IOERG 08

Chapter 8

“Requesting permission for a solo F-rank raid.”

He pushed his ID and the gate entry application through the counter window.

The clerk sitting beyond the glass partition accepted the documents and tapped on her monitor. Scanning the barcode mechanically and checking the screen, her fingers abruptly froze in midair.

“…Pardon?”

Her eyes wide, the clerk looked back and forth between Chan-ho’s face and the monitor.

“Um, Hunter-nim. The rank registered on your resume shows as FFF-rank… Is that correct?”

“Yes. That’s correct.”

Chan-ho answered shortly. The clerk’s complexion stiffened visibly.

“I mean, you’re FFF-rank, but you’re entering a dungeon alone? Not joining a party as a porter?”

“As written on the application, it’s a solo raid.”

“Absolutely not! I cannot grant permission.”

The clerk pushed the documents back decisively and shook her head. Her voice was so loud that a few hunters sitting in the waiting area behind turned their heads with amusement.

“This is no different from suicide. You might be used to the atmosphere of dungeons from working as a porter for a long time, but facing monsters directly is a completely different story.”

Sincere concern was embedded in the clerk’s words.

Having rolled at the bottom as a porter for years, Chan-ho knew that fact better than anyone else. If an FFF-rank hunter, without even a smidgen of mana, faced a monster bare-handed, they wouldn’t last three minutes before turning into a lump of meat.

However, he was not bare-handed now.

“Association Safety Management Regulations, Article 4, Paragraph 2.”

Without a hint of fluster, Chan-ho spoke in a calm voice.

“For low-tier gates of F-rank or below, even if someone falls short of the required rank, solo entry is permitted if they prove the essential safety requirements in preparation for emergencies, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Th-That is an exception clause that exists only on paper! In reality, no one goes in so recklessly! If an accident happens inside, it becomes troublesome for our Association side as well.”

“An accident won’t happen. I brought the means to prove it, too.”

Chan-ho swung the backpack slung over his shoulder to the front. Unzipping it, he pulled out a document envelope and a small box from deep inside, placing them on the counter.

“This is the rider details for a specialized hunter life insurance policy. I just renewed it.”

The clerk’s gaze locked onto the document. That much was only the beginning.

Chan-ho opened the lid of the box. Inside lay a smooth, gem-like artifact emitting a deep blue light.

“And as an insurance rider, this is a disposable emergency escape stone rented for one day. It’s an item that immediately teleports you outside upon detecting danger inside the dungeon. I believe this sufficiently meets the safety requirements.”

The clerk’s mouth fell wide open.

An emergency escape stone. It was top-tier survival gear that even typical regular hunters couldn’t equip as personal gear because it was so expensive. He hadn’t purchased it directly. Chan-ho paid an additional fee for a high-end rider on the specialized hunter insurance he had just renewed, renting this item strictly for the day of the raid.

“Y-You even went as far as renting this…”

“The rental process isn’t part of the regulation verification procedure, is it?”

Chan-ho met the clerk’s eyes nonchalantly. She no longer had a pretext to pick a bone with him, nor the authority to stop him.

With a dazed expression, the clerk verified the escape stone and insurance documents before reluctantly stamping her approval.

“…Entry permission has been processed. However, if you judge it to be truly dangerous, you must use the escape stone immediately. Do you understand?”

“Thank you for the advice.”

Chan-ho gathered the items, stuffed them back into his backpack, and turned around. Ignoring the sharp, glancing gazes of the surrounding hunters, he moved his steps toward the gate control zone without hesitation.

Passing through the shimmering blue dimensional barrier, the texture of the air changed completely.

With his eyes closed, Chan-ho inhaled deeply into his lungs. The stale smell of dust, the dampness clinging stickily, and the terrible bloody dirt stench rising from the floor.

Contrasting sharply with the pleasant air-conditioned breeze he had been in just moments ago, it was the familiar, unpleasant air of an F-rank cave dungeon.

“Whew.”

Back when he was rolling as a porter, whenever he caught this smell, a horrific tension that he might die at any moment flowed down his spine. The times he had to tremble in fear at the very back of the party while clearing away corpses.

However, things were different now.

Chan-ho lightly applied force to both feet planted on the floor. The soles of his newly acquired sturdy combat boots firmly supported him against the slippery dirt floor.

He immediately rolled up his left sleeve.

Sturdy special bandages wrapping tightly around his joints. Beneath those bandages, a black piece of iron disguised as a crushed cheap protector still held its breath.

‘When dealing with that gatekeeper bastard, I recklessly pulled out power.’

Back then, because he had to reflexively counter the monster’s attack, he failed to control the output the gauntlet spewed out. Thanks to that, he had to endure a muscle-tearing recoil and pain as if his shoulder bone were coming dislocated.

However, today’s objective was not to test his limits.

It was a control verification test to check how much strain was placed on his body when he extremely suppressed the output of this absurd equipment—and whether he could cleanly clean up enemies in actual combat with only that minimal power.

Chan-ho pulled his sleeve back down and silently moved his steps deeper into the dark cave.

Before long, a bizarre cry echoed beyond the humid darkness.

Kik. Kyaruruk.

Along with rustling footsteps, glaring eyes appeared in the darkness.

A group of low-grade goblins holding rusted swords and crude clubs. And leading slightly ahead of them, three fierce wolf-type monsters drooling saliva. Seven in total.

If it were a typical low-rank hunter, they would have panicked, fumbled, or let out a scream while launching a preemptive strike.

However, Chan-ho stopped in his tracks and regulated his breathing. Just because he held standard-defying power, he had no intention whatsoever of making the mistake of rashly getting excited and charging in.

His gaze was not fixed on the glowing eyes of the monsters.

A rough rock protruding from the right wall. A shallow mud puddle pooled on the floor. The curved shape of the cave angling off to the left. And the shortest escape route to fall back if the worst-case scenario occurred.

This was a survival habit he had deeply internalized while working as a porter for a long time. A habit of always having to look for an escape hole in case other hunters threw him out as a shield.

That desperate habit had now completely turned into a rational tactical field of vision.

‘The wolf bastards will come in first. The goblin bastards will peek for an opportunity from behind.’

Chan-ho read the shape of the siege network with his eyes and focused his consciousness on the gauntlets.

To prevent excessive force from bursting out, he maintained only the minimal defensive output wrapping firmly around his flesh and bones. He suppressed it and suppressed it further.

Grrrrr!

The wait was not long. The wolf-type monster standing at the lead flashed its bloodshot eyes and bounced off its hind legs.

Sharp claws slicing through the air and flying over. It was a heavy leap loaded with the creature’s entire body weight.

Chan-ho did not dodge. Instead, he raised his left arm in a very concise motion.

CLANG!

With a dull friction sound, the wolf’s claws struck Chan-ho’s left arm hard. However, far from piercing the special bandages, the claws slid across the ultra-low output barrier formed on the surface of the gauntlets and grazed through empty air.

The impact transmitted to his body was merely equivalent to someone giving his shoulder a firm tap.

Immediately after deflecting the attack, Chan-ho did not miss that fleeting gap where the wolf’s torso leaned forward defenselessly.

Keeping his center low, he extended his left fist straight out and struck the underside of the creature’s jaw. It was not a punch loaded with full force either. Just a short, heavy, snapped strike matching the trajectory.

BAM!

An unpleasant bursting sound echoed inside the cave.

“Yelp!”

The wolf-type monster’s jawbone shattered completely, and its entire torso flew in an arc. After crashing into the rough cave wall, it went limp following a single twitch.

Chan-ho immediately checked the condition of the muscles around his left arm and shoulder.

Neither a feeling of joint dislocation nor horrific muscle-tearing pain followed. Thanks to holding it back at minimum output, the burden placed on his body was surprisingly negligible.

‘At this rate, I won’t get exhausted even if I swing this all day.’

Seeing their companion sprawled out in a single strike right before their eyes, the remaining monsters hesitated for a moment.

However, a goblin that had lost its mind to the smell of blood let out a bizarre scream, raised its club, and charged in.

With light footwork, Chan-ho stepped back half a step, cleanly dodging the club’s trajectory. Toward the nape of the goblin that had lost its balance after a wild swing, he drove in a concise strike once again.

Snap.

An unpleasant sensation of flesh and bone fragments crushing transmitted through his fingertips. The goblin’s neck bent, slamming helplessly into the floor.

The battle following that was a one-sided flow.

The remaining two wolves pounced simultaneously from both sides, but there were no unnecessary actions in Chan-ho’s movements.

Lightly bouncing off the right wolf’s teeth with his left arm wearing the gauntlet, he struck its forehead as it was, and drove an unhesitating kick into the abdomen of the wolf digging in from the left. Trampled by the sole of his combat boot, the creature’s ribs crumpled.

The terrified goblins turned their backs and tried to flee, but inside the narrow cave, there was nowhere to escape.

Without rushing, Chan-ho approached and cut off the breathing of the remaining ones in sequence.

Seven corpses strewn about in all directions. The bloody stench vibrated, but standing in the middle of it, Chan-ho’s breathing was serene.

He didn’t break out in cold sweat like during the gatekeeper battle, nor did he grimace because his joints hurt.

Upon extremely controlling the output, the physical recoil he had worried about so much was barely felt. Rather, it became clear that with just the ultra-low output of the gauntlets, he could stably smash F-rank entities without danger—entities he had to run away from while risking his life in the past.

Chan-ho looked down at the fallen monsters’ corpses with calm eyes.

Instead of panting heavily, he shook off the smeared blood and quietly clenched his left fist tightly. A heavy sensation of his joints interlocking firmly wrapped around his grip.