The Pursuit Of Power - Volume 1 Chapter 2 Instant Regret

Inside of the Red Gate, Yuuki felt a shiver run down his spine as snow drifted under the minuscule amount of layers he wore.

The climates inside of Red Gates were different and were always extreme, some being chillingly cold whilst others were blisteringly boiling. It seemed this Red Gate which he had entered was the former.

Instantly after entering, the Blue Gate became a Red Gate and Yuuki looked at the swirling Crimson in despair.

Freezing, regret ate away at his insides before he trudged on trying to find a safe place.

It must be known, Red Gates at the least were B-Rank and even the B-Rank Red Gates required 3 A-Rankers to be able to defeat the boss. It was necessary to defeat the boss to leave the Red Gate as they were different from normal Gates because they had a special function where once someone enters the Gate seals itself and not even S-Rankers can do anything then. The only other way for them to open is for a week to pass outside.

However, time on the inside of a Red Gate passed at a ratio of 24:1 which meant that a day inside the Gate was an hour outside.

Shivering, Yuuki looked back at the Gate which stood out from the surroundings and looked for a safe place to get to. He reflected on why the hell he ran into the Gate like an idiot before remembering the immensely strong desire for power. If he had power, he would never have needed to worry about paying for Hana’s medical care, if he had power the situation he was in now would not need to care about what Gate he ran into.

Power was what he needed the most but had almost none of.

Ironically laughing to try and keep his spirits up, he kept moving without stopping, even though the snow surrounding him seemed to be cold, the floor seemed more alluring to him the longer he looked at it. The desire to lie down and sleep attacked him mercilessly and though he desperately wanted to rest, he somehow knew that if he closed his eyes that he would never open them again.

His eyelids grew heavy but he kept his eyes wide open as he pressed on through the icy tundra. Each breath took him all he had whilst every step was almost his last, however, he kept moving without stopping.

In the distance, Yuuki could make out what seemed to be a cave opening.

‘SALVATION!’ Seeing the cave entrance, his movements sped up and his perfect face flushed crimson and from a slow trudge he began to walk, from a walk he began to jog, from a jog he began to run. Not long after, he closed the distance and got into the cave to see 2 White Bears on the inside. One bear looked like a newborn whilst the other was its mother.

Yuuki replicated a mannequin as he didn’t move a muscle, he knew the danger the bear posed and did not look down on it simply because it seemed to had just given birth.

Upon further inspection, the newborn baby was the size of him. Lost in terror, Yuuki’s mind caved in and he collapsed at the attention of the mother bear.

—

Warmth surrounded his body as Yuuki’s eyes trembled and he saw that covering him was something white, his eyes fluttered open and shut before he realized that the giant bear was over him. Its gargantuan weight somehow did not crush him but instead comforted him.

Slowly drifting back to sleep, he later awoke to a cave where only he and the ‘cub’ remained inside. Looking at the entrance he saw that the snow had calmed down and he saw the mother bear returning towards them with blood staining her fur and meat being dragged over in its mouth.

Playing dead, the bear brought the meat near his body before nudging him once before nudging him again and growling softly. Yuuki took this as the part where he ‘woke up’ and looked the bear in the eyes in confusion.

Blood dying its fur, the bear nodded towards Yuuki then towards the meat which its ‘cub’ was digging into. The instructions were simple and Yuuki still valued his life so he nodded meekly before getting on all 4s and crawling towards the meat as his aching body wobbled over and he nibbled on the meat which he discovered tasted pretty good.

Expecting hostility from the bears, Yuuki took a nibble before looking at the mother bears eyes and though he did not expect much from a magic beast, he was surprised to see… friendliness?

So far, his entire Hunter career had been terrible. Not only had he become known as the weakest Hunter, he had never even managed to strike a beast. Every time at the exact moment his blows were about to hit, they would mysteriously dodge and retreat as though they didn’t want to hurt him.

This piece of information blew right past his mind as he took in the food which caused blood to drip down his chin making him look like a savage.

In this tundra, Yuuki knew his limits which were lower than trash, so he knew that his only option was to survive the required time before the Gate opened. After doing the maths mentally, he concluded that he needed to survive for 24 weeks before he could even get out.

However, at that time he also knew that all the Magic Beast would also break out and that would place him in danger.

Instead of the feeling of despair overwhelming him, deep within him, his survival instinct lodged behind multiple bars of evolution awoke.