Chapter 106

Monsters don’t just appear suddenly out of nowhere.

They appear after the occurrence of a phenomenon called a portal where space distorts and physical laws change, and the number and quality of monsters that appear are proportional to the portal’s scale and intensity.

‘This is historic!’

Though he couldn’t know the scale since he was inside the portal’s range, he could definitely tell its intensity.

Space shattered like sand grains and the world melted until object outlines were indistinguishable. 

Even when the Black Tortoise, known as the largest and most powerful portal officially observed, appeared, it wasn’t this intense.

-…

An unknown voice echoing in his head.

Though Kang Do-hyeon initially ignored it thinking it was an auditory hallucination from fear, he soon realized this wasn’t just a simple hallucination.

The sound didn’t end with once but kept repeating, and though it was a language he’d never heard before, he could understand what meaning it contained.

As far as Kang Do-hyeon knew, there was only one word that could explain this phenomenon.

‘Contract?’

The reason people like martial artists, mages, priests, and psychics were called Contractors rather than ability users or awakened ones was because they gained their abilities through contracts with unknown beings.

One day suddenly an unknown voice in your head asks if you want to make a contract, and if you answer yes, you can immediately become a Contractor.

‘Extinction, survival, unity? Is that right? Wasn’t it something about taking karma or karma as payment in exchange for lending power?’

A questioning expression appeared on Kang Do-hyeon’s face.

Something felt subtly different from the Contractor reviews he’d seen online.

However, his hesitation lasted only an instant.

When he could become the Contractor he’d wanted so badly, what need was there to hesitate?

‘I’ll do it! I’ll make the contract!’

“Ah…”

A groan escaped Kang Do-hyeon’s lips.

The moment he accepted the contract, power began filling him from every muscle fiber to each cell.

It wasn’t just his body that was changing.

His mind was also being filled with countless knowledge.

The satisfied smile on Kang Do-hyeon’s face from feeling like he could do anything slightly twisted.

‘When does this end?’

Though both body and mind were approaching their limits, the influx of power and knowledge showed no signs of diminishing.

Like food reaching his throat but more still coming.

Unable to throw up or close his mouth.

And when his body and mind reached their limits, Kang Do-hyeon actually let out a sigh of relief.

He thought it would end now since there was no more room.

However, that was just Kang Do-hyeon’s wishful thinking.

“Urghhhh!”

Like pressing down a full garbage bag to fit more contents, the unknown being kept pressing down power and knowledge without caring about his situation.

The expression “filling” no longer fit.

Rather than filling with power and knowledge as contents, being swept away by waves of power and knowledge was more appropriate.

Feeling his very existence scatter, Kang Do-hyeon let go of the edge of consciousness.

Woong!

“…Huh?”

“I-is it over?”

Along with the massive resonance felt at first, everything returned to normal.

The shattered space and melted world regained their original forms, and the disappeared insect and wind sounds began returning.

How much time had passed?

Someone’s voice rang out.

“…Nothing happened?”

When a portal forms, one of two major events occurs – either monsters appear or the environment changes.

However, the scene before their eyes matched neither of those.

Though clearly a historic portal had formed, forget Black Tortoise-level monsters, not even goblins appeared, and from small rocks underfoot to huge trees, not a single change occurred.

While everyone was dumbfounded, Seo Chang-hoon, the leader, let out a relieved sigh and said.

“Seems it was an empty portal.”

“Empty portal? What’s that?”

“It’s a term referring to cases where nothing happens despite a portal forming. Called empty portal since nothing comes out, whether monsters, environmental changes, or anything else.”

“First I’ve heard of it.”

“Natural you wouldn’t know since it’s not a common phenomenon. I believe empty portals occur roughly once per thousand portals.”

“Once per thousand. Don’t know if that’s lucky or unlucky.”

Rogers gave a bitter smile looking at the fallen barrel and pool of blood on the ground.

Though fortunate no monsters appeared, the Black Troll blood they’d worked to collect was now unusable.

As Rogers looked around checking for other damage, his eyes stopped at one spot.

“Mister. Seems we should end today’s hunt here.”

“I understand you’re scared, but how about catching a few more? After getting new equipment and all, just one seems a bit…”

Seo Chang-hoon followed Rogers’ gaze and seeing the person collapsed on the ground, immediately closed his mouth.

That day’s Chain Guild hunt ended like that.

After using what little remained from disposing of the nearly bloodless Black Troll to cover the injured porter’s medical costs, Seo Chang-hoon immediately reported the day’s events to the Contractors Association.

However, there wasn’t much result.

“We found a party about 500m from the location you testified about. According to them, they didn’t notice any portal or abnormal phenomena at all.”

“Unbelievable. It was clearly a historic scale portal but they didn’t feel it?”

“Perhaps you have video footage of the situation?”

Seo Chang-hoon let out a small sigh.

Though they recorded video to clarify misunderstandings or mistakes during information gathering and combat, they only filmed during hunts, not other situations.

With multiple witnesses they could prove a portal occurred, but proving details like scale and intensity was impossible.

After much debate, an association employee offered a fairly plausible opinion.

“Perhaps it was an empty portal with micro scale and negligible intensity?”

“I’m telling you it wasn’t that level. I’ve seen countless portal videos but never anything like this.”

“Most portal videos are shot from outside. Maybe it felt more dangerous since you saw it from inside?”

“Hmm…”

It made sense.

Though he’d seen many portal videos, most just showed the exterior, and videos from inside portals were extremely rare with only corrupted data.

“You may be right.”

“Still, a portal’s a portal so we’ll send an investigation team.”

Seo Chang-hoon nodded and stood up, and the association employee saw him off with a smile.

If monsters had appeared or even if just the environment had changed, they might have taken it more seriously, but the fact it was an empty portal lowered both men’s guard.

Days later when Seo Chang-hoon received a message from the association saying “Nothing abnormal,” he pushed the portal memory to a corner of his mind.

As guild master of one of South Korea’s top guilds, he had many other things to worry about besides the portal.

“Complete introduction of new equipment within 3 months and establish new tactics matching increased abilities? I can leave that to Rogers.”

Seo Chang-hoon’s eye twitched while reading the report.

‘Missing?’

The only person injured during the portal incident.

Someone who had been unconscious for days, perhaps from a head injury, had suddenly disappeared.

“No one would kidnap a porter, and though he had some debt it wasn’t enough to run away from. What’s going on?”

After pondering a while, Seo Chang-hoon scratched his head vigorously and put the paper aside.

Though slightly concerning, finding missing persons was work for the police, not himself or the guild.

Before long, Seo Chang-hoon forgot he’d even read the report about the missing person.

And so the porter named Kang Do-hyeon was forgotten by the world.

* * *

“It was strange from the start. They’re not a shaman, what’s with that MartialGod making prophecies? Oh, maybe it wasn’t MartialGod (武神) but ShamanGod (巫神)? That would make a bit more sense.”[note]TLN: The first one being “God of Martial Arts” while the second one is more like “Shaman God”. In the raws, the Korean word that the author uses describing the two was “무신”.[/note]

At Yuseong’s relentless dissing, Kang Changseok said in a small voice.

“This is the first time they’ve been wrong. They were all right before.”

“Don’t know about before, what matters is now. How much time did we waste because of that prophecy?”

“Time waste…”

Yuseong snorted looking at Kang Changseok’s bitter expression.

Already fifteen days had passed since MartialGod’s prophesied date.

At first they thought there might be some margin of error, but fifteen days was too much.

‘How many quests could I have cleared in fifteen days!’

Though he couldn’t generalize since some quests took longer, Yuseong’s average time to clear one quest was less than a day, and clearing two quests in a day wasn’t uncommon.

Calculating with an average of 5 million karma per quest, he’d lost nearly 100 million karma.

Of course, not doing quests was Yuseong’s own decision after considering various factors like fame and time ratios, but since MartialGod’s prophecy was what led to that decision, it was natural to feel annoyed.

“No more. I need to start doing quests again.”

“When other users have maintained alert since two weeks ago not knowing when something might happen, you really have to do this alone?”

“Alone? Why exclude MartialGod who’s also doing quests?”

Come to think of it, it was laughable.

While all users believed crisis was coming and were on edge, the very cause of all this was leisurely doing quests.

‘Could MartialGod have left that message to slow other users’ growth?’

How frustrated must he have been to think such thoughts.

Unlike other users who had known MartialGod for a long time, Yuseong who had never interacted with them could only judge based on this one incident, so such extreme assumptions were inevitable.

Yuseong’s current opinion of MartialGod had hit rock bottom.

“Even if MartialGod’s warned crisis really happens, current me can’t help much beyond raising morale. In that case, I think it’s more rational to just do quests and build up strength.”

Perhaps that was the decisive point.

Kang Changseok let out a long sigh and nodded faintly.

“True that you wouldn’t be much help right now. Fine, go do your quests.”

“…Somehow it irks me that you agree so readily.”

“If enemies are few or gathered in one place, even current you would be plenty useful. But if enemies are numerous or spread out, ordinary Contractors would be more useful than you.”

One hand can’t beat ten hands.

Though Yuseong could handle powerful monsters that Contractors couldn’t face, in terms of number of monsters defeated, he couldn’t match the Contractors.

Though incomparably weak compared to users, if not for Contractors, humanity would have suffered incomparably more serious damage than now.