Chapter 181 – Traps (9)

[Researchers in Korea.

One morning I I ended up seeing the fragment of the Almighty that we were studying screaming in agony and going crazy. That’s when I made up my mind. I need to know what fragments of the Almighty are and what the hell we were using.

Ladies and gentlemen, the reason I shared research materials related to fragments of the Almighty was to prove my career, research achievements, and knowledge.

And this note contains the identity of the fragments of the Almighty that I have investigated so far. This is a very tragic and brutal story.

I’ve been thinking countless times. Is it right to reveal this truth? Who will know? People all over the world are suffering because of the gate, but isn’t it trying to ruin the cause by getting caught up in trivial recognition? Wouldn’t that be ignored as not important?

It was too scary for me to draw conclusions on my own. So I would like to pass this heavy burden on to the researchers in Korea. By the time you are reading this letter, I will probably be dead.

In a world full of Awoken, it’s not unusual for me to die an unwanted death. However, if you wish, even if you decide not to publish this material, please keep it and pass it on to someone in the future.

I believe that one day, the day will come when these fragments will be comforted, the day when I can atone for my sins.]

Choi Yeon-ju, who read the full text of the letter sent by e-mail, nodded and asked on the phone.

“So, is this part of the letter currently translated?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

The team leader answered from the other side of the phone. Currently, the ‘real’ researchers were researching fragments of the Almighty and translating notes based on the data handed over by the French, but the part of the letter that arrived by mail was the letter on the front page of the French notebook.

“Anyway, I thought I should show this to the representative…”

“Okay. Are you doing other research right now?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“We need to know about the source of the Almighty Fragments, so for now, continue with the translation and research as it is. We see and judge for ourselves how inhumane the past is.”

“Yes. All right.”

Yeonju Choi hung up the phone and rubbed his face with her finger. He seemed to be suddenly overcome with fatigue. Yesterday she fell asleep at 3 am. She said this morning, she also did a simple sparring with Jung Soo-hyeon and gave her feedback. Jeong Su-hyeon was definitely a person who had a taste for giving feedback. If she told me about my shortcomings today, the next day, she would try to improve them somehow, and if I pointed them out a few more times, she would cleanly correct them.

“After…”

Choi Yeon-joo was waiting for Jung Soo-hyeon. I was thinking of having a ‘conversation’ with him today. As she was fiddling with her mail, a device that could communicate with the Almighty Emperor was pulled out beside her. She placed her finger next to her unit’s monitor and moved her crackle. It was a robber who thought that the machine would break if he hit it like this.

She said that she would soon know about the Almighty Emperor’s past, so she decided to postpone the interview with Almighty Emperor, which was originally scheduled for today. She doesn’t have keywords to recall her memories, so she should be called an interview with the Almighty Emperor.

‘Do you remember?’

‘I don’t remember.’

It almost seemed like it would end.

Rather than waste her time on such a thing, she wanted to know about the adventures of Jung Soo-hyeon at her gate. An experience that made me have the courage to grit my teeth and fight even if I receive S-class fighting. What the hell did he do there?

“Excuse me.”

A knock was heard.

*****

Jeong Su-hyeon sat down with a quick posture and started talking from the beginning. The beginning of the story was when he entered the tunnel to catch Kim Hyun-ki. At that time, Choi Yeon-joo offered Jang Ji-wan to cooperate with the operation as a goodwill, but Jang Ji-wan stubbornly refused, saying, “We can do it ourselves.” She was unable to participate in the operation.

Although she respected Jang Ji-wan as a senior S-rank hunter, she thought that things would have been much easier if she had let her in at the time.

“Is that where you got caught up in the gate?”

“Yes. While chasing Kim Hyun-ki, he fell for her trick. At that time, I was also in D-class, and Ha-yeon also attacked me cowardly…”

In fact, Seong Ha-yeon was stabbed while looking away from her Kim Hyun-ki in front of her, but Jeong Su-hyun expressed that her cowardly Kim Hyun-ki jumped out of her wall and stabbed her suddenly for the sake of her image. Upon hearing that, Choi Yeon-ju frowned, not thinking that Seong Ha-yeon might have been stabbed while looking away.

“You are a mean person.”

Jeong Su-hyeon described the situation where she roughly agreed with her and fell into her gate with her. She is the monster that roams around and Seong Ha-yeon who is deeply scarred.

Fortunately, thanks to Seong Ha-yeon’s knowledge of herbal medicine, she was able to stop bleeding and provide first aid, and was able to survive safely based on her C-class hunter’s formidable resilience. Choi Yeon-ju shuddered when she heard that he had opened her wound and put her medicine in it. It was quite surprising to Jeong Su-hyeon that a realistic expression came out of her hard-looking impression.

“Oh, that… If you are a little experienced hunter, you should try it at least once. It feels really terrible.”

Yeonju Choi said that while shaking her head. And she talked about her own experiences. She had been seriously injured a short distance from the exit of the gate, and the bleeding had to be stopped immediately, so they crushed her herbs and stuck them into the wound, as Seong Ha-yeon and Jung Su-hyeon had done.

“It’s a memory I don’t really want to remember even now.”

When she said that, Jung Soo-hyeon nodded her head as if agreeing. And the story continued. An enigmatic hideous monster. And Seong Ha-yeon, who was poisoned by that monster. Choi Yeon-ju nodded her head at the words that she was a monster similar to Lava that caused her addiction. And she said:

“It must be a monster caught up in the gate instability. It affects not only the space itself, but also the monsters that inhabit it.”

“Then the monster…”

“I think it might be that Lava is fused with some poison-breathing monster. That’s why such a bizarre appearance and poison coexist.”

Jung Soo-hyeon nodded at the fact that he now knew the monster’s identity. Later, she also felt the need to tell this story to Seong Ha-yeon as well. He stopped talking and asked Choi Yeon-ju a question.

“By the way, why does the gate instability occur?”

I was aware of the explanation that the gate’s inner dimension becomes ‘unstable’, but I did not know the main cause of this gate instability. Wouldn’t Choi Yeon-joo know? In response to his academic question, Yeonju Choi nodded and replied as follows.

“I have two hypotheses. First, because of the energy collision around the gate.”

“An energy collision?”

“For example, in a situation where the gate is open, if I and Choi Soon-hong fight each other using special moves, a strong energy wave will spread to the surroundings. Then, because of that, the crack itself is affected and the gate is broken.”

“It seems plausible.”

As Jung Soo-hyeon nodded and listened earnestly, Choi Joo-yeon presented a second hypothesis.

“The second is a phenomenon that occurs when two gates overlap because a gate is created once again at the location where the gate was created. Or, it is a phenomenon that occurs when gates with the same location appear in two or more places at the same time.”

The gate instability that Jung Soo-hyun experienced seemed to be the second case. Drums and garbage fell from the sky, and the space shrank and expanded at will. Jung Soo-hyun said.

“I’ve been through something like that before.”

“You don’t see it often, but it’s not uncommon among hunters. You must be very surprised.”

“Little bit.”

Jung Soo-hyun smiled and nodded his head. When he smiled, his expression was as simple as that.

Suhyun started talking again.

Poisoned Seong Ha-yeon. A flower that was needed as an antidote. But the flower was in the monster’s nest. Choi Yeon-ju heard the story and swallowed her saliva with an excited expression. Suhyun could tell that her neck was smooth and quite long.

“So, what happened to Seong Ha-yeon Hunter?”

“…?”

Jeong Su-hyeon tilted her head at Yeon-joo Choi’s question.

What question are you asking?

Is the Seong Ha-yeon I have next to me a ghost?

Choi Yeon-ju seemed to not understand what question she was asking, only her eyes were shining brightly. Suhyun decided to continue the story for now.

“So I decided to take a spear and fight the monster.”

“It must have been dangerous. Mutated monsters usually go up one or more levels.”

“I should have fought back then. I didn’t want to be left alone.”

“Okay.”

Yeonju Choi really liked this kind of romantic drama. A hero holding a spear and jumping into the battlefield for his lover. Her eyes lit up as she listened to the story.

Jeong Su-hyeon’s story continued throughout the evening. The story of a spear being broken, and her bare fist and a stone hitting the monster’s head. The story of a fight where she was beaten to the point of losing her mind. And, at the end, the story of losing consciousness after picking flowers.

Almighty Emperor kept requesting that he would tell him what he couldn’t remember, so Jung Soo-hyeon and Choi Yeon-ju even had to turn on the Almighty’s fragment communicator.

“He held out a single flower and grinned. That’s why Ha-yeon covered her mouth and cried.”

“Ah…”

Choi Yeon-joo was moved by Jeong Su-hyeon’s story and even her tears welled up. She felt like she was listening to a great drama.

She seemed to be able to understand Jung Soo-hyun’s all-night sex.