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HELIO SCANS
[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Kaya]
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Chapter 42
Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep.
[23.61%]
“Heh. It’s climbing fast.”
A blonde man, checking the numbers on the device in his hand, looked satisfied. Compared to when he had first arrived here, the numbers had risen dramatically.
“It shouldn’t take long to hit the first target of 30%…”
His voice trailed off, and a scowl twisted around his eyes.
“…With these worthless bugs swarming in…”
He wanted nothing more than to wipe them all out on the spot. But now was not the time. Drawing attention before reaching that 30% target would be of no benefit.
“Can’t let it go on like this.”
Muttering to himself, the blonde man began to chant in an unknown language.
About thirty seconds later, a pitch-black circle spread beneath his feet. Strange symbols quickly began to fill in the circle.
Woooooom!
With a tremor that rattled the earth, a massive black pillar shot up from the circle as if to pierce the sky.
Fsssssshhhhh—!
In the next instant, the black pillar split apart into dozens of pieces, scattering in every direction.
It had all happened in two or three seconds.
And then, as if nothing had ever occurred, the surroundings fell silent again, back to normal—and the blonde man had vanished without a trace.
·
·
·
“Hey, did you see that just now?”
One hero from the Brazilian Hero Association pointed toward the sky to his right, not far off.
“See what?”
His teammate looked puzzled, but he explained right away.
“Just now—a black pillar shot up over there, all the way into the sky, then shattered!”
“A black pillar?”
His teammate clearly had no clue what he was talking about, so he tried to explain exactly what he’d seen with growing frustration.
“You sure? I didn’t see anything.”
No matter how detailed he got, it was useless. He was the only one who had seen the pillar.
In the end, the two of them went to check out the place where it had appeared.
“There’s nothing here, though?”
The teammate looked at him like he was crazy. The first hero sighed, frustrated.
“I’m telling you, I saw it…”
“If you’re not just seeing things, maybe you should report it.”
“…You think they’d believe me?”
“If you had proof.”
“Proof?”
He looked around desperately—there wasn’t a single trace to back up what he’d claimed.
With the crack closure operation coming up, the whole association was already on edge.
Starting a commotion without any solid evidence would only make things worse.
“…Guess I imagined it.”
In the end, he decided to just let it go and avoid the trouble.
＊ ＊ ＊
“Kaisel?”
At Hyun Jooyeon’s words, Jeong Injoo looked straight at Dojun.
“Dojun, you have a foreign name?”
Dojun didn’t answer, only nodded.
“Did you study abroad or something?”
If not for the half-sibling born much later, he probably would have. He would have walked the path of a management elite that made others shake their heads in awe. But Seo Dojun had been kicked out before any of that could happen.
“You’ve never even lived overseas, but you have a foreign name… You really are something.”
Jeong Injoo just accepted it—Dojun was always a bit of an odd one, after all.
“But Jooyeon, why are you so mad?”
“Mad? About what?”
“Hmmm, so you heard Dojun’s foreign name from Gloria Tyler, right?”
Jeong Injoo narrowed her eyes at Jooyeon and then nodded knowingly.
“So that was it? You’re upset just because Dojun’s foreign name came from Gloria Ty—Mmph!”
Jooyeon clamped a hand over Injoo’s mouth, making Injoo flail.
“D-Don’t talk nonsense!”
Her ears had turned bright red, and she glanced anxiously at Dojun. But he kept walking ahead, his expression perfectly blank.
For some reason, that indifferent look of his only made Jooyeon frown even harder.
“Sigh.”
Jeong Injoo could only shake her head at Jooyeon’s short sigh.
’Honestly, if you’re not a total dating blockhead, who is? Sheesh!’
Part of her wanted to coach Jooyeon on romance, but love was something you had to figure out on your own.
So Jeong Injoo silently cheered Jooyeon on, hoping she’d find a pretty love of her own.
·
·
·
Their schedule in São Paulo, which had been a source of endless talk, was now completely wrapped up.
Just as Chairman Daniel Lopez had declared, Dojun, Jooyeon, and the members of the Silken Lily Guild headed for the Rift near Santarém with no support whatsoever.
Their mission was to buy time.
While other heroes sealed Rifts in different regions, their sole task was to patrol the Santarém area and control the number of monsters so the Rift wouldn’t go into a Break.
Chairman Daniel Lopez thought it might be a tough assignment, but Dojun’s party didn’t see it that way. Even if the goal was to close the Rift, they didn’t think it would be all that hard.
At least, that was the plan before they started hunting the Rift’s monsters in earnest.
·
·
·
“Hey, doesn’t that look weird?”
One of the Silken Lily Guild members pointed to where the Rift entrance had turned black.
“Black?”
Usually, a Rift’s entrance was blue. Of course, not every Rift was blue—sometimes they were red or orange. But black like this? No one had ever seen or even heard of such a thing.
“It’s like someone painted black over the blue.”
It was exactly that. It looked as if the usual blue had been covered by a layer of black, the colors clashing in a way that didn’t blend at all.
“Were there ever entrances with two colors like that?”
No, not that anyone knew of.
“Eh, probably just a weird one, no big deal.”
So far, a different color on a Rift entrance had never meant anything special.
And with someone like Dojun around—basically a monster whose power couldn’t even be measured—why worry?
The Silken Lily members didn’t think much of it.
“Dojun?”
Jeong Injoo called to him as the guild members began stepping through the entrance one by one.
Dojun, who should have been the calmest of them all, was instead standing still with a slight frown.
“What’s wrong?”
Jooyeon, also curious about his unusual behavior, came over to ask.
“Don’t you feel it?”
At Dojun’s sudden question, Jooyeon and Injoo glanced at each other.
’Feel what?’
’Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’
They spoke with their eyes.
In that moment, Dojun stepped closer to the Rift entrance.
He could sense it clearly.
’The mana concentration is different.’
The closer he got, the denser the mana felt.
It was like standing in shallow emerald-green water, only for the water to suddenly look pitch-black and unfathomably deep.
“We’ll know once we go in.”
Without hesitation, Dojun stepped into the Rift.
“What exactly did he feel in there…?”
Muttering to themselves, Jeong Injoo and Hyun Jooyeon followed him in—and immediately sensed it.
A thick, heavy mana pressing down on their bodies.
And it wasn’t something only Dojun, Jooyeon, or the Silken Lily Guild would have to face.
Any hero who entered a Rift within a 500-kilometer radius of Santarém could feel it.
“What the hell? It feels like my body suddenly got heavier.”
“You feel it too? Same here!”
“Huh? So I wasn’t the only one?”
“Why is this happening all of a sudden?”
The members of the Silken Lily Guild each felt it in their own way.
Some felt as if gravity had intensified.
Others felt like their bodies were submerged underwater.
Still others described it like wearing layer upon layer of soggy winter clothes.
Though the sensations varied slightly, they all had one thing in common—
Their bodies felt heavy.
It was a kind of weight they had never experienced since awakening as heroes.
The same went for Dojun.
An overwhelming concentration of mana was pressing against his body in a way he could feel directly.
’I’ve never felt mana this dense, not even in the Forest of Patisua…’
More than anything, the quality of this mana was completely different.
No matter how thick mana might be, it shouldn’t normally weigh a person down like this.
Mana, being a force of nature, typically invigorates all living things, not just humans.
But this mana was different.
’This mana…’
Dojun’s expression twisted.
It was murky.
That was the best way to describe it.
Instead of sustaining life, it felt like it was strangling it.
On top of that, it carried a dark, damp, almost sinister energy that made him question whether it could even be called mana.
He had felt this kind of mana just once before.
In the world that had already perished—in its final, dying moment.
Why did this place, a rift from an entirely different dimension, remind him of "that"?
Dojun’s eyes turned cold as he swept his gaze around.
He focused all his senses and scanned the area as thoroughly as he could, but there was no sign of "that" thing.
’Is it just a similar situation?’
Even that thought left him deeply unsettled.
“Is this what you were talking about earlier, Dojun?”
Hyun Jooyeon asked, and Dojun simply nodded.
He had nothing more to add.
“Is there some kind of problem, or—No, never mind.”
Jooyeon had almost asked if this might cause trouble, but bit her tongue.
After all, with Dojun here, what could possibly go wrong?
Trying to shake off her lingering anxiety, Jooyeon walked over to Jeong Injoo.
Calm and collected as ever, Injoo took charge of the tense atmosphere.
“Let’s just think of it as a feature of this Rift. There are places like this from time to time. The important thing is that Brazil couldn’t handle it on its own, which is why they called us. Just keep that in mind—and stay sharp, everyone!”
At Jeong Injoo’s words, the guild members began adapting to the oppressive feeling by jumping in place or stretching to shake it off.
Jeong Injoo then checked the map they’d received from the Brazilian Hero Association.
“There’s no boss monster in this Rift. But there are three that rank as sub-bosses.”
No one seemed surprised at the mention of three sub-bosses.
They’d been briefed in advance—and, more than anything, they trusted Dojun.
“You’ve already faced the Blue Croco before, so I don’t need to explain that one. The other two are the Nanocheris and the Belkera.”
The Nanocheris, a monster resembling a triceratops—a dinosaur kids love, with its three horns—was commonly found not only in Brazil but also in Europe and South America.
The Belkera, known as the giant spider, could be found in Southeast Asia.
“If you get even one intact Nanocheris horn, they say it goes for at least ₩3 Billion, right?”
“And Belkera’s silk sacs? They sell out before you can even get them.”
Unlike the Blue Croco, the Nanocheris and Belkera were enough to make even the Silken Lily guild members practically drool.
The Nanocheris horn had enormous value as a weapon material, and Belkera’s silk sacs were worth tens of billions since they could be used not just for combat suits but also as high-grade textile fibers.
“I might finally get to make a weapon from a Nanocheris horn or a battle suit woven with Belkera silk this time.”
Each of the Silken Lily guild members began building their own dreams in their hearts.
With those rosy hopes dancing in their minds, they began their hunt in the Rift in earnest.
The first monsters to appear were Black Orcs.
Said to be three times stronger than a typical orc, but nothing an A-Rank hero couldn’t handle.
“So many of them… it’s ridiculous.”
Just from a glance, there were over a hundred Black Orcs. Even without Jeong Injoo’s command, the Silken Lily guild members fell into a group combat formation as a reflex.
“Leave this to us.”
With a confident voice toward Dojun, Jeong Injoo immediately called out a guild member’s name.
“Miran!”
The moment Jeong Injoo’s shout ended, Silken Lily’s only mage, Cha Miran, unleashed her long-range attack.
A fireball ten times the size of a basketball traced an arc before dropping squarely into the middle of the Black Orc horde.
KABOOM!
A tremendous explosion scattered sparks in all directions.
With a single strike, at least four or five should have died instantly, and the shockwave would have wounded plenty more—or so they believed.
“…What the hell?”
Their expectations were completely shattered.
Not a single Black Orc had been harmed.
Even the one who’d taken the fireball head-on was only slightly scorched.
“Th-This can’t be happening…”
No one was more shocked than Cha Miran.
Seeing her attack amount to nothing left her face pale.
In the meantime, the Black Orcs all raised their blood-red eyes and charged as one.
“Don’t panic! In the end, they’re still just Black Orcs!”
Jeong Injoo, rallying the startled guild members, was the first to rush forward to meet them head-on.
CRUNCH!
Jeong Injoo’s sword dug cleanly from a Black Orc’s collarbone down toward its abdomen.
’It’s not moving?’
Normally, an attack like that should have sliced straight through its torso.
But this Black Orc was different.
The sword refused to go any deeper, blocked completely.
It was nothing like the Black Orcs they’d faced before.
SHIIIIK!
Letting out a murderous scream, the Black Orc raised its crude steel sword and brought it down toward Jeong Injoo’s head.
Without hesitation, Jeong Injoo dropped his own sword to evade the blow.
With agile movement, he dodged the steel sword that would have split his skull, then launched himself upward and slammed his knee straight into the orc’s face.
As the Black Orc staggered, Jeong Injoo yanked his sword free from its abdomen and slashed once more.
SHLICK!
The Black Orc’s head flew off its shoulders, its body collapsing where it stood.
’Definitely different…’
Jeong Injoo’s expression hardened at the sensation coming through her weapon.
This Black Orc was nothing like the ones they’d fought before.
But before she could warn the others, the Silken Lily guild members had already engaged the Black Orc horde in a fierce battle.
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HELIO SCANS
[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Kaya]
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