By Zephyria 
“What’s there to worry about with that man around? He’d probably drag a dead person back from the grave by the collar if he had to.”
The reporter even yawned. For the sake of high view counts and creating a buzz, people should have been crawling out of the portal unconscious and drenched in blood, but with Tae-un involved, that was unlikely. If anything, he’d be the one dragging out a blood-soaked Portal Keeper.
Another reporter smirked.
“Can’t you smell it?”
“Your bad breath?”
“Fuck, not that. Not just the Guild Master, but Pi Min-hyeong and Seo Gae-un are in there too. Don’t you think this was a trap set specifically for the Seven Guild? If it goes well, it feels like we’ll get a great scoop.”
“Whatever scoop you get, just make sure you write the article well. Because that article might end up being your will. I’m bowing out; I don’t want to be killed by the Guild Master for rubbing him the wrong way.”
The fellow reporter played innocent, hiding the fact that he had already sent out contacts to dig up information on people who might have a motive to trap the 7777 Guild.
A similar concern was weighing on the 7777 Guild. In the empty representative’s office, Chief Secretary Yang Eun-ho let out a desolate sigh. It wasn’t out of worry for Tae-un or the others swept into the Id Portal.
‘There are too many people capable of doing something like this; I can’t even get a lead.’
He was narrowing the scope by mobilizing all available information networks, but there had been no significant results yet. Once the culprit was found, crushing them would be easy. The problem was the smooth cleanup as a member of society. Thinking about how the media would pounce on the story gave him a headache.
‘The best case is that not a single civilian gets hurt and everyone comes out safely, but…’
Only if there were no injured civilians could they speak loudly and assertively. As he pondered, Yang Eun-ho’s eyes suddenly rested on a statue decorating the console.
It was a statue made from the bones of Myeong-sa, an S-class magical beast hunted in Mount Geumgang ten years ago.
However, the hidden story behind that statue was different from what was known to the public. At the time, the son of the North Korean head of state had become the host of an Id Portal. To resolve the situation secretly, the North Korean government threw in all their highest-ranking hunters, but they failed to clear the portal in the end. If left alone, setting aside the death of the successor, the First Office and Pyongyang were on the verge of becoming a den of magical beasts.
With their backs against the wall, North Korea took the political risk and urgently requested help from the South Korean government.
Specifically, they pointed to Tae-un alone.
An uncleared Id Portal is most dangerous just before it undergoes mutation. While the world is wide and hunters are many, Tae-un was the only hunter with the possibility of solo-clearing an Id Portal on the verge of mutation—one that drove even those who entered it insane.
Despite warnings of the danger, Tae-un readily complied with the request, and the 7777 Guild crossed into North Korea under the pretext of a Myeong-sa raid. This was a truth known only to a tiny handful of close aides within the guild.
To maintain secrecy, Tae-un entered alone and not only cleared it without major injury but also rescued and brought out the North Korean hunters who were dying from mental collapse.
Immediately after, without even resting, he crossed over to Mount Geumgang and hunted Myeong-sa.
‘Right. Tae-un hyung is in the Id Portal.’
Suddenly, his worries vanished.
Due to the internal chaos in North Korea, the head of state died in a mysterious accident six months later. Although the son who defected to South Korea met a futile end by dying of drug addiction, the South Korean government owed Tae-un a great deal in various ways.
Furthermore, the nickname “Mad Dog” also meant that he fought magical beasts without regard for his own safety and saved countless people. In every battle, large or small, to reclaim territory from magical beasts, Tae-un’s back was always there.
Toba Zhisyu Husarski of Daejeon and the Guild Master of the Avengers in Busan also enjoyed public support, but it was incomparable to Tae-un, whose process of fighting desperately and growing as a teenage boy had been witnessed directly by the citizens.
People still remember the moment the young boy who rescued refugees in Seoul, despite being gravely injured and covered in blood, killed the upper-stream beast and liberated Busan from the magical beasts.
If one were to collect only the thank-you letters from the people he saved, they would overflow and fill this vast representative’s office. Because of his high fame, there were many who envied him and enemies created by his personality, but even they could not dare deny Tae-un’s achievements.
‘If it’s Tae-un hyung, he’ll rescue the civilians safely and come out…’
If so, even if the media pushed the narrative, the public would not respond to it.
Having once again realized the clear solution—that an incident caused by Tae-un is solved by Tae-un—Yang Eun-ho left the representative’s office with a light step.
✽ ✽ ✽
An Id Portal projects and reflects the host’s mental landscape into reality.
Because of this, although they are classified as instance dungeons, they are not spaces perfectly identical to reality. A studio apartment the size of a palm could be configured into a vast expanse where the horizon is invisible, and an ordinary school could mutate into a hellscape. Since it reveals human nature, there were cases where the host’s hidden crimes were brought to light.
In that sense, the current Id Portal could be called relatively mundane. Except for the fact that as soon as they deviated from the path toward the deepest point where the core would be, magical beasts were pouring toward Tae-un and Seo Gae-un like crazy.
“Kiaaaa!”
“Krarara!”
Three-horned gorani, Hererasaurus, Red Lithops… swarms of magical beasts, too numerous to count, rushed in with wide-open maws sporting sharp tusks and claws possessing the monstrous strength to tear humans apart.
Facing the flood of magical beasts, Seo Gae-un fixed a large shield to her left arm and swung a battle axe with her right hand. The axe blade, smeared with the flesh and blood of magical beasts, once again sliced through flesh and crushed bone.
“Hyaaah!”
While slamming the bottom of the shield down onto a beast’s neck, she swung the axe to split the skull of another, and she kicked away a small magical beast trying to inject poison into her leg with her opposite foot. The large magical beast that collided with the flying beast ended up with a huge hole punched through its torso.
They were numerous, but none were particularly threatening. Seo Gae-un repeated her mechanical attacks while following the question in her mind.
‘Tae-un oppa is famous, so that’s one thing, but it’s definitely strange that among so many people swept into the portal, only three hunters from our guild are here.’
Furthermore, the timing of the Id Portal’s formation was coincidental. It happened the moment Pi Min-hyeong and she parked at the department store—immediately after entering the portal’s domain. She had been holding her tongue because of the outsiders, but didn’t it seem like a portal targeting them?
‘People who would hold a grudge… there are too many.’
Having been a hunter for over 20 years, he had many friends and many enemies. Especially Tae-un, who had a history of wreaking havoc even in political circles, was overwhelmingly the latter. It was only because the politicians who could have served as a focal point for those harboring malice were all dead that there were no particular sanctions against the 7777 Guild.
Regardless, the first priority was to clear the portal.
After countless exchanges of offense and defense where she disregarded even being injured by the beasts, the last magical beast fell. Seo Gae-un sat astride the beast’s carcass, panting for breath.
Tae-un, who had been standing with his arms crossed, only taking down the beasts that approached him, finally walked over to her.
“Phew, haah. Oh, thank you.”
Taking the canteen, Seo Gae-un gulped down the water. Seo Gae-un was the possessor of an ultra-high-speed recovery ability limited to herself. Her guild uniform was torn in several places, but not a single scratch was visible on the bare skin revealed through the rips.
“Since the attacks intensified as soon as we left the path, I guess there really is an outer core.”
“Tsk.”
Tae-un clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction. The measuring device, which had less than a 30 percent chance of being right, happened to be accurate today. Just his luck.
“As for me, it feels like training since it’s been a while since I hunted a swarm of beasts alone, so it’s good. But are you okay, oppa?”
“With what.”
“Can’t we go back to the mentor only after we break the outer core quickly?”
Though Seo Gae-un was an unbreakable shield, her firepower inevitably had limits. The current hunt, which took her over an hour alone, would have been cleaned up in less than half the time if Tae-un had joined in earnest.
“If I go back early, I’ll just look stronger in hyung’s eyes.”
“Couldn’t time flow differently for each person? Besides, doesn’t the mentor watch the news? Just one internet search would reveal that Tae-un oppa is a top-ranking hunter.”
“Si-baek hyung hardly uses the internet. He originally wanted to buy a folder phone; I barely managed to get him to switch to a smartphone.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he’s an elderly man.”
Seo Gae-un was momentarily speechless. First of all, “elderly”—even if he was, isn’t he only in his 40s? In an era of “60 is the new youth,” a man in his 40s who doesn’t use the internet because he’s elderly.
“I’ve been curious since I first met you, but you seem to be an old acquaintance. How did you come to know him? If he’s a local, there’s no way I or Min-hyung oppa wouldn’t know him. Was he someone who came to the orphanage for volunteer work?”
“….”
Tae-un’s languid gaze landed on her, making Seo Gae-un blink in curiosity. However, the gaze was withdrawn as indifferently as it had arrived.
“No need to know. Even if you did, you wouldn’t.”
It was an ambiguous statement. While Seo Gae-un pondered the meaning of his words, Tae-un gave a bored jerk of his chin.
“If you’re done resting, let’s go.”
After repelling a few more swarms of magical beasts, what appeared before the two of them was the towering headquarters of the 7777 Guild, soaring as if to pierce the sky.
“…Dammit.”
Seo Gae-un chewed on a low curse. The possibility that the host of the Id Portal was someone related to Tae-un had just increased significantly.