Chapter 61: Red Gate Incident
A/N: I changed the ranking of the Soldiers of Light. So, for example, Asmund instead of being Rank Knight, is now Rank Principality.
The ranking of soldiers is as follows from weakest to strongest:
Angels, Archangels, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Dominions, Thrones, Cherubs, and finally Seraphs.
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P.S: The author's thought explains why this chapter wasn't submitted sooner.
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Collapsing the moment that I return home; I wake up and find myself in a rather precarious situation. Creaking my head to the side, I find Jinah clinging to my arm, slightly drooling. Another interesting fact, I was in Jinah's room, in her bed, without a shirt on. Befuddlingly confused what had happened I had returned home, Jinah moves her arm and rubs her eye.
Still tired, Jinah barely cracks her eyes open and says, "Good morning Shiro." before then snuggling back up into my arm.
Though, she seemed to quickly realize a problem with the situation. Having her eyes shoot open, she sits up abruptly, a huge blush covering her face.
"I-I can explain!!"
Holding my urge to tease her, I instead hold my hand out, waiting for her explanation. Though, Jinah takes one look at the clock on her nightstand.
"I'm going to be late to school!"
Kicking me out of her bed and then straight out of her room, I hear her yell from behind her door, "I'll tell you later."
Mere moments later, a fresh Jinah appears in her school uniform and bursts out the door.
Though, not before yelling, "Make sure to remind Jinwoo of the Parent-Teacher meeting today!"
Doing exactly as Jinah wanted, Jinwoo left for the Parent-Teacher meeting.
Jinwoo, returning from the meeting, says to me, "I promised to turn Han Song-yi into a great hunter and booked us a dungeon raid with a White Tiger Guild attack force. Wanted to know if you'd come."
"Well, if it means that we get to see how we improved after that little job change quest of ours, then of course I'll come. Plus, I want to stretch these unused muscles."
"Unused?"
Only giving an ominous smile in return, we both leave for the dungeon raid and meet with the man who Jinwoo had so blatantly ripped off.
Shaking hands with us, the situation is quickly explained to us and were introduced to the attack force we'd be participating with.
"This attack force is composed of 1 A-Rank, 7 B-Ranks, and 4 C-Ranks, for a total of 12 people. It may seem like an overkill with the amount of A-Rank and B-Ranks participating in a C-Rank Gate, but they're still just new recruits. They must first gain some dungeon experience."
Passing through the gate, getting a stronger feeling of displacement and intense mana fluctuations. I didn't even have time to turn around and shout out, already having sunk too far into the dungeon's gate.
By the time I arrive on the other side, the air turned cold, and snow was falling from the sky. The gate we had entered from was nowhere to be seen, being replaced by a vast open forest.
"Uhm… is there something wrong with us?"
Instead of answering Han, I dash out in front of her and grab the arrow that had been aiming for her face. Looking in the direction of where the arrow was shot, I find a being with blue skin, long white hair, and elongated ears staring back.
"Ice Elves?!"
Hearing the name called out by our fellow raid mates, Jinwoo moves closer to me and whispers, "Their eyes are sharp. They managed to single out the two weakest hunters in the attack force. We'll need to be more protective of Han Song-yi from now on."
Nodding my head, I turn back to the ice elf and find him swiping his thumb across his neck. In return, I point at him and start to fake laugh hysterically.
Turning serious again, I scoff, "This thing really thinks it has the abilities to kill me."
Shattering the ice arrow in my hand, the ice elves disappear, and our 'leader' starts to speak.
"I'm not sure how many of you guys understood the situation yet, but we are inside a red gate. We cannot return until all of us are dead, or the dungeon opens."
Looking at the buff man inside of a grey suit of armor with a furry collar, a white tassel cloth, and a helmet that resembles a monster's head, the people around us start to freak out.
"…Mister, what is a red gate?"
"It's a special gate that connects us to another world." Jinwoo answers, "Once we step our foot inside, the gate closes off completely and nobody else can come and help. It's a place we cannot escape until the boss is killed or the dungeon opens on its own. In other words… we're stranded."
Our 'leader' then makes the wise decision to take responsibility for our survival by splitting us into two separate groups, and among the group that tries to go find the final boss, everyone C-Rank or lower is left behind, though one of the B-Rank Mage decides to swap sides.
Walking past me, the B-Rank Mage whispers, "Kim-Chul, that person, he didn't notice the arrows coming. You're not an E-Rank, right?"
Grabbing her by the shoulder, Jinwoo asks a question in my stead, "How are you guys so calm for new recruits?"
Shrugging her shoulders, she answers, "The first lesson we've been taught is 'Anything can happen inside the dungeon'. Especially, Hunter Kim-Chul has received special coaching. He's destined to join the White Tiger's Main attack force."
Cutting through our private conversation, Kim-Chul signals his leave, heading down the path. We on the other hand, decide to enter the forest. The moment we enter, the lady prods me again.
"Well. You'll find out soon…"
Proceeding through the forest, we soon find a rather large Ice Bear meandering through the forest before arriving in front of us.
Growling at me, I bend down, putting my hand at the handle of my katana. Breathing in sharply, the air around me puffs outwards and my entire aura changes.
"Wind Breathing Second Form: Claws-Purifying Wind."
Slicing my blade right in front of my face, the Ice Bear who had its arm raised to slash down at me halted its movement. Moments later, the bear split into four separate pieces.
Giving a smile to my awed spectators, Jinwoo comes up to me and asks, "Is your class that of a swordsman's? What was that you just did? Even my instincts flared when you took that seemingly simple stance."
Slapping him on the shoulder, I answer, "Of course not. You're not even close to what my actual class is."
Thinning his lips, we continue further into the forest, killing any Ice Bear that manages to cross paths with us.
Having felt like we had progressed deep enough into the forest, we set up camp. Taking meat from the corpse of the Ice Bear, our little group happily began to dig in and share stories or information with one another.
Leaving the group with Jinwoo, we proceed to complete our daily mission.
As we're both doing curl-ups on a branch, Jinwoo turns his head and asks, "We should do a little bit of hunting. It's a good chance to reveal our powers to one another."
Nodding my head in agreeance, the two of us rush through the forest and eventually come upon a cave. From out of it, comes a pack of twenty Ice Bears.
"The numbers are roughly the same?" Jinwoo asks himself before turning to me and smirking. "Ready to be amazed?"
"Hit me."
"Come out."
The shadow underneath Jinwoo's feet then suddenly shot out, growing tremendously in size. From out of it, beings wrapped in said shadow then burst out, glistening with a blue light coming from their visors and faintly at their joints.
"Go."
Sitting back with Jinwoo as his Shadow Soldiers start to fight against the Ice Bears, he asks, "Impressed?"
"Truly... I never thought that you of all people would be able to generate an army to fight for you. Though, even with your army of shadows, they can be easily beaten through sheer force. The only exception to that would be that soldier…"
Pointing at Jinwoo's elite soldier, he sticks his nose up and boasts. "Well of course, he's the strongest of my soldiers and even put me on my last legs when we fought. If he couldn't deal with Ice Bears, I'd be rather disappointed. And… my mana ran out."
Just as he said that the leader of the Ice Bears revealed himself.
Calling his elite soldier over, whose name is Igris, he then proceeds to send him forward to deal with the Ice Bear leader by itself. With the slow movements of the Bear and the fluent movements of Igris, by the time that he finished with his performance, its arms were rendered useless as well as one of its legs. As the bear drove forward to get one last attack through, it instead lost its head which was soon grabbed by Igris and dropped right in front of us.
"The show's not over yet."
Watching Jinwoo walk over to the Ice Bear's headless body, I watched as a shadow much like its original appearance, emerged from its body. When Jinwoo goes to do the same procedure with the other bears, I stop him.
"I just want to see something." I answer his questioning stare. Hovering over one of the Ice Bear corpses, a certain notification pops up.
⸢Light Extraction cannot be used on this target. ⸥
Scratching my chin and searching for a reason why, I let Jinwoo continue with his work and then we head back to the group, them being none the wiser of the type of power that Jinwoo had.
"You know, you didn't really let me show off my power." I sweat drop.
Jinwoo's mouth opens agape as he realizes him mistake. "Well, I'm sure there will be more opportunities."
For the next three days, we stay perfectly safe inside the camp, happily munching on delicious Ice Bear meat. Meanwhile, a certain annoying presence enters our camp.
Seeing him act all high and mighty while counting down for us to reveal our supplier, the moment that his count hits three, Jinwoo immediately says "Four." and then slams his head straight into the ground, even knocking him a few meters away.
"How about you guys undo your stealth? Due to your powerful energy, hiding is pointless." Jinwoo calls out.
From out of seemingly thin air with wisps of air waving around them, an army of Ice Elves appear.
"There really was one. A useful guy among the trashes."
Holding my hand up as a sign of disbelief, I ask, "Did you just call me trash?"
Whipping his head towards me wile pulling his head back in a questioning manner, it asks, "You know our language? …Well, it's lucky you're able to converse, you see, there's someone I want to introduce." Looking down at his side, I see the elf who had made a death-threat at me. "You're already acquaintances. He's the one who notified us that there's someone strong among the humans. This guy wanted to face off with you, so…"
Not even listening to his useless babble, I had already rushed forward, decapitating the pompous elf who thought he could kill me.
Twisting his head to stare at me, the two of us stare at one another in deafening silence before the Elf gains a sickening smile. "You're an amusing guy."
Trying my luck to decapitate even him, the Ice Elf Boss pulls a dagger from seemingly nowhere and blocks my strike.
"I have a proposal. It won't be detrimental to you. But first, let me ask you a question. Despite not being a human, why are you among the humans? And it's not just you, but it's that one too."
Seeing him point over to Jinwoo, Jinwoo in turn asks, "What the hell are you talking about?"
Letting out a boisterous laugh, the Ice Elf points at his forehead, "You two aren't aware of it? …In our heads, there's a constant voice speaking to us. To kill humans. But I cannot hear the voice in your presences. There's no need for us to fight. We do not want unnecessary casualties in our end. So, just hand over the humans behind you… then I'll spare your life. How about it? A rather fair trade, right?"
Watching Jinwoo's expression grow dark, he decides to have them answer a question, "Who are you guys? Where did you come from and why are you trying to kill humans?"
The ice elf scoffs and goes to answer, but upon getting to the words "We are…" he suddenly cuts off, his face shaking violently for a moment, and then repeating a line he had said before.
Upon being asked the same question twice, both Jinwoo and I answer, ""We refuse.""
"Do the two of you plan on fighting me and my soldiers? Do you think you can withstand our numbers by yourselves?"
"Numbers? What Nu-" Jinwoo cut off as he sees me signal for him to stop.
"You said you wanted to see my powers Jinwoo, then now is my moment to shine. I'll let you handle him." I point at the Boss, "But let me handle everything else."
"By yourself?" Jinwoo can't help but ask.
"Who ever said I was alone?" I give him the same kind of smirk that he had given me. "Come to me my ascended soldiers…"
The sky above me then began to shimmer violently and from out of the light came my twenty soldiers. Landing on the snow next to me, Asmund stepped forward, waiting to receive an order.
"You know your own fighting tactics better than I ever will, so as long as you don't target the boss, everything you do is fine."
Turning to one of the mages of my soldiers, I give him a nod and he starts to cast an incantation, eventually giving my other soldiers a radiating golden shine.
"…What a cheap trick."
"Is it really."
Firing a finger gun at him, my soldiers dash forward, instantly clashing with the Ice Elves.
Walking out, away from the ensuing fight, the King asks, "Not even going to try and fight me?"
"I'm not the one who will, he will instead." Hiking my finger at the gobsmacked Jinwoo, he breaks from his trance and finds himself face to face with the Boss.
On the other hand, I decide to retest my ability to use the blade against enemies such as these.
"Water Breathing Tenth Form: Constant Flux."
Weaving my blade through the necks of Ice Elves, the flow of my blade starts to grow stronger until the clear vision of a water dragon behind my blade becomes clear. Instead of simply decapitating the Ice Elves by this point, it was almost like their entire head was being consumed as well as a portion of their body. Ending the technique by planting my feet into the ground and then slashing my sword forward, the Water Dragon continued forward, consuming the last of the Ice Elf army.
"It feels good to be able to breath again."
Receiving a bountiful harvest of levels, the wind crashed against me suddenly.
Whipping my head around, I find Jinwoo with a new shadow that has a striking similarity to Kim-Chul. Meanwhile, my soldiers returned to my side, a few of them having a few dinks in their armor.
⸢ Mana is being consumed to repair your soldiers. Do notice, if soldiers' heads are completely crushed, they can no longer be repaired and be lost to the White Void forever. ⸥
In other words, my soldiers were of a higher durability that Jinwoo's shadow soldiers, but in return for that durability, they took longer to regenerate.
Looking back to Jinwoo's fight, I find that the Boss had gone into a berserk state, screaming his head off. Though, Jinwoo seemed to have predicted this as he appeared from the air with his sword stabbed in the Boss's stomach. Moments later, the just regenerated shadow soldier landed a definitive blow on the Boss, killing him.
As Jinwoo relaxes, I slightly chuckle as I watch his shadow then continue to slam his hammer down into the corpse.
Looking at the corpses while expecting to find that I can't use Light Extraction, I smile slightly when I find that I can. And with the levels that I had gained from this fight, I had a few more spots for new soldiers.
"Ascend."
Watching as ten of the Ice Elf bodies rise into the air, new Soldier of Light emerge.
⸢ [Hunters of Light lv.1] Rank: Archangel ⸥
Seeing that they were of a higher rank than my lowest ranked ones, I unrelentingly unsummoned the weaker ones, replacing them with these new soldiers.
Turning back, I find our happy dungeon mates and a depressed Jinwoo.
"Fine then, don't join me." Seeing him huff, I hike up to the same corpse and see that I can use Light Extraction.
"Hey Jinwoo." I call out to him. "You tried to extract this guy, right?"
Seeing him nod his head, he also says, "But I failed."
"Well, I'm also given the option, so wanna watch me?"
Thinking about it for a moment, Jinwoo shrugs his shoulders and stands next to me.
Holding my hand out, I command, "Ascend."
The corpse shudders for a second before falling silent.
It seems for the strong ones; I must crouch down for them and say a few words.
"Your own men have joined a side in which they can grow more powerful. Are you willing to reject the ability to grow even stronger and forsake your own men simply for your own pride? Or are you going to escape that eternal hell you're going to be placed in and join the side that'll win no matter what? ...Now, arise and be a leader."
Rising into the sky, it flashes brightly and from out of it steps something with a likeness to Asmund but with a light blue coloration and a neon purple engraving on his forehead. His weapon of choice was a singular dagger that hung by his waist.
⸢Please choose a name for the soldier. ⸥
Not even knowing if he had a name or not, I answer, "Since you're related to Ice, your name is now Bingha."
⸢[Bingha Lv.1] Rank: Principality⸥
"Now, let's go back."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Kogatsu
Kogatsu "My writing space was confiscated yesterday." - Me
Weekly Power Status
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