Chapter 10 - Hunting Grounds

Translator: Roshi

Gate Break.

A phenomenon where monsters come flooding out of a Gate when it isn't cleared according to its conditions.

'But why is that happening here?'

If a Gate had appeared nearby, there was no way I wouldn't have known about it.

There had been nothing around the area even as late as when I came in to work.

And if a Gate had appeared, Management Bureau staff or guild members should have shown up long ago.

"Kyaaaah!"

But now wasn't the time to ask why.

I immediately rushed outside with Cer.

"Ssaem!"

Park Ji-yeon called out, but we were already out of the hospital.

GROOAARRR!

When I got outside, Trolls carrying massive clubs were pouring out of the Gate and roaring.

People were scattering in a panic.

Fortunately, no one appeared to be dead or injured yet.

But a child near the Gate, who looked to be around elementary school age, tripped and fell while trying to run.

"Waaaaah!"

A Troll that spotted the child swung its club and started moving toward them.

Park Ji-yeon, who had followed me out, covered her mouth with her hand at the sight.

I called Cer.

"Cer, can you handle this?"

Kking! Of course, master!

Safety-first as I may be.

I couldn't just stand here and watch someone die right in front of me.

'I've got Absolute Shield too, so I should be able to manage rescuing the kid somehow.'

I looked at Cer  and nodded.

"Let's go!"

There was no time for a detailed explanation, but.

The plan was simple.

Send Cer in first to draw aggro.

Meanwhile, I'd use Absolute Shield as cover and grab the kid and bolt.

Cer was my Contract Beast, so he should've understood at least this much through our bond.

Kkinggg!!

At my word, Cer shot forward.

I also sprinted toward the child.

But then.

GWUURRK!

GUURK!

"Huh?"

Cer, who had shot out like a bullet, leaped straight at a Troll and unsheathed his claws.

GUURK!

One Troll's head flew clean off in a single hit.

GROAAAR! SPLAT.

The Troll next to it saw what happened and swung its massive club at Cer.

"Cer!!"

I screamed, but.

CRACK!

The club snapped in two against Cer's swipe.

"Uh..."

SLASH, CRUNCH! GUURK!

The battle was over in an instant.

The Trolls that had come out of the Gate were torn apart like tissue paper by Cer's claws and teeth.

Maybe because I had told him not to breathe fire outside, or maybe because he was worried about catching bystanders in the crossfire, he didn't use fire.

But claws and teeth alone were enough to bring down every last Troll.

"Waaaaah?"

The child I had helped to their feet stopped crying and stared blankly after Cer, eyes wide.

I was watching Cer  with the exact same expression.

"...Wow."

Trolls were, to my knowledge, Monsters averaging around C to D-Rank.

Bosses or the stronger ones could even reach B-Rank.

On top of that, Rank wasn't everything when it came to Monsters.

Trolls were known for their powerful regeneration, so to beat them in close combat, you had to finish them in one blow.

And Cer had just demolished those terrifyingly huge things, one shot one kill, just like that.

Kking!

After confirming all the Trolls were dead, Cer ripped open their corpses and pulled out the Mana Stones with his mouth.

Then he brought them over and set them down in front of me, one by one.

As if I'd said "Fetch, Cer!" and tossed a ball for him.

Having deposited all the Mana Stones at my feet in the blink of an eye, Cer wagged his tail in big, sweeping arcs.

Kking! Did I do good, master?

"Yeah, Cer. You did so good. Seriously."

Normally, when praising a dog, you're supposed to react with a lot more excitement and enthusiasm.

But I was so dumbfounded that my response came out flat, like I was reading from a textbook.

Still, Cer didn't seem to mind, happily panting and savoring my hand as I stroked him.

"Wow, is his name Cer? Cer is super strong!"

The kid, apparently feeling safe now that things had calmed down, looked up at me and Cer with stars in their eyes.

"Yeah, I guess so. Really strong."

Even I didn't know he was this strong.

Come to think of it, the Mana Stones Cer had brought back.

They were smaller than the Mana Stone he'd first brought home.

The glow was a bit duller too.

I didn't know how to appraise their exact Rank.

But I could at least tell, relatively speaking, that these were lower-Rank Mana Stones.

'...Then what kind of Gate did Cer clear on his own back then?'

The thought crossed my mind that Cer might be far stronger than I had imagined.

"Minu!!"

Just then, someone came running over from across the street.

It seemed to be the kid's mother.

"Oh, Minu... Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"

"Nope. This mister and Cer saved me."

"Thank you so much, truly! I left him outside for just a moment while I was shopping at the mart..."

Minu's mother hugged him and patted his back, then bowed her head to me over and over.

"How could I ever repay this kindness..."

"Haha, it's really fine. We just did what we could."

I hadn't actually done anything, to be honest.

Cer did it all.

'But how am I supposed to handle this?'

Originally, I was just going to save the kid and stall for time until the hunters arrived.

But somehow, Cer had wiped them all out in the blink of an eye.

Should I ask the people here to pretend they didn't see what just happened?

I wasn't sure that would work, but first let me check who the witnesses were...

"Oh."

I turned my head toward the hospital and froze.

"...Kim Jun-o-nim?"

There stood Kim Jun-o and Kim Young-min in suits, mouths hanging open, their black sunglasses lowered in their hands.

"A Gate Break?! Where?!"

And.

"Huh? Jeong Shin-hu-nim and Cer?"

Kang Ye-ri, who had come running in workout clothes, was there too.

*

"...So basically, I gained one more skill, and it turned out to be a Taming-type skill."

I had no choice but to explain things with the truth slightly bent.

"I see. To be honest, we had already been guessing that you might have obtained a new skill, Jeong Shin-hu-nim."

"Pardon?"

"When we traced the detection bearing of an A-Rank Gate that appeared recently, it pointed directly at the Animal Hospital..."

Listening to them, it seemed that when Cer had emerged from the storage room, it had briefly registered on their sensors as an A-Rank Gate.

'Wait, does that mean our Cer  was an A-Rank Monster?'

I recalled a few names from the terrifying roster of A-Rank Monsters and swallowed hard.

"And a B-Rank Gate was also pointing in your direction, Jeong Shin-hu-nim."

On top of that, it turned out the Gate that Cer had cleared solo without a hitch was a B-Rank Gate.

Considering that even for B-Rank Gates, an A-Rank Hunter was deployed for boss-type Gates to ensure a safe clear.

That alone spoke volumes about how strong Cer was.

'At home, he stares at the robot vacuum with nervous eyes and hugs his Comfort Toy...'

And that same Cer was a terrifying A-Rank Monster.

It suddenly sank in that Cer had been "Cerberus, the Hell Hound."

"Cer  came out of that A-Rank Gate. I used my Taming skill to make him my Contract Beast."

"Ohhh... Impressive, as expected. If I may ask, what Rank is the skill...?"

"...S-Rank."

I hesitated briefly before answering S-Rank.

Since I didn't actually know much about Taming skills, if I said A-Rank and they came back with follow-up questions like "But isn't there a restriction between same-Rank entities? How did you manage that?", I'd be in trouble.

"S-Rank...! Wow. As expected of Jeong Shin-hu-nim."

Kim Jun-o marveled.

"Then could the previously detected S-Rank estimated Gate have been...?"

"Ah, I don't know about that one."

I flat-out denied it.

For one thing, I hadn't even met Cer until after that incident.

If the existence of Absolute Shield was discovered, the Management Bureau would undoubtedly want to send me into Gates.

"I see..."

The look in his eyes was ambiguous, as if he half-believed me.

But he let it slide for now.

"In any case, the reason we came was to propose a contract to you, Jeong Shin-hu-nim. Since you've been so open with us, this should go quickly."

"A contract..."

"Young-min, pull it out."

"Yes, sir!"

"Please, take a look."

Kim Jun-o extended a contract.

I started reading it just to be polite, but soon my eyes went wide.

"No obligation to respond to Gate mobilization calls...?"

Hunters under contract with the Management Bureau were obligated to respond to mobilization when a Gate above a certain scale appeared.

In the case of dangerous Gates that could threaten the nation's very existence, even guilds were drafted and forced to join forces.

This was a matter of public authority.

Of course, given how powerful Awakeners were, even greater power was needed to keep them in check.

And that role was filled by the Management Bureau Director, SS-Rank Hunter Son Heon-hui.

But this contract was saying I would be exempt from that obligation.

In other words, I could just clear safe Gates that I wanted to clear.

If something looked too tough, I could just not do it, and nobody would say a word.

"This has been approved by the higher-ups."

That wasn't all.

Preferential Mana Stone settlement rates, reduced material sales commissions, free cancer screenings, once-a-year comprehensive health checkups for the whole family, and the list of benefits went on and on.

"So I just sign this and I get all of these?"

It felt like the kind of thing someone says right before getting swindled.

'But this contract really is almost all rights and no obligations?'

At this level, not signing would be the foolish choice.

'Plus, I can sell all the Mana Stones Cer brings back at the preferential rate.'

The fact that Cer was a Monster was already out in the open.

And the cover story about the Taming skill had gone over successfully.

'If that's the case, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to sign while the terms are this good?'

But there was still one thing nagging at me.

I asked Kim Jun-o.

"You said that thing outside is an Emission Gate, correct?"

"Yes, that's correct."

One of the new types of Gates.

It looks like a Gate Break, but it starts spewing out Monsters the moment it forms, and it doesn't close even after the first wave.

Monsters burst out at regular intervals, requiring constant management until it disappears on its own, making it an extremely tricky Gate that ate up a massive amount of manpower.

There was no telling exactly when it would vanish.

And since the intervals weren't perfectly consistent either, letting your guard down meant Monsters could come pouring out at any moment.

The best approach was to have someone stationed there at all times.

And the entity best suited for that role was none other than Cer.

That was exactly what Kim Jun-o had asked for along with the contract.

"As you're aware, there was a large-scale joint raid not long ago, so the number of Hunters currently available to stand by is critically low. Especially high-Rank Hunters."

On top of that, Cer had sensed the Emission Gate before it had even formed and given me a warning.

When I asked, he said he could detect things to some extent in advance by smell.

It didn't work at long range, only within a close radius.

But flipping that around, it meant that as long as he was stationed nearby, he could know in advance exactly when Monsters were about to be released.

But the most important thing was.

"Cer!"

Kking?

Cer, who had been playing outside with Hunter Kang Ye-ri, immediately perked up and came in at my call.

I scratched under Cer's chin as I spoke.

"Would you like to do this kind of work, where you take down Monsters that come out of Emission Gates, like you did today?"

Kking? Kking! I'll do whatever you tell me, master!

But I shook my head.

"No, I'm asking what you want. Whether you want to do it, or don't want to."

Watching Cer hunt those Trolls earlier, I had realized something.

Namely, that Cer had looked like he was having the time of his life while hunting.

At first, he had charged in to protect the child.

But after that, the way he hunted those Trolls was like a fish back in water.

'I read something about this once.'

People had watched a video of people in a snowy, cold region raising sled dogs and having them pull sleds, and the comments were full of reactions like "I feel so bad for the dogs" and "How could they make them pull something that heavy?"

Then a post went up that said:

-No you guys don't understand, for sled dogs that IS playing. These dogs run dozens of kilometers a day. They have so much energy you literally can't keep up with them just letting them run around, so you need to give them a sled to pull just to burn it off. The dogs are actually like "yay! Something to pull!" and love it even more

Followed by:

-Obviously if you're actually overworking them beyond their limits or not feeding them properly while making them pull, that's abuse. But judging from a human perspective and refusing to let them run because you feel sorry for them is what actually gives them depression

Recalling that post made me think that maybe I, too, had only been considering things from my own perspective.

Cer was a dog whose job in Hell had been hunting.

A walk in the park and fetching a ball might not be nearly enough to satisfy that hunting instinct.

Of course, as my Contract Beast, he would sit still if I told him not to.

But if that ended up making Cer depressed...

That wasn't what I wanted.

That was why I was asking Cer what he wanted to do.

Cer answered right away.

Kkinggg!! Then I wanna do it!

"Really? You like hunting?"

Kking! Yep!

Cer wagged his tail in big, sweeping arcs.

Seeing that reaction, I looked at Kim Jun-o and nodded.

"I'll do it. The contract."

It was Day 3 since bringing Cer home.

He got himself a hunting ground.