Red Gate Subjugation (2)

The moment we entered the Red Gate, we could not help but be somewhat startled by the pressure squeezing down on our bodies as though constricting them.

‘It does not feel like gravity has grown stronger. It literally feels as though our bodies have become more vulnerable to pressure.’

It was not burdensome to an unbearable degree. However, the government had also roughly disclosed some information about this, so I tried to understand the current situation by recalling that, yet there were too many things that did not add up, which left me puzzled.

“What a peculiar space.”

“The mutation occurred in a strange way. Is this kind of form possible too?”

“Well, even so, all that has changed is that the burden imposed on the field has increased.”

“I think what changed is our bodies. As we crossed the Gate, it literally felt like we got ‘nerfed,’ you know?”

The master-class black mages had crossed over in front following me, and after hearing their first impressions, I casually asked a question.

“Would you be able to prove this phenomenon?”

The first to answer my question was Baek Da-gyeong.

“I do not think so. It literally feels like a high-order curse.”

Han Sang-gil, too, nodded as though agreeing with her.

“It certainly feels close to a curse. There seems likely to be a medium; there may be something with extremely high-level magic applied to it.”

“It would be nice if we could grasp the flow, but it feels as though it has been disguised so that such a flow cannot be seen. But can you not sense it?”

As Cheon Jong-un said, if I spread my magic power around and examined things in detail, I might be able to grasp the flow to some extent.

But since we still did not know what the internal situation was like, I did not feel inclined to recklessly expend magic power.

“I think it will be difficult to confirm for now.”

“Well, if you say so, then that must be how it is…. But it certainly is unusual.”

Cheon Jong-un moved forward while examining the surrounding vegetation, and afterward the masters scattered in all directions, followed by the black mages behind them.

“Will it be all right to leave them like that?”

“They are people for whom taking care of themselves is not a problem. They will be fine.”

That was my answer to Go Yu-jin’s question. And since we too intended to settle in a suitable place, we followed the direction presumed to be the center of this Gate and the location where its core had once been.

But then Baek Da-gyeong followed after us.

“Shall we go together?”

“Must we?”

“I am curious what kind of abilities an 8th Circle mage will show.”

She had come to the company before as well.

And afterward I heard that she had gone to Han Sang-gil and said she wanted to be employed as a professor at the academy currently under construction.

Since Han Sang-gil, not I, would be fully in charge of operating the academy anyway, I had no intention of getting involved in personnel matters, so I had simply let it be, but now there was something that puzzled me, so I asked.

“It seems you are right on the verge of becoming a 7th Circle Master. Is it because of a clue?”

“Not necessarily. I am simply curious about the man named Geum Seong-chan.”

We were around the same age. And like me, she was a second-generation Awakener.

She was famous as a person with tremendous talent and someone who had experienced two major battles, in Japan and in Busan.

At that moment, Go Yu-jin asked,

“Ms. Baek Da-gyeong is someone who fought on the same battlefield as I did in the past. I thought she was an incredibly skilled person, but I had no idea she was already standing at the threshold of becoming a 7th Circle Master.”

“Is your injury from back then all right?”

‘Injury?’

“It is fully healed. It was never an injury that would last long.”

“That is a relief. I was surprised when I heard the sudden news. But what surprised me even more is that you are living together with Mr. Geum Seong-chan?”

“Yes, somehow it turned out that way…”

Go Yu-jin smiled faintly, and her gaze tangled with Baek Da-gyeong’s. Then the two looked at each other with a razor-sharp atmosphere, and An So-mi suddenly cut into that suffocating situation.

“I know Master of the Magic Tower Baek Da-gyeong very well too! We were active together on the battlefield as well. Back then, I thought she would become a truly amazing black mage, but she has become even more amazing, hasn’t she?”

At that sudden interruption, Baek Da-gyeong stopped looking at the other woman and replied,

“I know Ms. An So-mi very well too. You were someone who was talked about as a ‘genius’ alongside me. Though you ended up retiring. That is unfortunate. If you had not retired then, you might have been able to aim even higher.”

“I am fine. I am satisfied even now, and I have been shown a way to go even further, you know?”

At An So-mi’s expression—no, at the sight of An So-mi glancing toward me, Baek Da-gyeong’s brow furrowed slightly.

“I also….”

Baek Da-gyeong started to say something, then closed her mouth. But the silence was brief.

“Please help me too.”

Baek Da-gyeong was not someone lacking in skill to the point of needing help. But both Go Yu-jin and An So-mi had very distinct individual traits, and they were in fact receiving help through my advice, so there was no real reason to refuse.

However, the gazes of Go Yu-jin and An So-mi were sharp.

It felt as though they were flying at me and sticking into me like daggers; perhaps this was what a war of nerves between women was like.

“That would be difficult. Even teaching these two is already quite a difficult situation.”

Baek Da-gyeong’s expression fell.

In truth, no matter how much I searched my memory, I did not have that much information about Baek Da-gyeong.

She was simply a hero who had displayed great feats against the Japanese army. In fact, even during the First Korean Peninsula War, we had almost no point of contact.

If I had to find one, perhaps there would have been only a single time.

“I am not asking for great help. I only want a few words of advice, enough to find a clue that will let me advance to master!”

Baek Da-gyeong spoke almost as though shouting, then blushed, and I answered after nodding as though it were nothing serious.

“I will not be able to offer much help right now. Later, if I do find a clue, I will at least give you some advice.”

“Th-thank you.”

Then Baek Da-gyeong fell quiet and merely watched us cautiously.

It did not seem like she would leave just like this, so I decided for the moment that we would move together, and when we arrived at the center of the Gate, I looked around and immediately began releasing magic power.

That was because releasing magic power when positioned off to one side and releasing it from the center showed a dramatic difference in efficiency.

At the same time, I began searching intently for whether the cause of the Red Gate was some sort of medium.

‘Something like this could happen suddenly. Just as the Great Cataclysm abruptly stained our world into a hell…. But on the other hand, what if someone could artificially create a Red Gate?’

Several groups came to mind.

What came to mind were groups identified globally as “evil,” groups that exerted influence across the world.

Among them, the group most widely known on the surface was the so-called End World Cult, which worshipped “the doctrine of ruin.”

In reality, it was a religion not recognized domestically and, at the same time, a target for eradication, and the reason was simple. They treated humans as mere “tools.”

To put it more precisely, unless one was a member of the End World Cult, everyone else was nothing more than a lowly creature. In the end, that meant it was standard to treat such bastards in the same way.

But the problem was that, because they were such creatures, they used humans as sacrifices in various ways and committed bizarre acts inside Gates, accumulating the unknown.

Because they were that sort of creature, I thought it highly likely that they had also been involved in this Red Gate.

And if there was another group to be suspected, there was a group in the world that proclaimed that only overwhelming power was justice, but since there had been no record of them causing any incident domestically so far, I could only harbor the faintest suspicion.

‘There had been no news that the Sea Sun Brigade had entered our country….’

They were an unknown group as well.

In reality, all that was known was that they were a small elite group composed of extremely powerful Awakeners.

And the most famous figure among them was a 9th Circle mage from Scotland.

He was in fact also called the Great Sage, and he was a figure on a completely different level from Bak Hyeok, who had only been a Great Sage in name domestically.

At any rate, I could not ignore the possibility that such an incredible figure had studied Gates and worked to mutate them.

For now, all I could do was hope that proper research would be carried out amid all these unknowns.

“Do you see anything?”

Right then, at Go Yu-jin’s question, I shook my head.

“Nothing unusual. I expected that, since a mutation occurred, the flow or something else would have changed, but there is nothing.”

“Are there no life traces at all?”

“That is not the case. The lowest-grade monsters that exist in any field are inhabiting it.”

It was only strange because there was nothing beyond that, but for the time being, I did not think a major change was likely to occur.

Afterward, it was when we were about to prepare a campsite.

“If you need a place to stay, why not live in my Magic Tower?”

Baek Da-gyeong immediately pulled a certain structure out of sub-space. It seemed to be the mobile Magic Tower that was the biggest reason she had become famous.

I thought it was an interesting relic, and soon Go Yu-jin and An So-mi also agreed, saying that there was no need to go through the trouble of camping out, so I looked at the three of them and said,

“The three of you stay together. I will live outside.”

On hearing that, the sulky expressions of the two women and the incredulous look on An So-mi’s face flew at me, but I immediately used terrain-alteration magic with the magic power I released and quickly built a single building on the spot.

It could not be helped that the inside was empty, but from long experience I knew that living in it would not be very difficult, so I casually took the gazes of the three women in stride, and then Go Yu-jin suddenly said,

“I am going to live together with Mr. Seong-chan too, so you do not have to worry about me.”

At that, An So-mi looked at Baek Da-gyeong.

Then she said,

“How about the two of us living together nicely?”

“Th-that is fine. It cannot be helped. But still, if you need anything, please tell me. If there is anything I can help with, I will spare nothing.”

After wrapping it up with words of thanks, I went inside the rather large structure I had created and began engraving various magic circles within it.

I began preparing facilities so that they could serve both as defensive installations and for detection.

For half a month, nothing at all happened.

Even if a Red Gate appeared, it had been expected that problems would arise within about ten days, so everyone had been spending each day in tension, but when that period entered its fifteenth day, the black mages started coming to the facility I had made with expressions suggesting that there was nothing left to examine.

“Have you found anything at all?”

At Cheon Jong-un’s question, I shook my head.

“I even built facilities and searched, but there is nothing.”

In truth, even though I had launched a full-scale investigation by releasing an enormous amount of magic power, I had not been able to discover any trace worth speaking of.

Moreover, even the researchers brought in for the internal investigation had declared that there was nothing especially different from an ordinary Gate, making this Red Gate far, far too distant from anything special.

The situation had even progressed to the conclusion that perhaps every Red Gate had its own distinct characteristics, and since talk of “withdrawal” was gradually starting to circulate, I guessed that was why they had gathered around me.

“I never thought there would be this completely nothing. At least the way the body becomes heavier makes physical training not too bad, but apart from that, there is no gain, so this has ended up being a waste of time.”

Cheon Jong-un’s words were not wrong. Even so, there was an inexplicable sense of déjà vu, and because of that, I remained unable to withdraw.

The same was true of Han Sang-gil, and the other masters as well often spoke of that unexplainable sense of déjà vu.

The dominant opinion was that it came from the atmosphere, but I felt it was not something to be thought of so simply, and as a result, everyone gathered and put their heads together.

“It is not as though we can just resolve ourselves and fill the interior with magic power….”

As Jeong Gil-sun said, such a thing was possible. But the problem was that if something happened afterward, we would not be able to respond.

The debate continued, and while everyone seriously discussed from various angles how the current Red Gate should be evaluated, the abnormal change finally began.

“The magic power…. It is swirling.”

I was the first to sense the change, and Han Sang-gil sensed it next. Then, in order, those of higher realms began to feel it, and Han Sang-gil cautiously asked,

“What would you have us do?”

“Evacuate the people, and have everyone below 6th Circle by black mage standards go outside and wait.”

The masters nodded and hurriedly looked over the people around them, issuing orders.

‘It had been boring, but now, what will happen, I wonder?’