The drone’s live-streaming footage was exceedingly brief.

Jung-woo and his dolls charged in, and with an explosion, the Qilin perished.

That was all the real-time footage revealed—a shocking outcome that completely negated the battle analysis the media and commentators had been spouting all day long.

Even the reporters, who had been pushing their concentration to the absolute limit, were left dumbfounded.

Indeed, wasn’t it all terribly anticlimactic?

This was an S-Rank champion, after all.

A being called the ruler of a region—a transcendent who had left countless trails of blood throughout human history.

How many sacrifices had Izanami of Tokyo claimed?

How horrific were the calamities Quetzalcoatl of South America had left behind?

The devastation wrought by others bearing the title of S-Rank champion was no laughing matter.

Even at the pinnacle of hunters, it shouldn’t have been easy.

Unless you were Edmond Richmond…no, even he would have had to charge in prepared for injury.

That had been the realistic assessment, yet everything was upended.

The analysts, finally snapping back to their senses, replayed the ultra-high-speed camera footage and let out screams of astonishment.

[Ah, aha! So that’s what happened!]

[What happened! Is the subjugation not over yet?]

[I-it’s over! But it was closer to a planned victory!]

[Could you explain that more clearly!]

The moderator’s question voiced the thoughts of everyone who had witnessed the scene.

But the analysts could hardly contain their excitement, stammering incoherently.

[S-so. During those ten seconds of charging, dozens upon dozens of tactical exchanges took place! He tested the encirclement formation around the Qilin with Shark Avatars multiple times, withdrawing and adjusting, to find the position where the creature would be most vulnerable!]

[You mean…]

[Hunter Shin Jung-woo had calculated every possible scenario before charging in! He devised dozens of plans capable of destroying the creature in a single blow, found the most optimized formation among them, and unleashed a simultaneous barrage!]

Since the explanation was somewhat abstract, a commentary referencing the footage followed.

As the explanation continued, the news desk was painted with astonishment.

But before that, praise for Jung-woo’s unprecedented performance began pouring in from all directions.

[E-everyone! All the kings of North Korea have been subjugated! With this, South Korea’s reclamation of North Korea is on the verge of final completion…!]

[It’s miraculous! A speed that completely negates the fearsome reputation of an S-Rank champion!]

[The title of humanity’s strongest might change hands!]

Media outlets that had been preparing articles anticipating Jung-woo’s successful subjugation simultaneously released special reports.

They appended additional coverage to account for the shockingly swift performance.

The internet was in an absolute frenzy.

Various communities lost all restraint and began flooding with Shin Jung-woo’s name.

[ShinShinShinShinShin!]

└ They don’t even add the name Jung-woo. Because Shin Jung-woo is synonymous with god…

└ Insane insane insane lmaooo

[Qilin? Ah, you mean that guy.]

└ I don’t know that guy.

└ Has everyone forgotten about Mr. Qilin???

└ He existed? Nope, he didn’t.

From simple reverence to humor, the methods of praise were diverse.

But the same thought crossed all their minds.

[So how do you stop Shin Jung-woo now lmaooo]

└ First of all, there’s nothing in the current gate system that can stop Shin Jung-woo. One click and he blows everything up.

Edmond’s unique and supreme position was no longer his alone.

This solo subjugation fully served as proof of how much the hunter Shin Jung-woo had grown over the past year.

It wasn’t just the domestic press paying attention to this news.

In a slightly different form, foreign media also seized upon more sensational angles to inform the public.

What sparked the fire was Edmond’s social media post.

[Good hunting, my friend.]

It was a photo of a whiskey glass placed before a teddy bear doll.

He had made a similar gesture before the Three-legged Crow subjugation, but given the relationship that had developed since, the meaning was all the more special.

[So Edmond is finally acknowledging Jung-woo as an equal?]

└ Equal? It’s worship, you idiot.

└ That teddy bear doll is the Jormungandr battle prestige edition damn lmaooo

└ I heard only 100 were released worldwide. Edmond had one of those? lol

[Holy shit, he opened that whiskey just to post it on social media? This crazy bastard]

└ What is that?

└ A bottle costs hundreds of billions. It’s a collector’s dream.

└ Holy sh*t;

There was no one who didn’t know how much he cherished Jung-woo.

He was watching this subjugation too, and by showing that he fully respected his achievements, voices anticipating close cooperation between the two grew louder.

Someone said:

[Couldn’t these two end the Gate era together?]

It sounded far-fetched, but it wasn’t something you could entirely dismiss.

Jung-woo’s latest feat was an achievement of that caliber.

Amidst the countless praises pouring in, someone was trembling while laughing like a madman.

“Eu, uhaha! Uhahaha!!!”

The top floor of Cheongeum Pavilion in the Jing Nation.

Ak Jinsan laughed and trembled like a man who had lost his mind.

The emotion gleaming in his eyes was a strange mixture of ecstasy and terror.

“I-it’s not that I’m weak! That bastard is a monster! I, I! I made a wise choice! Turning away from someone like that would be foolish…!”

Ak Jinsan clutched his head.

The authority that came from his frame exceeding two meters was nowhere to be found in this moment.

He had curled up as much as possible.

That was how terrified he was.

His appearance, laughing with foam at the mouth, was pitiful.

It was almost a relief that no one else was present.

Ex-grade, the head of a nation.

That was precisely why he knew certain things all too well.

‘Could I pull off something like that?’

Don’t be ridiculous.

Absolutely, absolutely impossible.

‘Are we really the same rank?’

He shuddered.

He had stumbled upon the truth by accident, but Ak Jinsan had no way of knowing him.

Having lived without ever knowing fear, the trauma inflicted by Jung-woo—who had delivered his first taste of terror and defeat—was profound.

The conclusion he reached at the end of emotions that only deepened the more he tried to shake them off was this:

‘…I must follow. I can only survive by following.’

A yearning for survival.

The most fundamental desire at the very bottom of human existence—and Ak Jinsan felt no shame whatsoever about it.

Thus he consoled himself.

The S-Rank hunters and support teams on standby in Pyongan Province shifted their positions.

The success of the subjugation aside, the sheer speed of it had caused a stir, but what needed to be done was clear.

“Move in! The gate density is fluctuating now—we need to purify as much as possible!”

“Yes, sir!”

The gates that the Qilin, lord of Pyongan Province, had commanded were all going berserk simultaneously.

It was different from the typical rampage of spewing out magical beasts.

With the entity supplying mana gone, the system had collapsed, creating chaos.

This was when they needed to insert magic antennas and initialize the data.

By leaving only the Third gates and controlling the generation of surrounding gates, the first phase of purification would be complete.

Domestic S-Rank hunters served as squad leaders, guiding A-Rank hunters through the packs of magical beasts.

Ha Kwon-seung, Park Tae-woon, and Jin Hae-seo’s group, marching northward in formation, drove the magical beasts far more aggressively than usual, as if Jung-woo’s performance had sparked their competitive spirit.

The two hundred drones that hadn’t served their proper purpose finally proved their worth.

[Ah! Hunter Jin Hae-seo’s speed has increased! Her fourth sword has been drawn! Is she growing in real-time?!]

[Hunter Park Tae-woon! The equipment he enhanced in the previous subjugation is shining! The firepower of his flame abilities…!]

Jung-woo watched the scene through the monitor and smirked.

He was back at the Pyongyang base camp, managing his condition.

Ho-jong approached and asked.

“Jung-woo, are you alright?”

“My head throbs a bit, but it’s bearable.”

Ho-jong, uncharacteristically, patted his shoulder in commendation.

“You did well.”

“It was nothing.”

“You pushed yourself, didn’t you?”

Jung-woo’s eyes widened, then curved into a gentle smile.

“Sharp as ever.”

“It’s not like we’ve known each other for just a day or two.”

He was referring to the ten-second subjugation.

As Ho-jong said, Jung-woo hadn’t performed that feat without cost.

To others, it might have looked like he simply overwhelmed the enemy with sheer firepower.

But looking beneath the surface, it was a different story.

He had pushed his cognitive acceleration—the same technique that proved invaluable during the Jormungandr battle—to its absolute limit.

He had refined hundreds of ordinary magic stones using the Sea Otter’s power to maximize firepower, then crammed the Rabbit’s buff and the Bear’s Severance into a single turn—all of it culminating in that result.

Finding one executable plan among dozens of prepared elimination strategies and unleashing a simultaneous bombardment was no easy feat.

There was a weakness he hadn’t disclosed to anyone.

‘If I hadn’t killed it there, I would have died.’

Of course, the probability of that was infinitely close to zero, which was why he had attempted it. But dumping everything into a single S-Rank champion and being left defenseless was a method fraught with risk.

The reason he hadn’t chosen a safer approach was to bluff against hostile council members. He’d rather grow to the point where this could be accomplished without risk—and he had no intention of doing it this way again.

Even so, the fact that he could handle such a performance was encouraging growth.

He had achieved his objective well, so it was a good thing all around.

Now it was time to prepare for April in earnest.

But before that, he needed to put an end to the matter he had been devoted to for the past year.

Jung-woo changed clothes and stepped out of the base camp.

He walked alongside Ho-jong and met Soon-ae and Jun-ho, who had been waiting in the distance.

Long ago, Jun-ho had made a promise, and last year, Jung-woo had renewed it.

The promise to send Soon-ae back to her hometown was finally being fulfilled.

“Grandmother, are you ready?”

[Oh my, young man Jung-woo. How can you go moving about without resting first…]

“This is a monumental occasion. I’m coming along because I want to. Let’s go. Come on.”

Jung-woo drove, escorting Soon-ae along the path the hunters had cleared.

In the back seat, Jun-ho bickered with Ho-jong and laughed heartily.

“So in the end, it’s Jung-woo who takes you home, not me.”

“Hey, it’s a collaboration! A collaboration!”

Driving with that as background noise.

All the while, Soon-ae kept her lips tightly pressed together.

It seemed as though every conceivable emotion was washing over her.

It was a depth of feeling Jung-woo couldn’t begin to fathom.

Having lived her entire life in flight, she had lost even what she had grasped in her hands during days when she yearned for her hometown but couldn’t dare to dream of it.

She had ultimately dreamed of returning home, and had been crushed by a single setback.

And then, at last, now.

“According to the map, it’s here.”

Jung-woo arrived at a flat clearing in a mountain valley.

There were no traces of human habitation.

Given that this place had been an Erosion Zone for decades, and considering Soon-ae’s age, the village may have been abandoned even before that.

However.

[Yes, this is it. This is the place…]

Sometimes, memories retrieve what has been hidden behind the wall of time.

[Yes, those three peaks along the ridge. The alley where I used to play hide-and-seek with my siblings…]

Soon-ae fell to her knees.

She confirmed through every detail that this was her hometown.

As she continued speaking, her shoulders trembled ever more violently.

In that moment, no one could easily open their mouth.

They simply thought: what a relief.

How fortunate that the lingering sorrow of that pure-hearted and noble old woman could finally be resolved.

Everyone present shared that sentiment.

Jun-ho sniveled.

Ho-jong looked at him with exasperation and handed over a handkerchief.

When he blew his nose with a thunderous honk, a vein bulged on Ho-jong’s forehead.

Standing a step back, Jung-woo took in the entire scene with a bright smile.

It was a good day.

Three days had passed since the reclamation of Pyongan Province was completed.

Soon-ae had begun extending new roots around the land of her hometown, building a home where she would spend the rest of her days.

She invited them to visit once construction was finished before summer, and Jun-ho decided to pause his travels and help Soon-ae.

The news was still busy covering the events of three days ago.

It was during such a time.

Only after tidying up his busy surroundings did Jung-woo belatedly check.

【[Entity: Zebram] has been subjugated!】

The settlement for the Qilin subjugation.