The Hidden Ranker

– KIEEEK!

The massive bird-headed creature, Lailaxar, a denizen of the Dimensional Rift, lunged at me, its eyes reduced to mere black pupils.

“Ugh, uwaaaah!”

Once again, I found myself fleeing for my life, unable to even contemplate fighting back.

‘Why am I running?’

I couldn’t recall how I had returned to the Dimensional Rift or why I was scrambling, but I was running as if death itself pursued me.

– KIEEEK!

The shriek of Lailaxar echoed terrifyingly close.

Though I knew better than to look back, I instinctively turned my head, only to see the bird-headed monster with its colossal maw agape.

Soon, I would be swallowed whole into that enormous gullet…

Swallowed…?

Slurp!

At that instant, I felt the touch of drool at the corner of my mouth. I instinctively sucked it back in and snapped my eyes open.

Directly before me, a pair of large eyes stared intently, piercing through me.

‘La-Lailaxar!’

The bird-headed monster’s eyes from my dream immediately flashed into my mind.

“Uwaaah!”

I screamed, recoiling backward while still lying down.

However, I quickly realized the situation was quite different from what I had imagined.

First, the owner of those large eyes was not Lailaxar, but Lee Heejin.

Second, this was the boss room where the Gate of Hell had appeared.

I had only intended to close my eyes for a moment, but one thought led to another, and before I knew it, I must have drifted off to sleep.

“…Why are you so startled?”

Lee Heejin gazed at me with an utterly bewildered expression.

“…I had a scary dream.”

I vaguely offered that excuse, fearing what retribution I might face if I admitted to mistaking her for a monster. The reply, however, came not from Lee Heejin, but from Kim Gwanhyo.

“You must have slept soundly, despite this urgent situation.”

Kim Gwanhyo stood beside the crouching Lee Heejin, arms crossed, his gaze even more disdainful than before.

“Seriously, how can you be the last one to wake up among all these people? And you were even drooling while you slept… Plus, you had a scary dream? Goodness. How carefree, how utterly carefree. Do you even know what happened here, Park Minhyuk?”

Kim Gwanhyo sounded thoroughly annoyed. It seemed he disliked the fact that I had been unconscious, unable to do anything, only to regain my senses after everything was over.

Watching him, I recalled Kim Gwanhyo’s brave declaration when the Gate of Hell had opened earlier.

– I don’t know what kind of nonsense that is, but it means monsters are going to pop out of there!

Kim Gwanhyo had shouted defiantly, drawing his sword.

Yet, barely three seconds after that confident act, he had promptly fainted and collapsed onto the floor with a thud.

The absurdity of the situation resurfaced, and a chuckle escaped me once more.

‘He really does have a surprisingly cute side.’

“Ahem, what exactly happened here?”

I scratched the back of my head awkwardly and stood up, only to be met by Lee Heejin’s discontented stare.

I deliberately ignored her eyes, which seemed to hold a great deal to say, and looked around.

The initial group of nearly a hundred people had significantly dwindled. The Awakened trainees were gathered in small groups, murmuring amongst themselves, and many Association personnel had disappeared.

They were likely scrambling, trying to figure out how this incident occurred, how it was resolved, and how to report it.

As I surveyed my surroundings, Lee Heejin rose and approached me.

“They told us to wait here for now. Something about letting us go once safety is confirmed.”

“But Heejin, we’ve already finished our training, so why do we need to follow the Association’s orders? On the contrary, we should be demanding an explanation for this safety breach. I keep telling you to just leave, so why do you keep insisting on waiting…?”

“Oppa Gwanhyo.”

Lee Heejin scowled fiercely and turned to Kim Gwanhyo.

“Just shut up.”

“…Huh?”

“You keep chattering and grumbling. If you have so many complaints, go out by yourself. Why do you keep clinging to us?”

“…Are you talking to your Oppa right now…?”

Kim Gwanhyo was stunned speechless by Lee Heejin’s sudden outburst.

Actually, it wasn’t much of an outburst; it seemed Lee Heejin was exercising considerable restraint for her. When I had subtly asked her about it previously, she’d said she was just giving him perfunctory replies since they wouldn’t see each other after a week.

With ‘Oppa’ this and ‘Oppa’ that at the end of every sentence, and constantly boasting about himself or his guild whenever there was an opening, it was hard to view him favorably.

While Baekje was indeed a fairly renowned guild, Lee Heejin, for some reason, seemed utterly uninterested in such things.

“Just be quiet, or if you don’t like it, go by yourself, please.”

“Ha! I was only thinking of you…!”

Just as Kim Gwanhyo, his face flushed with anger, was about to raise his voice, someone rushed towards us, cutting him off mid-sentence.

“Team 5! Has Awakener Park Minhyuk woken up?!”

It was Lee Jinwoo, an Association member responsible for filming and ensuring the safety of our group.

He had been running so frantically that his face was drenched in sweat, and his once neat clothes were disheveled in several places, making him look utterly harried.

“You’re awake. Are you feeling alright? Not dizzy or anything?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“That’s good. We’ll conduct a separate investigation into today’s events later, but for now, you may return home.”

“Oh, I can go home?”

“Yes. Since you’ve completed all the training, your registration certificate will be issued normally. Don’t worry; everything we filmed today will be uploaded as scheduled.”

As Lee Jinwoo wiped his sweat and explained, Kim Gwanhyo, predictably full of irritation, interjected.

“So what exactly happened today? Have you found the cause? Isn’t this a location under Association management? Something like this happened here, and you’re just telling us to go home without any explanation?!”

While it was impossible for the Association to have known about the sudden appearance of the Gate of Hell and prepared for it, from the perspective of someone ignorant of the facts, Kim Gwanhyo’s words were somewhat valid.

The problem, however, was his extremely annoying tone.

“We apologize for that. The Association is doing its best to investigate, and we will contact you as soon as results are available…”

“That’s just how the Association operates, isn’t it?”

With a highly petulant remark, Kim Gwanhyo spun around and walked away.

He didn’t look back, exiting straight through the passage.

As I watched him go, Lee Jinwoo bowed his head to both of us.

“Again, I apologize. I never imagined something like this would happen…”

“No, it’s fine. How could this be the Association’s fault? It’s simply a disaster… Still, it’s a great relief that no one was hurt.”

“…That’s true, but… a disaster? And weren’t you just waking up, Park Minhyuk? How do you know no one was hurt…?”

‘Oops.’

“Ahahaha, I heard it from this friend here! This one just loves to talk, you can’t stop them! Hahahaha…”

I patted Lee Heejin’s shoulder beside me, trying to sound as natural as possible.

I deliberately ignored Lee Heejin’s look of utter disdain.

“Ah, I see… Well, please be careful on your way home. I’m busy, so I must go…”

“Yes, thank you.”

As Lee Jinwoo walked away, I breathed a sigh of relief.

It was clear that getting caught up in unnecessary scrutiny here would lead to a lot of trouble.

It was better to let this incident remain buried as it was.

After all, people would gradually learn about the existence of hell, and there was nothing more I knew or could do. There was no need to attract unwanted attention.

“Don’t you have something to tell me?”

The problem was this one.

With her short black hair and a height that barely reached my shoulder, Lee Heejin looked up at me with a distinctly crooked expression.

“Hmm? What are you talking about? Let’s just go out for now.”

As I feigned ignorance and moved towards the exit, Lee Heejin hastily followed.

“What was that gate? What was supposed to come out of there? No, more importantly, what was that? A skill? There’s a skill like that? What exactly are you?”

As expected, a barrage of questions poured out.

There was almost nothing I could tell her.

If I started answering, it would inevitably lead back to the Dimensional Rift and the Witch, topics I had no desire to discuss.

‘Come to think of it, there was the Hall of Fame.’

A message was still flickering in the corner of my vision.

[The corresponding video will be uploaded to the Hall of Fame.]

[Would you like to disclose your personal information?]

It seemed the video hadn’t been uploaded to the Hall of Fame yet because I hadn’t made a decision. I considered trying to see if the video wouldn’t upload if I kept resisting, but I simply chose to keep my personal information private.

It would be a disaster if it automatically uploaded with my personal information disclosed. The world’s attention would immediately converge on me, and no matter how I thought about it, the disadvantages would far outweigh any benefits.

“Are you not going to tell me? I’ll tell everyone everything I saw today! I don’t know your circumstances, but you want to hide your power, right? I won’t say a word! I promise, really!”

Lee Heejin trailed after me, first threatening to tell, then promising not to, making a complete fuss all by herself.

‘By the way, she thinks I want to hide my power?’

I chuckled in disbelief.

“You’re the one who wants to hide your power, Lee Heejin.”

When the Witch’s Eye had activated, Lee Heejin’s information had clearly appeared before me.

[Name – Lee Heejin]

[Rank – A]

[Attribute – Martial Wind ]

Instead of ‘Transcendent’—which I had seen for transcendent beings—the word ‘Rank’ caught my eye.

I couldn’t precisely define what a Rank was, but I speculated it might be related to stats. If that were the case, then at least one of Lee Heejin’s stats was A-rank. Or perhaps all of them.

This implied that…

‘At least a Ranker, at most a High Ranker level.’

As far as I knew, that was the case. For me, with stats between E and D rank, it was an unfathomable difference. I couldn’t even begin to guess how many points would be needed to raise all stats to A.

‘Why would such a person…?’

Why was she hiding her identity here? A Ranker was an immensely famous individual. Furthermore, a Ranker as beautiful as Lee Heejin? It would be even harder for her to live while hiding her identity.

Two possibilities came to mind:

‘Either my assumption that she’s at least a Ranker is wrong…’

Or she was an Unranker, someone who refused to register their ranking.

“…Keep it a secret. I won’t say anything either…”

Looking at Lee Heejin, who had become docile with a dejected expression, it was difficult to imagine her as an Unranker, which was almost synonymous with being a criminal.

“Let’s talk outside first; there are too many people here.”

The path leading outside was a straight line, and many other Awakeners, like us, were heading towards the dungeon exit.

While they weren’t close enough to overhear our conversation, you never knew with people, so this wasn’t the place to discuss such matters. Frankly, that was secondary; my main goal was to buy time to figure out what to tell Lee Heejin.

I could probably just brush her off, but given her personality, she would persist. And now that I knew she was at least Ranker-level, I couldn’t simply ignore her as I might have before.

‘As if I don’t have enough to think about already…’

Meanwhile, sunlight began to appear at the end of the passage.

Stepping outside, we found a considerable crowd gathered, and a booming voice belonging to someone I thought I’d never have to deal with again reached my ears.