94. The Ancient Proving Ground II (1)

The reward for clearing the gate was nothing much. A C-grade mana stone. The boss monster synchronized with the core of the Death Cry of the Wraith had been a ghost-type, so there was nothing worth scavenging from its corpse either.

‘Hunt an Ogre and you get a C-grade at minimum, though.’

‘The real reward is something else, isn’t it. I’ll just have to be satisfied with that.’

When she heard the gate had been closed, Alice Kim wore the look of someone who’d finally been rid of an aching tooth.

“Perfect. Flawless work, Mister Cheon.”

“I am rather impressive, you see.”

“Isn’t modesty a virtue for you Easterners?”

I escorted nine people through a gate I could have cleared on my own. Isn’t that modest enough? I’ve put on more humility since regressing than my fate ever called for, and she doesn’t even notice.

After entering the gate, the Little Angels strike force had done nothing at all. More precisely, there had been no need to give them any work.

— How dull. To think these creatures struggled against such paltry undead.

The Skeleton Knight, twin swords in its grip, ranged freely across the battlefield and hacked the undead to pieces, while the evil spirits that had frayed the Hunters’ nerves never once made it past Negation Shock Shield.

Alice Kim already had a rough grasp of the situation from the strike force’s later report.

‘Skilled in alchemy and gifted in combat sense both.’

To think an unworked raw ore could shine this brightly. If he were a gemstone, he would be a diamond, and among those, perhaps a pink diamond, said to be the rarest of them all.

‘There’s no pulling him into our guild, of course.’

His main base of operations lay on the other side of the Pacific, so recruiting him was out of the question.

Alice Kim clicked her tongue in regret, a soft tsk against her teeth.

“You hungry?”

“That’s a rude thing to say to a lady.”

“You just smacked your lips all of a sudden.”

“Hmm. In any case, you did me the favor I asked, so I’ll open the guild vault to you.”

“Two unique-grades, correct?”

“That’s right.”

The Little Angels’ item vault was large enough to call to mind a school auditorium.

“Take whatever you like.”

Melee arms like swords, sabers, and spears; magic-line Hunter gear too, of course, from staves to orbs; and supplementary armaments like rings or necklaces to patch over a weak point. The rumor that they were doing well in California was no empty talk, because both the variety and the quality of the items stockpiled in the vault were respectable.

‘A spear first.’

He took up each spear on the rack in turn, swinging and thrusting, and read every item description through to the end without skipping a single one.

“I’ll go with this one.”

“Wouldn’t the Cursed Black Knight’s Spear beside it be better than that weapon?”

“It’s a fine piece. Even if it triggers a curse every time you swing or drive it forward.”

“A Hunter who handles holy power like you, Mister Cheon, won’t be affected by the curse. It’d suit you perfectly.”

“I appreciate the kindness. Still, I think this one’s the better fit for me.”

The Cursed Black Knight’s Spear. The weapon I agonized over right up to the last moment. It doesn’t just infuse a curse into whatever it strikes; its sharpness and destructive force are a cut above the Horn-of-Unicorn Spear, too. It meshes well with spirit-power besides, even carrying an option that amplifies power while Dark Fighting-Aura is manifested.

‘Because the Horn-of-Unicorn Spear has one hidden option. The mana-amplification option comes from the spiral groove carved into the unicorn’s horn that serves as the blade. Master the Verdian-Style Basic Spearmanship to its limit and you can learn the hidden secret art, Death Spiral — and the crux of it is mana rotation.’

“Well, something like that.”

Kronos had a point.

To learn Death Spiral, I’d have to max out my proficiency in the Verdian-Style Basic Spearmanship, and on top of that satisfy several other conditions.

‘To wield the Cursed Black Knight’s Spear, you need a darkness-related trait.’

In a word, I fall short of the conditions. The Horn-of-Unicorn Spear, at least, only asks for spearmanship proficiency — any type will do. The other spears demand Martial-line skills or traits, or else a Stellar Rank, and clearing those use restrictions was the harder road.

‘A darkness-related trait, I could fake my way around with the Ring of Black Darkness if I really wanted to.’

But even so. Rather than going to all that trouble to use the cursed thing, the Horn-of-Unicorn Spear — which I can handle with no penalty, and which doubles as preparation for the future — is by far the better pick.

‘I’ve already decided what to pick.’

A buff that instantly restored spent stamina back to its maximum. It looked impressive, but it carried a flaw: stamina lost to injury was never refilled. That was the very reason the item rated only unique-grade.

‘For me, though, it’s a little different.’

A skill that freely converted vitality, mana, and stamina into one another. Yujin had Life Drain.

‘Poverty of imagination.’

For Yujin, Marathon Spirit was the finest recovery skill there was.

Ah. Try as I might to hold it back, a laugh slips out.

When Yujin started snickering, Alice Kim watched the sight with a dubious look in her eyes.

The next day, Yujin ran into the Scraps team in the hotel lounge.

“You’re all looking bright-eyed and chipper.”

“Whoa. Bro. You ever heard of Beverly Hills? We got a real feast for the eyes.”

“That damn window-shopping, whatever that was.”

“You should’ve just left me out of it. What’s there to gawk at if you ain’t even buying anything.”

That had been Kang Minyeong, her eyes sparkling, while the others wore faces plainly streaked with exhaustion.

Beverly Hills was where America’s famous actors and the wealthy lived; in Seoul terms, an area like Cheongdam-dong. Luxury boutiques and department stores catering to the rich had set up shop all over it. Kang Minyeong, it seemed, had led the group around and window-shopped there to her heart’s content.

“What. You still ate well at every meal, didn’t you.”

“That’s ‘cause I was the one who scouted it out, ain’t it.”

“You drive a hard bargain. Director Im here was all right with it, wasn’t he?”

“Me? Oh, well.”

Hmm.

You don’t look the least bit all right, though.

“Was Beverly Hills the only place you went?”

“We saw Hollywood too. You really think all we did was ogle luxury goods?”

“To do it properly, a single day isn’t enough.”

“I just had this feeling we’d be running around busy, so I hurried up and saw what I could.”

Kang Minyeong spoke in high spirits.

Oho. Sharp instincts.

Yujin swallowed the gasp that nearly slipped out of him at Kang Minyeong’s keen (?) intuition, which had unwittingly brushed up against the truth.

“Do you all like to gamble?”

Shall I dangle some bait, then.

“…!”

“Las Vegas…?!”

“You for real?”

The group startled in shock. Yujin didn’t deny it.

Vitality crept back into the group’s fatigue-stained faces, Kang Minyeong excepted.

Gambling meant casinos, and casinos meant Las Vegas! Right next to California, too, it was an easy enough place to land on.

“Eat a hearty breakfast, all of you.”

“Understood. Bro.”

After a hearty breakfast they checked out at once and, riding in the vehicle the Little Angels had provided, set off for Las Vegas.

“Pull one lever right here and your whole life can turn around, you know.”

“And if you go in with that attitude and lose the deed to your house too, then what.”

“Big Bro, you’re nagging even on the way to Las Vegas?”

“I’m saying don’t get too carried away.”

The future Mirror Hunters, snarling at one another.

“Battle-hardened poker skills, honed in the army. I’ll show you for sure.”

Lee Seongmin, looking a touch worked up, was drinking in the Las Vegas streets with an expectant gleam in his eyes.

But, well. What was I to do. I did say we were going to Las Vegas. I never said a single word about a casino, though.

“Bro. Hey, why are we getting farther from the city?”

“Our destination is a gate south of Las Vegas.”

For a moment the air inside the car turned cold enough to make him wonder whether the temperature had dropped a good five degrees.

“A gaaaate??”

“Heh heh heh. We came all the way to Las Vegas just to go into a gate?”

“I should’ve known. I should’ve been suspicious the moment Bro said let’s go have some fun.”

Kang Minyeong glared, flames practically shooting from her eyes, looking ready to yank the hair right off Yujin’s head. Lee Seongmin let out a hollow laugh too, like he’d lost his mind. Kang Minho, for his part, openly wore a bitter smile.

‘It’s all going to become your flesh and blood. You’ll thank me later.’

‘Ah. I never explained, did I. Do you happen to remember the Garden of Antiquity?’

‘This gate is an extension of that.’

The Ancient Proving Ground was a trial-ground hidden within certain Fixed-type gates around the world. Inside the gate that had formed near Las Vegas, the Field of Glory, lay the Ancient Proving Ground II, prepared by the Pantheon.

‘In the current time, it hasn’t been uncovered yet.’

‘You’re acting surprised now?’

You think you’ve only known me a day or two? The very fellow who deliberately repaired his own Relic so I could put my future knowledge to use is the one playing dumb.

The vehicle came to a stop before a gate on the outskirts of Las Vegas.

“Everyone, get ready.”

“Whoa. A real gate. Ha, ha-ha.”

Shoving the backs of the armed group forward, he stepped into the gate.

A burst of strong light, and the scenery shifted all at once. A city of near-modern build rose before their eyes.

Kang Minho looked around.

“You called the gate the Field of Glory, so I figured it’d be a wide-open plain.”

“They say it was a battle that broke out in a city.”

A gate’s ‘setting’ often took its motif from an actual event in another dimension. Which meant a fierce war had once been waged over this city. Gate scholars had even reconstructed other dimensions’ histories by studying the styles of such structures, records, and the like.

‘No. The hidden condition for this gate isn’t that difficult.’

After looking around, Yujin strolled with composure through the war-torn city.

“Boss. Let me take the lead.”

“Don’t worry. I can keep myself in one piece.”

But of course. I knocked those Little Angels rookies — or whatever they were — flat without breaking a sweat, after all.

Monsters did spring out from the alleys, but he subdued them with ease using the Verdian-Style Basic Spearmanship.

How long had they wandered.

“That tower. It looks like the tallest in the city, doesn’t it?”

“It does look that way.”

“Let’s head up, partly to secure a view.”

Yujin started up without hesitation, and the group, unable to hide their bewilderment, glanced at one another and followed behind.

‘Boss, really. Capturing a gate out of nowhere.’

‘Ah. Bro. That’s too much.’

‘But isn’t he being way too bold for a first-timer?’

‘It looks like Representative Cheon has a plan of his own.’

Each harboring their own thoughts, the group climbed to the top of the tower. Just as Yujin had said, it had to be the tallest structure in the city, and the fairly broad sweep of the cityscape came into view at a single glance.

In that instant.

“B-Boss???”

Kang Minho let out a sound that might have been a scream. A pure-white flash plunged down onto the tower’s summit, and when it faded, Yujin’s party was nowhere to be found atop the roof.