Chapter 33: Calamity: Aftermath

Etherzalle realized she would die if she didn’t run away from the human in front of her after she struggled to try to escape from Ji-woo’s hands.

Etherzalle then saw Ji-woo move the artifact weapon. He put one of the edges from the dual-headed Battle Axe that was still intact around her neck.

Ji-woo didn’t have any reason to prolong the fight. He wanted to go back and check on his family as soon as possible. Well, It might be a different story if Nullifier was still in control of his emotion.

Etherzalle became even more aggressive in her attempts to stay away from him after learning that she was at death’s door. She clawed at Ji-woo’s right hand with sharp fingers, but it couldn’t inflict any deep wound at all.

“If I don’t have Nullifier, this hand has already been cut a moment ago.”

Ji-woo’s right forearm had slight cut marks from that. Even though it was not deep, it was still bleeding a little.

Nuarghh!!

Etherzalle roared as loud as she could when Ji-woo penetrated her neck with the Battle Axe.

Zreet–

The head was falling and rolling to the ground.

Ji-woo stared at the headless body for a while and then threw it away. He sensed the Mana on the Red Gate slowly dissipated.

The hunters and Ji-woo turned their gaze to the Red Gate, which was starting to disappear.

Pong–

The three hunters just watched without words and gulped, remembering the scene where Ji-woo cut the vengeance spirit head with ease. It was like the first time seeing a one-sided battle in their lifetime.

One of the hunters immediately snapped back to reality and asked something to Ji-woo, despite being amazed by how Ji-woo killed the creature.

“Is there any other creature here?”

“No, the only one left is the Hellhounds that are spreading all over the area,” Ji-woo replied with his icy cold gaze. He knew the hunters should understand their job since he had already killed the dungeon owner. At least, the Red Gate threat was gone.

Suddenly, Ji-woo threw the Battle Axe on his left hand toward the hunters.

“Watch out!!!”

One of the hunters was shouting.

Boom–

The Battle Axe was stuck on the ground in front of the hunters. It made the area filled with clouds of dust.

Uhuk, Uhuk–

The three hunters coughed from the dust cloud in front of them. They waved their hands to dispel the dust fumes and also to make the vision around them clear.

Ji-woo was running as fast as he could and left no traces for them to trail him when the hunters were busy dealing with the cloud of dust.

After a bit of time, the hunters could see their surroundings better. However, Ji-woo was already out of their sight.

“What the hell did he do that for?!”

“Maybe to warn us not to chase him?”

“Enough, let’s go back and report the situation here.”

“Do you want to report about the beasts? Do you trust the person that just walked away?”

“Do we have a choice?”

The other two hunters looked at each other. They shrugged and agreed to return to the city, preparing for their next move.

—- —-

Chief Lee arrived with his team. They rushed to the border between the city and the forest road leading to where the Red Gate appears.

The Monitoring division personnel that Chief Lee brought were busy themselves fixing the temporary post that got ruined.

On the way Chief Lee and others advent, there were no beasts spotted. Of course, that was just a small area considering the scale of the Mapo district.

Not long, the three hunters join Chief Lee after coming back from the foot of the mountain. They were bringing information about the Hellhounds and the Red Gate that closed. They also reported about Ji-woo, but Chief Lee thought it was not necessary.

The Hellhounds that scattering was not a trivial matter. It was impossible for Chief Lee to handle it with only a few Monitoring division people. He then called Chairman Yu and reported the circumstances.

Anyhow, Chief Lee didn’t expect Chairman Yu to go straight to the field. Even though he only reported it and did not ask for his superior to come.

Chairman Yu came with a few high-rank hunters accompanied by a military helicopter.

All of the Monitoring division personnel slightly lowered their heads with the arrival of Chairman Yu.

Chief Lee then greeted Chairman Yu. “Sir, thank you for coming. How about the meeting with Shadow guild, Demigod guild, and Artates guild headmasters?”

Chairman Yu just waved his hand, telling Chief Lee not to beat around the bust.

“Let’s talk about that later. We need to immediately make plans on how we will take care of the remaining beasts that roam around the Mapo district.”

Soon, all the hunters in the temporary outpost held a strategy meeting and made a ground plan.

Hunter with a team of five. One tanker, two combat-type hunters, one healer, and another scout or assassin type of hunter. The teams consisted of C-rank and B-rank hunters from various guilds and some independent hunters.

The total of hunters in the mission for chasing the Hellhounds was around 200. Also, a few A-rank hunters and 2 S-rank hunters include Chairman Yu from Hunters Association, on the spot to oversee the assignment.

It was possible to gather such rank hunters because of Chairman Yu’s emergency call to all the guilds in South Korea. At the same time, to prepare if something wrong might happen in the process.

Although, the relationship between the Hunters Association and the guilds was not good. If the matter related to their country, the guild would take a step back and voluntarily cooperate with the Hunter Association. After all, the dispute between them was about money and profits, not national security.

It took them two days one night to completely eradicate all of the scattering Hellhounds across the Mapo district.

In the end, the hunters’ painstaking efforts were not in vain. Now, Mapo district condition was temporarily safe and under control.

—- —-

—- —-

An article about the Mapo Red Gate incident on NeverPage with the most views and clicks had a hot discussion in the comment section.

The article wrote about how the Mapo incident became a heavy loss since the first year of Portal Gate appearing in South Korea.

It recorded about 5300 casualties of 2 hunters, 43 military soldiers, and 1112 ordinary people died; 73 hunters, 103 military soldiers, and 3967 ordinary people were injured. It caused all of the available hospitals in the Mapo district to be fully packed. Some patients were even sent to the hospital outside the Mapo district since they couldn’t handle those thousands of patients.

It also poked at how the Hunters Association was late at responding to the disaster. Praising the soldiers for the first one arrived in Mapo district, comparing humans with Mana blessing and ordinary humans.

The need to always be vigilant in dealing with Red Gate issues. The importance of having many high-ranking hunters. Those problems came up, thanks to the rumor about the Red Gate formed from tier-2 Portal Gate. The creature that came out from there should be Low-Grade ones. But that time, there was a High-Grade one, and as the dungeon owner too.

On the other hand, the article also mentioned how grateful they were for the hunters that cleaned up the aftermath. If they relied solely on the military army, it was impossible to hunt down the beasts.

– Anon: Return my tax money!

-L Anon: Are you an idiot? HA is not 100% under government management. HA got money from selling the right of the Portal Gate, not from our country tax. One more thing, this article is about the victim of the Mapo incident. Not about your tax!

–L Anon: F*ck off! They still have government support from it. So?

– Anon: What use do we have hunters. If they couldn’t protect our land?

– Anon: When will we close all the Portal Gates if it’s like this!

– Anon: Anyway, Thank you for the hunters and army.

– Anon: These are all Hunter Association’s responsibilities!

– Anon: Pray for Mapo-gu.

-L Anon: +1

-L Anon: +99

– Anon: My condolences to the army.

– Anon: The government should buy an Iron Man suit to kill the monsters with our money, not steal that into their pocket.

-L Anon: ROFL, did you think we are in MCU?

-L Anon: Kekekeke

– Anon: I wish we have 100 S-rank hunters that pop out of nowhere.

-L Anon: In your dream!

-L Anon: +1

The article amassed tens of thousands of comments and trended on the NeverPage site. It created an awareness of how terrifying the Portal Gate was.

The public began reminiscing about the first year of Portal Gate because of the Mapo district unfortunate event.

—- —-

—- —-

At the hospital. Where Kim Ji-woo’s mother currently stays.

In the room of six beds, Ji-won’s mother occupies one of them. Ji-won sat beside her sleeping mother. Meanwhile, Ji-woo was standing at the opposite side of Ji-won.

Ji-woo wound all over the body from the Crescent Moon weapon already healed in a matter of hours before since it was just some scratches. However, his right forearm got bandaged because of Etherzalle claws.

Ji-woo looked worriedly at his sister and mother. Although they were fine, no one knew how the future would unfold. The accident might happen again later on.

“Ji-won~ah, stay with mother for now. Oppa wants to go to father’s place for a bit.”

Ji-woo walked toward the room door, and Ji-won still didn’t give a response. These past three days, when both of them take care of their mother. Ji-won never cared about Ji-woo.

At least, his sister was not cursing Ji-woo anymore like before. Ji-won behavior toward her mother had changed too. She was almost with her mother for 24 hours a day when sometimes Ji-woo was busy taking care of hospital administration matters.

Luckily, all of the victims from the Mapo-gu incident had free of hospital fees.

Ji-woo closed the door and walked into the corridor with some thought.

‘Sigh, my destiny has been sealed.’