NSE-Chapter 19

Chapter 19

A huge forest spread out before his eyes.

Whooo!

Screech!

Cries could be heard from far off.

Time to slaughter the gorillas……

[Warning!]

[There is currently 1 outsider inside the Gate!]

“Hm?”

He wasn’t particularly flustered.

And no wonder, since it was one of the events that occurred quite often while playing Gate Hunter.

‘Someone’s barged in, I see.’

Each time you enter a Gate, it is divided into Sections.

Section 1, Section 2, Section 3…….

It was easy to think of it as a kind of parallel world where an identical boss exists in each Section divided like this.

It was a structure where you formed a party and went into each one to clear it, but.

‘Probably he came in together before the Sections were divided.’

Usually, eight or nine times out of ten, it’s an Assassin.

Because it was a Class that not only had a Stealth Skill but was also a master at hiding.

The reason they came in like this was simple.

‘Because murder pays.’

No matter how many ordinary monsters you caught, you might get one piece of equipment, or not.

On the other hand, an Awakened?

Catch one, and you could strip them clean from head to toe.

Their rank would be lower than yours, so hunting would be easy, and setting everything else aside, there’d be guys who simply liked killing people.

It was also one of the main reasons Awakened in this game formed parties.

Gates of D-rank or below had a maximum of five entrants per section.

When five formed a party and the party leader stood in front of the Gate, an entry message popped up for all the party members.

It meant that an Assassin sneaking in could be prevented in advance.

Of course, the Association and the state were sensitive to this problem too, so they would station Awakened to guard in front of popular Gates, but.

‘They can’t stop the ones who come fully determined.’

An Assassin’s Stealth is hard to detect even at the same Level.

To catch an intrusion for certain, the guarding side’s Level had to be far higher.

As if that could be easy.

The world is wide and Gates are many.

From hiring costs to the limit that high-ranking Awakened aren’t that numerous.

Intrusion was fundamentally a structure that was hard to stop.

‘At least C-rank, then.’

If the Assassin is D-rank or below, the problem comes when leaving the Gate.

Whether exiting after clearing or from the Middle Zone, light bursts from the Gate.

It’s a signal that they’re coming out.

But nobody comes out?

It means the Assassin killed everyone, then used Stealth and slipped out.

Then an investigation began immediately.

A D-rank had a very high risk of getting caught.

Between Level 101 and 150.

Up to this line, there were almost no Skills that erased traces.

‘From C-rank, it’s different.’

Between Level 151 and 250.

A range where you move beyond the lower tier and settle firmly into the middle tier.

They learn Trace Vanishing, the flower of Assassins.

With this, even with decent tools, you can’t track a vanished Assassin.

He could roughly guess why this guy had followed him in.

Entering a Gate alone?

Unless suicidal, it meant a high level, and that ultimately meant good equipment.

That must have been tempting.

Min-woo chuckled.

“I get why you came, but…….”

Did the guy know?

That the number of Assassins he had killed in Gates alone exceeded several thousand.

He was thoroughly experienced at dealing with these guys.

[Using Summon Cedric(SSS)!]

[Using Summon Skeleton(F)+9!]

After summoning the Undead.

[You consume the Detection Potion(Top-Grade)!]

[The effect is activated for one hour!]

[You consume the Strength Enhancement Potion(Top-Grade)!]

[Strength increases by 50 for one hour!]

[Agility Enhance…….]

.

.

He consumed the Potions purchased at the Auction House. Now it was time to hunt the guy.

* * *

Whooo!

Ooh-ooh! Ooh-ooh-ooh!

Giant gorillas and monkeys charging in, extremely excited.

But, belying that momentum, when a small dagger was swung, they spewed blood and died in an instant.

“Hmmm.”

As if having a great time.

The woman killing monsters with a broad smile was Lee Seo-yun.

She was a first-rate Assassin.

Because she was an Awakened who had reached B-rank, no less, in Korea, called an Awakened weak nation.

Even among such B-rank Awakened, she belonged to the high-Level side.

251 to 350.

The range of a B-rank Awakened.

Within that, a Level reaching the early 300s, no less.

She had an epithet too.

Dark Shadow.

An epithet she’d been given because she moved so elusively every time she hunted.

Beautiful looks.

Plus an intellectual yet dignified demeanor.

Her popularity was tremendous.

With a bit of exaggeration, it was comparable to the Sword Phoenix’s.

Behind her, who kept up such active outside activities, lurked a cold-blooded killer.

Stab, kill, dismember.

The act itself was enjoyable.

Only, monsters were boring.

Having killed so many.

‘But people are different.’

The ecstasy felt when cutting the tendons of the limbs and making them crawl on all fours!

Recalling memories of the past, her pupils contracted sharply.

It was a thrill you couldn’t feel unless you did it yourself.

Similar to the exhilaration of pouring fizzy soda straight into one’s veins.

That was why she had killed at least one a month without fail, but.

“I’ve been so busy lately.”

She hadn’t been able to enjoy herself for a while, taking care of work entrusted by the ‘Gathering.’

She had squeezed out time for the first time in ages.

An E-rank Gate.

A perfect place to play with prey.

And there happened to be suitable prey.

One middle-aged guy entering the Gate alone.

Entering an E-rank alone, he’s probably around D-rank.

At most, maybe up to C-rank.

Even if B-rank, no problem.

She was confident in her skills.

Since they weren’t a party, the positions where each spawned inside the Gate were random.

That said, there was no advantage like one side being extremely close to the Middle Zone.

By now the message must have popped up, so he’d be scrambling in a frantic rush to cut a path.

Praying that he would reach the Middle Zone first.

Just then.

[Humanoid Tracking(B) is activated!]

Her Skill activated.

A signal that her prey was located nearby.

Grinning, she triggered a Skill.

[Activating Shadow Hide(B)!]

[The Skill may be canceled if attacked or when colliding with an object!]

Her body turned blurry in an instant.

She hadn’t activated the Skill for a careful ambush.

The Level gap was overwhelming.

Unless the enemy was an Awakened of A-rank or higher, there was no reason to move cautiously.

It was simply.

‘I’ll go and give him a real fright.’

For pure fun.

Because usually, when she revealed herself in front of them, they’d be startled to the point of trembling as if having a seizure.

The process of driving prey into terror.

She had come here in person for that.

Tap.

Tap.

Her body, hidden in the darkness, seeped into the forest, and.

The moment she found her prey like that.

‘Huh?’

Her eyes widened.

Because she was facing a sight she hadn’t even imagined.

A pack of fallen gorillas.

Up to here, there was nothing so strange.

But the beings that had felled them were a horde of Skeletons.

A horde of Skeletons numbering well over four hundred at a glance.

‘A Necromancer?’

When he’d come in with just a single sword at his waist, she’d thought he was a Swordsman, but.

A Class that broke expectations.

What was even more surprising.

‘Could this…… be that guy?’

The hottest super rookie in Korea these days!

Kim Min-woo.

There was a reason she couldn’t help but immediately think of that name.

The Skeletons were all armed without exception.

And with equipment easily worth over a hundred million won per head.

Within a few dozen, maybe.

No Necromancer in Korea besides Kim Min-woo armed hundreds of Skeletons like that.

‘Jackpot!’

Lee Seo-yun’s eyes sparkled madly.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t strange for Kim Min-woo to come here in disguise.

He probably didn’t want to stand out too much.

So he must have forged an ID.

With his status, that was a piece of cake.

‘There it is! That thing!’

Cedric.

The Skeleton introduced on the broadcast and covered in numerous articles.

It was mixed in among the Skeletons like part of a set.

She had come just for light fun, yet had unexpectedly landed a big catch.

Like a cat looking at a mouse, her gaze filled with curiosity and sadism.

The moment she stepped forward with eyes full of excitement.

Click.

‘Hm?’

[You stepped on an Exploding Scatter Trap.]

Boom!

A huge explosion burst out.

* * *

‘Found you.’

Kim Min-woo’s eyes gleamed.

Even having drunk a Top-Grade Detection Potion, there was fundamentally a Level gap.

It would certainly help with detection, but spotting an Assassin approaching in Stealth was no small challenge. In the end, whether he found the Assassin before she approached was the watershed of the contest.

If he couldn’t find her, he’d get stabbed in the back of the head and be dead.

That was why he had used traps.

Unless it was a Rogue-type Class, experts at finding and disarming traps.

‘Assassins are weak to traps.’

And he hadn’t laid just one or two. He had used the Skeletons to lay them all around the perimeter.

Since Assassins basically owned plenty of tracking-related Skills such as Body Heat Detection and Humanoid Tracking.

‘They’re bound to approach first.’

All the more so in a low-tier Gate like this.

It wasn’t hunting same-rank monsters but hunting an opponent far lower in Level than herself.

Nine times out of ten, they were bound to let their guard down.

A mindset pervaded: kill quickly, tear off the items, and leave.

On top of that, since traps are fundamentally pricey, no one would have splurged on them to prepare for Assassins in a low-tier Gate like this.

‘She wouldn’t have even thought of stepping on a trap.’

What’s more, seeing the Skeletons, her prey was the filthy-rich Kim Min-woo?

The equipment cost alone ran in the tens of billions of won.

On top of that, his Level was widely known publicly as a newbie in the 20s.

Hold back from rushing at this?

Then she’d be a Buddha, not an Assassin.

The prediction was exactly right.

Because, just as countless Assassins had until now, this time too she charged in like a moth to a flame and stepped on a trap.

‘Well, the damage itself isn’t much, but…….’

Scatter traps have a very good effect.

Once scatter matter gets on a body, it doesn’t come off easily.

Just like the Assassin’s body glittering before his eyes now.

Like that, even using Stealth is for nothing.

From now on, she’d be very visible.

“Nice to meet you?”

“……Ha.”

The Assassin snorted in disbelief when greeted.

The moment the Assassin raised her head, Min-woo showed a startled look.

‘Huh?’

A woman with a familiar face.

He knew that woman very well.

‘Lee Seo-yun?’

One of the quite famous villains in Gate Hunter.

A character who often appeared in the media pretending to be a good person but was a psychopath inside.

A damn character who, if left alone, kept growing, reached S-rank Awakened, and interfered with game progress.

‘I’m meeting her now?’

Naturally, she was one of the characters users wanted to grind up and drink.

The problem was that it was troublesome to kill her in reality.

Being a somewhat famous figure, she was extremely tough to deal with.

So if he was going to kill her, he had to do it in time with the moment she appeared randomly in a Gate.

But there was a reason the word random existed.

When she’d appear for Awakened hunting, and in which Gate, was random.

And he had just met her right now?

‘Super sweet.’

Just then.

Lee Seo-yun showed vicious eyes.

“Mr. Kim Min-woo, you’ve got quite the nerve, haven’t you? I thought you’d run, but you go laying traps.”

Poison dripped down the dagger she held.

“You’ve got nerve too? Trying to take me on.”

“Ha…….”

Lee Seo-yun let out a cold laugh in disbelief.

And no wonder, since the Level gap between them alone was well over 200.

Talent or no talent, with a gap like this, running away without looking back was normal.

“Don’t you know me by any chance? I’m somewhat famous.”

“Let’s see, right now…… aren’t you roughly a Level 300 scrub Assassin?”

“In all my life, this is the first lunatic like this.”