008 - Erosion

Before Chartia had awakened any abilities.

When she entered her first Gate.

She had been lucky.

She had run into a party of Hunters from Earth—and not just from Earth, but from her hometown of New York.

The six of them had entered together using Feathers of Connection and were searching for the red portal to the 2nd Floor when they encountered Chartia.

“Your first Gate? A total newbie!”

“You said you’re from New York, right? Where’s your home?”

“Beale Street! I know it well. That’s right near my house, isn’t it?”

They were kind.

They would have been wary of someone from another city, but this was a fellow New Yorker, and a newbie taking her first steps into a Gate at that. At the time, Chartia was so frightened and withdrawn that anyone could tell she was a novice.

They taught her how to survive in a Gate. How to hide, what she could eat, how to erase her tracks, and conversely, how to identify the tracks of others. They gave her not only food but also inexpensive tools, bestowing a great deal upon the rookie Hunter from their hometown.

Until they were attacked by an Elf.

“Dammit! It’s an Elf!”

“It’s just one! Group up and retreat!”

The attacker was a single Elf.

But all seven of them were defeated by that one individual. Excluding Chartia, who had no real abilities, the six seasoned Hunters couldn’t handle a single Elf.

Three of them died, including the party leader. The remaining four managed to escape and hide thanks to their sacrifice.

The time they spent trembling in the dense bushes, praying the Elf would pass them by without noticing—Chartia still had nightmares about it. That hour spent hiding and praying in the undergrowth was a moment in her life she could never erase.

“&@$%&!”

But the Elf did not give up the chase and eventually found their trail.

It strode, step by step, toward the bushes where the party was hidden. The stench of blood clinging to its body was so thick that Chartia and her companions were driven to the brink of panic.

It was then.

[A Fragment of a Past Life emerges. The forest shall embrace you.]

A light shone from within the bushes.

She was startled by the light, which appeared just as they were about to be discovered, but her eyes soon widened in shock. The bushes grew, transforming into vines and trees that formed layers of protection around them.

However, the newly awakened ability had only created a wall; it hadn't given them a means of escape.

Through the tangled vines, Chartia’s eyes met the Elf’s.

“$#%@#.”

The Elf’s hand reached through the vines. The hand she expected to choke her to death at any moment did nothing of the sort. Instead, it gently stroked Chartia’s head.

With a faint smirk, the Elf turned and left without a second thought.

---

Strangely, Chartia had been able to understand the Elf’s final words.

What, a kinsman?

Her eyes trembled.

She couldn’t deny it even if she wanted to. She had awakened an ability from a past life, and it was the kind that made an Elf see her as one of their own. In other words, her past life had been one of those terrifying Elves.

Her mind was a mess, but at least she was alive. For the moment, the sheer joy of survival was enough to make her legs give out.

As she collapsed to the ground, her companions let out the breaths they had been holding.

“We… we’re alive! We’re alive!”

“We survived, dammit! We survived that demon’s clutches!”

Everyone was ecstatic. No joy in the world could compare to this moment. As she watched them embrace one another in celebration, tears welled up in Chartia’s eyes.

Then, someone spoke.

“But Chartia. Why did that thing back off when it saw you?”

The air froze.

---

‘Haaa…’

Chartia gripped her throbbing head.

Even now, just thinking about that day sent a dizzying pain through her skull, so much so that she momentarily forgot she was sitting across a table from Ma Doo-sik.

The four of them from that day. Three, excluding herself.

She couldn’t even remember which of the three had been the first to say it. Almost in unison, their eyes had filled with fear, disgust, and a rejection of the unknown. Chartia was cast out from the group.

She never saw them again.

‘By the time I got back, the rumors had already spread.’

She had somehow survived and found a blue portal to escape. It took less than a month for the rumors about her to spread throughout the entire New York Hunter community. The other three had also safely escaped through a blue portal and had spread the story in New York.

There was no need to speak of what happened after.

Chartia continued her life as a Hunter while enduring incredible discrimination and contempt from the New York Hunter community. She tried to quit and find a new job, but the rumors had already permeated all of New York society, making it impossible. There were plenty of offers from people claiming they didn’t care about her past life.

But every one of those offers was shady and underhanded.

‘If it’s come to this, I might as well see it through to the end.’

Fueled by spite, she continued her life as a Hunter. She crossed into countless Gates and awakened numerous Elven abilities. Among them was the power to accelerate plant growth, and it was then that she finally found a reason to live.

Let’s use this power to restore the Earth’s environment.

All this pain and hardship must have been for this.

It was worth enduring and holding on for so long.

She wasn’t an environmentalist, nor did she possess any lofty ideals. But if she didn’t think this way, she couldn’t find a reason to live, or a reason she had endured for so long.

Although New York society had ostracized her, they could not reject a power that dramatically increased crop yields. Eventually, she came to be partially accepted. All of her previously unrecognized achievements and contributions were acknowledged at once.

That was her journey to becoming an S-class Hunter.

It wasn't a smooth life, but she didn't want pity. In the end, she had reached S-class and had been partially accepted, so wasn't that a successful life in its own right?

Surely, no one will mess with me anymore.

She had been working with that thought in mind, but…

“It seems there are still many who see me as a thorn in their side.”

“I… I see.”

“Hmph!” Ma Doo-sik replied with a somber tone.

But Chartia snorted, doubting his sincerity. This man in front of her was also just coveting her ability, wanting her to naturalize in Seoul. Deep down, he was no different from those stubborn blockheads in New York.

“I promise you. In Seoul, there will be absolutely no such discrimination. In fact, there are many who would welcome you with open arms.”

“Anyone can say that. That’s what Tokyo and Beijing said, too.”

“Are you perhaps considering one of them…?!”

“I’m leaning more towards Europe, actually. Though I haven’t decided yet.”

“Seoul is also a very livable city. Our infrastructure is superior to most, and the quality of our basic facilities is high. The cost of living is a bit high, but that shouldn't be a major issue for you.”

“It certainly wasn’t bad. That’s why I decided to stay for another week instead of leaving right away.”

However.

“It’s decent enough, but there’s nothing that truly captures my heart. I’ll look for the next week, but I don’t know if I’ll find anything.”

Seoul was certainly a good place to live. The food was delicious, and the water wasn’t bad. The air quality wasn’t a failing grade, and a good number of farms and forests had been preserved. But it was merely “decently okay”; it lacked any outstanding charm that caught her eye.

She would search for a week, but she doubted it would work out.

‘Charm is something that hits you from the first impression, after all.’

Her impression of Seoul when she first arrived was no different from her impression now. Just a decent place, with no particular flaws.

She didn’t think that could be overturned in just one week.

---

Waking up early in the morning, Jinwoo headed to the library.

Last time, he had borrowed books on basic survival, but today his purpose was different knowledge.

Elves.

Anything written about Elves would do. Books detailing their habits, tracking methods, or their unique secret arts—anything.

“Hmm… there are more than I thought.”

He found a surprisingly large number of books. Enough to fill several shelves in the reading room. Of course, most of them covered all non-human species, not just Elves.

On the Non-Human Species Inside Gates
The Laws of Survival for Non-Human Species: Elf Edition
The Secret Arts of Non-Human Species Observed in 2025

He grabbed five or six books at random, sat down, and opened them. He skipped over the sections on other species like Orcs, Dwarves, and Beastmen, scanning only the entries about Elves. He knew he should learn about other species too, but right now, he was curious about Elves.

‘Why on earth did she give me her prey and a sword before leaving?’

As far as Jinwoo knew, Elves tried to kill humans on sight. There were cases where they wouldn’t bother chasing someone who fled, but it was almost unheard of for one to follow someone around and behave so strangely.

Still, there might be an exception. He scanned every book he could find, hoping to find a similar case, but…

‘Not in this book… or this one…’

No such case could be found.

The next book he looked at didn't have one either, nor did the one after that. He even read through a collection of unique encounters with non-human species, but there were no cases like his.

‘What was that all about?’

No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t figure out the reason. The only explanation that came to mind was that it was a simple whim. But to conclude it was just a whim and leave it at that left too many unsettling questions.

‘I might run into another Elf in the next Gate.’

Even if it wasn't that Elf, he could encounter others. To respond correctly then, he needed to understand the situation in advance. But it seemed impossible to find out with only the books in the library.

‘It’s not like there’s a professor I can ask.’

In any other field, he could have looked for dissertations or a professor specializing in the subject, but that was difficult when it came to non-human species. Humanity’s knowledge of them was fragmented, based solely on experiences from encounters inside Gates. Not only was research difficult, but what little knowledge had been accumulated was heavily biased toward their technology and attack patterns.

The knowledge Jinwoo wanted—about the whims of an Elf—did not exist.

“Ugh…”

“Are you curious about Elves?”

As he was wrestling with the tenth book, a voice suddenly spoke to him.

Light blonde hair and calm, amber eyes.

It was a foreign woman he had never seen before. She was looking with interest at Jinwoo, who had a stack of books on non-human species and was poring over the sections on Elves.

“Would you like to talk for a moment?” the foreign woman whispered, gesturing outside the reading room. She meant they should go to the break room since they couldn’t be loud in here.

A suspicious proposal from a total stranger.

Normally, Jinwoo would have refused.

“Sure.”

But for some reason, he accepted. There was a reason he absolutely could not refuse.

The Blue Flame he saw inside her body.

It wasn't burning normally like other people's. It glowed elegantly, like a flower bud from a piece of traditional craftwork.

It looked exactly like the flame he had seen rising from the Elf.

---

“Whew. This break room is nice. Oh? They have black tea, too?”

The woman looked around as if it were her first time in the break room. It seemed this was her first visit to this library. She put a tea bag in a paper cup and filled it with hot water. After taking a sip of the instant black tea with anticipation, she quickly grimaced and stuck out her tongue.

“Ugh. This is fake.”

“You can’t expect them to keep real tea leaves in a place like this.”

“Everyone kept emphasizing what a great city Seoul is, so I thought this would be real, too.”

Her gestures were exaggerated in a Western way, but what came out of her mouth was fluent Korean.

“Your Korean is quite good.”

“Learning foreign languages is a hobby of mine. I came here to see if they had a good collection of foreign language dictionaries.”

“Do you travel abroad often?”

“A little.”

Traveling abroad wasn't easy these days. Land routes were almost impossible, so most travel was by air, and plane tickets were ridiculously expensive. Airplanes had to be fitted with barriers to protect against potential monster attacks from the sky, and both the device and its fuel—mana stones—were costly. To be able to afford such tickets meant she was quite wealthy.

“So, who are you? You seem to know a lot about Elves,” Jinwoo asked, slightly on guard.

The woman’s Blue Flame was identical to an Elf’s, but her ears were human. Could she be a disguised Elf? Has society already been deeply infiltrated by non-human species without common citizens like me knowing?

As all sorts of ominous thoughts and conspiracies branched out in a thousand directions in his mind, she began to introduce herself.

“I am—”

But the rest of her words were drowned out by a tremendous roar.

Kuuuu-rurururung!

The ground, the air, the entire building shook as the library was enveloped in a red and black veil.

Jinwoo instantly drew his sword and put his back to a wall. The woman watched the library being consumed by the crimson energy, her eyes narrowed.

“An Erosion,” she said.

The same phenomenon that had covered the Earth in blackened land and monsters. It was an Erosion, an event where the otherworldly power from within a Gate flowed backward, invading reality itself.

Excellent, this guide is incredibly helpful. The context, character motivations, and key terms are crucial for an accurate and tonally appropriate translation.

Here is the translation of the provided text, incorporating the details from your guide.

---

The top priority had been to escape without any major injuries. While Jinwoo had been hurt, the wounds weren’t serious enough to leave lasting effects, so he was fine.

“By the way, can I ask you about an Elvish word?”

“What is it?”

“What does ‘& @ #’ mean?” Jinwoo asked, suddenly remembering something he’d been curious about. It was the word the injured child had kept searching for.

“It means ‘Mom.’”

“From your expression, it doesn’t sound like you heard it in a very happy situation.”

Jinwoo gave a bitter smile, feeling a pang of sympathy that his guess had been correct. He silently drank his canned coffee. Unlike the one he had given Chartia, his was a chilled iced coffee.

“Jinwoo. Since we have the chance, would you like to learn Elvish from me? I learned it naturally when I awakened my abilities, but it seems you haven't recalled the language yet.”

“Elvish? I’d love to.”

Chartia was firmly convinced that Jinwoo’s past life had been an Elf. Jinwoo, on the other hand, was fifty-fifty. Given his connection to Elves, it was a possibility, but he couldn’t be sure.

That made her offer to teach him Elvish all the more welcome. He would inevitably run into more Elves as he continued to enter Gates. There was a significant advantage in being the only one who could understand the enemy's language.

“Great. Then I’ll teach you whenever we have free time for a while.”

“But don’t you need to go back to New York?”

“Oh, I’ve decided to naturalize. I’m a citizen of Seoul now.”

“I see… Wait, what? Naturalize?”

Jinwoo was stunned by the sudden bombshell.

Naturalize? Did she mean she was changing her citizenship completely? From New York to Seoul? An S-class Hunter?

“As a new neighbor in the same city, I look forward to getting along, Jinwoo.”

“Ah, yes. Welcome, Chartia.”

“There’s a lot I don’t know about Seoul, so please teach me. I’ll teach you Elvish in return.”

“Of course.”

They shook hands, sealing the promise in a bit of a daze.

---

An S-class Hunter naturalizing was an issue with massive repercussions.

Every single S-class Hunter was a priceless strategic asset and human resource, their value beyond imagination. It was one thing for them to accept a request and carry out a mission in another city, but changing their citizenship entirely was a different story.

• [BREAKING NEWS] New York S-Class Hunter Chartia Announces Naturalization.
• New York's "Druid," Chartia, Reveals Her Intent to Naturalize.
• Chartia: "I Found Great Charm in Seoul."

As if on a pre-arranged signal, a flood of articles poured out all at once.

Naturally, the internet descended into a state of near chaos, and the real world was no different.

“Mr. Jinwoo, Mr. Jinwoo. Isn’t that Chartia girl the same young lady who came to visit you in the hospital a while back?” asked the old man in the bed next to Jinwoo’s.

“Yes, that’s her.”

“Well, I’ll be damned, that lady was an S-class Hunter. I knew she had a special kind of aura. Right, dear?”

“You were just gawking because she was pretty, what are you talking about an aura for…”

“I’m telling you, it’s not like that!”

As the old man and woman bickered, another patient in the room asked Jinwoo questions. Was she really an S-class Hunter? What was their relationship? An S-class Hunter naturalizing in Seoul was incredible, and so on.

It was only this restrained because they were in a hospital room; right now, the outside world was in an uproar over the news.

Anywhere people gathered, they were talking about Chartia.

An S-class Hunter, and the one known as the "Druid" at that, was moving her citizenship to Seoul. It was impossible for it not to become a hot topic.

When he turned on the hospital TV, the news was in the middle of a segment on Chartia. An interview with her was playing, where she explained her reasons for choosing to naturalize in Seoul.

—That’s right. I was already thinking of leaving New York and had been looking at several cities, but Seoul caught my eye.

—As a citizen of Seoul, that’s something I’m very proud to hear! If you don’t mind me asking, what parts of the city caught your eye?

—Well, first of all…

She listed a few reasons, but to Jinwoo, none of them sounded particularly convincing. She was probably hiding the real reason. He was curious what it might be, but he knew it would be rude to pry into something she was deliberately concealing.

As the interview continued, the reporter praised Chartia’s appearance and achievements with exaggerated reactions. The praise for her looks, in particular, seemed filled with genuine awe and admiration. If even the female reporter was saying as much, it seemed there truly was an extraordinary mystique to an Elf’s beauty.

The entire city of Seoul was swept up in a festive, buzzing atmosphere. Not just any S-class Hunter, but the Druid herself.

Experts and ordinary people alike were busy speculating about the immense benefits she would bring to Seoul.

However, it wasn't all good news. Like two sides of a coin, every event has a front and a back.

—New York City Hall and Hunter Management Bureau express "deep regret."
—Tokyo, an ally of New York, issues fierce condemnation. They even used the bizarre phrasing that "poaching an S-class Hunter is a breach of international ethics..."
—Beijing: "Whatever Seoul promised, we will offer three times as much. Come to Beijing..."

Like a violent chemical reaction, responses erupted from all over the place.

---