Episode 10
“Maybe it’s because I was starving and now I’m fully charged—but I feel energized?”
My head spins.
And with it, the solution.
Condition One has been cleared.
Biological time follows external time.
The momentary sense of fullness that comes with leveling up lasts quite a while.
The time difference between reality and the Gate is working in my favor.
And even as I rest, experience continues to accumulate.
At this pace, even fifty minutes isn’t unrealistic.
If I just lie here, an A-rank is practically guaranteed.
But that’s not what I want.
I want a rank that makes people look twice.
One no one can ever take away.
Even if it’s the lowest-tier Chaos Gate, I want a record so eye-catching that guilds can’t ignore it.
That’s where my first step begins.
As my body recovers, my mind clears.
It’s time to use my head.
I adjusted my grip on the knife.
Then swung in a wide arc.
Shkrrt!
The slime split cleanly in half.
“Cell division” would be the more accurate term.
I continued slicing the defenseless, inert mass—again and again.
“Haah…”
Two full days passed without sleep.
The slime had been reduced to several hundred pieces.
Strangely enough, it didn’t look grotesque at all.
If anything, it looked cuter—each fragment having reverted into a teardrop shape.
Curious how much time had passed outside, I checked my hunter pad.
“Fifty-one minutes.”
An A-rank was theoretically secured.
Staying longer won’t change much.
Now was when the final condition proved its worth.
I sat down cross-legged.
“When it comes time to actually do it… I hesitate.”
Because I’ve felt that pain before.
My body tensed.
I’ll have to endure it…
Holding my breath, I picked up a piece of slime and ate it.
Chew. Chew.
The texture wasn’t bad.
The taste… something like bubblegum.
But the pain—
“Kgh!!”
It hit instantly.
As if a ball of fire were rolling around in my stomach.
My organs screamed in agony.
Digest it!
I can’t throw it up.
I clenched the hilt of Bloodshadow, which I had stabbed into the ground, and endured.
<Mutual ‘Blood Exchange’ has begun.>
<The amount of ‘Blood Exchange’ is insufficient.>
I ate more.
Scooping it up wildly, vomiting blood as I forced it down.
Endure it!!
And then—immediately—
<Seo Won-seok (甲) has entered a lifelong contract with Slime (乙).>
“Kuuugh!”
My cerebral blood vessels bulged painfully.
Slime fluid surged through my veins, gnawing at my entire body.
This was unmistakable injury.
〈乙 has violated the lifelong contract.〉
〈As punishment, ‘Execution: Death’ is imposed on 373 units of ‘Entity: Slime’.〉
〈The activation condition of punishment is a spoken command.〉
I clenched my chattering jaw.
Then—
“…Bang.”
The moment I spoke, the slimes burst like foam.
All at once.
They left no residue behind—every last one evaporated.
“Haa… haa…”
Using every ounce of strength I had left, I turned on my hunter pad.
Exhaustion washed over me.
“Not bad. Even if it’s the lowest-tier Gate, this rank will do.”
I sprawled out flat on my back.
It was a Gate—
Yet above me stretched a dazzling sky.
Hunter Association, first-floor lobby.
Team Leader Yoo didn’t show it outwardly, but inwardly he scoffed at Hunter Seo’s words.
Comparing a desk-bound student’s patience to that of a hunter?
Good grief.
How pitiful.
Favoring your own was one thing—but this was practically slapping yourself in the face.
Sure, graduating from Korea University Medical School was impressive.
But ever since healer-type awakeners appeared, medical schools had been pushed to the brink of extinction.
They were eventually phased out.
Even the Doctors’ Association—a bastion of vested interests—had bowed before the tide of the Age of Superhumans.
Even doctors famous for endurance couldn’t survive, you know.
So what chance did a dropout have?
E-rank awakeners were awakeners in name only—basically just slightly exceptional civilians.
They celebrate for a few days after awakening.
Then most crumble when reality hits them.
Seo Won-seok, was it?
No hard feelings.
Newly awakened people were always full of bluster. He’d seen it countless times.
Wake up, kid.
There are supports you can lean on—and supports you can’t.
That’s reality.
Effort alone can’t overcome everything anymore.
Hmm.
Still…
It might be interesting.
Watching the famously upright Hunter Seo Boseok show disappointment for once.
That’s almost guaranteed.
The clearest example was the Chaos Gate his acquaintance had entered.
<Sityletr-66>
Even top hunters had taken interest in it.
Of course, Chaos Gates were assigned randomly within a set table—no one could choose them.
Yet some high-rankers had gone out of their way, investing time and effort.
Why?
Curiosity.
No—more like ambition and vanity.
If you were the first to claim an A-rank in a Chaos Gate no one had conquered—
Even a second-floor Gate would boost your market value.
First achievements were always attractive.
An unconquerable Chaos Gate.
An E-rank awakener, even one connected to Hunter Seo, getting a notable result?
Virtually zero.
Leave your teenage glory at the Hero Association.
The corner of Team Leader Yoo’s mouth twitched.
“Ah! Good afternoon, Hunter Seo.”
At that moment, a presence slipped between Hunter Seo and Team Leader Yoo.
Yoo recognized him instantly.
There was a standing rule to memorize the faces of all R&Y Guild hunters.
“Hunter Jung!”
Hunter Jung Ha-min.
One of the most promising hunters of his generation.
Well-connected, solid ability.
There were rumors—not great ones—but what hunter didn’t have those?
“Good to see you, Team Leader.”
Jung offered Yoo nothing more than a polite nod.
“But more importantly—”
In contrast, he brightened visibly upon seeing Seo Boseok, smiling broadly.
“What brings you to the Association today, senior?”
“Hm?”
Seo Boseok looked genuinely puzzled.
“Who are you?”
“Haha! Joking again, sir! Didn’t we take down a ghoul together in a B-rank Abyss Gate not long ago?”
“I see. I tend to forget faces easily.”
“…Haha.”
Jung’s face paled slightly as he grumbled.
“That was the last ghoul hunt, sure—but we’ve met over ten times.”
Team Leader Yoo almost spat.
Even Jung Ha-min—renowned for his thick skin—couldn’t break through Seo Boseok’s ice wall.
Awkward, Jung shifted his gaze to the display board.
“Huh?”
The name Seo** caught his eye.
Ah.
So that’s why the senior rushed upstairs earlier.
The guy Han Senior kept ranting about with the ‘insta-kill’ nonsense.
That’s why the reclusive Seo Boseok came personally to the Association.
Once he understood, the Chaos Gate code finally registered.
<Sityletr-66>
Jung himself had challenged that Gate before.
It was a total nightmare.
That Gate was a categorized battle against oneself.
“How long has Awakener Seo been inside?” Jung asked.
Yoo checked his gleaming wristwatch.
“About twenty minutes now.”
“That’s already half a day in there.”
“Oh! Right—you’ve entered that Gate before, haven’t you? You even set the second-best record there!”
“It’s not something to brag about. And I never want to try again.”
“Is it that unusual?” Seo Boseok asked.
Jung lit up.
“You might’ve heard the quest—‘survive as long as possible.’ That part’s fine, right? As hunters, we level up as we gain experience, and when we do, you can feel your stamina fully recover.”
Hunters couldn’t see status windows.
They inferred level-ups from the sudden surge of vitality during combat.
“Or, well—it’s gross, but you can eat monsters to hang on. The problem is the monster itself.”
“Is it difficult?”
“It’s a slime.”
“…The slime I’m thinking of?”
Jung nodded smugly.
“Yes. Normally a trash mob. But this one’s enormous.”
“I see.”
“As you know, slimes are inedible. They give almost no experience, either. So in that Chaos Gate, the only option is brute endurance. Grit.”
Jung deliberately avoided mentioning the final line of the quest.
· To obtain additional rewards, defeat monsters consecutively in the shortest time possible!
This will greatly affect your clear rank! (Optional)
It was bait.
In other words—a trap.
Rule-based Gates often dangled hidden rewards to lure participants.
There’s only one slime—how are you supposed to chain kills?
Split it, then use wide-area magic?
Nice idea—but unrealistic.
In a Gate where stamina management was everything, burning HP was suicide.
And it assumed the participant was a mage.
Chaos Gates prided themselves on balance—preconditions violated that philosophy.
“Can’t you survive by eating slime?” Team Leader Yoo asked.
Jung’s eyes filled with thinly veiled disdain.
“Team Leader… Association staff really should visit the field more.”
“…Pardon?”
“Slimes cause gastrointestinal bleeding.”
Seo Boseok spoke instead.
“Ah…”
“Enduring by consuming slime is nearly impossible—unless you have extreme gastric resistance.”
“Even healers struggle. Slimes cause bleeding,” Jung added enthusiastically.
“No matter how good healers are, they can’t stop blood loss.”
“…Blood.”
Seo Boseok murmured the word like chewing sand.
He said he had anemia.
Seo Won-seok was relentless.
Whatever his reason for becoming a hunter, once he set his sights on something, he claimed it.
If effort could reach it—he would.
Even if it meant destroying his own body.
“You seem worried, senior.”
“……”
“Ah, don’t worry too much. It’s a second-floor Chaos Gate—they eject you before it turns fatal. You’ll probably see him in about ten minutes.”
“…I’ll wait.”
Seo Boseok decided to wait a little longer.
But—
Twenty-seven minutes.
“Oh! Not bad!”
Thirty-five minutes.
“H-huh?”
Forty minutes…
“!”
And then—
Fifty-five minutes.
“…Something’s wrong, isn’t it?!”
By elapsed time alone, Seo Won-seok had already set a new record—
Yet he still hadn’t exited the Gate.
