‘It is dark.’
He had known it from the moment he saw it from outside, but the inside of the cave was dark.
No, calling it dark was not enough. It was pitch-black itself.
Daehyun gathered a very small amount of Divine Power in his palm.
Then, like a torch, a tiny light appeared in his hand.
“Hmm.”
This was enough to clear his vision somewhat.
Daehyun nodded and slowly moved forward.
How long had he walked like that?
“……!”
Suddenly, sensing something, Daehyun quickly leaped backward.
BOOM—!
At that moment, a thunderous sound rang out, and a heavy impact struck the spot where Daehyun had been standing just moments earlier.
Daehyun regained his stance where he had retreated and raised his head.
ROOOOAR!
Green skin similar to a goblin’s.
But a body dozens of times larger.
And a massive club that had just slammed into the ground.
Sure enough.
There was a monster there.
“……An orc.”
Daehyun smiled bitterly and clenched his fist.
Judging by its presence and the destructive power of that strike just now, there was a high chance that this creature was the boss of this Gate.
“Do I have to defeat you for the exam to end?”
Even if it was not that strong, this was a perfect level for testing his skills.
To begin with, it was probably a monster placed here for three people to hunt together, but the remaining two might as well not exist.
ROOOOAR!
Sensing his fighting spirit, the orc raised the club in its hand high into the air.
Before it could slam it into the ground, Daehyun quickly retreated backward.
BOOM—!
Each time the orc swung its club, a hole appeared in the ground.
Each individual strike was powerful, but not so fast that he could not dodge it.
‘And it has many openings.’
The delay between one attack and the next was fairly long.
It seemed to take at least two or three seconds before its next attack.
The moment Daehyun grasped that, he closed the distance in an instant and jumped toward the orc’s face.
Daehyun clenched his fist with all his might.
[Skill, Divine Fist (LV.1), activates.]
[You have succeeded in drawing out your inner Divine Power!]
[The power of Skill, Divine Fist (LV.1), rises sharply!]
“Hup!”
The moment his extended fist struck the orc’s face.
CRACK—!
A tremendous impact sound, completely different from when he struck a human, rang out, and the enormous orc was slammed into the cave wall.
With the cave already dark and now filled with dust, his vision blurred.
‘……Did I take it down?’
The blow had landed precisely, but there was still a chance it was not dead.
Thinking that, Daehyun cautiously moved forward.
[The boss has been eliminated!]
[The target of Skill, Divine Fist (LV.1), has been eliminated.]
[Skill proficiency rises sharply!]
[Skill, Divine Fist (LV.1), has been strengthened into Divine Fist (LV.2)!]
The notification windows appeared, showing that Daehyun had done it properly.
One blow. He had defeated the orc in a single strike.
Although the Gate’s grade was low and there was the advantage of it being a virtual Gate for an exam, achieving this much with the body of a healer meant he had grown fairly strong.
“…….”
But Daehyun tilted his head with displeasure.
No, with an even more dissatisfied expression, he silently summoned the quest window.
[Quest]
[Virtual Practical Combat]
[Details: ?????????]
[※ You cannot check the quest details yet.]
[Completion Conditions: ???]
[※ You cannot check the quest completion conditions yet.]
[Reward: ???]
[※ You cannot check the quest reward yet.]
The “?” marks on the quest still had not disappeared.
Not only that, but even though he had defeated the boss, the Gate had still not closed.
‘As expected, something is strange.’
This place was merely an E-rank Gate. And a virtual Gate created for a student exam at that.
Although it had ended in one blow, and in an instant at that, the orc had been strong, unlike the goblins. For students experiencing a Gate for the first time, an orc was also a fairly threatening monster.
There was no way a monster stronger than an orc existed here.
‘……That thing was not the source of the pressure.’
But he could still feel it.
Something far stronger than the orc…….
“What kind of creature in the world……”
At that moment.
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE—.
The cave began to shake violently.
***
Meanwhile, outside the Gate.
While Daehyun was taking the exam, the teacher and the other students were watching everything as if they were watching a live match broadcast.
“Shin Daehoon is getting hit by a goblin.”
“Choi Minseok got scared and even dropped his spear.”
“What are those guys doing? Two of them are acting like that against one measly goblin?”
The sight of the two of them foolishly struggling against a goblin.
“Was that Kang Daehyun just now?”
“Insane. Did he really beat a monster to death barehanded? In one hit at that?”
The sight of Daehyun eliminating a goblin with Divine Power.
“Kang Daehyun suddenly started running.”
“Is he running away? No way. Is he leaving his teammates behind?”
“……I do not think that is it. Still, is it all right for a Healing-Type to act like that?”
And even the sight of him suddenly beginning to run like mad.
Every part of how they were taking the exam was being shown to the students.
In the truest sense, it was a broadcast.
The teacher silently stared at the screen.
‘What a mess.’
Unless one had talent or a decent amount of nerve, most first Gates ended in miserable results.
That was what the virtual Gate exam was originally like.
‘Those two are effectively disqualified, and the only one left is Kang Daehyun.’
He watched the screen for a long while.
He gave bonus points when Daehyun eliminated goblins and advanced, and mercilessly deducted points when the two others fled like mad.
‘Is he planning to fight the orc alone?’
Fighting barehanded was one thing, and going in on his own to fight the boss was another.
There were too many things he could not understand about what the boy was thinking, but he merely continued grading according to the exam’s detailed criteria in silence.
After all, was that not something they had to handle on their own? There was no reason for him, as the teacher, to concern himself with it.
“Ah, sir! The cave is too dark, so we cannot see!”
“What, the camera does not even have night-vision mode? This is seriously the level of a national school……?”
And when Daehyun entered the cave where the orc was, the teacher turned his eyes away from the display.
The fact that the inside of the dark cave was not shown was not because of the budget.
It was because, for the sake of exam fairness, the students could not be shown the fight against the boss monster.
“Everyone, be quiet. Hm?”
Clicking his tongue, he turned his head toward the small screen placed in front of his control panel.
“Wait, this is…….”
And when he noticed the reaction on the side screen that suddenly entered his field of vision, he immediately brought his mouth to the microphone and shouted.
“You three! Stop the exam! Come out of the Gate immediately!”
***
“This is driving me mad. What in the world is this……?”
The teacher looked at the screen and shook his head as if he could not believe it.
It was a screen that sensed the Magic Stone’s reaction and constantly displayed the energy inside the Gate.
It was a kind of detector: the lower the graph on the screen, the lower the Gate’s grade, and conversely, the higher it rose, the higher the Gate’s difficulty.
“I repeat! The exam is over! If you do not want to die, everyone get out!”
And at this very moment.
The graph shown on the screen was rising abnormally high.
‘A Gate Backflow in a virtual Gate using a Magic Stone? Is something like this possible?’
Gate Backflow was a term referring to a change in a Gate’s grade caused by an unknown trigger.
A phenomenon that appeared even in reality at odds of about one in tens of millions had appeared virtually, and in nothing more than an E-rank Gate.
Even after Gates first appeared in the world, even after he became a Superhuman, took a teaching position, and supervised exams countless times at the Superhuman Training School, something like this had never happened.
No, it should not have happened.
‘This is no longer E-rank. It might be D-rank. No, C-minus?’
D-rank was an upper-tier Gate even among low-grade Gates, while C-minus was a level that required a party of three or four Superhumans slightly below average.
Either way, it had already reached a value that ordinary students could not handle.
“Hurry! Do not hesitate and come out! That place is no longer somewhere you can handle!”
Three students had entered.
The two who had run away before entering the cave should be able to come out easily enough,
but the problem was Kang Daehyun.
When he came to his senses and looked at the screen, Kang Daehyun had already encountered the orc.
“Damn it.”
Since he was in the middle of combat, there was no way he could hear the teacher’s voice.
The teacher quickly operated the control panel and forcibly opened the Gate’s entrance.
Normally, it would not be opened until the exam ended, but this time was an exception.
CRACKLE—!
“Aaaargh!”
As soon as the entrance opened, a rift appeared in the air, and the two students who had teamed up with Kang Daehyun burst out.
Fortunately, aside from light abrasions and bruises, both of them were safe.
Surely, it was because they had not entered the cave that they were able to come out quickly.
“……Someone take those two who just came out to the infirmary. While you are at it, call another teacher!”
Then what would happen to Kang Daehyun?
There was no need to think about that question.
‘I have no choice but to go in and save him myself.’
Though he was working as a teacher in a place like this, he, too, was undeniably a Superhuman.
It would not be easy to rescue him, but as long as he was still alive, it was not impossible.
The teacher reached toward the rift.
CRACKLE—! CRACKLE—!
A reaction incomparable to ordinary sparks appeared.
He felt as if the Gate were pushing him away.
Something was strange, but the teacher continued pushing his hand into the rift.
At that moment.
ZZZZZT—!
“……!”
An even more intense spark erupted and forcibly repelled the teacher’s hand.
Not only that, but the hand that had been reaching into the rift had turned black and charred at some point.
“What in the world is this……?”
Something bizarre was happening.
The teacher’s pupils began trembling violently.
***
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE—.
The inside of the cave began to shake.
It was a tremendous vibration, as though it could be called a massive earthquake.
If he stayed like this, it would collapse on him as it was, but Daehyun did not retreat and kept his stance inside the cave.
‘……As expected.’
He had thought something was strange from the beginning.
The pressure he had felt from the moment he entered the Gate.
No matter how weak he had become, that was not the aura of something that would appear in a mere E-rank Gate.
‘I thought it belonged to the orc, but that creature did not possess that level of majesty.’
If so, there was only one thing he could think of.
This Gate had already left the realm of common sense.
“……It seems the master of the Gate has changed.”
And at this very moment, it was trying to awaken.
An existence beyond an orc. Something that did not belong in an E-rank Gate…….
‘No, something that should not exist in this world at all, much less beyond a virtual Gate.’
The creature that had been exuding majesty from the moment he entered the Gate.
Daehyun smiled bitterly and clenched his fist.
Ding—! RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE—!
Then, along with a notification sound, the cave began shaking even more violently.
Some kind of new window appeared, but Daehyun did not look at it and quickly scanned his surroundings.
When he thought that the creature that had been hiding was about to emerge, a chill naturally ran down his spine.
BOOM—!
Sure enough.
As he broke into a cold sweat and took a slight step back, the cave ceiling collapsed in front of him, and rocks came crashing down…….
Grrrrrr!
With an enormous sound, a monster roughly the same size as the orc appeared.
‘That thing is…….’
Looking at it, Daehyun could not hide his astonishment.