TRG05

Episode 5

[Conditions for the skill ‘Ruler’s Garden’ have been met.] [Skill ‘Ruler’s Garden’ is now active.] [Status Window updated.] [Awakened Skill: Ruler’s Garden (?)] ▼ [Awakened Skill: Ruler’s Garden (S)]

<Skill Description> Ruler’s Garden (S) You are the Ruler, and this world is the Ruler’s Garden. Therefore, this place is your sanctuary, and every being residing within must offer their absolute loyalty to the Ruler. However, he who wears the crown must bear its weight. The power of a King who has yet to hold his coronation cannot reach the weight of a thousand gold pieces. Note: The higher the intelligence and rank of a lifeform, the higher the difficulty of the subjugation conditions.

<Status Window> Name / Age: Yoon Seo-hee / 27 Awakened: Y Rank: EX Awakened Skills: — Ruler’s Garden (S) └ Target of Skill Influence: Yoon Joo-young (B → S) — Mana Sensitivity (C)

As I recall, there was light.

It sounds a bit like I’m reciting the Bible, but there truly was a blinding light. The moment I cried out the skill’s name in a final, desperate gamble, the world around me was instantly swallowed by a pure white radiance.

And that was it. The light that had surged through the world vanished just as quickly as it had appeared.

What remained was the Chimera, which had just finished firing its tentacles at me; myself, blinking stupidly in a state of shock; and Hunter Yoon Joo-young, who was slowly pushing himself up while gripping one of the Chimera’s tentacles in a single hand.

‘What on earth…’

Yoon Joo-young’s abdomen, which should have been mangled, was perfectly intact as he rose.

Was my skill actually a healing ability?

While still dazed, I recalled the information that had flooded my mind the moment I activated the skill. If I remembered correctly, the description said…

As soon as the thought crossed my mind, the skill description manifested before my eyes. My eyes trembled as I reread the text. Ruler, Garden, Loyalty…

“What is this?”

I looked up at Hunter Yoon Joo-young in a daze once more.

He was frowning slightly as if something displeased him, staring down at the tentacle in his hand. For a brief moment, his expression hardened as if he were contemplating something. Then, he lifted his gaze toward the ceiling.

Naturally, the Chimera was up there, thrashing about in an attempt to reclaim the tentacle Yoon Joo-young held captive.

“Master.”

With his eyes still fixed on the Chimera, Yoon Joo-young spoke in a low, resonant voice.

“I will go and deal with that noisy thing first. Would you mind waiting just a moment?”

“Uh, what? Yes… No, wait. Are you talking to… me?”

“I’ll take that as your permission. I’ll be back after I’ve disposed of it.”

Yoon Joo-young, still staring at the Chimera wedged between the rocks, gave me a fleeting, faint smile.

And then, he vanished.

“Huh?”

Yoon Joo-young, the tentacle that had been aimed at me, and even the Chimera with its grotesque eyes—all of them were gone in an instant. And then…

— Kieeeeek!!

“I told you, you’re loud. If a mere beast like you can’t take responsibility for damaging my Master’s eardrums, then at least die quietly.”

An incomprehensible roar, the (presumed) scream of the Chimera, and the voice of Yoon Joo-young—who sounded like a completely different person—echoed from beyond the crags.

“…”

Though I couldn’t wrap my head around a single thing happening, the survival instinct that had saved my life multiple times was screaming at me now.

It was telling me that I was well and truly screwed.

The Chimera was dead, and the dungeon gate reopened after a short delay. Yoon Joo-young and I survived. All of this was thanks to my skill, ‘Ruler’s Garden,’ which I had used as a last-ditch gamble.

I couldn’t deny that. If I hadn’t used the skill at that moment, both Yoon Joo-young and I would have been found as cold corpses inside the dungeon.

But even so, the current situation was impossible to swallow.

“Master.”

“Look, Hunter Yoon Joo-young. Please, snap out of it. Do you really want to call someone who’s just a C-Rank hunter—someone you’ve only met a few times—’Master’?”

From the moment ‘Ruler’s Garden’ was activated until now, Yoon Joo-young had been treating me, quite literally, as his master.

At first, I held onto the desperate hope that it was just a temporary lingering effect of the skill.

However, that hope had long since been crushed. The effect persisted through the opening of the gate, the medical check-ups by the standby doctors, the barrage of questions from the Dungeon Management Committee, and even now, as we headed home.

‘I mean, how can an S-Rank fail to resist a skill from a mere C-Rank?’

It was common knowledge in the Hunter industry that even if a skill was high-rank, its effectiveness was limited if the user’s own rank was low.

In that sense, the fact that my ‘Ruler’s Garden’—even if it was an S-Rank skill—could affect an S-Rank Awakened like Yoon Joo-young was an anomaly. Honestly, it should have been impossible.

In the world of Hunters, Rank is an incredibly high and thick wall. Even a single ‘+’ sign makes a world of difference; the gap between C-Rank and S-Rank is beyond words.

So, logically, Yoon Joo-young shouldn’t have been affected. Even if he were, it should have only lasted for the duration of the battle. And yet…

“What are you saying? ‘Just a C-Rank’? Master is not someone who should be belittled by such words.”

“That’s not the point right now! Look, Hunter Yoon Joo-young, maybe you’re just confused because everything happened so fast, but you’re an S-Rank Hunter now.”

I glanced sideways at my status window as I spoke.

<Status Window> Name / Age: Yoon Seo-hee / 27 Awakened: Y Rank: EX Awakened Skills: — Ruler’s Garden (S) └ Target: Yoon Joo-young (S) — Mana Sensitivity (C)

‘Yoon Joo-young… (S).’

In any Awakened person’s status window, the letter in parentheses next to a name is always the Rank.

The ‘S’ next to Yoon Joo-young’s name was undeniable.

An S-Rank. One of those precious individuals of whom there weren’t even ten in all of Korea.

‘I’ve heard stories of Hunters whose ranks jumped after a life-threatening crisis… but to think it would happen to Hunter Yoon Joo-young.’

Usually, when people say ‘Awakening,’ they mean the ‘Initial Awakening’—the moment one becomes an Awakened being.

Scholars ramble on about it being a shift into a new human species or the adoption of a game system, but I didn’t care about that.

The important thing was that the rank received at the time of the Initial Awakening almost never changed. You could add a ‘+’ or a ‘++’ through blood-vomiting effort, but jumping to a higher tier was incredibly rare.

But ‘rare’ didn’t mean ‘non-existent.’ There were people who had changed their initial rank.

For instance, there was a Hunter in the U.S. who started as an A-Rank and reached S-Rank through a special catalyst. Even in Korea, there was one Hunter who went from A+ to S.

However, in all those cases, the jump was only by one step. There had never been a case where a B-Rank Hunter leaped straight to S-Rank.

Yoon Joo-young had skipped two entire tiers to reach the pinnacle of all Hunters.

“Since you became an S-Rank, you should have developed a natural resistance… There’s no way you’d stay under a C-Rank’s mental interference skill. Not if you just try to snap out of it.”

Mental interference skills are notoriously weak. Dominating a sentient being is difficult, and even if successful, the effect usually lasts only five or six minutes. Ten minutes at most, and only for S-Rank specialists.

So, no matter how I looked at it, it made no sense for an S-Rank like Yoon Joo-young to be trapped by my C-Rank hands.

“So—”

“Master,” Yoon Joo-young murmured softly.

I stopped mid-sentence and looked up at him.

Under the dark night sky, illuminated by the dim glow of a streetlamp, the handsome young man was gazing at me with a look of absolute sincerity.

“This is only a theory, but… I believe the one who made me an S-Rank Hunter was none other than you, Master.”

“…What?”

Yoon Joo-young’s face remained deathly serious, without even a hint of a smile.