Han-eol stared down at the watch strapped to his wrist.
'So the watch hands we are wearing today are what correspond to the S pole object.'
In the meantime, Lee Ru-in did not forget to point out one precaution.
"Regrettably, our Shinseong Group's guided transfer technology is not perfect. There is a low probability that some of you will fail the guided transfer and land somewhere entirely wrong."
"Urk."
At the thunderbolt of a statement, the interns' eyeballs quiver and shake.
Lee Ru-in warned them with a deliberately sterner expression.
"Even if you do succeed in the guided transfer, do not let your guard down. As I said before, the Highland is a place vast and ever-changing beyond your imagination. Even if you succeed in the guided transfer and are sent to a region where your group seniors have laid down a foundation, that region is wide enough to be several times larger than the entire area of Seoul. You must survive alone in that vast region, separated from your fellow recruits. Do you understand what I am saying?"
"Yes, we understand."
The interns answered even more loudly. The reason they shouted until their throats nearly tore was the intent to shed the anxiety in their hearts by at least doing this much.
'Hmph.'
Lee Ru-in snickered inwardly.
In truth, no dangerous demon beasts existed in the region the interns would be transferred to.
It was thanks to the Shinseong Group's ability-holders occasionally visiting the region in question and subjugating demon beasts on sight. In other words, the place the interns would be sent to today was a relatively safe zone.
Of course, there were also cases of failing the guided transfer at low probability.
'If you arrive somewhere completely wrong instead of the safe zone, that is the end of it. There is nothing even I can do about an unlucky one.'
Lee Ru-in muttered this inwardly, then confirmed with the interns once more.
"Surely there is no coward here who is so afraid of the Highland that he will turn straight back the moment he arrives?"
"Yes, there is none."
The interns bellowed.
"Good. Then I shall tell you what you are to do from here on. The instant you arrive in the Highland, you must set out to gather."
'Gathering.'
While Jin focused on the word gathering, Lee Ru-in gave several examples.
"In the case of the peculiar chunks of stone called mana crystals, the collection quota is one kilogram. Medicinal herbs or new materials also permit return as long as you gather at least one kilogram. Well, there are also demon spirit stones, but I doubt any of you interns has the nerve to gather something like that."
'Mana crystals, medicinal herbs, new materials, demon spirit stones.'
Jin chewed over the important words in turn.
Lee Ru-in glanced over that Han-eol in passing and continued her account.
"As you know, a demon spirit stone refers to a stone embedded in the body of a mid-grade or higher demon beast. Therefore, to gather a demon spirit stone you must succeed in hunting a demon beast, and that is no easy challenge at the level of interns like you. In any case, once each of you has filled your quota, return to the place where you first arrived and submerge yourselves into the blue mist again, and you will return here to Mid-Land Seoul. I trust you have already learned in class which items are good to gather."
"Yes, we have learned."
"Oh, right! In the event that you are lucky enough to discover a Highland relic, you may disregard the collection quota. Return at once carrying only the relic. Any intern who brings back a relic of high value will receive a special group-level reward, so you may look forward to it. Understood?"
"Yes, understood."
Along with the interns' answer, Lee Ru-in clapped her hands, clap, clap, clap.
"All right, we submerge now. Move quickly, quickly, in order of employee number. Quickly, quickly."
Spurred on by Lee Ru-in, the interns leapt into the blue mist one after another.
Han-eol too covered his nose with his right hand and strode vigorously into the mist.
The instant he leapt into the mist, a thick, viscous pressure came rushing in.
Lee Ru-in's advice had been exactly right. This was not mist; it felt like submerging into deep seawater.
'Ugh.'
Bubbles leaked out from between Han-eol's lips, glug, glug. Here he could not properly open his eyes.
Strangely, however, his clothes did not get wet.
How much time passed like that?
Around the time the worry, 'Am I going to suffocate and die like this?' entered Han-eol's mind, suddenly an intense light burst before his eyes.
Next, Han-eol arrived in a new world utterly divorced from Mid-Land Seoul.
The place where Han-eol took his first step was atop a tree branch one and a half meters above the ground.
Unable to bear Han-eol's weight, the branch snapped with a crack.
"Urgh."
Han-eol, having suddenly fallen to the ground, let out a scream before he knew it.
'Hup! No.'
For an instant Han-eol's pupils shrank tight.
There was no telling what dangers lurked in the Highland. In this unfamiliar place, for a weakling like Han-eol to carelessly make his presence heard was the same as thrashing about screaming that he wanted to die.
'Survival rules. Survival rules. Survival rules. You idiot, hurry up and recall the rules.'
Han-eol hurriedly called up the knowledge he had learned through the training course.
Rule 1: Never let go of your weapon.
SHING!
Han-eol drew the thirty-centimeter-long blade worn along the outer side of his right shin and gripped it tight. While doing so, he groped through his mind for the other survival rules.
Rule 3: Erase your scent.
Ssssh―. Sssh―, ssh―.
Han-eol pulled out the deodorizing spray hanging beside his backpack and sprayed it evenly over his own face and body.
Rule 4: Always keep your posture low. Only then can you prevent your body scent from being carried on the wind and spreading far.
Han-eol immediately lay flat in the snowfield.
Only then did the surrounding scenery come into Han-eol's sight. Right now, a snowscape with snow piled softly over it spread wide across Han-eol's field of vision.
***
Hwiiiing―.
Along with a chilling sound of wind, a flesh-carving cold strikes the exposed parts of Han-eol's body.
'Ugh. It's freaking freezing.'
Han-eol felt a pain as though the flesh of his face were dropping off piece by piece from the extreme cold.
The bigger problem was the fact that the hand gripping his hilt was freezing solid and its sensation was dulling.
'Still, thank goodness it isn't a fire zone or a thunder-lightning zone. My cold resistance is a bit higher than my fire or lightning resistance, after all.'
Han-eol took this as his consolation.
But right now was no time to be leisurely hunting for consolations. When Han-eol looked down at his watch, the hand was not pointing in any fixed direction but spinning round and round.
For the watch hand to be unable to find a direction like this meant, in other words, that no N pole object was buried within a hundred kilometers of this area.
'She said there would be unlucky ones who fail the guided transfer at low probability and land in the wrong region. That was me? Damn it all.'
Han-eol was beyond dumbfounded and outright angry.
While Han-eol was seized by such stray thoughts, behind his back a large wolf with silver fur appeared like a ghost.
Strictly speaking, this was hard to call a wolf.
An existence of a different species from Earth's wolves.
It was the appearance of a wolf-type demon beast with an amber octagonal demon spirit stone embedded in its forehead and two roundly curved horns set to either side beneath its jaw.
This wolf-type demon beast, called the Snow Wolf tribe, possessed three characteristics.
First, they were skilled at group drive hunts.
Second, they primarily employed the strategy of turning their bodies transparent to conceal themselves and then falling upon their prey's back like ghosts.
Third, these demon beasts had high resistance not only to cold but to fire, lightning, and poison, so elemental magic barely worked on them.
Accordingly, even veteran ability-holders of the Shinseong Group tended to have quite a hard time when they encountered a Snow Wolf pack.
And yet a mere intern who had not even become a Rookie runs into the Snow Wolf tribe in the Highland?
That meant death, plain and simple.
Seen in this light, Han-eol was truly unlucky.
Of all places, where he had been transferred to was near a Snow Wolf tribe nest.
Not only that, the fact that Han-eol had screamed as he fell from the thin tree branch became a problem. There was no way the Snow Wolf tribe, with their keen sense of smell and hearing, would miss that sound.
A single Snow Wolf, concealed and transparent, crept up behind Han-eol's back, then abruptly revealed itself and split its maw wide open.
GRRR―AWOO―.
At the resounding roar, the snow piled on the nearby trees came showering down.
"Ugyah?"
Han-eol twisted his body in shock that ran through him like a chill. The blade he swung reflexively struck against the horn on the Snow Wolf's jaw and snapped with a clang.
Next, the Snow Wolf's powerful teeth bit diagonally into Han-eol's chest and back.
"Gaah."
Han-eol screamed.
CRUNCH!
The demon beast's sharp upper and lower teeth pierced through Han-eol's left arm and bored in, crushing it bone and all. The beast's teeth that had sunk into his chest and back tore mercilessly through Han-eol's vest and backpack.
By all rights it was force enough to have pulped Han-eol's ribs and pierced his heart.
But the combat vest Han-eol wore had blocked a considerable portion of the demon beast's attack.
It was a truly fortunate thing.
The vests normally issued to interns had E-grade defensive power.
Yet Han-eol's was A-grade, several hundred times superior in performance to that.
It was because the Head of Human Resources Lee Jae-in had slipped in the most expensive equipment for Han-eol without anyone knowing.
Thanks to that, Han-eol was spared instant death.
Awoo, awoo, awoooo.
The Snow Wolf, angered at the failure of its attack, bit down on Han-eol's upper body and swung its head from side to side.
Han-eol's body was dragged about this way and that like a toy.
"Uwargh."
Han-eol could not breathe properly.
Because of the brutal cold transmitted through the Snow Wolf's teeth, his muscles stiffened rigid. The inside of his head turned into a blank white sheet as well.
Even in the midst of that, Han-eol's astonishing Mental Strength held on to a single strand of reason.
Han-eol gauged the size of the Snow Wolf that had fallen upon him.
From foot to shoulder its height looks to be nearly two meters.
If the thing braced on its hind legs and raised its body, its body length would likely exceed nearly seven or eight meters.
The rounded horns sprouting from its jaw were nearly a meter in length.
At this weight class, it became embarrassing to compare the thing to an Earth wolf. To run into a demon beast species larger than a Siberian tiger on his first outing, Han-eol truly had rotten luck.
'I'm done for.'
Han-eol judged that there was no chance of surviving.
But was it not galling to die just like this?
Han-eol miraculously swung his right hand, coated in a film of ice, and thrust the blade broken in half toward the demon beast's leg.
CLANG!
A step ahead of him, the Snow Wolf swatted Han-eol's blade away with a heavy forepaw. Then the Snow Wolf slowly drew its teeth out of Han-eol's body and pinned him down with both paws so that he could not budge.
'Krgh, kgh.'
Han-eol thrashed to escape.
Though he shoved at the Snow Wolf with all his strength, the thing did not stir an inch, like a boulder.
From this alone, it seemed Han-eol had not awakened an ability related to the physical.
'Then magic?'
Han-eol wrung energy out from his heart and stretched both hands upward.
But he failed again. Not even the most commonplace ball of fire shot out from Han-eol's palms. No ice arrows, no lightning either.
Seen from this, it was clear that Han-eol had no ability related to elemental magic either.
***
'Poison, maybe?'
Han-eol held out hope that a venom gland might have formed inside his mouth or beneath his fingernails.
That hope, too, was ultimately dashed.
Nor had Han-eol's senses been noticeably enhanced.
'If my senses had sharpened, I wouldn't have been sitting there defenseless until the demon beast ambushed me.'
Then what in the world was Han-eol's ability?
'Could it be no ability at all? Did I fail the awakening?'
This was despair.
'No good. At this rate I have no choice but to become the demon beast's food.'
Just then, the Snow Wolf that had captured Han-eol slackened the strength in its paws.
'Huh?'
A faint spark of life stirred in Han-eol's eyes.
A tamer beloved by demon beasts.
This was a considerably rare ability.
Of course, being a tamer did not mean one could tame every demon beast, and the number of demon beasts that could be tamed was fixed as well, but even so a tamer's strategic value was high.
On top of that, Han-eol favored abilities like tamer, necromancer, or summoner, which only issued orders from a safe place in the rear.
But Han-eol's paltry hope soon turned to despair. Another Snow Wolf tribe member had appeared before Han-eol's eyes.
This new Snow Wolf, ambling closer, was one and a half times taller at the shoulder than the one that had ambushed Han-eol from behind. Its bulk was greater in proportion to its height as well.
Furthermore, the newly appeared Snow Wolf had a demon spirit stone embedded in its forehead so massive that it was about the size of Han-eol's fist.
Around that octagonal demon spirit stone, a snow-white cold was swirling.
'Ah!'
Only then did Han-eol realize.
The reason the Snow Wolf that had first bitten Han-eol had drawn back a step was that a stronger one, that is, the chief of the Snow Wolves of this area, had appeared.
Even beasts eat in order of the leader first, do they not?