Chapter 96: The Great Legacy (2)
Through the auction, the dimensional gate in Daejeon was acquired for 1.5 billion won.
Luckily, it was a relatively inexpensive purchase due to its lack of popularity, being a single-user possession-type gate in a world without mana.
In the end, a bidding war pushed the price up by an additional 300 million won, but that was still considered a decent price.
- "We've confirmed the payment. From now on, Gate No. 3,215 is under the ownership of the Ex Machina Guild."
"Yes, thank you."
- "As you know, you must clear the gate within a week of purchase. Otherwise, the ownership will be revoked, and the Hunter Association will take over again."
This rule exists to prevent the so-called "dungeon break" phenomenon, where the dungeon is destroyed due to delay.
Since it was a possession-type dungeon, there wasn't much preparation needed. Hyun Suho headed straight for Daejeon, where the dungeon was located.
When he arrived at the designated location, he found a Hunter Association employee and the flickering dimensional gate.
"Are you Hunter Hyun Suho?"
"Yes, I'm Hyun Suho."
"Please submit your terminal."
The expressionless employee remained at his post even after confirming the information.
Since no time passes inside the dimensional gate, the success or failure would be known immediately.
If a hunter returns alive, they've succeeded; if not, they’ve died inside.
Several employees were stationed nearby, waiting to confirm the outcome.
But none of that mattered to Hyun Suho; he had only one thing to do.
Enter the dimensional gate.
"Whew! Dimensional gates always make me nervous."
This gate, like the one when he encountered the Heavenly Demon, was a possession-type dungeon.
Unlike other hunters, Hyun Suho had the advantage of receiving help from Nova.
Still, a dimensional gate is never a place where one can be complacent.
After taking a deep breath, Hyun Suho stepped into the gate.
* * *
The noisy machines of the factory city, Astraea, never ceased for a moment.
Located on the outskirts, this city was home to many factories, producing the majority of goods, with more than half of the country's imports and exports going through here.
Some even referred to Astraea as the heart of the nation.
At the port, goods were loaded and unloaded daily, with androids and humans alike working tirelessly to keep the city running.
Though economically more important than the capital, Astraea was by no means a wealthy place.
The smoke and wastewater from the factories made the living conditions terrible. Outside the factories, there were only dilapidated buildings housing impoverished laborers.
Broken-down robots lay scattered across the streets, while people coughed up oil-stained phlegm, barely managing to move their ailing bodies.
There were no playgrounds for children, so the oil-covered kids often played in trash heaps.
Even those kids with space to play were considered fortunate.
In the poorest areas, toxic industrial waste polluted the land so badly that it was uninhabitable for humans.
The worst of these areas was the junkyard known as the "Grave of Machines."
This place was a massive landfill filled with unrecyclable industrial waste, where the destitute and orphaned gathered.
And that was exactly where Alex was headed.
Pssshh~
As soon as he stepped off the train, Alex was greeted by the choking, metallic air filled with iron dust.
“Cough, cough! What a mess right from the start.”
Squinting from the stench that instinctively repelled him, he pulled his hat low and walked slowly through the crowd.
Alex was a man in his mid-30s, with a sturdy build.
Though he had an unremarkable appearance, he was in fact a top-class government investigator.
“An ancient artifact, huh… Could something like that really be in this dump?”
One day, the remains of an ancient civilization were discovered deep in the ocean.
The archaeologists who researched the site were all left in shock.
A civilization that existed long before modern times.
It was the legendary Atlantis, only spoken of in stories.
No one knew why Atlantis had perished.
But one thing was clear—the ancient civilization possessed science and technology far more advanced than what modern humanity had achieved.
The technology of an ancient super-civilization.
It was an earth-shattering discovery.
But the U.S. government, having found it, kept the discovery tightly under wraps, leaving only a few in the know.
The United States aimed to study the artifacts and further solidify its dominance over the world.
But then, a major problem arose.
The lead researcher on the artifacts, Dr. Jacob, suddenly disappeared one day.
Not only did he vanish, but the most valuable artifact from the site disappeared with him.
The U.S. government was thrown into chaos, and a manhunt for Dr. Jacob began.
Five years have passed since that incident.
The U.S. government was still tracking Dr. Jacob’s trail, and recently, they had received intelligence that he had been spotted in this area, even though he was presumed dead.
Of course, there was a possibility the information was false.
In fact, all of the leads related to Dr. Jacob up to this point had been false.
But the government couldn’t ignore this one, so they had dispatched Alex to investigate.
“Of all places, why the Grave of Machines? This is probably another dead end. Tch!”
Alex clicked his tongue in frustration as he adjusted his hat.
The reason Alex ended up going to the junkyard, of all places, was simply because of a superior’s pettiness.
The person who assigned Alex these tough and dirty tasks was someone who had always been envious of him for achieving the highest level of recognition in the organization at such a young age.
"I'll get promoted before you, and then I'll pay you back."
At the rate Alex was progressing, his wish wasn't just a dream. For that future, he endured the dirty tasks with patience.
"This is worse than I thought."
The factory area was relatively clean, but the outskirts of the city were too horrendous to look at.
Even breathing just a little made his head feel like it would explode from the stench, and there was no place to find clean water.
Rusty metal debris littered the surroundings, and a scratch from any of them would likely lead to diseases like tetanus.
There was no hospital here, so if someone got sick, their life would be in danger.
"No matter how I look at it, Dr. Jacob wouldn’t be in a place like this…"
Although it was a sparsely populated area, making it a decent place to hide, living here would kill a person from disease before they could be captured.
It was no surprise that the people living here had lifespans that were a fraction of the average.
Still, work was work, so Alex began to search the junkyard.
Occasionally, he sensed movement and approached, only to find it was just rats. Even in this desolate place, rats thrived.
After searching for a while, he finally detected human presence.
"Who's there?!"
As Alex swiftly drew his gun and aimed in one direction, he heard the sound of someone collapsing to the ground.
He quickly approached before they could flee, but it wasn’t Dr. Jacob.
"A child?"
It was a child who looked about 10 years old.
The child’s face was so covered in grime that it was impossible to tell if they were a boy or girl. They were wearing ragged, tattered clothes and looked up at Alex with a fearful expression.
"Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you."
Realizing the person in front of him was just a child, Alex holstered his gun and extended his hand.
No matter how ruthless a special agent he was, he wasn’t someone who would point a gun at a child.
At that moment, a series of gunshots rang out.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Taking advantage of Alex’s moment of distraction, someone shot at him from behind. Before he could respond, a bullet hit his shoulder, and another struck his calf.
'Who is it?!'
The searing pain tore through his body, blurring his vision and causing his hands to shake, but Alex was a top-level agent.
Quickly turning his body, he fired his gun in the direction from which the shots had come.
Bang! Bang!
"Ugh!"
There was a reaction. The presumed enemy clutched their chest and collapsed.
But Alex’s condition wasn’t good either.
The bullet in his calf had passed through, but the one in his shoulder was still lodged inside.
"Damn it!"
He quickly administered first aid to minimize the bleeding, but if he didn’t remove the bullet soon, the wound would fester.
The nearest hospital was too far, and with his injured leg, walking there would be impossible. Even if he did try to make it, there could be more enemies hiding somewhere.
‘There must’ve been a leak.’
Despite rushing over as soon as he received the information, the fact that an agent from another country had arrived meant there was a mole within the organization.
And that mole was likely someone in a high position.
He needed to alert the other agents who were dispatched with him. As he reached for the radio in his jacket pocket…
Thwack!!!
A sharp pain exploded in his head, and his consciousness began to fade.
Through his blurry vision, he could make out a woman holding a club, staring down at him.
‘Such a basic mistake…’
And with that, Alex lost consciousness.
* * *
"Ugh!"
A strange ceiling.
While that idle thought passed through his mind, Hyun Suho realized that he was now controlling the body.
‘So this is the beginning, huh?’
Alex's memories were vivid.
He had been shot by an unknown assailant, knocked out from a blow to the back of his head, and passed out.
The pain in his two gunshot wounds and the throbbing in his skull made him grimace.
Though he hadn’t yet gotten used to the pain, nor had his vision cleared, a quest window immediately appeared.
《Dimensional Quest Activated》
◆ Quest
Encounter with an Ancient Civilization
(Difficulty ★★☆)
▷ Objective: Survival
The objective was simple.
All he had to do was stay alive for a certain period.
In some ways, it might seem like an easy task, but judging by the two-and-a-half-star difficulty, it didn’t seem too dangerous.
Before checking his physical condition, there was something else he needed to confirm.
‘Nova, can you hear me?’
[I'm here, Master.]
Fortunately, Nova had come with him this time as well.
As he moved his body slightly, he was relieved to find that the bullet lodged in his shoulder was gone.
Someone had definitely treated him.
He briefly wondered if one of the other agents had found him and taken him to a hospital, but the smell of the junkyard was still strong in the air.
As Hyun Suho tried to stand up to assess his surroundings, a tearing pain surged through his body.
"Ugh!"
His condition wasn’t good.
Hyun Suho immediately asked Nova,
'Can you use your healing factor ability?'
In the previous dimension gate, when he was in Dokgo Jeong’s body, Nova’s abilities could be used. He remembered using powerful electric shocks to incapacitate ambushers and achieving what had seemed like an impossible victory.
He was hoping for that kind of help again this time.
But this time, Nova gave him a negative answer.
[There is no mana detected in the owner of this body. Without an energy source, I cannot use any of my abilities.]
"Damn…"
This multi-dimensional world also lacked mana.
It meant Nova’s direct abilities wouldn’t be available during this dimension gate.
At that moment, as Hyun Suho shifted his body, a beautiful voice, like the sound of marbles rolling, spoke up beside him.
"Are you okay? Are you conscious?"
Turning his head to check the source of the voice, he saw a beautiful blonde woman, who looked entirely out of place in such a junkyard, staring at him with a worried expression.
Her clothes were shabby, and her face was smeared with grease, but nothing could hide her beauty and dignity.
Next to her stood the child he had seen before passing out, along with several other children, all watching him with curious expressions.
Late to notice, he realized that his wounds had been treated, bandaged cleanly with cloths.
The bullets had been removed, and antiseptic had been applied skillfully.
"Where is this…?"
As Hyun Suho expected, they were still in the junkyard.
However, this area had no toxic waste emitting gas, only relatively clean(?) waste, and he could see things like makeshift beds scattered around, indicating it was a place where people could sleep.
It seemed this was where the woman and the children were staying.
As Hyun Suho tried to move, the woman approached and helped him sit up.
"Be careful. I could only do some first aid since there weren’t proper materials. If you move too much, your wounds will reopen."
"…Did you help me?"
"We heard gunshots, and when we ran over, we found you. I thought you were shooting at Tommy, so I attacked without thinking. I’m sorry."
"So…"
As Hyun Suho pointed to his head, the woman gave a sheepish nod.
It was this woman who had struck him on the head from behind.
Letting out a sigh, Hyun Suho spoke.
"Well, thanks for treating my wounds. You saved my life. My name is Alex."
"My name is Maria."
With Alex’s memories still intact, Hyun Suho immediately checked the radio he had in his pocket after finishing his introductions.
He needed to contact his comrades to find clues to clear this rift.
But things weren’t going smoothly.
"Damn…"
The radio was completely broken.
It seemed to have been damaged from the fall and soaked, rendering it useless.
He tossed the now-worthless radio aside and looked back at Maria.
If he couldn't communicate with his team, he would have to complete the mission on his own.
"How long was I unconscious?"
"It’s been a full day since you passed out."
"A day? It’s already been that long?"
Surprised, Hyun Suho tried to get up, but a searing pain shot through his body, causing him to grimace.
"You shouldn’t move yet. If you try now, it could get much worse."
"Hah..."
Resigned, Hyun Suho lay back down again.
He barely turned his head to look around and saw only the children and Maria, but no other adults.
"Is this everyone who lives here?"
"Huh? Oh, yes. This junkyard is uninhabitable. We’ve only been able to survive by piling up the safer trash, but it’s not good for our health."
Her words were true. It was hard to believe that Dr. Jacob would be hiding in a place like this.
"Then… you haven’t heard of anyone named Dr. Jacob, have you?"
"Who? I’ve never heard that name before."
Maria tilted her head in confusion, and Hyun Suho nodded, acknowledging her response.
‘There must be a reason I ended up in Alex’s body.’
This was one of the reasons hunters disliked dimension gates.
You had to gather information from your surroundings to figure out your true objective.
It was like being faced with an intricate puzzle.
‘This is just the beginning.’
