58 – Searching Together (3)
“First, let’s… go in.”
Marie assured me, holding my hand, and I didn’t even hear why those people had come.
Moreover, I thought it would be a loss to rush out of here once the anger subsided.
I took my place in front of the child, Sila.
“Phew… I’m sorry. This person often gets carried away when they like something too much. On behalf of Hexen Hive, I apologize.”
As Isaac handed over a hefty apology, even the remaining emotions disappeared.
Sila, who sat next to him, looked at Isaac with an incredulous look, but Isaac himself seemed unfazed.
“Yes, it’s fine.”
When I responded in a nonchalant tone, Isaac gave Sila a meaningful glance.
It seemed like he was urging her to speak up.
“Tsk.”
Sila clicked her tongue briefly and then alternated her gaze between me and Marie before speaking.
“First, let me ask you one thing. Did you find the crack I had hidden?”
Did I create it?
In an instant, the round gate located in the Demilitarized Zone came to mind.
There was nothing else that could be the hidden crack he was talking about, at least from my own experience.
“If you’re asking about the gate located in the Demilitarized Zone, then yes.”
“How did you find it?”
“Through vibrations.”
I revealed that I had utilized the vibrations unfolded through my awakening abilities as a radar or sonar to locate the gate.
Sila, with bowed head, muttered the word “vibration” repeatedly and asked me while looking at me.
“Vibrations? You found it through something like vibrations?”
“Yes.”
“…Strange. You found that heavily concealed crack just with vibrations?”
“It’s true.”
He seemed skeptical or unable to believe my words.
However, it was indeed the truth.
There was no hesitation in my expression or the tone of my response.
“That vibration you were talking about, can you show it here now?”
“Now… here?”
“Yes. Please, make sure to.”
As he emphasized the word “please,” his gaze was too heavy and solemn.
It was a gaze overflowing with more pressure than anyone I had seen so far.
I realized that even if I were angry, stepping back was purely out of consideration.
And that the anger I had revealed could become a legacy.
“Yes.”
Although it was still difficult to fully believe, a person couldn’t exert such pressure.
Even an S-class hunter couldn’t do it.
So, it didn’t seem strange at all that it could be something far beyond, like a dragon, for example.
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So, I willingly generated a weak vibration.
It was much weaker than what is used when exploring the surroundings.
“Hmm…”
As if feeling the vibration, Sila’s eyelids twitched.
After showing a moment of contemplation, Sila finally opened his mouth.
The longer he remained silent, the more suffocating the atmosphere became.
Without realizing it, the thought that I had also lived unknowingly came to mind.
“Do you understand? Didn’t you already know about Yu Sihu’s awakening ability as a hunter?”
Isaac looked at me with a questioning expression.
“As a human, there’s no way to know. Anyway, just keep your mouth shut. It’s too noisy.”
“…Yes.”
After Isaac gave a sarcastic remark and left, Silas’s gaze turned towards me.
“Your awakening ability has a unique aspect. Even if magicians do the same thing, they won’t get the same results.”
“Unique you say?”
Mari and I spoke with voices that sounded more terrifying than we intended.
Wouldn’t someone think that we had planned our reactions in advance?
“It has a nature of interfering with mana. I don’t know why, but that’s the reality.”
“I don’t quite understand what you mean by interfering with mana.”
What does it mean to interfere? Is it obstruction or urging?
Even as the person who uses vibrations, I couldn’t sense anything.
I only knew that it could be used when tracking through experience.
Silas pursed her lips for a moment and replied.
She seemed to have thought of an appropriate expression.
“It means having a nature that activates mana. That’s why my hidden crack was revealed in detail.”
“I’m sorry. Even if you explain, I still don’t quite understand.”
I don’t think my brain is bad.
But I couldn’t understand exactly what Silas meant.
It was best to just brush it off and think, “Mana is wriggling.”
Silas also seemed to have no intention of explaining in detail, as she shook her head.
“If you can’t understand, don’t try to understand. This is not a theoretical matter, it’s a matter of senses.”
“Is that so?”
“Hmm. Don’t focus on how that sense feels right now. Let’s put it aside.”
Anyway.
Silas cleared her throat as if trying to correct the divergence in the topic.
“If you’ve found my crack, you should be able to find its hiding place as well. So I hope you can help me. I unintentionally found a lead at last.”
Sila twisted the corner of his mouth into a smile, but the sight was very aggressive.
His gaze was sharp and gave off a starving wolf-like feeling.
The emotions concealed in his words were intense and deep.
“Who is that guy you’re talking about?”
“That guy? In simple terms… the culprit who opened the crack and spread the chaos.”
“What… chaos?”
Gate. The moment he heard that word, his face turned pale.
The woman sitting next to him, as if knowing it was a matter of life and death, had her eyes wide open and stiff.
Isaac seemed indifferent, as if he had already heard the story.
“It’s easy to assume that Gate is not a natural phenomenon.”
“Well… I suppose.”
Gate had been occurring for a very long time, but it wasn’t a natural occurrence.
The awakened beings born under its influence also appeared suddenly.
This was information that could be easily obtained with a little knowledge of history.
However, the fact that clues about the culprit behind this phenomenon suddenly appeared…
“Is the culprit… perhaps human?”
When Marie asked this question with an obvious ‘no’ tone, Sila chuckled.
“I don’t understand why you’re asking such a question when you already know the answer. Isn’t it in the memories I implanted?”
“It was hard to believe that a dragon could be the culprit.”
“I can’t believe it even when I see it with my own eyes. It’s not completely incomprehensible.”
When Marie heard her question and Sila’s answer, her eyes narrowed.
The dragon, which had only been heard of as a legend, was right in front of her.
However, since the dragon said he was the culprit behind the Gate, it seemed plausible.
He had drawn the line at making a dragon a fictional existence, but the dragons described in various media were almost omnipotent.
“So, can you open the Gate too?”
“If I tried, I could. But there’s no need for someone like me to do that. Except for one.”
“Are you talking about the culprit you mentioned?”
“Yes. He stood out even among us.”
The culprit who opened the Gate was exceptional.
I felt once again that Silla’s perspective was different from mine.
If he was truly human, he would have been angry or at least shown signs of irritation.
Of course, among hunters, there are those who worship Gates as a way to make money, but they are a minority.
If they had experienced being overwhelmed themselves or had seen their teammates die, they would never welcome Gates.
Silla looked at me as if he found me annoying and said, “Listen to the details from your girlfriend. What’s important now is your ability.”
“Didn’t you find it yourself?”
“He and I are on the same level. So if he hides intentionally, it’s impossible to find him. Just as he couldn’t find my crack, I couldn’t find his hiding place either.”
“Then isn’t the situation unfavorable now that the Gate is clearly exposed?”
“No. On the contrary, because it was so blatantly exposed, we can’t afford to get involved. If I try to intervene in the current situation, I’m sure he’ll notice. In reality, that’s how it is. Things went surprisingly well unintentionally.”
When Silla showed confidence, a sigh escaped me.
Luckily, it seemed that no one near the Gate would be seriously injured.
“That’s a relief. I was worried someone might get hurt because of that. Anyway, what should I do?”
“I plan to conduct investigations mainly on uninhabited islands using your abilities.”
“Uninhabited islands?”
When I asked why it had to be uninhabited islands, Silla answered.
“If he wants to run a breeding ground and experimental facility at the same time, he needs enough land for that. And it’s not easy to find suitable land in areas populated by humans. If he reaches out, he’ll give himself away to me.”
In the end, to avoid Silla’s gaze.
And to handle the situation quietly, it meant going to uninhabited islands.
However,
“Is he not creating land to operate on?”
“No matter how strong a dragon is, it’s impossible to create new land. It’s possible to pull up land that has sunk under the sea, but then it would be too conspicuous.”
Well, that’s true.
As I nodded my understanding, Silla stood up from his seat.
It seemed like he was physically expressing that he had finished saying everything he needed to say.
“Just know that you’ve accepted my request. Are you okay with that?”
“Yes. Of course.”
If we can close the Gate, the sacrifices will be reduced.
For me, it is a welcome development.
I cannot predict what will happen next, but just the reduction of the threat of monsters will make this world worth living in.
If there was one problem, it was the gate that currently existed in the demilitarized zone.
“However, what will you do next?”
“Next?”
“After resolving the gate that is currently opening randomly.”
“Hmm. I suppose the crack I installed is bothering you?”
“To be honest…yes.”
If the gate was disconnected, they couldn’t continue to travel as they were now. They had to make a choice.
The people who had crossed over would also have to return to their hometowns.
But Sila responded, twisting the corner of her mouth as if to say not to worry.
“Don’t worry. I’ll maintain that crack.”
She turned her back and spoke for the last time.
“Contact me in a few days. We’ll then make a detailed plan.”