I Became a Mythical Hunter After Killing the Golden Goblin - Chapter 24
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 24. Return
“Thank you for your cooperation. You must have been through quite an ordeal. Please rest comfortably here at the Hospital for the day. The Association will cover all medical expenses.”
After exiting the Tutorial, I was immediately transported to a private room at the Hospital operated by the Association, where I received treatment for my injuries and underwent a brief investigation.
Of course, just before the transfer, Seo Mi-na and I exchanged a silent understanding through our eyes. We didn’t breathe a word about the Hidden Stage.
It was only natural. An entire Tutorial had been completely sealed—a massive event. The system wouldn’t have displayed an Achievement that even the Abyss would be astonished by otherwise.
But the reason for that was because we conquered the Hidden Stage?
Those who coveted what we obtained from the Hidden Stage would multiply exponentially at any moment.
Of course, as for the treasures we obtained—there was nothing they could take from us.
I drew forth the essence of The Sun I felt within my body and manifested it above my palm. A miniature Sun blazing brilliantly, within which an enormous quantity of energy was condensed.
The stat that over 70% of the bottom-tier Hunters—those trapped between F and E ranks in the Hunter world—desperately desired above all else.
The power commonly called an energy stat rested in my hand. A mythic-grade stat, no less.
“Authority—Noon Sun confirmed.”
〚Authority: Noon Sun
Grade: Origin
Rank: Origin
LV 1
Description: The power of The Sun, standing highest and most gloriously. An absolute symbol and force that gazes down upon all things from above, ruling over all existence.
Abilities:
-Stat: The Sun [Mythic] Awakened
-Absolute Immunity to Fire Attribute
-Extreme Affinity with Fire Attribute
-LV 2 Unlocked〛
I tucked The Sun away and picked up the lighter beside me, then held my hand directly over its flame.
Sizzzzzzle!!
“….”
A faint sound emerged where flesh met fire, but there was no abnormality, no pain. If anything, the sensation of flame against my skin felt soothing.
“Fascinating.”
I knew there existed stats called various resistances. If expressed numerically, wouldn’t my fire resistance be maxed out?
“Truly befitting an Authority.”
I closed the window and lay back against the bed, but immediately sprang upright again.
“Wait—there’s one more thing I need to check!?”
Gulp. I had forgotten the most important thing. The other ability I obtained after ownership exceeded 10%.
“Golden Tower entry.”
At my command, a portal opened behind me and pulled me through. With a sensation surpassing even dungeons and Abyss Portals, my vision transformed. And the place I arrived at was…a cavern scattered with countless white coins.
***
“Thank you for your statement. Please accept this small token of my appreciation.”
“Oh my! Thank you so much!”
Click.
As the door closed and the last person to enter the Tutorial—Zone 7 left, Park Seo-ha, the Team Leader of Surveillance Division 5, roughly loosened her necktie and placed a cigarette between her lips.
“No smoking indoors.”
Her subordinate snatched the cigarette from her mouth and snapped it in half. She glanced at him once, then placed another cigarette between her lips.
“So, what do you think caused this to happen?”
“How much do we really know about the Abyss? Honestly, the investigation we just conducted was purely procedural. The Tutorial itself vanished without a single clue or piece of evidence. And on top of that, two Hunters who entered are dead.”
“Damn it, this is infuriating. What are they saying upstairs?”
“What do you think? They’re telling us to fabricate a reason and evidence if we have to and bring it to them. This is a major incident. Since the Abyss opened, a Tutorial disappearing like this is unprecedented.”
Park Seo-ha exhaled a long sigh, drew a deep breath from the unlit cigarette, closed her eyes, and retraced her thoughts.
“But… now that I think about it, something feels off.”
“What now?”
Her subordinate stepped away from Park Seo-ha, clearly exasperated.
“If you’re planning to threaten, torture, and conduct unauthorized investigations again without any real plan, count me out. I don’t want another disciplinary action. All my peers are getting promoted to team leader, and look at me—all because I got stuck with a bad superior!”
“Gwak Chan! You bastard, you’re asking for it! Just wait. No matter how I think about it, something’s wrong!”
“Then what is it?”
“You know… those two who came bursting out of the Abyss at the very end.”
Gwak Chan nodded and asked back.
“How could I forget? One of them was that precious princess from the Seohwa Group itself. The other was supposedly the top graduate of this year’s class. What about them?”
“No matter how I think about it, the wounds on their bodies weren’t the kind a Tutorial monster could inflict. They looked like they’d been grazed by something massive and powerful… but there’s no way a monster of that size exists in the Tutorial…”
“Ugh, here we go again. Senior, even if those two lied about something, they haven’t done anything wrong. It’s unreasonable to force an investigation. And even if they killed the two Hunters who didn’t come back from the Tutorial, we can’t hold them accountable. There’s no evidence, no witnesses, nothing! Besides, they’re the heir to a major conglomerate!”
Park Seo-ha, known as the mad dog of the Hunter Surveillance Division, ignored her subordinate’s warnings and, as if catching a scent, shook her head and shot up from her seat.
Then she strode out of the investigation room and headed somewhere.
Boom!!
After traveling for a while, she arrived at none other than the Information Control Center—a department where records of all Hunters were entered into a database and boasted information capabilities ranking in the top five in the country.
The employees who worked in such a prestigious department and lived with overflowing confidence, boasting to staff from other departments, all simultaneously lowered their eyes and avoided her gaze the moment Park Seo-ha appeared.
‘If we get tangled up with her, it won’t end with just a written apology.’
‘Don’t make eye contact, don’t speak—treat her like she’s invisible!’
‘Someone’s going down anyway. The team leader should set an example!’
‘Do you know how badly I got chewed out by the Association Director last time when I stepped up?!’
To them, Park Seo-ha was a walking time bomb.
“Senior!! Why are you here again?! Do you want to get called in by the Association Director again? I told you not to go searching for files arbitrarily!”
“Shut up. This is tedious, so let’s finish quickly. If just one person comes out and does me one favor, I’ll leave quietly. You’ve got five seconds. Five. Four. Three…”
“What… can I help you with, Park Seo-ha, Team Leader of Surveillance Division 5?”
In the end, today’s sacrificial junior staff member approached like a pig being dragged to the slaughterhouse, asking reluctantly through tears.
“Give me information on those two Hunters.”
“All Hunter information is classified as top secret. Without authorization from a director or above… who are you asking about?”
As he rattled off excuses, Park Seo-ha raised her fist, and the junior staff member quickly sat at his desk and began searching. She demanded information on Shin Ju-ha and Seo Mi-na.
“Ah… Seo Mi-na has a Level 2 security clearance. We really can’t do anything about this. Level 2 requires authorization codes from at least three directors.”
“Tsk, so she’s a princess after all? Then what about the other one?”
As the Junior Staff Member began searching the name Shin Ju-ha, his face drained of all color the moment the message appeared on screen.
Unable to believe what he was seeing, he alternated frantically between checking the name he’d searched and the message displayed, then cried out.
“What the—?”
“T-Team Leader!”
Leaving the curious Park Seo-ha behind, he urgently called out to the Information Department Team Leader, who had been deliberately ignoring him.
“P-Please come look at this right away!”
“Damn it! Why? What is it?”
The Team Leader, who had been trying to dismiss him, rushed over at the sheer desperation and panic in the Junior Staff Member’s voice and checked the screen.
“What the hell!”
At the message displayed on the screen—Zero-Class Security—he nearly fainted in shock and hastily unplugged the computer’s power cable.
“Damn it all! Park Seo-ha! You insane woman! Do you have any idea what you just did?”
“Did you just curse at me? Are you out of your mind?”
Park Seo-ha tilted her head, wondering what was happening, but upon seeing the Information Department Team Leader suddenly hurling curses at her, her expression twisted into something menacing.
“We’re all dead! All dead, I’m telling you! The person you just asked me to look up—they’re a Zero-Class security target. Do you know what Zero-Class means? It means even the Association Chairman doesn’t have the authority to breach their security! The highest levels of the state, the highest-ranking Hunters, the top brass of the Association—every single one of them has to approve just to get a glimpse of someone at that security level!”
“So what’s the damn point!”
Park Seo-ha raised her fist to assert dominance, but this time even the Information Team Leader couldn’t back down.
“Zero-Class security means that when someone accesses it, the security requestor is notified immediately! You ignorant fool! Those people can summon the Suppression Team right now and have us all shot dead on the spot! It’s completely justified! Because we learned something we were never supposed to know!”
With those words, the Information Team Leader collapsed as if fainting, while Park Seo-ha, unable to comprehend the dire situation unfolding before her, could only let out a bewildered sigh.
“Hah… This just makes me want to compete even more.”
Park Seo-ha spoke those words as she pulled a cigarette from her mouth and stared at the darkened monitor for a moment, lost in thought.
And less than a minute later.
Click!
The Information Department door burst open, and the Suppression Team appeared, wielding anti-Awakened firearms.
“What the hell? What kind of situation is this?”
“Everyone here will need to come with us.”
For the sole reason of having attempted to reveal information about an entity that should never be touched or questioned, Park Seo-ha found herself locked in an interrogation room mere minutes after she had been the one interrogating witnesses.
***
Before my eyes spread a magnificent display of white coins, and the first thing that caught my attention was an enormous explosion crater as if a nuclear warhead had detonated.
“So I really did grab a bomb right before I died.”
Honestly, I had no idea what it was exactly—I’d just desperately reached out, unwilling to die, and grabbed it on impulse. But seeing this place now, it must have been an extraordinarily powerful bomb.
“Then those coins must be what the Golden Goblin left behind after dying.”
Exactly 9,999 pieces. Combined with the six black coins I already possessed, I had obtained a staggering 10,005 of those rare black and white coins.
Yet I felt no great surge of emotion. Though I couldn’t withdraw them immediately, my inventory held an incomparable amount sleeping within it.
“No, wait—I should be thrilled about this!”
I possessed a Grade 0 Merchant Summoning Voucher, the reward for obliterating the entire Tutorial.
Those who wandered throughout the Abyss were called NPCs or natives, and they sustained themselves through activities like offering Quests or selling goods.
Merchants in particular were ranked from Grade 9 to Grade 0, and naturally, Grade 0 merchants were known to be exceedingly rare even within the Abyss.
A coupon to summon such a merchant, combined with over ten thousand black and white coins…
‘I could purchase some truly exceptional items.’
I contentedly tossed all the coins into my inventory and moved forward. Passing through the cavern, the Golden Tower finally came into view.
“So this is what it looks like.”
A five-story tower with lights illuminated only on the 1st and 2nd Floors. Its size was smaller than I’d imagined.
About the height of a typical apartment building?
For a five-story structure, it was massive, but knowing how much and how vast the contents within were, even this seemed far too small.
I entered the tower without hesitation.
〚1st Floor Golden Vault – Zone 1〛
Upon entering, the zone I arrived in was filled with countless mountains of purple coins, vast expanses of mana stone terrain, and even seas brimming with potions.
As if forming an entire ecosystem, infinite consumables welcomed me.
“Looking at it this way, my authority really does seem absurdly overpowered.”
I could quit being a Hunter right now, sell just these items, and live comfortably until death.
‘No, that bastard Bad Luck might scheme something else, so that’s off the table.’
I moved past Zone 1 toward Zone 2. Zone 2 was similarly a paradise of consumables, but with one crucial difference—most of the items had lost their color and were sealed in a stone-like state.
“These must be items whose locks haven’t been released yet.”
How long did I wander and explore the tower?
The moment I finished my complete exploration and stepped outside the tower, something unexpected happened.
—Squeak!
Whoosh!
A small, glimmering creature had stabbed my thigh with what appeared to be a sharp dagger.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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