Chapter 45
Unicorn Subjugation (1)
A sandstorm swept through a rift somewhere in the desert.
Thududududu—
Beetles the size of human heads were swarming over the dunes.
In no time, the tide of black insects spread out, surrounding the hunting party in all directions.
“Ugh…!”
“There’s so many of them…”
The team members groaned at the overwhelming number of monsters.
Each beetle was small, but together they formed a massive, terrifying swarm.
The encirclement tightened by the second.
No one dared to move rashly; tension filled the air—
“Now!!”
At the leader’s command, the team unleashed their stellar power, whipping up a storm.
KWAAAAA—!!!
KEEEEEEK—!!
A sandstorm roared, hurling the beetles into the air.
“Hold on! Don’t let a single one through! Stay calm and strike only when they’re in range!”
“Yes, sir!”
They tried to stay composed, but there were simply too many.
Only after pouring out far more power than expected did they manage to repel the swarm.
“Haa… haa…”
The blistering desert heat and grueling battle had drained everyone’s strength. Sweat dripped from their foreheads as they caught their breath.
“We handled the small fry, but… what about the boss?”
“There were way too many—our stellar power’s already drained.”
“Then all we’ve got left is…”
As anxiety spread, one by one, the team turned their heads.
At the end of their gaze stood a short-haired girl wearing a sand-colored hood.
When everyone’s eyes focused on her, she flinched and looked away.
“Hey, Kang Jia!”
“Y-Yes?”
“Don’t just ‘yes, yes’ like always! It’s your turn to earn your keep!”
“Y-Yes, sir…”
Just then—
Rumble rumble rumble—
“It’s coming.”
The ground trembled as a sand dune began to shake violently.
KWAAA—!!!
Something huge burst through the sand—a monster wearing a massive jar like armor.
No—its body was shaped like an upside-down jar, with black arthropod legs and claws protruding from the opening.
Behind it rose a segmented tail tipped with a gleaming, deadly stinger.
The boss monster of this desert rift—
Potter Scorpion had appeared.
As it rose, the violent wind it created nearly blew the team off their feet.
“Kang Jia! Don’t mess up the taming this time!”
“We brought you because you said you could do it!”
“Just make sure you get a good hold of it!”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
Gulp—
Kang Jia swallowed hard.
The [Taming] ability—
A rare combat support skill that allowed its user to dominate a monster’s mind through empathy. It could paralyze or even completely neutralize enemies without fighting.
Top-tier tamers could even make monsters self-destruct to harvest their soul stones.
It was one of the most highly valued abilities…
…but not for Kang Jia.
‘This time… I’ll succeed. I have to become a full-fledged member!’
Despite being on the team, she’d never been officially recognized—because she’d never once succeeded at taming.
Taming skill varied wildly depending on one’s innate talent.
And Kang Jia’s ability was about as good as trying to communicate with a foreigner using gestures and broken words.
It sometimes worked on docile monsters—but against hostile ones, her chances were abysmal.
‘But not this time!’
She steadied her heart.
Failure was no longer an option.
Her teammates had kept bringing her along despite her repeated failures—she owed it to them to succeed.
Clench—
Kang Jia balled her fists and stepped toward the scorpion.
Grrr…
The creature rasped like grinding metal, threatening her.
But Kang Jia extended her trembling hand.
‘Don’t let it see you’re scared. You have to establish dominance.’
Taming was all about a battle of wills.
If you couldn’t assert psychological superiority, you couldn’t even begin.
She had to project one thing: I am stronger than you.
‘Wait… where are its eyes?’
She froze as she realized the monster had none.
Her mind went blank for a moment—but she quickly regained her composure.
She’d failed so many times before that she’d learned to recover quickly.
‘Alright… start with light contact.’
Casting a self-suggestion spell to dull her fear, she slowly reached out and placed a hand on its claw.
The monster instantly stopped moving.
Her teammates gasped.
“Sh-she did it!”
“That deadweight’s finally earning her share!”
Holding her breath, Kang Jia closed her eyes to begin empathic contact.
Moments later, she opened them again.
Her teammates, sensing success, drew their weapons and gathered their power.
“Good. Keep it restrained like that.”
“…Wait a second.”
Kang Jia’s soft voice stopped them.
The leader quickly motioned for everyone to freeze.
Something was off.
As all eyes turned to her, Kang Jia slowly looked up—
—and tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” someone murmured.
Kang Jia looked at them pleadingly.
“This poor thing… can’t we just let it go?”
“…What?”
In the middle of a boss raid—was she serious?
“It’s not evil! It just got scared because we invaded its home!”
“…”
A player… defending the monster.
That day’s subjugation ended in complete failure.
* * *
An old apartment playground.
“Woong-ah~ Come out~”
Inha was struggling to pull a bear cub out of a tube slide.
“Four and a half hours elapsed. If there’s no contact within thirty minutes, we’ll send in a support team.”
A Foundation agent disguised as a security guard spoke into his radio.
From a swing nearby, Saehyun glanced toward the shimmering rift entrance.
“…This team’s taking forever.”
He yawned and mentally recalculated the time schedule for the other rift suppression teams.
‘At this rate, I won’t even get two runs in today.’
Since returning from England, he and Inha had successfully founded their own Community and were now scouring rifts to collect materials.
Their first major goal: mass-producing artifacts.
To do that, they needed a vast quantity—and variety—of materials.
‘Not just a lot, but all kinds.’
They needed to explore many different rifts.
But entering a rift alone came with one problem: whoever entered was obligated to clear and close it.
That was far too time-consuming.
So, they came up with a workaround—
They entered rifts after other teams had already cleared most of them, scavenging materials under the pretext of “cleanup.”
That way, the two of them could gather plenty of materials in a short time.
Of course, there were downsides.
“…And one of them is waiting forever like this.”
Each team’s raid time varied wildly, so there were plenty of wasted hours like today.
On average, rift raids took about two hours. Today’s had already taken twice that.
As Saehyun’s swing creaked idly, the rift finally flickered.
“Oh, they’re finally coming out.”
The team emerged—mostly unscathed, but visibly irritated.
“What the hell was that? Why was she defending the monster?!”
“She was supposed to tame it, not get tamed herself!”
“I told you we should’ve dropped her ages ago! How many times has that walking disaster trolled us now?”
‘What the hell happened in there…?’
Saehyun rose from the swing and approached.
“All done? Everyone made it out?”
“…Who are you supposed to be?”
“Oh, I’m with this group.”
He smoothly handed the leader a business card.
The man frowned, but one of his teammates squinted in recognition.
“Ah, I’ve seen that before. These guys have been poking around everywhere lately. What were they called again…?”
He snapped his fingers.
“Oh yeah—the Hyenas of the Rift!”
“…Excuse me?”
Saehyun’s brow twitched.
After all the careful networking he’d done, Hyena was the best nickname they could come up with?
While he quietly fumed, the leader sighed and eyed him up and down.
“The rift’s still open.”
“Meaning… you didn’t defeat the boss?”
“That’s right. Some useless brat got in the way, and… well, it went south.”
Four hours—and no success.
No wonder they looked so pissed.
Still, that was good news for Saehyun.
“In that case, mind if I… take care of it?”
The leader frowned.
“You’re planning to go in and take down the boss alone?”
He stroked his chin, clearly worried about being held responsible if something went wrong.
Technically, this rift was still under his team’s jurisdiction.
“Don’t worry. We won’t cause any trouble.”
“…Hmm.”
After a moment, the leader nodded toward the rift.
“Fine. Just don’t make a mess.”
“Understood.”
As long as there were no incidents—and if by luck it got handled—the record would still count as their achievement.
‘Tch. If only we had one more person, we could’ve done this officially and claimed the credit ourselves.’
Regulations required a minimum of three people for a sanctioned raid. Sometimes, rules were just plain annoying.
“Inha, let’s go!”
“Y-Yeah!”
Inha, still holding the bear cub, followed Saehyun into the rift.
* * *
Desert of Eagle.
No clouds, a blazing sun, and endless dunes of sand.
The terrain shifted constantly under the wind, making it easy to get lost.
‘Good thing we have this little guy.’
Kyuuu…
Inha’s arms cradled the bear cub, Woong.
Useless for most things—but incredibly sensitive to stellar materials.
Thanks to that sense, Saehyun had found several rare items in past rifts.
‘Though we also wasted a ton of time chasing false leads…’
Its detection wasn’t perfect—probably because the ability came from devouring a soul stone.
Still, the cub was great at finding entrances and paths.
Inha set Woong down on the sand.
The bear sniffed around, then scampered off.
“Oh? You found something?”
They followed him for a while—until a massive jar appeared in the distance.
Woong plopped down in its shadow and curled up.
“…You just wanted a shady spot, huh.”
Saehyun sighed but then brushed the sand with his hand—and grinned.
He’d found what they were looking for.
“Heh… this is it.”
Glittering grains of sand—altered by the poison of the Potter Scorpion.
Golden sand, a key material for the ultra-slow cooling process in artifact production.
When used to cool an artifact over several days, it allowed much higher stellar energy retention.
Saehyun glanced at Woong, still lounging in the shade, and sighed deeply.
“You lazy furball. Try earning your keep for once.”
If only someone could actually talk some sense into that cub.
Crunch—
“…Hm?”
He felt something soft underfoot.
After a few more steps, something moved—
“Cough! Cough, cough!”
A hooded girl popped out of the sand, spitting it from her mouth.
Apparently, she’d been buried there.
Saehyun handed her a water bottle.
Snatch!
She grabbed it and gulped down the water desperately.
“Ahh! Thank you! You saved my life!”
Then she smiled brightly in gratitude—
and, without being asked, launched into a long, rambling story.
From that flood of unnecessary details, Saehyun picked up one crucial point.
“So… you’re a Tamer?”
“Yes! I’m still in training, though…”
Her skills weren’t impressive, but she could at least communicate with monsters.
“In that case… could you talk to that guy for me?”
He pointed at the bear cub lying upside down in the sand.
