Chapter 46: Unexpected
The blue portal rippled violently before spitting Hajin and Juna out onto the ground just outside the gate’s boundary line.
Hajin stumbled forward the second his boots hit the ground, his knees buckling under his own weight before Juna quickly slid her shoulder under his arm to keep him upright.
He was completely exhausted, his head pounding with a painful ache while dried blood crusted around his nose and ears from the monster’s roar.
"Hey!" a voice yelled out from the barricade.
The two checkpoint guards pushed off the fence and jogged over, their eyes wide as they took in the sheer amount of blood covering both of them.
"Are you alright?" the older guard asked, his hand hovering over his sword hilt nervously as he looked at Juna’s new glowing white hair and ears. "Did you... did you beat that thing?"
Hajin stopped leaning against Juna for a second, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the guard.
"Beat that thing?" He repeated, his voice dangerously quiet.
The guard swallowed hard, taking a half-step back, "yeah, the... the massive shadow beast, the one many parties refused to face."
A sudden anger flared in Hajin’s chest as he looked between the two guards, realizing exactly what they were saying.
They knew there was a heavily mutated, four-shard monster inside a low-level gate, and instead of closing the checkpoint or warning anyone, they just sat outside and let people keep walking in to their deaths.
’That’s so fucked up,’ he thought, his jaw clenching tight as he glared at them.
It was probably common knowledge in the guild by now, a threat every established party already knew to avoid, but instead of warning the newcomers they just sat back and watched people walk straight into a meat grinder.
"Don’t talk to me," he said, his voice dripping with disgust as he pulled his arm tighter around Juna’s shoulders, "just get out of my way."
The guards didn’t argue, stepping aside immediately as Juna practically carried him down the road leading back toward the city. She didn’t spare them a single glance, her eyes locked dead ahead while her tail gave a sharp, agitated flick.
Once they were far enough down the road, the older guard let out a heavy breath and turned back toward the barricade, "well, at least someone finally took care of it, right? Now we don’t have to report the casualties as an active threat."
The younger guard didn’t answer, staring blankly past the barricade.
"Hey," the younger guard stammered, pointing a shaking finger at the portal, "is... is it supposed to do that?"
The older guard frowned and turned around, his eyes widening in pure panic.
The gate was shrinking, its edges collapsing inward while the magical energy sparked violently against the air as the opening got smaller and smaller.
"What the hell," the older guard yelled, running up to the boundary line but stopping before he got too close, "run to the guild! Get a mage out here right now!"
But it was way too late for that.
The portal collapsed into a sphere the size of a fist before blinking out of existence completely, leaving behind nothing but an empty clearing and a sudden, suffocating silence.
The guards stood there completely frozen, staring at the empty space where the gate had been just seconds ago. Gates were permanent anchors to the abyss, staying open until every single monster inside was wiped out and the core was manually extracted by a high-ranking guild team.
Gates never just closed on their own.
Farther down the road, completely unaware of the gate collapsing behind them, Hajin and Juna kept a slow but steady pace toward the city.
The adrenaline was finally starting to wear off and his body felt like it had been run over by a carriage, but the silence between them was surprisingly comfortable.
"So," he started, his voice a little hoarse, "are you going to tell me how you just completely broke every known rule of summoning and evolved out of nowhere?"
Juna didn’t answer right away, keeping her eyes focused on the path ahead while her ears twitched slightly in hesitation.
"When you told me to leave," she said softly, her voice missing its usual sharp edge, "it reminded me of my tribe, of the day they were all slaughtered."
He looked at her, noticing how her grip on his waist tightened just a fraction.
"I watched everyone I loved get slaughtered by humans before they killed me too, all because I was too weak to do anything about it," she said, her voice so gentle it almost sounded like a different person speaking.
"When I first woke up as a summon I hated everything, I even hated you... but things change. I don’t know how, but little by little, I got attached to you, despite you being a human."
"I... promised myself that I will never be that weak again. I refuse to just stand by and watch someone I love get killed."
Hajin blinked, completely caught off guard by the raw honesty since he had never heard her sound so vulnerable before.
The heavy emotional weight of her words hung in the air for a few seconds before a small, tired smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth.
"So," he said, leaning slightly more of his weight against her, "you love me, huh?"
Her ears instantly pinned flat against her head, the gentle atmosphere vanishing in a split second as she dug her thumb directly into his bruised ribs.
"Ow, ow, wait, my ribs," he hissed, his face instantly contorting in pain.
"If you talk anymore I will drop you right here in the road," she muttered, glaring straight ahead even though the faint blush dusting her cheeks completely ruined the threat.
The stream panel in the corner of his vision practically exploded.
[ CringeSlayer91: LMAOOOO HE RUINED IT IMMEDIATELY ]
[ ShadowMage44: classic Hajin, zero emotional intelligence ]
[ NewViewer_02: tsundere wolf unlocked??? ]
[ ashley (Mod): you deserved that honestly ]
[ DarkBlade: she was having a moment bro let her have her moment ]
He groaned, coughing lightly as he let her support his weight again. "Alright, alright, message received, I’ll shut up."
They walked in silence for a few more minutes, the trees slowly starting to thin out as the city walls became a faint smudge on the horizon.
Hajin looked at the path ahead, his expression softening as he thought about her words.
"Hey," he said quietly, breaking the quiet.
She didn’t look at him, but her ear twitched back to show she was listening.
"I’m glad you were the first summon I got," he said, turning his head to look at her. "You don’t ever need to feel ashamed of who you are, or what happened to your tribe. As long as you have me, everything is going to be alright."
He offered her a small, genuine smile.
She stopped walking for a moment, her breath catching slightly in her throat. She looked away quickly, staring down at the road as a faint, watery shine formed in her eyes that she stubbornly refused to let fall.
A small, quiet smile pulled at her lips., "thank you," she whispered, her voice barely louder than the wind.
He watched her for a second, seeing the emotion she was trying so desperately to hide, before that same tired smirk found its way back onto his face.
"So," he drawled out, his tone completely ruining the heartfelt moment once again, "you definitely love me."
She didn’t even hesitate this time, simply stepping out from under his arm and letting gravity do the rest.
"Wait—" he started, before immediately crashing face-first into the ground with a loud thud.
The stream panel in his vision lit up with a barrage of laughing emojis as she stepped right over him and kept walking toward the city without looking back.