You Didn’t Tell Me the Start of My Transmigration Was a Gate - Chapter 5

The Start of Her Return (5)

“Can you possibly predict how much area had been changed into a gate? Actually, my son lives in the Hanbit Apartment over there… So I was wondering if he had been affected as well… I’m quite worried, so…..”

Oh no. I could tell that the lady had tried to hold back her tears. Unfortunately, according to my memories, the Hanbit Apartment…

As soon as the apartment was gated, a ground dog attacked it, and it should have collapsed by now…

I chose not to go into that but shook my head quietly since it would sound nonsensical to know of that fact.

“I’m sorry for spouting nonsense. Your parents must be worried sick about you too…”

“Ah… Yes, well.”

I put up my slightly uncomfortable face. It was a little difficult to hide it.

My parents died in a gate incident when I was five. After that, I wandered between my relatives’ houses and survived on the government’s support fund. It was when I hit 16 that I had finally become independent so no one from my family would actually be worried for me.

Though I won’t share this since there’s virtually no need for me to do so.

That middle-aged lady who introduced herself as Kim Jung-Hwa quickly returned to help prepare dinner. It was a chore to prepare dinner since there were 40 of us. Well, as for me, I took it easy, like a war veteran’s benefits. Since I was basically the only person fit for combat here, it would be best to refrain from using energy.

“Seo-Ha.”

“Yeah?”

Sung-Min approached me with a few people that followed behind him.

“I’ve gathered a few people with higher stats for now. They have strength or agility higher than 13.”

At a quick glance, there were three males and two females.

“And this man said that he has a Unique Skill.”

He lightly pushed one of the three men forward. That man had quite sharp features. I could tell that he was quite exhausted. His relatively skinny physique and cracked glasses made me think that he must have been a bookworm his whole life.

Which meant that when Kwon Sung-Min was looking for people who possessed Unique Skills, he had hidden himself…. That prudence could be seen as a plus factor. He probably realized that whether he hid it or not he’d end up dying in vain anyways.

If we were attacked by the monsters tomorrow, I would probably save this man first, since he was still useful.

“What’s your skill?”

“It’s called ‘Reconnaissance,’ but…”

“That’s great. Join me in the frontlines tomorrow when we set off.”

“Me?”

He frowned slightly. Well, that was understandable. It was funny to see how a modern man like him quietly accepted his fate when put in a situation between life and death. But I was not in the mood to empathize with his situation.

“Yes, because Reconnaissance helps us to identify monsters and traps ahead of us.”

“Please, Mr. Min-Joon.”

“Sigh…”

He still frowned, but he accepted it grudgingly. But he did warn that he might run if it gets life-threatening for him. That much, I had already expected.

“We only have a few youngsters here, so the numbers are small, but we have a rough assortment here.”

“The others should follow behind us. We should have one of those who have higher agility to stay at the back as backup. Please alert the frontline when something happens.”

Everyone answered that they understood my words. Thankfully there were still some youngsters out and about during dinner time. If it was during the day, they would be at work or in school, and they would have been mutilated.

“I’m Han Seo-Ha.”

“I’m Kwon Sung-Min. Everyone, let’s cheer up a bit more. There should be more people at the indoor gym.”

After both our introductions, everyone else introduced themselves as well.

“I’m Seol Min-Joon, and I possess the Unique Skill Reconnaissance.”

“I’m Kim Tae-Byeong!”

“Please take care of me~ I’m Lee Chan-Song.”

“I’m Go Hae-Yoon.”

“I’m Song Da-Jung. Please call me Da-Jung.”

There were some whose classes could be guessed right away. Seol Min-Joon’s Unique Skill, ‘Reconnaissance,’ probably meant that he was specialized towards assassin-related classes, and Kim Tae-Byeong looked like he was tank material. I was not sure of the others.

“Uh, I have some questions!”

Song Da-Jung awkwardly raised her hand. It felt like I had become an elementary school teacher.

“What is it?”

“Uh, it’s just that, won’t the monsters be walking around outside as well? Wouldn’t it be better to rebuild a wall instead of putting up a temporary measure… or so I was thinking?”

“There’s a monster’s corpse, and you want to set up camp here? I don’t really recommend it.”

She nodded, seemingly to have understood my meaning as I pointed at the corpse.

“I, I see. Monsters do react to the smell of blood and corpses too!”

“Basically, they do react to those.”

So we could only stay around here for a day at most, as the smell of blood and the decaying corpse would attract other monsters to come as well.

“Wow, are you possibly a student from the academy?”

Lee Chan-Song joined in the conversation, his yellow bleached hair scattered before me. His face with a teasing smile looked quite sleek, but the curiosity hidden behind that expression seemed to have a wrong motive.

“No, I’m not… I was just extremely interested in gates before.”

The academy. It was a government service that was made available to aspiring hunters. It could also be called an elite course since there are higher chances to get offered by the Big 5 if you were an academy graduate. Unfortunately, I was just your average student as of now.

Before I’d regressed, I was never a student from the academy. After all, I had jumped right into the field after surviving the gate.

“Really? I thought you were an aspiring hunter.”

“That’s right. I was so shocked earlier! How were you able to move to the back of that monster’s neck in a split second? Was that a skill?”

An innocent voice followed after Lee Chan-Song’s words, which had a strange nuance to it. It was Kim Tae-Byeong. His bright eyes left a deep impression.

“Now. Shall we devise a route to take when we set off tomorrow?”

Although we have lived in a world of technology with navigation everywhere, maps still existed. Kwon Sung-Min took out a map he had found lying around and laid it out. Though the map was quite old, all the important stuff was still there.

“If you see here, there’s two routes that we can take.”

One was to walk on foot, following the roads, though we would have to make a small detour.

And the other one.

“You’re asking us to cross the bridge?” Go Hae-Yoon asked, coldly, but Kwon Sung-Min seemed to be unwilling to give way to his opinion.

“It’s a whole lot faster if we take this route. If we took the detour, it would take us around an hour to arrive, and we will definitely meet monsters along the way.”

“But we aren’t even sure if that bridge is stable. There are probably monsters that live in the water as well… We won’t be able to avoid them on top of the bridge. We’d be finished if monsters appear then.”

Her words were reasonable. Kwon Sung-Min seemed to be deep in thought after he heard her opinion. Would he choose to take the risk of an hour’s detour route or the risk crossing the bridge?

“Seo-Ha. What do you think?”

All the attention came to me to answer Sung-Min’s question.

“…..Let’s take the bridge.”