single JPG file was…
‘Hmm.’
Its semi-transparent black legs wobbled like a ghost draped in clothing. Its face jutted forward sharply, as if someone had stretched dough with their fingertips. In short, a speckled creature with a beak as sharp as a farmer’s pitchfork was said to be crouched inside that nest.
“Ms. Civil Servant.”
At that moment, someone who had been quietly listening on one side of the scene spoke up. It was a question raised by Jung Haseong.
“Sorry, but I don’t quite understand what you just explained.”
“Ah.”
“The species appearing in this gate is remarkably similar to the ones documented in the past…”
The [Elixir] monster, which first appeared on the planet Earth, could still be studied in countless ways today. Specifically, there were detailed films capturing every aspect of the creature’s appearance. Dissections. And some parts of that artificial lifeform still existed, preserved proudly in formalin solution. Moreover, present here was a Hunter who had never neglected a single day of study in the field of gate monsters.
“Indeed, the problem is that there are no living samples of that monster. Its appearance came during such a chaotic time, after all.”
Haseong. The undisputed number-one Hunter in South Korea. In other words, even this walking encyclopedia of monsters hadn’t suspected the appearance of the [Elixir] gate.
“However, according to the information disclosed by the Swedish side under the international treaty, the corpse of that monster is in this form.”
“My goodness. How much storage does your phone have to carry all these monster photos?”
“Anyway, when compared with the photos shared by Hunter Seo Esther here, they’re exactly the same.”
“That’s right! It’s just a bit thinner since the fluids are gone. Everything else is the same.”
Its body is entirely black. Round and swollen. A few wobbly fins like those of a carp. Even at a glance, the two photos match perfectly—so are we really to believe that the creature standing before us isn’t the one that produces the elixir?
“I just don’t understand why you suddenly said it’s not an [Elixir] monster…”
At that moment, when even the renowned Hunters were all puzzled, the official observing the situation finally managed to add a comment.
“It’s different.”
She was even certain of it.
“They do look similar, so it’s easy to mistake one for the other, but first, the number of splits in the fins is different, and more importantly, the spacing of the spots on the body…”
“What?”
“So to conclude, the one that appeared this time isn’t a vertebrate. It’s a monstrous lifeform that merely mimics the appearance of the previous [Elixir] monster.”
“Y, you mean it imitated it? A monster imitating another monster?”
“To be more precise, it’s a monster that mimics—or camouflages itself as—the other… that’s the information I just received.”
The official tried to calm everyone down, explaining details like the number of splits in the fins—things you couldn’t notice unless you deliberately squinted.
At this point, Esther naturally voiced a counterquestion.
“Who was the one that relayed that information to Seonwoo Yeon?”
But the answer was unexpected.
“Kim Giryeo-ssi.”
A wealthy individual leading a top-tier guild. Moreover, a name capable of silencing the number-one Awakened—symbol of South Korea’s hunting industry—in an instant. When this retiree’s name was mentioned, the Awakened present at the scene were left dumbfounded.
“I, I’m sorry. I’m not very good with words, so some important parts got left behind.”
“….”
“But anyway, the fact that this gate has little connection to the [Elixir]… that was the information they shared.”
“….”
“By the way, I sincerely apologize here for sharing the information without authorization. Next time, I will voluntarily submit myself and fully cooperate with any disciplinary procedures…”
“Alright. That appraiser from the Gimhae Kim clan isn’t exactly known for being loose-lipped. Anyway, controlling these people any further was meaningless once they caused a commotion. As the copyright holder of the sample shots, I’ll just let it slide.”
“Uh, um… w, well then. I have a bit more to say to all of you while we’re at it.”
Seonwoo Yeon scrolled through her phone, fumbling as she read through the numerous messages from overseas senders that filled it.
“The simplest way to check would be to catch one of the minion monsters and flip it over?”
“Yes?”
“They say the skin of that gate monster is only for imitation purposes. So if you dissect it, you’ll see that the inside is completely different.”
“Huh.”
“More importantly, he says it has blue organs…”
“The real [Elixir] monster, on the other hand, had innards that were strangely mechanical in form, so that actually makes this believable.”
“Yes.”
“By the way, did Giryeo-ssi tell you that information again?”
“Yes. Since they have already left the country, I’m relaying the information on their behalf.”
“No, wait a minute. You said he left the country?”
Just how careless had the media become! Esther was shocked to hear that there had been a schedule she hadn’t even been aware of.
But in a way, this was only natural.
Non-appearance. Retirement.
He was already someone who rarely went out, making it hard to generate news about him. It wasn’t unusual for a once-popular Awakened to become a has-been and face lawsuits over it. Nowadays, even writing an article about Kim Giryeo offered no guarantee of clicks, so naturally, no working journalist would want to run around chasing after a retired figure.
“In truth, I never expected to hear such a taxonomical assessment. I simply sought the opinion of a former industry colleague out of a desire to somehow prevent friction between high-ranking Awakened…”
The public official continued the conversation with a serious tone.
“But Awakened Kim said, ‘If anyone doubts this information, you may kill a monster to verify it…'”
“That’s right. Well, the item tables would be different, after all.”
“Ah!”
“Unless they’re closely related like Black Dragons and Red Dragons, most monsters don’t share their rewards at all.”
“T, then.”
“Even just by looking at the loot, the truth becomes clear.”
And as the Korean Magic Tower guildmaster explained, the prime gate discovered in the urban artificial forest soon revealed its shabby true form. In simple terms, the items were completely different. From the low-tier loot to its internal organs, there was not a single part that matched previous cases—the creature here was entirely its own entity.
***
It feels as if he has briefly buried his face in an oasis.
The only problem was that it was a mirage that didn’t actually exist.
‘I don’t even know how the day passed.’
It was about 24 hours later. At that moment, Jung Haseong thought of his family. Humanity had suddenly fallen asleep one day, as if fleeing from a massive threat.
‘This kind of situation has been repeating for years already.’
He thought he might finally be able to get his mother back on her feet now…
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Whenever he turned on his phone, countless bogus articles popped up immediately. Jung Haseong always felt a pang of anxiety reading those clickbait pieces online. He knew all too well that developing a cure wasn’t easy, yet he couldn’t help clinging to hope, however painfully. And now, after letting people hope so intensely, only to snatch it away in such a cruel way—it was utterly devastating.
‘Doppelgänger… right. In an industry where even a boss monster goes by that name, why hadn’t he properly examined the creature’s appearance?’
At that moment, the emotion rising in Jung Haseong’s mind was paradoxically not disappointment. To be honest, he felt a strange calm—so much so that a surge of self-directed disgust almost simmered beneath the surface.
If he had actually obtained the elixir, he would have been forced to make an extremely burdensome and uncomfortable choice.
‘No matter what, as expected, my mom still comes first.’
He stood on a stark white corridor, brushing his face with his hand.
‘Of course. This is something that no one could possibly handle!’
For a while, all that continued was self-reproach with no one to listen. But he couldn’t afford to waste time like that. So Jung Haseong struggled to pull himself together and deliberately redirected his thoughts elsewhere.
‘At this point, it just feels like that… There are so many people in this world who are way smarter than me. I just wish they’d take care of all these problems now…’
But what a creepy coincidence.
-Diriririri. Diriririri.
His phone rang with the default ringtone. And the person calling this time was revealed in just a few seconds.
【Hunter Kim Giryeo ☎】
‘Yeah…He’s really smarter than me.’
Now that he looked, he noticed a minor error in the contact name. But, for now, he decided to let it slide.