## Chapter 37 – 37. Gate (2)
#37. Gate (2)
Choi Hye-na’s childhood couldn’t be described as happy, even with the kindest of words.
Despite being born as the eldest daughter of the Seongbuk Choi family, a prestigious family of mages, she had to say goodbye to her mother at the young age of two.
Choi Tae-hyun, Choi Hye-na’s father, repeated wails and faints in front of his wife’s body.
Originally, Choi Hye-na’s mother, Choi Yeon-ju, was sickly.
She always suffered from minor illnesses, and the hospital said she wouldn’t live long.
Nevertheless, Choi Yeon-ju, with the single-minded determination to bear the child of her beloved husband, defied everyone’s opposition and became pregnant with Choi Hye-na.
And ten months later, when she safely gave birth to Choi Hye-na, both of them were as happy as if they had gained the whole world.
But perhaps heaven did not allow that happiness.
Immediately after giving birth, Choi Yeon-ju’s physical condition worsened uncontrollably.
Even pouring money into buying elixirs and hiring excellent priests, her illness spiraled towards the worst, not knowing its end.
Before long, Choi Tae-hyun had to lose his wife, and Choi Hye-na had to lose her mother.
Choi Tae-hyun, who had to bury his wife in the cold ground, seemed to give up everything as a parent from that day on, leaving the still young Choi Hye-na and wandering outside the house.
Choi Hye-na had no way of knowing what he was doing outside.
Even on the rare days when he returned home, he never once glanced at his daughter, Choi Hye-na.
Choi Hye-na, who was thirsty for parental love, could only be disappointed by the cold attitude of her only parent.
The small wound that arose then grew bigger day by day.
It was only natural that Choi Hye-na, neglected by her parents, grew up in the hands of her grandparents and the family’s servants.
Except for her very young years, Choi Hye-na had never received affectionate words or touches from her parents, but she still loved her father.
Her grandparents told her that her father was acting that way because his heart was hurting.
So, she firmly believed that if she waited patiently, her father, whose wounds had healed, would one day warmly embrace her with a bright smile.
However, among the expressions of Choi Tae-hyun that remained in Choi Hye-na’s memory, there was no smiling face.
Of course, it may have existed when she was a baby, but now all that remained were tragic expressions of crying, despairing, and raging.
As time passed without Choi Tae-hyun ever returning, Choi Hye-na turned eight years old.
And summer came.
That summer was particularly hot and gloomy.
Because of the series of serious casualties that occurred, the news always reported grim news, and the streets were always shrouded in a depressing atmosphere.
Only the undertakers, who were flooded with work, could smile on such a summer day.
That day, as if a hole had been drilled in the sky, heavy monsoon rain continued to pour down even in the middle of the night.
Neither cicadas nor crickets cried in the sound of the rain. Or rather, they may have cried, but were buried in the sound of the rain.
Choi Hye-na woke up in the late dawn due to a call of nature and was walking down the empty hallway.
Walking in a daze, Choi Hye-na frowned at the strange stench she had never smelled before.
And something damp touched her feet.
Kwaroooong-
A bolt of lightning that fell from the sky at that moment momentarily brightened the dark hallway.
And Choi Hye-na saw an unbelievable sight.
-Kyaak!!
The sight of the servant uncles, who she was usually close with, being brutally murdered and lying scattered in the hallway, and ‘Father’ looking at her from atop such corpses.
-Our Hye-na…
Choi Hye-na instinctively stepped back as a face stained with blood and hands dirty with flesh that she didn’t want to know who it belonged to reached out to her.
-D, don’t come near me!!
-My daughter, Daddy has come to pick you up.
Choi Hye-na trembled at his crazed eyes, in which she couldn’t know what he was thinking or what emotions were mixed.
He was not the father she had been eagerly waiting for.
Naturally, it was impossible for young Choi Hye-na, who was terrified and trembling, to escape from Choi Tae-hyun.
The desperate moment when Choi Hye-na would be helplessly caught in his bizarre hands if he took just one more step.
-Hye-na!
Choi Young-ok, Choi Hye-na’s grandmother, who was wrapped in crimson flames, appeared.
-You! How dare you set your dirty foot here!
Choi Hye-na was taken aback by the anger beyond Choi Young-ok’s distorted expression, which she had never seen before.
On the other hand, she was relieved.
As far as she knew, her grandmother was really strong.
-Tsk, an old fox getting in the way.
Choi Tae-hyun had no choice but to leave the scene at the appearance of Choi Young-ok, who was a 5-circle mage at the time, and the sound of people running from afar.
-Hye-na, this father will come back for you someday.
With those words that would become a curse to Choi Hye-na, Choi Tae-hyun disappeared.
The damage that day ended with two unfortunate servants, but Choi Hye-na could not forget the memory of that day.
The sight of the servants lying in a pool of blood.
The sight of her father killing them.
The unknowable gaze of her father looking at her.
Even now, nearly 13 years later, she could not forget the memory of that day.
-…Dad.
The too young Choi Hye-na hugged the small teddy bear that her mother had left her and shed tears.
Only a voice that would not reach echoed emptily.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not your dad.”
“…Huh?”
Choi Hye-na, who opened her eyes to a voice that should never have been heard, met Kang Hyun-woo’s eyes at a distance where their lips seemed about to touch.
And then, three seconds of silence passed.
“Kyaaaa!!!”
Inside the narrow tent, Choi Hye-na’s scream echoed.
***
Amidst the loud siren of the police car and the attention of the bustling crowd.
A man standing inside the police line threw the cigarette he was smoking on the ground.
“This is driving me crazy.”
Isolated gate occurrence incident that happened around 7:49 PM, CCTV footage revealed that two civilians were swallowed.
No, they weren’t ordinary civilians.
Both were registered mages at the Magic Tower, and one of them was even Choi Hye-na, the precious daughter of the Seongbuk Choi family.
Because of that, the police upper management was in an uproar because of Choi Young-ok, a 6-circle mage from the Magic Tower, who appeared in the command room.
That’s right. Choi Young-ok, who was called the crazy fire mage.
If her granddaughter didn’t come out safely, no one could dare to predict what kind of chaos she would cause.
Thanks to that, the upper management was pushing him to solve it somehow, and he, who was assigned as the investigating officer, was caught in the crossfire of a whale fight.
If Choi Hye-na doesn’t come out of the gate safely, he would be the first to lose his job.
Despite already smoking a whole pack, Inspector Ko Min-seok had to rack his brains.
“You’ve worked hard.”
Then, like salvation, a man who appeared to be affiliated with the World Hunter Association appeared at the scene.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Yoo Seong-bin, the team leader of Special Gate Team 1.”
“Ah, you’ve arrived.”
“Yes, there was a lot of traffic.”
Yoo Seong-bin had to hold back a hollow laugh at the overly humble Ko Min-seok.
Well, it wasn’t that he didn’t understand.
It was obvious that the man would be the one taking the fall for this situation.
“Um… but Team Leader Yoo Seong-bin?”
“Yes? What is it?”
“What are you planning to do now?”
Inspector Ko Min-seok was desperate.
He had three children, and his wife cooked three packs of Neoguri at once.
If he lost his job at a time like this, the future of his family would be bleak.
“Well… we have to wait.”
“…Yes?”
“There’s no other way. We can only go in and rescue them after a week. Until then, doing this is the best we can do.”
If it was a problem that could be solved by just one team coming, isolated gates wouldn’t be called special gates in the first place.
Now it was time for prayer.
He had no choice but to pray that the two mages inside would survive for a week.
“Team Leader, the test results are out.”
“Really? What does it say?”
The expression of the employee who was in charge of investigating the gate’s grade was not good.
“…It’s B-grade.”
***
Inside the narrow cave, silence flowed between Kang Hyun-woo and Choi Hye-na.
“…This is unfair.”
Kang Hyun-woo, who was sitting in front of the bonfire with slightly reddened cheeks, and Choi Hye-na, who seemed uncomfortable and glanced at him, were there.
“W, well, who told you to be naked… hugging…”
Choi Hye-na had no choice but to stop talking.
No matter how ashamed she was, there were still sharp parts left in the triangle of her conscience to keep complaining about the actions taken to save her life.
Besides, after the image of Kang Hyun-woo carrying her on his back and running hard through the snowfield came to mind, even the guilt about the slap she had given him as soon as she woke up soared endlessly like a winged stock.
“Haa… I even saved your life, but suddenly I’m being treated like a sex offender and even slapped…”
“…”
“Sigh, well, what can I expect from a commoner? I’m lucky if I don’t get hit a few more times for being a beggar.”
The tone was too infuriating, but everything he said was true, so she couldn’t refute it.
Although the process was lewd and shameful, she had to admit that her attitude towards the benefactor who had saved her life was not right as a result.
Apologizing here was the right thing to do a hundred times over.
“I, I’m…!!”
But Choi Hye-na had never apologized to anyone.
Who would dare to ask for an apology from the one and only successor of the Seongbuk Choi family?
As a result, that simple word didn’t come out as if it was stuck in her throat.
But as a member of the Seongbuk Choi family, she had been taught that repaying the favor she had received was a natural duty as a human being, so she steeled her heart again and resolved to apologize politely.
No, she only resolved to do so.
“Y, you… you crazy pervert!! Even so, how could you take off a woman’s clothes and hug her?!!”
“Oh, your boobs were awesome.”
“Kyaaaaaaaa!!!!”
Choi Hye-na rushed at Kang Hyun-woo, screaming shrilly, but there was no way she could beat Kang Hyun-woo in a physical fight.
Rather, Choi Hye-na, who was caught in reverse, was trapped in Kang Hyun-woo’s arms.
“L, let go…!! You crazy pervert!! Won’t you let go?!!”
Kang Hyun-woo was not one to forgive such trivial resistance.
Kang Hyun-woo, who suppressed the resistance by hugging Choi Hye-na in reverse, wore a nonchalant expression.
“Don’t mess around for no reason and pass out again, because I’ll just throw you outside then.”
“…J, just let go.”
“Why, are you afraid I’ll touch your boobs again?”
“…Again?”
At that moment, Kang Hyun-woo realized he had messed up.
“You… how many times did you… while I was sleeping!!”
Kang Hyun-woo quietly avoided her gaze and released Choi Hye-na from his arms.
At that sight, Choi Hye-na only wanted to pull out all the hair of that damn pervert, but she endured it by exerting superhuman patience.
It was the last respect for the benefactor who had saved her life.
“…By the way, where did this tent and blanket come from?”
“Secret.”
He had no intention of telling Choi Hye-na, who was not even his matching partner, about the app.
Choi Hye-na turned her head away as if she had no intention of asking deeply.
It was unexpected.
Since mages were all crazy about curiosity, he thought that Choi Hye-na would persistently dig into it until the end, given her personality.
It was surprising that she was showing the minimum courtesy at a time like this. It didn’t seem like they were in a position to stand on ceremony anymore.
‘By the way, she was mumbling strangely in her sleep.’
The sight of Choi Hye-na constantly looking for her dad and crying was shocking.
He thought she was as strong as Chun Yeo-hwa.
But he understood.
He even felt a strange sense of kinship with Choi Hye-na, whose face was covered in cold sweat as if she was suffering from a terrible nightmare, not just a simple dream.
When I was young, there were times when I would wake up screaming from dreams of my parents appearing and yelling at me.
Every time, the nun would comfort me and reassure me all night, so I could sleep comfortably.
I didn’t realize how grateful I was for that back then.
Come to think of it, I thought I would visit the nun when I returned to Earth, but I must have forgotten about it without realizing it.
I vowed to visit her without fail if I escaped from here.
‘Should I eat now?’
I didn’t know exactly, but I roughly felt that it was morning outside.
While I was hugging Choi Hye-na, I also fell asleep for a while, and I also ran like crazy in the snowfield yesterday, so I was quite hungry.
I calculated how many days I could last with the food left in my inventory.
Hmm, I think I can last a week even if five more people are added here.
“Are you going to eat?”
“No!”
What a temper.
Is she acting like that because I said I touched her boobs earlier?
Well, I can’t force someone who doesn’t want to eat to eat, so I decided to prepare only what I would eat first.
Today’s breakfast was seafood ramen.
I put a small crab that was being cleared out at the supermarket into boiling water along with the ramen soup and noodles.
Although the lid was closed, the smell of ramen, which stimulated the appetite, quickly filled the cave.
Apart from that, I had a lot of worries about the future direction.
‘…First of all, I need to know what kind of monsters live inside the gate.’
I wanted to endure in the cave for a week and then escape, but the situation was unlikely to flow so comfortably.
Even if the gate boss didn’t move because he was protecting the core, if a mid-boss level monster appeared, this place was just a small prison with no place to retreat.
It was right to scout the surroundings at least.
If I could only know the gate grade, I wouldn’t have to worry so much.
Gurgle-
“Hmm?”
Just as my head was filled with complicated thoughts, my gaze turned to Choi Hye-na, who was sitting with her back turned, at the familiar sound that came from somewhere.
I couldn’t see her face, but her earlobes, which were as red as her hair, seemed to be showing Choi Hye-na’s expression instead.
“Are you hungry?”
“…What?”
“Don’t be stubborn for no reason and come and eat.”
If she gets hungry and collapses later, I’ll have to carry her again.
Then I think I’ll really want to commit Goryeojang.
“So come and eat.”
“…”
Choi Hye-na’s face, who sat in front of the pot as if crawling, was as red as if it would burst soon.
“…But where are the chopsticks?”
“Before that, I think we need to sort out our titles.”
“What…?”
Looking at Choi Hye-na, I suddenly remembered what happened at the blind date.
How dare you ruin my precious first experience?
“Call me ‘honey.’”
