Chapter 31 - Garden of the Dragon Sword

[Would you be interested in joining a guild?]

[Yuna said she'd look into guilds for you, hyung.]

The offer came out of nowhere. A guild? Back when I was an ordinary D-rank hunter, I would have jumped at the chance. But so much had changed since I reunited with Sia that I had no particular need for one now. If anything, it might do me more harm than good. Still, I wanted to know why Yuna had suddenly made the offer, so I called Junhwi right away.

[Hyung, aren't you on a date? You could've called me later.]

"Oh, my girlfriend had something else on afterward. I just saw her off," I said, making up a plausible excuse.

[Oh, I see... Right, hyung. You saw my KakaoTalk message, didn't you?]

"Yeah. That's why I'm calling. What's this sudden talk about a guild?"

[Just what I said. Yuna doesn't have your number, so she asked me to pass the message along.]

"I see. But why would she suddenly offer to find me a guild? Any idea, Junhwi?"

[Not sure. Maybe she just wants to look out for an old friend she hasn't seen in ages?]

But it didn't sound as if Yuna had told Junhwi her reason, either. That only made me more curious. If Jiyun had asked her to do it, I could understand, but Junhwi didn't seem to know anything about that. Yuna hadn't seen me in action inside a gate, either. Had she always been the type to go out of her way for other people? Why was she trying to introduce me to a guild?

"Could you tell Yuna I appreciate the thought, but I'm not looking to join a guild right now?"

[Huh? Don't you have Yuna's number, hyung? She said she gave you her business card.]

"Oh, right. She did, but I gave it to my girlfriend."

I added that I'd thought Sia might be uncomfortable if I contacted Yuna for any reason.

[... Still, wouldn't one phone call be okay? Offering to introduce you to a guild makes it sound like she thinks pretty highly of you. And you've known each other since kindergarten, right?]

"That makes it even less okay."

Remembering how intensely Sia had reacted to everything Yuna did, I felt it would be best not to form any kind of connection with her. If even the slightest connection formed... I couldn't say what might happen.

[Then I'll pass that along for you. Oh, hyung, on another subject: are you interested in dungeon gates?]

A dungeon gate. Gates generally fell into three broad categories. The most common were ordinary gates, which you cleared by killing every monster inside. Next came dungeon gates, each with its own theme and clear conditions, which could be raided again at regular intervals even after being cleared. The last category was extra gates, which didn't fit either of the other two types. Compared with other gates, the dungeon gates Junhwi mentioned were relatively safe and good for gaining combat experience. Since they could be cleared repeatedly at regular intervals, there were few surprises once you knew their patterns. But those very qualities meant that major guilds had bought the raiding rights to virtually every dungeon gate worth entering, monopolizing them to train their hunters. Naturally, someone like me, who had never belonged to a guild, had never had a chance to enter one.

"Why bring up dungeon gates all of a sudden?"

[My sister's guild is raiding one of its dungeon gates tomorrow. There's no limit on the number of people who can go in, so if you're interested, I can ask her about bringing you along.]

Joining a dungeon gate raid would be a great opportunity for someone without a guild. I'd been planning to look for a gate to visit tomorrow anyway. The timing couldn't have been better.

"I'd appreciate that. Thanks for thinking of me."

[It's nothing... You saved my life. I'll text you the exact time, location, and name of the gate.]

Not long after we hung up, Junhwi sent me a message with the gate information.

[We're leaving from the main entrance of the Maple Guild building at exactly 10 a.m. tomorrow. The dungeon gate we're raiding is called the "Garden of the Dragon Sword." The raid leader hasn't been decided yet, so I'll send you their contact details as soon as they're chosen.]

I understood everything except... "Huh?" One thing caught my eye. Unlike other gates, dungeon gates didn't disappear when cleared, so each was given a name reflecting what was inside. And this one was called the "Garden of the Dragon Sword." For someone with a dragon girlfriend who was working toward wielding a dragon's power freely, the name felt like quite a coincidence. Why, of all things, was this dungeon gate called the Garden of the Dragon Sword? All day, those five Korean characters stayed on my mind.

* * *

The next day, before the raid, I visited Rokan's lair. There was no special reason. As his granddaughter's boyfriend, I wanted to pay my respects and have breakfast with him. While I was there, I could ask him about the dungeon gate I was visiting that day.

"Rokan, I'm here."

"Welcome. What's that in your hand?"

"Red ginseng extract. You've done so much for me."

I remembered how tired he'd looked while making the suppressor, and I'd been concerned about him. I didn't know whether this sort of thing worked on dragons, but showing my appreciation was the least I could do.

"Oh, thank you."

"And I brought a packed meal. If you haven't eaten yet, I thought we could have breakfast together."

"I'd like that."

As we ate and chatted, I brought up the dungeon gate. "The one I'm going to today is called the 'Garden of the Dragon Sword.' Have you heard of it?"

"That's the first I've heard of it. You hunters take an interest in gates, but I don't pay much attention to them."

I'd thought he might at least recognize the name, so that surprised me. Seeing my reaction, Rokan nodded as though he understood why I'd asked.

"You were hoping to find a clue, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"Unfortunately, I don't know anything about it at present. If you bring back some footage, we can talk about it then."

Nothing I could do about that. Still, if I brought back footage, we might find something useful. The odds were slim, but perhaps I'd find the faintest clue about the power I possessed.

Just as we finished eating and I was about to head for the meeting place, Sia video-called me.

[Oppa, good morning! Wait, are you at Grandpa's lair?]

She seemed a little surprised to find me with Rokan at this hour.

"Yeah. I thought it would be nice to have breakfast with your grandfather."

"Oh, Shasha!"

Rokan greeted his granddaughter warmly, too.

[Looks like you and I think alike, Oppa. I was actually planning to visit your parents today.]

"My parents?"

[Yeah. It doesn't look like we'll be able to visit them together for a while, so I thought I'd go by myself.]

Sia held up a large bundle, saying it contained gifts she'd bought for my parents. Going to see them alone without me might have felt awkward or uncomfortable for her, and I was deeply grateful.

[Oh, and Oppa, you're going to a gate today, right?]

"Yeah, at ten. I'll call you when I get back."

[Okay! Talk to you later!]

We were short on time, so we kept our morning call brief.

"I'll be in touch again soon," I told Rokan, then left the lair and headed for the main entrance of the Maple Guild building.

It was almost time to leave, and nearly everyone seemed to have gathered already. As I looked around, a man approached me.

"You're Yoon Minjun, correct?"

"Yes."

"I'm Oh Taeseong, the leader of this raid. Nice to meet you."

Maybe it was because he was the leader, but he had a presence that set him apart from the other hunters gathered there. He was big, too, with distinctly rugged looks.

"I've heard a lot about you from my girlfriend's brother. He says you saved his life."

"Your girlfriend's brother?"

"Junhwi's sister is my girlfriend."

Oh. So he was Jiyun's boyfriend. I hadn't heard she had one. No wonder they'd let an outsider like me into a guild-owned dungeon. Connections through family, school, and friends: this was South Korea, all right.

"Junhwi said he wanted to repay you somehow, so I offered to help."

"Thank you."

"You saved his life. If there's anything I can do for you, I should do it. Ah, we've been talking among ourselves for too long."

Perhaps sensing the guild members waiting behind him, Taeseong briefly introduced them one by one. Most were a year or two older than me, and all but Taeseong and one or two others were D-rank. I'd worried they might be awkward around me, or subtly exclude me because I wasn't in their guild, but everyone welcomed me kindly.

"Nice to meet you, Minjun!"

"We've heard a lot about you from Junhwi!"

"I was drinking with Junhwi the other day, and he talked about you for over an hour."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes. I've been curious what you were like, so it's really nice to finally meet you."

After greeting everyone in that friendly atmosphere, we got into the vehicles. The dungeon gate was about a thirty-minute drive from the Maple Guild building.

"Minjun, has Junhwi told you anything about the gate we're visiting today?"

"Only its name. He didn't tell me much about what it's like."

Perhaps because it was guild property, I hadn't found any information when I searched online.

"Have you ever taken part in a dungeon gate raid?"

"No. We learned about dungeon gates at the academy, but..."

"Then let me give you a quick explanation."

Taeseong, the raid leader and Jiyun's boyfriend, gave me a brief rundown of the gate we were about to raid.

First, he said dungeon gates felt very different from ordinary gates, starting with their environments. The Garden of the Dragon Sword, for example, was a flat expanse with countless sword hilts sticking out of the ground like headstones. And whereas an ordinary gate's clear condition was simply to defeat every monster inside, dungeon gates each had different requirements. I remembered learning that in an academy theory class.

"For the Garden of the Dragon Sword, you clear it by surviving for three hours after entering," Taeseong said.

"That's all?"

"Yes."

"... That sounds easier than I expected."

Taeseong let out a hearty laugh, as though he'd heard that reaction before.

"Juwon here said exactly the same thing once, word for word."

He pointed to a hunter sitting behind me. Apparently embarrassed by the memory, Juwon waved a hand and said defensively, "How long ago was that? Anyway, it isn't as easy as it sounds. Even if it's only three hours, the monsters come at you nonstop."

Taeseong added that although it was tough, it wasn't impossible to endure.

We'd talked plenty about dungeon gates, but I felt as if I was forgetting something important... Oh, right.

"Taeseong, why is this dungeon gate called the Garden of the Dragon Sword?"

He'd told me the place was full of sword hilts. But they could have called it the "Garden of Swords." Why specifically the "Garden of the Dragon Sword"? Rokan had told me that no sword connected to dragons, including the Dragon Bone Sword, had ever been officially revealed to the world.

Taeseong answered, "It's named after a map in a game our guild master plays."

"... What?"

The answer left me dumbfounded. Taeseong grinned and waved a hand to show he was joking.

"I'm kidding."

Phew, he gave me a scare. He'd said it with such a straight face that I'd believed him for a moment.

"There's a large statue in the exact center of the dungeon. It depicts a dragon coiled around a sword."

That wasn't all, Taeseong added. "There are also characters inscribed at the base of the statue that appear to come from another world."

I'd never seen anything like that myself, but I thought I'd heard somewhere that such things sometimes turned up in dungeon gates.

"Have the characters been deciphered?"

"Not all of them. As far as I know, they've deciphered just one sentence."

"What does it say?"

At my question, Oh Taeseong took out his phone and searched for something, then read the translated sentence aloud.

"It says, 'The great emperor who united the continent with a sword blessed by a dragon rests here for eternity.'"