When I Returned to Farming, National-level Big Juniors Flock - Chapter 24



Only Krnovel

24. The spirit returns

In the frozen air, an alien being appeared before them.

An androgynous beauty with long, flowing hair.

However, it clearly has the form of a spirit that is different from that of a human.

Oh Hyeon-seong blankly looked up at the guy with a translucent body floating around.

“Yes… how did you…”

Albern, the water spirit.

He is his former partner, with whom he has fought countless battles and has been with him for most of his time as an active hunter.

Additionally, it was an unfortunate being that suffered irreparable damage in the battle with the final ‘Queen’ and was eventually completely destroyed.

‘I thought I’d never see you again…’

A being of a superior level that cannot even be compared to the lower spirits that have contracts with him.

A guy with a faint smile approached him.

Oh Hyun-seong absentmindedly stretched out his hand, and the guy felt his touch by lightly rubbing his cheek against his hand.

A warm feeling that I haven’t felt in a long time.

The guy who had been digging towards Oh Hyeonseong whispered the language of the spirits in his ear and then suddenly disappeared.

The guy disappeared, leaving behind only a pure white trace, as if he had flowed into Oh Hyeon-seong’s body.

“…”

The air that seemed to be freezing returned to normal.

The intense presence of the spirit that had filled the space also dispersed.

“Hey, what was that just now?”

Joo Ji-hye said belatedly, fluttering her body.

She was so shocked that she forgot that her legs were weak.

My heart is still pounding.

Although it was only for a moment, I felt a truly tremendous presence.

At first I thought maybe a monster had appeared, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

A completely different third entity.

“It’s the spirit that made a contract with me.”

“I’m a spirit?”

Joo Ji-hye made a face as if she had misheard.

But when Oh Hyeon-seong nodded silently, I was very embarrassed.

“But… I’ve never heard of someone with the ability to use spirits…”

Although she didn’t have a long career, she still knew everything there was to know about the industry.

But I just found out for the first time that there is such a thing as spirits.

There are often hunters who use summoning abilities, but this is a completely new category of being I’ve never heard of.

“Of course you haven’t heard of it. I’m the only one.”

Oh Hyun-seong answered simply.

Even while answering, he didn’t even look at her and had a serious expression on his face that Joo Ji-hye had never seen before.

His relaxed appearance that always seemed to be there was nowhere to be found, and he now had a sharp, sharp edge.

It was as if someone else was watching me.

Because of that, she felt somewhat embarrassed and kept her mouth shut without saying anything.

‘…’

A completely extinguished spirit cannot be revived.

While the spirits could easily recover from a normal level of damage after being summoned, in some extreme situations or special cases, the spirits could sustain permanent damage.

Oh Hyun-seong has made countless attempts to overturn this immutable fact.

That was also the reason why I was so obsessed with rehabilitation after losing all my spirits in the Queen’s War.

Even if I were to completely retire as a hunter, I didn’t want to end it with my partners gone.

Of course, the result was obvious and I eventually gave up.

But now, he felt his soul and spirit were closely connected.

‘The guys aren’t dead… that’s what they’re saying.’

Oh Hyun-seong chewed over the words Albert left behind.

Drops of blood dripped from his clenched fist.

“Is Jeong-il in Korea now?”

“Yes…? Oh, yes! I understand that you don’t have any overseas schedules for the time being.”

“Let’s go up to Seoul. I need to see you right away.”

“Uh… Sir? Right now?”

Joo Ji-hye’s embarrassed reaction.

Her original plan was to stay for a day or two longer if she had the time.

But Oh Hyeon-seong needed to talk to Choi Jeong-il right away.

Eeeeeeeee!

Then, suddenly, a loud siren sound rang out.

Oh Hyun-seong and Joo Ji-hye’s startled gaze turned at the same time.

It was a disaster alarm that rang out not only here but throughout the town.

Tiring!

Both of their phones rang simultaneously, an emergency message coming in, and an announcement was made mixed with the siren.

A pre-recorded machine voice.

But we have repeatedly made it clear that this is the real situation.

This is an emergency evacuation order due to a gate failure.

“What’s going on all of a sudden?”

“It’s an emergency evacuation order from the management bureau, so it looks like a gate has been created right near the village.”

“But it’s not a normal alarm.”

Joo Ji-hye said with her brows slightly furrowed.

Although it is an era where the response system to the gate is much more systematic, it has never been this noisy.

There are only a few gates that open each year, and if this chaos continued every time, the economy would have been paralyzed long ago.

This only happens when a gate with a special attribute appears, or when a gate of a simple S-class or higher occurs.

But the probability of a gate of that scale being built in such a small town, not even on the outskirts of a city, was very low.

“You didn’t issue a misfire order, did you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just in case, I’ll bring a weapon.”

Joo Ji-hye entered the room in the annex.

No one seemed flustered or embarrassed.

Oh Hyun-seong was a first-class hunter who also made a living in this field.

But for civilians, this situation must be unfamiliar and frightening.

The faces of the Yu siblings who rushed to his house after hearing the broadcast also turned pale.

“Hyung, you’re okay!”

“The alarm suddenly went off. Is there a gate in the village now?”

“Calm down. The fact that the alarm went off means that the management has been notified, so don’t be too surprised and let’s go down first.”

Oh Hyun-seong first calmed down the siblings.

Soon, Joo Ji-hye appeared, wearing sunglasses, a mask, and a hat pulled down all over her head, and without even exchanging greetings, they moved into the village.

***

“Oh my god, what is happening all of a sudden?”

“I didn’t see the gate on the way here.”

“The Hwangs haven’t arrived yet?”

Residents gathered in front of the town hall.

People gathered as if they had made a promise because the shelter was near the hall.

But, not knowing what was going on, they didn’t even go into the shelter and everyone was just wandering around.

This was a completely new situation for them where an alarm would sound, and some even burst into tears out of anxiety.

At that time, a line of vehicles entered the village.

The management staff got out of the stopped vehicle and, as if they were used to it, started moving people around, clearing up the confusion.

Oh Hyeon-seong and his group, who came down to the village, also encountered them and moved to the residents’ shelter.

However, Joo Ji-hye, who came in with him, asked as if she didn’t understand.

“Why did we come here?”

“You wait here for a moment. I’ll ask about the situation and come back.”

Oh Hyeon-seong left the shelter alone.

An investigator in a black coat appeared near the entrance, and Oh Hyun-seong immediately noticed that he was a hunter and approached him.

“I heard there was an evacuation order all of a sudden. What’s going on?”

“Gates have been detected around the village. This is basic procedure. Please stay put and wait.”

“But don’t you usually not raise the alarm?”

“That depends on the situation. We’ll take care of it, so please go in.”

“I’ll be right back, so just tell me what’s going on. Everyone is anxious. And in a normal situation, you wouldn’t send an investigation team like this, right?”

“Hey! What have you been talking about since a while ago? Are you a hunter?”

The man said with a deep frown.

In this already hectic time, what does a country bumpkin like me know that keeps nagging me about?

However, Oh Hyeon-seong had no intention of going back, and as his voice gradually grew louder, a nearby hunter approached him.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, I told you to go in but you keep bothering me.”

“I just want you to give me the bare minimum of explanation.”

“Oh, really!”

“uh…?”

The hunter who had intervened blinked when he saw Oh Hyeon-seong.

And then, a moment later, he looked terrified and whispered something urgently to his colleague.

The colleague who heard the story was surprised.

For a moment he couldn’t believe it, but soon his face became embarrassed and he opened his mouth.

“Uh… I’m sorry about that.”

A man bows his head and hurriedly leaves.

I was wondering why he was acting like that all of a sudden, and the hunter who had intervened approached him and said.

“Are you Hunter Oh Hyeonseong?”

“…How do you know me?”

“My name is Seo Jae-ho. Of course, you don’t know who I am, but before I changed jobs, I was a hunter from a civilian guild.”

The man introduced himself.

Actually, back then, in the private sector, hunters were affiliated with mercenary groups called guilds rather than management organizations.

“And our guild also participated in the Northern Defense Battle.”

“You must have had a really tough time.”

“Haha, that’s right. But thanks to the Hunter blocking the front line at that time, I was able to secure an escape route and save my life. I still remember that time vividly. Thank you so much.”

Seo Jae-ho bowed his head deeply.

A look of sincere gratitude towards him.

I never thought that after I retired, I would hear this story from a stranger, not even my colleague.

Even if the faces and affiliations were erased, there were bound to be people who remembered that time.

Anyway, thanks to this unexpected situation, the story became simple.

Oh Hyeon-seong heard the detailed circumstances surrounding this warning from Seo Jae-ho.

The fact that a S-rank gate-level wave suddenly appeared and that wave suddenly disappeared.

“It’s likely a simple error, but since it’s a serious matter like the S-Rank Gate, we’re currently investigating.”

“Nothing has been discovered yet?”

“Yes, there is nothing that can be confirmed with the naked eye yet.”

Generally, the higher the grade of the gate, the greater its mass.

If an S-rank gate really did appear around here, it would have been easily noticeable.

However, no gate has been found yet, even after searching around the village.

‘Could it be… that Albert’s existence was caught in the detection net?’

In the past, it was unlikely that something like that would happen, but in theory, it could easily happen.

Since a being of that size suddenly reappeared, it was understandable that waves that could be mistaken for an S-rank gate would be detected.

More than anything, the timing of the waves appearing and disappearing was just too coincident.

“Then I also have to go search the outskirts. I’ll be going now.”

“Thank you for your answer.”

The conversation with Seo Jae-ho is over.

Not long after, I received a call from Han Su-yeon first.

“Senior, we’ve discovered an abnormal phenomenon in our observations. But that area just so happens to be your village. Is there something going on?”

“Something happened.”

“…What is that?”

“Albern is back.”

“Albern…? The Albert I know?”

“Yeah, I think the wavelength was observed because of that. I’ll explain the details later, but for now, just take action. Don’t make your employees suffer in vain.”

“Okay. Just wait a minute.”

After hanging up the phone with Han Soo-yeon.

Indeed, it wasn’t long before the Bureau Hunters began to withdraw.

The search failed to directly confirm the gate, and it was an instruction from headquarters that it was presumed to be a malfunction of the observation equipment.

But for some reason, one of the search parties did not return even after the order to withdraw was given.

***

“What…what is this?”

The search party of the management stopped in the mountains near the village.

Large footprints found among the dense bushes.

At first glance, it looked like a beast, but not only was there no beast of this size, but an ominous black aura was emanating from it.

It is an intense erosion that even makes hunters retreat on their own.

“Could it be… that this is related to the S-rank gate that was detected this time?”

“No, it has nothing to do with wavelength. If there’s this much erosion… it seems like it’s been there a long time ago.”

Sweat poured down Seo Jae-ho’s forehead.

“I’m talking about the disaster that is the natural enemy of humans.”

────────────────────────────────────

────────────────────────────────────