21. Snatching Someone Else's Fortuitous Encounter First — That's The Real Flavor (1)

By the time he’d rinsed off in the shower and stepped out, the sun had already gone down.

Kang Minho had finished ahead of him, and he came striding over the moment Yujin walked out of the sparring center.

“Boss. What happened to your face…?”

At the sight of Yujin’s face, bruised and puffed up and swollen all over, his lips twisted. His cheeks ballooned with the effort of holding it back. Watching him strain to keep a straight face, Yujin felt his own brow furrow.

“There was a good reason for it.”
“Hk. Understood.”
“I’m starving. Let’s go get dinner.”
“It’s on me.”

They headed for a restaurant nearby, placed a simple order, and while they waited for the food, Yujin got down to business.

“You know anything about the recent goings-on in the Hunter scene?”
“Most of it’s just tabloid junk. But Seongmin’s hooked on Hunternet, so I pick things up here and there.”

Hunternet. A members-only site you could only join after passing Hunter verification.

Not that there’s anything all that special once you’re in.

Even after the fairly fussy vetting it took to get through the door, almost nothing set it apart from any other internet community. Anything worth circulating on Hunternet leaked out to the other forums soon enough anyway.

I’ll have to build an intelligence network.

Ever since he’d acquired the Pocket Watch of Kronos, he’d worked to commit the events of the past to memory as best he could. Fortuitous encounters he had to get his hands on. People to win over to his side. And a list of bastards to kill.

I memorized the big-ticket items, but there are bound to be parts I missed.

That was why he wanted an intelligence network. Brushing up against scattered pieces of information might jog a settled memory loose. There was nothing to lose.

Since he’d called Kang Minho out anyway, Yujin asked about the rumors making the rounds on Hunternet.

“The freak incident in Gangneung.”
“A gate that appeared in Land’s End village.”
“The serial Hunter killings.”

He heard out the whole list of issues circulating on Hunternet, but there was little worth fishing out of it. Just as he clicked his tongue in disappointment, Kang Minho spoke up.

“Come to think of it, isn’t there a gate that opened in Gimje and stayed open a long while?”
“What’s that.”
“Ah… the Forgotten Shrine, Boss.”

Hold on. The Forgotten Shrine?

The corners of his mouth curled up. The moment he heard the name, one of the events of his past life flashed across his mind.

So the Forgotten Shrine still hasn’t been cleared.

Heh. A laugh slipped out between his lips.

Seems our dear Constellation doesn’t like me eating things raw and easy.

I already went through a ridiculous amount of hardship before the regression, you know?

While he was grumbling at Kronos, the thread of conversation broke off.

“Boss?”
“Just thinking about something else. More to the point — I want to hear about the Forgotten Shrine.”
“Word is the Horizon Guild hasn’t managed to clear it in almost a year, so a break’s likely soon.”
“A Fluid-type, by the sound of it.”

A Fixed-type like the Garden of Antiquity wouldn’t trigger a break as long as you periodically thinned its monsters out. A Fluid-type was different: its mana density crept up little by little even as you hunted, so if it went unconquered too long, the gate’s mana eventually hit 100% and the whole thing broke.

“Yeah. They say the density’s entered the danger stage.”
“That guild’s lost a fair bit of face, then.”
“As it happens, Horizon’s lifting their control of the gate and opening it up to ordinary Hunters.”

Gate control. From time to time the powerful guilds restricted entry to specific gates. Rare monsters, byproducts found only inside one particular gate. There were plenty of other reasons to lock a gate down too, but now and then a guild slapped control on one it couldn’t even handle itself and ended up reaping the backlash.

“No word of the big guilds joining in?”
“There’s a rumor the Phoenix and Dawn Guilds are showing interest, though…”

Phoenix, the country’s second-ranked guild. And Dawn, ranked third, stepping in as well.

If those two have moved, it’s a sure thing.

There was a rumor Yujin had heard before the regression: an artifact had turned up in a long-unconquered gate where the rising stars of Phoenix and Dawn had gone head to head. An artifact didn’t mean something forged by Earth’s artisans; it meant arms and armor found inside a gate. Not that every old thing dug out of a gate counted as one. Only arms and armor steeped in powerful magic, sorcery, or a blessing qualified. The Dragon-Scale Armor, the clearing reward of the Forgotten Shrine, was one such artifact, a powerful piece of equipment in its own right.

In my past life, the Phoenix Guild got their hands on the Dragon-Scale Armor, didn’t they?

A growth-type artifact. The Blood Axe, which grew stronger the more blood it drank, was only [Rare] grade, yet as growth equipment it still fetched a high price. The Dragon-Scale Armor was [Epic]. Where the Blood Axe was shackled to growth conditions, the armor leveled up alongside its owner just by being worn; setting the two side by side would be downright embarrassing. Before the regression, the Dragon-Scale Armor had been the artifact that symbolized Kim Yeongsu, master of the Phoenix Guild.

This time around, it’ll be different. I’ve learned a spear art, after all. And if I land armor to protect my body on top of that, what more could I ask for?

“Get in touch with your team. Tell them we meet tomorrow.”
“Boss. Don’t tell me…”
“Tell them to prep for camping out, like last time.”

Clearing the Forgotten Shrine. It wasn’t a place like the Garden of Antiquity, where you could hit every clearing point in a single day.

“Camping out again.”

Kang Minho’s grumbling circled hollowly through the empty air.

A massive sculpture of two dragons faced off against each other. Between the statues, which stood as a symbol of Byeokgolje, a blue wormhole revealed itself. The gate to the Forgotten Shrine.

“Whoa. There’s a ton of Hunters who came to clear the gate.”

Lee Seongmin looked around, eyes gone round.

The plain spread out below the embankment. Once it had been used for nothing but festivals, but after the Horizon Guild gave up control, Hunters had flocked in by the hundreds and pitched their tents across every inch of it.

“Boss. Should we get ready too?”
“We’ll handle food and lodging inside the gate. No sense wasting energy out here.”

Kang Minyeong spoke up, her tone uncertain.

“What I packed is five days’ worth. I’m not sure that’ll be enough.”
“Then we’ll have to wrap it up inside of that.”

Yujin spoke with confidence. The moment he’d heard the gate’s name, the Forgotten Shrine, an old interview the Phoenix Guild had given came back to him. Clearing it wouldn’t take all that long.

“B-Boss. Look over there!”
“What is it now?”
“That’s Jang Miseon, the one Phoenix is calling their next Sword Saint!”

A woman, her long hair tied back and swept behind her. She wore light gear that wouldn’t get in the way of her movements, a single sword at her waist. Her lips were pressed tight, her gaze sharp. The keen edge of presence she gave off without meaning to had settled the rowdy mood of the staging ground.

Right. She’s the one who cracked the secret of this gate, isn’t she?

Stroking his chin, Yujin slid Jang Miseon a sidelong look. Before the regression, she’d been hailed as the talent destined to surpass Kim Yeongsu, master of Phoenix, only to meet a tragic end, cut down when she got caught up in an accident partway through a clear. In truth, that accident had been a trap, laid by Arahan to take down a rival.

It became the spark that set off a guild war between Arahan and Phoenix.

Yujin remembered the events of that time in such detail thanks to a stint as a mercenary for the Phoenix Guild.

Granting Mr. Park Haneul’s dying wish, that is.

Back then, Arahan still wasn’t strong enough to wage all-out war with the nation’s number-one guild. Seeing in the flesh a figure he’d known only through stories stirred something fresh in him.

“This is a big problem, Boss.”
“What is it now? Spit it out, no fussing.”
“Looks like Shin Yuseung from Dawn is joining the clear.”

Shin Yuseung. The man who would later cement a place as one of Korea’s foremost powerhouses under the alias [Iron Fist].

First Jang Miseon, and now him. The promising rookies bound to make names for themselves down the line had all gathered in one place.

“Boss. Can we even pull this clear off?”
“Doubt not.”
“When you put it that way, you almost look like a Priest.”
“That’s irony, isn’t it?”
“Guess it showed.”

Kang Minho smiled sheepishly. Stiff as a board at first, he’d loosened up a fair bit over the past few days. Talent aside, his nerve and quick thinking counted for something too.

“Don’t worry about those Hunters over there. Just keep close behind me. I won’t go easy on you for being tired.”

With that savage warning, Yujin set off toward the statues.

“Boss. Wait for us!”

Taking Kang Minho’s shrill cry for a starting gun, the Scraps team shouldered their packs and filed into the gate one after another.

— Hwiiiing—!

A dry wind brushed past his cheek. Brown earth without a trace of moisture, nothing alive on it but a few stray weeds. Dead ahead stood a great temple, a vast structure that lived up to the name Forgotten Shrine.

He breathed mana into the ring.

— Another fight?

Fafnir popped out without warning, his voice bright with excitement.

“Wh-what is that thing, Boss?”
“He’s a minion.”

— We’ve met before, more or less — it’d hurt my feelings if you pretended not to know me.

A question mark surfaced over Kang Minho’s head.

“You know him too, right? He’s the earthbound spirit we paid our respects to in the borderlands.”
“You turned the soul you mourned into an undead?”
“With the man’s own permission, I did.”
“If I die, please — I’m begging you — don’t turn me into an undead.”
“You think I raise them from just anyone? You’re so weak that even if I tried, a zombie’s the best I’d get out of you.”
“Hearing you say that makes me hate the idea even more.”

Watching Kang Minho recoil, Fafnir let out a great, booming laugh, hahat. The Scraps team shivered as one at the dead man’s idle laughter.

“Ahem. Before we start the clear in earnest, let me give a quick briefing.”

Clearing her throat, Kang Minyeong stepped forward and began her explanation.

“The Forgotten Shrine’s entry condition only goes up to 2nd Rank, but they say the actual clearing difficulty is 3rd-Rank class.”

— And the reason for that judgment?

“The shrine’s structure changes every day, and the environment’s different each time, apparently.”

— Gugugung—!

The instant Kang Minyeong finished speaking, a strange droning vibration spilled out of the Forgotten Shrine. Pillars groaned and slid left and right, sections of floor caving in here and thrusting upward there, the whole interior heaving as it reassembled itself.

— That, I take it.

The change that came each day. It was the reason the Forgotten Shrine had gone almost a year without being cleared. Once every twenty-four hours its structure shifted and reset everything: the monsters within changed, and the interior layout was redrawn from scratch.

“Damn it. Fall back! Get caught in the structural shift and you won’t survive.”
“Is it that time already.”

The Hunters who’d been hunting monsters or mapping the gate’s interior scrambled back out. Yujin kept a close watch on the shrine’s transformation too.

If my memory’s right…

In his past life, the Hunter who’d cleared the Forgotten Shrine, Jang Miseon, had said the following in an interview.

“The shrine’s structure changes once a day.”
“And if you watch it transform at that moment, there’s one pillar that doesn’t move.”
“A strange pattern is carved into its surface, and it matches the monsters that appear each time the structure changes.”
“Take a monster’s emblem and touch it to the pillar that forms the axis of the transformation, and it carries you to the boss room.”

Amazing I even remember this.

A gate whose clearing method was convoluted enough to become a worldwide issue. A shrine that reshaped itself without end, and the dread that came with it.

— Anything more to explain?

“I was going to warn you about the danger, but seeing’s faster than telling.”

— Get caught inside while the structure’s changing and they won’t even find your bones.

A few minutes later, the Forgotten Shrine had finished rebuilding itself and lay steeped in stillness, as though the uproar of moments ago had never happened.

“Fafnir. I’ll leave the vanguard to you.”

— Guarding a weak master is a minion’s duty. Don’t you worry.

He cast the holy spells that worked on the dead onto Fafnir. With the minion’s combat power raised a solid notch, they pressed into the shrine.

Let’s see if my memory’s right.

Ms. Jang Miseon. Let’s not take this too hard. After all, you won’t even know you’re being robbed.