Chapter 274. The sequel to Destruction (3)
Thud thud thud thud!
If it hadn't been for the gap when the music switched to the next track, the resident probably wouldn't have heard the noise at all.
"Uhm?"
A few seconds later, the young man in Unit 102, who had been enjoying his hobby, finally noticed the disturbance at his front door.
"What—was that thunder outside?"
That was his first thought, but once he took off the headphones, the situation beca clear.
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
Out there, soone was pounding furiously on the tal door.
"Huh?"
A thunderous sound that made his heart jolt. Hearing it, the resident of unit 102 instinctively hunched his shoulders. But the person outside the door gave no chance to breathe and imdiately shouted again.
"Co out!""Co out!""Neighbors! Open the door right now. Oh dear, oh dear!"
Correction. Now that he took a better look, it seed they were people. In the three minutes while the song played through his headset, the atmosphere in the building's hallway had shifted drastically. The resident of room 102 got up from his gaming chair and hurried out, thinking to himself as he walked briskly.
F*ck, you scared . Co to think of it, isn't today my day off? This crappy building... What the hell happened to cause such a commotion in the middle of a weekend afternoon?
For so reason unknown to him, his sweet day off was being disturbed, and instinctively, irritation began to rise. But his initial confidence quickly faded into nothing.
"Yes, yes, I'm coming! Ugh, that noise is deafening—could you please stop banging on the door..."
Beep.
The mont he saw the figure through the crack of the open door, the resident, with his headset hanging around his neck, froze in place.
"You, you know my face."
Kim...
"Kim Giryeo?"
S-Rank Hunter Kim Giryeo. The man who had been knocking on the door all this ti was none other than him. A sowhat striking-looking man in his twenties who appeared asking if the resident recognized his face. For so reason, today he was dressed lightly—just a black cotton T-shirt instead of a suit—but recognizing him wasn't difficult. This man was a famous hunter frequently appearing on the three major terrestrial TV news channels. Moreover, he was an unusual neighbor living in the sa shabby building.
The resident who opened the door was greatly surprised to see the visitor.
"Heuk!"
Just as he had thought before when he happened to glance out the window, the TV screen didn't even capture a fraction of that hunter's presence. He suppresses his power to nearly its minimum for the sake of the citizens, so you don't really feel the typical fiery spirit of an awakener. But just from his gaze alone, isn't that pressure on others more than enough?
The resident of room 102 completely transford into a ek lamb when faced with the man's Sambegean eyes. Just monts ago, he was ready to demand why soone was banging on his door so annoyingly this early, but now, as the hunter in black stared at him so chillingly, he worried that even his own breathing might be too loud.
But that wasn't important right now.
"I think you really do know my face."
"Ah, yes. Yes!"
The blond man resting his arm on the doorfra tilted his head slightly askew. Soon after, the hunter asked in a questioning tone, and when the resident quickly nodded in response, Kim Giryeo, having confird it, imdiately stated the reason for his visit.
"Then listen carefully from this point on. Grab only your most essential valuables and leave this building imdiately."
"Yes?"
"Evacuate! I'm not telling you to run out with nothing but the clothes on your back—just grab your wallet or sothing within 30 seconds and go, now!"
It was truly like a bolt from the blue in the middle of the night. Just minutes ago, he had been enjoying a pleasant weekend with band music, and now he was suddenly being told to grab his valuables and evacuate his ho?
Under normal circumstances, he might have argued right then and there, demanding to know what on earth the man was talking about.
But the resident of Room 102, still wearing his headset around his neck, quickly dashed back into his room without a word. An S-rank hunter's reputation, after all, carried that kind of weight. More than anything, the atmosphere around them made it clear—sothing was seriously wrong.
"Everyone, co out!"
"B, book... Where's our bank book?"
"Grandma, leave that! It's fine—we can do everything through internet banking these days anyway!"
The neighbors shouted frantically at each other. In any case, it was a relief that humans were social creatures. Once the tone was set, the residents of the one-room building were now urging each other to evacuate at the top of their lungs. At last, every unit with soone inside had been made aware of the unfolding situation.
"Haa..."
The blond figure, who had been dashing through the low-rise building with determined urgency, finally caught his breath after successfully dragging out the last resident.
"I've done all I can. Seriously, I've done all I can..."
The man soon muttered those words to himself, but there was no one around to hear them.
"..But what on earth is going on here?"
"Hunter Kim Giryeo..."
"Kim Giryeo?"
"They suddenly started banging on the door saying we need to evacuate. Sothing about a dungeon and it being dangerous."
"A dungeon?!"
"Oh, that's it. Looks like so red thing must have appeared nearby."
"Red Gate? How did that person know a gate appeared and tell everyone to evacuate?"
"I don't know. Anyway, since an S-rank said so, that's enough."
"Ugh, I should've brought an umbrella..."
Murmur.
Fortunately, the residents of this one-room building all completed a swift evacuation within a few minutes.
Still, the weather had cleared up sowhat around lunchti. But before long, the sky was shrouded in dark storm clouds, pouring down rain. The mammals, who rarely looked upward, stretched their necks and gazed up at the planet's ceiling.
Tuk, tuk.
But the blonde man, accustod to the water, let it soak his entire body without quickening his leisurely pace.
He turned on his phone. Several missed calls were displayed on the screen, but he didn't return any of them. He hadn't had the chance to check them while evacuating the residents.
[Phone]
[Seo Esther (3) 2:58 PM]
[Seo Esther (6) 2:59 PM]
He had clearly expected that Seonwoo Yeon would be the first to encounter trouble, so he had assigned personnel to that area. Yet, as if waiting for that exact mont before the date even changed, the incident still broke out.
"This f*cking crazy b*stard..."
Soon after, a curse spilled from his lips—though it was unclear at whom they were directed.
Despite the rain soaking his shoulders relentlessly, the fugitive from the binary star system let out a hollow, deflated sigh. Part of him felt defeated. Before he could even muster any aningful physical resistance, the opponent had already launched a surprise attack.
The ceasefire system ended.
Giiing.
And at last, the disaster began. A specific set of coordinates in Mapo District was suddenly engulfed in the radiant glow of a Blue Gate. Its ergence point—foreseen by the archmage in advance—was none other than beneath a certain studio apartnt. Moreover, its radius was vast, large enough to swallow the entire underside of that cheap, rundown building. What had first appeared as a faint crack in space split wide open into a massive rupture.
"Haha."
The studio apartnt building, from which the blond man had been the last to escape, was now being pulled into the passage of the newly ford Blue Gate.
"Kyaaah!"
"M, my ho! My ho!"
"Crazy."
"Who do we even call for this? The Association? Should we call 119 too?"
The sudden appearance of the gateway to another world continued to expand its passage without end, until it completely devoured the entire building.
Krrrr.
The only shelter that had given him a second chance at life was vanishing. From beneath the gate ca an endless rustling, as if there were dry sand scraping against itself, but there was no need to care about a space he would never step into. After all, this was nothing more than a checkmate ant for soone else.
The only shelter that had given him a second chance at life was vanishing. From beneath the gate ca an endless rustling, as if there were dry sand scraping against itself, but there was no need to care about a space he would never step into. After all, this was nothing more than a checkmate ant for soone else.
"Well, no matter how stubborn soone is—once the entire house disappears, they have no choice but to co out of their room."
Just like that one alien who beca convinced of Seonwoo Yeon's character and tried to recruit her as an ally. Could it be that this person, too, had spent all this ti analyzing his behavioral patterns?
Kim Giryeo dryly observed the building wall that was starting to twist as its center of gravity tilted.
"I..."
Since he had excellent intuition, he had already sensed the magic coming in this direction a long ti ago.
"..Excuse . But it is too late to co and ask for reconciliation now?"
No answer ca back, so it was hard to consider it a normal conversation. Soon, S-rank level magic pierced his skin like a downpour. Then, several fairly familiar magical tools appeared in his field of vision.
For example, a ribbon woven with red and white strands. A shadow-like pattern spread across the floor. And on top of that, a mysterious item so unfamiliar that even a poor wretch like him had never encountered its afterimage.
Fully grasping the situation, Kim Giryeo tightly shut his eyes, bracing himself for the future that was about to unfold.
Thud!
Within a few seconds, a tingling sensation as if sothing had struck his scalp nerves, where a sensory blocker had been installed.
***
...When I opened my eyes again, an unfamiliar space lay directly before .
"_"
I ca to my senses and slowly looked around. What I perceived was a neat, sowhat wide rectangular room. A shabby light, like one you'd find in an interrogation room, dangled and swayed from the ceiling, and the walls were bare, revealing nothing but gray all around.
This place was hardly one you would associate with the wealthy in any way.
"To use all those unknown restraint items that the cult kidnappers used, on the [Shroud of the Underworld].
But the main figure in this incident possessed a terrifying array of artifacts—no less than four types. The items they used to ambush each had distinct effects: mory coordinate displacent, restraint, mana usage inhibition, and casting disruption. Except for the Shroud of the Underworld and a certain ribbon, these were unfamiliar in appearance, but judging by their functions alone, their value was easy to estimate. To catch a re F-rank like , the opponent deployed high-priced equipnt whose total worth likely exceeded tens of billions.
"Gathering all that equipnt even though you can't even use the auction house."
So even if you spend ti in a room like this without even a single piece of furniture, the fact that the Earthling in front of you is a capitalist is unquestionable.
I quietly rolled my eyes. At the sa ti, I concentrated my senses to figure out exactly where this place was.
"Uh."
By noticing that all the nearby Blue Gates were embedded high up on the ground above, he realized that this room was situated at a considerably low position.
"Looks like you're awake."
The Earthling who had been turning his back finally moved. He stood tall, shoulders squared, looking down at for a long mont. After our eyes t, he broke the silence with a remark I didn't particularly want to get familiar with.
"Hello."
His greeting ca in a voice that sounded unusually low in pitch, making it hard to believe he was an East Asian like Kim Gi-yeo. On top of that, his massive presence was as if he were so kind of deep-sea dweller from Earth—there was nothing more to say about that.
"By the way, it's 10:03 PM on Sunday. But since you don't have anywhere to go to work tomorrow anyway, the ti probably doesn't matter much to you, right?"
The perpetrator was Kang Changho. anwhile, so unfortunate alien had been ambushed by that S-rank hunter and was now transferred to an unknown gray room.
"Phew, damn it..."
The very kidnapping trilogy I had feared so much had finally happened.
Author's Thoughts Hi, from now on, I will update this novel 3 chapters/week. Thank you for all your support so far:)
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