LTTH C7

Chapter 7

“Hahh. Unless you want to reveal your combat power to everyone here, why don’t you just quietly follow?”

“My combat power?”

[…A gate break is imminent, so we need to relocate the base. To minimize casualties, we must know your combat power.]

“Ah.”

The duke’s voice resonated directly in Hansol’s head, vibrating like a whisper.

A whisper skill?

Hansol vaguely remembered hearing of such an ability, though he doubted whether it was truly essential for a tank.

But more importantly—did he just say gate break?

The words fell from the duke’s mouth as if they were an everyday announcement. Yet in Korea, a gate break was a catastrophic event that summoned every available hunter. For him to say it so calmly, and only to Hansol, felt malicious.

“But why whisper it only to me—ugh!”

“Enough. Stop talking and follow.”

Before he could ask more, a rough hand covered his mouth. The duke seized Hansol’s arm and dragged him outside the tent filled with wounded soldiers.

“Healer-nim…!”

The pitiful cry of a young man echoed behind him, but Hansol had no chance to look back. He was too busy keeping his balance against the duke’s forceful stride.

“No! My thirty minutes! My experience points!”

His mana was replenishing disdainfully. Thirty minutes was enough to expend every drop of it, only to refill again. This place had been overflowing with experience points, climbing little by little with every cast of Healing Light and Prayer of Healing. And now he was forced to abandon all of it. It was unbearably unfair.

“J-just a little longer!”

“Now is not the time.”

“But only thirty minutes more!”

“You can still say that after looking at that?”

The duke suddenly halted and pointed to the sky. Hansol’s breath caught.

The heavens were crimson—no, dark blood-red.

Why… why is the sky that color?

The blue expanse had been devoured by shifting, ominous red, as though smoke itself writhed across it.

“…A break…!”

A break. The very same phenomenon Hansol had seen on the day of the Great Catastrophe that stole his family. A sky from which monsters could pour at any moment. All around, people pressed to the ground, frantically preparing, while Kassie waved his hands, scattering particles of light across the battlefield.

“Careful! Don’t step on the blackened ground!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Every tent had vanished save for the white one Hansol had just left. Armored soldiers stared skyward, throats dry.

“Until a moment ago…”

“They were standing fine.”

At the clang of iron, the duke turned, his armored frame radiating command.

“Disasters are chaos itself, and they delight in toying with humanity. Our task is survival—nothing more.”

With a step forward, his broad back blocked Hansol’s view.

“But thanks to you, we may last a little longer today.”

Hansol thought he had lived fiercely, tenaciously. But compared to these people—were his struggles anything? For them, every day was war, survival an endless task. And here he was, railing against the cursed Hunter Association, wallowing in self-pity. How pathetic.

“Well… the Association truly is cursed.”

“We’ll hear of your power—if you survive.”

Hansol touched the duke’s massive back, casting Heal. A soft white glow seeped into the armored figure and vanished.

Damn it.

Helplessness gnawed at him. With only Heal, Prayer of Healing, and Healing Light, he could do nothing more. Only hours ago he had been thrilled, filling his skill window with new spells. But not one of them offered shields or buffs for something as dire as a gate break.

“Fifteen levels?”

Just fifteen. And he had celebrated? Madness.

Achievement unlocked. Learned ‘Sanctuary Proclamation.’

Right… I should be glad for achievements, shouldn’t I?

What?

His head, heavy with frustration, snapped up. A familiar system window floated before him.

Achievements?

No matter how he looked, it was indeed achievements. The system already had levels and skills—was it strange for achievements to appear as well? And yet, Hansol had never once heard of or seen them before.

Had he simply failed to notice until now? Impossible. As soon as hunters adapted to the system, countries had immediately tested quests and achievements. The Association had run countless experiments—handing hunters items, making them fight monsters repeatedly, forcing them to rely on strength alone. Research so relentless it had seemed absurd. And yet, the results had always been nothing.

Ten years. An ocean of money, manpower, and hunters’ lives, all wasted. And until very recently, still nothing.

But now it appears, here?

It was more shocking than anything. Had Korea been excluded from the system entirely? Could it be that foreign hunters had been gaining achievements daily all along?

“Hah.”

It sounded ridiculous. And yet, the thought carried weight. The level he had failed to gain in Korea, the quest that had appeared suddenly, and now this surreal achievement—every one of them had come only in Britain.

And when I return to Korea… will all of this vanish like a dream?

A buried unease surfaced. What if this was the strange world, and Korea the normal one? What if, upon return, everything reset?

“Healer!”

His face paled, his eyes flickering in panic. Trembling, he was suddenly steadied by strong arms. Raising his gaze, he met the duke’s face, blocking his path.

“Be careful!”

“Aaahh!!”

At last, chaos descended. Screams of men, roars of monsters, the clash of weapons—all shattered the air. Flesh split, blood sprayed, and a rancid stench filled the battlefield. Kassie’s crimson hair fluttered as he shouted tirelessly, burning through his mana, while the ground became a graveyard of human and monster corpses alike.

This was war. A battlefield where thought was a luxury and life or death was constant.

Without the duke’s shield, Hansol would have been carved apart by a monster’s blind strike. Only a day earlier, he had declared his will to survive—yet already he had forgotten. Drunk on level-ups and achievements, he had lost sight of where he was.

“…Sanctuary Proclamation!”

He had grown complacent. Grinding his teeth, he forced out the skill’s name. It did not matter what the reward was—its very name bore Sanctuary. Here, it could not fail. He believed that without doubt.

Please allocate skill points. (Skill points available: 10)

The system window blinked before him, demanding a choice in the midst of chaos. Cursing the system’s timing, Hansol looked up.

A massive form cracked through the sky itself, approaching fast.

The duke braced the line. Kassie hurled mana like fire. Hansol’s instincts screamed.

The figure cloaked in dark red mist was no petty mob.

If it reached them, everything would be annihilated.

“Damn it! All ten points!”

There was no room for luxury. If he died here, it was over. Clenching his lips, Hansol roared his choice.

His trembling voice echoed. The floating message faded.

And the battlefield began to change.