CRASH—!
The instant Jörmungandr’s tail slammed down—
FLASH—!
[Hup!]
THUD—! GRAB—!
Choco’s arms extended as he transformed, growing more than five meters tall.
He caught the falling serpent’s tail head-on.
CREAK. CREAK—
[Well done, Little Brother!]
[Hup. Hnnngh! Big Brother, it’s heavy. Hurry up and come...!]
A weight even a Giant Bear could barely withstand.
The white serpent.
[Ngh, stop struggling like this...!]
The white serpent thrashed its entire body in an attempt to break free from Choco.
CRASH—! CRASH-CRASH—!
Only after swinging its tail in every direction and tossing its body about to shake Choco off did it finally break free.
HISS. HSSSS....
The white serpent, Jörmungandr, straightened itself.
Soon, the serpent’s massive head turned toward the humans far below.
[...You lowly human bastards.]
THUD—
THUMP—
[How dare you... Who do you think this body belongs to!!]
“Urgh, cough....”
“Th-this pressure....”
“Th-this is S-rank...?”
The Hunters’ bodies were completely paralyzed, leaving them unable to move.
Jörmungandr flicked its long tongue and made an unpleasant hissing sound.
The white serpent lowered its head as if it intended to swallow the humans at any moment.
[I, Jörmungandr, Guardian Deity of Hell, shall make you understand the crime of coveting....]
“Dubu!!!!”
At that moment, Ji-hoon shouted as he climbed down from Poppy’s back.
Jörmungandr stopped speaking for a moment, then cleared her throat and began again.
[For committing the crime of daring to covet me....]
“Du! Bu! Ya!!!!!”
The white serpent froze again.
Then Jörmungandr’s head moved toward the aura of someone who felt both familiar and unfamiliar.
The scent of the person she missed, yet resented.
The person she had hated, yet could not help but remember.
The moment the serpent’s head finally fixed on Ji-hoon—
[H... uh...?]
“That’s right! Poppy and Choco are here too!”
Jörmungandr blinked.
Poppy waved his wings, and Jörmungandr—Dubu—noticed her own tail in Choco’s hands.
Then she slowly drew her body backward.
[B-B-Big Brother!?]
“That’s right, Dubu! I’m glad to see you looking healthy!”
[Y-you should have told me you were coming! I would have groomed myself first! Someone kept interfering while I was gathering mana, so I decided I had no choice but to come out!]
I knew it. You were the one gathering it.
So that’s why all the mana was converging there.
“You’re in the middle of shedding, aren’t you?”
[!!!!!??????]
“You always gathered mana whenever you shed.”
Ji-hoon grinned.
At the same time, Jörmungandr—Dubu’s enormous face turned bright red, and she began thrashing wildly in every direction.
CRASH-CRASH-CRASH—! BOOM—! KABOOM-KABOOM-KABOOM—!
She moved without the slightest thought for how much damage every motion of her body might cause.
[I-I do not know what you are talking about, Big Brother!! I went to such lengths to hide it!! To disgrace myself like this before you!!]
“She’s completely sane.”
[She is, Big Brother.]
[She’s sane.]
CRASH-CRASH-CRASH—!
“Hey, hey, hey! Stop! You’ll collapse the Gate!”
[Th-this maiden is mortified! Come to think of it, Big Brother! I have something to say to you too!]
Huff. Huff.
[How could you leave so suddenly and then appear again just as suddenly? How could you!?]
“It’s not like I had any control over that....”
I was subjected to forced labor too (though I signed the contract myself), and it’s not as if I became a Hunter because I wanted to (though I am attending the Returnee Training Camp).
Ji-hoon looked aggrieved, but Dubu sharply turned her head away as if none of that mattered.
[I do not care. Hmph!]
Then she suddenly stuck out her tongue.
Her long tongue slithered and swished through the Hunters.
[I will not move a single step from this spot until I feel better!]
Then she coiled herself up and dropped heavily to the ground.
[Warning: Boss Monster Dark Knight (A) has appeared in the Gate.]
“A Boss Monster!?”
“There’s a separate Sub-Boss and true Boss!?”
“I’ve never even heard of anything like this!”
“The Dark Knight is emerging! Everyone, follow my command and....”
The instant Baek Kang-hyeon placed a hand on his sword’s pommel, the Dark Knight burst from the fissure.
SQUEEZE—!
At that moment—
[I happen to be in an exceedingly foul mood right now.]
Creak? Grk?
[Until I feel better, why do you not wait quietly?]
Jörmungandr wrapped her tail around the Dark Knight and subdued it in an instant.
She bared her sharp fangs at the Dark Knight.
SNAP. SNAP.
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK.
Opening her jaws wide, she repeatedly snapped her teeth as if she might devour the Dark Knight at any moment.
“...Good grief.”
Even I find that a little frightening.
“Hunter Ji-hoon, what in the world is going on...?”
“Ah, she’s the same kind of thing as these two, but the thing is....”
Even in Hell, Jörmungandr—Dubu—was a Demonic Beast from myth.
Yet she had a special trait all her own.
And that was....
“She sulks very easily.”
“Uh... what...?”
A Monster gets sulky?
“This is seriously driving me crazy. You two.”
Ji-hoon called Poppy and Choco over for an emergency conference.
“...We’re in big trouble, aren’t we?”
[Yes, Big Brother. You are truly terrible at cheering Little Sister up, are you not? It was the worst even at Hell Farm.]
“Are you finished?”
[My apologies!]
[Even food won’t cheer Big Sister Dubu up. We’re in big trouble.]
While Ji-hoon sighed—
[Warning: Dungeon Grade is being recalibrated from S-rank to A-rank.]
A System message announcing the lowered grade appeared before every Hunter.
Dubu remained coiled up, the Dark Knight writhing in the grip of her tail.
And around her were C-rank and B-rank Hunters.
‘If anyone provokes her in this state....’
They would be annihilated.
Ji-hoon clicked his tongue briefly.
“She’ll explode if anyone touches her.”
[Yes. She is likely barely holding herself back right now.]
[Big Sister Dubu is seriously dangerous.]
“...Ha.”
Ji-hoon pressed a hand to his forehead.
***
At the same time, Jin Seo-yoon ordered reinforcements to deploy and hurried into the Gate.
‘According to Baek Kang-hyeon’s information, this Gate is extremely abnormal even among anomalous Gates.’
The Monsters repeatedly respawned, and the grade kept changing.
It had even shifted from S-rank to A-rank just now.
“What the hell is this...!”
Worried that she might lose Lee Ji-hoon at this rate, Jin Seo-yoon accelerated.
Yet she could not hear the sound of fighting from any direction.
“Where in the world are they fighting...?”
At that moment, the sound of people reached Jin Seo-yoon’s ears.
“It’s over there!”
BANG—!
She concentrated mana into her feet, and her body shot forward like a bullet.
It did not take long to find the place where everyone had gathered.
She found Baek Kang-hyeon as well.
“Hunter Baek Kang-hyeon....”
And then Jin Seo-yoon saw—
“S-Senior, I’ll give you a massage!”
“I once dreamed of becoming a comedian. Let me perform a skit....”
—Hunters performing tricks in front of the serpent.
“Peekaboo, our little Dubu! Cheer uuup.”
“...Hunter Lee Ji-hoon?”
“Dubuuuu~”
“....”
And Lee Ji-hoon, making a complete spectacle of himself in front of the serpent’s head.
***
Dubu had been hypersensitivity incarnate ever since Hell.
–Oh my, Big Brother! What are you doing?!
She had reacted that way even when Ji-hoon tried to dispose of the skin she had shed.
–You scoundrel, Choco! How dare you try to steal your Big Sister’s snack!
She had done the same when Choco tried to take a piece of candy no bigger than a fingernail.
–I will lodge a formal complaint with Lord Abel. This is intolerable!
When Abel visited the farm and moved a cup of water, she had even submitted something resembling a formal letter of complaint.
He had moved it by only about one centimeter.
What is all this fuss over something so minor?
Dubu’s sensitivity was so extreme that it made people say such things.
[You there, the man with all the sweat on his forehead. Wipe it off before you return, or I will bite you because it is unpleasant.]
[You, the woman over there. Why is your hair not properly arranged? It bothers me so much that I cannot concentrate!]
[Aaaagh, this is infuriating! Big Brother! Are humans naturally this insensitive, unlike you?]
[Dubu! Even you cannot speak to Big Brother in that....]
[Big Brother Poppy, you shut up too!]
KROOOOOAR—!
The enormous serpent, the white Jörmungandr, bared her fangs and roared.
“What should we do?”
[What should we do?]
[What do we do?]
Even after putting their heads together, they could not find an answer.
How had they handled this at Hell Farm?
‘Ah!’
Ji-hoon suddenly remembered something and rose from his seat.
“Branch Director Baek Kang-hyeon.”
Baek Kang-hyeon flinched when Ji-hoon, who had been leading the crowd in cooing “peekaboo” moments ago, approached him.
“...What is it?”
“Ah, it’s nothing. Hahaha. Being a Tamer is not easy either.”
“Tell me about it.... Wait, that’s not what matters right now.”
“She must be quite a serpent if even you are having this much trouble, Mr. Ji-hoon.”
Jin Seo-yoon seemed relieved by the somewhat calmer atmosphere, but she still voiced her concern.
“Mr. Ji-hoon, do you have a solution?”
“Hmm....”
“It might be better to smash our way through. An S-rank Boss is holding an A-rank Boss captive, and the Gate Grade keeps spinning back and forth like a roulette wheel.”
This was Baek Kang-hyeon’s first time encountering anything like this as well.
Could they even break past Jörmungandr, the Sub-Boss, to defeat the Dark Knight, the Boss?
It might be possible if they tried, but....
‘The casualties would clearly be devastating.’
Most of the Returnees here were C-rank or B-rank Hunters.
If a full-scale battle erupted, a single roar from Jörmungandr might render them unconscious or, in severe cases, kill them instantly.
“There’s something I want to ask.”
At Ji-hoon’s words, Baek Kang-hyeon and Jin Seo-yoon listened intently.
“What happens if we don’t defeat the Boss?”
“After a certain amount of time, the Boss Monster will be able to enter the human world. The exit opens.”
“Then a Gate Collapse occurs. That is what happened ten years ago, when the first Gates opened.”
Jin Seo-yoon clenched her fist.
The strength of her grip conveyed her resolve never to allow that tragedy to happen again.
“So as long as the Boss doesn’t come out, there’s no problem, right?”
“That’s... right? Guild Master Yoon Do-ha, is that correct?”
Yoon Do-ha answered over the communicator.
–That’s right. The minions come through when the Boss crosses over.
“Aha, I understand.”
Ji-hoon clapped his hands once.
“Poppy! Choco!”
[Dubu, I am sorry that I... Yes, Big Brother!]
[Big Sister, this jerky is tasty. Munch, munch. Big Brother?]
The two, who had been working hard to appease Dubu, looked back at Ji-hoon.
“Let’s run.”
Baek Kang-hyeon and Jin Seo-yoon tilted their heads at those words.
“What?”
“You want to run?”
Every other person there, including the Hunters of Team C, reacted the same way.
They merely blinked, unable to understand what he meant.
“Yes. Let’s run first and think about it later.”
How to appease a sulking Little Sister.
The first rule:
Give her time alone.
Even at Hell Farm, whenever Dubu sulked, they simply left her alone.
By the next day, she had usually calmed down somewhat.
Besides, Dubu was shedding right now, was she not?
If they provoked her now, she would explode.
Not merely in the sense that she would become angry. Her mana would literally explode.
Therefore....
They should give each other some space for now.
“It’s like saying, ‘I’ll see you in a month.’ Hahahaha.”
Of course, it won’t actually be a month.
Everyone stared at Ji-hoon as he laughed nonchalantly.
Ji-hoon merely began gathering his things as if there were nothing else he could do.