‘Have they already returned?’
Daehyun’s head turned beyond the abyss. Judging by the sound of footsteps, two people were approaching.
If he thought simply, there was a high chance they were the two who had left while carrying Park Jeongdong.
‘No, that is not it.’
The way they walked. The majesty he could feel from their footsteps told him.
Those were not the two from just now.
“Aaaah……!”
Then had they called for support?
Just as he thought that, the woman began screaming again.
Daehyun turned his head.
“……At the very least, I hope whoever comes will be useful.”
Whether the ones coming were strong personnel, bait, or a Superhuman with a binding skill, he did not care. As long as they could be of help.
Step, step—.
The footsteps were drawing closer and closer.
Daehyun lightly stepped back and avoided the woman’s attack, then widened the distance for a moment.
At that moment.
“The Gate is deeper than I expected.”
“Ugh…… It is gloomy, so I hate it.”
Two other women’s voices came from beyond the dark cave.
“Seol-ah, take care of the injured.”
“Tch. I am the only one doing chores again.”
“Then do you want to catch that?”
“You know I love chores.”
“As expected, Seol-ah listens well.”
The two figures slowly emerged from the darkness. Both had their faces hidden by robes, but the difference in their heights could not be concealed.
Suddenly, Daehyun’s gaze turned toward the taller one.
No, to be precise…… toward the sword that person was holding.
“The revelation…… the revelation!”
“Yes. The revelation.”
Whoosh—.
The taller one swung her sword toward the wounded woman.
The distance between them was around three to four meters.
At a glance, it was not a distance the sword could reach.
However.
“It is your fault again.”
Clatter—.
The sword she swung immediately split into pieces, transforming like a single whip.
Burst—!
At last, it wrapped around the woman’s neck and blew her head apart as it was.
Splatter—.
Blood gushed like a fountain, and brain matter burst like fireworks.
Here and there, there were also several things that looked like chunks of flesh.
“As expected of you, Big Sister. The process is clean, but the result is always filthy.”
Small applause echoed through the entire cave.
The fight had ended in an instant.
The one holding the sword shook it off with a look of boredom.
Daehyun’s eyes turned toward the sword.
‘A whip sword?’
At a glance, it looked like a single longsword, but when one looked closely, it was a peculiar sword whose form was made by connected segments.
Seeing something he had only read about in books with his own eyes felt both welcome and unfamiliar.
‘Questioning the person herself is out of the question now.’
Daehyun looked coldly at the corpse of the woman whose head had burst. All the time he had spent dragging things out had become meaningless.
‘That does not mean there is no one I can ask.’
Daehyun’s gaze turned toward the two people in robes. To be exact, toward the taller owner of the whip sword.
“I wish our Seol-ah would take care of things like this for me.”
“Come on, Big Sister. I am delicate, so I would die if I did things like that.”
“I am sure you would.”
With a hollow laugh, she held the whip sword and approached Daehyun, then removed her robe.
“I wonder if you received the gift I gave you properly?”
What was revealed was vivid red long hair and red eyes that shone like jewels.
A beauty…… no, features so splendid that the word witch suited her.
And that person was…….
“It has been a while.”
The Crimson Witch.
The woman he had met for the first and last time during the virtual Gate Backflow.
“We will talk later. First, let us treat your wounds.”
Clap, clap—.
The Crimson Witch said that and lightly clapped her hands.
“Seol-ah, hurry.”
“Yes.”
At the same time, the other person approached Daehyun.
She was a silver-haired girl who looked around Daehyun’s age, or perhaps a little younger.
She seemed to be the other person who had entered with her.
“Stay still for a moment…….”
The girl called Seol-ah calmly reached out toward Daehyun.
Since he did not sense any particular hostility, Daehyun remained still.
“……Huh?”
As if she had sensed something strange, the girl spoke.
“Big Sister, this kid is not injured.”
A nearby café.
Daehyun sat down and silently looked out the window.
After dealing with the mysterious woman who had harbored Demonic Energy, the Crimson Witch had called Daehyun out, saying there was something she needed to discuss separately.
‘……Demonic Energy.’
“The revelation! The revelatioooon……!”
How had it leaked outside the Demon Realm? Perhaps that was directly connected to Demon Realm Rifts—Gate Backflow.
“It is your fault again.”
And the reaction the Crimson Witch had shown as well.
On top of that…….
‘This time, even the quest was silent.’
There were not just one or two things to think about. Daehyun’s mind only grew more complicated.
“Hmm.”
“Are you really not going to drink?”
At that moment,
the Crimson Witch, who had brought over the drinks ordered at the café, spoke to Daehyun.
“Yes. I am fine.”
“Is coffee not to your taste?”
She sat across from Daehyun.
Even though she had just come from a fight, her hair was glossy.
“This is already the second time we have met, yet I do not even know your name.”
She lifted her coffee cup and took a light sip.
“I am Lee Mina. Call me Mina, Miss Mina, Big Sister, whatever you like. Anything but my Superhuman name.”
“I am Kang Daehyun.”
“Is that so?”
The Crimson Witch, Lee Mina, nodded with a faint smile as if satisfied.
“The other party members are at the hospital. Apparently, their lives are not in danger.”
“That is fortunate.”
It was not a lie.
If one of them lost their life and the incident grew larger, troublesome matters would arise for Daehyun, and that was not a good thing.
It had not even been long since he had escaped Ext Guild’s attention.
“I will pay you twice the money. No, I will give you all the allowance from today.”
The words Kwak Jincheol had said when leaving him behind. He had not forgotten them yet.
He did not intend to resent them, nor did he particularly intend to hate them.
To begin with, it had been a profitable deal, so they only had to give each other what they needed.
“The child who was with me is Jin Seol-ah. Seol-ah is handling the aftermath right now, so you can introduce yourselves later. For now…… you have something to discuss with me, do you not?”
Looking at Lee Mina, who tilted her head slightly as she asked, Daehyun spoke expressionlessly.
“To call it a discussion, one side knows far too much unilaterally.”
“How amusing.”
I knew my eyes were not wrong.
Lee Mina smiled and leaned back in her chair.
‘He has grown stronger. To a degree that cannot even be compared to last time.’
At this rate, it would not be long before he reached S-rank, or perhaps even beyond.
She hid her anticipation deep in her heart and slowly opened her mouth.
“I gave you a gift last time, so I would like you to talk first for now.”
“You gave it to me on your own, though.”
Shameless, but was it not true?
Daehyun had never asked for it. It had merely been her own impulsive judgment.
There was no need for Daehyun to feel guilty about that.
“……or so I would say, but since I have already used it, I suppose there is no helping it.”
However, guilt over ignoring something and repayment for gratitude were two different things.
Return favors, and repay losses twofold. That was his way.
“Now then…….”
After that, Daehyun continued speaking with the Crimson Witch for several minutes.
He began with how he had gone to a D-plus Gate as a porter for an Off-Campus Activity Request, and how he had unexpectedly discovered that woman.
Of course, he completely blocked off information about himself. There was no need to say that it was Demonic Energy, that he knew it well, or anything of the sort.
How much time passed like that?
“So that is why I was there.”
Only after he explained up to the point where he met Lee Mina did Daehyun finish speaking and smile faintly.
“A porter at a D-plus Gate. I am surprised you thought to go to a place like that.”
“I am more comfortable using my body.”
“Hmm…… Thanks to that, we met each other. Should I call that lucky?”
Lee Mina pouted and looked into empty air.
‘There is no particularly special information.’
Was it bait again this time?
Perhaps thinking that something would be caught all at once had been her own unnecessary greed. Her gaze turned toward Daehyun before her.
‘Well, I suppose there is no harm in telling him.’
He was not of an age to run around bragging about it, nor did he seem to have that sort of personality. There should be no major problem.
Lee Mina opened her mouth.
“Have you heard of the Gangyeon Sect?”
“……The Gangyeon Sect?”
“It is a religion that has been running rampant for the past few years. Not these days, but in the past, it was covered on the news quite a lot. Were you too young back then to be interested?”
“……Yes, well.”
Daehyun lightly glossed over it.
It might have been a few years ago to her, but to Daehyun, it might already have been something from decades ago.
It was only natural that he did not know.
“They are a religion that worships the unknown land beyond the Gates. The Demon Realm.”
“…….”
Flinch—.
At the word Demon Realm, Daehyun’s body reacted for an instant.
“You know the Demon Realm, right?”
“……I do.”
Of course he did. It was the place where Bariel had lived, and the world where he had risen to the summit.
It would be stranger not to know.
‘……Followers who worship the Demon Realm.’
A place where everyone endured a day of suffering. That was the Demon Realm.
But he had never heard of the Demon Realm having followers, much less a religion.
Because among those who lived in the Demon Realm, not a single person loved it.
“Apparently, instead of heaven, they see the Demon Realm as the Land of the End.”
“Hmm.”
In short, they were lunatics.
And large-scale, considerably deranged lunatics at that.
“A few years ago, their influence decreased, and they had suddenly gone quiet. But for some reason, they have started moving like mad again.”
Daehyun finished organizing the information about the Gangyeon Sect in his head.
“You remember the person in the Gate earlier? Most people who enter the Gangyeon Sect end up like that. Hmm…… They probably use something similar to hypnosis.”
“…….”
Daehyun was silent.
Lee Mina did not know that it was Demonic Energy that existed in the Demon Realm, nor that taking in too much Demonic Energy caused one to become like that.
‘There is no need to say it.’
On the contrary, it might provide a pretext for him to be connected to the matter in an annoying way.
And that was not the key to this incident, was it?
‘People I have never even heard of worship the Demon Realm.’
Did that worship also apply to Bariel, the one who had stood at the summit of the Demon Realm?
Daehyun thought briefly, and…….
“The Gangyeon Sect’s purp……”
“Yes, that. I do not know it.”
Cutting off Daehyun, who was about to ask about their purpose, Lee Mina continued speaking.
“The time these people appeared, the time Gate Backflow suddenly began increasing, and the time we started discovering Gangyeon believers who had gone mad inside Gates like you did, all overlap pretty similarly. What do you think? Extremely suspicious, right?”
As she explained, Lee Mina lightly shook her half-full coffee cup.
“Their influence is growing, and incidents are happening one after another. But even now, we still do not know their purpose.”
Her face, as she spoke to Daehyun, was filled with a bitter smile. It was not a particularly good expression.
“The government does not want to cause public anxiety, so all they did was commission the Association.”
“Hmm.”
Certainly…….
A criminal organization that had already been subjugated once had revived and was continuing to commit crimes. If the people found out, public opinion would boil over.
‘So they used Superhumans.’
And since she was an S-rank woman called a mercenary, she was perfect for this sort of incident.
“Well, money is money, but I am risking my life too. As I keep doing this, it feels far too dangerous.”
She drew out her words, saying, “The problem is the lack of talent,” then set down her coffee cup.
“So here is the thing.”
In an instant, Lee Mina’s dark expression filled with a smile. She briefly looked Daehyun up and down, then leaned her face toward him and spoke.
“Do you have any interest in working with us?”
Her jewel-like red eyes seemed to sparkle.