READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 274. After the Destruction (3)
– Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud!
If it weren’t for this gap in music when the next track was supposed to play, the person involved would probably never have heard the noise.
“Hmm?”
A few seconds later, the young man in Room 102, enjoying his hobby, finally noticed the disturbance at his front door.
“What is it, is there thunder outside?”
At first, he thought so, but as he took off his headphones, the situation became clear.
– Thud, thud, thud, thud!
Outside, someone was banging on the metal door like a madman.
“…Huh?”
The sound was so loud it made his heart race.
Hearing that, the resident of Room 102 stiffened his shoulders for a moment.
However, the figure outside didn’t give him a moment’s peace and continued to shout.
– “Come out!!”
– “Open up!”
– “Neighbors, open the door right now! Oh dear, oh dear!”
Correction.
Now that he looked closer, it seemed there were ‘people’ out there.
In just the span of a single song playing through his headset, the atmosphere in the building’s corridor had changed drastically.
The resident of Room 102, as he got up from his gaming chair and made his way out, thought to himself.
‘Damn, what a surprise. And isn’t today supposed to be a day off? This crappy building, what on earth happened to cause all this chaos on a weekend afternoon?’
No matter the reason, his instinctual reaction was a growing irritation at the interruption of his sweet holiday.
But despite his initial bravado, things changed quickly.
“Yes. Yes, I’m coming out! Ugh. Could you please stop banging on the door…”
Beep.
The moment he faced the person standing outside the open door, the resident, with his headset draped around his neck, froze.
“You know my face.”
Kim……
‘Kim Gi-ryeo?’
S-Class Hunter Kim Gi-ryeo.
The one who had been banging on the door was none other than that man.
The slightly intimidating 20-something guy, who had asked if he recognized his face, was not dressed in a suit today; just a simple black t-shirt.
But it wasn’t hard to recognize him.
He was a famous hunter who frequently appeared on the news of all three major broadcasting stations. Moreover, he was an unusual neighbor living in this shabby building.
Upon seeing the visitor, the resident’s jaw dropped in surprise.
“Huh!”
Even though he had casually glanced at him from his window earlier, he realized once again that the TV screen couldn’t capture the hunter’s vibe even to a fraction.
Though he was suppressing himself for the sake of the citizens, there was an undeniable pressure radiating from him.
Standing before the piercing gaze of the man, the resident of Room 102 felt like a timid lamb.
Just moments ago, he had been ready to argue about why someone was banging on his door so early, but now he worried whether his own breathing sound would be too loud.
But that didn’t matter.
“I think you know my face?”
“Ah, yes. Yes!”
The blond man, leaning against the door frame, awkwardly tilted his head.
Then, the hunter asked as if confirming something, and the resident quickly nodded, which allowed Kim Gi-ryeo to share his purpose for visiting.
“Now listen carefully. Gather your valuable items and get out of this building immediately.”
“Excuse me?”
“Evacuate! I’m not saying you have to run out in the nude. At least grab your wallet and get out in 30 seconds!”
What a surprise in the middle of the night.
Just a few minutes ago, he had been enjoying a delightful weekend with band music, and now he was being told to escape with his valuables?
Normally, he might have argued right there about what kind of nonsense that was.
But the resident of Room 102, with his headset on, dashed back into his room without a word.
The reputation of an S-Class Hunter had that kind of power.
And given the surrounding tension…
“Everyone, come out!”
“Our, our bankbook. What about our bankbook?”
“Grandma! Just leave it! These days, online banking is all that matters!”
The neighbors were frantically shouting.
Thank goodness humans were social animals.
Once the mood was set, the residents of the studio building raised their voices, urging each other to evacuate.
Finally, the specific situation had been communicated to every unit occupied by people.
“Ha…”
The blond man rushed around the low building, managing to draw out the last resident, and finally took a moment to breathe.
“I’ve done what I could. Really, I’ve done what I could…”
He muttered, but no one was there to listen.
“…But what on earth is going on?”
“Kim Gi-ryeo Hunter…”
“Kim Gi-ryeo?”
“He suddenly started banging and said we need to evacuate. Something about a dungeon being dangerous.”
“A dungeon?”
“Oh, that must be it. Looks like a red one is about to pop up nearby.”
“Red Gate? How does he know about the gate appearing and is telling us to evacuate?”
“Who knows? Anyway, since it’s an S-Class telling us to do so, we do it.”
“Ugh, I should have grabbed an umbrella…”
Murmurs.
To their luck, all the residents of the studio building managed to evacuate quickly within a few minutes.
Still, by lunchtime, the weather had been somewhat clear, but now the sky was filled with dark clouds pouring rain.
The mammals, who rarely looked up, craned their necks to gaze at the planet’s ceiling.
Thump, plop.
But the blond man, accustomed to the water, didn’t increase his pace, even as it soaked his shoulders.
He turned on his phone.
The screen showed a few missed calls, but he didn’t reply.
He hadn’t had a chance to check them while evacuating the residents.
【Phone】
[Seonwoo-yeon (3) 2:58 PM↺]
[Seonwoo-yeon (1) 2:59 PM↺]
He clearly thought Seonwoo-yeon would be the first to face trouble, so he had deployed personnel there.
Who would have thought that something would go down exactly when the date hadn’t even changed?
“What the hell, you crazy bastard…”
A curse slipped out, possibly aimed at someone.
Even as rainwater continued to drench his shoulders, the refugee from the dual star merely exhaled in despair.
Part of him felt he had been caught off guard.
Before he even had a chance to mobilize any useful physical strength, the enemy had launched their surprise attack.
The ceasefire was over.
Screech.
Soon, disaster began.
A specific coordinate in Mapo-gu was immediately engulfed in the blue light of the Blue Gate, the location of which had been preemptively sensed by the Great Mage.
The area was marked under some studio’s floor.
Moreover, the range expanded to cover the entirety of that cheap building’s foundation.
What initially was a minor crack evolved into a massive tear.
“Haha.”
The blond man, who had just escaped from the studio building, was being pulled into the passage of the now-formed Blue Gate.
“Ahhhh!”
“My, my house!”
“Crazy.”
“Who do we call? The Association? Shouldn’t we call 119 too?”
An unexpected portal to another world kept expanding as it swallowed the entire building.
Thunder.
The only home that had provided him a second chance was disappearing.
Beneath that gate, was there merely dry sand? The continuous rustling sound echoed, but he had no interest in a space he wouldn’t even step into.
Regardless, this sight was merely a predicament that someone was about to experience.
‘Well, no matter how stubborn I am, if the house vanishes, I’ll have to come out, after all.’
Just as an alien had once hoped to assure Seonwoo-yeon of his qualities and recruit her.
Could it be that person had also analyzed their behavioral patterns?
Kim Gi-ryeo observed the tilting, twisting walls of the building with a dry remark.
“Um…”
With keen intuition, he had sensed the magical force approaching long before.
“…Excuse me. But is it too late to make peace now?”
The answer never came, rendering that a hard conversation to have.
Then, an S-Class level magical force pierced his skin like a pouring rain. Several familiar magic tools came into view.
For example, a ribbon mixed with red and white.
Something like a shadow spread on the ground.
And additionally, some ambiguous item he had never even heard of, as if it belonged to a pauper.
Having grasped the entire situation, Kim Gi-ryeo anticipated the incoming future and tightly shut his eyes.
– Thwack!
Within seconds, it felt as if something had struck into the sensory-blocking nerves of his scalp.
*
…When he opened his eyes again, an unfamiliar space lay before him.
“……”
I.
As I came to my senses, I slowly scanned my surroundings.
What I recognized was a rectangular room, neat yet somewhat spacious.
A shabby light swung from the ceiling, reminiscent of an interrogation room, and the walls were bare and entirely gray.
This was a place one would hardly associate with the wealthy.
‘Using all those unidentified restraining items from what those fraudsters used in the underworld.’
But the main figure of this incident possessed a terrifyingly powerful artifact; as many as four kinds.
The items employed to assault me had effects like memory coordinate movement, constraints, mana interference, and casting disruption.
Aside from the Underworld’s blanket and a specific ribbon, I had never seen such shapes, but just considering their functions, their price tags were easily inferred.
To catch mere F-Class, the opponent seemed to have splurged on top-tier goods that would easily exceed a total of several billions.
‘Looks like he’s accumulated these high-value items without even being able to use the auction house.’
Despite spending time in this unfurnished room, it was certain that the Earthling before me was a capitalist.
I quietly rolled my eyes.
At the same time, I concentrated my senses to gauge exactly where this was.
“Oh.”
It dawned on me, based on the fact that the closest Blue Gate’s positions were all embedded above ground, that this room was at quite a low dimension.
“You seem to have woken up.”
The Earthling, who had been turning his back, finally moved.
He stood there confidently, shoulders squared, peering down at me for quite a while.
When our eyes met, he broke the ice with a line I wasn’t exactly keen on hearing.
“Hey.”
His voice, sounding like it had a low Hertz value, made me question whether he was an Eastern foreigner like Kim Gi-ryeo, and he had grown so large he resembled a land-dwelling deep-sea person.
“By the way, it’s Sunday at 10:03 PM now. Since you don’t have to go to work tomorrow anyway, I guess time doesn’t really matter, does it?”
The assailant’s identity was Kang Chang-ho.
Moreover, a poor alien had been packed off to this unknown gray room after being sucker-punched by that S-Class.
‘Ugh, damn…’
The abduction I had feared so much had finally taken place.