A blue Gate steadily leaked mana.
Staff members from the Hunters Association had rushed over and were using precision instruments to collect escaping mana fluctuations and measure their intensity.
"Hello. Were you the first person to discover the Gate?"
A man in a crisp suit stood before Scáthach. He looked every bit the seasoned professional—questioning her while quietly sizing up the woman in front of him.
The first thing that crossed Woo Jin-chul's mind upon seeing Scáthach was simple: beautiful.
He was confident any man with a functioning psyche would think the same at first glance.
Her beauty was almost spell-like—on that point alone, she eclipsed the usual run-of-the-mill "pretty" people by miles.
She didn't look South Korean. A foreigner?
Next, Woo Jin-chul tried gauging her strength. He could sense mana, yes, but the aura she gave off wasn't particularly intense. He felt no threat from her.
As head of the Hunters Association's Surveillance Division, Woo Jin-chul had seen plenty of S-Rank Hunters—even National Level Hunters. He had a rough sense of the kind of presence those monsters of men carried.
In all his years on the job, there was only one person he could never read:
Sung Jinwoo, the man who'd leapt straight from E-Rank to S-Rank.
"Mm-hm~" Scáthach hummed softly, smiling as she nodded. "I wanted to see the Gate forming up close, so I ignored the construction workers' warnings and came in anyway. I nearly got thrown out, too. They're truly diligent people."
"…Please don't do something like that again," Woo Jin-chul said, face taut. "It causes trouble for others."
"Don't worry, don't worry. There won't be a next time."
Watching her, Woo Jin-chul felt a faint crease of worry gather between his brows. For the life of him, he couldn't understand what she was thinking.
"Then could you tell me how you found this Gate?" he asked.
A sharp glint flashed in his eyes—well hidden behind sunglasses. "Based on what we know, when you arrived, the Gate hadn't fully formed yet. Which means you knew in advance one would appear here. Is that correct?"
"Yes. I sensed an abnormal disturbance in the mana here." Scáthach narrowed her eyes slightly and looked him over, deep and steady. "What? You can't do that?"
"…"
Can't we? Not exactly. With instruments, they could detect a Gate before it fully manifested.
The problem was that the equipment couldn't run nonstop, and its detection range was limited. There were always blind spots.
So most of the time, it was civilians who stumbled upon a fully formed Gate and reported it to the Hunters Association.
But from her tone… it sounded like she hadn't relied on any equipment at all—just her own ability.
Did a Hunter with senses that absurdly sharp really exist?
Woo Jin-chul pressed on, asking basic information—name, nationality, Hunter rank, and so on.
"You're not a Hunter?"
For the first time, his carefully maintained poker face cracked.
"You're joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Scáthach's smile didn't budge. "Put away the surprise and suspicion. I'm not a Hunter, and I've never undergone Hunter ranking. Information like that should be easy to verify, shouldn't it?"
"…It is."
Scáthach wasn't worried in the slightest about being investigated. The moment she arrived on Earth, she'd already woven a flawless false identity online. If there was any part of it that might raise eyebrows, it was only this—
It was too perfect. Not a single seam to pick at.
With [Wisdom of Dún Scáith], pulling something like that off wasn't difficult. This wasn't a world with hyper-advanced tech or some hidden arsenal of black-box miracles.
"Anything else you want to ask?"
"…No. Thank you for your cooperation."
At that moment, the mana fluctuation analysis came back.
This was an A-Rank Dungeon.
Scáthach wasn't surprised. If it were only a C-Rank or D-Rank Gate, it wouldn't have been worth her time.
She clearly saw Woo Jin-chul's brow tighten upon learning the rank.
For an A-Rank Dungeon, it was best to have an S-Rank Hunter on the raid—maximizing the team's odds of survival.
The Hunters Association had jurisdiction here, but they currently had no S-Rank Hunter available. That meant their only choice was to sell the Gate to a guild with S-Rank manpower.
A pity. If the Association had an S-Rank of its own, they could've swallowed this A-Rank Dungeon whole. Woo Jin-chul and Chairman Go Gunhee had invited Sung Jinwoo before—but he'd turned them down.
After a few more questions, Woo Jin-chul let Scáthach go. She wasn't a criminal to be hauled off in chains.
Over the next few days, Scáthach toured the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Russia—sampling local flavors—before returning to South Korea.
The A-Rank Dungeon she'd found earlier had been purchased by South Korea's top guild, the Hunters Guild, and today was the raid's start day.
By the time Scáthach reached the construction site where the Dungeon had appeared, plenty of Hunters Guild personnel were already gathered—but they weren't the raid team. The strike force had entered long ago. Those stationed at the Gate were mainly the mining unit, responsible for harvesting mana crystals and rare minerals, and the retrieval unit, tasked with collecting monster corpses.
High-rank Dungeons were massive. A single team couldn't do everything, so the work was divided.
Modern machinery that relied purely on electricity didn't function inside a Dungeon. That was why so much manpower was required.
"The raid team hasn't come out yet?"
A few Hunters dressed like miners clustered near the Gate—clearly the mining unit.
No one would be wise to look down on them. Most of the Hunters here were D-Rank and C-Rank. Not a single E-Rank was among them. In other words, before the System, Sung Jinwoo wouldn't even have qualified to be one of these "miners."
"Kid, why are you in such a hurry?" An older veteran from the mining unit slung an arm around the young man's shoulders and grinned. "They haven't been in there that long, have they? This is an A-Rank Gate. With your scrawny frame, if you ran into a monster in there, you wouldn't even be enough to fill its teeth."
A mining-unit member with a thin mustache chimed in, "It's for our safety, too. Only after they clear everything except the Final Boss can we and the retrieval unit do our jobs smoothly… I heard Hunter Cha is leading the team this time. It should wrap up fast."
The younger miner blinked. "Hunter Cha? Doesn't Guild Master Choi usually lead?"
"Guild Master Choi works enough for three lifetimes," the veteran said patiently. Pride filled every word—pride in belonging to the Hunters Guild. "He's leading another A-Rank Dungeon raid right now. Two S-Rank Hunters leading two A-Rank raids at once—South Korea has only one guild with that kind of depth and guts."
Another miner wandered over, grinning. "Can't believe we managed to clear two A-Rank Dungeons back-to-back. Once everything wraps up, let's all grab a drink."
"You paying?"
"Hell no—our captain's treating! Hahaha!"
"You punk—always after my wallet!"
The miners laughed and roughhoused, the mood easy and relaxed.
Then, the young man who'd spoken first hesitantly raised a hand. "Uh… I might not make it. I have plans tonight and for the next few days…"
Instantly, several gazes snapped toward him, and he stiffened.
The veteran spoke first—voicing what everyone wanted to know.
"Plans? With who? A guy or a girl?"
"…" The young man ducked his head, his voice barely above a whisper. "A… girl."
More and more eyes fixed on him, their intensity nearly unbearable.
Smack!
The veteran gave him a hearty slap on the back.
"Good man! I was wondering why you kept glancing at the Gate, waiting for the raid team. So that's it—you've got important business, huh?"
"Is she cute? Got a photo?"
"You sly kid! When did this happen? You've been hiding it that deeply?!"
Gossip was ingrained into human nature, and South Koreans were no exception—if anything, they were especially hopeless addicts, since love of gossip was universal.
Suddenly, an eerie gust of wind swept past.
They reflexively looked around but saw nothing unusual. Shrugging it off, they returned to their tasks.
At that moment, Scáthach had already passed through the Gate, entering the A-Rank Dungeon she'd discovered—now under Hunters Guild ownership.
The "strange wind" had been her.
As she moved past, no one had noticed.
There wasn't much to say about the Dungeon itself: a sealed mountain cavern. The mana here was noticeably denser than on Earth's side, explaining why Gates always leaked mana outward. Still, it couldn't compare to the Land of Shadows.
As soon as Scáthach stepped inside, monster corpses came into view, scattered everywhere. Once the raid team killed everything but the Final Boss, and the mining unit finished extracting rare minerals, the retrieval team would come in to haul these bodies away.
"So weak…" Scáthach murmured, walking past the corpses. "Creatures this feeble wouldn't survive a day in my Land of Shadows."
Even in death, she could gauge their strength from the lingering mana.
"Little Jinwoo…" She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "He should be clearing the Demon Castle about now."
She remembered the Boss of the hundredth floor—the Monarch of White Flames, ruler of demons. After ambushing Ashborn, that coward hadn't been fortunate enough to escape like the Monarch of Fangs. Instead, Ashborn had sealed his power and imprisoned him in the Demon Castle, serving as a trial for his successor.
"Even sealed, he's still a Monarch… It'd be nice to test myself against him…"
Scáthach's fighting spirit surged—but in the end, she shook her head and suppressed it.
"No, no. That's Ashborn's trial for little Jinwoo. What kind of teacher steals her disciple's prey?"
"Better to just beat up the disciple instead."
If Sung Jinwoo passed the trial, it meant he'd surpassed the Monarch of White Flames. In that case…
Wouldn't fighting Sung Jinwoo afterward be even more satisfying?
...
"Achoo—!"
Somewhere inside the Demon Castle, Sung Jinwoo suddenly felt a chill down his spine and sneezed, startling the demon-girl fangirling beside him.
...
The paths inside the Dungeon twisted into a tangled maze, yet Scáthach's steps remained calm and confident. She didn't hesitate at any fork—as if she knew the layout by heart.
Through mana perception, she already knew exactly where each path led. She also sensed the locations of the Hunters Guild raid team and the Final Boss.
Thus, she was aware that Cha Hae-In's team was approaching, apparently returning to the Gate's exit. Scáthach didn't move to avoid them. Instead, she headed straight toward them.
The raid team chatted and laughed as they walked. Someone suggested celebrating once the mission ended. Another mentioned having earned enough to buy new gear. Others simply boasted or talked nonsense.
Cha Hae-In led from the front, pressing a handkerchief to her mouth and nose.
Her sense of smell was extremely sharp—or rather, she was highly sensitive to mana's "scent." It was an old issue of hers. The stronger a Hunter or monster was, the more mana they possessed—and the more unbearable it became for her.
Suddenly, Cha Hae-In stopped, sensing something. She raised a hand, halting everyone behind her. The other Hunters reacted a beat slower but swiftly formed up, weapons drawn.
Under their watchful gaze, Scáthach slowly emerged into view.