010—Shadow
An Erosion of considerable scale in the heart of Seoul sent the city into a state of emergency.
The military was dispatched to set up barricades at the Erosion's border, while police and firefighters evacuated nearby residents further away.
Hunters, summoned by the Hunter Management Bureau, were on standby, ready to be dispatched at a moment's notice.
Ma Doo-sik, the Mayor of Seoul and an S-class Hunter himself, was on site, personally commanding the entire operation.
"Any detection of the Core yet?"
"W-Well..."
"What's taking so long!"
At the command post, Ma Doo-sik was desperately waiting for a report from the Management Bureau.
He skillfully handled reports coming in from the military, police, and fire departments, but all his focus was on the Bureau.
Ultimately, the military and police could do nothing about an Erosion.
Cannons and missiles were useless against the crimson-black sphere that had swallowed a part of the city.
To resolve the Erosion, they had to go inside and destroy the Core, one way or another.
Hunters had already been sent in to help with the civilian evacuation; all that remained was to find and destroy the Core.
Normally, the Core is detected from the outside, its coordinates are specified, and then a strike team is sent in.
Fighting monsters, protecting civilians, and finding and destroying the Core all at once was too much for a single team.
"Nothing is being detected, Mayor!"
But the reports from the Bureau were only frustrating.
"How is that possible! An Erosion occurred, there has to be a Core!"
"Even if you say that, the detectors aren't showing any reaction..."
"Hnngh."
Ma Doo-sik, his face deeply creased, pressed his forehead.
A case where a full scan of the Erosion from the outside failed to reveal the Core's location.
It wasn't unheard of.
It could happen if the mana inside was too chaotic for detection magic to penetrate, if the Core was moving too quickly, or if it had some kind of cloaking mechanism that evaded detection magic.
In such cases, they had no choice but to find it from the inside.
"How many A-class Hunters are on standby?"
"We have 26 A-class and 62 B-class Hunters on standby."
"That's... I don't know if that's enough. We have to find a hidden Core."
In reality, Chartia was already conducting a large-scale search for the Core inside, but Ma Doo-sik didn't know that. Chartia wasn't a Seoul Hunter, and even if she were, he couldn't monitor her every move.
How could he possibly know that Chartia had been wandering the city on a whim and had entered the library by chance?
Therefore, he had to assemble the largest search party possible.
It was a relief that the Erosion wasn't near a mountain, but even so, how were they supposed to find a Core that even the detectors couldn't pick up?
"Preparations are complete, Mayor!"
Still, they couldn't just stand by and do nothing.
"Deploy. We must clear this Erosion. If a black land of this size forms in the middle of the city..."

He didn't need to finish the sentence. The Hunters knew.
An Erosion outside the city was one thing, but one inside was unacceptable.
Seoul was the city where they and their families lived.
The sword wasn't actually vibrating.
How should he describe it?
It was a kind of pulse, a thrum that only Jinwoo could feel, being transmitted from the sword to him.
Vmmmm—
It was like a heartbeat, or perhaps a cry.
As Jinwoo pondered its meaning, he voiced a sudden thought.
‘Do you... want to eat that?’
VMM!
Jinwoo blinked.
He'd only asked on a whim; he never expected to get an actual response.
Was this a power of the Elf's sword?
No, detecting the black flame was entirely his own ability. It couldn't be the sword's power.
But he couldn't say it was completely unrelated to the sword, either. He had taken out the iron sword from the Management Bureau and asked it the same question, but the iron sword gave no reply.
‘Is there some kind of synergy effect?’
Perhaps because both his ability and the sword were special, they were creating some kind of synergy.
If so, he could guess one thing.
His past life was something related to Elves.
Maybe, like Chartia, his past life was an Elf outright.
‘But if that were true, my flame wouldn't be this shape.’
The flame of Chartia, who had an Elf's past life, was shaped like a flower bud, similar to an Elf. His flame, on the other hand, was identical to that of an ordinary human.
So that meant his past life wasn't an Elf...
But it didn't seem to be completely unrelated either. He had no idea.
‘Well, whatever my past life was, it doesn't matter right now.’
He was curious, but in the end, what mattered was his present life, right here and now.
The white sword wanted to eat the black flame so badly, so he had to go feed it.
Leaving the library, which was already secured, was dangerous, but since it was related to his own abilities, he couldn't just ignore it.
In fact, with an S-class Hunter nearby, this might be the safest time to have an adventure.
"Chartia. I have something to take care of, is it okay if I step out for a bit?"
"Now? I really wouldn't recommend it... If it's the bathroom, just find a corner. I won't look."
"No, it's because of my ability."
"Oh."
Chartia, who had been about to stop Jinwoo's risky behavior, couldn't do so if it was for the sake of his ability.
For a Hunter, matters related to their abilities had to be respected under any circumstances.
Whether it was awakening a new ability or developing an existing one.
Either way, it was entirely his right, a matter of his own will.
In this line of work, there was even a saying that you could put a bullet in the head of someone who forcibly stopped a Hunter from awakening an ability and get away with it.
Still, the danger was real.
She couldn't just let him go like this.
"Take this with you."
"A flower? Is it some kind of charm?"
"Yes. It's like a temporary amulet infused with my power. It will protect you when you're in danger."
"To do this for me..."
This was a level of kindness she was showing to someone she'd met for the first time today.
He was the second kindest person Jinwoo had met in his life.
And the first, the official at the Management Bureau, was just being professionally courteous. Chartia had no such obligation.
"Thank you, I'll take it."
Jinwoo gratefully accepted the flower and tucked it into the front pocket of his jacket.
"Be back soon. And be careful."
"I will."
Jinwoo opened the lounge door to leave.
But the door didn't budge.
It wasn't that it was locked; it was as if it had been frozen solid.
Right, objects corroded by the Erosion lose their functions and properties, existing only as conduits for condensed dark energy.
"Ah, I'll open it for you now."
Seeing Jinwoo blocked by the door, Chartia flicked her hand.
But then.
Slice—
Before she could use her power, Jinwoo raised his sword and cut the door down.
The diagonally sliced door split apart and fell to the floor.
Chartia's eyes widened slightly.
‘...Didn't he say he awakened recently?’
She had never seen a novice Hunter cut through the energy of an Erosion so easily.
Could it be that "recently" was just something he said, and he actually had some experience?
It had to be. That single swing was now seared into her memory.
She had seen Hunters swing swords hundreds of times, and among them, she had even seen S-class Hunters wield their blades.
The sword of an S-class Hunter was far more flashy and destructive, incomparable to Jinwoo's plain slash just now.
And yet, it was Jinwoo's sword that was imprinted on her mind.
Why?
She herself couldn't understand why she was so drawn to it.
It was just… something was strange today.
From the moment she couldn't walk past the library, to when she entered the reading room and saw the man reading a book on Elves, she hadn't been herself.
"So it can be cut."
Jinwoo tilted his head, slung the sword over his shoulder, and left.
Watching his retreating back, Chartia swallowed hard.
‘Should I… share his vision?’
She connected her own vision to the stamen of the flower she had given Jinwoo.
The hesitation in her thought, should I, was rendered meaningless as she had already done it.
The flower tucked into Jinwoo's chest transmitted the scene before him to her retina.
‘Are you crazy? Are you a stalker?’ she chastised herself.
‘No, no. It's for his safety. If he gets into danger, I have to go save him.’
And then there was the part of her that rationalized it.
The two selves were at a stalemate, neither willing to yield, and in the end, the latter won.
The amulet was already infused with enough power to automatically defend him if it sensed danger, but one never knew.
What if, by some one-in-a-million chance, there was a monster powerful enough to break through that defense?
Monsters that could break through a defense created by an S-class weren't common, but you never knew.
‘First, let's do what I need to do.’
She came to her senses and continued with her work.
Finding the Erosion's Core.
If she was concerned for Jinwoo's safety, it was better to find and destroy the Core as quickly as possible rather than doing something pointless.
Of course, the same went for the safety of the other civilians.
‘But where on earth is it? There's no way it should be this hard to find.’
Normally, she would have found it by now, but she still hadn't located it.
While she urgently searched for the Core, one corner of her vision was occupied by the sight of Jinwoo walking steadily onward.

Outside the library, the scenery was even more bizarre.
Unlike inside, where it was mixed with the building, this area was already half-forest.
All the trees and vines here originated from Chartia's power.
Passing through her forest, Jinwoo headed toward the back of the library.
His destination was the road a bit further away.
As he moved further from the library, Jinwoo's senses grew sharper.
‘The Miasma is getting thicker.’
The area around the library was a fairly pleasant space, thanks to Chartia's energy.
The air might have even been better than in the real Seoul.
But the further he went, the murkier the air became, and the sky began to stain black.
His destination was the road, but he couldn't just walk along the main street.
There were still many monsters roaming about, having avoided Chartia's vines.
Chartia was prioritizing the evacuation and rescue of people over monster extermination, so any monster that hadn't attacked a person was still around.
‘Stick to the corners to avoid being seen.’
Jinwoo walked, hugging the side of the buildings on the sidewalk.
His plan was to dive into an alley between buildings if necessary, thinking it would be easier to deal with monsters there.
In a wide-open space, you could be attacked from all sides, but in an alley, you only had to deal with what was in front and behind.
Thus, Jinwoo moved from alley to alley.
Whether it was effective or he was simply dealing with monsters that weren't interested in people, Jinwoo managed to move quite a distance without being detected.
The latter seemed plausible; the ones hell-bent on killing people were already strangled to death by the vines.
The fact that these were still roaming around meant they weren't particularly interested in humans.
Of course, no matter how uninterested they were, they would still attack if he appeared right in front of them.
That's why Jinwoo moved as quietly as possible through the alleys, even holding his breath.
It was as he was passing through one such alley.
The alley between a building with a pharmacy and a hamburger shop.
Two glowing eyes leaped from the darkness and lunged at Jinwoo's back.
FWOOSH!
In that instant, the flower on his chest glowed, and more than ten vine stems shot out radially.
The vines enveloped the wolf that had leaped at him. It was a wolf, but a grotesque one with four eyes and three mouths.
The vines wrapped around the wolf's body and squeezed, and in that moment, Jinwoo swung his sword.
SHIIIIINK!
The wolf was split in half, and red blood gushed out.
Simultaneously, the Blue Flame that had been burning in the wolf's core was severed and absorbed into Jinwoo through the sword.
‘So this is how it protects me.’
After spitting out the dead wolf's corpse, the dozen or so vines smoothly retracted back into the flower. The flower, as if nothing had happened, sat demurely in Jinwoo's front pocket. Jinwoo stored the fallen monster's corpse in his inventory.
Meanwhile, seeing the flower's function changed his thinking slightly.
‘Should I be a bit more bold?’
With an amulet personally made by an S-class Hunter, couldn't he proceed more daringly? If there was no reason to hunt monsters, he wouldn't, but Jinwoo had a reason.
His ability was to sever and absorb the Blue Flame of living beings.
He didn't know what good absorbing it did, but it probably wasn't a bad thing.
He figured it was like gaining experience points to level up.
On top of that, each corpse was money, which was also hard to pass up.
But.
‘No. First, I need to identify this black flame.’
Even as he thought it was a waste, Jinwoo gave up on the idea.
Hunting monsters could wait until after he had checked out the black flame.
That flame might even be the Erosion's Core that Chartia was searching so desperately for.
The city was probably paralyzed because of this Erosion in its center; he couldn't be fooling around trying to earn a few bucks.
Jinwoo arrived in front of a building.
‘A movie theater?’
It was a movie theater building with a CGV.
He could feel the presence of the black flame somewhere around the 6th or 7th floor.
What was strange was that this building, too, was completely entangled in Chartia's vines.
If the Core or something special were here, there's no way Chartia wouldn't have found it. Was the black flame not actually that special of a phenomenon?
‘I'll know when I get there.’
He walked up the stationary escalator and headed for the screening hall on the 6th floor.

Within the darkness of the screening hall, a being held its silent breath.
Resembling a bipedal lizard, it was covered in black scales and wore clothes made of a black cloth that likewise absorbed light.
In its hands, crossed before its chest, it held daggers that looked like thick awls, forged from a dragon's tooth.
The lizard, also known as a Shadow, was a monster of the Dragonkin race, one of the most powerful classifications of monsters.
Dragonkin were a species that appeared only from the 3rd Stratum and above, not something a mediocre Hunter could handle.
The Shadow was a low-ranking Dragonkin, but it was still strong enough not to be ignored.
As its name suggested, its specialty was hiding in the shadows and launching sneak attacks, making it an even trickier species to deal with.
That monster was holding its breath, slowing its heartbeat, and even lowering its body temperature to completely erase its presence.
To hide meant there was a threat nearby.
The Shadow was hiding from the tree trunks that had spread throughout this building and the surrounding area.
Grrr.
Annoying.
The power dwelling within them was at a level that even a Dragonkin couldn't look down on.
A direct confrontation was out of the question, and even a surprise attack would not be simple.
But if it could remain hidden like this…
Time was on its side.
Its power was gradually building.
It could feel it.
With every inch the Erosion spread through the city, the mana in its heart grew.
It was a murky mana, devoid of any purity, but for that very reason, it was powerful and destructive.
If this strong mana continued to accumulate, it could even easily kill the one who had spread these vines.
It wasn't sure how long it would have to wait, but that didn't matter.
A Shadow's lifespan was at least a thousand years.
It could wait a hundred, even two hundred years.
Just then.
A light appeared.
"What the. It's a person... no, you're not?"
Krrong!?
The Shadow felt like it would go blind from the sudden flood of light, but it couldn't close its eyes.
Its bloodshot eyes darted as its whole body twitched. But only its fingers and some of its toes moved.
It had put its entire body into a death-like state to hide, and it would take time to suddenly return to a living state.
Still, it forced its body, its mana, to move.
Because if it didn't, it would die!
K'hung!
The forced surge of mana twisted the blood and ki in its entire body.
The chance of a mana backlash was 100%, but it didn't stop.
Thinking it was better than immediate death, it braced for the backlash and forcibly drew upon its wicked mana.
Somehow, faster than the enemy's attack...
Thunk—

A blade pierced its heart.
The Shadow hadn't been fast enough.
K-krr-gle…
Watching the lizard-headed monster collapse, gurgling foam, Jinwoo twisted and pulled out his sword.
The black flame that had been burning in the creature's core was pierced by the sword, absorbed, and flowed into Jinwoo.