Chapter 6

After hastily making do with cereal for breakfast, Seong-ha pulled out the large bag she had shoved into a corner of her closet.

She swept the clothes from her closet and the emergency money she had saved over the years into the bag.

[Where are you going? Why are you packing clothes?]

“This house was given to me by that man. If I want to cut ties with him completely, I have to leave.”

[Hmm, that man?]

“You’ll see him soon.”

[Well, all right. Then where are you going?]

“Anywhere would be better than this house.”

As she packed, Seong-ha naturally thought of Ha Seong-woon’s face, and her brows furrowed.

But knowing that even that long, miserable connection would finally be severed after today made her feel rather pleased.

Now that she had awakened as a High-Rank Weapon Creator, she needed to leave the Zodiac Guild as soon as possible.

Of course, they wouldn’t let her go easily now that she had become so valuable.

If anything, they would probably work her to the bone, making her compensate for everything she hadn’t been able to do in the past.

But Seong-ha hadn’t spent all those years doing nothing either.

In order to become stronger and escape Zodiac, Ha Seong-ha had been collecting evidence.

The recordings of the verbal abuse Ha Seong-woon and Ha Seong-dan hurled at me were backed up to the cloud long ago.

And I also smuggled out evidence of their plans to join forces with the Cheongwol Guild and bring down the Salvation Guild.

A few months ago, the foolish Ha Seong-dan had called her to his office at Zodiac headquarters and then left her waiting because he was late.

He had underestimated her so badly that he hadn’t even logged out of his computer before leaving the office.

Ha Seong-ha had immediately copied every file stored on his computer’s hard drive onto a USB drive.

In the past, even if a powerless Ha Seong-ha had taken such evidence to a media outlet, it would obviously have been buried.

They wouldn’t have accepted her story for fear of antagonizing Zodiac.

And even if they had, Zodiac would have used its power to make the articles disappear.

But things were different now.

She had become a celebrity whose name was appearing in the headlines of the Hunter community.

To reporters prowling around in search of an exclusive scoop, this evidence was nothing short of irresistible bait.

The fact that a valuable High-Rank Weapon Creator was treated this way by Zodiac will be bait enough to make other guilds come calling.

All I need to do is use that bait to get out of Zodiac.

Having finished her preparations, Seong-ha also retrieved the A-rank special harpoons she had shoved roughly under her bed.

Each one was nearly as large as her body, having been used to kill the boss.

Wondering how she was supposed to carry all of them, Seong-ha suddenly raised her head and called out to Quasar.

“Quasar.”

[Hmm?]

“Give me some ability that lets me carry these things around.”

Seong-ha smiled at the notification window.

“You saved my life, so you can at least do this much, can’t you?”

She had brought along the weapons she had made to kill the boss when she left the dungeon.

She had reluctantly abandoned the Hellfire Dagger she had dropped into the lake to lure Capricorn out, as well as the heavy spear gun.

But not the harpoons.

The harpoons embedded in Capricorn after the monster had been dragged out of the lake and electrocuted to death were all precious capital to her.

She had pulled them out and brought them with her.

She had no intention of ever setting foot in this house again, so she needed to take everything with her now.

But there were more than one or two places she needed to visit after leaving, and carrying all of this around would be a burden.

Even if they were precious A-rank weapons.

“I might as well squeeze everything I can out of you before I die.”

[Hah. You’re already planning to make me work for you.]

[Still, I’m not such a wicked observer that I would ignore the request of the person protecting my world.]

[Do you really think there’s something I can’t do for you?]

“It’s possible?”

[Of course. Just wait.]

That bastard really is a god, isn’t he?

Seong-ha casually swallowed the thought that came to mind and waited for Quasar’s words to appear in the air.

[If I connect the coordinates of an unused dimension like this, and then visualize the coordinates of the objects contained within that dimension……]

[……Done.]

[Try saying, “Inventory.”]

“Inventory? Oh……!”

Just as Quasar instructed, Seong-ha cautiously said the word.

Instead of Quasar’s dialogue window, another new window appeared before her eyes.

The window had a scrollbar on the side, and countless tiny square slots were packed inside it.

It was a familiar-looking window, one she had seen countless times in games.

Seong-ha raised a finger and slowly dragged down the scrollbar.

Empty square slots continued endlessly downward.

[See those square slots? If you bring an item you want to store over whichever slot you want, it will automatically be stored.]

[It’s an item-storage method that’s become popular in another dimension recently. I decided to borrow the idea.]

“Isn’t this basically a game inventory? What exactly do people do in that other dimension you keep talking about?”

[The administrator of that dimension happens to like playing games with humans.]

What kind of dimension is that?

Do they make people participate in battle royales or something?

Seong-ha swallowed the words that had risen to the tip of her tongue.

She nodded and placed one of the harpoons lying on the floor into the inventory window.

As soon as the item was inserted, a tiny image of the harpoon appeared in the square.

After putting all the remaining A-rank weapons into the inventory, Seong-ha grabbed the horn lying on the floor.

It was a trophy she had cut from the monster’s head after killing Capricorn in the dungeon yesterday.

“But why did you tell me to bring this?”

[Ah, I didn’t explain that, did I?]

“What is it?”

[That’s one of the materials you’ll need to close the dimensional rift two years from now.]

“This?”

[Yes. The materials can only be obtained from certain bosses in dungeons.]

[The dimensional membrane is an important barrier separating two dimensions, so to properly seal the cracks, we need to create a key by combining beings from both dimensions.]

[To do that, we need the dungeon bosses that came from other dimensions and you, who have become integrated into this dimension.]

Seong-ha examined the horn in her hand with renewed interest.

It was supposedly a material for the key, but she couldn’t sense anything special about it yet.

[The bosses that provide the materials will appear randomly in dungeons, but I’ll tell you where they are, so don’t worry.]

[Oh, and you can only obtain the material if you personally acquire it after defeating the boss in the dungeon.]

[There are eleven more left, so I’ll be counting on you.]

“You never mentioned that before!”

Quasar’s notification window disappeared.

Feeling as though she had been robbed in broad daylight, Seong-ha let out a deep sigh and put the horn into her inventory.

Well, it’s not as though I’d merely been robbed.

I’ve already got a two-year time bomb strapped to my neck.

Adding one more misfortune to an already hopeless situation shouldn’t make much of a difference……

……It did.

It made a huge difference.

“I have to go to places like that dungeon eleven more times?!”

Seong-ha cursed and pointed accusingly at the empty air, but Quasar still didn’t appear.

Of course, increasing the proficiency of her skills that could grow was something she had to do.

She had originally planned to sell weapons made with her newly acquired skills, make a fortune, and eventually control the world.

Now she needed to revise that plan.

If she was going to enter more A-rank or higher dungeons from now on, she needed to prepare for them in advance.

I really didn’t want to enter those troublesome, dangerous dungeons where I never know what might happen.

In the end, Seong-ha knew perfectly well that cursing at someone who wasn’t even there would only drain her energy.

She clicked her tongue and returned to packing.

Once she had stored the biggest headache—the weapons—in her inventory, there wasn’t much left to carry.

She tossed the card Ha Seong-woon had given her, which could be used to track her location, onto the dining table as though throwing it away.

After putting the bag containing all her necessities into her inventory, Seong-ha took one last look around the now-empty house.

Then she walked outside without a trace of regret.

It would be a lie to say she felt no attachment to the house where she had lived ever since becoming an adult.

But wherever she stayed from now on would surely be better than this old place.

So it didn’t matter.

Seong-ha hailed a taxi on the main road.

As she calmed her heart, which was bouncing between faint excitement and nervousness, she spoke.

“Please take me to Zodiac Guild headquarters.”

If you want to catch a tiger, you have to enter the tiger’s den.

The place where she would settle things and negotiate her departure from Zodiac was the Zodiac headquarters, where Guild Master Ha Seong-woon was.

After getting out of the taxi, Seong-ha looked up at the building before her.

Quasar, which had been quiet for a while, must have gotten bored because it soon slipped a notification window into view.

[Why did you come here? Are you here to meet that man you mentioned earlier?]

“Yeah.”

Truthfully, she never wanted to come here again.

She had no good memories of this place.

Every time she came here, she had felt hurt, as though she were being pushed toward the edge of a cliff.

Even so, this was a place she had to visit at least once.

Ha Seong-ha was still bound to Zodiac.

Now it was time to throw off that leash.

By the time her conversation with Ha Seong-woon ended today, she would decide whether or not to send the evidence she had collected to the media.

“Hey, hey. Look over there.”

“Why? Who came?”

“Over there. The person at the entrance. Isn’t that Ha Seong-ha?”

“Ha Seong-ha? The S-rank?”

The moment she pushed open the transparent revolving door and entered, the eyes lingering around the lobby mercilessly turned toward her.

Even as she calmly met those whispering gazes, Ha Seong-ha straightened her back.

“Wow, isn’t she embarrassed? If I were her and had no skills despite being that rank, I’d be too ashamed to even hold my head up. And she’s walking right through the front door of our guild.”

“Why? Her older brother is the Guild Master of Zodiac, and her younger brother is the leader of a team made up entirely of A-rank Hunters. Besides, did you see the article yesterday? Apparently, she awakened as a High-Rank Weapon Creator.”

“Hey, do you actually believe that? It’s obviously some trash rumor. Ha Seong-ha awakened as an S-rank Hunter years ago. There’s no way she could suddenly awaken a skill now. There’s not even any clear evidence.”

Ha Seong-ha didn’t even glance at the Zodiac Guild members whispering behind her.

Their reactions weren’t much different from what she had seen on the Hunter community that morning.

But their reactions didn’t matter.

[These insignificant humans are making an awful lot of noise.]

Ha Seong-ha really had awakened as a High-Rank Weapon Creator.

Even if they were laughing at her behind her back now, before long, they would be crawling at her feet to obtain her weapons.

And when that happened, she could simply look down on them and laugh.

“Go ahead and laugh as much as you want. You’ll cry just as much later.”

Seong-ha whispered quietly enough that only Quasar could hear.

Then she took out the old guild member ID card she had found in a corner of the house.

Ha Seong-woon would undoubtedly be in the Guild Master’s office on the top floor of the guild building.

If so……

Ha Seong-ha stood before the gate separating guild members from outsiders and held her guild member ID against the reader.

BEEP—!

“……Huh?”

But even after scanning her guild member ID, the gate didn’t open.

Ha Seong-ha straightened the ID card she had been holding at an angle and scanned it again.

BEEP—!

“……”

“……Pfft.”

The gate remained firmly closed.

A suppressed giggle came from behind her.

The gate failing to recognize her guild member ID could only mean one thing.

Ha Seong-ha had been expelled from the Zodiac Guild.

The Zodiac Guild’s member list, which she had checked for the first time in three months, no longer contained Ha Seong-ha’s name.

Seong-ha stared blankly at the gate that refused to open no matter how many times she scanned her ID.

Then she quickly covered her mouth with her hand.

……You idiots.

She had almost let the corners of her mouth shoot all the way up to the ceiling.

Disguising her expression as one of the deepest sorrow, Seong-ha celebrated silently beneath her palm.